Evening had come round again when Brooke called at the ranch, in response to a brief note from Devine, and found the latter sitting, cigar in hand, at his office table.
"Take a cigar, if you feel like it, Mr. Brooke. We have got to have a talk," he said.
Brooke did as he suggested, and when he sat down, Devine passed a strip of paper across to him.
"There's your cheque for the tramway. I'll ask you for a receipt," he said. "Make up an account of what the dam has cost you to-morrow, and we'll try to arrange the thing so's to suit both of us."
Brooke appeared a trifle astonished. "It is by no means finished, sir."
"Well," said Devine, drily, "I'm not quite sure it ever will be. The mine no longer belongs to me. It's part of the Dayspring Consolidated Mineral Properties. I've been working the thing up quietly for quite a while now, and I've a cable from London that the deal's put through."
Brooke, remembering what he had heard fromSaxton, looked hard at him. "You have sold it out to English company promoters?"
"Not exactly! I'm taking so many thousand dollars down, and a controlling share of the stock. I'm also the boss director, with full power to run operations as appears advisable at the mines. How does the deal strike you?"
"Since you ask for my opinion, I fancy I should have preferred a good many dollars, and very little stock."
Devine glanced at him with a curious smile.
"You believe Allonby's a crank?"
"Other people do. On my part, I'm not quite sure of it. Still, it seems to me that the men who spend their money to prove him right will run a tolerably heavy risk, especially as, so far, at least, there appears to be no ore that's worth reduction in the mine, so far as it has been opened up."
"How do you know what is in the Dayspring?" and Devine looked at him steadily.
Brooke made a little gesture. "I don't think that point's important," he said. "You, no doubt, had a purpose in telling me as much as you have done?"
Devine did not answer for a moment or two, and Brooke was sensible of a slight bewilderment as he watched him. This was, he knew, a hard, shrewd man, and yet he had apparently permitted Saxton to beguile him into buying a mine in which nobody but a man whose faculties had been destroyed byalcohol believed. He was also, it seemed, willing to risk a moderate competence in another one which was liable to be jumped at any moment. The thing was almost incomprehensible.
Then Devine made a sign that he desired attention. "When I told you this, I had a purpose," he said. "We are going to spend a pile of dollars on the Dayspring, and my part of the business lies in the city. Wilkins stays right at the Canopus, and while Allonby goes along with the mine it's too big a contract to reform him. That brings me to the point. I want a man to take charge at the Dayspring under him, and though you were not exactly civil when I made you an offer once before, we might make it worth your while."
Brooke gasped, and felt his face becoming warm.
"I have very little practical experience of mining, sir," he said.
Devine nodded tranquilly. "Allonby has enough for two, but he lets up and loses his grip when the whisky comes along," he said. "Still, I guess you have got something that's worth rather more to me. You couldn't help having it. It was born in you."
Brooke sat silent for a space, with an unpleasant realization of the fact that Devine's keen eyes were watching him. He had come there with the intention of severing his connection with the man, and now that astonishing offer had been made him in the very room he had not long ago crept into with thepurpose of plundering him. Every detail of what had happened on that eventful night came back to him, and he remembered, with a sickening sense of degradation, how he had leaned upon the table where Devine was sitting then and permitted the startled girl to force her thanks on him. Then he raised his head, as Devine, turning a little, looked at him with disconcerting steadiness.
"You have more reasons than the one you gave me for not taking hold?" he said.
Suddenly, Brooke made up his mind. He was sick of the career of deception, and had already meant to put an end to it, while he now seized upon the opportunity of placing a continuance in it out of the question.
"I have, and can't help fancying that one of them is a tolerably good one," he said. "You see, you really know very little about me."
"Go on," said Devine, drily. "I'm generally quite willing to back my opinion of a mine or man. Besides, I have picked up one or two pointers about you."
"Still," said Brooke, very slowly, while his face grew set, "you don't know why I came here to build that flume for you."
Then he gasped with astonishment, for Devine laughed.
"Well," he said, drily, "I guess I do."
Brooke, who lost command of himself, roseabruptly, and stood looking down on him, with one quivering hand clenched on the edge of the table.
"You know I meant to jump the claim?" he said.
"I had a notion that you meant to try."
Then there was a curious silence, and the two men remained motionless, looking at one another for a space, the younger one leaning somewhat heavily upon the table, with the crimson showing through the bronze in his face, the elder one watching him with a little grim smile. There was also a suggestion of sardonic amusement in it at which the other winced, as he would scarcely have done had Devine struck him.
"And you let me stay on?" he said at length.
"I did. It was plain you couldn't hurt me, and there was a kind of humor in the thing. I had just to put my hand down and squelch you when I felt like it."
Brooke recognized that he had deserved this, but he had never felt the same utter sense of insignificance that he did just then. His companion evidently did not even consider it worth while to be angry with him, and he wondered vacantly at his folly in even fancying that he or Saxton could prove a match for such a man.
Then Devine made a little gesture. "Hadn't you better sit down? We're not quite through yet."
Brooke did as he suggested.
"Still——" he said.
Devine smiled again. "You don't quite understand? Well, I'll try to make it plain. You make about the poorest kind of claim-jumper I ever ran up against, and I've handled quite a few in my time. It's not your fault. You haven't it in you. If you had, you'd have stayed right with it, and not let the dam-building get hold of you so that you scarcely remembered what you came here for. You couldn't help that either."
To be turned inside out in this fashion was almost too disconcerting to be exasperating, and Brooke sat stupidly silent for a moment or two.
"After all, we need not go into that," he said. "I suppose what I meant to do requires no defence in this country, but while I am by no means proud of it, I should never have undertaken it had you not sold me a worthless ranch. I purposed doing nothing more than getting my six thousand dollars back."
"You figure that would have contented the man behind you?"
Brooke was once more startled, for Devine's penetration appeared almost uncanny, but he remembered that he, at least, owed a little to his confederate.
"You think there was another man?" he said.
Devine laughed. "I guess I'm sure. You don't know enough to fix up a thing of this kind. Who is he?"
"That," said Brooke, drily, "is rather more thanI feel at liberty to tell you. I have, however, broken with him once for all."
Devine made a little gesture which implied that the point was of no great importance. "Well," he said, "I guess I've no great cause to be afraid of him, if he was content to have you for a partner. The question is—Are you going to take my offer?"
"You are asking me seriously?"
"I am. It seems to me I sized you up correctly quite a while ago, and you have had about enough claim-jumping. Now, I don't know that I blame you, and, anyway, if you had very little sense, it showed you had some grit. As the mining laws stand, it's a legitimate occupation, and you tell me you only figured on getting your dollars back. Well, if you want them, you can work for them at a reasonable salary."
