In the meantime Alton dropped very stiffly from the saddle in front of Horton's hotel, and, limping up the stairway, found the man who kept it upon the verandah.
"Glad to see you coming round, Harry; but you're looking very white, and walking kind of stiff," he said.
"Yes," said Alton dryly. "I shall probably walk just that way all my life."
Horton made no attempt to condole with him. He knew Alton tolerably well, and felt that any sympathy he could offer would be inadequate. "Well," he said, "here's a letter Thomson brought you in from the railroad."
Alton tore open the envelope, and read the message with a faint relief, for it was from Deringham, and stated that an affair of business would prevent him returning to Somasco for some little time. Then he remembered that to delay a question which must be asked would but prolong the suspense.
"I'm going through to the railroad, but the ride has shaken me, and
I'll lie down and sleep a while," he said.
"Well," said Horton, "you know best, but you look a long way more fit to be sitting beside the stove up there at the ranch. That was a tolerably bad accident you had?"
Alton glanced at him sharply, but his voice was indifferent as he answered. "Oh, yes, I came to grief bringing in a deer, and lay out in the frost a good while before they found me. Have you had many strangers round here?"
Horton nodded. "The bush is just full of them—looking for timber rights and prospecting round the Crown lands—Hallam's friends, I think. There was one of them seemed kind of anxious about you lately."
Alton's eyes grew a trifle keener, but he was shaken and weary, and made a little gesture which seemed to indicate that he would ask questions later.