[Frontispiece: "In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he sprang forward with a gasp." (CHAPTER XXVIII.)]
_Author of "The Impostor," "The Liberationist," etc._
I.--SALLY CREIGHTON II.--SALLY TAKES CHARGE III.--WYLLARD ASSENTS IV.--A CRISIS V.--THE OLD COUNTRY VI.--HER PICTURE VII.--AGATHA DOES NOT FLINCH VIII.--THE TRAVELLING COMPANION IX.--THE FOG X.--DISILLUSION XI.--AGATHA'S DECISION XII.--WANDERERS XIII.--THE SUMMONS XIV.--AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE XV.--THE BEACH XVI.--THE FIRST ICE XVII.--DEFEAT XVIII.--A DELICATE ERRAND XIX.--THE PRIOR CLAIM XX.--THE FIRST STAKE XXI.--GREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND XXII.--A PAINFUL REVELATION XXIII.--THROUGH THE SNOW XXIV.--THE LANDING XXV.--NEWS OF DISASTER XXVI.--THE RESCUE XXVII.--IN THE WILDERNESS XXVIII.--THE UNEXPECTED XXIX.--CAST AWAY XXX.--THE LAST EFFORT XXXI.--WYLLARD COMES HOME
"In another moment Wyllard's last doubt vanished, and he sprang forward with a gasp." . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"She could not raise him wholly, and he cried out once when his injured leg trailed in the snow."
"Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those dishes on the table.'"
"At length the door opened, and Agatha Ismay, wrapped in a long cloak, came in."
"'Now,' he said, 'I won't let you fall.'"
"In another moment Hawtrey sprang up on the platform, and she felt his arms about her."
"Then something seemed to crack, and she saw the off-side horse stumble and plunge."
"'Do you think--that--would have mattered?'"
"'Well,' she said, 'we have driven over as we promised!'"
"Agatha held her hands up ... as the man leaned down, and the next moment she was strongly lifted."
"'I guess I needn't tell you where that is,' he said, and pointed to the parallel of latitude that ran across."
"It seemed that he did not immediately notice her."
"'Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?'"
"It shambled forward in a curious manner."
"'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'"
"'I was waiting for you,' she said simply."
The frost outside was bitter, and the prairie, which rolled back from Lander's in long undulations to the far horizon, gleamed white beneath the moon, but there was warmth and brightness in Stukely's wooden barn. It stood at one end of the little, desolate settlement, where the trail that came up from the railroad thirty miles away forked off into two wavy ribands that melted into a waste of snow. Lander's consisted then of five or six frame houses and stores, a hotel of the same material, several sod stables, and a few birch-log barns; and its inhabitants considered it one of the most promising places in Western Canada. That, however, is the land of promise, a promise that is in due time usually fulfilled, and the men of Lander's were, for the most part, shrewdly practical optimists. They made the most of a somewhat grim and frugal present, and staked all they had to give--the few dollars they had brought in with them, and their powers of enduring toil--upon the roseate future.