Alton nodded.  “You needn’t be too explicit.  The tales, so far as you have heard them, are not true.  I tell you so on my word of honour—­and I want you to show that you believe me by finding Miss Townshead something to do.  You can draw on me for the salary if it’s necessary.”

Forel, who was a good-tempered man, flushed a little.  “If there was anything in the stories I should take this very ill.”

“Of course,” said Alton.  “I shouldn’t have objected if you had knocked me down, but, as I see you are not quite sure yet, for just five minutes you have got to listen to me.”

Forel did so, and nodded when Alton concluded, “I think you should do what I want you to, because in the first place it will give you very little trouble, and if you can’t take my word so far, I’m not fit to be trusted with your interests in the big deal we have in hand.”

“And in the second?” said Forel, who stood to benefit considerably by the success of the Somasco Consolidated, dryly.

Alton laughed.  “I think it would be more tasteful to leave that unexpressed, because it’s connected with the other one,” he said.

“Well,” said Forel, “frankly, I should have doubted what you have told me had it come from most other men, but in this case I will see what I can do.  We are, as it happens, in want of somebody at Westminster, and I’ll send them down a line to-morrow.”

“Thanks,” said Alton, with a little sigh of relief.  “Now I think I’ve straightened up everything, and I can go back to the ranges contented.”

CHAPTER XXIX

THE PRICE OF DELAY

It was raining with pitiless persistency when Alton and Tom of Okanagan came floundering down into the river valley.  The roar of the canon rose in great reverberations from out of the haze beneath them, and all the pines were dripping, while the men struggled wearily knee-deep in slush of snow.  The spring which lingers in the North had come suddenly, and a warm wind from the Pacific was melting the snow, so that the hillsides ran water, and the torrents that had burst their chains swirled frothing down every hollow.

The men were chilled to the backbone, for it had rained all day and they had passed several nights sheltered only by the pines.  Garments and boots were sodden, and Alton’s face was set and drawn, for though he could now walk without much visible effort upon the level, a journey through the ranges of that country would at any season test the endurance of the strongest whole-limbed man, and his forced march had only been accomplished by stubborn determination and disregard of pain.  Still, it was not physical distress alone which accounted for his gravity.  He had put off his journey to the latest moment, and now when time was scanty the weather promised to further delay him.  They had stopped a moment breathless, when Okanagan broke the silence.