d Delaine inside, having done his duty to the Kicking Horse Pass, was
devoting himself to a belated number of the "Athenaeum" which had just
reached him.

Philip had stored up a string of questions as to the hunting of goat in
the Rockies, and impatiently produced them. Anderson replied, but, as
Elizabeth immediately perceived, with a complete lack of his usual
animation. He spoke with effort, occasionally stumbling over his words.
She could not help looking at him curiously, and presently even Philip
noticed something wrong.

"I say, Anderson!--what have you been doing to yourself? You look as
though you had been knocking up."

"I have been a bit driven this week," said Anderson, with a start. "Oh,
nothing! You must look at this piece of line."

And as they ran down the long ravine from Field to Golden, beside a
river which all the way seems to threaten the gliding train by the
savage force of its descent, he played the showman. The epic of the
C.P.R.--no one knew it better, and no one could recite it more
vividly than he.

So also, as they left the Rockies behind; as they sped along the
Columbia between the Rockies to their right and the Selkirks to their
left; or as they turned away from the Columbia, and, on the flanks of
the Selkirks, began to mount that forest valley which leads to Roger's
Pass, he talked freely and well, exerting himself to the utmost. The
hopes and despairs, the endurances and ambitions of the first explorers
who ever broke into that fierce solitude, he could reproduce them; for,
though himself of a younger generation, yet by sympathy he had lived
them. And if he had not been one of the builders of the line, in the
incessant guardianship which preserves it from day to day, he had at one
time played a prominent part, battling with Nature for it, summer
and winter.

Delaine, at last, came out to listen. Philip in the grip of his first
hero-worship, lay silent and absorbed, watching the face and gestures of
the speaker. Elizabeth sat with her eyes turned away from Anderson
towards the wild valley, as they rose and rose above it. She listened;
but her heart was full of new anxieties. What had happened to him? She
felt him changed. He was talking for their pleasure, by a strong effort
of will; that she realised. When could she get him alone?--her
friend!--who was clearly in distress.

They approached the famous bridges on the long ascent. Yerkes came
running through the car to point out with