side of
the house. Anderson had gone off to catch his train. For twenty minutes,
the man outside leant against the window-sash apparently lounging and
smoking. Nothing could be seen from the path, but a battered blind
flapping in the June breeze, and a dark space of room beyond.

CHAPTER X

The days passed on. Philip in the comfortable hotel at Lake Louise was
recovering steadily, though not rapidly, from the general shock of
immersion. Elizabeth, while nursing him tenderly, could yet find time to
walk and climb, plunging spirit and sense in the beauty of the Rockies.

On these excursions Delaine generally accompanied her; and she bore it
well. Secretly she cherished some astonishment and chagrin that Anderson
could be with them so little on these bright afternoons among the forest
trails and upper lakes, although she generally found that the plans of
the day had been suggested and organised by him, by telephone from
Laggan, to the kind and competent Scotch lady who was the manager of the
hotel. It seemed to her that he had promised his company; whereas, as a
rule, now he withheld it; and her pride was put to it, on her own part,
not to betray any sign of discontent. He spoke vaguely of "business,"
and on one occasion, apparently had gone off for three days to
Saskatchewan on matters connected with the coming general election.

From the newspaper, or the talk of visitors in the hotel, or the railway
officials who occasionally found their way to Lake Louise to make
courteous inquiries after the English party, Elizabeth became, indeed,
more and more fully aware of the estimation in which Anderson was
beginning to be held. He was already a personage in the Northwest; was
said to be sure of success in his contest at Donaldminster, and of an
immediate Parliamentary career at Ottawa. These prophecies seemed to
depend more upon the man's character than his actual achievements;
though, indeed, the story of the great strike, as she had gathered it
once or twice from the lips of eye-witnesses, was a fine one. For weeks
he had carried his life in his hand among thousands of infuriated
navvies and miners--since the miners had made common cause with the
railwaymen--with a cheerfulness, daring, and resource which in the end
had wrung success from an apparently hopeless situation; a success
attended, when all was over, by an amazing effusion of good will among
both masters and men, especially towards Anderson himself, and a gen