The wooden conduit which sprang across a gorge just there on a slender trestle was full to the brim, and Brooke, who leaned on his long hammer shaft, watched the crystal water swirl by with a satisfaction which was distinctly new to him, while the roar it made as it plunged down into the valley from the end of the uncompleted flume came throbbing across the pines. Though it was a very crude piece of engineering, that trestle had cost him hours of anxious thought and days of strenuous labor, and now, standing above it, very wet and somewhat ragged, with hands as hard as a navvy's, he surveyed it with a pride which was scarcely warranted by its appearance. It was, however, the creation of his hands and brain, and evidently capable of doing its work effectively.
Then he smiled somewhat curiously as he remembered with what purpose he had taken over the contract to build the flume from its original holder, and, turning abruptly away, walked along it until he stopped where the torrent that fed it swirled rounda pool. The latter had rapidly lowered its level since the big sluice was opened, and he stood looking at it intently while a project, which involved a fresh struggle with hard rock and forest, dawned upon him. He had gained his first practically useful triumph over savage Nature, and it had filled him with a desire he had never supposed himself capable of for a renewal of the conflict. A little sparkle came into his eyes, and he stood with head flung back a trifle and his corded arms uncovered to the elbow, busy with rough calculations, and once more oblivious of the fact that he was only there to play his part in a conspiracy, until a man with grey in his hair came out of the shadow of the pines.
"I came up along the flume and she's wasting very little water," he said. "Not a trickle from the trestle! It would 'most carry a wagon. You must have spent quite a pile of dollars over it."
Brooke smiled a trifle drily, for that was a point he had overlooked until the cost had been sharply impressed upon him.
"I'm afraid I did, Mr. Devine," he said. "Still, I couldn't see how to get the work done more cheaply without taking the risk of the flume settling a little by and by. That would, of course, have started it leaking. What do you think of it?"
Devine smiled as he noticed his eagerness. "It seems to me that risk would have been mine," hesaid. "I've seen neater work, but not very much that looked like lasting longer. Who gave you the plan of it?"
"Nobody," said Brooke, with a trace of the pride he could not quite repress. "I worried it out myself. You see, I once or twice gave the carpenters a hand at stiffening the railroad trestles."
Devine nodded, and flashed a keen glance at him as he said, "What are you looking at that pool for?"
Brooke stood silent a moment or two. "Well," he said, diffidently, "it occurred to me that when there was frost on the high peaks you might have some difficulty in getting enough water to feed the flume. You can see how the pool has run down already. Now, with a hundred tons or so of rock and débris and a log framing, one could contrive a very workable dam. It would ensure you a full supply and equalize the pressure."
"You feel equal to putting the thing through?"
"I would at least very much like to try."
Devine regarded him thoughtfully. "Then you can let me have your notions."
Brooke unfolded his crude scheme, and the other man watched him keenly until he said, "If that meets with your approbation I could start two of my men getting out the logs almost immediately."
Devine smiled. "Has it struck you that there is a point you have forgotten?"
"It is quite possible there are a good many."
"You can't think of one that's important in particular?"
"No," said Brooke, reflectively, "not just now."
A little sardonic twinkle crept into Devine's eyes. "Well," he said, "before I took hold of any contract of that kind I would like to know just how much I was going to make on it, and what it would cost me."
Brooke looked at him and laughed. "Of course!" he said. "Still, I never thought of it until this moment."
"It's quite clear you weren't raised in Canada," said Devine. "You can worry out the thing during the afternoon and bring along any rough plan you'd like to show me to the ranch this evening. That's fixed? Then there's another thing. Has anybody tried to stop you getting out lumber?"
"No," said Brooke. "I met two men who appeared to be timber-right prospectors more than once, but they made no difficulty."
Devine, who seemed a trifle astonished, looked at him curiously before he turned away. "Then," he said drily, "you are more fortunate than I am."
Brooke went back to his work, and supper had been cleared away in his double tent when he completed his simple toilet, which had commenced with a plunge into a whirling pool of the snow-fed river, preparatory to his visit to the ranch. Jimmy, who had assisted in it, stood surveying him complacently.
"Now," he said, with a nod of approbation, "I guess you'll do when I've run a few stitches up the back of you. Stand quite still while I get the tent needle."
Brooke glanced at the implement he produced somewhat dubiously, for it was of considerable thickness and several inches long.
"I suppose," he said, resignedly, "you haven't got a smaller one?"
Jimmy shook his head. "I guess I wouldn't trust it if I had," he said. "I want to fix that darn up good and strong so it will do you credit. There are two women at the ranch, and it's quite likely they'll come in and talk to you."
Brooke made no further protest, but he smiled somewhat curiously as Jimmy stitched away. His work was not remarkable for neatness, and Brooke remembered that the two women at the ranch were fresh from the cities, where men do not mend their clothes with pieces of tents or cotton flour bags. Then he decided that, after all, it did not matter what they thought of him. One would probably set him down as a rude bush chopper, and the other, whose good opinion he would have valued under different circumstances, was a kinswoman of his adversary. Sooner or later she would know him for what he was, and then it was clear she would only have contempt for him. That she of all women should be Mrs. Devine's sister was, he reflected with a sense ofimpotent anger, one of the grim jests that Fate seemed to delight in playing.
"Now," said Jimmy, breaking off his thread at last, "I guess you might go 'most anywhere if you stand with your face to the folks who talk to you, and don't sit down too suddenly. Be cautious how you get up again if you hear those stitches tearing through."
Brooke went out, and discovered that Jimmy had, no doubt as a precautionary measure, sewn several of his garments together as he walked through the shadowy bush towards the ranch. Devine, to whom the scheme suggested had commended itself, was, as it happened, already waiting him in a big log walled room. He sat by the open window, which looked across blue lake and climbing pines towards the great white ramparts of unmelting snow that shut the valley in. The rest of the room was dim, and now the sun had gone, sweet resinous odors and an exhilarating coolness that stirred the blood like wine came in. Two women sat back in the shadow, and Devine moved a little in his chair as he answered one of them.
"I know very little about the man, but I never saw more thorough work than he has put in on the flume," he said. "That's 'most enough guarantee for him, but there are one or two points about him I can't quite worry out the meaning of. For onething, the timber-righters haven't stopped him chopping."
Mrs. Devine looked thoughtful, for she was acquainted with the less pleasant aspect of mine-owning, but Barbara broke in.
"It is a little difficult to understand what use timber-rights would be to anybody here," she said. "They could hardly get their lumber out, and there are very few people to sell it to if they put up a mill."
