n voyage_," she said.

"Can't we go somewhere else? Is there nothing doing at the theaters?"
Lister asked.

"No," she said resolutely; "I'm going home. Anyhow, I'm going where I
live."

Lister let her go, but waited, watching her while she went up the
street. Somehow she looked forlorn and he felt pitiful. He remembered
that he did not know her name, which he had wanted to ask but durst not.

When he returned to his hotel he stopped at the desk and gave the clerk
a cigarette. As a rule, a Canadian hotel clerk knows something about
everybody of importance in the town.

"I bought some _souvenirs_ at a curiosity depot," he said, and told the
other where the shop was. "Although they charged me pretty high, the
things looked good."

"You haven't got stung," the clerk remarked. "The folks are
French-Canadians but they like a square deal. If you put up the money,
they put up the goods."

"The shop hands looked smart and bright. If you study the sales people,
you can sometimes tell how a store is run."

"That's so. Those girls don't want to grumble. They're treated all
right."

"Oh, well," said Lister, "since I don't know much about enameled goods
and deerskin truck, I'm glad I've not got stung."

When he went off the other smiled, for a hotel clerk is not often
cheated, and he thought he saw where Lister's remarks led. Lister,
however, was strangely satisfied. It was something to know the
storekeepers were honest and kind to the people they employed.

CHAPTER X

VERNON'S CURIOSITY

Silky blue lines streaked the long undulations that ran back to the
horizon and the _Flaminian_ rolled with a measured swing. When her bows
went down the shining swell broke with a dull roar and rainbows
flickered in the spray about her forecastle; then, while the long deck
got level, one heard the beat of engines and the grinding of screws. A
wake like an angry torrent foamed astern, and in the distance, where the
dingy smoke-cloud melted, the crags of Labrador ran in faint, broken
line. Ahead an ice-floe glittered in the sun. The liner had left Belle
Isle Strait and was steaming towards Greenland on the northern Atlantic
course.

Harry Vernon occupied a chair on the saloon-deck and read the _Montreal
Star_ which had been sent on board at Rimouski. The light reflected by
the white boats and deck was strong; he was not much interested, and put
down the newspaper when Lister joined him. They had met on the journey
from Winnipe