Leger was paler than usual, as well as breathless and very dusty, when he flung himself down in a dilapidated arm-chair in Ingleby's room. The window was open, for it was very hot, and Ingleby, who stood near it, appeared to be listening intently to the patter of feet that came up from the narrow street, until he moved forward and laid his hand upon the sash. Then Leger laughed hollowly.
"I don't think that's necessary, and I wish you would leave it as it is just now," he said. "Considering that you live on the fourth story they're scarcely likely to come in that way."
"I did it without thinking," said Ingleby, who turned to him a trifle flushed in face. "You're looking faint. I can get you some water—fortunately it's cheap."
"I'll be all right in a minute or two," and Leger made a little deprecatory gesture. "I'm not sure I ever made four miles quite so fast before, and the blow I got from that fellow's dog-whip, the handle end, must have shaken me. Never mind the water."
Ingleby sat down, a trifle limply, and, unconscious of the fact that his own clothes were badly torn, gazed at his companion. Leger's dusty disarray heightened the effect of his pallor, and his hair, dank with perspiration, lay smeared upon his forehead, while there was a big discoloured bruise upon one cheek. They had come home across the meadow and through the woodland instead of by the road, andneither of them remembered how many hedges and thickets they had scrambled through, since the one thing apparent was the advisability of escaping attention.
"We made an excellent pace," Ingleby said. "I scarcely think that the others can have got here yet. They hadn't the same necessity for haste. Still, I'm almost afraid it was wasted energy. You see, the police wouldn't be very long in tracing us."
"I don't suppose so. That big military-looking fellow meant to make sure of me. No doubt he'll send a groom over with our description. He seemed to recognize you, too."
Ingleby rose abruptly and leaned against the mantel with his lips firmly set. It was several moments before he spoke again.
"I think he did," he said. "In fact, I'd have done almost anything sooner than have had this happen; though that doesn't matter now. There's a more important question—and it has to be faced."
They looked at each other in silence for a second or two, and both their faces were very grim with the shadow of fear in them. They were young, and shrank from the contemplation of what it seemed had been done. The thing was horrible in itself, quite apart from the consequences, which promised to be disastrous.
"You mean," said Leger very quietly, "is he dead?"
Ingleby made a little gesture, and once more for almost a minute the heavy silence was intensified by the ticking of his watch and the sounds in the street below. Both of them listened intently, almost expecting to hear the tramp of heavy feet upon the stairway.
"Heaven forbid!" said Ingleby, a trifle hoarsely. "Still, he looked horribly like it. There's just one thing of which I should like to be quite certain."
"Of course!" and Leger met his comrade's gaze. "Suppose I told you I did it, would it separate us?"
"No," said Ingleby. "You know that. It might have been I; and, anyway, we were both in the thing."
"Then, as you supposed, the military man was mistaken. I had nothing in my hands, and never even reached him."
Ingleby, in spite of his protestations, drew a deep breath of relief, but Leger, who appeared to be recovering now, smiled.
"Well," he said, "you're satisfied, but it doesn't in the least affect the position. You see, the military gentleman appeared certain he saw me strike the blow, and I scarcely think my word would go very far against his with the usual kind of jury."
"You know who did it?"
Leger smiled curiously. "I do, but you ought to understand that the fact isn't of much use to me."
"You mean?"
"I could plead not guilty, but I couldn't point out the man responsible. You see, I induced him to join the Society, and gave him the American's pamphlets—I believe the more virulent ones. They seemed to make a strong impression on him. One can't well back out of his responsibility—especially when the adversary is always ready to make the most of the opportunity. Besides, the man has a family."
Ingleby clenched one hand. "And you have Hetty."
"Yes," said Leger with an impressive quietness. "And Hetty has only me. Still, one must do what he feels he has to."
"But you can't leave Hetty—and what would happen to her if you were——"
"If I were in jail?" and Leger's face went awry. "She would be turned out of her berth to a certainty. It didn't quite strike me until you put the thing before me. There's the lad's mother too. A little horrible, isn't it? How long does one usually get for manslaughter?"
Again there was silence save for Ingleby's groan. Democratic aspirations were very well as subjects for discussion, but now that he was brought face to face with the results of attempting to realize them, they appalled him. He did not remember that usually very little worth the having can be obtained without somebody's getting hurt; and it would have afforded him no great consolation if he had remembered, since, for the time being, he had had quite enough of theories. Then he made a little abrupt gesture.
"Tom," he said, "what dolts we are! The thing is perfectly simple. You have only to come out with me, and the fact that you've made a bolt of it will be quite enough to divert suspicion from the other man."
"There is a difficulty. Steamboat fares cost money, and I'm not sure Hetty and I have five pounds in the treasury."
Ingleby laughed almost light-heartedly. "I think I have enough to take us all out at the cheapest rates, and you must let me lend it to you, if only to prove that what you believe in isn't an impracticable fancy."
Leger slowly straightened himself. "I don't want to be ungracious—but it's a difficult thing to do. The money's yours—and you'd have nothing left."
Ingleby laid a hand on his shoulder, and gripped it hard. "Are you willing to see your sister cast adrift to save your confounded pride? The fact that she has a relative undergoing penal servitude isn't much of a recommendation to a girl who has to earn her bread. Besides, like a good many of us, you're not logical. You thought you had a claim on Esmond's property."
There was a light step on the stairway, and he stopped suddenly. "There's Hetty," he said. "We'll leave it to her."
The door swung open, and the girl came in gasping, with horror in her eyes.
"Oh," she said, "its awful! They've come in with the wagonettes, and Harry told me. How did it happen?"
"Sit down," said Ingleby gently. "Tom will explain."
Leger did so concisely, and Hetty clenched the chair-arm hard as she listened to him. Still, young as she was, she held herself in hand, and sat very still, with the colour ebbing from her face.
"What shall we do?" she said.
"Ingleby has asked us to go out to Canada with him. He offers to lend us the money."
The girl's face flushed suddenly, and she glanced at Ingleby, who appeared embarrassed.
"How much will you have left if you do that?" she asked.
"I don't know yet. Anyway, it doesn't matter. If you make any silly objections, Hetty, Tom will go to jail."
The girl turned to her brother, with the crimson still in her cheek and her lips quivering, and it suddenly struck Ingleby that she was really remarkably pretty, though that appeared of no great moment just then.
"That would happen, Tom?" she said.
"Yes," said Leger quietly; "I believe it would."
Hetty turned again, and looked at Ingleby with a curious intentness. "You are quite sure you want us?"
Ingleby, moved by an impulse he did not understand, caught and held fast one of her hands. "Hetty," he said, "aren't we old friends? There is nobody I would sooner take with me, but we shall certainly quarrel if you ask me a question of that kind again."