"I expect they mean to sell it me," said Devine, a trifle grimly.
"But you always cut what you wanted without asking anybody."
"I did. Still, it seems scarcely likely that I'm going to do it again. If anyone has located timber-rights—which he'd get for 'most nothing on a patent from the Crown—he has never worried about them until the Canopus began to pay. Of course, one has to put in timber as he takes out the ore, and it seems to have struck somebody that the men who started it on the Canopus had burnt off all the young firs they ought to have kept. That's why he bought those timber-rights up."
"Still there are thousands of them nobody can ever use, and you must have timber," said Barbara.
"Precisely!" said Devine. "That man figures that when I get it he's going to screw a big share of the profits in this mine out of me."
A portentous sparkle crept into Barbara's eyes, while Mrs. Devine, who knew her husband best, watched him with a little smile.
"But that is infamous extortion!" said the girl.
Devine laughed. "Well," he said, "it's not going to be good business for the man who puts up the game, but I don't quite see why he didn't strike Brooke for a few dollars as well. Men of his kind are like ostriches. They take in 'most anything."
He might have said more, but Brooke appeared in the doorway just then and stood still with, so Barbara fancied, a faint trace of disconcertion when he saw the women, until Devine turned to him.
"Come right in," he said. "Barbara tells me she has met you, but you haven't seen Mrs. Devine. Mr. Brooke, who is building the new flume for me, Katty."
There was no avoiding the introduction, nor could Brooke escape with an inclination as he wished to do, for the lady held out her hand to him. She was older and more matronly than Barbara, but otherwise very like her, and she had the same gracious serenity. Still, Brooke felt his cheeks burn beneath the bronze on them as he shook hands with her. It was one thing to wrest his dollars back from Devine, but, while he cherished that purpose, quite another to be graciously welcomed to his house.
"We are very pleased to see any of Barbara'sfriends," she said. "You apparently hadn't an opportunity of calling upon us in Vancouver?"
Brooke glanced at Barbara, who was not exactly pleased with her sister just then, and met his gaze a trifle coldly. Still, he was sensible of a curious satisfaction, for it was evident that the girl who had been his comrade in the bush had not altogether forgotten him in the city.
"I left the day after Miss Heathcote was kind enough to give me permission," he said.
He felt that his response might have been amplified, but he was chiefly conscious of a desire to avoid any further civilities then, and because he was quite aware that Barbara was watching him quietly, it was a relief when Devine turned to him.
"We'll get down to business," he said. "You brought a plan of the dam along?"
He led the way to the little table at the window, and while Mrs. Devine went on with her sewing and Barbara took up a book again, Brooke unrolled the plan he had made with some difficulty. Then the men discussed it until Devine said, "You can start in when it pleases you, and my clerk will hand you the dollars as soon as you are through. How long do you figure it will take you?"
"Three or four months," said Brooke, and looking up saw that the girl's eyes were fixed on him. She turned them away next moment, but he felt that shehad heard him and they would be companions that long.
"Well," said Devine, "it's quite likely we will be up here part, at least, of the time. Now you'll have to put on more men, and I haven't forgotten what you admitted the day I drove you in to the settlement. You'll want a good many dollars to pay them."
"If you will give me a written contract, I dare say I can borrow them from a bank agent or mortgage broker on the strength of it."
"Oh, yes," said Devine, drily. "It's quite likely you can, but he would charge you a percentage that's going to make a big hole in the profit."
"I'm afraid I haven't any other means of getting the money."
"Well," said Devine, "I rather think you have. In fact, I'll lend it you as the work goes on."
Brooke felt distinctly uncomfortable and sat silent a moment, for this was the last thing he had desired or expected.
"I have really no claim on you, sir," he said at length. "In this province payment is very seldom made until the work is done, and quite often not until a long while afterwards."
Devine smiled drily. "I guess that is my business. Now is there any special reason you shouldn't borrow those dollars from me?"
Brooke felt that there was a very good one, but itwas one he could not well make plain to Devine. He was troubled by an unpleasant sense of meanness already, and felt that it would be almost insufferable to have a kindness thrust upon him by his companion. He was, though he would not look at her, also sensible that Barbara Heathcote was watching him covertly, and decided that what he and Devine had said had been perfectly audible in the silent room.
"I would, at least, prefer to grapple with the financial difficulty in my own way, sir," he said.
Devine made a little gesture of indifference. "Then, if you should want a few dollars at any time you know where to come for them. Now, I guess we're through with the business and you can talk to Mrs. Devine—who has been there—about the Old Country."
Brooke did so, and after the first few minutes, which were distinctly unpleasant to him, managed to forget the purpose which had brought him to the ranch. His hostess was quietly kind, and evidently a lady who had appreciated and was pleased to talk about what she had seen in England, which was, as it happened, a good deal. Brooke also knew how to listen, and now and then a curious little smile crept into his eyes as she dilated on scenes and functions which were very familiar to him. It was evident that she never for a moment supposed that the man who sat listening to her somewhat stiffly, from reasons connected with Jimmy's repairs to his clothes,could have taken a part in them, but he was once or twice almost embarrassed when Barbara, who seemed to take his comprehension for granted, broke in.
In the meanwhile a miner came for Devine, who went out with him, and by and by Mrs. Devine, making her household duties an excuse, also left the room. Then Barbara smiled a little as she turned to Brooke.
"I wonder," she said, quietly, "why you were so unwilling to meet my sister? There is really no reason why anybody should be afraid of her."
Brooke was glad that the dimness which was creeping across the valley had deepened the shadow in the room, for he was not anxious that the girl should see his face just then.
"You assume that I was unwilling?" he said.
"It was evident, though I am not quite sure that Mrs. Devine noticed it."
Brooke saw that an answer was expected from him. "Well," he said, "Mrs. Devine is a lady of station, and I am, you see, merely the builder of one of her husband's flumes. One naturally does not care to presume, and it takes some little time to get accustomed to the fact that these little distinctions are not remembered in this country."
Barbara laughed. "One could get accustomed to a good deal in three or four years. I scarcely think that was your reason."
"Why?" said Brooke.
"Well," said the girl, reflectively, "the fact is that we do recognize the distinctions you allude to, though not to the same extent that you do; but it takes rather longer to acquire certain mannerisms and modes of expressing oneself than it does to learn the use of the axe and drill. To be more candid, any one can put on a flume-builder's clothes."
