Deringham seldom did anything without a purpose, and he had one now.
His daughter had been asleep with her head on his shoulder when a shout roused her two hours earlier, and with a drumming of hoofs they came lurching into the settlement.

For a blissful moment she fancied the journey was at an end, for there were lights and voices and a pleasant smell of firwood smoke, but Okanagan shouted to his team, and the lights faded away behind as they plunged into the silence beneath the pines again.
"Father," she said faintly, "do you think he has gone the wrong way?
It seems ever so long since we left the settlement." Okanagan may have heard her, though the words were almost indistinguishable.

"You lie right where you are for another ten minutes, and keep warm, miss," he said; "then I'll show you something." Alice Deringham shivered all through.

"It is a little difficult," she said.
Okanagan spoke to his horses, and after what appeared an interminable time looked down again.
"There," he said, with a curious, almost silent laugh, and the girl saw a red blink amidst the pines across the valley.

"That's Somasco." Alice Deringham let her head drop back on her father's shoulder with a little sigh.