Vane spent two or three weeks very pleasantly in Vancouver, for Evelyn, of whom he saw a good deal, was gracious to him. The embarrassment both had felt on their first meeting in the western city had speedily vanished; they had resumed their acquaintance on what was ostensibly a purely friendly footing, and since both avoided any reference to what had taken place in England, it had ripened into a mutual confidence and appreciation.

This would have been less probable in the older country, where they would have been continually reminded of what the Chisholm family expected of them; but the past seldom counts for much in the new and changeful West, where men look forward to the future. Indeed, there is something in its atmosphere which banishes regret and retrospection; and when Evelyn looked back at all, she felt inclined to wonder why she had once been so troubled by the man's satisfaction with her company. She decided that this could not have been the result of any aversion for him, and that it was merely an instinctive revolt against the part her parents had wished to force upon her. Chisholm and his wife had blundered, as such people often do, for it is possible that had they adopted a perfectly neutral attitude everything would have gone as they desired. Their mistake was nevertheless a natural one. Somewhat exaggerated reports of Vane's prosperity had reached them; but while they coveted the advantages his wealth might offer their daughter, in their secret hearts they looked upon him as a raw Colonial and something of a barbarian, and the opinions he occasionally expressed in their hearing did not dispel this idea. Both feared that Evelyn regarded him in the same light, and it accordingly became evident that a little pressure might be required. In spite of their prejudices, they did not shrink from applying it.

In the meanwhile, several people in Vancouver watched the increase of friendliness between the girl and Vane. Mrs. Nairn and her husband did so with benevolent interest, and it was by Mrs. Nairn's adroit management, which even Evelyn did not often suspect, that they were thrown more and more into each other's company. Jessy Horsfield, however, looked on with bitterness. She was a strong-willed young woman who hitherto had generally contrived to obtain whatever she had set her heart on; and she had set it on this man. Indeed, she had fancied that he returned the feeling, but disillusionment had come on the evening when he had unexpectedly met Evelyn. Her smoldering resentment against the girl grew steadily stronger, until it threatened to prove dangerous on opportunity.

There were, however, days when Vane was disturbed in mind. Winter was coming on, and although it is rarely severe on the southern seaboard, it is by no means the season one would choose for an adventure among the ranges of the northern wilderness. Unless he made his search for the spruce very shortly he might be compelled to postpone it until the spring, at the risk of some hardy prospector's forestalling him; but there were two reasons which detained him. He thought that he was gaining ground in Evelyn's esteem and he feared the effect of absence, and there was no doubt that the new issue of the Clermont shares was in very slack demand. To leave the city might cost him a good deal in several ways, but he had pledged himself to go.

That fact was uppermost in his mind one evening when he set off to call on Celia Hartley. As it happened, Evelyn and Mrs. Nairn were driving past as he turned off from a busy street toward the quarter in which she lived. It had been dark for some time, but the street was well lighted and Evelyn had no difficulty in recognizing him. Indeed, she watched him for a few moments while he passed on into a more shadowy region, where the gloom and dilapidation of the first small frame houses were noticeable. Beyond them there was scarcely a light at all; the neighborhood looked mysterious, and she wondered what kind of people inhabited it. She did not think that Mrs. Nairn had noticed Vane.

"You have never taken me into the district on our left," she said.

"I'm no likely to. We're no proud of it."

Evelyn was a little astonished. She had seen no signs of squalor or dissipation since she entered Canada, and had almost fancied that they did not exist.

"I suppose the Chinese and other aliens live there?"

"They do," was the dry answer. "I'm no sure, however, that they're the worst."

"But one understands that you haven't a criminal population."

"We have folk who're on the fringe of it, only we see that they live all together. Folk who would be respectable live somewhere else, except, maybe, a few who have to consider cheapness. There's no great difference in human nature wherever ye find it, and I do no suppose we're very much better than the rest of the world; but it's no a recommendation to be seen going into yon quarter after dark."

This left Evelyn thoughtful, for she had undoubtedly seen Vane going there. She considered herself a judge of character and generally trusted her intuitions, and she believed that the man's visit to the neighborhood in question admitted of some satisfactory explanation. On the other hand, she felt that her friends should be beyond suspicion. Taking it all round, she was rather vexed with Vane, and it cost her some trouble to drive the matter out of her mind.

