Why isn't Harry Alton or his partner here ?" Nellie Townshead had asked herself the same question over and over again that day when rancher and axemen in somewhat embarrassed fashion tendered her their sympathy.

What she expected from him she did not quite know, but she had a curious confidence in Alton, and at least as much in his comrade, and felt that even if the scheme her father had alluded to was not feasible there would be something they could do.
Then she drew back from the window and sat down, with a little shiver as the harsh voice of the auctioneer rose from the clearing.

She caught disjointed words and sentences.
"Don't need tell you what the place is worth.

You have seen the boundaries.

Richest soil in the Dominion.