Alton of Somasco: A Romance of the Great Northwest

CHAPTER XIII

THE SOMASCO CONSOLIDATED

Alton left Vancouver by the Quebec express next day, found horses waiting at the little station, and only waiting while fresh ones were saddled at a lonely ranch, took the trail again before the first faint light crept out of the east. He also spoke little with Seaforth during the journey, and stared at the latter, who drew rein when the weary horses plodded, steaming and bespattered all over, into the settlement.

"What are you stopping for?" he said.

Seaforth glanced at the wisp of blue smoke which hung about the pines behind Horton's hotel. "It's rather more than twelve hours since I've had a meal," he said. "Don't you ever get tired or hungry, Harry?"

Alton laughed. "Oh, yes; sometimes I do, but not usually when I'm busy. Anyway, if the beasts hold out we'll be getting breakfast at Somasco in two hours or so."

Seaforth groaned inwardly, but, knowing the futility of argument, shook his bridle and rode on, lurching a little in his saddle as the tired horse stumbled into mudholes and, brushed through dripping fern. By and by, however, Alton swung himself down in front of a lonely log-house with a big clearing behind it, where a man took their horses without a word and signed them to enter.

Seaforth stretched his limbs wearily, and would have dropped into a chair but that Alton stood erect until the man came back again, and dusting two seats with his soft hat pointed to them with a gesture of hospitality. His hair and beard were frosted, his face was lean and brown, and there were many wrinkles about his eyes, but he held himself very upright and pointed to the stove.

"Ye'll be in from Vancouver. I'll ready ye some pork and flapjacks?" he said.

Alton shook his head. "Don't worry, I can't wait," he said.

"Ye are very welcome," said the other.

"Of course!" said Alton simply; "still, I can't stop. I'm here to talk business, Callender."

Seaforth noticed that in face of the typical absence of protest or compliment there was nothing the most critical could find fault with in the invitation or the refusal. The old man was dressed in very curiously-patched jean, but he was almost stately in his simplicity, and nothing could have been more apposite than the little nod with which Alton made his affirmation. It implied a good deal more than speech could have done.

"Ye will be asking about the place?" said Callender. "I'm wanting three thousand dollars. It's worth all that."

Alton nodded, and it was evident that the men understood each other, for there was no endeavour to lessen or enhance the value of the property. "It will be worth more presently, but that's about the fair thing now," he said.

"Weel," said Callender simply, "by then I may be dead. Twenty years I've lived on my lone here, and I thought at one time I would be content to lie down by between the bush and the river, but now a longing to see the old land grips me. Ye will not understand it. Ye were born in Canada."

"No," said Alton gravely. "The land that has fed me is good enough for me."

The old man made a little gesture of assent. "Aye," he said. "It's a good country, but I feel the old one calling me. It's just three thousand dollars I'm asking ye."

Alton drew a sheet which seemed covered with calculations from his wallet, and glanced at it silently. Then he looked at the rancher.

"One thousand down, one thousand in six months, and the rest any time in two years, with six per cent," he said. "You might get the dollars in your wallet if you made the deal with a land agent in Vancouver."

"Maybe," said Callender simply; "I can trust ye. I would not sell the place to anybody."

Alton stood up. "You shall have a cheque to-morrow," he said.

They had mounted within another minute, and Alton glanced with a little smile at his comrade as they rode on again.

"That," said Seaforth, "was in a sense a somewhat effective scene, but
I'm not sure which of us should go to the business school."

Alton laughed. "I don't often blunder when I deal with a man," said he. "Callender and I wouldn't have been better pleased, or five dollars richer, if we'd talked all day."

Seaforth nodded, though his eyes twinkled. "You don't seem so confident about the other sex?" he said.

Alton gravely pointed to a towering fir. "That redwood would fetch a good many dollars in Vancouver. I wonder when we'll get those saws through," he said.

While he spoke a thud of hoofs grew louder, and presently a man came riding in haste towards them down the trail. He drew bridle when he recognized them, and Seaforth became curious when he saw that it was Hallam. The latter made them an ironical salutation, and sat regarding Alton covertly with his cunning beady eyes until the rancher smiled.

"If you were going down to see Callender, I fancy you're a little too late," he said.

Seaforth wondered whether his comrade saw the wickedness in the other man's face, and the slight closing of his hands upon the bridle. It was very perceptible for a second, and then he made a gesture of resignation.

"I think there was another time you got in ahead of me, and it might be cheaper to buy you off," he said. "You haven't answered my letter asking what you wanted for all you're holding up here, as well as the ranch."

Alton flung his head back a trifle, and Seaforth knew what lay behind his laugh. "No," he said; "I put it in the stove."

A little grey spot appeared in Hallam's cheeks, and once more his fingers closed upon the bridle. "Well, you may be sorry by and by, but as I'm a business man first and last I'll give you another chance," he said. "There's not room for two of us in this valley, and with what I'm holding I can call you any time."

Alton's eyes were half closed now, and there was a glint in them. "I've been figuring on that," he said. "When I'm ready, I'll let you see my hand."

Now if Hallam had been taught his business, which was an especially mean one, in England he might have kept his temper; but he lacked finish, though his abilities were unpleasantly sufficient in the West.

"Then it is to be hoped you'll put up a better game than you did at Townshead's ranch. I was a little sorry for the girl," he said. "Met her once or twice in Vancouver, and she didn't seem well off."

Alton said nothing, but he pressed his heels home, and the big tired horse moved forward. The trail was narrow just there, and wound through a quaggy belt where tall wild cabbage grew out of black depths of mire. There was also no room for Hallam to wheel his horse on the slippery sawn-up logs, and Alton urged his beast on, glancing imperturbably at the man in front of him.

Again the grey crept into Hallam's face, and a very unpleasant look in his eyes, but he drew his bridle, and next moment his horse was floundering in the mire. Alton laughed a little as he rode on without glancing behind him.

"That may have been pleasant," said Seaforth dryly, "but in view of what I saw in Hallam's face I don't know that it was wise."

