silence until when they were climbing out of the valley
he said, "I wonder, Charley, if there's a man in the Dominion who feels
as mean as I do."

Seaforth smiled curiously, and there was bitterness in his voice which
Alton was too disturbed to notice. "I think there is," he said. "You
haven't asked what kept me, but you will see if you look at the horse's
knees. It's a little difficult to understand why he must get his foot
in a hole to-day."

It was late that night when they reached Somasco, but Alton found Miss
Deringham upon the verandah, and she glanced at him with very pretty
sympathy. Still, Seaforth fancied that she seemed a trifle anxious.

"Have you seen the man who brought the message?" she said.

"I have," said Alton. "You were right, of course. He'd had too much
whisky."

The girl appeared, so Seaforth fancied, curiously relieved. "I was
almost afraid you might think I was in some respects to blame," she
said.

"No," said Alton simply, "That was one of the things I couldn't do. It
was right out of the question."

He went in, and the warm colour crept into Miss Deringham's face as she
presently followed him.

CHAPTER XII

IN VANCOUVER

Autumn was merging into winter when one morning Alton and his comrade
strolled along the water-front at Vancouver. It was still early, and
the store and office clerks were just hastening to their occupations,
but Alton had spent an hour already in a great sawmill. His face was
thoughtful, and he seemed to be repeating details of machines and
engines half aloud. Presently he stood still and gazed about him, and
Seaforth, who followed his gaze, knew there was something working in
his comrade's mind. The scene was also inspiriting and suggestive.

Across the wide inlet, mountain beyond mountain towered against the
blueness of the north. To the east, sombre forest shut the sheltered
basin in, its black ridge serrated by the ragged spires of taller
pines, and blurred in places by the drifting smoke of mills. Between
them and the water stood long lines of loaded cars, with huge
locomotives snorting in the midst of them, and where the metal road
which commenced at Quebec ended, the white shape of an Empress liner
rose above the wharf, the clasp of the new steel girdle which bound
England to the East. Above the pines which shrouded the narrows shone
the topsails of a timber-laden barque, and a crawling cloud of smoke
betokened a steamer coming up ou