men stood with flushed faces too
stirred as yet to remember that they had done an unusual thing,
Seaforth, who had come up on some business from Vancouver with his
wife, moved out a little from the rest.

"Boys," he said, and his voice shook a little, "I would have tried to
thank you on behalf of the best comrade you or I ever had, only that I
fancy he will be here in a minute to answer for himself."

He stopped abruptly, and through the silence that followed all heard a
drumming that might have been made by the hoofs of a galloping horse,
and Mrs. Forel wondered as she glanced at the girl opposite her across
the table. Alice Deringham had like the rest been stirred out of her
reticence, and now she seemed almost transfigured with the warm flush
in her cheeks and the pride discernible through the softness in her
eyes.

The beat of hoofs stopped presently, and a man came hastily through the
verandah. Alice Deringham could not see him, but the flush in her
cheeks grew deeper, for she knew that slightly uneven step. Then there
was a move towards the door, and she sat almost alone at the head of
the table, knowing that somebody was shouldering his way through those
who thronged about him in her direction. Still she could not look
until a man dropped into the vacant chair beside her. Then she saw
that Alton was glancing down at her with a question in his face.

"You are pleased that we have won?" he said.

"Yes," said the girl, who felt that speech had its limits. "I knew you
would."

Alton seemed to sigh with a great contentment. "Then," he said
quietly, "if it was only to hear that I would begin it all again."

He had no opportunity for further speech. There were questions to be
asked and answers given, while it was some hours later and most of the
guests had departed when he found Alice Deringham alone upon the
verandah. The moon hung over the cedars on a black hillside, the lake
flung back its radiance steelily, and the stillness was made musical by
the sound of falling water. Alton had come out from the presence of
the surveyor with a glint of triumph in his eyes.

"There is only one thing wanting to make this the greatest day of my
life, but without it all the rest counts for nothing. You know what it
is," he said.

"Yes," said Alice Deringham simply. "But why did you not ask for it
earlier, Harry? It would have saved one of us so much."

Alton laughed a little, and glanced down at his knee. "