Miss Deringham was now convinced that her father was not pleased.  “I have not noticed anything especially leonine about Mr. Seaforth,” she said.

“No,” said Deringham dryly.  “The Honourable Charley appears to be an admirable young man of the domestic feline species, but I don’t know of any reason that would make it advisable to waste powder and shot over him.”

Miss Deringham rose languidly, but her father felt he had gone as far as was desirable, and went back to grapple with a financial difficulty from which he could see only one escape, while she rode away with Seaforth, who led out the horse reserved for her use.  Alice Deringham could ride, but when they left the clearing and plunged into the bush she found that all she had been taught in England was not much use in British Columbia.  There was no perceptible trail, and the horses floundered round great fallen trees, and plunged smashing through thickets of black raspberry and barberry.  In places their flanks were brushed by tall, black-stemmed fern, and where the forest was more open treacherous gravel slipped beneath the hoofs that sank from sight amidst the blood-red clusters of the little wineberry.  After an hour of it the girl was shaken and breathless, and she contemplated her habit somewhat ruefully when Seaforth drew bridle.  Somewhere far up on a hill shoulder there was a smashing in the bush.

“Are you sure you have not lost the way?” she said.  “It seems impossible for horses or cattle to get through this forest.”

Seaforth laughed.  “The bush is really thin here,” he said.  “Anybody used to it could get through at a gallop, while a good bushman could scarcely make five miles a day walking where it’s tolerably thick.  I wonder if you know that the ox was originally a denizen of the bush.  I didn’t until Harry told me.  It always seemed to me a tranquil beast adapted for sober locomotion on nice green grass.”

“And isn’t it?” said the girl with indifference in her eyes.  “Mr. Alton is an authority on cattle?”

“Harry,” said Seaforth, smiling, “is, although one might not always fancy so, a complete encyclopaedia on everything useful.  Anyway, from the sound up yonder you will presently see some of the primitive habits of the genus bos, and the spectacle may be the more interesting because the beast will if possible head away up that valley into fastnesses where only a prehistoric man with a tail could follow it.”

Alice Deringham said nothing further and was glad of the rest.  They had pulled their horses up on the slope of a hill which formed one side of a hollow out of which several valleys opened.  There were great trees about them, and it was only here and there a ray of sunlight pierced the dim green shadow, while below them a stream went frothing down a miniature canon whose banks were cumbered by fallen timber.  It was, the girl fancied, an especially difficult place for a horseman to pick his way through.