.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 48644
   :PG.Title: The Heart of the Red Firs
   :PG.Released: 2015-04-05
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Ada Woodruff Anderson
   :MARCREL.ill: Charles Grunwald
   :DC.Title: The Heart of the Red Firs
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1908
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE HEART OF THE RED FIRS
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      Cover art

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   .. _`"He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not believing"`:

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      :alt: "He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not believing."  Frontispiece.  *See page* 312.

      "He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not believing."  Frontispiece.  *See page* `312`_.

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      THE

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      HEART OF THE RED FIRS

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      A STORY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

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      BY

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      ADA WOODRUFF ANDERSON

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      ILLUSTRATED BY
      CHARLES GRUNWALD

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      BOSTON
      LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
      1909

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      *Copyright, 1908,*
      BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

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      *All rights reserved*

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      Published April, 1908

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      Printers
      \B. \J. Parkhill & Co., Printers, Boston, U.S.A.

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      TO THOSE FEW REMAINING PIONEERS,
      WHO KNEW THE NISQUALLY TRAIL INTO THE GREAT SOLITUDES,
      IN TIMES BEFORE THE LOGGING RAILROAD DEVASTATED
      THE PUGET SOUND HILLS, AND THE WILDER-
      NESS BEGAN TO RECEDE AT THE
      COMING OF THE BUILDER
      OF TOWNSITES.

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   CONTENTS

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CHAPTER

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I.  `The Teacher and the Freak of the Strange Thoroughbred`_
II.  `The Leaning Tower`_
III.  `The Camp at the Headwaters`_
IV.  `"Ther Biggest Coward in ther Woods"`_
V.  `Stratton's Way`_
VI.  `Mose`_
VII.  `The Instrument of Tyee Sahgalee`_
VIII.  `"I'm Going to Make Him White"`_
IX.  `Uncle Silas`_
X.  `Lem and the *Phantom*`_
XI.  `The House-Raising`_
XII.  `A Face in the Night`_
XIII.  `The Pressure of the Thumb-Screw`_
XIV.  `The Salmon-trollers`_
XV.  `The Man in the Tide-rip`_
XVI.  `The Fiery Lane`_
XVII.  `The Man Who Bungled`_
XVIII.  `Water-logged`_
XIX.  `"Andromeda Has Found a Perseus"`_
XX.  `The Grand Coup`_
XXI.  `Hide and Seek`_
XXII.  `For Little Silas`_
XXIII.  `"As Long as We Two Live"`_
XXIV.  `"A Man Of Straw"`_
XXV.  `The Rockslide`_
XXVI.  `The Judge`_
XXVII.  `Lem Creates Fiction`_
XXVIII.  `The Pressure of the Wilderness`_
XXIX.  `The Crack of Doom`_
XXX.  `The Lost Prospect`_

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   LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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`"He looked down into her lifted face, believing
yet not believing"`_ . . . Frontispiece

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`"She paused, swaying in the hot gale"`_

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`"'I like you as well as I could like any
American with un-American ways'"`_

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`"He turned and looked into the fire"`_

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.. _`THE TEACHER AND THE FREAK OF THE STRANGE THOROUGHBRED`:

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   THE HEART OF THE RED FIRS

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   CHAPTER I

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   THE TEACHER AND THE FREAK OF THE
   STRANGE THOROUGHBRED

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The children were putting away their books.  The
afternoon sun, streaming through the uncurtained
windows, made patches of heat on the hewn cedar flooring,
and the new, unpainted desks sent forth pitch and the
fragrance of fir.  Suddenly a shadow crossed one of these
squares of light, and Lem Myers, who was seated nearest
the raised sash, whispered an audible warning: "Mose,
your dad's comin'."

The boy sprang to his feet and stood facing the open
door.  The intruder entered without ceremony.  He had
the lank black hair and mustache, eyes flashing under
shaggy brows, of the Canadian-French, and the powerful
shoulders and sinewy frame of a voyageur of the Hudson
Bay Company.  Two hounds which followed him, stopped
with their forepaws on the threshold and reconnoitered
the room suspiciously.

He strode directly up the aisle to the waiting boy, and
laying a hand roughly on his neck, said, with growing
heat, "Din' I tell you doan' tek dat gun?  Oui, two,
t'ree tam I ees say let eet 'lone."

Mose rocked under the grasp but he bore it with the
silent fortitude inherited from an Indian mother; the
white in him only found expression in the dull glow of
his cheek, the tense arms and the hands clenched at his
sides.

"Din' I say A'm goin' t'rash you?  Nawitka, for sure.
T'ief!  Cultus Siwash!"  And with a climax of invective,
hurled forth in a mixture of French, English and Indian,
the man raised his hand and struck a hard blow.

Before he could repeat it the teacher stepped between
them.  She had a bright, speaking face, eyes that laughed
or stormed on occasion, a mouth mobile, alluring, with
charm of lurking merriment, and a chin delicately square,
that lifted when she spoke, with an indescribable air of
decision.

"How do you do, Mr. Laramie," she said, and offered
her hand, while, at the same time, with the other palm
she impelled Mose back into his seat.  "You are just in
time to hear us sing."

He had ignored the hand, but she quickly placed her
chair for him, smiling, and commenced in a clear, full
mezzo:

   |  "We now are youthful sailors, we are not far from shore,
   |  But soon we mean to journey the ocean o'er and o'er."
   |

She lifted her music book from her desk and found the
place for him, but he refused it with a shake of his head,
and taking the seat with manifest reluctance, pulled his
old squirrel-skin cap over his brows, scowling first at her,
then more darkly at Mose, and finally in general at the
school.

The children swelled the chorus lustily.  And the
Canadian liked music.  It was his vulnerable point.  He
began to beat time to this brisk measure with his clumsy
boot; cautiously at first, then with great vigor, while
his voice broke into a hoarse hum.

The song was hardly finished when she tapped the bell
for dismissal.

"It ees gre't museek," said Laramie, rising.  "Oui,
a gre't song."  His glance moved, challenging possible
contradiction, and rested on Mose's seat.  It was vacant.
"Dem it," he cried with returning wrath.

But the teacher went swiftly down the aisle before him.
"Here is your gun," she said, and dragged it from behind
the door.  Her voice trembled a little; entreaty rose
through the courage in her eyes.

He took the rifle, turning it in his brawny hands to give
it a close scrutiny.  When, with a final click of the
hammer, he raised his glance, the entreaty was gone; she
stood with her arms folded, chin high, watching him.  It
was as though she measured him.

His mouth worked in an unaccustomed smile.  "Say,
Mees," he said, "what ees dis you tole dose chillun 'bout
de eart' ees roun?  You mek fun for dem, yaas?"

There was a silent moment while the amazement came
and went in her face; a touch of merriment dimpled her
mouth.  Then, "It is quite true," she answered, gravely,
"the earth is round."

"Roun'?  Sacré, Mees, but we mus' fall off."

She shook her head.  "Come, I will show you."  And
she led the way back to her desk, and taking a small
globe in her hands, went through the usual explanation
slowly, simply, with infinite patience, as she would have
told a little child.  But Laramie had convictions of his
own.  He had seen the great Pacific, oh, yes, often, when
he had journeyed for the fur company to Nootka; and he
had watched ships approach from the far horizon, but to
see the masts first proved nothing; a vessel was most all
sail.  And it was true that once he had met a sailor who
said he had taken a ship at Quebec and sailed straight on
and on, and without turning back had found himself
again at home.  But plainly the man had lied, for how
could one make la bon voyage up the Fraser, through
the big lakes and down the St. Lawrence in a great vessel?
Bah, every one knew it could only be done in a canoe.
"De eart' roun'?" he concluded.  "No, no, Mees, you
doan' mek me beli've dat.  But it ees gre't joke; oui,
a gre't joke, ha, ha.  Well, good-by, Mees.  Tek care
yourse'f."

