In order to prepare for the defense, Miles Feversham, accompanied by his wife, arrived in Seattle the first week in March.  The month had opened stormy, with heavy rains, and to bridge the interval preceding the trial, Marcia planned an outing at Scenic Hot Springs where, at the higher altitude, the precipitation had taken the form of snow, and the hotel advertised good skeeing and tobogganing.  “Make the most of it,” she admonished Frederic; “it’s your last opportunity.  If Lucky Banks forfeits his bonus, and you can manage to keep your head and use a little diplomacy, we may have the engagement announced before the case comes up.”

Though diplomacy was possible only through suggestion, Frederic was a willing and confident medium.  He knew Mrs. Weatherbee had notified Banks she was at Scenic and, watching her that day of the fifteenth, he was at first puzzled and then encouraged that, as the hours passed and the prospector failed to come, her spirits steadily rose.

Elizabeth betrayed more anxiety.  At evening she stood at the window in Beatriz’s room, watching the bold front of the mountain which the Great Northern tracks crosscut to Cascade tunnel, when the Spokane local rounded the highest curve and dropped cautiously to the first snow-sheds.  The bluffs between were too sheer to accumulate snow, and against the dark background the vague outlines of the cars passed like shadows; the electric lights, blazing from the coaches, produced the effect of an aerial, fiery dragon.  Then, in the interval it disappeared, an eastbound challenged from the lower gorge, and the monster rushed from cover, shrieking defiance; the pawing clamp of its trucks roused the mountainside.  “There is your last westbound,” she said.  “If your option man isn’t aboard, he forfeits his bonus.  But you will be ahead the three thousand dollars and whatever improvements he may have made.”

Mrs. Weatherbee stood at the mirror fastening a great bunch of violets at her belt.  There was a bouquet of them on the dresser, and a huge bowl filled with them and relieved by a single red rose stood on the table in the center of the room.  “That is what troubles me,” she replied, and ruffled her brows.  “It seems so unjust that he should lose so much; that I should accept everything without compensating him.”

Elizabeth smiled.  “I guess he meant to get what he could out of the investment, but afterwards, when he married and found his wife owned the adjoining unreclaimed tract, it altered the situation.  It called for double capital and, if he hesitated and it came to a choice, naturally her interests would swing the balance.”

“No doubt,” admitted Beatriz.  “And in that case,”—­she turned from the mirror to watch the train—­“I might deed her a strip of ground where it was discovered her tract overlapped David’s.  That would be a beginning.”