the _Scarrowmania's_ plates were crusted with ice
where the highest crests of the tumbling seas reached them. The spray
froze, and the decks grew slippery. When darkness came, nobody but the
seamen faced the stinging cold. Agatha felt the engines stop late that
night, and when she went out next morning the decks were white, and she
could see dim ghosts of sliding pines through a haze of falling snow
that became bewilderingly thick at times, but the steamer slid on
through it with whistle hooting. At last toward sunset the snow cleared
away and Agatha stood shivering under a deck-house. She looked about her
with a curiously heavy heart.

A gray haze stretched across the great river, which was dim and gray,
and odd wisps of pines rose raggedly beneath the white hills that cut
against a gloomy, lowering sky. Deck-house, boat, and stanchion dripped,
and every now and then the silence was broken by a doleful blast of the
whistle. Nothing moved on the still, gray water, there was no sign of
life ashore, and they seemed to be steaming into a great desolation.

Presently, Wyllard appeared from somewhere, and, after a glance at her
face, slipped his hand beneath her arm, and led her down to the lighted
saloon. There her heart grew a little lighter. Once more she was
conscious of the feeling that she was safe with him.

CHAPTER X

DISILLUSION

The long train was speeding smoothly across the vast white levels of
Assiniboia, when Agatha, who sat by a window, looked up as the conductor
strode through the car. Mrs. Hastings asked him a question, and he
stopped a moment.

"Yes," he said, "we'll be in Clermont inside half an hour."

He went on, and Mrs. Hastings smiled at Agatha.

"We're a little late, and Gregory will be waiting for us in the station
now," she announced. "No doubt he's got the wagon fixed up right, but
I'd like to feel sure of it. There's a long drive before us, and I want
to reach the homestead before it's dark."

Agatha said nothing, but a faint tinge of color crept into her cheeks,
and Mrs. Hastings was glad to see it, for she had noticed that the girl
was looking pale and haggard. The strain of the last few months that she
had spent in England was beginning to tell on her. She had borne it
courageously, but a reaction had set in, and the trip had been
fatiguing. The _Scarrowmania_ had plunged along, bows under, against
fresh northwesterly gales most of the way across the Atlantic, and there
is