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