He swung himself down, and the groom motioned to him.

"West of the tower, Mr. Wallace; just before you reach the porch."

Vane passed through the wicket in the lichened limestone wall, and
there was a troubled look in his eyes when he came back and took the
reins again.

"I went away in bitterness--and I'm sorry now," he said. "The real
trouble was unimportant; I think it was forgotten. Every now and then the
letters came; but the written word is cold. There are things that can
never be set quite right in this world."

Carroll made no comment, though he knew that if it had not been for the
bond between them his comrade would not have spoken so. They drove on in
silence for a while, and then, as they entered a deep, wooded dale, Vane
turned to him again.

"I've been taken right back into the old days to-night; days in
England, and afterward those when we worked on the branch road beneath
the range. There's not a boy among the crowd in the sleeping-shack I
can't recall--first, wild Larry, who taught me how to drill and hid my
rawness from the Construction Boss."

"He lent me his gum-boots when the muskeg stiffened into half-frozen
slush," Carroll interrupted him.

"And was smashed by the snowslide," Vane went on. "Then there was Tom,
from the boundary country. He packed me back a league to camp the day I
chopped my right foot; and went down in the lumber schooner off Flattery.