Brooke was once more astonished. Sentiment, it appeared, counted for as little with Devine as it had done with Saxton, and with both of them business was simply and solely a question of dollars.
"Then you disclaim all responsibility for your agent's doings?" he said.
"No," said Devine, drily. "If Slocum had swindled you, it would have been different, but you made a foolish deal, and you have got to stand up to it. Nobody was going to stop you surveying that land before you bought it, or getting a man who knew its value to do it for you. I'm offering you the optionof working for those six thousand dollars. Do you take it?"
Brooke scarcely considered. The money was no longer the chief inducement, for, as Devine had expressed it, the work had got hold of him, and he was sensible of a growing belief in his capabilities, while he now fancied he saw his opportunity.
"Yes," he said, simply.
Devine nodded. "Then we'll go into the thing right now," he said. "You'll start for the Dayspring soon as you can to-morrow."
An hour had passed before they had arranged everything, and it seemed to one of them that it was, under the circumstances, a somewhat astonishing compact they made. What the other thought about it did not appear, but he was one who was seldom very much mistaken in his estimate of the character of his fellow-men. Then, as it happened, Brooke came upon Barbara in the log-walled hall as he was leaving the ranch, and stood still a moment irresolute. Whether Devine would tell her or his wife what had passed between them he did not know, but it appeared very probable, and just then he almost shrank from meeting her. It did not, however, occur to him to ask himself how she happened to be there.
"So you are not going out on the trail that leads to nowhere in particular, after all?" she said.
Brooke showed his astonishment. "You knew what Devine meant to offer me?"
"Of course!" and Barbara smiled. "I don't even mind admitting that I think he did wisely."
"Now, I wonder why?"
Barbara laughed softly. "Don't you think the question is a little difficult, or do you expect me to present you with a catalogue of your virtues?"
"I'm afraid the latter is out of the question. You would want, at least, several items."
"And you imply that I should have a difficulty in finding them?"
Brooke had spoken lightly, partly because the interview with Devine had put a strain on him, and he dare scarcely trust himself just then, but a tide of feeling swept him away, and his face grew suddenly grim. The girl was very alluring, and her little smile showed plainly that she had reposed her confidence in him.
"Yes," he said, a trifle hoarsely, "you would have the greatest difficulty in finding one, and I am almost glad that I am going away to-morrow. Such a man as I am is scarcely fit to speak to you."
Barbara was, though she did not show it, distinctly startled. She had never heard the man speak in that fashion, and his set face and vibrant voice were new to her. Indeed, she had now and then wondered whether he ever really let himself go. Still, she looked at him quietly, and, noticing the swollen veins on his forehead, and the glow in his eyes, decided it would not be advisable to admit that sheattached much importance to what he had said. He was, she fancied, fit for any rashness just then.
"I suppose we, all of us, have moods of self-depreciation occasionally," she said. "Still, one would not have fancied that you were unduly morbid, and one part of that little speech was a trifle inexplicable."
Brooke laughed curiously, but the girl noticed that one of his lean, hard hands was closed as he looked down on her.
"There are times when one has to be one's self, and civilities don't seem to count," he said. "I am glad that I am going away, because if I stayed here I should lose the last shred of my self-respect. As a matter of fact, I have very little left, but that little is valuable, if only because it was you who gave it me."
"Still, one would signally fail to see how you could lose it here."
Brooke stood still, looking at her with signs of struggle, and, she could almost fancy, passion, in his set face; and then made a little gesture, which seemed to imply that he had borne enough.
"You will probably understand it all by and by," he said. "I can only ask you not to think too hardly of me when that happens."
Then, as one making a strenuous effort, he turned abruptly away, and Barbara, who let him go, went back to the room where her sister sat, very thoughtfully.
Brooke in the meanwhile swung savagely along the trail, beneath the shadowy pines, for he recognized, with a painful distinctness, that Barbara Heathcote's view of his conduct was by no means likely to coincide with Devine's, and he could picture her disgust and anger when the revelation came, while it was only now, when he would in all probability never meet her on the same terms again, he realized the intensity of his longing for the girl. He had also, he felt, succeeded in making himself ridiculous by a display of sentimentality that must have been incomprehensible to her, and though that appeared of no great importance relatively, it naturally did not tend to console him. When he reached his tent Jimmy stared at him.
"I guess you look kind of raised," he said. "Where's your hat?"
Brooke laughed hoarsely. "I believe I must have left it at the ranch. Still, that's not so very astonishing, because, even if I didn't do it altogether, I came very near losing my head."
Jimmy again surveyed him, with a grin. "Devine," he said, suggestively, "has been giving you whisky, and it mixed you up a little? That's what comes of drinking tea."
Brooke made no answer, though a swift flush rose to his face, as he remembered his half-coherent speeches at the ranch, and the astonishment in the girl's eyes, for it seemed probable that the explanation that had occurred to Jimmy had also suggested itself to her. Then he smiled grimly, as he decided that it did not greatly matter, after all, since she could not think more hardly of him than she would do when the truth came out presently.
It was already late at night, but the mounted mail carrier had not reached the Dayspring mine, and Allonby, who was impatiently waiting news of certain supplies and plant, had insisted on Brooke sitting up with him. It was also raining hard, and, in spite of the glowing stove, the shanty reeked with damp, while there was a steady splashing upon the iron roof above. Now and then a trickle descended from a defective joint in it, and formed a rivulet upon the earthen floor, or fizzled into a puff of steam upon the corroded iron pipe which stretched across the room. The latter was strewn with soil-stained clothing, and wet knee-boots with the red mire of the mine still clinging about them.
Brooke lay drowsily in a canvas chair, while Allonby sat at the uncleanly table, with a litter of burnt matches and tobacco ash as well as a steaming glass in front of him. His eyes were bleared and watery, and there were curious little patches of color in his haggard face, while the gorged, blue veins showed upon his forehead. He had been discoursing in amaudlin fashion which Brooke, who had endeavored to make the best of his company during the last three months, found singularly exasperating, but he moved abruptly when a stream from the roof suddenly descended upon his grizzled head.
"That," he said, "is one of the trifles a man with a sense of proportion and a contemplative temperament makes light of. The curse of this effete age is its ceaseless striving after luxury."
Brooke laughed softly, as he watched the water run down the moralizer's nose. "It is," he said, "at least, not often attainable in this country."
"Which is precisely why men grow rich in the Colonies. Now, here are you and I, who at one time in our lives required four or five courses for dinner, not only subsisting, but thriving upon grindstone bread, flapjacks, molasses, and the contents of certain cans from Chicago, which one cannot even be certain are what they are averred to be, though the Colonist consumes them with the faith that asks no questions."
