"I had to go down and worry Horton about one or two little things," he said.

"It's good for him occasionally, and he had been sending me flour we couldn't use lately." Miss Deringham nodded, though she was quite aware that the storekeeper was scarcely likely to supply axemen and ranchers, whose tastes were simple and dollars scarce, with what she guessed by its bouquet was the finest product of Costa Rica.

If she had not been, she was capable of deducing a little from the stamp upon the packets she had seen in Mrs.
Margery's store, which showed that they had come direct from Vancouver.
Alton took up the cup handed him, and leaned back in his chair with a little gesture of content, while the girl smiled as she glanced at him.
[Illustration: Alton leaned back with a little gesture of content.] "You bear it very well," she said.
The man looked at her with a bewildered expression for a moment or two.
Then he laughed.

"No," he said, "I find it wonderfully nice." There was an underlying sincerity in his voice, and Alice Deringham driven by curiosity went a step farther.
"The coffee ?" she said.
She was almost sorry next moment, for she had at other times called up considerably more than she had expected or desired from the unsounded depths of the man's nature.

For a second or two there was a great wistfulness, which changed into a little glow she shrank from, in his eyes.