Part 10 (1/2)

”Have you any ground for preventing my speaking here?” Sewell asked.

”Yes, sir,” said the warden. ”I guess we have. It's down in the park charter. You can't peddle those papers either. Call your boys in.”

”The men who made those laws, as usual, made them to suit themselves.”

”Well,” said the warden, ”I guess that don't matter now. There they are.

All you have to do is to keep them, and n.o.body's going to worry you.”

There was an embarra.s.sing silence for a moment or two, for everybody felt the tension and realized that the position was rife with unpleasant possibilities; but the stolid warden stood eyeing the crowd unconcernedly, and, as usual, the inertia of British officialdom conquered. Sewell made a little whimsical gesture of resignation, and raised his hand.

”I'm afraid we'll have to break up, boys. There's nothing to be gained for anybody by making trouble now,” he said. ”If we can hire a big store of any kind I'll talk to you to-morrow.”

He sprang down from the stump, the crowd melted away, and Hetty laughed as she glanced at her companions.

”That man has really a good deal more sense than some people with his notions seem to have,” she said.

Ingleby shook his head at her. ”You mean people who pull gates down on Sunday afternoons?” he asked. ”Still, I scarcely think it was to save himself trouble he told them to go home, and n.o.body could have expected very much sympathy from the men who listened to him. He's wasting his time on them--they're too well fed. What do you think, Tom?”

Leger, who did not answer him for a moment, glanced thoughtfully through an opening between the stately trunks towards the far-off gleam of snow.

”This Province,” he said drily, ”is a tolerably big one, and from what I've heard they may want a man of his kind in the Northern ranges presently. It isn't the supinely contented who face the frost and snow there, and the Crown mining regulations don't seem to appeal to the men who stake their lives on finding a little gold. They appear to be even less pleased with those who administer them.”

VII

HETTY BEARS THE COST

It was towards the end of the arduous day, and Ingleby was glad of the respite the breakage of a chain cargo-sling afforded him. The white side of a big Empress liner towered above the open-fronted shed, and a string of box cars stood waiting outside the sliding doors behind him. A swarm of men in blue jean were hurrying across the wharf behind clattering trucks laden with the produce of China and j.a.pan, for the liner had been delayed a trifle by bad weather, and the tea and silk and sugar were wanted in the East. Already a great freight locomotive was waiting on the side track, and, as Ingleby knew, the long train must be got away before the Atlantic express went out that evening. He had been promoted to a post of subordinate authority a few weeks earlier, and both he and Leger were, in the meanwhile, at least contented with their lot, for the great railway company treated its servants liberally.

There was, however, nothing that he could do for a minute or two, and he leaned against a tier of silk bales with a bundle of dispatch labels and a slip of paper in his hand, while Leger sat upon the truck behind him.

He had, though it was no longer exactly his business, been carrying sugar bags upon his back most of that afternoon, partly to lessen the labour of Leger who had not his physique, and now the white crystals glittered in his hair and clung, smeared with dust, to his perspiring face. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbow, showing his brown arms, which had grown hard and corded since he came to Canada; while his coa.r.s.e blue s.h.i.+rt, which was open at the neck and belted tight at the waist, displayed as more conventional attire would not have done the symmetry of a well set-up figure.

”We are still short of a few tea chests,” said Leger. ”However, if you would mark the two lots I've got yonder we could clear that car for dispatch as soon as the rest come out.”

Ingleby glanced at his slip. ”I'll wait until I get the others. It will keep the thing straighter. There's a good deal more in sorting cargo than I fancied there could be until I tried it, and it's remarkably easy to put the stuff into the wrong car.”

”Then it might be well to keep your eye on those chests of tea. I can't keep the boys off them. There's another fellow at them now.”

Ingleby swung round, and signed to a perspiring man who stopped with a truck beside the cases in question.

”Leave that lot alone! It's billed straight through, express freight, East,” he said. ”Stick this ticket on the cases, Tom.”

Leger moved away, and Ingleby was endeavouring to sc.r.a.pe some of the sugar off his person when a man, whom he recognized as one of the leading citizens of Vancouver, and several ladies, came down the steamer's gangway. Then he started and felt his heart throb as his glance rested on one of them, who, as it happened, looked up just then.

It was evident that she saw him, and he was unpleasantly sensible that his face was growing hot. There was, he would have admitted at any other time, no reason for this, but in the meanwhile it was distinctly disconcerting that Grace Coulthurst should come upon him in his present guise, smeared with dust and half-melted sugar. Then he occupied himself with his cargo slip, for it was in the circ.u.mstances scarcely to be expected that she would vouchsafe him any recognition.

The longing to see her again, however, became too strong for him, and looking up a moment he was conscious of a blissful astonishment, for she was walking straight towards him with a smile in her eyes. She seemed to him almost ethereally dainty in the dust and turmoil of the big cargo shed, and for the moment he forgot his uncovered arms and neck, and felt every nerve in him thrill as he took the little gloved hand she held out. What she had done was not likely to be regarded as anything very unusual in that country, where most men are liable to startling vicissitudes of fortune and there are no very rigid social distinctions; but Ingleby failed to recognize this just then, and it was not astonis.h.i.+ng that he should idealize her for her courage.

”You are about the last person I expected to meet. What are you doing here?” she said, with the little tranquil smile that became her well.