"I fancy you are, in one respect, taking a good deal for granted," Brooke said, drily.
Allonby made a deprecatory gesture. "Being, although you might occasionally find a difficulty in crediting it, one myself, I am seldom mistaken about the points of a man who has moved in good society, though I may admit that it was the ruin of me. Had I been brought up in this country, one-third of my income would have sufficed me, and I should havemade provision for my grey hairs with the rest, while I fed, like a Canadian, out of vessels of enamel and the useful wood pulp. As it was, I wasted my substance, and, unfortunately, that of other men who had undue confidence in me, in London clubs, with the result that I am now what is sometimes termed a waster in the land of promise."
"It is not very difficult to get through a good deal of one's substance in a certain fashion, even in Canada," and Brooke glanced reflectively at the array of empty bottles.
"That point of view, although a popular one, is illusory, which can be demonstrated by mathematics. A man, it is evident, cannot drink more than a certain quantity of whisky. His physical capacity precludes it, while even in my bad weeks the cost of it could not well exceed some eight dollars. Excluding that item, one could live contentedly here at an outlay of one dollar daily, if he did not, unfortunately, possess a memory."
It seemed to Brooke that this latter observation might be true, if one had, at least, any hope for the future. Allonby's day was nearly done, and he had only the past to return and trouble him, but Brooke felt just then that, in spite of his pride in the profession which had been rather forced upon him than adopted, he had very little to look forward to, since he had, by his own folly, made the one thing he longed for above all others unattainable. He hadbeen three months at the Dayspring, and had heard nothing from Barbara. She must, he fancied, have discovered the part he had played by this time, and would blot him out of her memory, while now, when it seemed conceivable that he might make his mark in Canada, all that this implied had become valueless to him. Wealth and celebrity might perhaps be attainable, but there would be nobody to share them with, for he realized that Barbara Heathcote did not possess the easy toleration on certain points which appeared to characterize Saxton and Devine. In the meanwhile, Allonby did not seem pleased with his silence.
"You are," he said, a trifle quickly, "by no means an entertaining companion for a man who is at times too sensible of the irony of his position, and appear to be without either comprehension or sympathy. Here am I, who was accustomed to fare sumptuously in London clubs, living on the husks and other metaphorical et ceteras, and endeavoring—for that is all it amounts to—to console myself with profitless reflections. I am, of course, in the elegant simile of the country, a tank, or whisky-skin, but I am still a man who found a fortune and stripped himself of everything but whisky to develop it."
Brooke laughed to conceal his impatience. "Then you are as sure as ever about the silver? We have got a good way down without finding very much sign of it."
Allonby rose, with a little flush in his watery eyes, and leaned, somewhat unsteadily, upon the table.
"It is the one thing I believe in. The rest, and I once had my fancies and theories like other men, are shadows and chimeras now. Only the silver is real—and there. All I made in Canada is sunk in this mine, which no longer belongs to me, and when I make the great discovery not a dollar will fall to my share."
"Then it is a little difficult to understand what you are so anxious to find the silver for."
Allonby swayed a trifle on his feet, but the gleam in his eyes grew brighter. "You," he said, "are, as I pointed out, curiously deficient in comprehension, but you never won a case of medals that were coveted by the keenest brains among all those who hoped to enter your profession. Of what use are dollars to a whisky-tank who will, in all probability, be found mangled at the bottom of the shaft one day? Still, when I made the calculations we are now working on, there was no man in the province with a knowledge equal to mine, and I ask no more than to prove them right."
Brooke sat silent, because he could think of nothing appropriate to say. He had asked the question lightly, and had got his answer. It made the attitude of this broken-down wreck of humanity plain to him, and he vaguely realized the pathos underlying it. Possessed by the one fancy, the man had lost or flungaway all that life might have offered him, while he clung to the apparently worthless mine, not, it seemed, for the dollars that success might bring him, but from pride in his professional skill and the faculties which had long deserted him. That, as he said, was his one point of faith, and he lived only to vindicate it.
Then Allonby lurched unsteadily to the door, and held his hand up as he opened it.
"Listen!" he said. "Is that the mail carrier? I must know when we'll get those drills and the giant powder before I sleep. The sinking goes on slowly, and life is very uncertain when one drinks whisky as I do."
Brooke listened, and, for a time, heard only the splash from the pine boughs and the patter of the rain, while Allonby's frail figure cut against the white mists that slid past the doorway. Then a faint, measured thudding came up the valley, and he remembered afterwards that he felt a curious sense of anticipation. The sound swelled into the beat of horse hoofs floundering and slipping on the wet gravel, and Brooke smiled at his eagerness, for though he had, he fancied, cut himself off from all that concerned his past in England, he had never been quite able to await the approach of a mail carrier with complete indifference, and he felt the suggestiveness of the drumming of the weary horse's feet. There had been a time when he had listenedwith beating heart while it drew nearer down the shadowy trail, and once more a little thrill ran through him.
Then there was a clatter of hoofs on wet rock, and a shout, as a man pulled his jaded beast up in the darkness outside, while a dripping packet was flung into the room. Brooke could see nobody, but a voice said, "That's your lot; I guess I can't stop. Got to make Truscott's before I sleep, and the beast's gone lame."
The rattle of hoofs commenced again, and Brooke sat idly watching Allonby, who was tearing open the packet with shaky fingers.
"The tools and powder are coming up," he said. "Hallo! Excuse my inadvertence, Brooke. This one's apparently for you."
Brooke caught the big blue envelope tossed across to him, and when he had taken out several precisely folded papers and glanced at the sheet of stiff legal writing, sat still, staring vacantly straight in front of him. The uncleanly shanty faded from before his eyes, and he was not even conscious that Allonby, who had laid down his own correspondence, was watching him until the latter broke the silence.
"I know that style of envelope, but it is, presumably, too long since you left England for it to contain any unpleasant reference to a debt," he said. "Has somebody been leaving you a fortune?"
Brooke smiled in a curious, listless fashion. "No,"he said, "not a fortune. Still, I suppose one could almost consider it a competence."
"Then you appear singularly free from the satisfaction one would naturally expect from a man who had just received any news of that description," said Allonby, drily.
Brooke's face grew suddenly grim. "If it had come a little earlier, it might have been of much more use to me."