"Well," said Alton, "I think it was. There's only one way of arguing with a panther, and that beast's a good deal less dangerous than Hallam is. Now you'll ride in to the settlement to-morrow, and put up a notice at the store: 'The ranchers of the Somasco district are requested to attend a meeting at 6.30, Saturday.' At the bottom you'll put a big 'Important.' I've got to have a talk with you to-night."

He made a hasty breakfast when they reached the ranch, and was busy at the sawmill, from which he did not return until supper, all day, so that it was not until that meal was finished and he was waiting for Seaforth that he had speech with Miss Deringham. She sat by the stove apparently occupied with some delicate embroidery, but it was possible that her attention was not confined to the stitches. Alton sat near her, looking straight before him, in a deerhide chair, and it was significant that neither of them found speech necessary. The man's face was somewhat grim, and the girl wondered what he was thinking.

"You apparently did not find Vancouver enlivening," she said.

Alton laughed a little. "I took one or two little worries along, and found another when I got there."

Miss Deringham went on with her embroidery for a While, and then glanced at the man again. "I wonder if any of them were connected with the sale of Townshead's ranch?" she said.

Alton smiled a little. "I'm getting kind of afraid of you," he said.
"One of them was."

Alice Deringham laughed prettily, and was inwardly contented. She had been used to influence and admiration, but there was a subtle pleasure in being the recipient of this man's homage, while she surmised that had he not offered her all of it he would not have made the admission concerning Townshead.

"Your recent neighbour is not doing well down there?" she said. "I am sorry for Miss Townshead."

Alton nodded, and his face was sombre as well as pitiful, "It's very rough on a girl of that kind, and she's true grit right through," he said. "I'm thankful you don't know what some women who have to earn their living doing what used to be men's work in the cities have to put up with."

"Still," said Alice Deringham, "I can guess. Miss Townshead was working at something uncongenial for a livelihood, and was not especially cordial to you?"

Alton looked at her gravely. "No," he said. "She hadn't even found that something yet, and she was very kind. That's what made me feel it worse."

"Of course she would not have shown you what she thought," said the girl a trifle dryly. "And you were not responsible in any case."

Alton glanced at her with some bewilderment. "No?" he said. "I'm sitting here with all that a man could wish for, while that girl, who was used to all the good things you have in the old country, walks round and round the city looking for something she can earn a few dollars at, when I might have fixed things differently if it hadn't been for Tom. It's hard to feel there's a meaner man than I am in the Dominion."

Miss Deringham saw the veins rise on his forehead and the glint in his eyes, and shivered a little as she hoped the man would never discover it was not the rancher who had brought the shame upon him.

"Would it have been possible for you to do anything to help them if you had reached the ranch in time?" she said.

"Yes," said Alton simply, "I think it would. And it would have been better for everybody in the district."

Though the girl did not altogether understand him, his very quietness was impressive, for she knew by this time that what he stated was usually rather more than less the fact.

"Well," she said lightly, "it was not your fault, and you will forget it presently."

Alton smiled wryly. "I don't know," he said. "There are some kinds of stains that don't wash out, but you're only wishing to be kind to me because you understand all that better than I do in the old country."

The girl glanced aside and dropped her needle, while when she spoke her voice was a trifle strained. "Do you know that you bushmen have made me ashamed once or twice?" she said. "I am afraid there is a great disappointment waiting for you when you see us as we are."

Alton rose as her father and Seaforth came in, with a curious little inclination of his head which came well from him. "That simply couldn't be," he said. "Well, it's a pity I couldn't tell you all you have done for me already—and that's one reason why I'm so sorry the other thing will not wash out. Now Charley and I have a good deal to do, and you'll excuse me."

He went out with his comrade, and Deringham smiled at his daughter.
"He is learning rapidly. Still, I fancy the man will feel it when—and
I am of course speaking impersonally—he finds you out," he said.

Alice Deringham laughed, though she was not conscious of much amusement just then, and pointed to the bookcase close by her.

"It is really not his fault, if that is where he gets his fancies from," she said.

"No," said Deringham, nodding. "We grow out of them at sixteen in the old country. Of course, Tennyson, Kingsley, Scott. Now I wonder if he would find Elaine a more common type than Vivienne if he went home to Carnaby. Still, if you look a little more closely, there is literature which might throw a slightly different light upon the man's character. I notice a bulky volume on soft-wooded trees, somebody on trigonometry, geology in relation to mining, and what I recognize as a standard work on finance and banking."

Alice Deringham smiled. "Do you know I fancy that Alton of Somasco would with a little training make his mark at home," she said. "Has he mentioned any intention of returning with you?"

Deringham's face grew a trifle sombre. "He has not. We will talk of something else," he said.

Alton and Seaforth sat up late that night, but what their conversation was did not appear until they walked into a room at the rear of Horton's store just as supper was being cleared away on the Saturday evening. The nights were already growing cold, and a pile of pinewood crackled in the stove, while the light of two big lamps fell upon the bronzed faces of grave jean-clad men, all turned expectantly towards Alton. He sat down at the head of the table, with Seaforth beside him, and Horton, got up in a frayed-out white shirt from which his bony wrists and red neck protruded grotesquely, at the foot. The rest sat on the table and sundry boxes and barrels smoking tranquilly. They were, for the most part, silent men who waged a grim and ceaseless warfare with the forest, and disdained any indication of curiosity. Nobody asked a question, but the steady eyes which watched the convener of the meeting were mildly inquiring when he rose up.

"I sent for you, boys, because it seemed the fairest thing," he said. "Now somebody has got to take hold with a tight grip if the dollars that are coming into it are to go to the men who have done the work in this valley. You have seen what has happened down Washington and Oregon way, and we don't any of us want it here in Canada. When the good time came was it the man who'd put in his twelve hours daily with the axe and crosscut who got the dollars, or the one who lived soft in the cities?"

There was a little growl from several among the assembly, for most of those who sat there realized that it was usually the mortgage broker and speculator who reaped where the toilers with axe and saw had sown.

"There'll have to be laws made to hold them fellows' grip off the poor man." said somebody.

