"I have just spent an hour with Mr. Alton and a lawyer, and have something of importance to tell you," he said.

"I am listening," said the girl languidly, though Deringham fancied there were signs of a sudden intentness in her face.

"We will commence at the beginning. Alton appears to have been doubtful respecting his right to Carnaby, and seems to have felt in the first place that it would not be fitting for him to receive as a favour what was his father's by right. I do not know that many men would have regarded it in that light."

"I think," said the girl with a little quickening of her pulses, "that Mr. Alton's view was right!"

"Well," said Deringham, with a little smile that seemed to indicate that the point was not important, "that brings us to his other motive, which displays a very creditable feeling. Tristan Alton, as you know, only relented upon his deathbed, when, as I pointed out to our kinsman, his senses were, in the opinion even of those who signed his will, a trifle clouded, and Alton was reluctant to profit by a half-delirious fancy which deprived us, or to be more literal, you, of what was virtually your own. As I told him no man in the possession of all his wits would have made such a will, and there was a probability that it could he successfully contested."

"Then I think you blundered, father," said the girl.

Deringham raised his hand as though to indicate that he did not purpose to discuss the question. "I have been trying to show you that Alton never regarded Carnaby as his. You follow me?"

"No. I go farther," said the girl with a curious smile. "All that you have told me was quite clear to me some while ago."

"Now we come to the present. Alton has proved to myself and the lawyer that he is solvent. That is if he sold everything he could just pay his debts, but because he does not intend to sell, he stands figuratively speaking with his back to the wall, and appears to consider that financial ruin may overtake him. That being so he has while he has the power made over all his rights in Carnaby to you."

Alice Deringham rose up with a little gasp, quivering. "Father," she said in a strained voice, "I don't think I can forgive you."

Deringham smiled deprecatingly. "I think that is beside the point," he said. "It seems to me that Alton has acted most becomingly, and if he survives his difficulties we could, of course, come to some amicable understanding with him respecting the partition of the property."

The girl's face grew a trifle plainer, for one word had an ominous ring.

"There is more than you have told me," and once more it struck her that Deringham was curiously haggard.

"Well," he said, "life is always a trifle uncertain, and Alton has twice met with disaster in the ranges."

The girl stood still looking at him steadily with a vague terror in her eyes. Then she said slowly, "And I am the mistress of all the Carnaby property. It is mine to do what I like with. I could borrow money upon it, or sell it?"

"Under conditions," said Deringham with a little smile of relief, though his face grew clouded again. "Alton has made it yours, almost too absolutely."

Alice Deringham did not remember what next passed between them or how she dismissed her father, but presently she sat alone staring down across the blue inlet with eyes that saw nothing. She was numbly sensible of a horrible humiliation, but that troubled her the least.

Alton was standing with his back to the wall and in some vague peril of his life, and it was she who had helped to betray him. She almost hated her father, and she loathed herself, and yet a ray of hope shone through her fears. Carnaby was wholly hers, and with it she held the power to help him. That something which would test her courage to the uttermost must be done before he would accept help from her she knew, but the pride which had been a curse to her was in the dust, and when the vague project slowly grew into shape she rose and sought Forel.

She was very composed in speech and bearing, but when the merchant heard what she asked him he gasped with astonishment.

"I want it done as soon as possible," she said.

CHAPTER XXXI

"THE THIRD TIME"

Horton was essentially practical, and once he saw his way usually set about the following of it without any of the misgivings which might have proved a hindrance to more intellectual men. There were, however, times when Seaforth wondered uneasily whether he was doing well, but he decided that as the outlook could not be much more unfavourable any variation would almost of necessity be an improvement, and that one could not afford to be over-scrupulous in a struggle with a man of Hallam's description. Accordingly he hoped for the best, and resigned himself to Horton, who grew more assured of the beneficence and legality of his proceedings during the journey to Somasco, where Seaforth accompanied him, and as soon as he arrived there sent round demanding the attendance of all the ranchers in that vicinity at his store, in the name of the law. He, however, contrived that the summons should not reach the few who, having refused to join the Somasco Consolidated, were suspected of complicity with Hallam, until it was too late, and though Seaforth ventured a few protestations, appeared perfectly contented with himself.

"I'm put right here to scare off malefactors and encourage honest men, and I'm doing it, the best way I can," he said.

The ranchers came, as did Captain Andersen, the venerable Scandinavian constable, whose duties had hitherto consisted in keeping his neighbours' gardens free of depredating hogs and improving his own land. Horton also made a speech to them, and appeared somewhat offended when some of them broke into the bushman's silent chuckle.

"We have," he said, "no use for fooling. This is the most serious and solemn kind of thing."

"Oh, yes," said one of the assembly. "That's just what it's going to be if Damer's friends stand by him. Damer isn't going to come along to prison because Andersen tells him."

Horton regarded the speaker with a gravity that was tempered by semi-contemptuous pity. "Then," he said, "because I'm going to swear you in as special constables, you and the boys will make him."

There was another lapse into half-audible laughter and one of the men touched Seaforth's shoulder. "I'm wondering what Harry would think of this," said he. "It would sound kind of curious in the old country."

