"I can at least pour the tea over the balustrade," said the girl. "It is the bread that presents the difficulty. It would crumble in your pocket, and you will presumably have to eat a little to save appearances."

Deringham made a gesture of resignation. "On condition that you do as much. I am not going to be the only victim, though I fancy you could not crumble that bread in a stamp battery. This meal, and what we have otherwise seen at Somasco, confirms my theory that the folks who make money in the Colonies could save as much, or more, in England if they lived in a similar fashion."

"Would it be worth while?" asked the girl with a little smile.

"It is a question of temperament," said Deringham. "Personally, I do not think it would. Indeed, one could fancy that a man of taste would sooner be interred decently, which is why I will take a very little of the tea. You see, our mode of life in England, unfortunately, depends to some extent upon my retaining the good will of Mr. Alton of Somasco.

He will, however, have to excuse me from tasting his butter."

The girl poured a little of the tea into the cups, and then emptied the pot over the balustrade, which was, as it happened, a blunder, because while she endeavoured to crumble a small portion of the bread so as to convey the impression that she had been eating it, Alton and Seaforth came into the verandah.

The latter glanced at her, and, for he could not help it, a little smile flickered in his eyes.

"It is a very long while since I had afternoon tea, and I am not sure that Harry ever indulged in it in his life," he said. "I will bring some more cups if you will give us some."

Deringham looked at his daughter reproachfully, though his eyes twinkled, and for just a moment a flush crept into the girl's face, but she laughed as she said, "Then I must trouble to ask the cook for more water."

Alton hammered upon the suspended iron sheet, and in a minute or two the cook appeared again with a large plateful of sliced pork which he laid down before Miss Deringham.

"I was figuring you would change your mind, and if you want any more you have only to ask for it," he said.

It cost the girl an effort to repress a shiver of disgust, but though she succeeded Alton saw her face, and she noticed that the bronze grew a trifle darker in his forehead. It seemed that he guessed her thoughts, but the fact that he offered no explanation and made no excuse for the uninviting fare pleased her. She fancied she understood his reticence, and that it became him.

"Take that pork away, and bring more water!" he said, and there was a faint ring in his voice, as he turned to the cook.

The man, who took up the teapot, shook it, and then, as though still incredulous, lifted the lid and gazed inside it.

"More water?" he said.

"Yes," said Alton, a trifle harshly. "Get it right now!"

The man went away, and there was for almost a minute a somewhat unpleasant silence. Even Seaforth did not seem to know what to say, though he felt an absurd desire to laugh, and Alice Deringham was at once relieved and somewhat astonished when Alton put an end to it by a whimsical story of a raw Englishman's camp cookery. Seaforth followed it with a better one, and the whole four were laughing when the cook came back again. He smiled at them reassuringly as he put the teapot down.

"I guess there's enough this time," he said. "It's that full I could scarcely get the lid on."

The tea was strong, and acrid with the sting of the wood smoke, but there was no avoiding another cupful, and Deringham drank determinedly, while his daughter felt that she had made full atonement when she set her cup down half empty. Then Alton, who explained that he had something to attend to, went away, and Seaforth smiled at the girl when Deringham went in for another cigar.

"I wonder if one might venture to congratulate you on your resolution?"

he said.

"If I knew exactly what you meant I could answer more readily," said Alice Deringham.

"Well," said Seaforth reflectively, "I fancy you do, and, if it's any comfort to you, I think Harry does too. He is considerably less of a fool than folks who do not understand this country might suppose him to be; but the point is, that if he can prevent it you will not suffer an infliction of this kind again."

"I wonder why you thought it worth while to tell me," said Alice Deringham. "Have I admitted that it was an affliction, or do you suppose I am very frightened of a little indifferent tea?"

Seaforth laughed. "I can't fancy you so fond of it as the cook seems to conclude, and I don't think indifferent was exactly the word. A stronger one would have been appropriate. Still, though I am not sure that you will understand me, I told you because I felt it was due to Harry. You see, his attitude was really the correct one, and taking him all round I am rather proud of him."

"Hasn't that an appearance of unnecessary patronage?" asked Miss Deringham, who was slightly nettled.

Seaforth nodded. "It has," he said. "Only that the feeling is shared by everybody in this district, it would be sheer presumption. Good wine, you know, needs no bush."

He went away because he had a suspicion that Alton would be wanting him, which was borne out when he found his comrade saddling a horse.

"Where are you going, Harry? We are not half way through with the sawlogs," he said.

"No," said Alton dryly. "Still, if you work hard enough, you and Tom should get them into the water before it's dark to-night. I'm going right down to Horton's."

Seaforth laughed. "I thought you would. Horton has, however, as much taste in china as the average mule. Don't leave it to him."

"How did you guess that?" and Alton stared at him.

