clatter of hoofs on shingle, and then
once more the words rose clearly above the dewy pines, "To win a blooming
bride!" More of the ballad followed, for Johnston trolled it lustily as he
strode back to the shanty, and the refrain haunted me as I swept on
through the cool dimness under the conifers, for the lilt of it went
fittingly with the clang of iron on quartz outcrop and the jingle of
steel. It also chimed with my own thoughts the while, and the last lines
broke from my lips triumphantly when we raced out of the dusky woods into
the growing light under a giant rampart of mountains, behind whose peaks a
red flush broadened in the east. The mists rolled back like a curtain, the
shadows fled, and the snow, throwing off its deathly pallor, put on
splendors of incandescence to greet the returning day. Nowhere does dawn
come more grandly than in that ice-ribbed wilderness of crag and forest;
but as I watched it then I accepted the wondrous spectacle merely as an
augury of brighter days for Grace and myself, and for a last time the
ballad echoed across the silent bush as I drove the good horse splashing
through a ford.

It was afternoon when, much more sedately, for the beast was tired and I
had misgivings now, we splashed through another river into sight of
Colonel Carrington's dwelling, whose shingled roof was faintly visible
among the pines ahead; while once more it seemed that fortune or destiny
had been kind to me. A white dress moved slowly among the rough-barked
trunks, and because a thick carpet of withered needles deadened the sound
of hoofs I came almost upon Grace before she saw me. She was gazing at the
ground; the long lashes hid her eyes, but I fancied that a suspicious
moisture glistened under them, and there was trouble stamped on her face.
Then as I swung myself from the saddle she ran toward me with a startled
cry and stopped irresolutely. But I had my arms about her even as she
turned half-away, and I said eagerly:

"Something has happened, sweetheart. You must tell me what it is."

She sighed, and, trembling a little, clung more tightly to my arm when,
after tethering the horse, we walked slowly side by side through the
shadow of the great fir branches.

"I was longing for you so," she said. "As you say, something has happened,
and there is no one to whom I can tell my troubles. What I feared has
happened, for this morning Geoffrey Ormond asked me to marry him."

"Confusion to him!" I broke out, d