He shouldered the gun and strode away through the
door.  At the same time there was the snapping of a twig
and a glimpse of retreating bare heels at the corner of
the house, and while the Canadian moved down the river
trail a pair of keen eyes, set in a ferret-shaped face, peered
at him from behind the angle.  They were the eyes of
Lem Myers.  When he had satisfied himself that Laramie
was truly on his way he came cautiously to the threshold.
The teacher was seated at her desk using her pencil with
rapid, decisive strokes.  He crossed the floor to the
platform before she was conscious of his presence.

"Well, Lem," and she smiled down at him, "are you
waiting for me?"

"Wal, yes; thort I'd wait an' see it out."  He slipped
up behind her chair to look over her shoulder, bending
his head as she moved her hand, the better to follow her
work.  "Oh, gee," he exclaimed suddenly, slapping his
knees, "gee.  You're a-settin' here a-makin' er picture of
him, an' I 'lowed all ther time you was scared."

"Scared?"  She suspended her pencil to look at him.

"Yes, Mose was gone an' ther wan't nobody else ter hit."

"Hit?  Do you mean he might have struck me?"  She
rose to her feet, facing the boy.  "Do you—  Do
men in this settlement ever strike the women?"

He gave her a sidelong glance and thrust his hands
deep into his trousers pockets.  "You bet," he answered.

There was a brief silence, then she said, and the
vibration had not gone from her voice, "No, Lem, I was not
afraid, but I might have been if I had known.  Where
I have lived men never strike women; they have other
ways.  I was just thinking of Mose.  I wanted to ask
Mr. Laramie not to be hard with him."

"Oh, don't you bother 'bout Mose.  He kin take care
hisself.  He's got more muscle now'n any other boy in
ther hull deestrict, an' it won't be long 'fore he kin turn
in an' thrash ther ole man."

There was another silence; the merriment again
dimpled her mouth and she looked off through the open
door.  Lem stooped and picked up a loose sheet that
had fluttered from the sketchbook to the floor.  "Gee,"
he said, "gee, but you kin draw."

"Yes?"  Her glance returned and rested on the sheet
interestedly.  "What is it, Lem?"

"Why, it's er picture of ther timber-cruiser an' that
ther black horse o' his.  Here's ther same nice little star
atween ther eyes, an' I've seen him fling up his head an'
point one ear jes that erway."

"So you know Colonel," she said, flushing, yet pleased
at the recognition.  "Mr. Forrest bought him when he
was a colt.  He broke him, and I am the only woman who
ever mounted him."

"I 'low then you kin ride some.  Ther ain't never be'n
no sech stepper in this hull deestrict.  Mill Thornton
calc'lated he hed er prize when he raised ther sorrel filly,
but gee, I've seen ther black leave her clear out o' sight
in less'n er minute."

The teacher laughed softly.  "I know, I know, the
beauty.  And his master, Lem.  Did you ever see such a
man in the saddle?  So straight, so easy, so ready at just
the right instant with a quiet word, or else that soft
whistle."

"He kin ride," admitted Lem.  "I've never seen him
fizzle, an' he's be'n out here off an' on considerable;
timber-cruisin' first an' then prospectin'.  He 'lowed last
year he'd struck er gold mine or somethin'."

"I know," she repeated, "I know.  It was only a few
miles from here he found those splendid indications."

"Yes," said the boy with his impish smile, "an' lost
'em."

"The mineral is there," she said with an upward tilt
of her chin.  "The ore he brought down assayed remarkably
rich.  But he had broken his compass that day and
a heavy mist settled over every peak and spur.  There
was absolutely nothing to mark a course from.  Still,
it's there, Lem, locked in the heart of the hills.  He will
find it again, sometime."

She went over and took her hat from its peg on the
wall, and Lem followed, waiting on the steps while she
locked the door.

"There will be no more timber-cruising when he takes
his position at the new mills," she said as they started up
the trail; "no more chances to prospect.  But he is
coming out to the settlement before he goes to Seattle,
for a last trip into the hills, and, if your mother can go
with us, he intends to take me, to see the Cascades at
close range, and the canyon and the leaning tower, and
spend a night or two in his favorite camp at the
headwaters."

A few rods from the schoolhouse the trail to the Myers
clearing, which was her boarding-place, began an abrupt
ascent across the face of a burned over ridge.  They made
the first part in silence, then she paused to look back on
the desolate waste.  "Oh," she said, "it's like the end
of the world.  It's always so wretchedly hot on this dead
side-hill; the gravel shifts so underfoot.  It's very different
on the Tumwater road."

"Whar's that?" asked Lem.

"Why, it's the way from Olympia to the Tumwater
mills where Mr. Forrest has lived since he was a small boy.
And it's through the woods and down a great ridge, with
glimpses of blue sea between the firs, and always, even
in warmest weather, a cool, salt breeze.  The lower falls
of the Des Chutes plunge into the Sound there, at
Tumwater, and their thunder fills the gorge.  We used to
go down often, walking or riding, and sometimes when the
wind and tide were right, we sailed.  I suppose, Lem,
you never have seen a yacht?"

"Wal, no, I dunno's I hev."

"Then you have missed a great deal.  But the first
time I go down to the Sound I'll take you; and
Mr. Kingsley, my brother-in-law, will have us aboard the
*Phantom*.  Then, out past the old monastery on Priest
Point, we'll catch a swinging breeze, and all the running
waves will toss their whitecaps,—you'll like that, even
if the scud whips your face,—and someone, my sister
perhaps, will start 'The White Squall.'  It's the best sea
song, made for the accompaniment of water on a cleaving
keel."

For a moment she forgot the boy.  She stood looking
off across the charred stumps and skeletons of trees, as
though she saw far away that blue sea she loved, and
expected to hear that rush and gurgle along a moving
keel.  And he, this urchin who had lived his life among
the weasels and squirrels in the heart of the great forest,
who knew nothing of whitecaps, to whom scud was a
new and vague torment, waited with his ferret eyes upon
her, sharp chin lifted, lips apart.  Her glance fell.  Their
eyes met and she laughed.  "Would you like to make that
trip down to Puget Sound, Lem?"

He dropped his head, and slipping back to his place at
her heels as she resumed the climb, answered with brief
emphasis, "You bet."

At the top of the ridge the trail entered the forest.  The
boughs of the friendly firs clasped overhead; a carpet
of needles was underfoot.  Moss rioted everywhere, on
logs, rocks, the trunks of the living trees.  Still, it was
less insistent than the salal, which pushed its stiff glossy
leaves through dense growths of alder and hazel, and
the fern, which sent up slender stems, forming a lattice
for honeysuckle and pea, and high above her head spread
umbrella fronds.  It was cooler and she quickened her
pace.  Lem began to whistle, then to answer the birds,
and presently she, too, was calling, cautiously at first,
taking lessons from the boy, and all the wood was full of
voices.

