gement suggested is a very desirable one,"
he agreed "I am quite sure that Miss Waynefleet will have much
pleasure in looking after Nasmyth."

Gordon turned to Nasmyth. "Now," he said, "you can protest just as
much as you like, but still, as you'll start to-morrow if we have to
tie you on to the pack-horse, it's not going to be very much use. You
can nurse your hand for a week, and then go on to Victoria and see if
you can pick up a boring-machine of the kind we want cheap."

Nasmyth, who was aware that the machine must be purchased before very
long, submitted with the best grace he could, and, though his hand was
painful, he contrived to sleep most of the afternoon. Now that he was
disabled and could not work, he began to feel the strain. He set out
with Waynefleet at sunrise next morning, and they passed the day
scrambling over the divide, and winding in and out among withered fern
and thickets as they descended a rocky valley. Here and there they
found an easier pathway on the snow-sheeted reaches of a frozen
stream, and only left it to plunge once more into the undergrowth when
the ice crackled under them. They had a pack-horse with them, for now
and then one of the men made a laborious journey to the settlement for
provisions, and in places a fallen tree had been chopped through or a
thicket partly hewn away. That, however, did little to relieve the
difficulties of the march, for the trail was rudimentary, and the
first two leagues of it would probably have severely taxed the
strength of a vigorous man unaccustomed to the Bush.

But they pushed on, Waynefleet riding when it was possible, while
Nasmyth plodded beside the horse's head, until a cloud of whirling
snow broke upon them as they floundered through a belt of thinner
Bush. The snow wrapped them in its filmy folds, gathering thick upon
their garments and filling their eyes, and Nasmyth grew anxious as the
daylight suddenly died out. They were in a valley, out of which they
could not very well wander without knowing it, and they stumbled on,
smashing into thickets and swerving round fallen trees, until they
struck a clearer trail, and it was with relief that Nasmyth saw a tall
split-rail fence close in front of him. He threw a strip of it down,
and then turned to Waynefleet when he dimly made out a blink of light
in the whirling haze of snow.

"If you will go in and tell Miss Waynefleet, I'll try to put the horse
up," he said.

Waynefleet swung himself d