"Your whole weight came on it with a wrench. No wonder it hurt." Sheba noticed that the Hannah was drawing up to a wharf and the passengers were lining up with their belongings. "Is this where we change?" "Those of us going to Kusiak transfer here. But there's no hurry. We wait at this landing two hours." Gordon helped Sheba move her baggage to the other boat and joined her on deck. They were both strangers in the land. Their only common acquaintance was Macdonald and he was letting Mrs. Mallory absorb his attention just now. Left to their own resources the two young people naturally drifted together a good deal. This suited Elliot. He found his companion wholly delightful, not the less because she was so different from the girls he knew at home. She could be frank, and even shyly audacious on occasion, but she held a little note of reserve he felt bound to respect. Her experience of the world had clearly been limited. She was not at all sure of herself, of the proper degree of intimacy to permit herself with a strange and likable young man who had done her so signal a service. Macdonald left the boat twenty miles below Kusiak with Mrs. Mallory and the Selfridges. A chauffeur with a motor-car was waiting on the wharf to run them to town, but he gave the wheel to Macdonald and took the seat beside the driver. The little miner Strong grinned across to Elliot, who was standing beside Miss O'Neill at the boat rail. "That's Mac all over. He hires a fellow to run his car--brings him up here from Seattle--and then takes the wheel himself every time he rides. I don't somehow see Mac sitting back and letting another man run the machine." It was close to noon before the river boat turned a bend and steamed up to the wharf at Kusiak. The place was an undistinguished little log town that rambled back from the river up the hill in a hit-or-miss fashion. Its main street ran a tortuous course parallel to the stream. Half of the town, it seemed, was down to meet the boat. "Are you going to the hotel or direct to your cousin's?" Gordon asked Miss O'Neill. "To my cousin's. I fancy she's down here to meet me. It was arranged that I come on this boat." There was much waving of handkerchiefs and shouting back and forth as the steamer slowly drew close to the landing. Elliot caught a glimpse of the only people in Kusiak he had known before coming in, but though he waved to them he saw they did not recognize him. After the usual delay about getting ashore he walked down the gangway carrying the suitcases of the Irish girl. Sheba followed at his heels. On the wharf he came face to face with a slender, well-dressed young woman. "Diane!" he cried. She stared at him. "You! What in Heaven's name are you doing here, Gordon Elliot?" she demanded, and before he could answer had seized both hands and turned excitedly to call a stocky man near. "Peter--Peter! Guess who's here?" "Hello, Paget!" grinned Gordon, and he shook hands with the husband of Diane.