Alton laughed a little. "Well," he said dryly, "it seems to me that the poor man should do a little of the holding off himself. Now I want you to listen carefully. Within twelve months you'll see a new wagon-road cut south towards the big river, and inside two years the surveyors running the line for a new railroad into the Somasco valley."

The men stared at the speaker, and there was a murmur, almost of doubt, and wonder. They knew what that promise meant, and it implied the opening of mines and mills, a market for all they could raise on the spot, and the quadrupling in value of every ranch. Alton sat quietly imperturbable at the head of the table.

"And you believe the thing's going to be?" said somebody.

"I think," said Alton quietly, "I have just told you so."

There was another murmur, of strong and patient men's unexpressed exultation, and Seaforth noticed that they had accepted his comrade's statement, without further question, implicitly. They were in some respects simple, and the complex life of the cities was unknown to most of them, but they had seen human nature stripped of its veneer in the bush and understood it well. It was a delicate compliment they had paid Alton, and the little flush in his face showed that he realized it.

"It's great news," said somebody.

Alton nodded. "Yes," he said. "Now I can't tell you exactly why I know this thing will come, and you wouldn't be any worse off if I were wrong. Further, you see I might have gone ahead and brought you up without speaking a word to you."

A man got up from a barrel. "No, sir," he said. "I'm not going to disturb this meeting, but that's just what you couldn't do. It wouldn't be like Somasco Harry."

There was grave applause, but the glint in the steady eyes was pleasant to see, and Seaforth felt a curious thrill as he glanced at his partner. Alton, however, proceeded quietly.

"I needn't tell you what it means," he said. "It may mean anything, including a wooden city. You know it as well as I do, but I'm going to tell you this. Unless you hold tight to your own, and do a little for yourselves, when the good time comes you'll be left out in the cold. There's a man who sees this better than you or I feeling for a grip on the Somasco valley, and there'll be very little left for the rest of us if he gets it."

"Hallam of the Tyee," a growl ran down the table.

Alton nodded. "Yes," said he. "Now you have seen poor men frozen out of their ranches and claims by men with money in other parts of this country as well as across the frontier, and there's usually only one end to the battle when the man without the dollars kicks against the man with plenty. Stay right where you are with mortgages held open, timber rights that are lapsing because you've done nothing, and undeveloped mineral claims, and the man who sits scheming while you're resting will squeeze you out one by one."

"It has happened before," said somebody, and there was silence for a space. The men had spent the best years of their life hewing the clearings that grew so slowly farther into the virgin forest, faring sparingly, and only quitting that herculean toil to earn sufficient dollars railroad building or working at the mines to feed them when they continued it again. They had sown the best that was in them of mind and body, giving all they had, courage that never faltered, as well as the ceaseless effort of over-strained muscle, and as yet their fee was but the right to hope and toil. And now, they knew, it was once more possible that the full-fleshed taxer of other men's labours would sweep what was theirs into his garner.

"Yes," said Alton. "And what has happened before will happen again—unless you stir round and stop it. That's the only use in remembering things. Standing alone, Hallam and his crowd will squeeze you out one by one; standing fast together for what is your own, you're fit to choke off anybody, and what I've called you here for is to see whether we can't fix up a Co-operative Company!"

A man stood up with a light in his eyes. "Then you've hit the thing plumb where you wanted," he said. "Whose standing in with Alton of Somasco, boys?"

There was a roar this time, and then a silence as if the assembly felt that they had done an unseemly thing, but it was evident that they were all of them ready.

"I figure you've got a programme?" said somebody.

"I have," said Alton. "I'll have a bigger one by and by, but in the meanwhile it includes the selling of timber in place of destroying it, and a doubling right off of the Somasco mill. It also takes in a gristmill, the recording of more timber rights, and most of you getting in on the ground floor of a new silver mine. There's to be an office down in Vancouver, and a desiccated fruit store, and the best men we can get hold of to run them. Now sit still while I read what might do for a scheme."

They sat very still, and even Seaforth, who knew his comrade, wondered a little, for that scheme, while crude in one or two directions, was eminently workable. It provided for a pro rata division of profits and partition of expenses, while each man would retain the control of his own holding, and those who listened nodded now and then as they noted the efficiency of some portion of the plan of co-operation.

"Now," said Alton quietly, laying down the paper. "That's my notion.
I'm willing to listen if any man can bring out a better."

There was a silence until Horton rose up at the foot of the table, glass in hand. "I," he said simply, "don't think he can. Every dollar I can raise is going in, and we're all standing in with Alton. Here's the Somasco Consolidated, and to —— with Hallam."

There was a roar louder than the first one, a clink of glasses, and forgetting their reticence for once the big bronzed men thronged about the one who smiled at them from the head of the table.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COMPACT

After the first meeting of the Somasco Consolidated, Alton was frequently absent from the ranch, and spent most of the nights shut up with bulky books, while he also apparently became involved in an extensive correspondence with the cities. There were, however, times when Miss Deringham surprised him standing still and gazing into vacancy, which was distinctly unusual with him, but the girl, who had once or twice noticed his eyes fixed upon her and signs of an inward conflict in his face, was not displeased. She could arrive at a tolerably accurate deduction as well as most young women.

In the meanwhile Seaforth had gone down to Vancouver, and Deringham still appeared content to linger at Somasco. He had, his daughter knew, been ordered a lengthy rest, and it was evident that the tranquillity of the mountain ranch was benefiting him physically, though now and then the girl noticed that his face was anxious when communications from England reached him. She was also, for no reason she was willing to admit, content to remain a little longer at Somasco.

One night when she was sitting meditatively in the room set apart for her use, Alton passed the half-opened door, and noticing the curious slowness of his pace she signed him to enter. She had, somewhat to the indignation of Mrs. Margery, taken the room in hand, and with the aid of a few sundries surreptitiously brought from Vancouver with Seaforth's connivance, made a transformation in its aspect. A red curtain hung behind the door. There were a few fine furs which Seaforth had collected here and there about the ranch upon the floor, and Alton, who had just returned from a ride of forty miles through the mire and rain, stopped a moment upon the threshold. He was a man of quick perceptions, and all he saw seemed stamped with the personality of its occupant.