At length there was the noise of running water and they
came down to a brook.  It was their half-way place.
Mid-channel, Lem had built a water wheel.  He had set
a squirrel trap on the bank, and a larger one for mink,
and had made a bench for the teacher, by rolling a short
log against a trunk, securing it with stakes.  She seated
herself and he waded out into the stream.  He plucked a
leaf from an overhanging bough, and shaping a drinking-cup,
brought her a draught.  She laid her hat in her lap
and resting her head on the trunk, idly watched him while
he examined the traps, and drew from a hollow cedar his
alder pole, equipped with primitive line, and baited the
hook with a grasshopper.  But while he tried pool and
shallow ineffectually, her glance moved absently up-stream,
and presently she sang in a soft undertone:

   |  She shone in the light of de - clin -
   |  ing day,  And each sail was
   |  set,  And each heart .. was ... gay:

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   Music fragment

The noise of running water became the music of the
sea; the bole on which she leaned was a heaving mast,
and the stir of hemlock boughs above changed to the
bellying of voluminous canvas.  Once more the moon
hung low over the Tumwater hills, silvering the cove,
and on the port bow the Des Chutes plunged out of blackness
and swayed, sparkling, like a curtain of roped pearls
between beetling cliffs.  Her sister's contralto, swelled
by Kingsley's tenor, took up the chorus, but clearer,
close beside her, subduing his fine baritone to her own
voice, sang Paul Forrest.

At last she drew a full breath and returned to the present.
She brushed her hand across her eyes and looked at Lem.
The next instant she was on her feet.  She ran down the
bank and out upon the stepping-stones, watching the boy.
"Play him, Lem," she cried softly, "play him, tire him.
Don't be in a hurry."

"Gee, gee!"  Lem set his teeth between the exclamations,
and gripped the pole in both hands.  "Oh, gee!"

He began to move down-stream, splashing ankle-deep,
plunging over his knees in hollows.  His steps quickened.
He tripped on a sunken snag, recovered, fell sprawling
across a dipping log, and was up instantly, steadying,
playing the jerking line.

"That's right, Lem, slowly, tire him.  Now—"  She
clasped her hands over an imaginary rod, lifted in
unison, and as though she felt that great weight on the
boy's line—"Now.  Oh, you haven't, you haven't
lost him?"

The chagrined sportsman stood regarding his remaining
bit of string.  Then he threw the pole down disgustedly
and returned to the crossing, He gave the teacher one
sidelong look and dropped his eyes.

"Never mind, Lem," she said.  "It was fine.  The
gamiest I ever saw."

He lifted his head.  "You kin bet on that," he answered.
"Ther's jes one of him in this here creek.  He's ther great
Tyee.  But gee, gee, I don't see how he hed water 'nough
ter keep him erfloat."

The teacher laughed softly.  She started on over the
stream, but, lifting her glance from the dripping boy, she
met suddenly the amused gaze of an auditor who had
stopped on the bank.  His mount, a dappled chestnut
with a silver mane, the alert head, depth of chest, long,
sleek body and nimble limbs of a thoroughbred, was, in
that forest settlement, remarkable, but the man himself
possessed a striking personality.  He carried his large
frame with almost military erectness and yet with the
freedom of young muscles bred to the saddle.  He wore
cavalry boots and English-made riding-clothes, and his
coat opened on an immaculate silk shirt bosom.  His face,
stamped with inherited fineness of living, was undeniably
handsome, but his lip took a mocking curve when he
smiled, his chin had length rather than breadth, and in his
eyes, which were singularly light under black lashes and
brows, smouldered a magnetic heat; they drew or repelled.

The rise from the brook was abrupt, the path narrow,
and the teacher waited on a larger stone while the stranger
rode down into the ford.  He removed his hat with the
usual salutation of the trail, and crushing it carelessly
under his arm, would have passed directly on, but the
horse, suspicious of some movement of Lem's, made a
sudden détour that brought him almost upon her.  She
started to spring to another rock, her foot slipped, and to
steady herself she threw up her hand.  It came in contact
with the chestnut's bridle below the bit.  Instantly he
reared, wheeled, and coming down, gripped the bank
with his forefeet, and was off like a bird.

Lem crawled out of the pool into which he had plunged
to avoid those striking hoofs, and the teacher hurried on
over the crossing.  But, unexpectedly, at the top of the
bank she met the rider returning, and she and the boy
crowded quickly into the salal to give him room.  He
still carried his hat under his bridle arm; a rifle in a
leather case swung, undamaged, from the saddle; a small
canvas-covered pack rested, unbroken, above the crupper,
and the thoroughbred paced gently down into the stream
and moving on slowly, trotted up the opposite side and
disappeared among the firs.

"He kin ride," said Lem at last.  "An' I 'low that ther
chestnut kin travel.  But he'd be mighty oncertain in er
race.  Ef it kem to it,"—he paused to follow the teacher
back into the trail,—"ef it kem to it, I dunno but what
I'd resk my pile on ther timber-cruiser an' ther black."





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.. _`THE LEANING TOWER`:

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   CHAPTER II


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LEANING TOWER

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Suddenly Forrest, who had taken the lead, turned
and laid his hand on his horse's rein.  "Back,
Colonel," he said, "back.  Steady, now, steady."

The trail, which ran between the edge of a windfall
and the brink of a cliff, was cut off by a slide.

Presently, when there was room, the teacher slipped
down from the saddle, and Forrest turned the black and
led him into a small open on the level shoulder to which
they had climbed.  Below them they heard the voices
of the settlers urging Ginger, the other horse, up the
sharp incline; then, with a final clatter of tin and scraping
of hoofs, he appeared over the spur.  He dropped his
muzzle abjectly to the heather, showing covertly the
whites of his eyes; his legs seemed to shorten like set
posts, while Mrs. Myers, who followed closely, stopped
to look at the pack.  She tucked in a loose end of canvas
and made a new hitch in a length of rope.  She had a
deft yet masculine touch, and it was her husband's
standing tribute that she knew more about packing than he
did; when Marthy fixed a load, it stayed.

There was nothing weak and little effeminate about
Martha.  Her scant cotton gown, without decoration,
was shortened above a streak of coarse gray hose; her
shoes were of calf, heavy, unshapely, and her hat, Eben's
winter one, had seen protracted service.  It shaded a
face darkened by exposure to wind and sun, and seamed
not by age but habitual anxiety.

The settler mounted a log and cast a slow glance along
the windfall.  There were mighty firs, centuries old,
with their trunks hurled in air; boles of ancient cedars
snapped mid-length; giant hemlocks held uptilted and
forming a breastwork for living trees; gnarled roots
locking with green branches; all dropped together like
jackstraws, the playthings of Titan winds.  Presently
Martha joined him and they began to work along the
labyrinth, picking a course for the horses.

Forrest had tied the black, and, taking advantage of
the delay, led the teacher to a better view-point of the
canyon, which swept below them, rounding the opposite
ridge in the shape of a crescent.  A granite tower, crowning
a higher cliff, held the curve.  It was a curious pile, of
boulders fitted nicely, block on block, with loophole and
parapet, and the whole structure tilted slightly, leaning
towards the precipice.

The girl seated herself on a stone in the shade of a
stunted fir, and Forrest, a little worn from the long tramp,
threw himself on the ground, putting aside his hat and
resting his head on his hand, his elbow on the earth,
while he looked off down the gorge.  "Somewhere in
there," he said, "beyond that curve, I ought to find my
lost prospect.  The mother lode should crop out in one
of those lower bluffs towards the Des Chutes.  The thunder
of the river reached me not long before,—I remember
that clearly,—but I wish the place I staked that day
had only been in range of that fine old landmark, the
tower."

She looked down thoughtfully into the wooded gorge.
"In such a tangle you might pass the place a dozen times.
Your stakes must have been overgrown in a few weeks
with fern and salal, or shoots of alder.  It's really beginning
again."

"Almost."  He set his square jaw and a vertical line
deepened between his eyes.  "Still, it's there and
sooner or later I'll find it.  But I must make the most
of this trip; I can't hope for many days off at the Freeport
mills.  That's the worst of it,"—he smiled, shaking
his head,—"no more timber-cruising; nothing to take
me out-of-doors."