Seaforth smiled as he made a little gesture of resignation. "The point is that he doesn't know. Anyway, we haven't done much to be proud of while we acted sensibly, and now and then foolishness seems to pay as well as wisdom."

"Well," said the other, grinning, "I wouldn't call old Horton a fool altogether."

Horton interrupted him by calling up six of the biggest men, and very gravely swearing them in, after which he produced a paper. "This," he said, "is a warrant for the apprehension of one Roger Damer for horse-stealing, and all you have to do is to go up and get him. You will meet here at daylight to-morrow, every man with a horse and provisions, but while I'll do the best I can for you I'm not quite sure the Government will pay for them."

Once more there was soft laughter, but early next morning six silent men, whose bronze faces bore no trace of merriment now, rode out of the settlement, with rifles slung behind them, and four more followed later leading heavily-laden horses by the bridle. Time was not of vital importance, and though all of them were at home in the bush they prospected for the easiest road, which led them through valleys few men of their race had ever set foot in before. Twice a few of the Siwash, who come down the rivers with the spring, awoke when the moon was in the sky, and heard a trampling of horses high up amidst the pines that shut in a lonely valley, and once a solitary prospector, camping close beneath the snow, rose drowsily beside his fire, and wondered whether he was dreaming as he saw a line of mounted men with rifles flit by and vanish beyond a black hill shoulder. They rode in silence, and save for the muffled ring of iron and faint jingle of steel, he could have taken them for disembodied spirits in place of living men.

Horton, however, had in him a trace of the general, and did what his mind could grasp with a grim thoroughness, while, as the result of it, there was blank astonishment one morning in a mining camp as he and the men who followed him appeared as by magic from amidst the pines surrounding it. They were also armed, and the miners, who rose from their breakfast, stared at them motionless in silence, that is, all save one, who slipped into a tent and afterwards out through the back of it. Horton, however, saw him, and his command was to the point--"Stop him."

There was a rustle of branches, and Tom of Okanagan rose out of the thicket the fugitive had almost gained, with a rifle in his hand. He laughed somewhat grimly as he said, "Stop right where you are."

Then there was for a space a somewhat impressive tableau, that had in it humorous as well as tragic possibilities. Hallam's men had doubtless been chosen because of qualities which are more tolerated farther south than they are in that country, but they had nothing handy to enforce their protests with beyond their camp utensils, and it did not appear advisable to make a move in search of more effective weapons. Accordingly they stood silent, with the smoke drifting about them, all save one of them, who, with impotent fury in his face, backed step by step into the opening before their shanty, as Tom of Okanagan beckoned him. Nobody else moved at all, for Horton's company were commandingly posted beneath the surrounding pines, and there was a grim twinkle in the eyes of one who carried a rifle, and had risen out of the undergrowth between the shovels and axes and their legitimate owners. How long the spectacle would have lasted Seaforth did not know, but at last the man, who had backed away before Okanagan, tripped on a tent line and went down headlong. That broke the silence, and the big man, who had on a previous occasion spoken with Alton, stepped forward.

"Now what the ---- is all this about?" he said.

"Stand back," said Horton solemnly as he drew out a paper. "It's the hand of the law. Here's a warrant for Roger Damer, and it's his body we've come for. You will put the handcuffs on him, Constable Andersen, and if he tries to stop you Tom has full authority to pound the wickedness out of him."

"Hold on," said the big man. "That's your way of it. Now has it struck you that there are things we might do?"

"Oh, yes," said Horton with undiminished gravity. "You're going to stop where you are, like lawful citizens, because there are enough of us to make you if you don't want to."

The argument was incontrovertible, and there was only a growl of protest as the venerable Scandinavian did his duty. Then while two men stood on guard over their prisoner Horton turned for the last time to the miners.

"I'm kind of sorry I don't know quite enough about you to take the rest of you along," he said. "Still, if I can find out anything we'll come back for you again. Well, boys, we'll be going. Hitch that lariat on to the prisoner's wrists, and keep a good hold on it, Constable Andersen."

Nothing more was said, for Horton's men marched out of camp as silently as they had come, and it was only when the pines had closed about them that a hoarse laugh went back in answer to the volley of vituperation that rose out of the hollow behind them. Damer spoke no word to any man all that day or the next, but when they camped on the second night high up on the hillside he signed to Seaforth, who passed the fire where he lay a little apart from the rest.

"Somebody is going to be sorry for this," he said. "Now a sensible man would wonder what you expect to make by it."

"You mean that we can't connect you with the horse-stealing?"

"Yes," said the man, "if there was any. Now there are men behind me who will make you and Horton very sorry you ever fooled with me."

Seaforth smiled outwardly and with his eyes, for he surmised that the prisoner was willing to bargain for his freedom, but his lips were set and he found it difficult to restrain the rage that welled up within him.

"Well," he said, "I don't know that it is of any great importance whether we do or not. It will be enough to hold you by until we find out all that happened one snowy night when somebody fixed a lariat across a trail, and there was another affair up in the bush."

The light of the fire was on them, and the man's face betrayed him, though his words were bold enough. "You don't take me with a hand like that!"