It was dainty, and essentially feminine, and he became, for perhaps the first time, uneasily conscious of his own solid masculine proportions and bespattered garments as he glanced deprecatingly at the girl. She lay with lithe gracefulness in a basket chair, very collected and very pretty, while he dimly understood that the fact that she did not move but only smiled at him implied a good deal. A brightness flashed into his eyes and sank out of them again.

"Come in and sit down," she said, "I have seen very little of you lately, and you seem tired. Half-an-hour's casual chatter will do you no harm, although it may appear to you a terrible waste of time."

Alton came in and dropped into a chair which creaked beneath him. His face was somewhat weary, and the girl noticed the stiffness of his movements. He also looked about him with a curious expression which seemed to suggest reverence in his eyes.

"No," he said gravely, "it wouldn't be a waste of time."

Alice Deringham smiled a little, and moved one foot a trifle nearer the stove. It was little, and delicately moulded, and lost nothing from being encased in a very open bronze slipper. Alton, noticing the slight rustle of fabric which accompanied the movement, glanced towards it, and then turned his eyes away.

"You see I have been taking liberties," said the girl. "All this is very tawdry, isn't it?"

Alton's eyes were wistful. "No. Do you know, this place has quite an effect on me. It makes me feel—as if I were in church," said he.

Miss Deringham's face was not responsive. There were times when she was sensible of a curious compunction in this rancher's presence. "A sensation of that kind is apt to become oppressive," she said. "When we have gone you will throw these things away."

The man seemed to wince, as though the contemplation of something was painful to him, but he looked at his companion gravely.

"I think I shall screw the door up tight," he said.

Alice Deringham laughed musically. "Now I think that was very pretty," she said. "It seems commonplace to offer you a cup of coffee after it, and no doubt you will consider the indulgence in such luxuries a sign of weakness. I have reasons for believing that Mrs. Margery does."

Alton smiled somewhat grimly. "I'm just about as fond of good things as most other men," he said. "The difficulty was that I seldom had the chance of getting them."

Miss Deringham busied herself with a spirit lamp, and Alton watched her with a little glint in his eyes. Possibly the girl knew that her movements were graceful as she bent over the lamp, and that the light from the one above her struck a fine sparkle from her hair. She may also have been aware that the picture had its attractions for a man who had lived a grim life of toil and self-denial, as this one had done.

"It has occurred to me that this coffee is not the same that we had when we first came to Somasco," she said.

Alton appeared a trifle embarrassed. "I had to go down and worry Horton about one or two little things," he said. "It's good for him occasionally, and he had been sending me flour we couldn't use lately."

Miss Deringham nodded, though she was quite aware that the storekeeper was scarcely likely to supply axemen and ranchers, whose tastes were simple and dollars scarce, with what she guessed by its bouquet was the finest product of Costa Rica. If she had not been, she was capable of deducing a little from the stamp upon the packets she had seen in Mrs. Margery's store, which showed that they had come direct from Vancouver.

Alton took up the cup handed him, and leaned back in his chair with a little gesture of content, while the girl smiled as she glanced at him.

[Illustration: Alton leaned back with a little gesture of content.]

"You bear it very well," she said.

The man looked at her with a bewildered expression for a moment or two.
Then he laughed. "No," he said, "I find it wonderfully nice."

There was an underlying sincerity in his voice, and Alice Deringham driven by curiosity went a step farther.

"The coffee?" she said.

She was almost sorry next moment, for she had at other times called up considerably more than she had expected or desired from the unsounded depths of the man's nature. For a second or two there was a great wistfulness, which changed into a little glow she shrank from, in his eyes. He turned them upon her, and then away, and they were once more grave when he looked back again. Still, she guessed what that effort had cost him.

"No," he said quietly. "I did not mean the coffee. You see, I had never until you came here been used to anything smooth or pretty."

Alice Deringham smiled a little, for she understood. The man, she thought, was willing she should accept the somewhat pointless compliment as the sequence of his former speech, to cover his mistake if he had betrayed more than he thought desirable. It also increased her liking for him, since it appeared that Alton was capable of self-restraint. There was, however, no mistaking what she had seen, and the girl remembered that one of the Winnipeg ladies she travelled with, who had visited one of the weird valleys across the American frontier, described to her the fascination of throwing stones into the basin of a geyser to see how many it would take before it erupted. During her intercourse with rancher Alton, Alice Deringham had experienced the sensation.

"You have been working too hard lately, and worrying, too, I think," she said.

Alton laughed a little, and then glanced at the stove for a while in silence, as though communing with himself. When he looked up again the girl fancied that he had decided something. "Work hurts nobody. It's the worry that leaves the mark," he said, with a smile. "Of course, a good many people will have told you that before. Yes, I've been thinking a good deal lately."

"It is occasionally a solace to tell one's friends one's thoughts," said Miss Deringham.

"Well," said Alton gravely, "there's a thing I feel I should do, and yet I don't want to, because it would stand in the way of my doing something else."

"That is a somewhat common difficulty," said Alice Deringham. "It depends upon the importance to yourself, or others, of the first thing."

Alton nodded. "There are," he said, "men in this district who have worked very hard, not for the bare living the ranch gives them, because some have put a good deal more into the land than they have taken out of it, but for what it will give them presently. Now, unless somebody does the right thing for them, another man will walk right in and take all they have worked for away. I wouldn't like that to happen, because I am one of them, you see."

"No," said Miss Deringham. "Still, surmising that you are the somebody, I wonder if you have a more convincing reason."

A little flush seemed to creep into Alton's bronzed face. "I find I can talk to you as I never did to any one else," he said. "Well, this valley's waiting to feed a host of people, and teeming with riches that somebody is wanting, and I feel it's my task to do the best I can for it. Now, when one feels that, and does nothing, he's putting a load he was meant to carry on other people's shoulders."

"Yes," said Miss Deringham. "Still, isn't it slightly egotistical?
There may be other men who could do what is necessary better."