"I fancy you are jumping at conclusions. There are hotel waiters in the Old Country who speak much better English than I do."
"It is possible. I am, however, not quite sure that they would make good flume-builders. Still, we will let that pass, as well as one or two vague admissions you have previously made me. Why wouldn't you take the dollars you needed when Mr. Devine was perfectly willing to lend them to you?"
"It really isn't usual to make a stranger an advance of that kind," said Brooke, reflectively. "Besides, I might spend the dollars recklessly, and then break away and leave the work unfinished some day. Everybody is subject to occasional fits of restlessness here."
Barbara laughed. "Pshaw!" she said. "You had a much better reason than that. Now I think we were what might be called good comrades in the bush?"
Again Brooke felt a little thrill of pleasure. The girl sat where the dim light that still came in through the open window fell upon her, and she was veryalluring with the faint smile, which was, nevertheless, curiously expressive, in her eyes.
"Yes," he said, almost grimly, "I had a better reason. I cannot tell you what it was, but it may become apparent presently."
Barbara asked no more questions, and while she sat silent, Mrs. Devine came in with a little dainty silver set on a tray. Maids of any kind, and even Chinese house-boys, are scarce in that country, especially in the bush, and Brooke realized that it must have been with her own hands she had prepared the quite unusual meal. Supper is served at six or seven o'clock through most of Canada. Probably the stove was burning, and her task was but a light one, but once more Brooke was sensible of a most unpleasant embarrassment when she smiled at him.
"Barbara and I got used to taking a cup of coffee in the evening when we were in England," she said. "Talking of the Old Country reminded me of it. Will you pour it out, Barbara?"
Barbara did so, and Brooke's fingers closed more tightly than was necessary on the cup she handed to him, while the cracker he forced himself to eat came near choking him. This was absurd sentimentality, he told himself, but, for all that, he dared scarcely meet the eyes of the lady who had, he realized, prepared that meal out of compliment to him. It was a relief when it was over and he was able to take his leave, but, as it happened, he forgot the plan he hadlaid down, and Barbara, who noticed it, overtook him in the log-hall. Devine had not come back yet.
"We shall be here for some little time—in fact, until Mr. Devine has seen the new adit driven," she said.
Brooke understood that this was tantamount to a general invitation, and smiled, as she noticed, somewhat wryly.
"I am afraid I shall scarcely venture to come back again," he said. "Mrs. Devine is very kind, but still, you see—it really wouldn't be fitting."
Then he turned and vanished into the darkness outside, and Barbara went back to the lighted room with a curious look in her eyes.
The flume was finished, and the dam already progressing well, when one morning Devine came out, somewhat grim in face, from the new adit he was driving at the Canopus. The captain of the mine also came with him, and stood still, evidently in a state of perplexity, when Devine looked at him.
"Well," said the latter, brusquely, "what are we going to do, Wilkins?"
The captain blinked at the forest with eyes not yet accustomed to the change of light, as though in search of inspiration, which apparently did not come.
"There's plenty timber yonder," he said.
"There is," said Devine, drily. "Still, as we can't touch a log of it, it isn't much use to us. There is no doubt about the validity of the patent that fellow holds it under either, and it covers everything right back to the cañon. He doesn't seem disposed to make any terms with me."
Wilkins appeared to reflect. "Hanging off for a bigger figure, but there are points I'm not quite clear about. Mackinder's not quite the man to play thatgame—I guess I know him well, and if it had been left to him, once he saw there were dollars in the thing, he'd have jumped right on to them and lit out for the cities to raise Cain with them. Now, I kind of wonder if there's a bigger man behind him."
"That's my end of the business," said Devine, with a little grim smile. "I'll take care of it. There are men in the cities who would find any dead-beat dollars if he wanted them for a fling at me. The question is—What about the mine? You feel reasonably sure we're going to strike ore that will pay for the crushing at the end of that adit?"
Wilkins glanced round at the forest, and then lowered his voice a trifle, though it was some distance off and there was nobody else about.
"We have got to, sir—and it's there if it's anywhere," he said. "You have seen the yield on the lower workings going down until it's just about worth while to keep the stamps going, and though none of the boys seem to notice anything, there are signs that are tolerably clear to me that the pay dirt's running right out. Still, I guess the chances of striking it again rich on the different level are good enough for me to put 'most every dollar I have by me in on a share of the crushings. I can't say any more than that."
"No," said Devine, drily. "Anyway, I'm going on with the adit. But about the timber?"
"Well, we will want no end of props, and that's afact. It's quite a big contract to hold up the side of a mountain when you're working through soft stuff and crumbly rock, and the split-logs we've been worrying along with aren't going to be much use to us. We want round props, grown the size we're going to use, with the strength the tree was meant to have in them."
Devine looked thoughtful. "Then I'll have to get you them. Say nothing to the boys, and see nobody who doesn't belong to the gang you have sent there puts his foot in any part of the mine. It is, of course, specially necessary to keep the result of the crushings quiet. I'm not telling you this without a reason."
Wilkins went back into the adit, and Devine proceeded to flounder round the boundaries of the Englishman's abandoned ranch, which he had bought up for a few hundred dollars, chiefly because of the house on it. It consisted, for the most part, of a miry swamp, which the few prospectors who had once or twice spent the night with him said had broken the heart of the Englishman after a strenuous attempt to drain it, while the rest was rock outcrop, on which even the hardy conifers would not grow. Devine, who wet himself to the knees during his peregrination, had a survey plan with him, but he could see no means of extending his rights beyond the crumbling split-rail fence, and inside the latter there were no trees that appeared adapted for mining purposes. Willows straggled over the wetter places, and little, half-rotten pines stood tottering here and there in a tangled chaos a man could scarcely force his way through, but when he had wasted an hour or two, and was muddy all over, it became evident that he was scarcely likely to come upon a foot of timber that would be of any use to him. He had, of course, been told this, but he had on other occasions showed the men who pointed out insuperable difficulties to him that they were mistaken.
Devine, however, was, as that fact would indicate, not the man to be readily turned aside. He wanted mine props, and meant to obtain them, and, though his face grew a trifle grimmer, he climbed the hillside to where Brooke was busy knee-deep in water at the dam. He signed to him, and then, taking out his cigar-case, sat down on a log and looked at the younger man.
"Take one!" he said.
Brooke lighted a cigar, and sat down, with the water draining from him. "We'll have another tier of logs bolted on to the framing by to-morrow night," he said.
Devine glanced at the dam indifferently. "You take kindly to this kind of thing?" he said.