The girl's expression perplexed him, and with a sudden movement she drew her hand away. "Well," she said, "we will come. I would stay—only I know Tom would not go without me; but whatever happens we will pay you back the money."
"I don't think you want to be unpleasant, Hetty," said Ingleby. "Anyway, you have only about an hour in which to get ready, because if we're not off by the next train it's quite likely that we shall not have the opportunity for going at all. Get what you want together, and meet us behind the booking office on the main line platform. Tom and I will take the back way to the station."
Hetty turned and went out without a word, and Leger looked at his companion.
"I don't think she meant to hurt you, but what she did mean exactly is a good deal more than I understand," he said.
Ingleby made a little impatient gesture. "I don't suppose it matters. Girls seem to have curious fancies. In the meanwhile it might be as well if we made a start. I'll lend you a decent jacket, and, as you had a cap on, it would be advisable to take my straw hat. To carry out the same notion I'll slip on my one dark suit. They usually make a point of mentioning one's clothes."
They were ready in about ten minutes, but when they had descended the long stairway Ingleby stopped in the dingy hall, and stood still a moment irresolute.
"If it wasn't for the harpy downstairs we might get clear away before anybody was aware that we had gone," he said. "I can't leave her what I owe her either, for one never does seem to have change when he wants it. How much have you got on you?"
"A handful of copper," said Leger, with a little grim smile.
Ingleby appeared to reflect. "I could send her the few shillings from wherever we stop."
"The Post Office people obligingly stamp every envelope with the name of the place it comes from. I don't think we want to leave a trail behind us."
Ingleby stood still a moment longer with a flush in his face. "Nothing would stop that woman's talking—not even a gag. It's horribly unfortunate."
"It usually is," and Leger looked at him with a curious little smile. "The worst of having a propaganda is that the people who haven't any get indignant when one doesn'tlive up to it. They naturally lay part of the blame on the fallacies he believes in."
Ingleby swung round. "I'd sooner face a battery—but I'm going down."
He disappeared down the basement steps, and in another minute a harsh voice apparently vituperating him rose up, and when he rejoined his comrade his face was redder than ever.
"Now," he said, "we'll go; the sooner the better. Everybody in the neighbourhood will know what she thinks of me inside of ten minutes."
They slipped out into the street, and Ingleby stopped a moment at the end of it and looked back with a curious expression in his face. The sunlight that lay bright upon one side of it emphasized its unattractiveness. Tall houses, grim in their squalid ugliness, shut it in, and the hot air that scarcely stirred between them was heavy with the sour odours from a neighbouring tanyard. A hoarse clamour and a woman's voice, high-pitched and shrill with fear or anger, came out of a shadowy alley where unkempt children played in the gutter. The uproar did not concern them. They were apparently used to it.
"I've lived five years in the midst of—this—and now I'm almost sorry to leave it," he said. "There's no reason in us."
Then he turned again with a little resolute shake of his shoulders. "Well, we have done with it at last, and if half what one hears is true there is a chance for such as us in the country we are going to."
Leger said nothing, and it was silently they threaded their way deviously in and out of alleys and archways towards the station. Their life had been a hard one in that squalid town, but the place had, after all, been home, and they could not tell what awaited them in the unknown. They had in them the steadfastness which is born of struggle, but the unthinking courage of youth that has felt no care is quite a different thing.
However, nobody appeared desirous of preventing their departure, and they eventually got away by a steamer for which they had to wait several days in Liverpool.
In the meanwhile Geoffrey Esmond lay one evening propped up amidst the pillows in a darkened room at Holtcar Grange. He was blanched in face, and his eyes were heavy, while a big wet bandage was still rolled about his head. Major Coulthurst was by his bedside, and a burly sergeant of police sat on the very edge of a sofa with a notebook in his hand. The window was open behind the blind, and a little cool air that brought the fragrance of flowers with it crept into the room.
"Major Coulthurst fancied he could recognize the man who assaulted you, Mr. Esmond, and I have no doubt we will lay hands on him in a day or two," said the officer. "If you could identify him, too, it would make the thing more certain, and I would like to read you the description furnished me before we go any farther."
"If that is the usual course I don't see why I should object," said Esmond drily. "Still, isn't it a trifle suggestive?"
The sergeant did not appear to notice the irony of the inquiry, and launched out into what was, in the circumstances, a tolerably accurate description of Leger. Esmond listened quietly, with a little smile in his half-closed eyes.
"Major Coulthurst," he said, "is evidently astonishingly quick-sighted if he saw all that."
"I'm not sure I understand you, Esmond," and Coulthurst looked up sharply.
"Well," said the younger man reflectively, "I always fancied you were a sportsman, and we had our fun. Of course, while it lasted I would cheerfully have broken the Socialist fellow's head if I could have managed it, but just now the odds seem a trifle heavy against him."
Coulthurst laughed a little, but the sergeant shook his head. "That's not at all the way to look at it, sir," he said. "In a case of this kind one has, if I may point it out, a duty to society."
"And the police?" said Esmond, who made a little gesture. "I really do not think I should ask the opinion of the latter as to what is incumbent on me. Still, that is scarcely the point. You want me to identify the man—and I can't do it."
"You must have seen him close to, sir."
Esmond laughed. "Have you ever had incipient concussion of the brain? You probably haven't. I believe they line your headgear with cork or cane. Well, in one respect, it's a little unfortunate, since it would have helped you to understand my position. Now, the major says the man's hair was light brown, but so far as I can remember it was red. Are you quite sure it wasn't, Coulthurst?"
Coulthurst appeared reflective. "He certainly had his hat on."
"A cap, sir," said the sergeant.
Esmond glanced at the major reproachfully. "You will notice, sergeant, how reliable he is."
"The fact mentioned wouldn't prevent your seeing what kind of man he was," said the sergeant, tartly. "He is described as little and pale, and of a delicate appearance."
"Then if the blow on my head is anything to go by, I really think my friend was mistaken," said Esmond. "It's my firm opinion the man was distinctly muscular."
The sergeant stood up, and closed his book. "The affair is a serious one, and we naturally look to a gentleman of your position for——"
Esmond stopped him with a gesture and a little languid smile, under which, however, the burly sergeant flushed.
"As I fancy I mentioned, there are matters in which it is hardly the province of the police to instruct me," he said. "I'm sorry I can't do anything more for you to-day, sergeant, but if you were to come round when my head has settled down a little I might be able to recollect the fellow's appearance rather more distinctly."
"If we are to lay hands on him we must have a warrant at once."
"Then if it depends on me I'm very much afraid you will not get it—and now, as the doctor insists on quietness, you will excuse me. Can you reach the bell, Major?"