She did not see Vane the next day, but the latter called upon Nairn at his office during the afternoon.

"Have you had any more applications for the new stock?" he asked.

"I have no. Neither Bendle nor Howitson has paid up yet, though I've seen them about it once or twice."

"Investors are shy; that's a fact," Vane confessed. "It's unfortunate. I've already put off my trip north as long as possible. I wanted to see things arranged on a satisfactory basis before I went."

"A very prudent wish. I should advise ye to carry it out."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Something like this—if the money's no forthcoming, we may be compelled to fall back upon a different plan, and unless ye're to the fore, the decision of a shareholders' meeting might no suit ye. Considering the position and the stock ye hold, any views ye might express would carry more weight than mine would do in your absence."

Vane drummed with his fingers on the table.

"I suppose that's the case; but I've got to make the journey. With moderately good fortune it shouldn't take me long."

"Ye would be running some risk if anything delayed ye and we had to call a meeting before ye got back."

Vane frowned.

"I see that; but it can't be helped. I expect to be back before I'm wanted. Anyway, I could leave you authority to act on my behalf."

After a further attempt to dissuade him, Nairn spread out one hand resignedly.

"He who will to Cupar maun be left to gang," he said. "Whiles, I have wondered why any one should be so keen on getting there, but doubtless a douce Scottish town has mair attractions for a sensible person than the rugged Northwest in the winter-time."

Vane smiled and shortly afterward went out and left him; and when Nairn reached home he briefly recounted the interview to his wife over his evening meal. Evelyn listened attentively.

"Yon man will no hear reason," Nairn concluded. "He's thrawn."

Evelyn had already noticed that her host, for whom she had a strong liking, spoke broader Scotch when he was either amused or angry, and she supposed that Vane's determination disturbed him.

"But why should he persist in leaving the city, when it's to his disadvantage to do so, as you lead one to believe it is?" she asked.

"If the latter's no absolutely certain, it's very likely."

"You have answered only half my question."

Mrs. Nairn smiled.

"Alic," she explained, "is reserved by nature; but if ye're anxious for an answer, I might tell ye."

"Anxious hardly describes it."

"Then we'll say curious. The fact is that Vane made a bargain with a sick prospector, in which he undertook to locate some timber the man had discovered away among the mountains. He was to pay the other a share of its value when he got his Government license."

"Is the timber very valuable?"

"No," broke in Nairn. "One might make a fair business profit out of pulping it, though the thing's far from certain."

"Then why is Mr. Vane so determined on finding it?"

The question gave Mrs. Nairn a lead, but she decided to say no more than was necessary.

"The prospector died, but that bound the bargain tighter, in Vane's opinion. The man died without a dollar, leaving a daughter worn out and ill with nursing him. According to the arrangement, his share will go to the girl."

"Then," said Evelyn, "Mr. Vane is really undertaking the search, which may involve him in difficulties, in order to keep his promise to a man who is dead? And he will not even postpone it, because if he did so this penniless girl might, perhaps, lose her share? Isn't that rather fine of him?"

"On the whole, ye understand the position," Nairn agreed. "If ye desire my view of the matter, I would merely say that yon's the kind of man he is."

Evelyn made no further comment, though the last common phrase struck her as a most eloquent tribute. She had heard Vane confess that he did not want to go north at present, and she now understood that to do so might jeopardize his interests in the mine; but he was undoubtedly going. He meant to keep his promise in its fullest and widest meaning—that was what one would expect of him.

One mild afternoon, a few days later, he took her for a drive among the Stanley pines, and, though she knew that she would regret his departure, she was unusually friendly. Vane rejoiced at it, but he had already decided that he must endeavor to proceed with caution and to content himself in the meanwhile with the part of trusted companion. For this reason, he chatted lightly, which he felt was safer, during most of the drive; but once or twice, when by chance or design she asked a leading question, he responded without reserve. He did so when they were approaching a group of giant conifers.

"I wonder whether you ever feel any regret at having left England for this country?" she asked.

"I did so pretty often when I first came out," he answered with a smile. "In those days I had to work in icy water and carry massive lumps of rock."

"I dare say regret was a natural feeling then; but that wasn't quite what I meant."

