"Ah! you wait till you see 'em, my lady," said Yerkes, grinning.

The day was radiant, and even Philip, as they started from Banff
station, was in a Canadian mood. So far he had been quite cheerful and
good-tempered, though not, to Elizabeth's anxious eye, much more robust
yet than when they had left England. He smoked far too much, and
Elizabeth wished devoutly that Yerkes would not supply him so liberally
with whisky and champagne. But Philip was not easily controlled. The
very decided fancy, however, which he had lately taken for George
Anderson had enabled Elizabeth, in one or two instances, to manage him
more effectively. The night they arrived at Calgary, the lad had had a
wild desire to go off on a moonlight drive across the prairies to a
ranch worked by an old Cambridge friend of his. The night was cold, and
he was evidently tired by the long journey from Winnipeg. Elizabeth was
in despair, but could not move him at all. Then Anderson had intervened;
had found somehow and somewhere a trapper just in from the mountains
with a wonderful "catch" of fox and marten; and in the amusement of
turning over a bundle of magnificent furs, and of buying something
straight from the hunter for his mother, the youth had forgotten his
waywardness. Behind his back, Elizabeth had warmly thanked her
lieutenant.

"He only wanted a little distraction," Anderson had said, with a shy
smile, as though he both liked and disliked her thanks. And then,
impulsively, she had told him a good deal about Philip and his illness,
and their mother, and the old house in Cumberland. She, of all persons,
to be so communicative about the family affairs to a stranger! Was it
that two days in a private car in Canada went as far as a month's
acquaintance elsewhere?