Brooke smiled a little, for he had of late been almost astonished at his growing interest in his work. Of scientific engineering he knew nothing, thoughhe remembered that several relatives of his had made their mark at it, but every man who lives any time in the bush of the Pacific slope of necessity acquires some skill with axe and cross-cut saw, besides a working acquaintance with the principles of construction. Wooden houses, bridges, dams, must be built, and now and then a wagon road underpinned with redwood logs along the side of a precipice. He had done his share of such work, but he had, it seemed, of late become endued with a boldness of conception and clearness of insight into the best means of overcoming the difficulties to be faced, which had now and then astonished those who assisted him.
"I really think I do, though I don't know why I should," he said. "I never undertook anything of the description in England."
"Then I guess it must be in the family. Any of your folks doing well back there as mechanics?"
Brooke smiled somewhat drily. As a matter of fact, a near kinsman of his had gained distinction in the Royal Engineers, and another's name was famous in connection with irrigation works in Egypt. He did not, however, feel it in any way incumbent on him to explain this to Devine.
"I could not exactly say they are," he said. "Anyway, isn't it a little outside the question?"
"Well," said Devine, drily, "I don't quite know. What's born in a man will come out somehow,whether it's good for him or not. Now, I was thinking over another piece of work you might feel inclined to put through for me."
Brooke became suddenly intent, and Devine noticed the little gleam in his eyes as he said, "If you can give me any particulars——"
"Come along," said Devine, a trifle grimly, "and I'll show you them. Then if you still feel willing to go into the thing we can worry out my notion."
Brooke rose and followed him along the hillside, which was seamed with rock outcrop and thinly covered with brushwood, while the roar of water grew louder in his ears. When they had made a mile or so Devine stopped and looked about him.
"It wouldn't cost too much to clear a ground-sled trail from here to the mine," he said. "A team of mules could haul a good many props in over it in a day."
"But where are you going to get them from?" said Brooke.
Devine smiled curiously. "Come along a little further, and I'll show you."
Again Brooke went with him, wondering a little, for he knew that a cañon would cut off all further progress presently, until Devine stopped once more where the hillside fell sheer away beneath them.
"Now," he said, quietly, "I guess we're there. You can see plenty young firs that would make mining props yonder."
Brooke certainly could. The hillside in front of him rose, steep as a roof, to the ridge where the tufts of ragged pines were silhouetted in sombre outline against the gleaming snow behind. Streaked with drifting mist, they rolled upwards in serried ranks, and there was apparently timber enough for half the mines in the province. The difficulty, however, was the reaching it, for, between him and it, a green-stained torrent thundered through a tremendous gap, whose walls were worn smooth and polished for four hundred feet or so. Above that awful chasm rose bare and slippery slopes of rock, on which there was foothold for neither man nor beast, and only a stunted pine clung here and there in the crannies. What the total depth was he did not know, but he recoiled instinctively from the contemplation of it, and would have drawn back a yard or two only that Devine stood still, looking down into the gap with his usual grim smile.
Still, it was a minute or two before he was sensible of more than a vague awe and a physical shrinking from that tremendous display of Nature's forces, and then, by degrees, his brain commenced to record the details of the scene. He saw the snow-fed river diminished by distance to a narrow green riband swirling round the pools, and frothing with a curious livid whiteness over reef and boulder far down in the dimness. The roar it made came up in long pulsations of sound, which were flung back by the climbing pines that seemed to tremble in unison with it. The rocks were hollowed a trifle at their bases, and arched above the river. It was, as a picture, awe-inspiring and sublime, but from a practical point of view an apparently insurmountable barrier between the owner of the Canopus mine and the timber he desired. Devine, however, knew better, for he was a man who had grappled with a good many apparently insuperable difficulties, and Brooke became sensible that he expected an expression of opinion from him.
"The timber is certainly there, but I quite fail to see how it could be of the least use to anybody situated where we are," he said. "That cañon is, I should fancy, one of the deepest in the province."
Devine nodded, but the little smile was still in his eyes, and he pointed to the one where, by crawling down the gully a torrent had fretted out, an agile man might reach a jutting crag a couple of hundred feet below.
"The point is that it isn't very wide," he said. "It wouldn't take a great many fathoms of steel rope to reach across it."
Brooke realized that, because the crag projected a little, this was correct; but as yet the suggestion conveyed no particular meaning to him.
"No," he said. "Still, it isn't very evident what use that would be."
Devine laughed. "Now, if you had told me youknew anything about engineering, you would have given yourself away. Have you never heard of an aerial tramway? It's quite simple—a steel rope set up tight, a winch for hauling, and a trolley. With that working, and a skid-slide up the gully, one could send over the props we want without much difficulty. It would be cheaper than buying off the timber-righters."
Brooke gasped as the daring simplicity of the scheme dawned on him. If one had nerve enough to undertake it the thing was perfectly feasible, and he turned to Devine with a glow in his eyes.
"It could be done," he said. "Still, do you know anybody who would be willing to stretch that rope across?"
Devine looked at him steadily, noticing the slight dilation of his nostrils and the intentness of his face.
"Well," he said, drily, "I was going to ask you."
The blood surged into Brooke's forehead, and for the time he forgot his six thousand dollars and that the man who made the suggestion had plundered him of them. He had, during the course of his English education, shown signs of a certain originality and daring of thought which had slightly astonished those who taught him, and then had lounged three or four years away in the quiet valley, where originality of any kind was not looked upon with favor. The men and women he had been brought into contact with in London were also, for the most part, those who regarded everything from the accepted point of view, and his engagement to the girl his friends regarded with disapproval had, though he did not suspect this at the time, been in part, at least, a protest against the doctrine that no man of his station must do anything that was not outwardly befitting and convenient to it.
The revolt had brought him disaster, as it usually does, but it had also thrust upon him the necessity of thinking for himself, though even during his two years' struggle on the worthless ranch he had not realized what qualities he was endued with, for it was not until he met Barbara Heathcote by the river that they were wholly stirred into activity. Then ambition, self-confidence, and lust of conflict with men and Nature asserted themselves, for it was, in point of fact, a sword she had brought him. Still, he was as yet a trifle inconsequent and precipitate in his activities, for at times the purpose which had sent him to the Canopus mine faded into insignificance, and he became oblivious to everything beyond the pleasure he found in the grapple with natural difficulties he was engaged in. Those who had known Brooke in England would have had little difficulty in recognizing him morally or physically as he stood, brawny and sinewy, in ragged jean, high above the thundering river.