Allonby had, apparently, sufficient sense left in him to recognize that any further observations he might feel inclined to make were scarcely likely to be appreciated just then, and once more Brooke sat motionless, with the letter in his hand, and the inclosures that had slipped from his fingers strewn about the floor. He had been left with what any one with simple tastes would have considered a moderate competence, at least, in Canada, by the man he had quarrelled with, and he gathered from the lawyer's letter that, if he wished it, there would be no difficulty in at once realizing the property. It naturally amounted to considerably more than the six thousand dollars he had sold his self-respect for, and at the moment he was only sensible of a bitter regret that the news had not come to hand a little earlier.
If that had happened, he would never have made the attempt upon the papers, and might have broken with Saxton without the necessity for any explanation with Devine. He had no doubt that the latterhad acquainted his wife and Barbara, which meant that he would be branded for ever as rather worse than a thief in her eyes. The money which would have saved him, and might have bought him happiness, was he felt, almost useless to him now.
In the meanwhile, Allonby had turned to his own correspondence, and the shanty was very still, save for the patter of the rain outside and the doleful wailing of the pines. Brooke gazed at the letter he held with vacant eyes, but though he scarcely seemed to notice his surroundings, he could long afterwards recall them clearly—the litter of soil-stained garments and mining boots, the crackling stove, the rain that flashed through the stream of light outside the open door, and Allonby's haggard face and wasted figure.
Then it occurred to him that there was a discrepancy between the time when the will was made and that on which the news of it had been sent to him, and as he stooped to pick up the papers from the floor, he came upon a black-edged envelope. He recognized the writing, and, hastily opening it, found it was from an English kinsman.
"You will be sorry to hear that Austin Dangerfield has succumbed at last," he read. "He was, perhaps, a little hard upon you at one time, but Clara and I felt that he was right in his objections to Lucy all along, and no doubt you realized it when she married Shafton Coulson. However that may be, the oldman mentioned you frequently a little before the end, and seemed to feel the fact that he had driven you away, which was, no doubt, what induced him to leave you most of his personal property. Baron and Rodway will have sent you a schedule, and, as one of the executors, I would say that we had some difficulty in finding where to address you until we heard from Coulson that Lucy had met you. There is one point I feel I should refer to. As you will notice, part of the estate is represented by stock in a Canadian mine. Austin, whose mental grip was getting a trifle slack latterly, appears to have been led rather too much by Shafton Coulson in the stock operations he was fond of dabbling in, and I fancy it was by the latter's advice he made the purchase. There is very little demand for the shares on the market here, but you will perhaps be able to form an accurate opinion concerning their value."
Brooke laid down the letter, and took up the lawyers' schedule. Then he laughed curiously as he realized that a considerable proportion of his legacy was represented by shares in the Dayspring Consols. One of the mines, he knew, was liable to be jumped at any moment, and the other was worthless, unless the opinion of his half-crazy companion could be taken seriously. There were one or two more small gashes in the hillside, concerning which the miners he had questioned appeared distinctly dubious.
Allonby turned at the sound. "One would scarcelyhave fancied from that laugh that you were feeling very much more pleased than you were when you hadn't gone into the affair," he said.
"Then it was a tolerably accurate reflection of my state of mind," said Brooke. "This legacy, which came along two or three months after the time when it would have been of vital importance to me, consists in part of shares in this very mine. That is naturally about the last thing I would have desired or expected, and results from one of the curious conjunctions of circumstances which, I suppose, come about now and then. When the thing one has longed for does come along, it is generally at a time when the wish for it has gone."
"Commiseration would be a little unnecessary," said Allonby, with unusual quietness. "The competence you mention will certainly prove a fortune before you are very much older."
"I don't feel by any means as sure of it as you seem to be. Still, under the circumstances, it doesn't greatly matter."
Allonby, with some difficulty, straightened himself. "I am," he said, not without a certain dignity which almost astonished Brooke, "a worn-out wastrel and a whisky-tank, but I'll live to show the men who look down on me with contemptuous pity what I was once capable of. That is all I am holding on to life for. It is naturally not a very pleasant one to a man with a memory."
For a moment he stood almost erect, and then collapsed suddenly into his chair. "Devine has a brain of another and very much lower order, though it is of a kind that is apt to prove more useful to its possessor, and in his own sphere there are very few men to equal him. If I do not fall down the shaft in the meanwhile, we will certainly show this province what we can do together. And now I believe it is advisable for me to go to bed, while I feel to some extent capable of reaching it. My head is at least as clear as usual, but my legs are unruly."
The Pacific express had just come in, and the C. P. R. wharf at Vancouver was thronged with a hurrying crowd when Barbara Heathcote and her sister stood leaning upon the rails of theS. S.Islander. Beneath them the big locomotive which had hauled the dusty cars over the wild Selkirk passes was crawling slowly down the wharf with bell tolling dolefully, and while a feathery steam roared aloft above the tiers of white deckhouses a stream of passengers flowed up the gangway. Barbara, who was crossing to Victoria, watched them languidly until an elaborately-dressed woman ascended, leaning upon the arm of a man whose fastidious neatness of attire and air of indifference to the confusion about him proclaimed him an Englishman. She made a very slight inclination when the woman smiled at her.
"It is fortunate she can't very well get at us here," she said, glancing at the pile of baggage which cut them off from the rest of the deck. "Three or four hours of Mrs. Coulson's conversation would be a good deal more than I could appreciate."
"You need scarcely be afraid of it in the meanwhile," said Mrs. Devine. "It is a trifle difficult to hear one's self speak."
"For which her husband is no doubt thankful. Until I met them once or twice I wondered why that man wore an habitually tired expression. Of course there are Englishmen who consider it becoming, but one feels that in his case his looks are quite in keeping with his sensations."
Mrs. Devine laughed. "You don't like the woman?"
"No," said Barbara, reflectively. "I really don't know why I shouldn't, but I don't. She certainly poses too much, and the last time I had the pleasure of listening to her at the Wheelers' house she patronized me and the country too graciously. The country can get along without her commendation."
"I wonder if she asked you anything about Brooke?"
"No," said Barbara, a trifle sharply. "Where could she have met him?"
"In England. She seemed to know he was at the Dayspring, and managed, I fancy, intentionally, to leave me with the impression that they were especial friends in the Old Country. I wonder if she knows he will be on board to-day?"
"Mr. Brooke is crossing with us?" said Barbara, with an indifference her sister had some doubts about.
"Grant seemed to expect him. He is going to buyAmerican mining machinery or something of the kind in Victoria. I believe it was he Grant left us to meet."