The sergeant went out fuming inwardly, and Coulthurst laughed. "I'm not quite sure that I should have let the fellow off," he said. "What made you do it?"
"I really don't know, and scarcely think it matters," said Esmond languidly. "Still, you see, I fancy we went a little farther than the law would sanction, and that being so one could scarcely expect the other fellow to pay for everything. Now, if I might remind you, Miss Coulthurst was kind enough to promise to come in and talk to me."
It was a still evening, and Major Coulthurst and Mrs. Esmond paced slowly side by side up and down the terrace at Holtcar Grange. The house looked westward, and the last of the sunshine rested lovingly upon its weathered front, where steep tiled roof and flaking stone that had silvery veins in it were mellowed to pale warm tints by age. Beyond it, orchid house, fernery, and vinery flashed amidst the trees; while the great cool lawn, shaven to the likeness of emerald velvet, glowing borders, and even the immaculate gravel that crunched beneath the major's feet conveyed the same suggestion to him. It was evident that there was no need of economy at Holtcar Grange, and Coulthurst, who had faced the world long enough to recognize the disadvantages of an empty purse, sighed as he remembered the last budget the post had brought him.
He had served his nation sturdily, according to his lights, which, however, were not especially brilliant, wherever work was hardest and worst paid; while now, when it was almost time to rest, he was going out again to the wilderness on the farthest confines of a new country, where even those who serve the Government live primitively. He longed to stay in England and take his ease, but funds were even lower than they usually were with him. Still, he shrank from exposing his daughter to the discomforts he was at last commencing to find it hard to bear, and she had but to speak a word and remain, with all that any young woman could reasonably look for, the mistress of Holtcar Grange.Though he roused himself with an effort he felt that his conversation was even less brilliant than usual and that his companion noticed it. It was certain that she smiled when she surprised him glancing somewhat anxiously across the lawn.
"You have quite decided on going out?" she asked.
"I have," said Coulthurst simply. "In ten days from to-day. The commission's in my pocket—I was uncommonly glad to get it."
"Still," said Mrs. Esmond, "the pay cannot be very high, and it must be a wild country."
"It is quite sufficient for a lonely man, and now Grace—"
He stopped abruptly, a trifle flushed in face, and his companion smiled at him.
"Yes," she said, "I understand, and if it happens as we both wish I shall be content. Geoffrey has been a good son, but I could not expect to keep him always to myself—and I would rather it should be Grace than any one else."
"Thank you!" said Coulthurst simply. "Whether I have done right in allowing her to come here I do not know. In any case, I never suspected what might happen until a month ago. Then I was a trifle astonished, but the mischief was done."
Mrs. Esmond laughed, "You might have expressed it more happily, though it is perhaps only natural that there was a day or two when I would not have found fault with you."
Coulthurst said nothing further, but his thoughts were busy. He knew better than most men what life in the newer lands is, and he had no desire that Grace should share it with him. What she thought of Esmond he did not know; but the latter had told him what he thought of her, and his mother was, it seemed, content with the choice he had made. A good deal depended on the girl's fancy.
They had turned again when she came towards themacross the lawn as though she did not see them, until, hearing their footsteps, she stopped abruptly. Nobody spoke for a moment or two, but she felt their eyes upon her, and the crimson grew deeper in her cheek as she turned to the elder lady.
"I see you know," she said, with a little tremor in her voice. "You will forgive me if he feels hurt over it—but I felt I could not. Geoffrey, of course, is——"
The major groaned inwardly when she stopped, and there was a sudden slight but perceptible change in his companion. Her face lost its usual gentleness, and became for a moment not hard or vindictive, but impressively grave.
"I am glad—because he is my only son—that you had the courage to do the right thing—now," she said.
Grace flashed a swift glance at her, and the colour showed a trifle more plainly in her face, but, saying nothing, she hastily turned away. Coulthurst stood stiffly still, evidently perplexed at something in the attitude of both, until Mrs. Esmond looked at him.
"I am disappointed," she said.
Coulthurst raised his hand in protest. "It is very good of you to say so, but, while she is my daughter and I am naturally a trifle proud of her, the advantages would in one sense have been so much in her favour——"
"I don't think you apprehend me. These affairs seldom fall out as one would wish them, which is, perhaps, now and then fortunate for all concerned. It is Grace I am disappointed with."
Coulthurst smiled somewhat grimly. "I'm by no means sure that I do understand, but one thing, at least, is plain: she has made her own choice and must abide by it."
It was ten minutes later, and Mrs. Esmond had left him, when he came upon Grace sitting where a shrubbery swept round a bend of the lawn. She looked at him deprecatingly.
"I am very sorry—but it was out of the question—quite," she said.
Coulthurst made a little gesture of resignation, for if he seldom foresaw a difficulty where others would have done so, he, at least, made no futile protest when it had to be faced.
"I suppose," he said, "you realize what you have turned your back upon to-day?"
"Still, I felt I had to do so."
Coulthurst checked a groan. "Then, since you presumably know your own mind, there is nothing more to be said. You will be ready to come out to the Northwest with me?"
Grace rose, and slipped her hand through his arm. "Father," she said, "I'm sorry—dreadfully sorry. I must be a horrid responsibility."
Coulthurst smiled, somewhat ruefully. "So am I! No doubt we will worry along as we have already done; but it is a very hard country we are going to."
It was scarcely a sufficient expression of what he felt, but Coulthurst had his strong points, and his daughter knew it was very unlikely he would ever allude to the subject again. There were, however, as usual, guests at Holtcar Grange just then, and they had formed a tolerably correct opinion as to what was happening. It was also natural that they should discuss it, and on that evening two matrons and the lady who had taken Grace's part on a previous occasion expressed their views concerning the conduct of the latter.
"The girl led him on shamefully," said one of them. "That was evident to everybody, and one would have fancied the reason was equally so—though, of course, we know now it wasn't the right one."
Grace's advocate appeared reflective, and, as it happened, her opinion was usually listened to. "I have watched the girl, and she is interesting as a study," she said. "I am, of course, not infallible, but it seems to me from what Ihave heard of the major that she has inherited his disregard of consequences. Coulthurst, one would conclude, is not a man who ever saved himself or others trouble by anticipating anything."
One of her companions signified concurrence. "And the fact that the opportunity for a flirtation with the most eligible man in the vicinity appealed to her natural arrogance accounts for the rest?"
"Not exactly, though you are in a measure right. I should rather call it love of influence, for, though I'm not sure Grace Coulthurst realizes it, one could fancy that the opportunity for dominating a man of position, or more especially character, would prove almost irresistible to her. Still, one must discriminate between that and the not unusual fondness for love-making."