"Do you know, I can't think of Tumwater, the mills,
the falls, the ridge road, without remembering you?
You've been a part of it, Paul; the spirit of it all."

"That's nice of you."  He gave her a swift look of
appreciation.  His eyes, a deep, clear hazel, were his
most expressive feature; they put weight and character
into his slightest remark.  "But a man must step out of
his cradle, sometime, and Judge Kingsley has made me
a fine offer.  He is sure to gain the election,—no man
is better known, or as popular in the whole territory;
no one has the interests of the country more at heart.
And when he goes to Congress he means to leave the
Freeport mills under my management altogether; that
is with the co-operation of Philip."

"The co-operation of Philip?  Do you think because
Phil Kingsley has put his money into that property it
will make any difference?"

"The Judge thinks it will be the making of him."

"Phil Kingsley's gain," she said slowly, "is always
someone else's loss.  You ought to know it."

Forrest laughed, his short, pleasant laugh.  "I think,"
he said, "you can trust me to take care of myself.  Of
course you know," he went on presently, "Phil means
to live at the mills.  His uncle opposes it.  If he goes
to Washington the house at Olympia will have to be
leased to strangers or closed, and it will be a miserable
place, at the mills, for your sister and little Si.  She had
better take a house over the harbor at Seattle.  But she
is going to live at Freeport.  Like you she is determined."

"Freeport is different.  It's just a bleak, wind-swept
beach, shut off from the green earth by a towering bluff.
Indeed, I wouldn't live there.  Here, I have the woods
and mountains all around.  And I love the Nisqually.
It's freedom."

"Your sister will be disappointed.  She still hopes
that when the novelty of all this has worn off, you will be
ready to come back and make your home with her."

She shook her head.  "I never can do that again.  I
can't help disapproving of Philip.  The habit grows.  I
object to him more and more.  We often quarrel—now."

Forrest laughed softly.  "Of course you do; of course.
But the Judge," he went on gravely, "is miserable.  He
says if you won't let him help you it isn't necessary to
bury yourself out here in the wilderness, in a nest of
outlaws.  If you are determined to be independent, you could
teach or paint, or put your music to advantage in town."

"Oh," she answered, "he doesn't see.  I was meant
for a pioneer, Paul; it's in the blood.  You ought to
understand.  I love the great spaces, just as you do,
and your life in the big out-of-doors."

A soft enthusiasm shone in her face; she looked off
absently at the tower.  Her hands were clasped loosely
on her knee, and the sunlight, sifting between the boughs
of the fir, brought out the gold in her hair; the wind
roughened it under her close velvet cap, and twisted it
into minute spirals about her neck and ears.  The young
man watching her set his lips over a quick breath and
turned his eyes away.  She loved these things, yes, but as
a bird loves light and air; not as he loved them, to
work for them, to build, reclaim, spend himself for
them, fight if the time came.  No, not for one foolish
moment could he expect it of her.

"Was ever anything as nicely balanced as that tower?"
he said.  "To look like a touch would send it toppling
and yet to withstand the gales that sweep these hills.
But the eternal forces are busy around it; some day it
will go."

"It's wonderful," she answered.  "It looks like it
had been built there to protect the gorge.  What a
stronghold it would make."

"Stronghold?  For whom?"

"Why, for Pete Smith, Dick Slocum, any of them."

"Who is Slocum?"

She shook her head slowly.  "I don't really know.
But he came in while we were at dinner the night before
last.  His clothes were torn and his hat gone, and there
were twigs and needles clinging to his hair.  He was very
hungry.  The sheriff and a posse were hunting him.
They had passed up the trail half an hour before, and he
hurried, scowling at every one, and before any one spoke
was gone, taking part of the meal in his hands."

"Freeport couldn't be as bad as this.  Own you were
afraid."

"Afraid?  No, why should I have been?  It was Dick
Slocum who was frightened.  He was running away.
Mr. Myers said he had shot a man.  But," she admitted
grudgingly, "I was afraid of Pete Smith, and of the
bear."

"Smith?"  He changed his position a little, dropping
his arm and resting his shoulder against a rock.  "What
of Smith?  I thought he was safe in the penitentiary."

"He escaped.  It was very stormy the night he came
back.  Trees were falling on the ridge, and after school
Lem and I went home with Mose.  Mr. Laramie was
away with his traps, and his wife, you know, is a Yakima,
the daughter of Yelm Jim.  It would have been all right
if the boys hadn't entertained me with stories of the rising,
but they were dreadful to hear with the wind whistling,
boughs soughing, rain driving on the shingles, and just
the light of the backlog in the fireplace.  When Lem
followed Mose off to bed in the barn loft I was a little
unnerved.

"There were two beds in the room; mine was curtained.
But I couldn't sleep.  I kept listening and waiting
for something to happen.  There was a rifle on the wall
near the door; I began to wish I had it.  Mose's mother
was surely asleep, I heard her regular breathing from
the other bed, and finally I crept over softly and took
the gun down.  It was heavy and I let the stock strike the
floor.  Still she didn't move, and I hurried back and stood
it inside the curtains where I could reach it instantly,
felt safer then and at last went to sleep."

She paused, looking off again absently to the tower.
It was as though she saw that room, the sleeping squaw,
she herself in the curtained bed with the rifle at hand.
"It must have been nearly morning when I wakened.
There was still light from the smouldering backlog,
and between the curtains I saw Mose's mother standing
near the door and talking to a man.  His clothes were
wet and torn as if he had pushed through underbrush;
an old, soft hat shaded his face, and perhaps it was the
shadows or the flicker of the firelight, but it seemed the
most hideous face in the world.  She pointed to my corner
and he started towards me.  My heart leaped, But she
stopped him.  He spoke to her in Yakima, throwing off
her hand and stamping his foot.  Then she came over
cautiously and looked in at me.  I pretended I was asleep,
but the perspiration started; I could have screamed.  I
quite forgot the gun until I felt she had taken it and was
going quickly back to the man."

She paused again to give her listener a swift look with
the mounting fun in her eyes.  "He took the rifle," she
added, "and went out."

Her laugh was irresistible.

"And it was Smith?" he asked directly,

"Yes, it was all explained the next morning when Lem
noticed the vacant place on the wall and said, 'I see Pete's
out again; he's be'n fur his gun.'"

Forrest laughed again at her perfect mimicry of the boy,
then he turned his face again to the gorge.  He thought of
a good many things, but he felt the futility of saying any
of them.  He only asked finally, "And what of the bear?"

"Oh, he was berrying, I suppose, and I happened to
overtake him on the trail, I had been down the river
making a sketch of Yelm Jim, fishing, and Lem had gone
home without me.  I noticed the bear moving ahead of
me towards the creek, but I thought he was just a great
pig until he lumbered around to look at me.  And the
moment I caught his profile, you may be sure I turned and
went flying back to the river, on over the log where I
had left the old chief—he gave me right of way—and
into the midst of the Laramie barn-raising.  'Come,
quick,' I said, 'I have seen a bear.'  And they all came;
two had guns.  But he was gone; he hadn't left a track,
and I found myself, suddenly, standing there under the
scrutiny of the whole settlement.  It was only my second
week, then, and teachers, up the Nisqually, are more
unusual than bears."

But the amusement went out of Forrest's face.  "You
should have at least the security of a good horse.  You
must take Colonel.  I can't use him at the new mills,"
he explained quickly, "and I don't want to sell him.  He
never knew another master.  Will you keep him while I
stay at Freeport?"

"I keep Colonel?  Oh, there's nothing I should like
better; nothing.  You are the best, the most generous
man I ever knew."  She leaned a little towards him, all
delight, eagerness, charm.  "I can't ever hope to repay
you, Paul, but I'd be glad of the opportunity to do
anything—anything in the world—for you."