"Then I'll undertake it," he said, with a little vibration in his voice.
Devine looked hard at him again. "Feel sure you can do it? You'll want good nerves."
"I think I can," said Brooke, with a quietness the other man appreciated.
"Then you can go down to the Mineral Development's new shaft, where they have one of those tramways working, and see how they swing their ore across the valley. I'll give you a line to the manager. Start when you're ready."
Devine said nothing further as they turned back towards the mine, but Brooke felt that the bargain was already made. His companion was not the man to haggle over non-essentials, but one who knew what he wanted and usually went straight to the point. Brooke left him presently, and, turning off where the flume climbed to the dam, came upon Jimmy, tranquilly leaning upon his shovel while he watched the two or three men who toiled waist-deep in water.
"I was kind of wondering whether she wouldn't be stiffer with another log or two in that framing?" he said, in explanation.
"Of course!" said Brooke, drily. "It's more restful than shovelling. Still, that's my affair, and you'll have to rustle more and wonder less. I'm going to leave you in charge here."
Jimmy grinned. "Then I guess the way that dam will grow will astonish you when you come back again. Where're you going to?"
Brooke told him, and Jimmy contemplated the forest reflectively.
"Well," he said, "nobody who saw you at the ranch would ever have figured you had snap enough to put a contract of that kind through. Still, you have me behind you."
"A good way, as a rule," said Brooke, drily. "Especially when there is anything one can get very wet at to be done. Still, I shouldn't wonder if you were quite correct. I scarcely think I ever suspected I had it in myself."
Jimmy still ruminated. "A man is like a mine. You see the indications on the top, but you can't be sure whether there's gold at the bottom or dirt that won't pay for washing, until you set the drills going or put in the giant powder and shake everything up. Still, I can't quite figure how anything of that kind could have happened to you."
Brooke flashed a quick glance at him, but Jimmy's eyes were vacant, and he was apparently watching a mink slip in and out among the roots of a cedar.
"There is a good deal of gravel waiting down there, and only two men to heave it out," he said.
"Oh, yes," said Jimmy, tranquilly. "Still, it's a good while until it's dark, and I was thinking. Now, if you had the dollars you threw away over that ranch, and me for a partner, you'd make quite a smart contractor. While they're wanting flumesand bridges everywhere, it's a game one can pile up dollars at."
Brooke's face flushed a trifle, and he slowly closed one hand.
"Confound the six thousand dollars, and you for reminding me of them!" he said. "Get on with your shovelling."
Next morning Brooke set out for the Mineral Development Syndicate's new shaft, which lay a long day's ride nearer the railroad through the bush, and was well received by the manager.
"Stay just as long as it pleases you, and look at everything you want, though you'll have to excuse me going round with you to-day," he said. "There's a party of the Directors' city friends coming up, and it's quite likely they'll keep me busy."
Brooke was perfectly content to go round himself, and he had acquired a good deal of information about the working of aerial tramways when he sat on the hillside watching a rattling trolley swing across the tree tops beneath him on a curving rope of steel. A foreman leaned on a sawn-off cedar close by, and glanced at Brooke with a little ironical grin when a hum of voices broke out behind them.
"You hear them? I guess the boss is enjoying himself," he said.
Brooke turned his head and listened, and a womansaid, "But how do those little specks of gold get into the rock? It really looks so solid."
"That's nothing," said the foreman. "She quite expects him to know how the earth was made. Still, the other one's the worst. You'll hear her starting in again once she gets her breath. It's not information she's wanting, but to hear herself talk."
The prediction was evidently warranted, for another voice broke in, "What makes those little trucks run down the rope? Gravity! Of course, I might have known that. How clever of you to think of it. You haven't anything like that at those works you're a director of, Shafton?"
Brooke started a little, for though the speaker was invisible her voice was curiously familiar. It was also evidently an Englishman who answered the last remark, and Brooke, who decided that his ears must have deceived him, nevertheless became intent. He felt that the mere fancy should have awakened a host of memories, but he was only sensible of a wholly dispassionate curiosity when the voice was raised again, though it was, at least, very like one to which he had frequently listened in times past. Then there was a patter of approaching steps, and he rose to his feet as the strangers and the mine manager came down the slope. There were several men, one of whom was palpably an Englishman, and two women. One of the latter stopped abruptly, with a little exclamation.
"Harford—is it really you?" she said.
Brooke quietly swung off his wide hat, which he remembered, without embarrassment, was considerably battered, and while most of the others turned and gazed at him, stood still a moment looking at her. He did not appreciate being made the central figure in a dramatic incident, but it was evident that the woman rather relished the situation. Several years had certainly elapsed since she had tearfully bidden him farewell with protestations of unwavering constancy, but he realized with faint astonishment that he felt no emotion whatever, not even a trace of anger.
"Yes," he said. "I really think it is."
The woman made a little theatrical gesture, which might have meant anything, and in that moment the few illusions Brooke still retained concerning her vanished. She seemed very little older than when he parted from her, and at least as comely, but her shallow artificiality was very evident to him now. Her astonishment had, he felt, been exaggerated with a view to making the most of the situation, and even the little tremble in her voice appeared no more than an artistic affectation. The same impression was conveyed by her dress, which struck him as too ornate and in no way adapted to the country.
Then she turned swiftly to the man who stood beside her, looking on with a little faintly ironical smile. He was a personable man, but his lips werethin, and there was a suggestion of half-contemptuous weariness in his face.
"This is Harford Brooke, Shafton. Of course, you have heard of him!" she said with a coquettish smile, which it occurred to Brooke was not, under the circumstances, especially appropriate. "Harford, I don't think you ever met my husband."
Brooke stood still and the other man nodded with an air of languid indifference. "Glad to see you, I'm sure," he said. "Met quite a number of Englishmen in this country."
Then he turned towards the other woman as though he had done all that could be reasonably expected of him, and when the manager of the mine led the way down into the valley Brooke found himself walking with the woman who had flung him over a few paces behind the rest of the party. He did not know exactly how this came about, but he was certain that he, at least, had neither desired nor in any way contrived it.
They went down into the hollow between colonnades of towering trunks, crossed a crystal stream and climbed a steep ascent towards the clashing stamp-heads, but the woman appeared in difficulties and gasped a little until Brooke held out his arm. He had already decided that her little high-heeled shoes were distinctly out of place in that country, and wondered at the same time what kind Barbara Heathcote wore, for she, at least, moved with lithe gracefulness through the bush. He was, however, sensible of nothing in particular when his companion looked up at him as she leaned upon his arm.
