The stranger moved forward another step, and then stopped abruptly with a little gasp as his glance took in the overturned tray, scattered crockery, and the rigid figure of the girl standing with a flushed face beside the stove. Then he glanced at Alton, and noticing the old jacket and deerhide slippers, appeared to have some difficulty in checking a smile, for this was a young man who knew nothing of the simple strenuous life of the bush, but a good deal about the under-side of that of the cities.

"I'll come back in business hours to-morrow," he said. "Sorry to disturb you, but I hadn't a minute all day, and there was a question I figured we could best talk over quietly."

"Then you had better start in with it," said Alton quietly. "This lady, who came here on business, is just going."

"Of course," said the stranger. "I think I have had the pleasure of meeting her."

He turned with a little smile which broadened into a grin Alton found intolerable, for there was a patter of feet on the stairway, and when he looked round except for himself and Alton the room was empty.

"The fact is I'm awfully sorry," he said. "But how was I to know?"

The veins were swollen on Alton's forehead, and his eyes half-closed.

"Now," he said sternly, "I don't want to hear any more of that. I think I told you the lady you saw here came in a few minutes ago on an affair of business."

It was unfortunate that Alton had a difficult temper and his visitor no discretion, for there are men in whom Western directness degenerates into effrontery.

"Of course!" said the latter. "My dear fellow, you needn't protest.

Considering the connection between her employers and Hallam, who is scarcely a friend of yours, that is especially likely."

Alton stood very straight, looking at the speaker in a fashion which would have warned any one who knew him. "I figure you can't help being a fool, but I want to hear you admit that you're sorry for it," he said.

He spoke very quietly, but it was unfortunate for both of them that the other man, who was growing slightly nettled, did not know when to stop.

"I told you I was sorry--I looked in at an inopportune time--already, and I'll forget it right off," he said. "Now that should content anybody, because there are folks who would think the story too good to be lost."

He got no further, because Alton stepped forward and seized him by the collar, which tore away in his grasp. Then there was a brief scuffle, a scattering of papers up and down the room, and Alton stood gasping in the doorway, while his visitor reeled down the first flight of stairs and into the wall at the foot of it. Alton glanced down at him a moment, and seeing he was not seriously hurt, flung the door to with a bang that rolled from corridor to corridor through the great silent building, before he turned back into the disordered room with a little laugh.

"I've fixed that fellow, anyway, and now I'd better go through those plans until I simmer down," he said.

He picked up the overturned table and his scattered supper, while it was characteristic of him that when an hour later he rolled up a sheet of mill-drawings in a survey plotting of the Somasco valley, he had forgotten all about the incident, which was, however, not the case with the other man. In another twenty minutes he was also fast asleep, and because men commence their work betimes in that country, had disposed of several car-loads of Somasco produce before he breakfasted next morning. During the day he noticed that some of the younger men he met smiled at him curiously, but attached no especial meaning to it. Alton had taught himself to concentrate all his faculties upon his task, and he worked in the city as he had done in the bush, with the singleness of purpose and activity that left no opportunity of considering side issues. He had also, as usual, a good deal to do: buyers of dressed lumber, cattle, and ranching produce to interview; shippers of horses to bargain with: railroad men and politicians to obtain promises of concessions from, and men who had money to lend to interest. The latter was the most difficult task, and now and then his face grew momentarily grave as he remembered the burdens he had already laid upon his ranch and the Somasco Consolidated.

"Still, what we're working for is bound to come, and we'll hold on somehow until it does," he said to Forel, who occasionally remonstrated with him. "When you've helped me to put the new loan through I'll bring Charley or the other man down, and go up and relocate the claim.

After the late snowfall nobody could get through the ranges now, but Tom and I could make our way when it wouldn't be possible to any of Hallam's men."

Possibly because he had been successful hitherto, Alton was slightly over-sanguine, and apt to make too small allowance in his calculations for contingencies in which human foresight and tenacity of purpose may not avail. It happened in the meanwhile, though he was, of course, not aware of this, that Deringham had an interview with Hallam in the smoking-room of the big C.P.R. hotel. They did not enter it together, for Deringham was sitting there when Hallam came in, about the time the Atlantic express was starting, which accounted for the fact that there was nobody else present. Deringham appeared a trifle too much at his ease, though his face was pale, for he had not departed from veracity when he informed Forel that his heart had troubled him after listening to Seaforth's story. He nodded to Hallam, and picked out a fresh cigar from the box upon the table before he spoke.

"It is fine weather," he said.

"Oh, yes," said Hallam dryly. "Still, I guess you didn't ask me to come here and talk about the climate."

"No," and Deringham glanced at his cigar. "I meant to tell you that the little speculation you recently mentioned does not commend itself to me. In fact, I have decided that we can have no more dealings of any description together."