"The distinction is a little difficult. It seems to lead to much the same thing."
The previous speaker, who was a woman of discernment, shook her head. "There is a difference," she said. "The girl has, I think, a personality—by which I do not altogether mean physical attributes—that is apt to appeal to a man of character, though I almost fancy she will sooner or later be sorry she was ever endued with it. There is a good deal that is admirable in Grace Coulthurst, but unfortunately, in one respect, perhaps, not—quite—enough."
It was not evident that the rest altogether understood her, but Mrs. Esmond appeared just then, and the subject was changed abruptly.
In the meanwhile there were at least three people who would have found no fault with Major Coulthurst's description of Western Canada. Having discovered somewhat to their astonishment that the population of Quebec and Montreal was already quite sufficient, and that strangers without means were not greatly desired in either city, these three had, in accordance with Ingleby's previous purpose, started West again, and on the fifth day sat spiritlessly ina Colonist car as, with whistle screaming, the long train rolled into sight of a little desolate station on the Albertan prairie.
All the way from Winnipeg a dingy greyness had shrouded the apparently interminable levels, which lay parched and white beneath an almost intolerable heat, while the lurching cars swung through a rolling cloud of dust that blurred the dreary prospect. Now, as they were slowing down, grimy faces were thrust from the windows and perspiring men leaned out from the platforms, gazing down the track and inquiring with expletives why they were stopping again.
Hetty Leger, however, sat languidly still, where the hot draught that blew in through an open window scattered the dust upon her. Her face was damp, and unpleasantly gritty, for the water in the tank had long run out. Her head ached, as did every bone in her body, for Colonist cars are not fitted as the Pullmans are, and she had with indifferent success for four nights essayed to sleep on a maple shelf which pulled out from the roof above when one wanted it. She had certainly hired a mattress, but its inch or two of thickness had scarcely disguised the hardness of the polished wood beneath it; and although the cost of it and the little green curtain had made a serious inroad on the few dollars left in her scanty purse they had not solved the problem of dressing; while the atmosphere of a close-packed Colonist car when the big lamps are lighted in hot weather is a thing to shudder at. It is also, in view of the fact that most of the passengers dispense with curtains, somewhat embarrassing to rise in the morning and wait amidst a group of half-dressed men and women for a place in the cupboard at the rear of the car where ablutions may at least be attempted when there is any water in the tank.
Presently, however, a big bell commenced to toll, and the jolting of the air-brakes flung her forward in her seat, while in another few moments the long cars stopped, and theconductor pushed his way through the perspiring passengers who surged towards the vestibule.
"They've had a big washout up the track," he said. "You can light out and admire the scenery for two hours, anyway, if you feel like it."
Hetty looked round, but could see nothing of her brother or Ingleby. She had seen very little to admire at other prairie stations; but anything seemed better than the close heat of the car, and when the vestibule was clear at last she went out languidly and stepped down upon the track.
Beside it rose two desolate frame houses, a crude structure of galvanized iron, and a towering water tank, but that was all, and beyond them the gleaming rails ran straight to the rim of the empty wilderness. Nothing moved on its interminable levels; the dingy sky seemed suffused with heat, and along the track a smell that was stronger than the reek of creosote rose from the baked and fissured earth. The withered grass was of the same tint as the earth save where the clay on the bank of acouléeshowed a harsh red, and the vast stretch of dusty prairie seemed steeped in the one dreary grey. This, she reflected with a sinking heart, was the land of promise to which she had journeyed five thousand miles to find a home; but, though the track was suggestively littered with empty provision cans, there was as yet very little sign of the milk and honey.
Hetty was usually sympathetic, but the sight of the frowsy passengers and unwashed children wandering aimlessly round the station aroused in her a curious impatience that was tinged with disgust that hot afternoon. She wanted to be alone, and noticing an ugly trestle bridge a mile or so ahead followed the rails until she came to it. A river swirled beneath it; but it, too, was utterly devoid of beauty, for the banks of it were crumbling sun-baked clay, and it swept by a dingy, slatey green, thick with the mud brought down by the Rockies' glaciers. However, it looked cool, and she climbed down until she found a place she couldstand on, and laved her arms and face in it. Then, as it happened, a piece of the crumbling clay broke away, and one foot slipped in above the ankle, while the skirt of her thin dress trailed in the water too. It was a trifling mishap, but Hetty was overwrought, and when she had climbed back and taken off and emptied the little shoe she sat down on the dusty grass and sobbed bitterly. She felt insignificant and lonely in that great empty land, and its desolation crushed her spirits.
She did not know how long she sat there, but at last there were footsteps behind her, and she coloured a little and strove to draw the shoeless foot beneath the hem of the dripping skirt when she saw Ingleby smiling down upon her. Then she remembered that the sleeves of the thin blouse were still rolled back, and the crimson grew plainer in her wet cheeks as with a little adroit movement she shook them down. Ingleby smiled again, in a complacent, brotherly fashion which she found strangely exasperating just then, and sitting down beside her took one of her hot hands.
"Crying, Hetty? That will never do," he said.
Hetty glanced at him covertly. His face was compassionate, but there was rather toleration than concern in it, and she pulled her hand away from him.
"I wasn't—at least, not exactly," she said. "And if I was, it was the weather—and why don't you go away?"
Ingleby smiled again, in a manner which while kind enough had yet a lack of comprehension in it that made her still angrier.
"People don't generally cry about the weather," he said.
"Well," said the girl sharply, "some of them say things they shouldn't. I heard you—in a crowded car, too."
She stopped abruptly, as she remembered the scanty privacy of the Colonist train, and that she was supposed to have been asleep about the time Ingleby had allowed his temper to get the better of him. He, however, only laughed.
"Hetty," he said, "what is the matter? I always thought you brave, and I have almost a right to know."
"I think you have," and there was a little flash in Hetty's eyes. "It was you who brought us here, and this is a horrible country. It frightens me."
Ingleby was a trifle perplexed, and showed it. He had known Hetty Leger for four or five years, and had never seen her in a mood of the kind before. It also occurred to him, as it did every now and then, that, although she was not to be compared with Miss Coulthurst, Hetty was in her own way beautiful. Just then a pretty plump arm showed beneath the unfastened sleeve of the thin blouse, and the somewhat dusty hair with the tint of pale gold in it, lying low on the white forehead, matched the soft blue eyes, though there was a hint of more character than is usually associated with her type in Hetty's white and pink face. Ingleby noticed all this with impersonal appreciation, as something which did not greatly concern him.
"Well," he said, "I'm sorry, and by no means sure I'm very much pleased with the country myself; but I don't quite see what else I could have done in the circumstances. Still, it hurts me to see you unhappy."
