eral
improvement in the industrial temper and atmosphere of the Northwest.

The recital of these things stirred Elizabeth's pulses. But why did she
never hear them from himself? Surely he had offered her friendship, and
the rights of friendship. How else could he justify the scene at Field,
when he had so brusquely probed her secret anxieties for Philip? Her
pride rebelled when she thought of it, when she recalled her wet eyes,
her outstretched hand. Mere humiliation!--in the case of a casual or
indifferent acquaintance. No; on that day, certainly, he had claimed the
utmost privileges, had even strained the rights, of a friend, a real
friend. But his behaviour since had almost revived her first natural
resentment.

Thoughts like these ran in her mind, and occasionally affected her
manner when they did meet. Anderson found her more reserved, and noticed
that she did not so often ask him for small services as of old. He
suffered under the change; but it was, he knew, his own doing, and he
did not alter his course.

Whenever he did come, he sat mostly with Philip, over whom he had
gradually established a remarkable influence, not by any definite acts
or speeches, but rather by the stoicism of his own mode of life, coupled
with a proud or laughing contempt for certain vices and self-indulgences
to which it was evident that he himself felt no temptation. As soon as
Philip felt himself sufficiently at home with the Canadian to begin to
jibe at his teetotalism, Anderson seldom took the trouble to defend
himself; yet the passion of moral independence in his nature, of
loathing for any habit that weakens and enslaves the will, infected the
English lad whether he would or no. "There's lots of things he's
stick-stock mad on," Philip would say impatiently to his sister. But the
madness told. And the madman was all the while consolingly rich in
other, and, to Philip, more attractive kinds of madness--the follies of
the hunter and climber, of the man who holds his neck as dross in
comparison with the satisfaction of certain wild instincts that the
Rockies excite in him. Anderson had enjoyed his full share of adventures
with goat and bear. Such things are the customary amusements, it seemed,
of a young engineer in the Rockies. Beside them, English covert-shooting
is a sport for babes; and Philip ceased to boast of his own prowess in
that direction. He would listen, indeed, open-mouthed, to Anderson's
yarns, lying on his long chair