"No?" said Hallam, with a little brutal laugh. "Dollars running out?"

Deringham glanced at him languidly. "As you know, that is not the reason. Now I do not ask for a return of the money you obtained from me--but I want the thing stopped immediately."

Hallam poured out a glass of wine. "You will have to put it straight."

"Well," said Deringham, "if you insist. I am sincerely sorry I ever saw or heard of you. You, of course, remember the conditions on which I made that deal with you. I desired Mr. Alton kept away from Somasco--for a time, and now I want a definite promise from you that he will be free from any further molestation."

"Then," said Hallam, with a grin, "what's your programme if I don't agree? You would put the police on to me?"

"No," said Deringham, making the best play he could, though he realized the weakness of his hand. "That would not appear advisable--or necessary. It would be simpler to warn my kinsman."

Hallam laid his hand upon the table, and Deringham noticed that it was coarse and ill-shaped, but suggested a brutal tenacity of grasp.

"Bluff, with nothing behind it. You don't take me that way," he said.

"Now I'll put my cards right down in front of you. Alton is not a fool, and you couldn't tell him anything he doesn't know already. The trouble is, he can prove nothing. He has a tolerably short temper, and one day he 'most hammered the life out of another man in the Somasco mill. That man didn't like him before, and it's quite possible he fell foul of Alton after it, but where does that take in me? Got hold of that, haven't you? Well, then, there's just this difference between you and me. I could tell Alton one or two things about you he didn't know!"

"I would be willing to take my chance of his believing you," said Deringham.

Hallam laughed. "For a man of business you have a plaguy bad memory.

Now it seems to me quite likely that the man I talked about has had quite enough of fooling with Alton, and we'll let what you asked for go at that, because there's something else we're coming to. There was a cheque you gave me, and I had who it was drawn by and payable to put down on the slip when I passed it through my bank. Now I've got that slip, and after I'd had a talk with him, Alton wouldn't wonder what you gave me all those dollars for."

Deringham was silent almost a minute, for he knew his opponent had seen the weak point. Then he said, "If I admitted that you were right?"

Hallam raised his big hand, and pressed his thumb down slowly and viciously on the table. "It don't need admitting. I've got you there," he said. "Still, I don't know that I want to squeeze you.

Well, I once kept Alton out of Somasco to please you, and now I want you to keep him right here in Vancouver for a while."

"I could not do it."

"Well," said Hallam, grinning, "if you couldn't, I figure your daughter could."

Deringham had all along been struggling with a sense of disgust, and now his anger mastered him. It was, however, the rage of a weak man which is not far removed from fear.

"You infernal scoundrel," he said.

Hallam laughed brutally. "That may do you good, and it makes no difference to me," he said. "I want Alton to stop here just three weeks from to-day. He'll stay without pressing for two of them, I think--and you've got to keep him during the third one. There's nothing going to hurt him, but it wouldn't be wise to fool things, you understand?"

He took up his hat as he spoke, and moved towards the door, while Deringham's eyes blazed when it closed behind him.

"Damn him!" he said, almost choked with impotent fury, and then sat down limply with a face that grew suddenly blanched. His hand shook as he seized his glass, and some of the wine he needed was spilled upon the table, for his eyes grew dim as the faintness came upon him.

Deringham had been recommended a rest from all excitement and business anxieties before he sailed from England, and passion was distinctly injudicious considering the condition of one of his organs.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FORCE OF CALUMNY

As Hallam had surmised, one or two affairs of importance detained Alton in Vancouver. The winter had been exceptionally rigorous, and he knew that the claim was guarded securely by frost and snow. Having also, he fancied, effectually silenced his indiscreet visitor by flinging him down-stairs, he thought no more about that affair, and spent one or two evenings pleasantly at Forel's house, where Alice Deringham greeted him with slightly reserved cordiality.

She fancied she understood his reticence on the memorable evening when he had stumbled on the stairway, and was not altogether displeased by it. He had, it seemed, been over-sensitive, for he was but slightly lame, while she had reasons for surmising that he would realize there was no great necessity for the self-sacrifice in time. Alice Deringham was not unduly vain, but she knew her power, and Alton had in his silence betrayed himself again and again. Still, it seemed only fitting that he should make the first advances, now the moment when she might have done so had passed. She also fancied she understood the motive which prompted his answer when her father spoke to him respecting Carnaby.

"I can't go over now," he said. "Your lawyers and agents can look after the place a little longer, and I needn't worry if you're content with them. Anyway, all of it does not belong to me and we will see what we can fix up between us when I go over by and by."

This was pleasant hearing to Deringham, who commenced to hope that he would be able to give a satisfactory account of his stewardship when the time came, and winced at the recollection of the folly which had placed him in Hallam's grasp. Of late his health had given way again, and that served as an excuse for remaining at Vancouver, which he had scarcely the courage to leave.