"I was wondering how long it would be before you offered to help me. You used to be anxious to do it once," she said.
Brooke smiled a little. "That was quite a long time ago. I scarcely supposed you needed help, and one does not care to risk a repulse."
"Could you have expected one from me?"
There was an archness in the glance she cast him which Brooke was not especially gratified to see, and it struck him that the eyes which he had once considered softest blue were in reality tinged with a hazy grey, but he smiled again as he parried the question. "One," he said, "never quite knows what to expect from a lady."
His companion made no immediate answer, but by and by she once more glanced up at him.
"I am really not used to climbing if Shafton is, and I am not going any further just now," she said.
A newly-felled cedar lay conveniently near the trail, but its wide-girthed trunk stood high above the underbrush, and Brooke dragged up a big hewn-off branch to make a footstool before his companion sat down on it. The branch was heavy, and she watched his efforts approvingly.
"Canada has made you another man. Now, I do not think Shafton could have done that in a day,"she said. "Of course, he would never have tried, even to please me."
Brooke, who was by no means certain what she wished him to understand from this, leaned against a cedar looking down at her gravely. This was the woman who had embittered several years of his life, and for whom he had flung a good deal away, and now he was most clearly sensible of his folly. Had he met her in a drawing-room or even the Vancouver opera-house, it might not have been quite so apparent to him, but she seemed an anachronism in that strip of primeval wilderness. Nature was dominant there, and the dull pounding of the stamp-heads, which came faintly through the silence among the great trunks that had grown slowly during centuries, suggested man's recognition of the curse and privilege that was laid upon him in Eden. Graceful idleness was not esteemed in that country, where bread was won by strenuous toil, and the stillness and dimness of those great forest aisles emphasized the woman's artificial superficiality. Voice and gesture, befrizzled, straw-colored hair which he had once called golden, constricted waist, and figure which was suggestively wooden in its curves, enforced the same impression, until the man, who realized that she had after all probably made at least as good a use of life as he had, turned his eyes away.
"You really couldn't expect him to," he said, witha little laugh. "He has never had to do anything of that kind for a living as I have."
He held up his hands and noticed her little shiver as she saw the scarred knuckles, hard, ingrained flesh, and broken nails.
"Oh," she said, "how cruel! Whatever have you been doing?"
Brooke glanced at his fingers reflectively. "On the contrary, I suppose I ought to feel proud of them, though I scarcely think I am. Building flumes and dams, though that will hardly convey any very clear impression to you. It implies swinging the axe and shovel most of every day, and working up to the waist in water occasionally."
"But you were always so particular in England."
"I could naturally afford to be. It cost me nothing when I was living on another man's bounty."
The woman made a little gesture. "And you gave up everything for me!"
Brooke laughed softly, for it seemed to him that a little candor was advisable. "As a matter of fact, I am not quite sure that I did. My native wrong-headedness may have had its share in influencing me. Anyway, that was all done with—several years ago."
"You will not be bitter, Harford," and she cast him a glance of appeal which might have awakened a trace of tenderness in the man had it sprung from any depth of feeling. "Can anything of that kind ever be quite done with?"
Brooke commenced to feel a trifle uneasy. "Well," he said, reflectively, "I certainly think it ought to be."
To his relief his companion smiled and apparently decided to change the subject. "You never even sent me a message. It really wasn't kind."
"It appeared considerably more becoming to let myself sink into oblivion. Besides, I could scarcely be expected to feel certain that you would care to hear from me."
The woman glanced at him reflectively. "I have often thought about you. Of course, I was dreadfully sorry when I had to give you up, but I really couldn't do anything else, and it was all for the best."
"Of course!" said Brooke, with a trace of dryness, and smiled when she glanced at him sharply. "I naturally mean in your case."
"You are only involving yourself, Harford. You never used to be so unfeeling."
"I was endorsing your own statement, and it is, at least, considerably easier to believe that all is for the best when one is prosperous. You have a wealthy husband, and Helen, who wrote me once, testified that he indulged you in—she said every caprice."
"Yes," said his companion, thoughtfully, "Shafton is certainly not poor, and he is almost everything any one could expect him to be. As husbands go, I think he is eminently satisfactory."
"One would fancy that an indulgent and wealthy husband of distinguished appearance would go a tolerably long way."
Again the woman appeared to reflect "Prosperity is apt to kill romance," she said. "One is never quite content, you know, and I feel now and then that Shafton scarcely understands me. That is a complaint people appear to find ludicrous, of course, though I really don't see why they should do so. Shafton is conventional and precise. You know exactly what he is going to do, and that it will be right, but one has longings now and then for something original and intense."
Brooke regarded her with a little dry smile. One, as he had discovered, cannot have everything, and as she had sold herself for wealth and station it appeared a trifle unreasonable to repine because she could not enjoy a romantic passion at the same time. It was, in fact, very likely that had anything of the kind been thrust upon her she would not have known what to do with it. It also occurred to him that there were depths in her husband's nature which she had never sounded, and he remembered the look of cynical weariness in the man's face. Lucy Coulson was one who trifled with emotions as a pastime, but Brooke had no wish to be made the subject of another experiment in simulated tenderness, even if that was meant, which, under the circumstances, scarcely seemed likely.
"Well," he said, "no doubt most people long for a good deal more than they ever get; but your friends must have reached the stamps by now, and they will be wondering what has become of you."
"I scarcely think they will. The men seem to consider it a waste of time to talk to anybody who doesn't know all about ranches and mines, and Shafton has Miss Goldie to attend to. She has attached herself to him like a limpet, but she is, of course, a Canadian, and I really don't mind."
Almost involuntarily Brooke contrasted her with a Canadian who had spent a week in the woods with him. Barbara Heathcote had never appeared out of place in the wilderness, for she was wholly natural and had moved amidst those scenes of wild grandeur as though in harmony with them, with the stillness of that lonely land in her steady eyes. There was no superficial sentimentality in her, for her thoughts and emotions were deep as the still blue lakes, and he could not fancy her disturbing their serenity for the purpose of whiling an idle day away. Then his face hardened, for it was becoming unpleasantly evident that she could not much longer even regard him with friendliness and there was nothing to be gained by letting his fancy run away with him.
"You are not the man I used to talk nonsense with, Harford," said his companion, who had in the meanwhile been watching him. "This country has madeyou quiet and a little grim. Why don't you go back again?"
