ke anger crept into Deringham's eyes. It
was not very perceptible, for he seldom showed much of what he felt,
but his daughter noticed it. "It is somewhat unfortunate that we shall
probably have to avail ourselves of the young man's hospitality," he
said. "You understand, my dear, that he is a kinsman of your own, and,
unless he can be persuaded to relinquish his claim, the owner of
Carnaby. Still, I have hopes of coming to terms with him. The charges
upon the land are very burdensome."

Alice Deringham's face grew a trifle scornful. "You will do your
best," she said. "The thought of one of these half-civilized axemen
living at Carnaby is almost distressful to me. In fact, I feel a
curious dislike to the man even before I have seen him."

There was another hoot of the whistle, a little station grew larger
down the track, and here and there a wooden house peeped out amidst the
slowly-flitting trees. Then the cars stopped with a jerk, and Miss
Deringham stepped down from the platform. Her first glance showed her
long ranks of climbing pines, with a great white peak silhouetted hard
and sharp above them against the blue. Then she became conscious of
the silver mist streaming ethereally athwart the sombre verdure from
the river hollow, and that a new and pungent smell cut through the
odours of dust and creosote which reeked along the track. It came from
a cord of cedar-wood piled up close by, and she found it curiously
refreshing. The drowsy roar of the river mingled with the panting of
the locomotive pump, but there was a singular absence of life and
movement in the station until the door of the baggage-car slid open,
and her father sprang aside as her trunks were shot out on to the
platform. A bag or two of something followed them, the great engines
panted, and the dusty cars went on again, while it dawned upon Alice
Deringham that her last hold upon civilization had gone, and she was
left to her own resources in a new and somewhat barbarous land.

There were no obsequious porters to collect her baggage, which lay
where it had alighted with one trunk gaping open, while a couple of men
in blue shirts and soil-stained jeans leaned upon the neighbouring
fence watching her with mild curiosity. Her father addressed another
one somewhat differently attired who stood in the door of the office.

"There is a hotel here, but they couldn't take you in," said the man.
"Party of timber-right prospectors came along, a