Alton laughed a little. "You get right home every time," he said. "I've been thinking the same thing, but, though I wanted to, I couldn't find the man, and there isn't much use in running away from the work that's set out for you."

Alice Deringham understood him because she was a somewhat intellectual young woman, though she had, and possibly fortunately, but seldom been required to decide between inclination and duty in any affair of importance hitherto. There was also something that touched her in the man's simple faithfulness.

"And you are going to do a good deal?" she said.

"I don't know," said Alton gravely. "I should like to. You see, we want roads and mills, and an office down there in the city."

"And," said the girl, "that means money."

"Yes," said Alton. "When a man goes round borrowing he finds out that the folks who have got the dollars like to keep them. That's why I'm going up to look for Jimmy's silver mine."

Miss Deringham shivered a little. "Winter is coming on," she said.
"The last man who looked for it was frozen—and there is Carnaby."

The girl's pulses throbbed a little faster as she spoke, and there was nothing in the man's face which escaped her attention. Again the curious glint became apparent in his eyes, and the warm bronze a little deeper in tint.

"I might raise some dollars on Carnaby, but I don't want to," he said.

Miss Deringham had seen sufficient, and decided to change the topic.
"So you intend to find the silver?" she said.

"Yes," said Alton simply. "I feel I have got to do that—first."

There was a significant silence, and the girl leaned back in her chair, conscious without resentment that the man was watching her. Her eyes were softer than usual, the faintest trace of colour showed in her cheek, while the light evening dress emphasized the fine sweep of curve and line that was further accentuated by her pose. The lamp that hung above her smote a track of brightness athwart her red-gold hair, until she slightly moved her head so that while part of the full round neck showed in its snowy whiteness her face was in the shadow.

"I think you will be successful. I hope you will," she said.

It was evident that the man understood all that was meant, but he rose with an apparent effort. "And now I have a good deal to do," he said.

Alice Deringham also rose with a little stateliness, and when he had gone out sank down contemplatively into the chair again. Her hands lay open in her lap, and it is possible that she saw nothing of the sewing they rested on as she grappled with the question why had the man told her what he had done. There were two apparent reasons, for Alice Deringham realized that there was a certain greatness behind his simplicity. Granting that, she could see his standpoint clearly, though it was more difficult to understand why such a man had made it evident to her. He was, she knew, not one to stoop even to win a woman's good opinion, and would have seen that in this direction silence became him best, unless he felt that while so much was due to honour there was something due to her.

He had told her simply that it was not to please himself he was going out to look for the silver just then, and the deduction was that the expedition had no attractions for him because he wished to stay at the ranch. Allowing that, the revelation of his motive had not been purposeless. It was only his responsibility drove him away from her, and there was a vague but effective compliment in the implication that she would recognize it. Still, this train of reasoning had led Alice Deringham far enough, and she sought distraction from it in her embroidery, which during the next hour progressed but indifferently.

It was a day or two later when Alton drew Deringham into his room when he came in bemired all over from the settlement, and the financier noticed that the table and most of the floor was littered with books, survey plans, and miscellaneous papers.

"I'll have to leave this place for a little," he said. "I'm going up to find the silver, but the ranch and all that's in it is at your service just as long as it pleases you. If all goes as I expect it, I shall be back in a month or so, and would be glad to find you still at Somasco. Then, if you are ready, Charley and I will go back to the old country with you. A lawyer in Vancouver has written to an English accountant for me, and with him to help us we can fix up all about Carnaby."

Now Deringham had up to that moment still retained a hope that he could arrive at an understanding with Alton respecting Carnaby on the spot. As it was, unless he could gain time, exposure and even worse things stared him in the face. It had been comparatively simple to hoodwink his co-trustee, but it would be very different with an accountant of reputation, and he had also grown afraid of Alton's instinctive grasp of whatever subject he turned his attention to. There was, of course, much the rancher did not know, but that left him with attention the more concentrated upon issues of importance.

Deringham, however, showed but little evidence of dismay or astonishment. Had he been liable to do so, he would not have held his own so long in the occupation he followed. His breath came a trifle more quickly, and his hand trembled a little, but he rested it upon the table, and all that Alton noticed was a curious little movement about the corner of his eyes. The rancher, however, remembered it.

"Well," said Deringham, "I must endeavour if possible to return to England with you. When you spoke of being away a month you seemed to contemplate a possibility of being absent longer."

Alton nodded. "I did," he said. "The man who found the silver is lying up there still, but I've provided for anything of that kind happening to me, as you will see in a day or two. Now I don't think we need worry any more until we get to Carnaby."

Deringham made a gesture of concurrence, but the grim irony of Alton's speech occurred to him as he went out to grapple with his torturing anxiety. At first he could scarcely think of anything consecutively, and once more the picture of a man hanging by a juniper-bush with a river frothing down the gorge below rose up persistently before his memory. It was replaced by another of a grim silent figure keeping watch with eyes that never ceased their fixed stare beside a frozen trail.

On the second day afterwards he sauntered into Horton's store and found Hallam there. The mining speculator appeared ironically amused, the storekeeper flushed and savage, but when Hallam turned to Deringham there was something in his manner that suggested they had not met by accident.

"I've been telling the storekeeper not to lay in too many Somascos just yet, and have got to put in the time here for an hour or two," he said. "Know any reason why you shouldn't have a drink with me?"

They strolled into an adjoining room, and Horton, who supplied them with a bottle and glasses, came back smiling sardonically. "Now if Hallam hadn't put it that way I mightn't have thought anything," said he. "Still, when a man of his kind takes the trouble to tell one anything it's a blame good reason for not believing him."

In the meanwhile Hallam, who filled the glasses, glanced at Deringham.
"You think I can be of some use to you?" he said.

"Yes," said Deringham. "I presume you know Alton is going up to find the silver he needs to help him traverse your schemes?"

"Oh, yes," said Hallam. "Still I should have figured he could have got it out of Carnaby."

"I believe he intends to."

Hallam smiled unpleasantly. "Now I begin to understand you," he said.
"You lost a good many dollars over the Peveril."

