for they liked young Wingate, and they adored his loving wife and
dainty child. But the search was useless. The wild shores of
Kootenay Lake alone held the secret of their resting-place.

Young Wingate faced the East once more. There was but one thing
to do with his life--work, _work_, WORK; and the harder, the more
difficult, that work, the better. It was this very difficulty that
made the engineering on the Crow's Nest Pass so attractive to him.
So here he was building grades, blasting tunnels, with Catharine's
mournful eyes following him daily, as if she divined something of
that long-ago sorrow that had shadowed his almost boyish life.

He liked the woman, and his liking quickened his eye to her
hardships, his ear to the hint of lagging weariness in her footsteps;
so he was the first to notice it the morning she stumped into the
cook-house, her feet bound up in furs, her face drawn in agony.

"Catharine," he exclaimed, "your feet have been frozen!"

She looked like a culprit, but answered: "Not much; I get lose in
storm las' night."

"I thought this would happen," he said, indignantly. "After this
you sleep here."

"I sleep home." she said, doggedly.

"I won't have it," he declared. "I'll cook for the men myself
first."

"Allight," she replied. "You cookee; I go home--me."

That night there was a terrible storm. The wind howled down the
throat of the Pass, and the snow fell like bales of sheep's wool,
blanketing the trails and drifting into the railroad cuts until
they attained their original level. But after she had cooked supper
Catharine started for home as usual. The only unusual thing about
it was that the next morning she did not return. It was Sunday, the
men's day "off." Wingate ate no breakfast, but after swallowing
some strong tea he turned to the foreman. "Mr. Brown, will you come
with me to try and hunt up Catharine?" he asked.

"Yes, if we can get beyond the door," assented Brown. "But I doubt
if we can make the canyon, sir."

"We'll have a try at it, anyway," said the young engineer. "I
almost doubt myself if she made it last night."

"She's a stubborn woman," commented Brown.

"And has her own reasons for it, I suppose," replied Wingate. "But
that has nothing to do with her being lost or frozen. If something
had not happened I'm sure she would have come to-day, notwithstanding
I scolded her yesterday, and told her I'd rather cook myself than let
her run such risks. How will we go, M