"I am afraid they have too many men with no ostensible income in England."
"Still you could make it up with the old man."
Brooke's face was decidedly grim. "I scarcely think I could. Rather more was said by both of us than could be very well rubbed off one's memory. Besides, I think you know what kind of man he is?"
Lucy Coulson leaned forward a trifle and there was a trace of genuine feeling in her voice. "Harford," she said, "he frets about you—and he is getting very old. Of course, he would never show anybody what he felt, but I could guess, because he was once not long ago almost rude to me. That could only have been on your account, you know. It hurts me a little, though one could scarcely take exception to anything he said—but you know the quiet precision of his manner. If it wasn't quite so perfect it would be pedantic now. One feels it's a relic of the days of the hoops and patches ever so long ago."
"What did he say?" asked Brooke, a trifle impatiently.
"Nothing that had any particular meaning by itself, but for all that he conveyed an impression, and I think if you were to go back——"
"Empty-handed!" said Brooke. "There are circumstances under which the desire for reconciliationwith a wealthy relative is liable to misconception. If I had prospered it would have been easier."
Lucy Coulson looked at him thoughtfully. "Perhaps I did use you rather badly, and it might be possible for me to do you a trifling kindness now. Shall I talk to the old man when I go home again? I see him often."
Brooke shook his head. "I shall never go back a poor man," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"Everybody travels nowadays, and Shafton is never happy unless he is going somewhere. We started for Japan, and decided to see the Rockies and look at the British Columbian mines. That is, of course, Shafton did. He has money in some of them, and is interested in the colonies. I have to sit on platforms and listen while he abuses the Government for neglecting them. In fact, I don't know when I shall be able to get him out of the country now. Of course, I never expected to meet you here—and almost wonder if there is any reason beyond the one you mentioned that has kept you here so long."
She glanced at him in a curious fashion and made the most of her eyes, which he had once considered remarkably expressive ones.
"I can't quite think of any other, beyond the fact that I have a few dollars at stake," he said.
"There is nothing else?"
"No," said Brooke, a trifle too decisively. "What could there be?"
His companion smiled. "Well," she said, "I fancied there might have been a Canadian. They are not all very good style, but some of them are almost pretty, and—when one has been a good while away——"
The man flushed a trifle at the faint contempt in her tone. "I scarcely think there is one of them who would spare a thought for me. I should not be considered especially eligible even in this country."
"And you have a good memory!"
Brooke felt slightly disconcerted, for it was not the first delicate suggestion she had made. "I don't know that it is of any benefit to me. You see, I really haven't anything very pleasant to remember."
Lucy Coulson sighed. "Harford," she said, dropping her voice a trifle, "you must try not to blame me. If one of us had been richer—I, at least, can't help remembering."
Brooke looked at her steadily. Exactly where she wished to lead him he did not know, but she had flung away her power to lead him anywhere long ago. Perhaps she was influenced by vanity, for there was no genuine passion or tenderness in her, but Brooke was a well-favored man, and she had her caprices and drifted easily.
"I really don't think you should," he said. "Yourhusband mightn't like it, and it is quite a long while ago, you know."
A little pink flush crept into the woman's cheek and she rose leisurely. "Perhaps he will be wondering where I am, after all," she said. "You must come and make friends with him. We may be staying for some time yet at the C. P. R. Hotel, Vancouver."
Brooke went with her and spent some little time talking to her husband, who made a favorable impression upon him, while when he took his leave of them the woman let her hand remain in his a moment longer than there was any apparent necessity for.
"You must come down and see us—it really isn't very far, and we have so much to talk about," she said.
Brooke said nothing, but he felt that he had had a warning as he swung off his big shapeless hat and turned away.
The afternoon was hot, and the roar of the river in the depths below emphasized the drowsy stillness of the hillside and climbing bush, when Brooke stood on the little jutting crag above the cañon. Two hundred feet above him rose a wall of fissured rock, but a gully, down which the white thread of a torrent frothed, split through that grim battlement, and already a winding strip of somewhat perilous pathway had been cut out of and pinned against the side of the chasm. Men with hammers and shovels were busy upon it, and the ringing of the drills broke sharply through the deep pulsations of the flood, while several more were clustered round the foot of an iron column, which rose from the verge of the crag, where the rock fell in one tremendous sweep to the dim green river.
Close beside it, and overhung by the rock wall, stood Brooke's double tent, for, absorbed as he had become in the struggle with the natural difficulties that must be faced and surmounted at every step,he lived by his work, and when he had risen that morning the sun had not touched the dim white ramparts beyond the climbing pines. He was just then, however, not watching his workmen, but looking up the gorge, and a little thrill of pleasure ran through him when two figures in light draperies appeared at the head of it. Then he went up at a pace which Jimmy, who grinned as he watched him, wondered at, and stopped a trifle breathless beside the two women who awaited him above.
"I was almost afraid you would not come," he said. "You are sure you would care to go down now you have done so?"
Mrs. Devine gazed down into the tremendous depths with something that suggested a shiver, but Barbara laughed. "Of course," she said. "Those men go up and down with big loads every day, don't they?"
"They have to, and that naturally makes a difference," said Brooke, with a little smile.
"Then we can go down because we wish to, which is, in the case of most people, even a better reason."
Mrs. Devine appeared a trifle uncertain, and her face expressed rather resignation than any special desire to make the descent, but she permitted Brooke to assist her down the zig-zag trail, while Barbara followed with light, fearless tread. Once they entered the gully, they could not, however, see the cañon, which, in the elder lady's case, at least, madethe climb considerably easier, and they reached the tent without misadventure. The door was triced up to form an outer shelter, and Barbara was a trifle astonished when Brooke signed them to enter.
She had seen how he lived at the ranch, and the squalid discomfort of the log room had not been without its significance to her, but there was a difference now. Nothing stood out of place in that partition of the big double tent, and from the spruce twigs which lay a soft, springy carpet, on the floor, to the little nickelled clock above her head, all she saw betokened taste and order. Even the neat folding chairs and table shone spotlessly, and there was no chip or flaw upon the crockery laid out upon the latter. There had, it seemed, been a change, of which all this was but the outward sign, in the man who stood smiling beside her.
"Tea at four o'clock is another English custom you may have become addicted to, and you have had a climb," he said. "Still, I'm afraid I can't guarantee it. Jimmy does the cooking."