"I think that is beside the question," said Deringham.

Hallam regarded his companion steadily. "Well, I don't know, but we needn't argue. You don't want him to get those dollars out of Carnaby?"

"And you don't want him to find the silver."

Hallam laughed. "That's quite right," said he. "The same thing would suit both of us."

"I scarcely think so," said Deringham. "In my case, I really do not mind whether he gets the dollars from Carnaby or not."

"No?" said Hallam. "Then you'll have to tell me what you want."

"I don't want him to come over to England too soon. If anything kept him up there among the mountains a month or so longer than he expected, so that I should have time to straighten up things a little, I would not complain."

"And," said Hallam, "you would be ready to pay for it?"

Deringham bent his head. "Yes. To a moderate extent."

Hallam sat silent for a time, and then looked up with a glint in his beady eyes. "It could be done. Well, I don't want him to find that silver, and if he doesn't get through his prospecting in the next month or so he'll not find much of anything under six feet of snow, and I'll have fixed things up as I want them before it's melted. Now you're holding pretty heavy in the Aconada mine, and I've been wanting to get my foot in there for a long while."

Deringham stood up, and thrust aside the bottle Hallam passed him. "Before we go any further I want you to understand that if Alton is held up there until December is over it is all I ask," he said.

Hallam nodded. "Oh, yes," he said. "All I want is so many of those shares transferred to me."

They debated for a while, and then Deringham said, "I would sooner fix it through a third party."

Hallam laughed unpleasantly. "That would suit, but I'd want your cheque to buy them with made out payable to me."

"It would," said Deringham, "not suit me."

"Then we can't make a deal. It's me that's putting this thing through, and if anything goes wrong I'm anxious to have somebody to stand in with me as well as pick up the dollars if it doesn't. I'm talking quite straight. There it is. Take it or leave it."

Deringham was silent again. Then he laughed a little. "Since I cannot apparently do anything else, I'll take it."

Hallam filled up both glasses. "Then that's all," he said. "Here's my respects to the Somasco Consolidated."

Deringham just touched his glass and went out, while Hallam, who sat down and emptied his, smiled ironically. "That man might have kept his dollars, and I'd be quite pleased if Alton stayed up there a good deal more than two months," said he.

Deringham was in the meanwhile hastily writing out telegraphic messages which were to cause a little astonishment on the London stock market, and hamper the working of one or two companies. He would, so far as he could see, be a much poorer man in a few months or so, but he fancied he could gain time to save the reputation that would help him to commence again, and to men of his attainments there are always opportunities. Then he sent off a mounted messenger, and rode slowly back towards Somasco, while Horton spent some time examining a blotting-pad in his back store.

"I'm kind of sorry I can't make anything of that stuff," said he.
"What's the use of wiring any one the names of cities?"

During the next day Alton drew Deringham into his room, and laid a document on the table. "I don't know if that's quite the usual thing, but Horton and I have been worrying over a lawyer's book, and I think it will hold," he said.

Deringham took up the paper, and again there was the little movement at the corners of his eye as he read.

"I, Henry Alton, of Somasco ranch, being now in sound health, and as clear of head as usual, but about to start on a journey to which there are risks attached, hereby bequeath in the event of disaster overtaking me the estate of Carnaby, England, with all its rents and revenues of any kind whatever to which I am entitled, to Miss Alice Deringham, daughter of ——. In case of my decease during the next six months, the above-mentioned Ralph Deringham and my partner Charles Seaforth, of Somasco, British Columbia, will, acting as trustees, either dispose of the estate for the benefit of Miss Deringham or install her in possession of it at her discretion."

There was a little more to the purpose, and Deringham read all of it.
"This is very generous," he said.

"No," said Alton, "it's only just, and it can't be very generous, because Carnaby wouldn't be much use to me if I don't come back. I could, of course, revoke this thing if I do."

Deringham said nothing. There was a good deal he wished to say, but for once words failed him, and when he went out with the will in his pocket his face had grown a trifle grey. Yet though he suffered grievously in that moment, he was conscious of something in his brain that throbbed in time to the refrain, "Alice Deringham, mistress of Carnaby."

CHAPTER XV

ON THE TRAIL

Daylight was just creeping through the rain, and thin mist rolled about the pines, when early one morning Alton, who was setting out to find the silver, stood upon the verandah of Somasco ranch. The trickle from the eaves dripped upon two pack-horses waiting in the mire below, and Tom of Okanagan, the big axeman who had been hewing with Alton when Deringham first met him at the ranch, stood motionless with their bridles in his hand, apparently as oblivious of the rain as the pines behind him. Seaforth was at the head of the stairway with a pack upon his back, and the barrel of a Marlin rifle sloped across his shoulders. Beyond lay a blurred vista of driving rain and dripping trees.

Early as it was, Deringham and his daughter were also upon the verandah, and the girl shivered a little as she gazed northwards into the mist. It was a very wild and lonely region the rolling vapours hid, and she knew the men who ventured into it at that season of the year would find their courage and endurance tested to the uttermost. There were but three of them, but she had discovered already that they were a little more than average men, and a glance at their burdens and those of the dripping beasts was as reassuring as their bearing. It was evident that they knew what their task would be, and had prepared for it with a thoroughness that overlooked nothing. Tents, blankets, flour-bags, cooking utensils and hide packages were hung where man and horse could carry them with a minimum of effort. The place for every strap had been exactly determined, and there was an absence of concern, and a quietness about the men that had its meaning.

Presently Seaforth descended the stairway with Deringham, Tom of Okanagan moved forward with the horses, and Alton was left alone with Alice Deringham. Neither of them spoke for a moment, and it was noticeable that the girl, who knew that silence is often more expressive than speech and had acquired some skill in avoiding unpleasant situations, was for the moment unable to break it. It was, Alton who spoke first, and his voice was a trifle too even.

"You will be gone when we come back?" he said.

The girl noticed he did not look at her, and fancied she understood the reason. This was a strong man, but it seemed he knew there were limits to his strength.

"Yes," she said. "The time we spent at Somasco has passed very pleasantly, but we shall go down to Vancouver in a day or two."

