"Get it down. You haven't much time."

Horton's pen scratched and spluttered, as sinking now and then almost beyond hearing, the disjointed words fell from the lips that could scarcely frame them; but it was nevertheless with a horrible vividness that Damer told his story, and those who sat listening gasped with relief when at last it was finished and everything was plain. Then he signed to the doctor, who raised his head a trifle and once more held a glass to his lips.

"Read it. I want to see you've got it straight," he said. For a space Horton's voice rose and fell monotonously as he read in haste. Then he approached the bed with the paper, and the dying man seized the pen.

He traced a few straggling characters upon the document, and let it fall again, watched with strained impatience while Horton and the surveyor signed, and then turned his head from the light.

"Now," he said, "I guess I've fixed the man who held the whip over me up quite tight."

It was probably ten minutes before he moved again, and then he signed to Alton very feebly with his fingers, while a curious look that afterwards puzzled the rancher, who could not forget it, crept into his eyes. There was vindictiveness in it, but whether there was more than this he could never tell.

"There's just another thing," he said in a hoarse, strained whisper as Alton bent over him. "Come nearer--a little nearer still. Now there was another man as well as Hallam."

Alton glancing round saw that the others had not heard, and stooped a trifle further as the cracked lips moved again. Nobody caught what Damer told him, but when he straightened himself again his face was white and grim, and he went out without a word to any one. Then the flicker of a smile came into the eyes of the dying man, and he moved his head so that his face was hidden. The doctor, crossing over softly, looked down on him and signed to the others that they might leave the room.

"He may last an hour or two, but I don't think he will speak again," he said.

In the meanwhile Alton strode with hands clenched into the shadows of the silent pines. He had long been troubled by vague suspicions, and had driven them away, but he could not doubt what Damer had told him, and groaned as he stood face to face with the verity. He had been too proud to stoop at any time to take an unfair advantage of an enemy, but he could not lightly forget a wrong, and there was a trace of stubborn vindictiveness within him. Hallam had brought him down to ruin, and thrice struck at his life by treachery, and now Damer's testimony had placed his enemy in his hand. He had but to close it and crush him, but he also realized with fierce anger what this would cost him, for Hallam had, it seemed, protected himself effectively. If he dragged Hallam down Deringham must fall with him, and while that consideration alone would not have stayed him in spite of the curious pride of race and family which he had become sensible of of late, it was evident that his daughter must suffer too. She had done no wrong, and Alton, who thought of her with a great tenderness, dare not contemplate all that the revelation would cost her.

It would have been bitter to let his enemy go free, had he stood alone, but that was, he realized, what no man can do, and there were behind him with their future linked to his the ranchers of Somasco whose safety demanded that he should put it out of Hallam's power to do them a further injury. It would also be so simple. He had but to hold his hand, and Horton would take all the action that was needful.

Then it became more plain to him that even at the cost of his loyalty to his comrades he could not allow the woman he loved to suffer with the guilty. He knew her pride and that the blow would crush her, but again through all his pity for her a gust of rage shook him, and he ground the soft cedar-twigs viciously beneath his heel. He could not face the thought of the woman's humiliation. Everything must go, his pride, his faith, his vengeance, before that came about, and he stopped in his restless pacing and leaned against a pine as the conflicting emotions gave place to a quiet resolution. At last he could see the stars between the great branches high above him, and shivered a little as a chilly breeze sighed across the silent bush. Something in its stillness reacted upon him, and the last trace of his passion melted away. If he did wrong he alone would be responsible, and at least his enemy's daughter should not suffer.

Walking very slowly he went back to the hotel, and found Horton writing. He glanced at Alton curiously and then answered the unasked question.

"Yes," he said; "he's out on the trail now, and one would kind of wonder where it was taking him. Where have you been all this time, Harry?"

"How long have I been?" said Alton.

"Two hours, anyway. Well, you needn't tell me if you don't want to, but it's quite easy to see that something is worrying you."

Alton concealed his astonishment. "I've had things to think about,"

said he. "Wasn't there a paper you took from Damer?"

"Oh, yes," and Horton flung him several crumpled sheets across.

"Nothing much to be made of that. It has been given him to send cipher telegrams with."

Alton glanced at the paper with apparently vague curiosity, but his brain was busy and he had a good memory.

"I think I'd let the folks in Vancouver have it," he said with a yawn.

"Now I want a few hours' rest, because we're going back at sun up to restake the claim."

Horton looked thoughtful. "I'm not quite sure you could hold it. It hasn't been declared open."

Alton laughed a little. "Well, I think I can," he said. "Damer hadn't got his patent, anyway, and it's scarcely likely that the man who sent him will protest against me."

Then he slowly strolled away, but once the door closed behind him moved with quick resolute steps to his room. There he sat busy with pen and paper for several minutes, and then descending softly found Okanagan in the store.

