Miss Deringham laughed as she answered him.  “That is one of our privileges, but you had better inquire about my baggage.  I think I hear the train coming in.”

She turned a moment as she went out of the saloon, and glanced back towards the table.  She could only see that Miss Townshead’s head was bent lower over the paper than it had been, but she had a suspicion as to what the girl was feeling.  It was also partly, but not more than partly justified, for Nellie Townshead was writing mechanically just then, though now and then she drove the pencil somewhat viciously into the paper when the hasty words grew faster.  “Don’t consider your recommendation workable.  We are sending you ore to test.  Finish it up in the usual way.”

Then the locomotive bell on the wharf was answered by the roar of the steamer’s whistle, and the man folded up his papers.  “You will have to get ashore, but we have done a good morning’s work,” said he.  “Those were friends of yours from the old country?”

“No,” said Nellie Townshead with a curious expression.  “They are from the old country, but I only met them once or twice at Somasco.”

The man glanced at her thoughtfully.  “Yes,” he said.  “I kind of fancied the lady didn’t mean to be nice to you.”

Miss Townshead smiled, though there was an ominous brightness in her eyes.  “I scarcely think she would take the trouble to make me feel that,” she said.  “Miss Deringham is, I understand, a lady of some importance in the old country.”

The man once more regarded her with grave kindliness.  “Folks of that kind can be very nasty prettily.  I’ve met one or two of them.  Well, you’re one of the smartest business ladies I’ve come across yet in this country, and I should figure that’s quite as good as the other.  Now—­well, of course, we held back a little when we engaged you, and you can tell the cashier to hand you out another two dollars every Saturday.”

Nellie Townshead felt that the colour was in her cheeks, but she thanked the man, and gathering up her papers hastened down the gangway at the last moment.  She stopped a moment breathless when she reached the wharf and saw Deringham and his daughter drive away, and shut one little hand.  Then she laughed, and turned towards the city with a gesture of impatience.  “The two dollars are badly needed—­and I’m a little fool, but it hurt, all of it,” she said.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE AWAKENING

The snow had ceased an hour or two earlier, and the moon shone down upon the glistening pines that shook off their white covering under a bitter wind, when a wagon came lurching into the Somasco valley.  Four weary horses floundered in front of it, a thin white steam rising from them into the nipping air, and Okanagan swayed half asleep upon the driving-seat, growling inarticulate objurgations when the vehicle sank creaking into a hollow he could not see.  He had, wearing out several horses during the journey, driven close upon a hundred miles through the frost and snow, and had ceased to encourage his companions during the last hour or so.  In fact, he was almost as incapable of speech just then as they were of comprehending him.