"No," said the girl. "But have you nothing in contemplation?"

Townshead shook his head as though he were tired of the subject. "No,"

he said resignedly. "I have too much regard for my very indifferent health to worry unnecessarily."

The girl sighed a little, and felt very helpless, knowing that the task of maintaining both would devolve upon her and her brother. She was a dutiful daughter, but she occasionally found it difficult to maintain her respect for her father. Had he been beaten down after a stubborn struggle she would with almost fierce loyalty have been proud of him: but Townshead, who spent most of his time safeguarding his constitution, had never fought at all. Conflict of any kind jarred upon him. Answering nothing, she sat still listening, until at last a tramp of horsehoofs became audible. Somebody was riding that way, but there was another ranch farther up the valley, and her pulses throbbed when her strained senses told her that the horseman had reached the forking of the trail. If he passed on the blow she shrank from might be suspended a little longer.

The man did not, however, pass by, but turned into the home trail, and she rose with a little shiver when there was a knocking at the door. A man stood outside it with a horse behind him, and a paper in his hand, while his dress betrayed him as one from the cities. He was also young, and appeared considerably embarrassed, but he took off his hat and made the girl a little bow. She flung the door open, and stood very straight and still before him.

"You may come in," she said.

The stranger glanced at her swiftly, and Nellie Townshead was somewhat astonished to see the blood mantle to his forehead. "Very sorry, but I see you guess who I am," he said, with a crisp, English intonation. "I am here to--well, you understand--on behalf of Mr. Hallam, but I really wouldn't be if I could help it."

"You can put your horse in the stable, and then I will give you some supper," said the girl, in a coldly even tone. "There is still a little to eat here, and you must be hungry."

The man appeared dubious, and stood still a moment, then touched his hat again when he saw the crimson flame higher in the cheeks of the girl.

"Of course," he said; "I'm going."

Nellie Townshead laughed bitterly. "If I had intended to shut you out I should scarcely have asked you in," she said.

The young man came back in a few minutes, and by that time there were a few plates upon the table. He sat down, and then stood up once more when he saw the girl standing close by with a tray.

"You must let me wait upon myself," said he. "During the course of my last ranching visit they set savage dogs on me, and I wouldn't trouble you, only that I've ridden fifty miles, and am very hungry."

The girl seemed to soften, for she saw he was talking at random to cover her embarrassment as well as his own. "You are an Englishman?"

she said.

"Yes," said the stranger. "I'm not especially proud of it just now, but, you see, a man must live."

Townshead looked up from his chair. "I fancy that is a slightly mistaken sentiment. Some men are better dead, and I occasionally feel tempted to include myself in the category."

The young man smiled a little. "The Frenchman put it a trifle more concisely, sir," he said.

Townshead nodded. "Still, he was correct. I don't mind admitting that I looked forward to your visit with apprehension, but I now fancy you will not jar upon me so much as I expected."

The stranger glanced at Miss Townshead, who, though she wished to, could not quite check a smile. He was very young, and had a pleasant face. "That was very kind of you," he said. "Now, I think the least that I can do is to retire to the barn or stable. I have some blankets, and can make myself comfortable."

He went out, knocking over a cup in his haste, and the girl sat still and laughed. There was not a great deal of merriment in her laughter, and the tears were close behind it, but it was a relief. Townshead, however, watched her disapprovingly.

"You should," he said, "endeavour to preserve a becoming serenity."

Nellie Townshead became grave again. "I fancy it would have been better if we had not displayed so much of it and let things drift, but that is not the question now," she said. "How could any one willing to help us do so, father?"

Townshead made a little grimace. "Are you not suggesting an impossibility?"

"But if there was somebody," persisted the girl. "What could he do on Thursday? I want to understand everything."

"Well," said Townshead, "I think this is the position. Hallam lent me money which I cannot repay him, and he sells us up. Incidentally, I fancy he has some reason for desiring this ranch, and as he has been acquiring a good deal of land lately will get somebody to buy it in.