"So I supposed," Vane confessed. "Well, I'd better own that when I'd spent a week or two in England—at the Dene—I began to think I'd missed a good deal by not staying at home. It struck me that the life you led had a singular charm. Everything went so smoothly there, among the sheltering hills. One felt that care and anxiety could not creep in. Somehow, the place reminded me of Avalon."

"The impression was by no means correct," smiled Evelyn, "But I don't think you have finished. Won't you go on?"

"Then if I get out of my depth, you mustn't blame me. By and by I discovered that charm wasn't the right word—the place was permeated with a narcotic spell."

"Narcotic? Do you think the term's more appropriate?"

"I do. Narcotics, one understands, are insidious things. If you take them regularly, in small doses, they increase their hold on you until you become wrapped up in dreams and unrealities. If, however, you get too big a dose of them at the beginning, it leads to a vigorous revulsion. It's nature's warning and remedy."

"You're not flattering; but I almost fancy you're right."

"We are told that man was made to struggle—to use all his powers. If he rests too long beside the still backwaters of life, in fairy-like dales, they're apt to atrophy, and he finds himself slack and nerveless when he goes out to face the world again."

Evelyn nodded, for she had felt and striven against the insidious influence of which he spoke. She had now and then left the drowsy dale for a while; but the life of which she had then caught glimpses was equally sheltered—one possible only to the favored few. Even the echoes of the real tense struggle seldom passed its boundaries.

"But you confessed not long ago that you loved the western wilderness," she said. "You have spent a good deal of time in it; and you expect to do so again. After all, isn't that only exchanging one beautiful, tranquil region for another? The bush must be even quieter than the English dales."

"Perhaps I haven't made the point quite clear. When one goes up into the bush, it's not to lounge and dream there, but to make war upon it with ax and drill."

He pulled up his team and pointed to the clump of giant trees.

"Look there! That's nature's challenge to man in this country."

Evelyn recognized that it was an impressive one. The great trunks ran up far aloft, tremendous columns, before their brighter portions were lost in the vaulted roof of somber greenery. They dwarfed the rig and team; she felt herself a pygmy by comparison.

"They're a little larger than the average," her companion explained, "Still, that's the kind of thing you run up against when you buy land to start a ranch or clear the ground for a mine. Chopping, sawing up, splitting those giants doesn't fill one with languorous dreams; the only dreams that our axmen indulge in materialize. It's an unending, bracing struggle. There are leagues and leagues of trees, shrouding the valleys in a shadow that has lasted since the world was young; but you see the dawn of a wonderful future breaking in as the long ranks go down."

Once more, without clearly intending it, he had stirred the girl. He had not spoken in that rather fanciful style to impress her; she knew that, trusting in her comprehension, he had merely given his ideas free rein. But in doing so he had somehow made her hear the trumpet-call to action which, for such men, rings through the roar of the river and the song of the tall black pines.

"Ah!" she murmured, "it must be a glorious life, in many ways; but it's bound to have its drawbacks. Doesn't the flesh shrink from them?"

"The flesh?" He laughed. "In this land the flesh takes second place—except, perhaps, in the cities." He turned and looked at her curiously. "Why should you talk of shrinking? The bush couldn't daunt you; you have courage."

The girl's eyes sparkled, but not at the compliment. His words rang with freedom; the freedom of the heights, where heroic effort was the rule, in place of luxury. She longed now, as she had often done, to escape from bondage; to break away.

"Ah, well," she said, smiling half wistfully; "perhaps it's fortunate that such courage as I have may never be put to the test."

Though reticence was difficult, Vane made no comment. He had already spoken unguardedly, and he decided that caution would be desirable. As he started the team, an automobile came up, and he looked around as he drove on.

"It's curious that I never heard the thing," he remarked.

"I didn't, either," replied Evelyn. "I was too much engrossed in the trees. But I think Miss Horsfield was in it"

"Was she?" responded Vane in a very casual manner; and Evelyn, for no reason that she was willing to recognize, was pleased.

She had not been mistaken. Jessy Horsfield was in the automobile, and she had had a few moments in which to study Vane and his companion. The man's look and the girl's expression had struck her as significant; and her lips set in an ominously tight line as the car sped on. She felt that she almost hated Vane; and there was no doubt that she entirely hated the girl at his side. It would be soothing to humiliate her, to make her suffer, and though the exact mode of setting about it was not very clear just yet, she thought it might be managed. Her companion wondered why she looked preoccupied during the rest of the journey.