“But why did Mr. Alton go?” said the girl, with an expression which was not quite the one the man had expected to see in her face.

Seaforth smiled.  “He may have fancied you wanted it.  Anyway, Harry is a little obstinate occasionally, and when a thing looks difficult he can’t resist attempting it.  In the language of my adopted country that’s the kind of man he is.  Now I think I had better go after him, because I fancy he wants soothing after that last speech of his.”

CHAPTER III

HARRY THE TEAMSTER

The sun was on the hill slopes, and there was a dazzling glare of snow, when Miss Alice Deringham stood with her travelling dress fluttering about her on the platform of the observation car as the Pacific express went thundering down a valley of British Columbia.  The dress, which was somewhat dusty, had cost her father a good deal of money, and the hat that was sprinkled with cinders had come from Paris; while the artistic simplicity of both had excited the envy of the two Winnipeg ladies who, having failed to make friends with Miss Deringham during the journey, now sat watching her disapprovingly in a corner of the car.  The girl was of a type as yet not common in Western Canada, reserved, quietly imperious, and annoyingly free from any manifestation of enthusiasm.  She had also listened languidly to their most racy stories with a somewhat tired look in her eyes.

They were, however, fine eyes of a violet blue, and gold hair with a warmer tinge in it clustered about the broad white forehead, while the rest of the girl’s face was refined in its modelling, if a trifle cold in expression and colouring.  Miss Deringham was also tall, and as she stood with one little hand on the rail and the other on the brim of the hat the wind would have torn away from her, her pose displayed a daintily-proportioned figure.  The girl was, however, as oblivious of her companions as she was of the dust, and her eyes were at last keen with wonder.  She had seen nothing which resembled the panorama that unrolled itself before her as the great mountain locomotives sped on through the primeval wilderness, and the wild beauty of it left a deeper mark on her because her Canadian journey had been more or less a disappointment.

Alice Deringham had tasted of the best that England had to offer in the shape of sport and scenery, art and music, and had grown a little tired of it all; while, when her father had announced his intention of crossing the Canadian Dominion, partly on an affair of business and partly for the benefit of his health, she had gladly accompanied him in the hope of seeing something new.  Deringham was a promoter and director of English companies, but his daughter having the fine disdain for anything connected with finance which occasionally characterizes those who have never felt the lack of money, asked him a few questions concerning one object of his journey.  She only knew that the Carnaby estate, which would in the usual course have reverted to her, had been unexpectedly willed to the son of a man its late owner had disinherited, on conditions.  The man, it appeared, was dead, and Deringham desired to see whether any understanding or compromise could be arrived at with the one son he had left behind in Western Canada.