Alton of Somasco. Harold Bindloss
created for, and she, wrapped in the tinsel of civilization, out of place in the primeval wilderness. Her father, immaculate as ever in his travelling tweeds, with his lean, pallid face, also jarred upon the picture, and Harry the teamster, bronzed by frost and sun, with the stain of the soil upon him, alone a part of its harmonies. They seemed no longer harsh and barbaric, but vast and subtle, and she felt she must go back to the simplicity she had laid aside before she could grasp their meaning.
It was the man who first broke the silence. "I was wondering if you would like a cigar, sir?" he said.
Deringham glanced at the Indian-wrought case, which was singularly artistic, somewhat dubiously, but remembering that something was due to their host, drew a cigar out and lighted it. He said nothing for a minute, and then turned to the teamster.
"Wherever did you get cigars of that kind from? They are far better than any I could find in Winnipeg," he said.
Miss Deringham noticed the man's eyes close a trifle, and fancied that very little would call the steely sparkle she had seen when the pack-ponies blocked the trail into them.
"Well," he said quietly, "a friend of mine sent them me, and I believe they came from Cuba. We don't raise cigars of any kind in British Columbia."
Miss Deringham saw her father's face, and felt quietly amused. He could, she knew, assume a manner which went far to carry him smoothly through discontented share-holders' meetings, but it seemed that the men who dwelt in the wilderness were at least as exigent as those who dwelt in London. Deringham, however, glanced at the speaker.
"The least said is often the soonest mended, but if you think——" he said.
The teamster laughed. "It should come from me, but the fact is I was worrying about that wagon and forgot," he said. "Now, if there is anything I can tell you about this country."
"I wonder," said Alice Deringham, "whether you know Mr. Alton of
Somasco."
"Oh, yes," said the man, with a little smile.
"You have worked for him possibly?" said the girl.
Harry the teamster nodded. "Considerably harder than I ever did for anybody else," he said.
The next question required some consideration, and he appeared to ruminate over it. "You mean what kind of man he is?" he said. "Well, he's not very much to look at, and there are a good many things he don't know."
"So I should have fancied," said the girl, more to herself than the listener, and wondered whether it was an effect of the firelight or the curious twinkle had once more flashed into his eyes. "You do not seem to like him?" she said.
The man looked into the fire. "The trouble is I know how mean he is," he said.
"Mean?" said the girl. "That is niggardly?"
"No," said Harry; "I don't think he's niggardly. It's another word for low down in this country. You see he has always had to work hard for a living, and never had time to teach himself the nice little ways you folks have in England. He's just a big rough rancher who has fought pretty toughly for his own hand, and that's apt to take the gentleness out of a man, and make him what you would call coarse and brutal."
The girl seemed to shiver. "Is there nothing to say on the other side?" she said.
"Well," said the teamster reflectively, "I think he means well, and never took more than his right from any man, while there are people who would as soon have his word as its value in dollar bills."
"You seem to know him suspiciously well," said Miss Deringham sharply.
"I do," said Harry simply, as he stood up. "Anyway, as well as most people. You know where I fixed your bed up, sir, when you want to turn in. There's nothing in this bush, miss, that would hurt you."
He stepped back into the shadows, and the camp seemed lonely without him, while as the girl shivered in the cold wind, Deringham glanced at her curiously.
"Well?" he said.
Then the red crept into his daughter's cheeks and a sparkle Into her eyes. "It will take a very long time to get used to. I could almost hate the man," she said,
"It is hard to lose one's inheritance," said Deringham dryly.
The flush grew a trifle plainer in his daughter's cheek. "It is not the value of the land," she said. "But think of such a man, a brutal, cattle-driving boor, ruling at Carnaby where my mother lived."
"Still," said Deringham, "the value is not inconsiderable, and Carnaby would have been yours some day."
The girl made a gesture of impatience. "That is not my complaint," she said. "I could have let it pass without bitterness to an Englishman who would have lived in it in accordance with the traditions of his race, but this man——"
"Will no doubt cut down the timber, open the fireclay pits, and desecrate the park with brickworks," he said. "That is, unless he has convivial proclivities, and, finding himself ostracized, fills Carnaby with turf and billiard-room blacklegs."
The girl ground her heel viciously into the mould. "Have you any reason for going into these details?" she said.
Deringham watched her closely. "I only wished you to understand the position, and to remember that you and I are both to some extent at the mercy of our rancher kinsman," he said.
He left her presently to seek the couch the teamster had prepared for him, and Miss Deringham retired to the wagon. She found the bed of cedar-twigs comfortable, but it was some time before she slept and dreamed that a stranger dressed in coarse blue jean was holding high revel in the Carnaby she loved. She was awakened by the howl of a wolf, and lay still shivering, until she saw the tall, dusky figure of the Canadian approach the fire and stand there as if on guard with the red light upon him. Then with a curious sense of security she went to sleep again.
CHAPTER IV
HALLAM OF THE TYEE
The morning was still and warm when the driver of the wagon pulled up his team where four trails met in the shadow of the bush. Miss Deringham had somewhat to her astonishment passed the night very comfortably and enjoyed the breakfast their companion provided. The bracing cold of sunrise, when all the bush was steeped in fragrance and a wonderful freshness came down from the snow, had also brought her a curious exhilaration, as well as a tinge of colour into her cheeks, and now she was sensible of a faint regret and irritation when the man glanced towards her deprecatingly.
"It would please me to drive you straight through to the settlement, but there's a load of things I want at Calhoun's up yonder," he said.
He pointed to a trail that turned off sharply, and the girl glanced at her father somewhat blankly. "And what are we to do?" said she.
"Well," said the man, "you can wait here until Barscombe comes along. He'll be riding in to the settlement presently, and would be glad to take you for a dollar or two."
"But we might have to wait a long time," said the girl with a trace of imperiousness. "It would suit us considerably better to go on with you."
"Sorry!" said the man gravely. "I can't take you. Calhoun's a busy man, and he'll be waiting up at the ranch for me. I told him I was coming."
There was now no doubt about the colour in Miss Deringham's face. Few of her wishes bad been denied her hitherto, and most of the men she had met had been eager to do her bidding, while the scarcely qualified refusal of this one came as a painful astonishment. The fact that she should be left in the lonely forest to avoid keeping some rude rancher waiting was distinctly exasperating.
Deringham, however, smiled a little as he took a wallet from his pocket. "I can understand it, because I am also a busy man when