Barbara said nothing, though she was sensible of a curious little thrill. She had not seen Brooke since the evening he had behaved in what was an apparently inexplicable fashion at the ranch, and had heard very little about him. She, however, watched the wharf intently, until she saw Devine accost a man with a bronzed face who was quietly threading his way through the hurrying groups, and her heart beat a trifle faster than usual as they moved together towards the steamer. Then almost unconsciously she turned to see if the woman they had been discussing was also watching for him, but she had by this time disappeared. Barbara, for no very apparent reason, felt a trifle pleased at this.
In the meanwhile Devine was talking rapidly to Brooke.
"Here is a letter for you that came in with yesterday's mail," he said. "Struck anything more encouraging at the mine since you wrote me?"
"No," said Brooke. "I'm afraid we haven't. Still, Allonby seems as sure as ever and is most anxious to get the new plant in."
Devine appeared thoughtful. "You'll have to knock off the big boring machine anyway. The mine's just swallowing dollars, and we'll have to go a trifle slower until some more come in. Englishdirectors didn't seem quite pleased last mail. Somebody in their papers has been slating the Dayspring properties, and there's a good deal of stock they couldn't work off. In fact, they seemed inclined to kick at my last draft, and we'll want two or three more thousand dollars before the month is up."
Brooke would have liked to ask several questions, but between the clanging of the locomotive bell and the roar of steam conversation was difficult, and when they stopped a moment at the foot of the gangway Devine's voice only reached him in broken snatches.
"Got to keep your hand down—spin every dollar out. I'm writing straight about another draft. Use the wires the moment you strike anything that would give the stock a lift."
"If you're going I guess it's 'bout time you got aboard," said a seaman, who stood ready to launch the gangway in; and Brooke, making a sign of comprehension to Devine, went up with a run.
Then the ropes were cast off, and he sat down to open his letter under the deckhouse, as with a sonorous blast of her whistle the big white steamer swung out from the wharf. It was from the English kinsman who had previously written him, and confirmed what Devine had said.
"I'm sorry you are holding so much of the Canadian mining stock," he read. "You are, perhaps,better posted about the mine than I am, but though the shares were largely underwritten, I understand the promoters found it difficult to place a proportion of the rest, and my broker told me that several holders would be quite willing to get out at well under par already."
It was not exactly good news from any point of view, and Brooke was pondering over it somewhat moodily when he heard a voice he recognized, and looking up saw a woman with pale blue eyes smiling at him.
"Lucy!" he said, with evident astonishment, but no great show of pleasure.
"You looked so occupied that I was really afraid to disturb you," said the woman. "Shafton is talking Canadian politics with somebody, and I wonder if you are too busy to find a chair for me."
Brooke got one, and his companion, who was the woman Barbara had alluded to as Mrs. Coulson, sat down, and said nothing for a while as she gazed back across the blue inlet with evident appreciation. This was, in one respect, not astonishing, though so far as Brooke could remember she had never been remarkably fond of scenery, for the new stone city that rose with its towering telegraph poles roof beyond roof up the hillside, gleaming land-locked waterway, and engirdling pines with the white blink of ethereal snow high above them all, made a very fair picture that afternoon.
"This," she said at last, "would really be a beautiful country if everything wasn't quite so crude."
"It is certainly not exactly adapted to landscape-gardening," said Brooke. "A two-thousand foot precipice and a hundred-league forest is a trifle big. Still, I'm not sure its inhabitants would appreciate such praise."
Lucy Coulson laughed. "They are like it in one respect—I don't mean in size—and delightfully touchy on the subject. Now, there was a girl I met not long ago who appeared quite displeased with me when I said that with a little improving one might compare it to Switzerland. I told her I scarcely felt warranted in dragging paradise in, if only because of some of its characteristic customs. I think her name was Devane, or something equally unusual, though it might have been her married sister's. Perhaps it's Canadian."
She fancied a trace of indignation crept into the man's bronzed face, but it vanished swiftly.
"One could scarcely call Miss Heathcote crude," he said.
Lucy Coulson did not inquire whether he was acquainted with the lady in question, but made a mental note of the fact.
"It, of course, depends upon one's standard of comparison," she said. "No doubt she comes up to the one adopted in this country. Still, though thelatter is certainly pretty, what is keeping—you—in it now?"
"Then you have heard of my good fortune?"
"Of course! Shafton and I were delighted. Your executors wrote for your address to me."
Brooke started visibly as he recognized that she must in that case have learned the news a month before he did, for a good deal had happened in the meanwhile.
"Then it is a little curious that you did not mention it in the note you sent inviting me to meet you at the Glacier Lake," he said.
Lucy Coulson lifted her eyes to his a moment, and then glanced aside, while there was a significant softness in her voice as she said, "The news seemed so good that I wanted to be the one who told it you."
Again Brooke felt a disconcerting sense of embarrassment, and because he had no wish that she should recognize this looked at her steadily.
"It apparently became of less importance when I did not come," he said with a trace of dryness. "There is a reliable postal service in this country. Do you remember exactly what day you went to the Lake on?"
Mrs. Coulson laughed, and made a little half-petulant gesture. "I fancied you did not deserve to hear it when you could not contrive to come forty miles to see me. Still, I think I can remember theday. Shafton had to be in Vancouver on the Wednesday——"
She told him in another moment, and Brooke was sensible of a sudden thrill of anger that was for the most part a futile protest against the fact that his destiny should lie at the mercy of a vain woman's idle fancy, for had he known on the day she mentioned he would never have made the attempt upon Devine's papers. Barbara Heathcote, he decided, doubtless knew by this time what had brought him to the ranch on the eventful night, and even if she did not the imposition he had been guilty of then remained as a barrier between him and her. After permitting her to give him credit for courage and a desire to watch over her safety he dare not tell her he had come as a thief. Still, he recognized that it was, after all, illogical to blame his companion for his own folly.
"Harford," she said, gently, "are you very vexed with me?"
Brooke smiled in a somewhat strained fashion. "No," he said, "I scarcely think I am, and I have, at least, no right to be. I don't know whether you will consider it a sufficient excuse, but I was very busy on the day in question. I was, you see, under the unfortunate necessity of earning my living."
"I think there was a time when you would not have let that stand in the way, but men are seldom very constant, are they?"
Brooke made no attempt to controvert the assertion. It seemed distinctly wiser to ignore it, since his companion apparently did not remember that she had now a husband who could hardly be expected to appreciate any unwavering devotion offered her, which was a fact that had its importance in Brooke's eyes, at least. Then she turned towards him with disconcerting suddenness.
"Why don't you go home now you have enough to live, with a little economy, as you were meant to do?" she said. "This country is no place for you."
