never-melting snow. Glacier, blue lake, river droning through shadowy
canons, rushed by, and the glamour of it crept into the heart of the
girl, until as they swept down into the valley with a river two
thousand feet below, she felt she was at last in touch with something
strange and new.

Presently the hoot of the whistle came ringing up the pass, wheels
screamed discordantly, and the pines below flitted towards them a
trifle more slowly. Then, as they swung rocking round the face of a
crag and a cluster of wooden buildings rose to view, Deringham came out
upon the platform. He was a tall, slightly-built man, with a pallid
face and keen but slightly shifty eyes, and bore the unmistakable stamp
of the Englishman.

"That must be our alighting-place, and I am not sure how we are to get
on," he said. "It is, I understand, a long way to Somasco, and when we
get there I really do not know whether we shall find any accommodation
suitable for you. It might have been better if you had gone on to our
friends, the Fords, at Vancouver."

Alice Deringham laughed a little. "I don't think you need worry. Mr.
Alton will, no doubt, take us in," she said. "A little primitive
barbarity would not be unpleasant as a novelty."

A trace of something very like anger crept into Deringham's eyes. It
was not very perceptible, for he seldom showed much of what he felt,
but his daughter noticed it. "It is somewhat unfortunate that we shall
probably have to avail ourselves of the young man's hospitality," he
said. "You understand, my dear, that he is a kinsman of your own, and,
unless he can be persuaded to relinquish his claim, the owner of