"And so, for fear you should lose it, you did not strike the spark?

Well, I think that was wise. It would certainly have cost you one thing which you seem to value," she said.

This was vague, but it seemed to Sewell that there could be only one meaning to it. What he had feared to lose was not yet beyond his reach.

He did not know that there were in the girl qualities which would have made her a successful Pompadour. Just then her craving for influence was irresistible; but she swept away from the topic with a swift smile expressive only of the indifference which of all the feelings that she could show he most shrank from.

"Still, to be practical, how could the blaze have spread?" she said. "It would have smouldered out in one snow-bound valley, and in the spring there would have been a very inglorious downfall to the strictly limited Utopia."

Sewell was nettled. There was, though it was seldom apparent, vanity in him, as both Hetty and Grace had guessed. Her blame he could have borne, but there was a sting in her smile. That she should think him a visionary schemer led away by his imagination, and without the faculty of execution, hurt him.

"The blaze would have leapt the snowy barriers," he said. "In fact, that was all arranged. Then it would have flashed from range to range across to the Yukon. One tolerably big bonfire has been waiting some time ready for lighting. I had only to send the message. I think you know why I didn't."

Grace saw his eyes, and understood the look in them. It was suggestive of pa.s.sionate admiration. She also knew that a word would dispel it, perhaps forever, but she was lost in the game now, and what the man might think of her afterwards did not matter.

"Then there is a road out--beside the one you made to the settlement? It must be to Westerhouse?" she said.

"Yes," answered Sewell simply. "I have been there."

Grace had just five minutes left, and a task before her which, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, she could scarcely have expected to accomplish; but she had to deal with a man who was, after all, of her own caste, a man with a deep vein of vanity in him, who was also in love with her.

The latter fact had been apparent for some little while, and she let him see now that she recognized it, while during the next few minutes she used every attribute with which Nature had endowed her, as well as art of a very delicate description. In fact, Grace had never until then exactly realized her own capabilities.

Neither Sewell nor she could afterwards remember all that she said, and in fact she said very little, though that little was suggestive; there was no great need for a girl with her patrician beauty to waste words unduly when she had her eyes. In any case, Sewell was as wax beneath her hands, and when she had finished with him she knew that the mountain barrier between the Green River country and Westerhouse was not impa.s.sable, and how the one gorge ran that traversed it. If Sewell fancied she appreciated the pa.s.sion which had led him to do so much for her, that was his affair. There was, however, a curious glow in his eyes when he rose as the major came in.

x.x.xI

BROKEN IDOLS

Coulthurst sat with a big hand clenched on the table and a grim look in his face when Sewell left him, nor did he turn his head until Grace, who came softly out of the inner room, sat down close by him.

"You can't come to terms, father?" she said.

"We can't," and there was an ominous sparkle in Coulthurst's eyes. "I'm not sure that I wish to now. In fact, I've borne quite as much as I'm willing to put up with from both of them, and there's some reason, after all, in Esmond's plan. He'll give them another week, and then we'll cut our way in."

"It's not your affair," and Grace started visibly. "You are the Gold Commissioner."

Coulthurst smiled. "I am also ent.i.tled to the rank of major, and that, after all, means a good deal."

Grace mastered her apprehension, for she realized the major's point of view and indeed concurred with it.

"There is no other way than the one you are thinking of?" she asked.

"There are two," said Coulthurst drily. "We can sit still and starve, or march out and leave the valley in the possession of the miners while we try to break through the snow. Neither of them, however, commends itself to Esmond or me."

"Of course!" said Grace, with a little flush in her face, which, however, faded suddenly. "But suppose one or two of the troopers were killed while you forced the barricade?"

"Then," said Coulthurst, "our friends Ingleby and Sewell would certainly be hung."

The major's terseness was more convincing than a great deal of argument, and Grace saw what she must do. The pride of station was strong in her, so strong, in fact, that she would never have come down to Ingleby's level. It was only because he had shown that he could force his way to hers--at least, as it was likely to be regarded in that country--that she had listened to him. When the grapple became imminent that pride alone would have driven her to take part with const.i.tuted authority instead of what she considered the democratic rabble. Then there was the peril to her father and to Ingleby. He must be saved--against himself, if it should be necessary.

"There are troopers at Westerhouse across the mountains?" she asked.