Brooke, who did not remember that she previously endeavored to lead up to the question, started, for it was one which he had not infrequently asked himself of late, and the answer that the opportunity of proving his capabilities as a dam-builder and mining engineer had its attractions was, he knew, not quite sufficient in itself. Then, as it happened, Barbara Heathcote and Mrs. Devine, who appeared in the companion, came towards them along the deck, and Lucy Coulson noticed the glow in his eyes that was followed by a sudden hardening of his face. Perhaps she guessed a little, or it was done out of wantonness, for she laid her white-gloved hand upon his arm and leaned forward a trifle.
"Harford," she said, looking up at him, "once upon a time you gave me your whole confidence."
Brooke hoped his face was expressionless, for he was most unpleasantly sensible of that almost caressing touch upon his arm, as well as of the fact that his attitude, or, at least, that of his companion, was distinctly liable to misconception by any one aware that she was another man's wife. He had no longer any tenderness for her, and she had in any case married Shafton Coulson, who, so far as he had heard, made her a very patient as well as considerate husband.
"That was several years ago," he said.
Lucy Coulson laughed, and, though it is probable that she had seen them approach, turned with a little start that seemed unnecessarily apparent as Barbara and Mrs. Devine came up, while Brooke hoped his face did not suggest what he was thinking. As a matter of fact, it was distinctly flushed, which Barbara naturally noticed. She would have passed, but that Mrs. Coulson stopped her with a gesture.
"So glad to see you!" she said. "Can't you stay a little and talk to us? One is out of the breeze under the deck-house here. Harford, there are two unoccupied chairs yonder."
Brooke wished she would not persist in addressing him as Harford, but he brought the chairs, and Mrs. Devine, who had her own reasons for falling in with the suggestion, sat down. Barbara had no resource but to take the place beside her, and Lucy Coulson smiled at both of them.
"I believe Mrs. Devine mentioned that you hadmet Mr. Brooke," she said to the girl. "He is, of course, a very old friend of mine."
She contrived to give the words a significance which Brooke winced at, but he sat watching Barbara covertly while the others talked, or rather listened while Lucy Coulson did. Barbara scarcely glanced at him, but he fancied that Devine had not told her yet, or she would not have joined a group which included him at all. The position was not exactly a pleasant one, but he could think of no excuse for going away, and listened vacantly. Lucy Coulson, as it happened, was discoursing upon Canada, which when she did not desire to please a Canadian was a favorite topic of hers. Barbara, however, on this occasion only watched her with a little reposeful smile, and so half an hour slipped by while, with mastheads swinging lazily athwart the blue, the white-painted steamer rolled along, past rocky islets shrouded in dusky pines, across a shining sea above which white lines of snow gleamed ethereally.
Mrs. Coulson, however, had no eyes to spare for any of it, for when they were not fixed upon the girl she was watching Brooke.
"Some of the men we met in the mountains were delightfully inconsequent," she said at length. "There was one called Saxton at a mine, who spent a good deal of one afternoon telling us about the reforms that ought to be made in the administration of this province, and which I fancy he intended to effect. It was,of course, not a subject I was greatly interested in, but the man was so much in earnest that one had to listen to him, and Shafton told me afterwards that he was, where business was concerned, evidently a great rascal. Shafton, you know, enjoys listening quietly and afterwards turning people inside out for inspection. Still, perhaps, it was a little unwise to single the man out individually. There is always a risk of somebody who hears you being a friend of the person when you do that kind of thing—and now I remember he mentioned Mr. Brooke."
Brooke noticed that Barbara cast a swift glance at him, and wondered with sudden anger if Lucy Coulson had not already done him harm enough. Then Barbara turned towards the latter.
"Saxton," she said quietly, "is an utterly unprincipled man. I really do not think we have many like him in this country. You probably mistook his reference to Mr. Brooke."
Mrs. Coulson laughed. "Of course, I may have done, though I almost think he said Harford was a partner of his. Perhaps, however, he had a purpose in telling us that, for he had been trying to sell Shafton some land company's shares, though if it hadn't been true he would scarcely have ventured to mention it."
There was a sudden silence, and Brooke, who felt Barbara's eyes upon him, heard the splash of water along the steamer's plates and the throbbing of thescrew. He also saw that Mrs. Devine was rather more intent than usual, and that Lucy Coulson was wondering at the effect of what she had said. He could, he fancied, acquit her of any ill intent, but that was no great consolation, for he could not controvert her assertion, and he felt that now she had mentioned the condemning fact his one faint chance was to let Barbara have the explanation from his own lips instead of asking it from Devine. Still, he could scarcely do so when the rest were there, and Lucy Coulson, at least, showed no intention of leaving him and the girl alone. It was, in fact, almost an hour later when her husband crossed the deck and she rose.
"Shafton has nobody to talk to, and one has to remember their duty now and then," she said.
Then as the steamer swung round a nest of reefs that rose out of a white swirl of tide the sea breeze swept that side of the deckhouse and Mrs. Devine departed for another wrap or shawl. Lifting her head Barbara looked at the man steadily.
"Was that woman's story true?" she said.
Brooke made a little gesture which implied that he attempted no defence.
"It was," he said.
A faint spark crept into Barbara's eyes, and a tinge of color into her cheek. "You know what you are admitting?"
"I am afraid I do."
Barbara Heathcote had a temper, and though she usually held it in check it swept her away just then.
"Then, though we only discovered it afterwards, you knew that Saxton was scheming against my brother-in-law, and bought up the timber-rights to extort money from him?"
Again Brooke made a little gesture, and the girl, who seemed stirred as he had scarcely believed her capable of being, straightened herself rigidly.
"And yet you crept into his house, and permitted us—it is very hard to say it—to make friends with you! Had you no sense of fitness? Can't you even speak?"
Brooke was too confused, and the girl too furious, for either of them to realize the significance of her anger, since the fact that she had merely permitted him to meet her as an acquaintance at the ranch scarcely seemed to warrant that almost passionate outbreak.
"I'm afraid there is nothing I can plead in extenuation except that Grant Devine's agent swindled me," he said.
Barbara laughed scornfully. "And you felt that would warrant you playing the part you did. Was it a spy's part only, or were you to be a traitor, too?"
Then Brooke, who lost his head, did what was at the moment, at least, a most unwise thing.
"I expect I deserve all you can say or think ofme," he said. "Still, I can't help a fancy that you are not quite free from responsibility."
"I?" said Barbara, incredulously.
Brooke nodded. "Yes," he said, desperately, "you heard me correctly. Under the circumstances it isn't exactly complimentary or particularly easy to explain. Still, you see, you showed me that the content with my surroundings I was sinking into was dangerous when you came to the Quatomac ranch; and afterwards the more I saw of you the more I realized what the six thousand dollars I hoped to secure from Devine would give me a chance of attaining."