"I wish I could be sure of that.  See here,"—his voice
deepened and shook,—"I don't ask you to come to
Freeport, or anywhere, until I can offer you something
worth while, only—if you care enough for me to wait
for me, Alice—tell me so."

She drew back; the delight went out of her face; she
rose in consternation to her feet.  "You," she faltered.
"You—  Oh, what made you, Paul?  What made you?"

"How could I help it?"  He, too, rose and stood
looking down into her flushed face.  "I always have loved
you, Alice,—don't you know it?—even when you were
a small girl and I carried your books to school.  Once I
was late and you came up the road to meet me.—Don't
you remember?—It was my last year at the Academy,
when you were twelve.  You were reading your first
Waverley novel, and you told me that morning, some day
your knight would come riding down the ridge.  I never
forgot.  I was the better horseman for it.  Long afterwards,
when I bought Colonel, I thought of it.  I always meant
to be that knight."

He smiled, half ashamed of that boyish dream, but she
drew herself straight and turned her eyes again to the
tower.  "You," she said, "whom I have known my whole
life through."

"Yes, does that count so much against me?"

"I'm so sorry.  You've been the best friend I ever had;
the one I could always depend on.  Oh, I wish—I wish
it hadn't happened."

He laid his hand, bracing himself a little, on the bole
of the fir, and turned his own face away, looking off once
more down the canyon.  Myers, coming back to the edge
of the windfall, called, but neither of them answered.
Presently she reached and broke a sprig from a lower
bough and began slowly to strip it of its needles.  "But
I see—I see—how much I've been to blame," she
said.  "I can't forgive myself, ever.  I never thought
of you—in—that way, Paul.  You never seemed—like
other men.  And I see—I see—I shouldn't have
spoken, as I did just now, about Colonel."

"Why, it's all right."  He swung around and looked at
her.  "It's all right.  Don't let it trouble you; don't give
it another thought.  And, of course, you will keep
Colonel."

She shook her head.  "How can I?"

"Don't make me feel you hold him in the light of a
bribe.  Understand, it's just a favor to me.  I think a
good deal of my horse; it means a lot to me to be able
to leave him with some one I can trust."

Her lip trembled; she brushed her hand across her
eyes.  "You are the best—the noblest man in the world,"
she said.

Eben called again and Forrest answered with a clear
"Hello."  He began to walk back towards the windfall.
Presently he stopped to pick up a small, morocco-bound
book which she had lost from her pocket in crossing a
boulder on the way out to the cliff.  He slipped the volume
into his own pocket and turned to help her over the rock.
"See here," he said, "I want you to know that I'm glad
to be that best friend, the one you depend on.  You
needn't be afraid of me; you've given me a character
that I've got to live up to."

"You mean—" the light came back to her face—"you
do mean you are not going to let it make any
difference between us."

"Of course.  Why should it?  Only—tell me this—"
the rock was smooth and difficult; he watched her
footing—"is there some one else?"

"No, there is no one else—yet."

She paused on the word, for suddenly, lifting her glance
beyond Forrest's shoulder, she saw the stranger she had
met at the creek on the school trail.  He stopped a few
yards from the boulder, and, dismounting, took the
chestnut's halter, and, making it fast to a sapling, stood
waiting.

Forrest gave him a straight look and slight nod, and
would have passed directly on, but the man smiled and
held out his hand.  "I hope you have not forgotten me,"
he said.  "I am Stratton, lately of Victoria.  I met you
with the Kingsleys, when you came over to see the new
mills at Seattle."

Forrest gave him another look from under slightly
knotted brows.  "I remember.  You were going on a
cruise with the Captain in the *Phantom*.  I've heard, too,
of you through my friend Bates, of the Customs Service."

Stratton dropped his disregarded hand.  A wave of
color swept his face, and the latent heat flared and died
in his eyes.  Then he said, evenly, "I am out here on a
little hunting trip, and, incidentally, to see what can be
picked up in the way of furs.  I am interested in the
trade, as you probably know, and I find Laramie has
been taking some prime beaver."  His glance had moved
to Alice; apparently the explanation was meant for her,
and she looked at Forrest, waiting for the obvious
introduction.

It was withheld.

"But," Stratton went on after a moment, and he
moved a few steps in the direction of the gorge, "I was
stopped just now at this windfall.  Myers told me the
trail was impassable, and he spoke of a curious old tower
worth turning aside here to see."

"Yes," answered Forrest, "it's the most prominent
landmark in these hills."  And he walked on towards his
horse.

Alice went with him, and directly Stratton halted to
send a look after them.  "So," he said softly, "so it
is what you have heard, through Bates, against the
friend of a Kingsley.  But you were rash to show your
hand, young fellow, you were rash."  Then his glance
rested on the girl and he smiled.  "I never yet wanted to
know a pretty woman," he added, "that I could not find
a way."

He turned and walked out to the cliff.  He stood
for an interval under the stunted fir, and scanned the
gorge, bluff after bluff, down to the tower; afterwards he
went along the precipice a short distance and climbed
a bald knob of rock.  He waited again, posed, with his
head and shoulders etched on the sky, while he searched
the opposite heights, the walls of the canyon; then, with
a sweeping glance behind him, he looked once more in
the direction of the leaning bastion.  Presently he drew a
handkerchief from his pocket and held it by one corner
at arm's length to the breeze.  In a little while a thread of
smoke rose from the rear of the tower.  He took out
another handkerchief, a black one, and repeated the
signal, twice.  Almost directly the smoke ceased.  He left
the place then, and went back to his horse.  Picking up
the trail, he rode along the front of the windfall, on over
the shoulder of the hill which he had lately climbed,
and returned towards the settlement.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CAMP AT THE HEADWATERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CAMP AT THE HEADWATERS

.. vspace:: 2

At last Forrest and Alice stopped before a huge fallen
cedar; its boughs, still green and fragrant, were under
their feet.  Some distance beyond the settlers had paused
to choose a way, and the horses, heated and thirsty, stood
in a small open between.

"I knew the trip would be rough," he said, "but I
didn't expect this; we should have turned back at
the slide."

"Back?  No, no."  Her face was pink and moist
and she spoke between short, quick breaths.  "You should
know, Paul, when once I undertake a thing, it's in me to
carry it through."

"Come, then."  He found footing on a higher bough,
and leaping on the log, turned to reach his hands down
to her.  "Come."  And when she had gained the place
he was on the ground again, calling her attention to the
surest step.  But she took it incautiously, missed, and
fell.

He could only throw out his arms to break the fall,
and for that instant her head was on his breast.  Their
young eyes met; a mist was in hers and the pink deepened
in her face.  "You do love me," he said.  "Some day
you are going to tell me so."

Then he put her on the boughs at his feet, and turned
and looked off over the windfall.  His lips were set and
his brows contracted in a deep, vertical line.  But when
Martha moved on with Ginger he went to his horse and
brought him back to the cedar.  "I think we are through
the worst," he said quietly, "and if you are rested, you
can ride now."

He stooped, offering his hand for her foot, and when
she was up, he led the horse, stopping to hold aside a
trailing bough, breaking another short off, making Colonel
step the logs, or if that were impossible, skirting and
doubling to avoid the leap.  But he had nothing more to
say, and he kept his eyes turned resolutely from her, with
still frowning brows.

