He went out, and Coulthurst sat still at his table gazing vacantly in front of him with his lips unusually firmly set. Then he rose with a little shake of his shoulders and a gesture of relief.
"The thing is quite out of the question. Grace has too much sense," he said.
XVII
TROOPER PROBYN'S MISADVENTURE
Nobody blamed Coulthurst for dispossessing Ingleby of his claim. In fact, the bluff and usually good-humoured major was more or less a favourite with the miners, who admitted that while it was rough on Ingleby no other course was open to him. For all that, the affair made an unfortunate impression when news leaked out of the part Esmond had played in it, for the latter's arrogance had gone a long way to gain him the hearty dislike of every man in the valley.
The Canadian is, as a rule, a sturdy imperialist with democratic tendencies, a type of citizen which would elsewhere probably be thought an anachronism. There were, however, as Sewell had pointed out, a good many men in the North just then who had no country, and a vague unrest and discontent, that once or twice came near producing unpleasant results, spread sporadically across the wilderness that season. Nobody was pleased with the mining regulations, and there were quiet Canadian bushmen who thought the drafting of detachments of the Northwest Police into that country not only unnecessary, but a reflection upon them. There were also other men, who had carried the memory of their wrongs with them from lands ruled by the mailed fist, to whom this symbol of imperial authority was as a red rag to a bull, and here and there a heavy responsibility was laid on the agents of the Crown.
Major Coulthurst, however, felt very little. He was not a keen-sighted man, and there were no signs of discontent in the Green River country so far, at least, as he could discern. It was true that Sewell, who played chess with him somewhat frequently, now and then made disturbing recommendations which the major occasionally went so far as to consider; but the country was apparently quiet, and might have remained so, in spite of Esmond's insolent tactlessness, had it not been for a little mistake made by Trooper Probyn.
He was a reckless stripling with a certain grace of manner which he could scarcely have acquired in the ranks of the Northwest Police, though men whose family name is well known in the older country occasionally join that service for reasons which they do not as a rule explain. He was comely, and he not infrequently loitered at the bakery, even when he was supposed to be elsewhere at his duty. It happened that he stood there one Saturday afternoon, watching Hetty Leger with undisguised appreciation, when there was nobody else about. He had perhaps chosen that particular time because Leger, who had shown that he did not approve of him, was at the mine; but there were smears of flour upon his uniform which suggested what his occupation had been.
Hetty, who rather liked the lad, looked distinctly pretty just then, as, with sleeves rolled to the elbow, she moulded a loaf for the oven. The bush was very still, and it was pleasantly cool in the shadow of the pines, which rolled in sombre ranks down the face of the hill. It was, perhaps, unfortunate that Hetty smiled as she held out the bread.
"You can put this loaf in and seal up the oven if you're very good," she said.