lf."

Alice Deringham followed her father towards a big, humming machine that
was tearing off the surface of the planks fed to it and flinging them
out polished into whiteness. Alton glanced at it admiringly.

"Yes, I'm proud of that," he said. "It was a tight fit buying her, and
now she's saving me dollars every day." Then he turned to a stooping
man. "You're crowding her a little."

Alice Deringham noticed the resentment in the man's face, which was not
a pleasant one, and that, in place of relaxing the pressure, he seemed
to thrust a little more strenuously upon the plank he guided; but that
was all she saw, for the next moment there was a crash and a loud
whirring, and a cloud of woody dust was flung all over her.

Alton sprang forward through it, and a big leather belt suddenly
stopped, but the girl could never clearly remember what happened next,
for the dust still whirled about her. There, however, appeared to be a
brief altercation, and as Alton moved towards him the other man dropped
his hand to his belt. Guessing what the action meant, Alice Deringham
shrank back with a little shiver, and her father appeared to grasp the
man's shoulder. Alton swayed suddenly sideways, and then hurled
himself forward, while next moment two men fell violently against the
wrecked machine. One of them seemed to be helpless in the grasp of the
other, and staggering clear of the planer they went reeling through the
mill. Then there was a splash in the river, and Alton returned alone,
breathless and somewhat white in face.

"Sorry, but there was no other way out of it," he said a trifle
hoarsely. "Now I've got to size up the ruin, if you'll excuse me."

Deringham turned away with his daughter in time to see a dripping
object crawl out on the opposite side of the river. "Are you still
pleased with your tame bear?" he said ironically.

The girl laughed a little, though her colour was perhaps a trifle
higher than usual. "There is a good deal of the beast still unsubdued
in him," she said.

Deringham nodded. "Still, he had some provocation, and I think he was
right. So far as I could follow the discussion, the other man meant to
question his ability to dismiss him, with the pistol."

Alice Deringham said nothing further upon the subject until Alton
joined them as they sat out on the verandah that night. "You are not
pleased with me?" he said.

"There is nothing to warrant me telling you so, and I may have been