Seaforth expected an outbreak, and heard a growl from his comrades, who commenced to close in behind him, but Alton only closed one hand a little.

"Where's the man who brought you here?" he said.

"Gone out," said the other, "to record the claim. Now we don't want any unpleasantness, but the mine is ours, and there are enough of us to keep it, you see. Come in and have some supper, and take it reasonably."

Alton looked at him for a space out of half-closed eyes, and the man appeared to grow uneasy.

"You condemned jumper! These are honest men," he said, pointing to those who followed him. "We'll go back and camp up yonder, boys."

It was close on midnight when Seaforth crept up to Alton, who lay huddled against a cedar in the smoke of the fire. His face showed drawn and puckered in the flickering light.

"Don't take it too hard, Harry," he said.

Alton smothered a groan. "I'm feeling very mean tonight," he said.

"Lord, what a mess I've made of everything. Every ranch in Somasco mortgaged to the last rod, the new mill not finished, roads half made, and not another dollar to be had in the city. And there's not a man or woman who believed in me but I've dragged them down."

"I think," said Seaforth, "they believe in you still. You did all that any man could have done, Harry."

"No," said Alton. "I stayed down in Vancouver when I should have been here. That can never be quite wiped out--but what could I do?"

Seaforth laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder. "Don't worry too much about what is done with, but look forward. You'll find your friends behind you yet."

Alton shook off his grasp. "My friends! I've done them harm enough, but you are right. This thing isn't finished yet."

Seaforth smiled a little. "That is a good deal better, Harry. One wins at the last round now and then."

Alton looked at him steadily. "You don't understand. All that was worth winning has gone already--but Hallam must fight."

Seaforth saw the smouldering fire in the half-closed eyes, and the instinctive closing of the lean, hard fingers, and went back to his lair in the wet undergrowth contented. Hallam had won hitherto, but he knew his comrade, and the struggle was not over yet.

CHAPTER XXX

SEAFORTH'S REINSTATEMENT

There is on the road between Vancouver and New Westminster a strip of primeval bush. Beyond it the Fraser meadows stretch, open to wind and sun, westwards to the sea, but beneath the great black pines it is dim and shadowy, and Seaforth was glad of that as he stood leaning against a hemlock one sunny afternoon. He would have found the task he had undertaken almost impossible in the glare of the white road that ran straight under the open sky, but the stillness of that green realm of shadow where all things were softened in the faint half-light had made it a trifle easier. Also, the essence of the spring, which had come suddenly, was in the scent of pine and cedar, and it had given him courage, and set his pulses throbbing faster. It is possible that the man did not realize all the influences that upheld him then, but something that sprang from the steaming earth and the life that was stirring in every towering pine reacted upon him, and he gathered hope when he saw the reflex of it in the eyes of his companion.

She sat a pace or two apart from him on a cedar-trunk, and a dusty bicycle rested against the farther end of it. The dust was also thick upon her simple dress and the cotton gloves that lay in her hands. Her fingers had tightened upon them, and there was a flush in her cheeks when for a moment she glanced at the man. His face was a trifle colourless, but the girl looked aside again as she saw the tense anxiety in his eyes.

"And that is all," he said, with a little tremble in his voice. "You will think it is horribly too much?"

Nellie Townshead glanced away into the shadows of the bush, and there was pain and a trace of shrinking in her face, but it had vanished when she turned again, and her voice had a little imperious ring.

"And what made you tell me now?"

Seaforth spread his hands out with a little deprecatory gesture. "I expected this. The story I have told you should have shown you what I am--and while I wanted to tell it earlier I was afraid."

The colour was a trifle plainer in the cheeks of the girl, and her voice slightly more imperious still.

"That leaves the question unanswered. I still want to know what gave you the courage now?"

Seaforth understood her, and knew her pride. "I think Harry gave me some of it. You see, I never had a great deal."

"Harry?" said Miss Townshead, with a trace of astonishment that was not quite free from disdain.

Seaforth moved his head. "Yes," he said. "What I have told you I told him, and he seemed to think that one could live--even that kind of thing--down. He is, you see, a somewhat exacting man, and that gave me the hope that you would be as merciful."

"Still, you have not answered me."

Seaforth flushed a little. "I know what you mean--but would even what I have told you warrant you thinking that of me?"

"I must know," said the girl.

Seaforth was silent a moment. "There is a distinction--but it is difficult to draw," he said. "Well, I could not bear to think of you struggling on down here alone with everything against you. There were times when it almost maddened me, and at last, though I knew it might cost me all I hoped for, I had to speak."

The girl's face softened. "And there was nothing else. You did not think that--because of anything which had happened--I should be more apt to listen?"

Seaforth was usually undemonstrative in bearing and speech, but he stood up stiffly, and his voice was a trifle strained. "That is what I have been trying to make clear, and I can only give you my word that I did not," he said. "If I had had more courage I would have told you that story long ago."

Nellie Townshead's eyes were very gentle now. "I felt I must make quite sure, because had it been otherwise I should never have forgiven you."

"And," said Seaforth slowly, "you can forgive the rest. I can make no protestations, but if I have gone straight in this country it was you who helped me, and I should never have gone down into the mire if I had known you in the other one. And now I have nothing, not even moderate prosperity to offer you."

"You think that would have counted?" said the girl.

"No," said Seaforth quietly, "not with you. It is because I have so little to offer I venture to ask so much. All the giving must be done by you."

Seaforth had, though not an eloquent man, pleaded his cause efficaciously, for although his words might have been better chosen, the inference behind them was plain; and while parts of his story had brought the colour to the cheeks of his companion, his blameless life in Canada was a very acceptable offering since he owed it to her. It is pleasant to feel oneself a refining influence, but it was not gratified vanity which stirred the girl. She had a wide charity, and was one of those whose mission is to give without looking for a return.

She rose up slowly, and stood before him with eyes that had grown a trifle hazy.

"All that counts the most is yours still," she said. "And as to the rest--I think it is done with, Charley. You have lived it down."

Seaforth stretched out his hands and drew her to him. "God bless you, my dear, but you are wrong," he said, "All I had was yours two years ago."

It was some little time later when a creaking wagon swung round a bend of the road, and the bronzed rancher on the driving-seat laughed softly to himself as he saw Miss Townshead sitting demurely but with downcast face on one end of the cedar, and Seaforth, who appeared suspiciously unconcerned, at least six feet away. That was not just how he had seen them when with the soft dust muffling the rattle of wheels he and his team came out of the shadows which hung athwart the bend. The wagon was old and weather-scarred, the harness rudely patched with hide, but it is possible there was room in the life of strenuous toil the bushman lived for the romance that brightens everything, and he shouted a mirthful greeting to them as he whipped his team. Then as the wagon jolted on out under the sombre archway into the brightness of the sun there came drifting back to them the refrain of a song. It was one sung often in the bush of that country at the time, and the two who sat listening in the green stillness that sunny afternoon grasped the verity that underlay its crude sentimentality. Shorn of its harshness, by the distance the voice rang bravely through the thud of hoofs and rattle, of wheels, and there was in the half-heard words and jingling rhythm what there was in the sunshine and scent of steaming earth, the life and hope of the eternal spring.

Seaforth laughed a little as he stretched his hand out to the girl, but the light which shone back at him from her eyes was softer than that of mirth.

"I think that man knows what we know," he said. "Come out into the sunlight. The world is not what it was an hour ago."

They were plodding down the dazzling road, one on either side of the dusty bicycle under the open sky when he spoke again.

"All this makes me sorry for Harry."

"Yes," said the girl reflectively, for she saw there was more to follow.