The ascent became steeper.  They emerged from the
windfall and took breath on a rocky shoulder.  Over them
rose the round crown of the great hilltop, bald or tufted
with heather.  The settlers, picking up the trail, pushed
on.  From time to time a stone gave under the reluctant
Ginger's hoofs and rattled down the incline.  In places
he stopped morosely, setting his legs like posts.  Then
Martha tugged vehemently at the halter, as though she
hoped to uproot him bodily, while Eben, with the judicious
use of a hazel, admonished and urged from behind.
When these resources failed, Colonel charged the little
cayuse, nipping him smartly in the flank, and started him
in a panic.  But at last the final stretch was finished and
they were on the summit.

Alice dismounted and they walked a few yards to the
eastern side, which broke away in great, treeless steps.
Far below, the forest stretched like a smooth plain, through
which the Nisqually trailed and doubled like a changeable
ribbon in the sun.  But the girl's eager eyes turned first
northwestward, where, sixty miles distant, the Olympic
Mountains shone dimly through summer haze, a pastel
of blue and white, and enclosed in their hollow a turquoise
sea.  Was that bright moving speck a bit of cloud or was
it the *Phantom* with the light on her sails?  Her glance
came back and before her clear-cut, near, rose the
bastioned heights of the Cascade Range, and, over-topping
icy minarets and domes, vast, mighty, in Alpine splendor,
loomed the triple crest of Mt. Rainier.

"Well," said Forrest finally, "is it worth the effort?"

"Effort?" she repeated.  "I could fight a hundred
windfalls for this."  She paused, swaying in the hot gale
that swept the hilltop.  "But this isn't enough, Paul;
I must go there."

.. _`"She paused, swaying in the hot gale"`:

.. figure:: images/img-026.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "She paused, swaying in the hot gale."

   "She paused, swaying in the hot gale."

"To Rainier?"

"Yes, if I were only a man I shouldn't wait a day;
I'd push right on to-morrow."

Forrest smiled, shaking his head.  "The only two men
who ever made that summit," and he looked off again
to the brilliant slopes, "nearly perished.  But Philip
is talking of a trip to the mountain.  He has promised
your sister that he will bring her out to the Nisqually to
see you before they go to Freeport, and he thinks he can
go on, then, to Rainier."

"Then he must take me."  She lost her hold against
the wind, and for a moment it beat her back, struggling,
laughing, from the bluff.  "There are Indian trails,"
she went on.  "Though they are afraid of the mountain,
they go as far as the warm springs and hunt on the lower
slopes."  She battled another interval and ended by
staying herself with her hand on Forrest's arm.  The
touch, her nearness, shook him more than the gale.
"But," she finished, "Phil Kingsley will find a way.
He loves an adventure; it's the one point where we ever
agree; and if he goes to Rainier, I know he will take me."

Forrest laughed, again shaking his head.  He turned
and looked back along the face of the ridge.  There was
that landmark, the leaning tower, holding the curve in
the sister height, but the canyon had lost those familiar
lines he expected to see.  From this view-point the second
sweep of the gorge, doubling the hill, seemed to terminate
abruptly.  It was baffling, mysterious, altogether strange;
yet, somewhere, in that rough corner of the landscape,
unrolled like a map at his feet, he should be able to locate
his lost prospect.

But it was impossible to linger on the hilltop.  The
heat was growing intolerable, and not a fissure or depression
in the rocky surface held water; the flask, filled at
the last stream, had long been empty.  They returned
to the horses, and trailed down the southern slope, into a
cool glade which was carpeted with short, thick grass.
It became a natural park; trees of mighty girth, almost
free of undergrowth, rose in straight columns, one hundred
and fifty feet to the lowest limbs.  They were ringed by
centuries, yet were sound to the core.

Finally a moist breeze drew between the boles and
brought the noise of running water.  Colonel pricked his
ears sensitively.  He swung, looking towards a line of
thicket that marked the watercourse, then he broke
into a trot.  The sound became the thunder of a cataract.
Alice leaned low in her saddle; her wide eyes tried to
penetrate the jungle ahead.  The black pushed on between
boughs, snorting gently, tossing his mane.  There was a
flash of foam through the foliage, then, clear, cold, fresh
from near snowfields, plunged the upper falls of the Des
Chutes.  Her foot was out of the stirrup; she slipped
to the ground, and reaching the brink, threw herself full
length, and stretching her palms down to the torrent,
and bringing them up, cuplike, drank.  She laved her
face, and putting her hands together, dipped and drank
from their hollow, again and again.

There were two falls, and the ledge upon which she had
thrown herself projected over the second plunge.  It
was narrow and thin, and trembled with the shock of the
torrent and with her weight.  When she lifted her eyes the
spray of the upper cataract was in her face; looking
down, she saw a great square room cut from solid basalt,
which received the second fall and poured it, seething,
through a fissure, set doorlike in the lower wall.

She shrank back to her knees, overcome with sudden
dizziness.  The next instant she was drawn to her feet,
then lifted off of them by a pair of unsteady arms, and
put down on firm earth.  She looked up and laughed.

But Forrest's face was white and stern.  "Why will
you risk yourself like this?" he said.  "Why will you?"

Camp was made in a small open on the base of the slope.
Dry branches were gathered for the fire, a tent pitched
for the women, and bedded with boughs made springy
by sharpening and planting the butts in the earth.  Then
Martha set out her fine butter and light loaf, and lifted
the coffee-pot from the improvised tripod, and brought
venison steaks, broiled to perfection over the red coals.

"I dunno," said Eben, putting down his cup and
smoothing his long black whiskers, "I dunno's I ever
hed your 'pinion 'bout that ther leanin' tower.  How do
you 'count fur it?"

"Why," answered Forrest, "the blocks are of granite.
There was probably a formation of granite and limestone,
and the softer rock crumbled away."

There was a brief silence, during which the settler
meditated profoundly, then Martha spoke.  "I 'low he's
'bout right, Eben.  Ther ain't never be'n no man 'round
here could a hefted them stones, let erlone piled 'em
that erway, cantin' right over ther gorge.  An' ef ther was,
an' he'd hed ther help an' tackle, what in all creation 'd
he do it fur?"

Another profound silence, then Myers said, "I 'lowed
it might a be'n done by my petrified man."

"Your petrified man?" repeated Forrest.

"Yes."  The settler cast a sweeping glance behind
him, as though he feared the young man's incautious
tone might have reached some eavesdropper lurking in
the thicket, and screening his mouth with his hand, echoed
softly, "My petrified man."

"It's true," said the teacher gravely; "he is excavating
a petrified man.  I've seen it, or rather parts of it.  He
keeps it in a blue chest with a padlock under my bed."

Martha rose with suppressed energy, and lifting a bough,
laid it on the fire.  "He's be'n nigh onter all winter an'
spring gettin' out ther legs an' arms," she said, resuming
her place, "but he calc'lates ef he kin only find ther
hull thing ther's folks 'ud pay consider'ble fur it."

"I 'lowed mebbe, fur instance," explained Myers, "that
ther museum ter Washington, what that Gov'ment man
was talkin' 'bout last year when he was stoppin' here,
would give me er pretty good price.  He says they buy up
old bones o' anything curious or over-sized."

"No doubt," said Forrest slowly, "no doubt.  But I
believe, Eben, the time spent on your ranch would count
for more.  That's a fine meadow you have, and a few
additional acres cleared and seeded with alfalfa would
mean almost riches to you."

Myers struck a match and, screening it with his hand,
lighted his pipe.  Martha watched him.  Her lips twitched
a little and an unspoken appeal rose in her anxious eyes.
She only said, presently, "Mebbe he's right, Eben.  That
ther meadow's be'n a mighty good pasture.  Before we
hed it you used to spend er sight o' time drivin' ther
cattle over here to ther south slope in ther cold spells.
Onct," she paused, looking off through the great natural
park, "when Lem was a baby I kem over ther hills an'
toted him in my lap.  It commenced ter snow an' I lost
ther trail."

