th his arm about his daughter, who nestled close to him
for the sake of warmth. A bitter frost had set in during the last hour
or so, and the snow was frozen in white patches upon her wrappings,
while it was with numbed senses she vacantly watched the pines flit
past her. It seemed that they would crawl up out of the darkness and
slide by, white beneath the moonlight, forever.

Nor could she recollect much of the journey, which had only left a hazy
memory of biting cold and blinding snow, fierce struggles through the
drifts, and brief interludes of warmth and brightness in
forest-shrouded ranches, where her chilled flesh shrank from the task
before her when she rose to go on again. There was Alton blood in
Alice Deringham, and more than a trace of the Alton pride, but she did
not know what motive had sustained her or why she had borne it all so
patiently, and in this she differed from her father. Deringham seldom
did anything without a purpose, and he had one now.

His daughter had been asleep with her head on his shoulder when a shout
roused her two hours earlier, and with a drumming of hoofs they came
lurching into the settlement. For a blissful moment she fancied the
journey was at an end, for there were lights and voices and a pleasant
smell of firwood smoke, but Okanagan shouted to his team, and the
lights faded away behind as they plunged into the silence beneath the
pines again.

"Father," she said faintly, "do you think he has gone the wrong way?
It seems ever so long since we left the settlement."

Okanagan may have heard her, though the words were almost
indistinguishable. "You lie right where you are for another ten
minutes, and keep warm, miss," he said; "then I'll show you something."

Alice Deringham shivered all through. "It is a little difficult," she
said.

Okanagan spoke to his horses, and after what appeared an interminable
time looked down again.

"There," he said, with a curious, almost silent laugh, and the girl saw
a red blink amidst the pines across the valley. "That's Somasco."

Alice Deringham let her head drop back on her father's shoulder with a
little sigh. "It seems a very long way," she said, "and I am very
cold."

It was some time later when the wagon stopped with a jerk, and she
roused herself as a glare of light shone about her. Voices came out of
it, somebody held out a hand, and a man whom she did not recognize
lifted her from the wagon. Then she walked unevenly