Hetty turned to him impulsively. "Never mind me. I'm an ungrateful little—beast. That's the fact, and you needn't try to say anything nice—I know I am. If it hadn't been for you Tom would have been in prison now."
Ingleby looked out across the endless dusty levels. "I'm sure the country must be a good deal better than it looks—when one gets used to it," he said a trifle dubiously. "Anyway, we are three to one against it, and needn't be afraid of it while we stick together. That is the one thing we must make up our minds to do."
"There was a time when you didn't seem very sure you wanted Tom and me."
"Didn't you feel that I was right a little while ago?"
Hetty said nothing for a space. She was quick-witted,and not infrequently understood her companion rather better than he understood himself, while recollecting the half-shy delicacy which occasionally characterized him she felt a trifle comforted. It was not, she fancied, to please himself that he had been willing to leave her behind, and she watched him covertly as he, too, sat silent, gazing at the prairie with thoughtful eyes. He was not, she was quite aware, as clever as her brother, and he certainly had his shortcomings—in fact, a good many of them; but for all that there was something about him which, so far as she was concerned, set him apart from any other man. Exactly what it was she persuaded herself that she did not know, or, at least, made a brave attempt to do so, for it was evident that he had only a frank, brotherly regard for her. Still, the silence was getting uncomfortable, and she flung a question at him.
"How much have we left?" she asked.
Ingleby laughed, somewhat ruefully. "Eight dollars, I believe. Still, we shall cross the Rockies to-morrow, and start at once to heap up riches. We are certainly going to do it, as others have; and you will never be frightened any more."
Hetty had a stout heart of her own, but nevertheless she was glad of the reassuring grasp he laid upon her shoulder as she looked out across the muddy river and desolate, grey-white plain. However, she smiled at him, and once more they sat silent until a curious and unexpected thing happened.
Far away on the rim of the prairie there was a stirring of the haze, and a dim smear of pinewoods grew out of the dingy vapour. Then a vista of rolling hills rose to view, and was lost in mist again, until high above them all a great serrated rampart of never-melting snow gleamed ethereally against a strip of blue. It was a brief, bewildering vision, sudden as the shifting of a gorgeous transformation scene, and then the vapours rolled down again; butthey felt that they had looked upon an unearthly glory. Hetty turned to her companion with a little gasp.
"Oh," she said, "it was wonderful!"
"It was real, at least," said Ingleby. "Your first glimpse of the country to which I have brought you. I think we shall be happy there—and we will remember afterwards that we saw it together."
Again the little pink tinge crept into Hetty's cheek, but she said nothing, and Ingleby's glance rested on the shoe, which he had not noticed before.
"Hetty," he said severely, "do you want to catch cold? What is that doing there?"
Hetty essayed to draw her foot farther beneath the hem of the dusty skirt, and the colour grew a trifle plainer in her face; but Ingleby made a little reproachful gesture, and taking up the shoe rubbed it with his handkerchief.
"Now," he said, "I'm going to the bridge. Put it on!"
He turned away; but the leather was stiff with water, and Hetty struggled fruitlessly with the buttons, and when she rejoined him Ingleby noticed that she was walking somewhat awkwardly.
"Stand still a minute," he said. "You can't limp back along the track like that."
He dropped on one knee, and Hetty turned her face aside when he looked up again.
"It is such a pretty little foot," he said.
Then as they went back together they met Leger on the trestle. He said nothing, but though he endeavoured to hide it there was concern in his sallow face.
The afternoon was clear and cool, but bright sunlight filled a glade among the towering pines which creep close up to the western outskirts of Vancouver City. They are very old and great of girth, and though here and there a path or carriage drive has been hewn through the strip of primeval wilderness the municipal authorities have been wise enough to attempt no improvement upon what nature has done for them, and Stanley Park remains a pleasance whose equal very few cities possess. It is scented ambrosially with the odours of balsam and cedar; deep silence fills the dim avenues between the colonnades of towering trunks; and from every opening one looks out upon blue water and coldly gleaming snow.
On the afternoon in question the stillness was rudely broken by a murmur of voices, unmodulated and sharp with an intonation which sounds especially out of place in the wilderness, though it is heard there often enough, from the redwoods of Oregon to where Alaskan pines spring from ten feet of snow. A crowd of people were scattered about the glade, and while some were dressed in "store clothes" and a few in coarse blue jean the eyes of all were turned towards the stump of a great cedar, sawn off a man's height above the ground, which formed a natural platform for a speaker whose address had astonished most of them. Ingleby and Leger lay a little apart from the rest, where the sunlight fell faintly warm upon the withered needles, while Hetty was seated near them upon a fallen fir, displeasurein her eyes and her lips set together. Her eyebrows also seemed unusually straight, as they often did when she was angry, and that gave to her delicately pretty face a curious appearance of severity one would scarcely have expected to find there. She was dressed tastefully, for she earned a sufficiency as a boarding-house waitress.
Ingleby, who lay nearest her, looked up at her with a little smile.
"You would make rather a striking picture just now, Hetty," he said. "That is a most attractive frown. I don't know where you got it, but taken together with your attitude it's—I can't think of a better comparison—almost Roman."
Hetty glanced at him sharply. Her education had not been very comprehensive, and she scarcely understood the allusion; but Ingleby, who had made it at random, was nevertheless in a measure right, for there is a recurrent type of feminine beauty, not exactly common, but to be met with among women of her station in the north of England, while they are young at least, which approaches the classical. Hetty might have posed just then as a virgin sitting with turned-down thumb.
"Well," she said, "I'm vexed with you and Tom, as well as with that man. I wish he hadn't come now when we are nice and comfortable and you are both earning good wages—at least when the steamers come in."
Ingleby shook his head reproachfully. "You have spoiled it," he said. "Hasn't she, Tom? A young woman who frowns in that imperial fashion talking of wages!"
Leger only laughed as, turning over among the fir-needles, he filled his pipe again; but Hetty was still a trifle angry.
"Of course, I don't understand you," she said. "I never do, but it's a good thing I've more sense than either of you. Now, you know what came of listening to speeches of that kind in England, and you're doing the same thing again.I've no sympathy with that man. Everybody has enough to eat and looks contented and comfortable. Why does he come here worrying them?"
Leger smiled. "I'm not sure that the contentment of ignorance is the blessing some people would like us to believe. You see, when one doesn't know what he's entitled to he's apt to be satisfied with a good deal less, while when men like Hall Sewell point out that you don't get half as much as you ought to you are apt to believe them."
