He spoke vaguely of "business," and on one occasion, apparently had gone off for three days to Saskatchewan on matters connected with the coming general election.
From the newspaper, or the talk of visitors in the hotel, or the railway officials who occasionally found their way to Lake Louise to make courteous inquiries after the English party, Elizabeth became, indeed, more and more fully aware of the estimation in which Anderson was beginning to be held.

He was already a personage in the Northwest; was said to be sure of success in his contest at Donaldminster, and of an immediate Parliamentary career at Ottawa.

These prophecies seemed to depend more upon the man's character than his actual achievements; though, indeed, the story of the great strike, as she had gathered it once or twice from the lips of eye-witnesses, was a fine one.

For weeks he had carried his life in his hand among thousands of infuriated navvies and miners--since the miners had made common cause with the railwaymen--with a cheerfulness, daring, and resource which in the end had wrung success from an apparently hopeless situation; a success attended, when all was over, by an amazing effusion of good will among both masters and men, especially towards Anderson himself, and a general improvement in the industrial temper and atmosphere of the Northwest.
The recital of these things stirred Elizabeth's pulses.

But why did she never hear them from himself?
Surely he had offered her friendship, and the rights of friendship.