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He was still a young man, but when little more than a boy he had married, and for two years was transcendently happy. Then came the cry of “Kootenay Gold” ringing throughout Canada–of the untold wealth of Kootenay mines. Like thousands of others he followed the beckoning of that yellow finger, taking his young wife and baby daughter West with him. The little town of Nelson, crouching on its beautiful hills, its feet laved by the waters of Kootenay Lake, was then in its first robust, active infancy. Here he settled, going out alone on long prospecting expeditions; sometimes he was away a week, sometimes a month, with the lure of the gold forever in his veins, but the laughter of his child, the love of his wife, forever in his heart. Then–the day of that awful home-coming! For three weeks the fascination of searching for the golden pay-streak had held him in the mountains. No one could find him when it happened, and now all they could tell him was the story of an upturned canoe found drifting on the lake, of a woman’s light summer shawl caught in the thwarts, of a child’s little silken bonnet washed ashore. [Fact.] The great-hearted men of the West had done their utmost in the search that followed. Miners, missionaries, prospectors, Indians, settlers, gamblers, outlaws, had one and all turned out, for they liked young Wingate, and they adored his loving wife and dainty child. But the search was useless. The wild shores of Kootenay Lake alone held the secret of their resting-place.

Young Wingate faced the East once more. There was but one thing to do with his life–work, work, WORK; and the harder, the more difficult, that work, the better. It was this very difficulty that made the engineering on the Crow’s Nest Pass so attractive to him. So here he was building grades, blasting tunnels, with Catharine’s mournful eyes following him daily, as if she divined something of that long-ago sorrow that had shadowed his almost boyish life.

He liked the woman, and his liking quickened his eye to her hardships, his ear to the hint of lagging weariness in her footsteps; so he was the first to notice it the morning she stumped into the cook-house, her feet bound up in furs, her face drawn in agony.

“Catharine,” he exclaimed, “your feet have been frozen!”

She looked like a culprit, but answered: “Not much; I get lose in storm las’ night.”

“I thought this would happen,” he said, indignantly. “After this you sleep here.”

“I sleep home.” she said, doggedly.

“I won’t have it,” he declared. “I’ll cook for the men myself first.”

“Allight,” she replied. “You cookee; I go home–me.”

That night there was a terrible storm. The wind howled down the throat of the Pass, and the snow fell like bales of sheep’s wool, blanketing the trails and drifting into the railroad cuts until they attained their original level. But after she had cooked supper Catharine started for home as usual. The only unusual thing about it was that the next morning she did not return. It was Sunday, the men’s day “off.” Wingate ate no breakfast, but after swallowing some strong tea he turned to the foreman. “Mr. Brown, will you come with me to try and hunt up Catharine?” he asked.

“Yes, if we can get beyond the door,” assented Brown. “But I doubt if we can make the canyon, sir.”

“We’ll have a try at it, anyway,” said the young engineer. “I almost doubt myself if she made it last night.”

“She’s a stubborn woman,” commented Brown.

“And has her own reasons for it, I suppose,” replied Wingate. “But that has nothing to do with her being lost or frozen. If something had not happened I’m sure she would have come to-day, notwithstanding I scolded her yesterday, and told her I’d rather cook myself than let her run such risks. How will we go, Mr. Brown; horses or snowshoes?”