Jimmy, as it happened, came in with a teapot in his hand just then. "Well," he said, "I guess I'm considerably smarter at it than my boss. You needn't be bashful, either. I've a kettle that holds most of a gallon outside there on the fire, and here's two big tins of fixings we sent for to Vancouver."
Mrs. Devine smiled, but Brooke's face was a trifle grim, as he glanced at his retainer, and Barbara didnot look at either of them just then. It was, of course, after all, only a little thing, but she was, nevertheless, gratified that he could think of these trifles in the midst of his activities. She, however, took the white metal teapot, which was burnished brilliantly, from Jimmy, who, in spite of Brooke's warning glances, still hung about the tent, contemplating her with evident approbation as she passed the cups.
"I guess she does it considerably smarter than Tom Gordon's Bella would have done," he said, with a wicked grin. "Bella had no use for teapots either. She'd have given it you out of the kettle."
The glance Brooke rewarded him with was almost venomous, for he had seen the swift inquiry which had flashed into them fade as suddenly out of Barbara's eyes. She could not well admit the least desire to know who Tom Gordon's Bella was, though she would not have been unwilling to be enlightened. Jimmy, however, beamed upon Mrs. Devine, who had taken up her cup.
"I hope you like it. No smoke on that," he said. "When you use the green tea a smack of the resin goes well as flavoring, especially if it's brewed in a coal-oil tin. Now, there's tea they make right where they sell it in Vancouver, but what you've got is different I guess it's grown in China, or it ought to be, for the boss he sent me down, and says he——"
"Isn't it about time you made a start at getting that boulder out?" said Brooke, drily.
Jimmy retired unwillingly, and Brooke glanced deprecatingly at his guests. "We have been comrades for several years," he said.
"Of course!" said Mrs. Devine, with a little smile. "Still, I really don't think you need be so anxious to hide the fact that you have taken some pains to provide these little dainties for us. It would have been apparent in any case. We know how men live in the bush."
Brooke made no disclaimer, though a faint trace of color deepened the bronze in his face, for he remembered the six thousand dollars, and winced under her graciousness. Then they discussed other matters, until at last Barbara laid aside her cup.
"We came to see the cañon, and how you mean to put the rope across," she said.
She glanced at her sister, but Mrs. Devine resolutely shook her head. "I have seen quite as much of the cañon as I have any wish to do," she said. "Besides, it was not exactly an easy matter getting down here, and I expect it will be considerably worse getting up. You can go with Mr. Brooke, my dear."
They left her in the tent, and five minutes later Brooke led the girl to a seat on a dizzy ledge, from which the rock fell away in one awful smooth wall.
"Now," he said quietly, "you can look about you."
Barbara, who had been too occupied in picking herway to notice very much as yet, drew in her breath as she gazed down into the tremendous chasm. The sunshine lay warm upon the pine-clad slopes above, but no ray of brightness streamed down into that depth of shadow, and its eerie dimness was thickened by the mist which drifted filmily above the river's turmoil. Out of it a deep vibratory roar came up, diminished by the distance, in long pulsations that died far up among the pines in sinking waves of sound.
"Oh," she said, with a little gasp, "it's tremendous!"
"A trifle overwhelming!" said Brooke, reflectively, "and yet it gets hold of one. There is a difference between it and the English valley you once mentioned."
Barbara turned to him, with a little gleam in her eyes.
"Of course!" she said. "One is glad there is, since it is typical of both countries. You couldn't tame this river and set it gliding smoothly between mossy stepping-stones."
"No," said Brooke, "I scarcely think one would wish to if he could. One feels it wouldn't be fitting."
"And yet we shall put the power that's in it into harness by and by."
"Without taming it?"
Barbara nodded. "Yes," she said. "If you had ever stood in a Canadian power house, as I have doneonce or twice, you would understand. You can hear the big dynamos humming in one low, deep note while the little blue sparks flicker about the shafts. They stand for controlled energy; but the whole place rocks with the whirring of the turbines and the thunder of the water plunging down the shoots. The river that drives them does it exulting in its strength. You couldn't fancy it lapping among the lily leaves in sunlit pools. It hasn't time."
"To have no time for artistic effect is typical of this country, then?" said Brooke.
Barbara smiled. "Yes," she said, "I really think it is. We shall come to that later, but this, you see, isn't art, but something greater. It's nature untrammelled, and primeval force."
"Then you, who personify reposefulness, admire force?"
Barbara held her hand up. "When it accomplishes anything I do; but listen," she said. "That sound isn't the discord of purposeless haste. There's a rhythm in it. It's ordered and stately harmony."
Brooke sat still, watching the little gleam in her brown eyes, until she turned again to him.
"You are going to put that rope across?" she said.
"I am, at least, going to try. There will, however, be difficulties."
Barbara smiled a little. "There generally are. Still, I think you will get over them." She looked down again at the tremendous gap, and then met hiseyes in a fashion that sent a thrill through him. "It would be worth while."
"I almost think it would. Still, it is largely a question of dollars, and I have spent a good many with no great result already."
"My brother-in-law will not see you beaten. He would throw in as much as the mine was worth before he yielded a point to the timber-righters."
Brooke noticed the little hardness in her voice, and the sparkle in her eyes. "If he did, you would evidently sympathize with him?"
"Of course, though it wasn't exactly in that sense I meant it would be worth while. One would naturally sympathize with anybody who was made the subject of that kind of extortion. If there is anything detestable, it is a conspiracy."
"Still," said Brooke, reflectively, "it is in one sense a perfectly legitimate transaction."
"Would you consider yourself warranted in scheming to extort money from any one?"
Brooke did not look at her. "It would, of course, depend—upon, for example, any right I might consider I had to the money. We will suppose that somebody had robbed me——"
"Then one who has been robbed may steal?"
Brooke made a little deprecatory gesture while the blood crept to his face. "I'm afraid I have never given any questions of this kind much consideration. We were discussing the country."
Barbara laughed. "Of course. I ought to have remembered. You are so horribly afraid of betraying your sentiments in England that you would almost prefer folks to believe you hadn't any. I am, however, going to venture on dangerous ground again. I think the country is having an effect on you. You have changed considerably since I met you at the ranch."
"It is possible," and Brooke met her gaze with a little smile in his eyes. "Still, I am not quite sure it was altogether the fault of the country."
Barbara looked down at the cañon. "Isn't that a little ambiguous?"
"Well," said Brooke, reflectively, "it is, at least, rather a stretching of the simile, but I saw you first clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, in the midst of a frothing river—and I am not quite sure that you were right when you said it was not a sword you brought me."