"An' it was yonder," said Eben, pointing riverward,
"close onter that ther black snag, I found her.  She'd
hitched ther cayuse an' took off his pack, an' Lem, ther
little bugger, was did up in er extry blanket, peart as er
chipmunk in er hole.  She was settin' down by er good
fire a eatin' her supper."

Martha smiled, her shadowy, brief smile.  "I counted
on his lookin' fur me," she said, "an' 'lowed he'd scent
the bacon.  His rations was erbout give out."

The long Northern twilight deepened; the nearer trees
stood out tall and spectral against vague shadow; a bat
with low swoops approached and was lost in the gloom;
a white owl settled, dazed, on a fir bough, and from time
to time mingled his hoot with the note of the cataract.
Once the sound of sliding rock came from some high
shoulder and was followed by a rush of earth lower on
the slope.

Alice leaned back comfortably on an old cedar trunk
with chairlike arms, and lifted her face, listening.  "How
the hills answer each other," she said; "every sound
multiplies."

Forrest settled himself in one of his easy attitudes in
front of the fire.  "It reminds me of a trip I made last
year over the new railroad in Oregon."  He paused and
his listeners waited, expectantly.  He had a deep, pleasing
voice and the gift of the story teller.  "They had taken
me aboard a construction train.  There are points on the
Columbia where the slopes rise abruptly eight hundred feet,
and the soil is loose with a perilous mixture of boulders.
They had scores of Chinamen at work to bulkhead these
places, and the big timbers up there looked like scaffoldings
of toothpicks.  But a whole crew of track-walkers couldn't
keep the danger off, and we were speeding along when
suddenly there was a terrific sound.  It was like musketry
multiplied by echoes on echoes.  Then looking up we
saw ahead an immense rock moving down the mountain.
The engineer reversed his lever and jumped.  The next
instant the boulder struck the engine and hurled it into
the river."

She caught her breath.  "And you, Paul?"

"I?"  He turned to her with his smile of the eyes.
"Why, I was in the caboose.  The coupling broke and
separated the rest of the train from the engine.  It was
the closest shave I ever had."

"And you never told me."

"The greatest devastator is the frost," he said after a
moment.  "It drives the wedge ready for the heavy rains.
But I remember a place on the Snoqualmie that has been
crossed by an avalanche of snow.  It has left a
clean-swept track through the timber, and the trees, hurled
with incredible force, block the river from bank to bank.
It's the most terrible jam ever heard of.  You know the
place, Eben?"

But the settler answered only with a gentle nod.  He
sat with his chin on his breast, holding his empty pipe
on his knee.  Martha nudged him, but he slept placidly on.

Alice lifted her glance once more to the shadowy slope.
Presently she began to sing in a sweet undertone, "The
Day Is Done."  And after the first measure Forrest took
up the song, and the two voices, rising, swelling, started
a refrain from cliff and spur.  The last echo drifted and
died in a far canyon.  A great hush rested on the
wilderness.  There was a soft illumination on a high peak, then
every crest and shoulder was silvered by the rising moon.

The song was followed by many; the parts of old
operas which they had been accustomed to sing with her
sister and Philip, on winter evenings in Judge Kingsley's
parlor, or in summer time becalmed aboard the *Phantom*.
And at last it was Schubert's "Serenade."

Forrest rose to his feet and stood with his arms resting
on the top of the trunk behind her.  This song had always
been a favorite; they sang it well together.  But a new
personality crept into the familiar tones; an awakened
sadness.  And the romance of the place, the mystery of
night and the near heavens, gave setting to his part and
spoke for him.

She took up the song, but it became suddenly, for the
first time, too difficult to sing.  Her notes faltered and
broke.  He finished the part alone.





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.. _`"THER BIGGEST COWARD IN THER WOODS"`:

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   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   "THER BIGGEST COWARD IN THER WOODS"

.. vspace:: 2

Forrest was lying on his blanket, his feet to the
camp-fire, hands clasped under his head, his wakeful
face raised to the near stars.  An arm's-length from him
Myers slumbered, audibly.  Stillness rested on the small
white tent.  But presently his horse tramped uneasily,
pulling on his picket rope, and the young man rose and
went over to him.  "So, Colonel," he said softly, "restless,
too, are you?  Steady, now, steady, we'll work it off, old
fellow, so."

He found the bridle and, mounting without a saddle
turned up the lofty slope.  The horse flung his head, and
with some airy stepping by the white tent, set himself
willingly to the ascent.  The firelight, as he passed, brought
out the silver star between his intelligent eyes, the one
marking, from the tips of his sensitive ears to his nimble
hind feet, in a handsome, jet-black coat.

The settler stirred and rose on his elbow with an
inquiring "Hello!"  And Forrest called back, "I'm
just going up to the summit for another look around,
and to try to shape a course for the day's tramp."

Myers laughed and settled back comfortably to his
blanket.  "I 'low," he told himself, yawning, "he ain't
likely ter see much more'n fog."

Half way up the hill Forrest halted, breathing his horse
on a level spur, and looked down over the tops of the firs.
"It's a natural town site," he said aloud; "and when
the country opens it's bound to be a mining center.
There's a fortune in that water power, but I should set
up my own stamp mills there at the falls, and build cottages
for the men to the right on that knoll.  And
meantime—meantime—what an Eden it would make."  He turned
with a quick upward lift of his head.  "Come, Colonel,
come," he said, "we must keep a tighter rein.  It's summer
now, and she isn't over the novelty; but it won't last
through the first September rains.  Even if she loved
me—I could never ask her to bury herself up here in the
wilderness; her—with her ideals and dreams, and all those
nice, luxurious ways."

He rode on in silence.  The moon paled; there were
no longer stars, and, as he reached the summit and looked
eastward, he saw the first streak of light broadening and
toning to green on the horizon.  The peaks and shoulders
of the Cascades loomed against it purplish black, but all
their base, the valleys, foothills, sank in a white fog that
lifted slowly to meet the dawn.  The sky warmed to yellow;
a far spur flushed.  He felt the rising moisture in the air,
drew a damp breath.  A belt of high cloud crimsoned,
and he saw nothing more.

The fog closed in, billow on billow, flooding the canyon,
lapping the ledge where he stopped.  Then for a moment
the white sea parted, and the granite tower hung tilting
over the abyss.  It stood solitary, like a lighthouse on a
stormy coast, and in another instant was blotted out.

He dismounted, and with his hand on his horse's neck,
his hat pushed back, stood watching these waves, flowing,
separating, rolling together, rushing out.  "And it's
something you can't grapple with, or put down," he said
at last.  "You've got to push into it, blind, or wait for
it to break.  It's like the future.  That's it; I could give
a year or two to the grind at Freeport, easily enough, if
I was only reasonably sure.  But it's all a chance.  A
chance that no other man will stumble on my find, or want
this section, or the water power, a chance,—" he began
to smooth the black's mane gently,—"a chance, old
boy, that she will care enough for me, some day, to
wait for me."

The defiance faded from his face.  He took his lariat
coil, and seating himself on a rock, allowed the horse to
go the length of the rope, seeking a scant forage.  Presently
he breathed a whistle; it settled into a definite tune:

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   Music fragment


He went over it again and again, with variations that
were not the notes of a flute, nor yet of a thrush but
something of each and more; an expression so sweet, so
tender, so full of subtlety, that you must have guessed the
meaning even though you had never heard the words of
the song.