"I believe there is a strong detachment and a very capable officer."

Grace sat silent a moment before she spoke again. "Father," she said, "I want you to make a bargain with Reggie Esmond for me. On two conditions I am willing to tell you how he can bring those troopers in. You are to be the Gold Commissioner and peacemaker, but nothing else. As there will be two police officers, they will not want you as major. Then there must be an indemnity for Mr. Sewell and Ingleby."

Coulthurst gazed at her in blank astonishment. "You are quite serious?

You mean what you say?"

"Of course! I can tell you--on those two conditions--how to bring the Westerhouse troopers in."

Coulthurst banged his hand down on the table. "Then I think there will be an end of the trouble--and the affair could be arranged to meet your views. But however did you find the way into the Westerhouse country?"

Grace looked at him steadily, though there was a little more colour than usual in her face. "That does not concern Reggie Esmond or you. Hadn't you better go over and see him?"

It was getting late, but Coulthurst went straightway; and as the result of it Esmond and two troopers set out with a hand-sled early next morning for a certain peak that overhung a gorge through the barrier-range that cut off the Westerhouse country. He could not pa.s.s up the valley, but that was no great matter since the peak could be seen leagues away. It was a long journey, and he had intended going no farther than the gorge with the troopers, but he was not destined to get even there.

On the second day they came on a tree lying across their path with its branches interlocked among the shattered limbs of a neighbor so that the great trunk was sharply tilted, an obstacle which is frequently to be met with in that country. As the undergrowth all round was tall and thick, Esmond and one trooper swung themselves upon the log to see if they could find an opening, and made their way along it until they came to a branch where the trunk was high above the ground. The trooper crept round it, and then, as Esmond came after him, there was a crash and a shout, and the trooper who had stayed below saw his officer vanish amidst the rattling twigs. It was several minutes before they could reach him, and then he was lying, with a grey face, and with one leg changed in its usual contour and significantly limp. He looked up with a grin of pain when the first trooper bent over him.

"Gone at the thigh-bone. I felt it snap," he said. "Simpkin will get me home on the sled, but you'll go on, Grieve, and tell Captain Slavin how we are fixed. He will come in with every man available."

"I guess I'd better see you safe back, sir," said the trooper.

Esmond stared at him fiercely, though his face was awry with pain.

"You'll go on," he said.

Then he winced, and, moving a little, fell over with his face in the snow, and, because the boughs he had fallen among were thick, it was two hours before the troopers got him out and on the sled. It was not altogether astonishing that they managed to compound the fracture during the operation. After that Grieve pushed on alone, and he was, as it happened, from the wild bush of Northern Ontario, which, though the trees and rocks are smaller, is a very similar country. In the meanwhile Simpkin headed back for the valley with the sled, and it was not his fault that three nights of bitter frost overtook him on the way. Indeed, if he had not been an exceptionally resolute man, inured to fatigue, it is very probable that Esmond would have frozen before they reached the outpost. On the morning after they got there a trooper appeared before the miners' barricade without his carbine and hailed the men on guard.

"Have you brought along the American who fixed up Jackson's foot when he smashed his toes, boys?" he asked.

The man who had nursed Tomlinson climbed up on the log. "I'm here," he said. "Is anybody wanting me?"

"I guess Captain Esmond does," said the trooper. "He fell off a log two or three days ago, and his leg-bone has come right through. The corporal can't get it back inside him. If you can see your way to do anything, we'd be much obliged to you."

"Did Captain Esmond send you?"

"No, sir," said the trooper, "he didn't. He's way too sick to worry about anything."

The American smiled at Ingleby, who stood beneath him. "It's very probable! A compound fracture of the femur is apt to prove rather serious at this temperature, especially if our friend the corporal has been trying to reduce it. We don't owe the man anything, but I guess I'd better go along."

"Of course!" said Ingleby simply, and in another minute the doctor was on his way to the outpost with the trooper.

It was evening when he came back with news of Esmond's condition, which, it appeared, was serious, and Sewell forthwith set out for the Gold Commissioner's dwelling. He did not see Grace at all, and Coulthurst granted him only a two minutes' interview.

"It is quite out of the question that I should worry Captain Esmond now," he said. "Unless you are prepared to make an unconditional surrender, which I should strongly recommend, there is nothing I can do for you."