e
order, and it was evident that she had taken some trouble to arrange
the matter with the H. B. C. agent at Vancouver. The thing had been
done in kindness, and yet it hurt him. He could have accepted it more
readily from anybody else. On the other hand, he remembered that she
had known him only as a track-grader, and that he was, as a matter of
fact, nothing else. He could not send the order back without appearing
ungracious or disposed to assert that he was of her own station. Then
another thought struck him.

"I don't think they knew my name. They called me Clarence," he said.
"Somebody must have thought it worth while to write Cassidy."

He had forgotten his companions, and when Grenfell looked at him
inquiringly, he laughed.

"It's something I was thinking of," he said, handing the order across.
Grenfell gazed at it with unqualified satisfaction.

"This straightens everything out," he said.

"I'm not quite sure it does," returned Weston, dryly. "In fact in some
respects it rather complicates the thing. That, however, is a point
that doesn't concern you."

His companion, who appeared to concur in this, glanced with evident
regret at the six dollars which still lay beside him.

"If I'd known that the order was in the mail, the boys would have had
to carry me every rod of the way back to camp," he said. "It's not the
first time that I've been sorry I practiced economy."

Weston left him shortly afterward, and went back with the other man
toward the shanty.

"The chances seem too steep for you?" suggested Weston.

"Well, I guess he did strike that gold; but I shouldn't be too sure of
it. It's quite likely that he fancied the whole thing. You can't count
on the notions of that kind of man."

He broke off for a moment, and appeared to consider.

"There's another point. The old tank has no nerves left, and he's no
use on his legs. Guess, you'll have to carry him over the range."

Weston fancied that this was probable, and the track-grader, who
turned away to speak to another man, left him in a thoughtful mood.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE RANGES

A month had passed when Weston stood one morning outside the tent he
scarcely expected that he or his comrade would sleep in again. It was
pitched beside a diminutive strip of boggy natural prairie under the
towering range, though the latter was then shrouded in sliding mist
out of which the climbing firs raised here and there a ragged spire or
somber branch