Ingleby laughed, though, as Sewell's writings had stirred him to intense appreciation, even in England, he was not altogether pleased with the little twinkle in his comrade's eyes. He was quick to fire with enthusiasm, while it occurred to him that Leger was a trifle too addicted to looking at both sides of a question, and occasionally admitting the weak points of his own case with dry good-humour. He had also a shrewd suspicion that Leger was a cleverer man than himself.
"Well," he said, looking at Hetty, "if you are content to carry plates to saw-mill hands and wharf-labourers, it's more than I am to see you do so."
"Why shouldn't I?" and Hetty, who flashed a covert glance at him, noticed the tinge of heightened colour in his face and was not displeased at it. "They are all of them very civil to me, and the one who can get nothing to do as a doctor——"
"Oh, yes!" said Ingleby curtly, "I've noticed his confounded assurance. Every time I see you going round with his dinner I feel I'd like to poison him."
Leger looked up again with the twinkle in his eyes showing plainer still.
"You haven't answered her, and I'm not sure you can," he said. "She put the whole thing in a nutshell when she asked—why shouldn't she."
Ingleby was silent, but he fidgeted, and Leger grinned.
"Don't you find it a little difficult to cling to aristocratic prejudices—though I don't know how you became possessed of them—and believe in democratic theories at the same time?" he said. "One would fancy they were bound to run up against each other occasionally."
Just then an urchin with a satchel on his back came along.
"Hall Sewell's latest speeches," he said. "Fourth edition of 'The New Brotherhood' and 'The Grip of Capital.'"
"Give me them all," said Ingleby. "How much do you want?"
"A quarter," said the lad, handing him several flimsy pamphlets, and while Hetty glanced at him severely Leger laughed.
"Twenty-five cents!" he said. "It would have purchased a packet of caramels for Hetty."
"We might manage both," said Ingleby. "I'm sorry I didn't think of it earlier, Hetty. But you haven't yet told me your opinion of the man himself."
Hetty glanced at the man upon the fire-stump. He was dressed as a workman in blue jean, which seemed to her a piece of affectation, since when workmen of that city take their recreation they usually do so attired in excellent clothing; but he had a lithe, well-proportioned figure, and it became him, though neither his face, which was bronzed by exposure, nor his hands were quite in keeping with it. It was a forceful face, with keen, dark eyes in it, but the mouth was hidden by the long moustache. Hall Sewell was, in his own sphere, a famous man whose printed speeches had been read with appreciation in Europe, and he had not long ago played a leading part in a great labour dispute. He had just finished speaking and another man was somewhat apologetically addressing the assembled populace.
Hetty, who surveyed him critically, shook her head. "If you buy me any sweets now I'll throw them away," she said. "Well, he's a good-looking man."
"Oh," said Ingleby. "He's good-looking! Can't you get beyond that, Hetty?"
Hetty pursed her lips up reflectively. "Well, why shouldn't he be? It's a pleasure to see a man of that kind. There are so few of them. Still, I'll try to go a little further. Of course, he's clever. At least, everybody says so, but there's something wanting. I think he's weak."
"Weak!" said Ingleby indignantly. "You're wide of the mark this time, Hetty. I've read every line he has had printed, and any one could feel the uncompromising strength in it. They've put him in prison and tried to buy him, but nothing could keep a man of that kind from delivering his message."
Hetty still pursed her lips up, and when she spoke again she somewhat astonished Ingleby.
"If I were a little cleverer and richer I think that I could. That is, of course, if I wanted to," she said.
Leger looked up with a little whimsical smile. "I hope she isn't right, but she now and then blunders upon a truth that is hidden from our wisdom. Delilah is, after all, a type, you see, and one can't help a fancy that she has figured even more often than is recorded in history. Go on, Hetty."
Hetty put her head on one side. "I never could remember very much history; but that man's vain, vainer than most of you," she said. "A girl above him who pretended to believe in him could twist him round her finger."
"Above him?" said Ingleby.
Hetty looked at him curiously. "Yes. You know what everybody means by that, and it's generally a girl of that kind that men with your notions fall in love with. It's because you want so much more than is good for you that you have such notions."
"Considering that she is a girl and by no means clever, Hetty's reflections occasionally, at least, display an astonishing comprehension," said Leger. "I really don't mind admitting it, though I am her brother."
Ingleby said nothing, though he felt uncomfortable. He was fond of Hetty in a brotherly fashion, but as he had never supposed her to be indued with any intellect worth mentioning, her occasional flashes of penetration were almost disconcerting. The last one was certainly so, for there were two people of diametrically opposed opinions whom he respected above all others: one was Hall Sewell the reformer, and the other Major Coulthurst's daughter. He was glad of the opportunity for changing the subject when the man who had been speaking stopped a moment and looked at the crowd.
"I guess I'm through, and you have been patient, boys," he said. "Hall will be quite willing to answer any reasonable questions. I'll get down."
There was a little good-humoured laughter, and a man who stood forward turned to the assembly.
"Everybody knows Jake Townson, and there's no wickedness in him. He's a harmless crank," he said. "What I want to ask Hall Sewell is who's paying him to go round making trouble among people who have no use for it or him? It's a straight question."
There was a little growl of disgust as well as sardonic laughter, and while one or two angry men moved towards the speaker the man with the dark eyes stood up suddenly.
"Let him alone, boys. We don't want to use our enemies' methods, and I'm quite willing to answer him," he said. "Nobody has paid me a dollar for what I've tried to do for the cause of brotherhood and liberty, but I was offered a thousand to betray it not a month ago."
"Name the men who did it," cried somebody.
"I will," said Sewell, "when I consider the time is ripe—they may count on that, but in the meanwhile you will have to take my word for it. So far, I've been found where I was wanted—and that as our friend suggests was generally where there was trouble—but I never took five cents for reward or fee."
There was a murmur of approbation, as well as incredulity, and then a cry broke through it.
"How'd you worry along then? A man has got to live."
Sewell held his hands up, and though small and well-shaped they were scarred and brown.
"What I want—and it's very little—I can earn with the shovel and the drill. I've given your man his answer, but I'm going farther."
There was a clamour from one part of the crowd. "He's an insect. We've no use for him! Let up, Hall's talking. We're here to hear him!"
"What did I get for my pains?" said Sewell. "That's what the question comes to, and I'll tell you frankly, since, until we or our children bring in the new era, it's all that the man has to expect who believes this world can and ought to be made better. I've been ridden over by U. S. cavalry, and beaten by patrolmen's clubs. I've been hounded out of cities where I lawfully earned my bread, and sand-bagged by hired toughs. That would be a little thing if I were the only victim, but you know—you can read it in your papers almost any day—what happens to the men who have the grit to work as well as to hope for the dawn of better days for down-trodden humanity. You're to wait for it—on the other side of Jordan—your teachers say. Boys, we want it here and now, and it's coming, a little nearer every day. You have got to believe that, and when the outlook grows black get a tighter clinch upon your faith. Was it a shadow and a fancy that the men died for who went down in every struggle for the last ten years?—we needn't go back farther. Right across this prosperous continent you'll find their graves—men shot and sabred, strung to bridges and telegraph poles. Boys, we've been waiting—waiting a long while——"
He broke off abruptly, for a little, stolid park-wardenand an equally unimpressed official of the Vancouver police pushed their way through the crowd.
