ady, however, smiled upon him
in a manner that suggested they had met before, and Leslie stood aside
when Shackleby beckoned him with what looked like an ironical grin.
Then the gangway was run in, and the engines started.

It was a mild day for the season, and Millicent, who found friends,
dismissed the subject from her thoughts, when she saw her husband
exchange no word with his latest guests. She was sitting with a young
married lady, where the sun shone pleasantly in the shelter of the
great white deck-house, when a sound of voices came out, with the odor
of cigar smoke, from an open window.

"You fixed it all right?" observed one voice which sounded familiar,
and there was a laugh which, though muffled, was more familiar still.
While, with curiosity excited, Millicent listened, a companion broke in:

"Where's Mr. Leslie? I have scarcely seen him all morning."

"Making himself useful as usual. Discoursing on fisheries and harbors,
of which he knows nothing, to men who know a good deal, and no doubt
doing it very neatly," said Millicent, smiling.

"Why do you let him?" asked the other, with a little gesture of pride,
which became her. "Now, my husband knows better than to stay away from
me, even if he wanted to. Ah, here he is, bringing good things from
the sunny South piled up on a tray."

Perhaps it was the contrast, for Millicent felt both resentful and
neglected when a young man approached carrying choice fruits and cakes
upon a nickeled tray; but before he reached them a voice came through
the window again:

"You're quite certain? That man has eyes all over him, and it won't do
to take any chances with him. He must be kept right here in Vancouver
all night, and the game will be in our own hands before he gets back
again."

"I've done my best," was the answer, and Millicent fancied, but was not
certain, that it was her husband who spoke. "I have fixed things so
that he will come to Vancouver. The only worry is, can we depend upon
the fellow I laid the odds with?"

"Oh, yes," responded the second voice. "I guess he knows better than
fail me. By the way, you nearly made a fool of yourself over Coralie."

"Somebody inside there talking secrets," observed the younger lady. "I
think it is Mr. Shackleby, and I don't like that man. Charley, set
down that tray and carry my chair and Mrs. Leslie's at least a dozen
yards away."

Millicent, at the risk of being guilty of eavesdropping, would have