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It was a communication from Robb Chillingwood, written on the municipal notepaper of Ainsley. He read the letter carefully through. "There is a man named Gordon Duffield stopping at the hotel here, who has lately arrived from Scotland. I have effected the sale of the Dominion Ranch you know, the German, Grieg's, old place to him.
But Alice lived in Ainsley, where, report had it, she was "keeping company" with Robb Chillingwood, and now the two girls only met when Alice visited the farm at such seasons of the year as the present. "Do you think it will be safe to go further?" asked Alice, in a tone of awestruck amazement. "You say you are sure of the way.
Leslie Grey spoke with the bitterness of a disappointed man. In reality he had been successful in the business he had adopted. But some men are born grumblers, and he was one. It is probable that had he been born a prince he would have loudly lamented the fact that he was not a king. Chillingwood was different; he accepted the situation and enjoyed his life.
Then the smile died out suddenly and he turned to the north and made a long 'soo-o-o-sh' with rising intonation, signifying the rising wind. "Him very bad. White-man sleep sleep. Wake no." And he finished up with a shake of the head. Then his arm dropped to his side, and he waited for Grey to speak. For a moment the Customs officer remained silent. Chillingwood waited anxiously.
His length of service and reputation for hard work had saved him from dismissal, but Chillingwood was less fortunate; subordinates in Government service generally are less fortunate when their superiors blunder. However, Grey had outlived that unpleasantness. He was not the man to brood over disaster. Soon after he had been transferred to Ainsley the Town Clerkship fell vacant.
He did what he could for Chillingwood, with the result that the younger man eventually secured the post, and thus found himself enjoying a bare existence on an income of $500 per annum. Halfway down the path Grey became aware of a horseman approaching the farm. The figure was moving along slowly over the trail from Ainsley.
Robb followed suit. Mr. Zachary Smith pushed his tin pannikin away from before him and leaned back. "Going to smoke?" he asked. "Guess I'll join you. No, not your plug, thanks. I'm feeling pretty good. My weed'll do me. You don't fancy to try it?" "T. and B.'s good enough for me," said Grey, with a smile. "No, I won't experiment." Smith held his pouch towards Chillingwood. "Can I?"
Suddenly he pointed directly along the path towards a point where it seemed to vanish between two vast crags. "Smoke," he said. And his tone conveyed that he wished his companion to understand that he, Grey, had been right about the trail, and that Robb had been wrong. "That's Dougal's store," he went on, after a slight pause. Chillingwood looked as directed.
Robb Chillingwood was about twenty-five; his whole countenance indexed a sturdy honesty of thought and a merry disposition. There was considerable strength too about brow and jaw. Leslie Grey was shorter than his companion. A man of dapper, sturdy figure, and with a face good-looking, obstinate, and displaying as much sense of humour as a barbed-wire fence post. He was fully thirty years of age.
The latter was a man of medium height, and from the little that could be seen of his face between the high folds of the storm-collar of his buffalo coat, he possessed a long nose and a pair of dark, keen, yet merry eyes. His name was Robb Chillingwood. The two men were tramping along on snow-shoes in the rear of a dog-train.