"Get your horse as quietly as you can, and ride in to the railroad with this message as if the devil was after you," he said.

Okanagan stretched himself sleepily. "Horton's sending in at sun up."

"Yes," said Alton dryly. "I want my message on the wires some hours before his, but nobody need know of it beyond you and me."

Okanagan nodded, and in another five minutes Alton looked into the room where Horton was still writing.

"I fancied I heard somebody riding down the trail, but it's not quite easy being a magistrate, and my head's got kind of mixed," said the latter. "Still, I've nearly got this thing fixed, and if the folks down in Vancouver don't fool over it, when Hallam hears what's happened to his partner he'll be under lock and key."

"Oh, yes," said Alton. "We'll hope for the best, though that man's kind of slippery."

In the meanwhile Tom of Okanagan was riding at a gallop down the trail, with the thin mist whirling by him and the stars above him growing dim, and there were several leagues between him and the settlement when daylight crept slowly into the valley. Thus it happened that Horton's dispatches to the police at Vancouver were not the first that left the station, and that evening Deringham, who was sitting with his daughter on the verandah of Forel's house, turned from the girl with a little closing of his lips as he saw Hallam coming up the pathway. His movements suggested nervous haste, and though he was usually neat in dress, his unbuttoned coat had evidently been flung on, while the glance he cast behind him towards the wharf where one of the Sound steamers was about to sail savoured of apprehension. This did not escape Alice Deringham.

"Mr. Hallam seems to be in a hurry," she said. "I wish he had not come now, because I do not like that man, and you have not been well lately.

You will not let him disturb you?"

Deringham rose and looked down on her with a curious little smile. "I don't know that it can be helped, but I am no more pleased to see Mr.

Hallam than you seem to be," he said.

For a moment, and though the breach between them had not been healed, the girl's heart smote her. Deringham had beguiled her into an action whose memory would, she fancied, always retain its sting, but he was her father, and seemed very worn and ill. Also some instinctive impulse prompted her to detain him.

"Father," she said pleadingly, "don't see him. Go in at once, and I will tell him that quietness is necessary to you."

Deringham had almost yielded to the hand upon his arm when Hallam glanced in their direction and signed to him. Then he shook off the girl's grasp and she shivered a little for no apparent reason as they went in together. There was nobody else about, for Mrs. Forel and her husband had gone down to the city, and she sat alone on the verandah while a murmur of voices reached her through an open window. Though his words were inaudible her father appeared to be expostulating. Then he came out, and as she noticed there was an unusual pallor in his face and that his hands were trembling, she remembered he had looked as he did then once before when a partial failure of the heart's action had almost cost him his life.

"You must send Mr. Hallam away at once," she said.

Deringham made a gesture of impatience. "I shall be rid of him altogether in a few more minutes. You have some money by you?"

"Yes," said the girl. "I am not fond of going to the bank, and got Mr.

Forel to change my English cheque into currency, but why do you want it?"

"Hallam has to catch the steamer, and the banks are shut. Don't ask questions now, but get me the money quick."

Alice Deringham went in, and returned with a little satchel. "This is all I have, and I don't feel very willing to lend it Mr. Hallam," she said.

Deringham took the satchel from her and moved away; then, as though acting under impulse, he stopped and looked back at her.

"Thank you, my dear," he said, with a curious gentleness. "It has relieved me of a good deal of anxiety."

He went away, and Alice Deringham, hearing the door close behind him, wondered a little. When she next looked up she saw Hallam swinging with hasty strides down the road, and a little later the roar of a whistle rang about the pines as a big white steamer moved out into the inlet. A cloud of yellow vapour rolled from her funnel, there was a frothing wash beneath her towering sides, and the girl watched her languidly until the pines which shroud the Narrows shut the great white fabric from her sight and left only a moving trail of smoke.

Then she felt happier. The steamer had at least taken Hallam away, and her father was not now the courtly though somewhat reserved gentleman who had treated her with indulgent kindness until Hallam crossed his path. It was a fine evening, and she sat still on the verandah wondering how the rift had imperceptibly widened between them, until again the blood crept to her forehead as she remembered that it was at his instigation she had detained Alton. Still, though she realized that this could not be wholly forgotten, she took her part of the blame, and felt sorry for the harassed man whose anxieties were intensified by his solicitude for her welfare. He was in difficulties, his health was failing, and she decided upon an attempt at reconciliation. The respect she had cherished for him could never be quite restored, but she could be a more sympathetic daughter, and help him to bear his troubles. Then as she glanced down across the inlet with eyes that grew softer, Forel and his wife came up through the garden.

"Still alone?" he said. "Where is your father?"

"I think he is in your room," said the girl. "Mr. Hallam came in to see him."

"Hallam? Now I wonder----" said Forel, and stopped, but Alice Deringham had seen his face, and being a woman took instinctive warning.