oo over-cultivated,
in fact, to marry Hawtrey. This was rather curious, since he had
hitherto regarded his comrade as a typical, well-educated Englishman;
but it now seemed to him that there was a certain streak of coarseness
in Gregory. The man, it suddenly flashed upon him, was self-indulgent,
and his careless ease of manner, which he had once liked, was rather
too much in evidence. In a few moments, however, Agatha turned to him.

"I understand that Gregory is recovering rapidly?" she said.

Wyllard assured her that this was the case, and Agatha said quietly,
"He wants me to go out to him."

Wyllard felt that if a girl of this kind had promised to marry him he
would not have sent for her but have come in person, if he had been
compelled to pledge his last possessions, or crawl to the tideway on
his hands and knees. For all that, he was ready to defend his friend.

"I'm afraid it's necessary," he said. "Gregory was quite unfit for
such a journey when I left, and he must be ready to commence the
season's campaign with the first of the spring. Our summer is short,
you see, and with our one-crop farming it's indispensable to get the
seed in early: in fact, he will be badly behind as it is."

This was not particularly tactful since, without intending it, he made
it evident that he felt his comrade had been to some extent remiss; but
Agatha smiled.

"Oh," she said, "I understand! You needn't labour the excuse. But
doesn't the same thing apply to you?"

"It certainly did. Now, however, things have become a little easier.
My holding's larger than Gregory's, and I have a foreman who can look
after it for me."

"Gregory said that you were a great friend of his."

Wyllard seized this opportunity. "He is a great friend of mine, and I
like to think it means the same thing. In fact, it's reasonably
certain that he saved my life for me."

"Ah!" said Agatha; "that is a thing he didn't mention. How did it come
about?"

Wyllard was glad to tell the story: he was anxious to say all he
honestly could in Hawtrey's favour.

"We were at work on a railroad trestle--a towering wooden bridge, in
British Columbia. It stretched across a deep ravine with great
boulders and a stream in the bottom of it, and we stood high up on a
staging close beneath the metals. A fast freight, a huge general
produce train, came down the track, with one of the new big locomotives
hauling it, and when the cars went banging by above us