As it happened Alton, who, though Miss Townshead did not know this, lived in the room adjoining his office, was busy about the stove just then.  In those days, when Vancouver had more inhabitants than it could well find room for and its hotels overflowed, single men taking their meals in the public restaurants lived as best they could, over their stores and offices, or in rude cabins and shanties flung up anywhere on the outskirts of the city, while it is not improbable that a good many of them live in much the same fashion now.  Alton had, however, missed the six o’clock supper, for reasons which the sheaf of papers on his desk made plain, and was then engaged in cooking something in a frying-pan.  A portable cedar partition partly shrouded the little table set out with a few plates, and the stove, while his old worked-deerhide slippers and loose jacket indicated that the man was just then not so much in his place of business as at home.  He had been busy in the city and at his desk for ten hours that day, for the Somasco products were becoming known, and men had been toiling in the valley, driving roads, and building a new sawmill in the frost and snow.  Part of Alton’s business in the city was to raise the money that was needed to maintain them, and already he could foresee that if the time of prosperity was delayed it might go hardly with the Somasco Company.

He had laid down the frying-pan and was shaking a pot of strong green tea when there was a tapping at the door, which opened while he wondered whether there would be time for him to alter his attire.  Then he stood up with the teapot in his hand, and made a little whimsical gesture of dismay as Miss Townshead stood before him.  She coloured a trifle, but took courage at Alton’s soft laugh, for it was clear that he was as yet only concerned about the plight in which she had found him.  Alton, she remembered, had not been brought up conventionally in England, and she knew his wholesome simplicity.

“I’m very glad to see you, but if I’d known who was there I’d have fixed the place up before you got in,” he said.  “Sit right down beside the stove.”

Nellie Townshead stood still a moment, but she was tired and the night was cold, so she took the chair he drew forward, and then shook her head as he laid a cup before her.

“It’s Horton’s tea, and bad at that, but it will help us to fancy ourselves back in the bush,” he said.  “Your father is keeping all right?”

The girl made a little gesture of impatience.  “Yes,” she said.  “I am almost afraid I am doing wrong, but I felt I must warn you.  Now don’t ask me any questions, but take it as a fact that Hallam has sent up somebody to locate your silver as soon as it can be done.  He seems to consider he has you at a disadvantage because you have not put in your legal improvements.”

Alton thrust his chair back and clenched one hand, while the girl noticed with relief that he had almost forgotten her.