"I guess," said the former, "you'll have to light out of this. You can't hold no meetings here."
The crowd was a Canadian one, good-humouredly tolerant, respectful of constituted authority, and, what was more to the purpose, reasonably contented with their lot. They were also, as usual, somewhat deficient in the quick enthusiasm which is common across the frontier. Had ample time been afforded him the orator might have got hold of them and impressed upon them a due comprehension of their wrongs, but a good many of them were by no means sure that they had very much to complain of as yet. Still, there were angry expostulations.
"Have you any ground for preventing my speaking here?" Sewell asked.
"Yes, sir," said the warden. "I guess we have. It's down in the park charter. You can't peddle those papers either. Call your boys in."
"The men who made those laws, as usual, made them to suit themselves."
"Well," said the warden, "I guess that don't matter now. There they are. All you have to do is to keep them, and nobody's going to worry you."
There was an embarrassing silence for a moment or two, for everybody felt the tension and realized that the position was rife with unpleasant possibilities; but the stolid warden stood eyeing the crowd unconcernedly, and, as usual, the inertia of British officialdom conquered. Sewell made a little whimsical gesture of resignation, and raised his hand.
"I'm afraid we'll have to break up, boys. There's nothing to be gained for anybody by making trouble now," he said. "If we can hire a big store of any kind I'll talk to you to-morrow."
He sprang down from the stump, the crowd melted away, and Hetty laughed as she glanced at her companions.
"That man has really a good deal more sense than some people with his notions seem to have," she said.
Ingleby shook his head at her. "You mean people who pull gates down on Sunday afternoons?" he asked. "Still, I scarcely think it was to save himself trouble he told them to go home, and nobody could have expected very much sympathy from the men who listened to him. He's wasting his time on them—they're too well fed. What do you think, Tom?"
Leger, who did not answer him for a moment, glanced thoughtfully through an opening between the stately trunks towards the far-off gleam of snow.
"This Province," he said drily, "is a tolerably big one, and from what I've heard they may want a man of his kind in the Northern ranges presently. It isn't the supinely contented who face the frost and snow there, and the Crown mining regulations don't seem to appeal to the men who stake their lives on finding a little gold. They appear to be even less pleased with those who administer them."
It was towards the end of the arduous day, and Ingleby was glad of the respite the breakage of a chain cargo-sling afforded him. The white side of a big Empress liner towered above the open-fronted shed, and a string of box cars stood waiting outside the sliding doors behind him. A swarm of men in blue jean were hurrying across the wharf behind clattering trucks laden with the produce of China and Japan, for the liner had been delayed a trifle by bad weather, and the tea and silk and sugar were wanted in the East. Already a great freight locomotive was waiting on the side track, and, as Ingleby knew, the long train must be got away before the Atlantic express went out that evening. He had been promoted to a post of subordinate authority a few weeks earlier, and both he and Leger were, in the meanwhile, at least contented with their lot, for the great railway company treated its servants liberally.
There was, however, nothing that he could do for a minute or two, and he leaned against a tier of silk bales with a bundle of dispatch labels and a slip of paper in his hand, while Leger sat upon the truck behind him. He had, though it was no longer exactly his business, been carrying sugar bags upon his back most of that afternoon, partly to lessen the labour of Leger who had not his physique, and now the white crystals glittered in his hair and clung, smeared with dust, to his perspiring face. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbow, showing his brown arms, which had grown hard and corded since he came to Canada; while hiscoarse blue shirt, which was open at the neck and belted tight at the waist, displayed as more conventional attire would not have done the symmetry of a well set-up figure.
"We are still short of a few tea chests," said Leger. "However, if you would mark the two lots I've got yonder we could clear that car for dispatch as soon as the rest come out."
Ingleby glanced at his slip. "I'll wait until I get the others. It will keep the thing straighter. There's a good deal more in sorting cargo than I fancied there could be until I tried it, and it's remarkably easy to put the stuff into the wrong car."
"Then it might be well to keep your eye on those chests of tea. I can't keep the boys off them. There's another fellow at them now."
Ingleby swung round, and signed to a perspiring man who stopped with a truck beside the cases in question.
"Leave that lot alone! It's billed straight through, express freight, East," he said. "Stick this ticket on the cases, Tom."
Leger moved away, and Ingleby was endeavouring to scrape some of the sugar off his person when a man, whom he recognized as one of the leading citizens of Vancouver, and several ladies, came down the steamer's gangway. Then he started and felt his heart throb as his glance rested on one of them, who, as it happened, looked up just then. It was evident that she saw him, and he was unpleasantly sensible that his face was growing hot. There was, he would have admitted at any other time, no reason for this, but in the meanwhile it was distinctly disconcerting that Grace Coulthurst should come upon him in his present guise, smeared with dust and half-melted sugar. Then he occupied himself with his cargo slip, for it was in the circumstances scarcely to be expected that she would vouchsafe him any recognition.
The longing to see her again, however, became too strongfor him, and looking up a moment he was conscious of a blissful astonishment, for she was walking straight towards him with a smile in her eyes. She seemed to him almost ethereally dainty in the dust and turmoil of the big cargo shed, and for the moment he forgot his uncovered arms and neck, and felt every nerve in him thrill as he took the little gloved hand she held out. What she had done was not likely to be regarded as anything very unusual in that country, where most men are liable to startling vicissitudes of fortune and there are no very rigid social distinctions; but Ingleby failed to recognize this just then, and it was not astonishing that he should idealize her for her courage.
"You are about the last person I expected to meet. What are you doing here?" she said, with the little tranquil smile that became her well.
Ingleby's heart was throbbing a good deal faster than usual, but he held himself in hand. Miss Coulthurst was apparently pleased to see him, but there was an indefinite something in her serene graciousness which put a check on him. It was, he felt, perhaps only because she was patrician to her finger-tips that she had so frankly greeted him. A girl with less natural distinction could, he fancied, scarcely have afforded to be equally gracious to a wharf-labourer.
"I am at present loading railway cars with tea and silk, though I have been carrying sugar bags most of the day," he said.
Grace showed no sign of astonishment as she glanced at his toiling comrades, and, though this was doubtless the correct attitude for her to assume, Ingleby was, in spite of his opinions, not exactly pleased until she spoke again.