It seemed very trivial, for Alice Deringham was quite aware that this might be the last time she would look upon her companion, but she had bidden farewell to men of his kind before. They had worn their nation's khaki, and Alton wore deerskin and jean, with the shovel girded about him in place of the sword; but she knew there was in him the same spirit that animated them, and that it was a silent spirit made most terribly manifest in action.

"I hope you will have a good time down there," he said.

The girl glancing at him in sidelong fashion noticed his curious little smile. "Oh, yes, I think I shall," she said. "I shall expect to hear you have come back with the silver."

Alton nodded. "Yes," he said. "When I come back I shall have found the silver."

He spoke quietly, and there was nothing unusual in his voice, but glancing at his eyes the girl understood what he had left unspoken. If this man did not return with his object accomplished, she felt it would be because he would not come back at all.

Then there was another silence more oppressive still, until Alton held out his hand. "I must be going," he said.

Alice Deringham was conscious of a little thrill as her fingers rested in his big, hard palm, and when he released them waited for a moment with a curious expectancy.

"You will take my good wishes with you," she said.

Alton bent his head. "I am doing this thing because I feel I have to," he said very slowly. "I could come and see you at Vancouver when I come back?"

The light was dim, but the girl moved her head a little so that the man did not see her face. "Yes," she said; "if it would please you."

Alton smiled gravely as he swung down his wet hat. "Then," he said, "I will come."

He went down the stairway next moment, there was a soft thud of hoofs splashing in the mud, and in another minute he had gone, and Alice Deringham glancing towards the bush saw only sliding mist and driving rain, until her father stopped close by her. "There is evidently a good deal in heredity," he said. "Our rancher kinsman occasionally makes it very evident that he is Alton—of Somasco—but there are also times when he appears to understand what would be becoming in Alton of Carnaby."

Now Deringham may have been right, and he may equally have been wrong; for, while Alton of Somasco had doubtless inherited something from the generations of land-holders who had gone before him, the man animated by a single purpose who has grappled with untrammelled nature, subduing the weaknesses of his body, and bearing hardship, peril, and toil, not infrequently attains to something of the greatness which is the birthright of humanity, and not confined to the English gentleman.

Alice Deringham, however, smiled ironically at her father. "Did you expect anything else from him?" she said. "I wonder how long it will be before he comes back again."

Deringham did not answer her, but there was a curious look in his face, and he seemed to shiver. It was, however, very cold, and the rain drove into the verandah.

It was ten days later and the little party, clearing a path for the horses through a chaos of fallen trunks and thickets, had made with difficulty some six or eight miles a day, when Alton was awakened one night by the trampling of the beasts. He sat up in his blankets and listened intently, but could only hear the hoarse roar of a river and the little cold breeze moaning in the pines. A man new to that region would have lain down again, but Alton had taught himself to understand a little of the nature of the beasts that worked for him, and when he heard another movement crept to the tent door.

Looking out he could see the pines lifting their spires of blackness against the night where they followed the ridge of a hill. That was on the one hand, but on the other they rolled, vague and blurred, down into a vast hollow from which the mist was drifting. The sound of the river rose reverberating from its profundity of shadow, for it had cost the party most of a day to climb to the height they had pitched the camp upon. There was but little light overhead, though here and there a star blinked fitfully, and Alton shivered again, for it was very cold and but little past the hour when man's vitality sinks to its lowest.

Raising himself a trifle he listened again with ears that could distinguish each component of the nocturnal harmonies. No one but a bushman could have heard them, but to those who toil in the stillness of that forest-shrouded land the silence is but the perfect blending of musical sound. There was the faintest of crisp rattles as the withered needles shook down from a twig, and then a sigh and a whisper along the dim black vault above, as though a spirit hovered above the sleeping earth. Alton heard, and knew it was not the wind, for the little breeze had paused while the river made it answer in subdued antiphones. He had dwelt in close contact with the soil he sprang from, and there were times when he felt his nature thrill in faint response to the life there is in what the men of the cities deem inanimate things.

Then a leaf sailed past the tent, and he knew what tree it came from as it touched the earth, and strained his ears the more, wondering what he listened for, as he, and others of his kind, had done in the bush before. It could be, he almost felt, nothing material, and yet, though they did not move now, he knew the horses were also listening. That had its meaning, for man cannot measure his keenest senses with those of the beasts of the field. The little breeze awoke again, and shook fantastic harmonies out of the shivering trees, and one horse stamped. The other wheeled and snorted, and Alton sprang back into the tent, as somewhere in the bushes there commenced a sound that suggested the snarling of a great cat. It was possibly unfortunate he was not a trifle less prompt, because otherwise he might have noticed something slightly unusual in the sound.

As it was, however, he fell over Okanagan Tom, who being a very similar man to him, and not as yet wholly awake, asked no questions but gripped him silently, and proceeded to crush the breath out of him. Alton was sinewy, but he was almost choking before he freed one hand, and drove it into a tender portion of his assailant's frame. Then with a little laugh Tom of Okanagan flung him across the tent.

"Great Columbus! It's good I found out in time," he said.

Alton was almost speechless still, and, while he gasped, the object he had fallen on moved strenuously beneath him.

"You might get up," it said. "It's a somewhat unprotected place you're sitting on."

"Confound you both," said Alton. "Hand me the rifle."

Seaforth afterwards remembered that he did not ask where the rifle was, which would have been the question put by most men, and as he held it out felt the stock touch Alton's hand. Then there was a little rattle, and as Seaforth floundered to his feet a weird snarling cry broke out. Alton was out of the tent in a moment, but Seaforth afterwards recalled the fact that they were all moving when he heard the sound, and Tom of Okanagan apparently groping for his axe and throwing things about. He also decided that it might have been better if one had sat still and listened, but it is not given to human beings to always do the most appropriate thing.

Alton instinctively avoided the tent-line nearest the opening, which was unfortunate, because the peg had drawn a trifle, and Seaforth had moved it after his comrade had driven it. It therefore came about that the line was not where he had last seen it, and he went down headlong, while the rifle rolled away from him. Just there, there was a rush and a drumming of hoofs, and before Alton could pick himself up the horses were sweeping in a panic through the shadowy bush.

