Part 15 (1/2)

”I have just come in. I wonder if I could ask--Mrs. Ingleby, isn't it--for a little supper?”

The request was a very usual one in a country where the stranger is rarely turned away unfed; but Hetty, who seemed to draw a little farther back into the shadow, was a trifle slow in answering it.

”Miss Leger!” she said. ”Of course, you shall have supper. Put on two more trout and fill the kettle, Tom.”

Sewell gratefully took his place beside the fire, and, for he had an engaging tongue, had almost gained Hetty's confidence, which was not lightly given, by the time the meal was over. Then she looked hard at him.

”What did you come here for?” she asked.

”Wouldn't the fame of the Green River mines be excuse enough?” said the man.

Hetty shook her head. ”No,” she said, ”I don't think it would. People who talk as you do aren't generally fond of digging.”

”Then finding I wasn't wanted in Vancouver I went back into the States, and as usual got into a trifling difficulty there. That was in Colorado, where the men and the manager of a certain big mine couldn't come to terms. The manager was, as not infrequently happens, friendly with the const.i.tuted authorities, and between them and the men's executive, with whom I managed to quarrel, they made that town unpleasant for me. Of course, one gets accustomed to having his character pulled to pieces and being hustled in the streets, but they go rather farther than that in Colorado.”

”And so you ran away?”

Sewell laughed. ”I certainly went when it was evident that I could do no good. Still, it was in the daylight, and half the populace came with me to the station.”

”I asked you what brought you here,” said Hetty severely.

Sewell made a little expressive gesture. ”Between friends--I think I can go so far?” he asked, and it was Hetty alone he looked at. ”You see, I met your brother and Mr. Ingleby in Vancouver.”

Hetty regarded him silently for a moment or two. He was a well-favoured man with a curiously pleasing manner. ”Yes,” she said. ”I think you can.”

”Then I came here to see what I could do at mining--I have really used the shovel oftener than you seem to fancy--and, when it is necessary, go through by the Indian trail to the camps between this country and the Yukon. Though they will probably work on quietly while the ground is soft, they're not pleased with the mining regulations yonder.”

He looked out into the soft blue darkness which now veiled the great white peaks that lay between him and the vast desolation of the Northwest, and the smile died out of his eyes. A few moments slipped by before Leger broke the silence.

”I believe that trail is scarcely practicable to a white man. Only one or two have ever tried it,” he said.

”That is so much the better. I am, however, certainly going in.”

There was a little silence, and then Ingleby said suggestively, ”They have been sending a good many of the Northwest Police into that country.”

Sewell smiled. ”From one point of view I think they were wise. It's not the contented that one usually finds mining in the wilderness. The soil, of course, is British, but that, after all, does not imply very much.”

”You mean that the men up there have no country?” asked Leger.

”Some of them, at least, have unpleasantly good memories. They are the cast-outs and the superfluities; but, as no doubt you know, it is not their criminals the older lands get rid of now.”

”That,” said Hetty sharply, ”is all nonsense. If they're really bad they are put into prison.”

Sewell laughed. ”I believe they are, now and then. Now, suppose you tell me about the Green River country.”

They sat late that night about the crackling fire, though there was a vague uneasiness upon two of them. Hetty liked the stranger, as a man, but she had seen that trouble came of following out the theories he believed in; while all Ingleby wished for just then was an opportunity for toiling quietly at his claim.

Sewell naturally slept in their tent, and it was not until he had breakfasted next morning that he rode into the valley. Ingleby walked with him a short distance, and as it happened they met Grace Coulthurst on the trail. She smiled as she pa.s.sed Ingleby. Sewell, his companion fancied, looked at her harder than was necessary as he sat still in the saddle, a somewhat striking figure of a man, with his wide hat in his hand.