ed the boys together, as you suggested, and fixed up the
meeting for to-night," he said. "They'll be ready to give you a
hearing, after supper, in the hotel."

Laura left them on the outskirts of the settlement, and Gordon,
stopping a moment, looked hard at Nasmyth.

"I suppose you pledged yourself to that girl at Bonavista before you
came away?" he said.

"I did," Nasmyth admitted.

Gordon was silent for a moment or two. "Of course, I partly expected
it," he observed. "In fact, when I was talking to Miss Waynefleet
about you, I ventured to predict something of the kind."

The two men looked at each other for a moment, and then Nasmyth
smiled.

"You haven't anything else to say," he suggested.

"No," answered Gordon,--"at least, nothing that's very material.
Anyway, until we're through with the business we have on hand, you'll
have to put that girl right out of your mind."

They went on towards the little wooden hotel, and Nasmyth felt
unusually thoughtful as he walked beside his jaded horse. He
recognized that his comrade's last observation was more or less
warranted, and it was to some extent a relief to him when they reached
the veranda stairway and Gordon led the horse away toward the
stables.

It was rather more than an hour later when a specially invited company
of men who had, as they said, a stake in the district assembled in the
big general room of the hotel. There was about a dozen of them, men of
different birth and upbringing, though all had the same quiet brown
faces and steadiness of gaze. For the most part, they were dressed in
duck, though Waynefleet and the hotel-keeper wore city clothes. The
room was barely furnished, and panelled roughly with cedar-boards; but
it had wide casements, from which those who sat in it could look out
upon a strip of frothing river and the sombre forest that rolled up
the rocky hills. The windows were wide open, and the smell of
wood-smoke and the resinous odours of the firs flowed in. A look of
expectancy crept into the men's faces, and the murmur of their
conversation suddenly fell away, when Nasmyth sat down at the head of
the long table with Gordon at one side of him.

"Boys," said Nasmyth, "one or two of you know why Gordon asked you
here to meet me, but I had better roughly explain my project before I
go any further. I'll ask you to give me your close attention for the
next three or four minutes."

When he stopped speaking there was a very suggestive sil