did nothing also brought a little flash of anger to
her eyes. Then she told herself that there was time yet, and they
would come.

The voices rose again more rapidly. "Fifty more. Another to me. Oh,
what's the use of fooling. One hundred better. Twenty again to me."

Miss Townshead glanced at her father. "They'll stop presently," said
he. "The place stands at a third of its value, but it would cripple
most of them to pay for it if they got it now. The man from Vancouver
who goes up by twenties will get it at half of what it cost me, and I
don't think you need watch for rancher Alton."

Still Nellie Townshead did not quite give up hope. The bidding was
only beginning, and there was time yet. She had been taught to look
beneath the surface in Western Canada, and had cherished a curious
respect for rancher Alton. The girl was young still, and he stood for
her as a romantic ideal of the new manhood that was to grow to
greatness in the wildest province of the Dominion, while now and then
she fancied she saw something in his comrade's face which roused her
pity and stirred her to sympathy. That, having made it unasked, the
former should slight a promise of the kind appeared incomprehensible
and she felt that if he did so her faith in the type he served as an
example of would fall with him. There was also pressing need of some
one to look to for guidance in her time of necessity, because Townshead
was not the man to grapple with any difficulty, and most of his
neighbours knew little or nothing about the cities.

"Father," she said, "in case the purchaser turns us out where shall we
go to-night? The stage does not go in to the railroad until a week
to-day, and do you think there will be anything left over to keep us
for a little in Vancouver?"

Townshead glanced at her querulously. "Somebody will take us in," said
he. "I should have fancied, my dear, that you would have seen I am
sufficiently distressed and unwell to-day without having to anticipate
further difficulties. There will, I hope, be a balance. What is the
bidding now?"

The girl listened, but for a few moments there was a significant
silence, and her heart sank when a single voice rose. One or two
others joined in, and there was silence again until the auctioneer
repeated the offer. Then she turned quivering towards her father.

"You heard him?" she said.

Townshead groaned despondently, "I am afraid the prospect of a balance
is very sm