He broke off abruptly, as though afraid to venture further, and Barbara watched him a moment, breathless with anger, with lips set. There was nobody on that part of the deck just then, and the steady pounding of the engines broke through what the man felt to be an especially disconcerting silence. Then she laughed in a fashion that stung him like a whip.
"And you fancied there were girls in this country with anything worth offering who would be content with such a man as you are?" she said. "One has, however, to bear with a good deal that is said about Canada, and perhaps you would have been able to keep the deception that gained the appreciation of one of them up. You are proficient at that kind of thing."
"I am quite aware that the excuse is a very poor one."
The girl felt that whether it was dignified or not the relief speech afforded was imperative.
"Haven't you even the wit to urge the one creditable thing you did?"
Brooke contrived to meet her eyes. "You mean when I came into the ranch one night. You don't know that was merely a part of the rest?"
The blood rushed to Barbara's face. "The man was your confederate, and you fell out over the booty—or perhaps you heard me coming and arranged the little scene for my benefit?"
"No," said Brooke, with a harsh laugh. "In that case the climax of it would have been unnecessarily realistic. You may remember that he shot me. Still, since you may as well know the worst of me, it happened that we both came there with the same purpose, which is somewhat naturally accounted for by the fact that your brother-in-law was away that night."
"And you allowed me to sympathize with you for your injury and to fancy——"
Barbara broke off abruptly, for it appeared inadvisable under the circumstances to let him know what motive she had accredited him with.
"My brother-in-law is naturally not aware of this?" she said.
"I, at least, considered it necessary to acquainthim with most of it before I went to the Dayspring. No doubt you will find it difficult to credit that, but if it appears worth while you can of course confirm it. You would evidently have been less tolerant than he has shown himself!"
Barbara stood up, and Brooke became sensible of intense relief as he saw Mrs. Devine was approaching with a bundle of wraps.
"I would sooner have sacrificed the mine than continue to have any dealings with you," she said.
Then she turned away, and left him sitting somewhat limply in his chair and staring vacantly at the sea. He saw no more of her during the rest of the voyage, but when two hours later the steamer reached Victoria he went straight to the cable company's office and sent his kinsman in England a message which somewhat astonished him.
"Buy Dayspring on my account as far as funds will go," it read.
Winter had closed in early, with Arctic severity, and the pines were swathed in white and gleaming with the frost when Brooke stood one morning beside the crackling stove in the shanty he and Allonby occupied at the Dayspring mine. A very small piece of rancid pork was frizzling in the frying-pan, and he was busy whipping up two handfuls of flour with water, to make flapjacks of. He could readily have consumed twice as much alone, for it was twelve hours since his insufficient six o'clock supper, but he realized that it was advisable to curb his appetite. Supplies had run very low, and the lonely passes over which the trail to civilization led were blocked with snow, while it was a matter of uncertainty when the freighter and his packhorse train could force his way in.
When the flour was ready he stirred the stove to a brisker glow, and, crossing the room, flung open the outer door. It was still an hour or two before sunrise, and the big stars scintillated with an intensity of frosty radiance, though the deep indigo ofthe cloudless vault was paling in color, and the pines were growing into definite form. Here and there a sombre spire or ragged branch rose harshly from the rest, but, for the most part, they were smeared with white, and his eyes were dazzled by the endless vista of dimly-gleaming snow. Towering peak and serrated rampart rose hard and sharp against a background of coldest blue. There was no sound, for the glaciers' slushy feet that fed the streams had hardened into adamant, and a deathlike silence pervaded the frozen wilderness.
Brooke felt the cold strike through him with the keenness of steel, and was about to cross the space between the shanty and the men's log shelter, when a dusky figure, beating its arms across its chest, came out of the latter.
"Are the rest of the boys stirring yet?" he said.
The man laughed, and his voice rang with a curious distinctness through the nipping air.
"I guess we've had the stove lit 'most an hour ago," he said. "They've no use for being frozen, and that's what's going to happen to some of us unless we can make Truscott's before it's dark. Say, hadn't you better change your mind, and come along with us?"
Brooke made a little sign of negation, though it would have pleased him to fall in with the suggestion. Work is seldom continued through the winter at the remoter mines, and he had most unwillinglydecided to pay off the men, owing to the difficulty of transporting provisions and supplies. There was, however, a faint probability of somebody attempting to jump the unoccupied claim, and he had of late become infected by Allonby's impatience, while he felt that he could not sit idle in the cities until the thaw came round again. Still, he was quite aware that he ran no slight risk by remaining.
"I'm not sure that it wouldn't be wiser, but I've got to stay," he said. "Anyway, Allonby wouldn't come."
The other man dropped his voice a little. "That don't count. If you'll stand in, we'll take him along on the jumper sled. The old tank's 'most played out, and it's only the whisky that's keeping the life in him. He'll go out on the long trail sudden when there's no more of it, and it's going to be quite a long while before the freighter gets a load over the big divide."
Brooke knew that this was very likely, but he shook his head. "I'm half afraid it would kill him to leave the mine," he said. "It's the hope of striking silver that's holding him together as much as the whisky."
"Well," said the man, who laughed softly, "I've been mining and prospecting most of twenty years, and it's my opinion that, except the little you're getting on the upper level, there's not a dollar's worth of silver here. Now I guess Harry will have breakfast ready."
He moved away, and when Brooke went back into the shanty, Allonby came out of an inner room shivering. His face showed grey in the lamplight, and he looked unusually haggard and frail.
"It's bitter cold, and I seem to feel it more than I did last year," he said. "We will, however, be beyond the necessity of putting up with any more unpleasantness of the kind long before another one is over. I shall probably feel adrift then—it will be difficult, in my case, to pick up the thread of the old life again."
"If you stay here, I'm not sure you'll have an opportunity of doing it at all," said Brooke. "It's a risk a stronger man than you are might shrink from."
"Still, I intend to take it. We have gone into this before. If I leave Dayspring before I find the silver, I leave it dead."
Brooke made a little gesture of resignation. "Well," he said, "I have done all I could, and now, if you will pour that flour into the pan, we'll have breakfast."
Both men were silent during the frugal meal, for they knew what they had to look forward to, and the cold silence of the lonely land already weighed upon their spirits. Long weeks of solitude must be dragged through before the men who were going south that morning came back again, while there might very well be interludes of scarcity, and hunger is singularly hard to bear with the temperature at forty degrees below. Allonby only trifled with his food, and smiled drily when at last he thrust his plate aside.
