A lively conversation sprang up between her and the two men.
They were, it seemed, a stalwart pair of friends, kinsmen indeed, who generally worked together, and were now entrusted with some of the most important work on the most difficult sections of the line.

But they were not going to spend all their days on the line--not they! Like everybody in the West, they had their eyes on the land.

Upon a particular district of it, moreover, in Northern Alberta, not yet surveyed or settled.

But they were watching it, and as soon as the "steel gang" of a projected railway came within measurable distance they meant to claim their sections and work their land together.
When the conversation came to an end and Elizabeth, who with her companions had been strolling along the line a little in front of the train, turned back towards her party, Delaine looked down upon her, at once anxious to strike the right note, and moodily despondent of doing it.
"Evidently, two very good fellows!" he said in his rich, ponderous voice.

"You gave them a great pleasure by going to talk to them." "I ?" cried Elizabeth.