"Anything the worse, Harry?" said Seaforth. "We had better get off at once while there's the sound to guide us."

Alton laughed softly, as he did now and then when he might have been disconcerted. "I can't beat a Cayuse, Charley, and I don't think you'll hear them very long," he said.

Tom of Okanagan grunted approval, and the three stood still, until the drumming of hoofs was lost in the silence of the bush.

"They're gone," said Seaforth. "Do you mean to do nothing?"

"Yes," said Alton. "I am going to stop right where I am until there's light enough to trail them by. Do you know anything better, Tom?"

"No," said the man from Okanagan. "Still, I'm not quite as good at thinking just now as I would like to be. The last time I felt like this was when Siwash Bob took the back of the axe to me. I figure that was a panther."

"Yes," said Alton; "it was a panther."

"Well," said Okanagan, "did you ever hear of one that went for a horse close up with a tent before?"

"I have," said Alton, "seen a panther that turned on a man who wanted to get a shot at it in the undergrowth."

"Oh, yes," said Okanagan. "He'd got something he'd caught for dinner in the bushes, but it's kind of curious that beasts come round and howl at us. Anyway, we can't find out nothing until the daylight comes."

They crawled back into the tent, and it was characteristic of them that although the loss of the horses might traverse all their plans they went to sleep again, and awakened as the beasts do, instinctively, when the first light crept over the shoulder of the hill. Ten minutes later Alton had the fire lighted, and sat down beside it with the frypan in his hand. The recovery of the horses was a question of importance, but it might well entail a day's journey, and he knew that to commence it without his breakfast would be distinctly unwise of him. Accordingly he tranquilly held the pan, while as the mists melted and the awakening earth put on shape and form there was unrolled before him a wondrous transformation scene.

When he had last awakened the wilderness had lain formless, wrapped in blackness, primitive and pagan. Now the great pines rising row and row from the hollow pointed heavenwards with all their sombre spires, and led the eye upwards ever over the rock that lost its greyness and glinted to the gleam of snow far up in the empyrean that was sundered from earth by the vapours and wholly spiritual. Alton realized dimly a little of the motive of the scene, and felt that the world was good, for, laying down the frypan, he stood up stretching his arms above his head as he rejoiced in the strength of his vigorous manhood. Still, like most of the bushmen, he did not express his feelings in speech.

"Charley, you'll be slow for your wedding. Turn out, the pork's done," he said.

They lost no time, but they did not eat in haste, and Alton glanced at Seaforth when the meal was done. "You'll stop right here, Charley, by the tent," he said. "I can't quite tell when Tom and I will be back again."

Then without another word he strode into the bush, and Seaforth, who first washed the breakfast-cans, proceeded to make a circuit of the camp. He found the spot where the horses had been tethered with but little difficulty, and also the hole out of which one of them had drawn the picket-peg. The redwoods which towered above him were vast of girth, and it would have needed a long halter to encompass them, while there was no branch for sixty feet or so. Still, though he searched diligently, he did not find any print which might have been left by the paw of a panther, and regretted that there was a ridge of rock outcrop behind the camp.

"That beast was hungry, or he wouldn't have come so near," he said.

It was near dusk when Alton came back leading one weary horse, and darkness had closed down before Tom of Okanagan strode in with nothing but the pack-rope he had set out with. Seaforth had supper ready, and no questions were asked until they had eaten. Then Alton, stretching himself at full length beside the fire, lighted his pipe.

"You found nothing after I left you where the trail split tip?" he said.

"No," said Okanagan. "Anyway, not for more than a mile. Ran into rock and gravel, and lost the trail. Crawled round in rings most of the day, and couldn't strike it again. Guess the beast swam the river and lit out for home."

"Well," said Alton dryly, "I found more than that, for I ran into a man's trail, and it wasn't very old. I think he had long boots on and one was down at the heel. I spent an hour over it, and when it led me into rock came back again."

"A man?" said Seaforth. "I fancied there was nobody but ourselves between here and Somasco. What could he be doing?"

"I don't know," said Alton. "Did you find the panther's trail?"

"No," said Seaforth. "Rock again!"

Alton said nothing for a minute, and when he spoke his voice had a curious tone. "Well," he said gravely, "the rock belongs to this place and we don't, so there's no use kicking, but it would have been convenient if there had been less of it. Now it's quite possible that a few pounds of grub and a load of blankets may make a big difference before we get home again, and if we can't trail that horse to-morrow you'll go back to Somasco for another one. We'll cache the load somewhere here and make a big smoke for you at every camping."

"That means the loss of a fortnight, anyway," said Seaforth. "Time is valuable with the winter coming on."

Alton nodded. "Still, it can't be helped," he said.

"I'll lose no time," said Seaforth, who had been watching his comrade.
"Are you quite sure you have told us all, Harry?"

Alton slowly drew a strip of hide from beneath him, and passed it across. Seaforth and Okanagan bent over it together, their faces showing intent in the light of the fire, while Alton laughed softly as he watched them.

"What do you make of that?" he said.

Seaforth glanced round sharply. "It's a trifle curious. That hide's thick, and yet the beast has evidently broken it, but it pulled up the peg."

"Did you find the peg?" said Alton, and Okanagan swept his glance across the faces before him. Seaforth's expressed bewilderment, Alton's was grim.

"I found one," said Seaforth—"Julius Caesar's."

"Yes," said Alton dryly. "There should have been another, and a horse that breaks his tether can't pull out the peg. Still, I don't think he broke it."

"But," said Seaforth, "the thing is broken."

Tom of Okanagan smiled in a curious fashion while Alton reached out and laid his finger on the hide. "One can't be sure of anything," he said. "Still, one could fancy that had felt the knife before it snapped."

There was silence for almost a minute, and the shadows of the great firs seemed to close in upon the camp. Then Alton rose up and stretched his limbs wearily.

"I am kind of tired," he said. "There's a good deal to be done to-morrow."