"Dollars are not to be picked up easily anywhere, and you and I are going to find out the full value of them before the thaw begins again," he said. "We shall, no doubt, also discover how thoroughly nauseated one can become with his companion's company. I have heard of men wintering in the mountains who tried to kill one another."
Brooke laughed. "It's scarcely likely we will go quite as far as that, though I certainly remember two men in the Quatomac Valley who flung everything in the range at each other periodically. One was inordinately fond of green stuff, and his partner usually started the circus by telling him to take his clothes off, and go out like Nebuchadnezzar. They refitted with wood-pulp ware when the proceedings became expensive."
Just then there was a knock upon the door, which swung open, and a cluster of shadowy figures, with their breath floating like steam about them, appeared outside it. One of them flung a deerhide bag into the room.
"We figured we needn't trail quite so much grub along, and I guess you'll want it," a voice said. "Neither of you changed your minds 'bout lighting out of this?"
"I don't like to take it from you, boys," said Brooke, who recognized the rough kindliness which had prompted the men to strip themselves of the greater portion of their provisions. "You can't have more than enough for one day's march left."
"I guess a man never hits the trail so hard as when he knows he has to," somebody said. "It will keep us on the rustle till we fetch Truscott's. Well, you're not coming?"
For just a moment Brooke felt his resolution wavering, and, under different circumstances, he might have taken Allonby by force, and gone with them, but by a somewhat involved train of reasoning he felt that it was incumbent upon him to stay on at the mine because Barbara Heathcote had once trusted him. It had been tolerably evident from her attitude when he had last seen her, that she had very little confidence in him now, but that did not seem to affect the question, and most men are a trifle illogical at times.
"No," he said, with somewhat forced indifference. "Still, I don't mind admitting that I wish we were."
The man laughed. "Then I guess we'll pull out. We'll think of you two now and then when we're lying round beside the stove in Vancouver."
Brooke said nothing further. There was a tramp of feet, and the shadowy figures melted into the dimness beneath the pines. Then the last footfall died away, and the silence of the mountains suddenlyseemed to grow overwhelming. Brooke turned to Allonby, who smiled.
"You will," he said, "feel it considerably worse before the next three months are over, and probably be willing to admit that there is some excuse for my shortcomings in one direction. I have, I may mention, put in a good many winters here."
Brooke swung round abruptly. "I'm going to work in the mine. It's fortunate that one man can just manage that new boring machine."
He left Allonby in the shanty, and toiled throughout that day, and several dreary weeks, during most of which the pines roared beneath the icy gales and blinding snow swirled down the valley. What he did was of very slight effect, but it kept him from thinking, which, he felt, was a necessity, and he only desisted at length from physical incapacity for further labor. The snow, it was evident, had choked the passes, so that no laden beast could make the hazardous journey over them, for the anxiously-expected freighter did not arrive, and there was an increasing scarcity of provisions as the days dragged by; while Brooke discovered that a handful of mouldy floor and a few inches of rancid pork daily is not sufficient to keep a man's full strength in him. Then, when an Arctic frost followed the snow, Allonby fell sick, and one bitter evening, when an icy wind came wailing down the valley, it dawned upon his comrade that his condition was becoming precarious. Sayingnothing, he busied himself about the stove, and smiled reassuringly when Allonby turned to him.
"Are we to hold a festival to-night, since you seem to be cooking what should keep us for a week?" said the latter.
"I almost fancy it would keep one of us for several days, which, since you do not seem especially capable of getting anything ready for yourself, is what it is intended to do," said Brooke. "I shall probably be that time in making the settlement and getting back again."
"What are you going there for?"
"To bring out the doctor."
Allonby raised his head and looked at him curiously. "Are you sure that, with six or eight feet of snow on the divide, you could ever get there?"
"Well," said Brooke, cheerfully, "I believe I could, and, if I don't, you will be very little worse off than you were before. You see, the provisions will not last two of us more than a few days longer, and you can take it that I will do all I can to get through the snow. Since you are not the only man who is anxious to find the silver, your health is a matter of importance to everybody just now."
Allonby smiled curiously. "We will consider that the reason, and it is a tolerably good one, or I would not let you go. Still, I fancy you have another, and it is appreciated. There is, however, something more to be said. You will find my working plans inthe case yonder should anything unexpected happen before you come back. Life, you know, is always a trifle uncertain."
"That," said Brooke, decisively, "is morbid nonsense. You will be down the mine again in a week after the doctor comes."
"Well," said Allonby, with a curious quietness, "I should, at least, very much like to find the silver."
Brooke changed the subject somewhat abruptly, and it was an hour later when he shook hands with his comrade and went out into the bitter night with two blankets strapped upon his shoulders. Their parting was not demonstrative, though they realized that the grim spectre with the scythe would stalk close behind each of them until they met again, and Brooke, turning on the threshold, saw Allonby following him with comprehending eyes. Then he suddenly pulled the door to, shutting out the lamplight and the alluring red glow of the stove, and swung forward, knee-deep in dusty snow, into the gloom of the pines. The silence of the great white land was overwhelming, and the frost struck through him.
It was late on the third night when he floundered into a little sleeping settlement, and leaned gasping against the door of the doctor's house before he endeavored to rouse its occupant. The latter stared at him almost aghast when he opened it, lamp in hand, and Brooke reeled, grey in the face withweariness and sheeted white with frozen snow, into the light.
"Steady!" he said, slipping his arm through Brooke's. "Come in here. Now, keep back from the stove. I'll get you something that will fix you up in a minute. You came in from the Dayspring—over the divide? I heard the freighter telling the boys it couldn't be done."
Brooke laughed harshly. "Well," he said, "you see me here, and, if that's not sufficient, you're going to prove the range can be crossed yourself to-morrow."
The doctor was new to that country, and he was very young, or he would, in all probability, not been there at all, but when he heard Brooke's story he nodded tranquilly. "I'm afraid I haven't done any mountaineering, but I had the long-distance snowshoe craze rather bad back in Montreal," he said. "You're not going to give me very much of a lead over the passes, anyway, unless you sleep the next twelve hours."
Brooke, as it happened, slept for six and then set out with the young doctor in blinding snow. He had forty to fifty pounds upon his back now, and once they left the sheltering timber it cost them four strenuous hours to make a thousand feet. Part of that night they lay awake, shivering in the pungent fir smoke in a hollow of the rocks, and started again,aching in every limb, long before the lingering dawn, while the next day passed like a very unpleasant dream with the young doctor. The snow had ceased, and lay without cohesion, dusty and dry as flour, waist-deep where the bitter winds had whirled it in wreaths, while the glare of the white peaks became intolerable under the cloudless sun.