"The major, at least, likes a game, and after pulling him back into this wicked world from the edge of a gully one naturally feel that he owes him a little."
"You didn't pull him. It was Walter. Hadn't you better try again?"
Sewell appeared a trifle embarrassed, for he saw that Leger was becoming interested.
"It is, to some extent, my business to understand the habits of the ruling classes," he said reflectively. "You see, it's almost necessary. Unless I know a little about them, how can I persuade anybody how far they are beneath us, as I'm expected to do?"
Hetty laughed. "Well," she said, "you haven't tried to do anything of that kind for a long while now. Anyway, it seems to me that you knew a good deal about them before you ever saw Major Coulthurst. Of course, it's not my business, but if I were the major I'd make you tell me exactly what you were going there for."
Sewell apparently did not relish this, though he laughed. It happens occasionally that those most concerned in what is going on are the last to notice it, and it had not occurred to Coulthurst or Ingleby that Sewell spent his evenings at the Gold Commissioner's dwelling frequently. He had, however, not often met Ingleby there, and it was significant that neither of them ever mentioned Grace Coulthurst to the other. In any case, Sewell did not answer, and while they sat silent there was a tramp of feet outside and the corporal came in. He was a taciturn and somewhat unsociable man, but he smiled as he looked at Hetty and sat down where the rude chimney Tomlinson had built was between him and the one small window.
"It's a bitter night, and there's 'most four foot of snow on the range. I figured I'd look in to tell you it will be two or three days yet before you get the flour the folks at the settlements are sending up," he said. "A trooper has just come in with the mail, and he left the freighter and his beasts held up by the snow."
He stopped a moment, and looked at Leger somewhat curiously. "Somebody has just gone away?"
"No," said Leger. "We have had nobody here. We are expecting Ingleby, but he hasn't turned up yet."
"Quite sure he's not outside there?"