Very few of our neighbours have any dollars to spare, and the price will necessarily be a low one. Now if any man with the means to bid against him were here it would put heart into some of the others and run the prices up, and in that case Hallam would have to hand me over a balance, as well as pay a good deal more than he meant to for the ranch. I think that is simple, and I believe the manoeuvre has been used with some success in other parts of Canada."

"But," said the girl, "if the man offered more than Hallam or his nominee would outbid, he would have to take the ranch."

Townshead nodded agreement. "That," he said, "is the difficulty.

Still, though I do not think there is any one who would do so much for us, I presume you would not have asked the question unless you had something in your mind."

The girl, who did not answer for a moment, stooped and stirred the stove. "No," she said very slowly. "I sent word to Mr. Alton."

"Alton?" said Townshead, and sat silent a while. "Well, although I do not altogether approve of him, I fancy that if there is anybody in this district able to help us that is the man. There remains the question is he willing?"

Nellie Townshead still busied herself at the stove. "I think he is,"

she said.

Townshead straightened himself a trifle in his chair. "Then, I am curious to know why he should be," he said.

"I do not know," said the girl, who rose and took up the supper dishes.

"Still, I feel sure that he is."

Townshead turned towards her. "You fancied so a moment or two ago, and now you are sure," he said. "There must be some meaning to this."

His daughter looked round and laughed a little, holding the tray at a perilous slope. "He made me promise to let him know," she said.

Her father shook his head. "A young man of Mr. Alton's description does not do anything of the kind without a motive," he said. "Now I wonder if there are minerals upon the ranch."

The colour crept into his daughter's cheeks again. "They would in any case belong to the Crown," she said. "Can you not believe that the man who packed our provisions in through flooded fords and snow would do anything out of generosity?"

She turned away and left him, and Townshead puckered his face dubiously. "I should find it very difficult, and the care of a daughter is a heavy responsibility," he said. Miss Townshead did not return for some little while, but stood above the cedar washing-board scarcely seeing the dishes that once or twice almost slipped from her hand. There was, her father had told her, one man who could help them in the only way in which assistance could be accepted, and she felt sure he would. If rancher Alton failed to keep his word she felt it would be very difficult to believe in the honour of his sex again.

CHAPTER XI

CONFIDENCE MISPLACED

There was sliding mist in the Somasco valley, and the pines were dripping when Alton and Miss Deringham stood upon a slippery ledge above the river. Just there it came down frothing into a deep, black pool, swung round it white-streaked, and swept on with a hoarse murmur into the gloom of the bush again. A wall of fissured rock overhung the pool on the farther side, and a fallen pine wetted with the spray stretched across the outflow and rested on one jagged pinnacle. A wet wind which drove the vapours before it called up wild music from the cedars that loomed through them on the side of the hill.

"I'd cast across the rush at the head of the pool and let the fly come down," said Alton. "There's generally a big trout lying in the eddy behind the boulder."

The girl nodded, and the line sweeping back towards the pines behind her went forward again. It fell lightly amidst the frothing rush, and Alton smiled approval as he watched the rod point follow it downstream towards a foam-licked rock. It swung to and fro a moment, then slid on again towards the still black stretch behind the stone, tightened there suddenly, and ran, tense and straight, upstream again, while the reel clacked and rattled.

"A big one," said Alton quietly. "Check the winch a little, and keep the butt down. He can't face the rapid, and you'll lose him unless you can keep a strain on when he turns again."

The girl flung herself backwards, with eyes dilated and a warmth in her cheeks, the rod bending above her, and the line ripping its way towards the welter at the head of the pool. There it curved inwards a trifle, and Alton shouted, "Reel!"

There was a quick rattle, something broke the water with a silvery flash, and the line was shooting downstream again.

"Let him go, unless he makes for the fir yonder," said Alton quietly.