"Don't you find it rather hard work?" she said. "Of course, one cannot always choose the occupation one likes here, but couldn't you find something that would be a little more—profitable?"
Ingleby laughed. "I'm afraid I can't," he said. "In this city the one passport to advancement appears to be the ability to play in the band, and I was, unfortunately, never particularly musical. Still, there is no reason why I should trouble you with my affairs. I wonder if I might venture to ask you how you came to be here?"
"It is quite simple. Major Coulthurst was appointed Gold Commissioner in one of the mining districts, and I came out with him; but he has been sent to an especially desolate post in the Northern ranges, and I am staying with friends in the city for a week or two. Then I am going to join him."
She stopped a moment, and then looked at him reflectively. "Why don't you go North and try your fortune at prospecting, too? They have been finding a good deal of gold lately in the Green River country where my father is."
It had seemed to Ingleby almost unnatural that he should be so quietly discussing his affairs with the girl he had last seen nearly six thousand miles away. This was not the kind of meeting he would have anticipated; but as she made the suggestion a little thrill once more ran through him, for he had heard that the district in question was a great desolation, and it almost seemed that she desired his company. However, he shook off the notion as untenable, for there would be, he knew, a distinction between a placer miner and the Gold Commissioner's daughter even in that land of rock and snow.
"I have thought of it," he said. "Some day I may go, but it is at the far end of the province, and for one who works on a steamboat wharf the getting there is a risky venture. I don't suppose everybody finds gold."
"I'm afraid they don't, and the cost of transporting provisions is a serious matter to those who fail. In fact, some of them have been giving my father trouble. Theyappear to lay the blame of everything on the mining regulations."
She stopped and glanced at him with a little smile. "From what I remember of your views, you would no doubt be inclined to agree with them."
Ingleby laughed, though it was pleasant to be told that she remembered anything he had said. "I really fancy I have learned a little sense in Canada, and I am not going to inflict my crude notions upon you again. Still, there is a question I should like to ask. Did Mr. Esmond of Holtcar—recover?"
Grace noticed the sudden intentness of his tone, and looked at him curiously. "Of course. In fact, he got better in a week or two, and I think behaved very generously. The police could not induce him to give them any information about the men who injured him."
Ingleby started, and the girl saw the relief in his face.
"I wonder," he said, "if you ever heard who they were supposed to be?"
Grace turned a trifle and gazed at him steadily, though there was now a little flash in her eyes.
"You," she said, with incisive coldness, "were one of them?"
Ingleby grew hot beneath her gaze, for he felt that all the pride and prejudices of her station were arrayed against him. "You will remember the form of my question. I was supposed to be one of them—but that was all," he said.
Grace's face softened, and she glanced at her companions, who, after waiting a little while, were just leaving the shed. "Of course," she said, "I should have known it was absurd to fancy that you could do anything of that kind."
"I am afraid I have kept you," said Ingleby. "Perhaps I should not have abused your kindness by letting you stop at all, but the desire to see you was too strong for me. Iwonder whether even you would have dared to do as much had it been in England?"
There was a faint flush in the girl's cheek, but she smiled as she held out her hand.
"I scarcely think we need go into that, and I can't keep the others waiting any longer," she said. "Perhaps I shall meet you in the Green River country."
She swept away with a soft swish of dainty garments, and Ingleby, whose face grew curiously intent as he watched her, climbed the slanting gangway to the deck of the liner when she disappeared. From there he could see the white tops of the ranges gleaming ethereally as they stretched back mountain behind mountain towards the lonely North. The Green River country lay far beyond them, and there were leagues of tangled forest, and thundering rivers, to be crossed; but that day the untrodden snow he gazed upon seemed to beckon him, and a sudden longing to set out upon the long trail grew almost irresistible. There was gold in the wilderness, and with enough of it a man might aspire to anything, even the hand of a Crown Commissioner's daughter.
Then the winch beside him clattered, and he shook off the fancies as a fresh stream of bales and cases slid down the gangway. Whatever the future might have in store, there were several more hours of arduous work in front of him then. One of them had passed when Leger came hastily up to him.
"I suppose you got those last few cases?" he said.
Ingleby started. "I'm afraid I never remembered them until this moment. Have they pulled the car out, Tom?"
"It's not there, anyway. I fancied you had made the lot up. Somebody has put those cases in."
While they looked at one another the tolling of a locomotive bell broke through the clatter of the trucks, and Ingleby sped towards the door of the shed with Leger close behind him. When they reached it the hoot of a whistlecame ringing down the track, and they saw the great locomotive vanish amidst the piles of lumber outside a big sawmill, with the long cars lurching through the smoke behind it. Ingleby said nothing then, but turned back into the shed with his lips set and questioned several men before he looked at Leger.
"Nobody seems to know whether they put that tea into the through East car or not, and it's no use being sorry now we didn't see it done," he said. "The sooner we have a word with the freight-traffic agent the better."
The gentleman in question, had, however, very little consolation to offer them.
"The fast freight has got to make Kamloops ahead of the Atlantic express," he said. "She's not going to be held up more than ten minutes there, and they'll have the mountain loco ready to rush her up the loops and over the Selkirks. I'll send a wire along, but so long as the road is clear it's going to be more than any man's place is worth, to side-track that train for freight checking."
Ingleby's face grew anxious. "Well," he said, "what is to be done?"
"Nothing!" said the traffic manager. "If there's anything wrong with your sorting you'll probably hear about it in a week or so."
They went out of the office, and Ingleby turned to his comrade.
"I'm afraid we'll be adrift again before very long, and while I wish you had seen nobody moved those cases, it's my fault," he said. "There's another thing I must mention so that you may realize all you owe me. That was Miss Coulthurst of Holtcar to whom I was talking, though, of course, I should have been attending to my business instead, and from what she told me it seems that I needn't have brought you and Hetty out here at all. Esmond got better rapidly, and could not even be induced to prosecute."
Leger smiled. "Well," he said, "I'm uncommonly gladto hear it; and in regard to the other question neither of us has any intention of blaming you. So far, we have been a good deal better off than we probably should ever have been in England."
Nothing further was said about the affair, though both of them devoted more than a little anxious thought to it, until one morning they were summoned before the head wharfinger.
"They're raising Cain in the office about a consignment of tea billed through urgent to the East that's gone down the Soo Line into the States," he said. "I guess I've no more use for either of you."
"I can't grumble," said Ingleby, who had almost expected this. "Still I should like to point out that only one of us is responsible."
"No," said Leger. "As a matter of fact, there were two, and if there hadn't been it would have come to the same thing, anyway."