"That," said Seaforth, "was delightfully simple. It is a little more difficult to decide what Miss Deringham, who is a quick-witted young woman, did with the tea. As you are quite aware, she did not drink it.

Still, that is not the question. I'll write you out a little list of what is wanted--I used to know a little about china once, you see, and you tell Horton to send it on to Vancouver. How much would you care to spend, Harry?"

"Just whatever is necessary, but get the best," said Alton. "Write another list of cakes and jellies and things of that kind, too. Put down plenty."

Seaforth returned by the time the horse was saddled, with an envelope, and Alton, who took it, rode out at a gallop, for it was a long way to the settlement, and the evenings at the ranch had of late become very pleasant to him. He did not wish to lose a minute of one of them. He drew bridle, however, when he came up with two men standing in the narrow trail, one of whom signed to him. He was a small rancher, but it was not until the impatient horse plunged that Alton recognized the other, who moved aside, as the man he had thrown into the river. The rancher saw the glance that passed between them.

"Hallo!" he said. "Then you two had trouble when you split? Now, Damer was telling me he'd got kind of tired of saw milling."

Alton laughed. "That's quite likely," he said. "He showed it by breaking up my planer in a fit of temper, and I fired him."

Then he touched the horse with his heel, and Damer's gaze grew venomous as he watched him ride away down the shadowy trail. The rancher evidently noticed it.

"Now I begin to understand how you got your jacket tore up and that lump on your forehead," he said. "I wasn't quite sure about your tale, anyway, and if Harry fired you it was for something mean. You'll get no horse from me."

The other man said nothing as he turned away, but his face was not pleasant as he plodded down the trail, and those words of Alton's were to cost him dear, for if Damer had obtained the horse he wanted to carry him to the railroad he would in all probability have left the country, which would have prevented a good deal of trouble. As it was, however, he restrapped the roll of blankets on his back, and trudged on with bitterness in his heart under the heat of the afternoon. He had when he left the Somasco mill headed in the direction of the Tyee mine, and passed the night in the woods; but with the morning reflection came, and he had doubled on his trail and was then making for the railroad, stiff with fatigue. Each time he stumbled into a rut and the jolt shook him he remembered his last grievance against Alton, who had sent him on foot, and his frame of mind was not an enviable one when he limped into sight of the settlement as dusk was closing down.

He had made a long journey that day, and a good deal depended on the fact that he was weary and his boots galled him, because it had been his intention to push on to a ranch beyond the settlement before he slept, and hire a horse there. Damer was not especially sensitive, but he felt no great desire to encounter the badinage of the men generally to be found about the store, who, he surmised, would have heard by this time what had happened at the Somasco mill. Still, he was hungry and weary, and stopped a moment when he caught a blink of light between the trees. The bush behind him was very black and still, the dampness of the dew was on his dusty garments, and he shivered a little in the faint cold breeze that came down from the snow. Then more lights twinkled into brightness, a cheerful murmur of voices and a burst of laughter came out of the shadows, and the glow that broke out from the windows of Horton's store seemed curiously inviting. Damer, however, dallied still, and fumbled for his tobacco. He would sit down where he was and smoke, he said, and then attempt that last toilsome league.

As it happened, he could not find the tobacco, and having a hazy recollection of laying it on the ground the last time he filled his pipe, he shook his aching shoulders and trudged on. The loss of the tobacco decided him, and with a malediction on Alton he made for Horton's. It was also a fateful decision with far-reaching results he made just then. Supper had long been cleared away when he entered the general room of the hotel, and then stopped a moment with his hand on the door, for the one man who sat under the big lamp was the last person he desired to meet. He had, however, some papers spread out in front of him, and Damer decided to slip away quietly, but as he moved the blankets on his shoulders struck the door, which rattled, and the man looked up sharply. He had a fleshy face, and black beady eyes, which he fixed on Damer, who stood still, with a little, unpleasant smile.

"Come right in!" he said.

Damer smothered an anathema as he recognized the command in the tone.

"No," he said. "If you don't mind, Mr. Hallam, I'll be getting on again."

"Come in!" said Hallam, a trifle more sharply, but for just a moment Damer remained motionless. A few steps would take him down the verandah stairway, and then the shadowy bush lay before him. Had he had a horse, he would have obeyed the impulse which prompted him to avoid the encounter; but, as it happened, owing to the fact that Alton had met the rancher who would otherwise have lent him one, he had none.

So with evident unwillingness he came slowly forward, and dropping his bundles on the floor flung himself into a chair.

"Well," he said, "I'm here."

Hallam, who had been watching him, nodded reflectively. "I guess you didn't expect to find me, or you wouldn't have come," he said. "Where were you going?"

"To the railroad," said Damer. "Out of the country!"

"Without telling me? That was kind of foolish of you. Still, you haven't much sense, anyway. You had quite a well-paid job at Somasco."