the
valley. "I feel older than I used to, and may quit business when I put
this contract through. It is big enough to wind up with. If I'd known
Thurston for ages I couldn't be more sure of him. I am a little
disappointed that you don't like him."

"You go too far." Helen still concentrated her attention upon the
dusky speck against the blue. "I have no reason for disliking Mr.
Thurston; indeed, I do not dislike him and my feeling may be mere
jealousy. You give--him--most of your confidences now, and I should
hate anybody who divided you from me."

Savine lifted her little hand into his own, and patted it playfully as
he answered:

"You need never fear that. Helen, you are very like your mother as she
was thirty years ago."

There was a sparkle of indignation in Helen's eyes, and a suspicion of
tell-tale color in her face. She remembered that, when he first met
her mother, her father's position much resembled Thurston's, and the
girl wondered if he desired to remind her of it.

"The cars are in sight. Perhaps I had better see whether the hotel
people are ready for your guests," she remarked with indifference.

The hotel was famous for its cuisine, and the dinner which followed
was, for various reasons, a memorable one, though some of the guests
appeared distinctly puzzled by the sequence of viands and liquors.
Still, even those who, appreciating the change from leathery venison
and grindstone bread, had eaten too much at the first course, struggled
manfully with the succeeding, and good fellowship reigned until the
cloth was removed, and the party prepared to discuss business.

Savine sat at the head of the table, the gray now showing thickly in
his hair. His expression was, perhaps, too languid, for one of his
guests whispered that the daring engineer was not what he used to be.
The man glanced at Thurston, who sat, stalwart, keen, and determined of
face, beside his chief, and added, "I know which I'd sooner run up
against now; and it wouldn't be his deputy, sub-contractor, or whatever
the fellow is."

"Finding that our correspondence was using up no end of time and ink, I
figured it would be better for us to talk things over together
comfortably, and as some of you come from Vancouver, and some from
round the lake, this place appeared a convenient center," began Savine.
"Now, gentlemen, I'm ready to discuss either business or anything else
you like."

There was a murmur, and the guests looked at