no time for useless recrimination, or I would ask how you
could leave one who has been a generous friend, helpless and
suffering," the girl said reproachfully. "My father is evidently
seriously ill, and you are the only person I can turn to, for the hotel
manager tells me there is no doctor within miles of us. So in my
distress I must stoop to ask you, for his sake, what I can do?"

"Will you believe not only that I sympathize, but that I would gladly
have given all I possess to save you from this shock?" Thurston began,
but Helen cut him short by an impatient wave of the hand, and stood
close beside him with distress and displeasure in her eyes.

"All that is outside the question--what can we do?" she asked
imploringly.

"Only one thing," answered Geoffrey. "Bring up the best doctor in
Vancouver by special train. I'm going now to hold up the fast freight.
Gather your courage. I will be back soon after daylight with skilled
assistance."

He went out before the girl could answer, and, comforted, Helen hurried
back to her father's side. Whatever his failings might be, Thurston
was at least a man to depend upon when there was need of action.

There was a little platform near the hotel where trains might be
flagged for the benefit of passengers, but the office was locked.
Thurston, who knew that shortly a freight train would pass, broke in
the window, borrowed a lantern, lighted it, and hurried up the track
which here wound round a curve through the forest and over a trestle.
It is not pleasant to cross a lofty trestle bridge on foot in broad
daylight, for one must step from sleeper to sleeper over wide spaces
with empty air beneath, and, as the ties are just wide enough to carry
the single pair of rails, it would mean death to meet a train.
Geoffrey nevertheless pressed on fast, the light of the blinking
lantern dazzling his eyes and rendering it more difficult to judge the
distances between the ties--until he halted for breath a moment in the
center of the bridge. White mist and the roar of hurrying water rose
out of the chasm beneath, but another sound broke through the noise of
the swift stream. Geoffrey hear the vibratory rattle of freight cars
racing down the valley, and he went on again at a reckless run, leaping
across black gulfs of shadow.

The sound had gained in volume when he reached firm earth and ran
swiftly towards the end of the curve, from which, down a long
declivity, the engineer could see