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 I'm at home," he said. "It is a question of the value of your time and Mr.

Calhoun's apparently?"

Though he possibly did not realize it Deringham's tone was a trifling condescending, and there was something in it which suggested that he believed anything could be bought with money. He was, however, a little astonished when the man regarded him gravely out of eyes that closed a trifle.

"That's just where you're wrong," said he. "If I could have taken you on to save the lady waiting it would have pleased me. As it is, I can't, you see."

He said nothing more, but dismounting pulled the boxes out of the wagon and laid some travelling wraps upon one of them, while Miss Deringham affected not to see what he was doing. "And how long will it be before Barscombe passes?" said she.

"It can't be more than two hours," said the teamster quietly. "All you have to do is to sit there and wait for him."

He took off his broad hat when the others alighted, and Miss Deringham noticed there was a trace of courtliness in his simplicity. Then he strode past her father, who was taking something out of his wallet, and swung himself lightly into the wagon. He spoke to the team, there was a creak and rattle, and next moment the vehicle was lurching down the trail. Deringham stood still a moment, his fingers inside the wallet and mild wonder in his eyes, and then smiled a little as his daughter turned towards him. There was a faint pink flush of anger in her cheeks.

"The dollar does not appear to retain its usual influence in this part of Canada," he said dryly. "Possibly, however, the man was too embarrassed by your evident displeasure to remember his hire."

Miss Deringham saw the twinkle in her father's eyes and laughed a little. "I don't think he was," she said. "Had that been the case one could have forgiven him more easily. Well, I wonder how long Barscombe will keep us waiting."

Deringham made a whimsical gesture of resignation. "In the meantime I notice that our late conductor has arranged a comfortable seat for you," he said.

The girl sat down, and looked about her. It was very still in the bush, and the sound of running water drifted musically out of the silence. From somewhere in the distance there also came a curious drumming which she did not know then was made by an axe, but it presently ceased, and the song of the river rose alone in long drowsy pulsations. In front of and behind her stretched the rows of serried trunks which had grown to vastness of girth and stateliness with the centuries, and the girl, who was of quick perceptions, felt instinctively the influence of their age and silence. There was, it seemed, something intangible but existent in this still land of shadow which reacted upon her pleasantly after the artificial gaieties and glitter of surface civilization. Her impatience and irritation seemed to melt, and the time slipped by, until she was almost drowsy when with an increasing rattle another wagon came jolting down the trail.

Its driver pulled up, and regarded them with placid astonishment, but he was amenable to the influence of Deringham's wallet, and they took their places in the vehicle. There was nothing remarkable about the man, and he ruminated gravely when as they stopped to let the horses drink Deringham asked him a question concerning their late companion.

"It might have been Thomson," he said. "A big man, kind of solid and homely?"

"No," said Miss Deringham reflectively. "I should scarcely describe him as homely."

"Well," said the other, "if you told me the kind of wagon I might guess at him."

Deringham described the vehicle as well as he was able, and the stranger nodded. "That's Jimmy Thomson's outfit all right," said he.

"What did he charge you?"

Miss Dillingham laughed. "It is curious that he charged us nothing,"

said she.

"Well," said the stranger gravely, "that was blame unlike Jimmy.