He broke off finally and sat for a long interval looking
absently into the fog.  When he started to his feet a brisk
wind was blowing and overhead the mist was like
pulverized gold.  "Come, Colonel," he said, "we must get
out of this; I can't afford to wait any longer and you must
put me back in camp inside an hour."

But suddenly, as he turned his horse, picking up the
thread of trail which on rock and heather was repeatedly
lost, a broad shaft of sunshine struck the hilltop, and
directly the crest of Mt. Rainier rose like a phantom
from the rushing sea.  Then everywhere, through the fog
that parted and closed, and parted again like a rent
curtain in the wind, dome and pinnacle gleamed opal or rose
in the full glory of the morning.  And the sun went with
him down the slope, touching the higher spurs, the tops
of the firs, and finally the small white tent in the open,
and the edge of the dense undergrowth that followed the
watercourse.

Myers welcomed him with a long "Hello," and the
teacher waved her hand and stood for a moment watching
him as he wound down between the great boles, then she
turned her attention to the broiling trout which she herself
had caught below the falls.  The soft flush of the early
morning was on her cheek; its sparkle was in her eyes.

But during breakfast he had little to say to her; he
seemed more interested in the settler and his views of
homestead and pre-emption rights, timber laws and
government surveys.

"I 'low," said Eben, "you ain't countin' on takin' up
ord'nary land, yourself?  You're jest huntin' fur a gold
mine."

"There's nothing I would like better than to find and
open up my lost prospect," answered Forrest, "but, if
I could spare the time now, to-day, I should file on this
section, right here in the heart of the red firs.  It's the best
vacant piece I know of."

"Do you mean," asked Alice, with awakened interest,
"that you would homestead it, like any settler?"

"Yes; and put a timber filing on the quarter adjoining
to take in those fine old trees up the slope.  It's one of
the best stretches of red fir in the whole Washington
forest."

"But," she said thoughtfully, "there is plenty of fine
standing timber close to the Sound, where transportation
to the lumber mills is easy; here it would be a tremendous
problem."

"True, and I shouldn't think of spoiling this park for
years.  It's just a good section to hold for the future.
And, well, I'm fond of the place; I shall be sorry to
know any other man has taken possession."

"I see," she said after a moment, "I see.  And of
course you would secure the water power at the same time.
And while you lived here you would be close at hand to
carry on your prospecting, perhaps development."

"Yes, that's what I've wanted to do, but"—he shook
his head and looked at her with his smile of the
eyes,—"that position at the Freeport mills was too good to
refuse; and if I do find my mine, it's going to call for
capital at the start.  I can't expect to interest other money
until I am able to make some sort of a showing."

He rose to his feet and stood looking off to a high
shoulder of the hills.  Then, presently, he and Eben were
starting on their tramp, the day of search for the lost
prospect.  The sun fell in long shafts between the boughs
and her glance followed him from light to shade.  Martha
also, standing a few steps away, looked in the same
direction, her head bent a little forward, her knotted
fingers shading her anxious eyes.

"Ther ain't many like him," she said at length, dropping
her hand.

"No," answered the teacher, absently, "no; walking
or riding, it's a pleasure to watch him.  He is so strong,
so self-reliant and yet so—kind; in every way he is
the finest man I know.  He stands alone."

"I meant Eben," said Martha with her shadowy smile.
She paused, watching the teacher's face, for she flushed
hotly to the ears.  "He's good-looking, an' he's got
consider'ble grit when he gets started.  He's always a
plannin' an' a studyin', but he ain't ever hed er show.
Ef he hed, I don't s'pose I'd ever a got him."

"I'm sure," said Alice warmly, "Mr. Myers himself
won a great prize.  Why, you plow, sow, reap; you milk
and drive the herds.  You carry on the whole farm.
He never could do without you."

"He always 'lowed I was a good worker," and Martha
turned to gather up the breakfast things.

Presently the teacher asked, "With a clear trail, about
how long would it take to ride from here to the schoolhouse?"

"Why, I jedge you could do it in erbout five hours.  It's
roundabout, you see, an' you'd hev ter go clear to our place
an' ercross."

"But with a new branch cut directly through?"

"Land, you could do it in half ther time, an' take er
stepper like Colonel, he could make it in two hours, or
likely one an' er half."

The teacher began to walk back and forth through the
open.  Her hands were clasped loosely behind her, she
looked off absently through the trees, and her swift
thoughts alternately clouded and brightened her speaking
face.  After a while she approached Forrest's picketed
horse.  He lifted his head from the luscious grass and she
stood for a moment smoothing his ruffled mane.  "If we
only could do it," she said softly, "if we only could,
Colonel; it would pay your hire."

Later, while they were walking to the river, she, herself,
displayed a sudden interest in homestead laws, gathering
from Mrs. Myers both small and valuable detail as to
the methods of clearing land and building a cabin.

Martha found a seat below the falls and took out her
knitting, a sock for Eben, while the teacher chose a place
a little down-stream and opened her sketchbook.  She
began to outline the cataract, but she studied the
perspective less and less and finally not at all.  Then for an
idle interval she leaned on the boulder at her elbow and
looked dreamily up through the great park.  When she
bent again to her work, behold, the torrent was but a
background for a figure, young, well-knit, in short sack coat
and trousers bound in leggins.  And so engrossed was she
in producing those strong lines of brow and chin, the
quiet, searching, humor-haunting eyes, the mouth
severe yet tender, that she did not know that Martha
had risen quickly, and stood listening with her alert gaze
searching the jungle directly behind her.  She was only
roused by the close snapping of a branch and a sudden
sense of peril.

She started to her feet, dropping the book, and faced
the thicket.  The color went from her lips.  There, in a
tangle of hazel, tawny, handsome, with swaying tail and
brilliant eyes fixed on her, stood a well grown cougar.

The next instant Martha reached her side.  She had
caught up from the ground a stout bough, and she swung
it, thrust it at the brute, shouting.  Alice, quick to grasp
the expedient, armed herself with another fallen branch.
The beast gave back a step, another, and the two women
pressed him slowly, cautiously.  At length he turned and
slunk reluctantly away into the timber.

"Ef Eben hed left ther gun," said Martha, wiping the
perspiration from her face, "it 'ud saved us consider'ble
bother.  But I jedge we best get back ter the open an'
hev er look at ther horses."

Alice stood with her eyes fixed on the point where
the cougar had disappeared.  Her breast heaved with
deep, quick breaths and she still grasped her heavy
hemlock bough with both hands.  At last she dragged her
gaze away and met Martha's serious glance.  She could
not speak but her spirit rose and recognized in silent
tribute, the great soul of the pioneer.

Martha put her shoulder to an encroaching bough and
led the way back to the stream.  Presently she stooped
and picked up the sketchbook, and, having smoothed the
leaves, gave it to the artist.  Then Alice said slowly, "I
shall always remember—as long as I live—what you did."

"Oh, land," and Martha smiled, "it wa'n't much ter
do.  An' a cougar's ther biggest coward in ther woods.
He wouldn't dast ter tech er man, lest he was cornered or
hungry; but I 'low he hed er pretty good chanct when he
kem ercross you."

A little farther on she possessed herself of her dropped
knitting, and, having gained the path, she moved towards
camp, setting her needles and picking up lost stitches.
But her knotty fingers worked mechanically; they
trembled slightly, and her anxious eyes repeatedly swept
the jungle.  She knew that a cougar, hunting, does not so
easily abandon his quarry.  Though cautious, hesitating,
he trails his game for hours, constantly preparing for,
while he is diverted from an attack.  She also knew that,
like the human coward, once assailed and cornered, he
becomes a fury.

In the open they found Ginger standing with hoofs
planted like a figure in stone; but the black, in his terror,
had circled and recircled the alder to which he was tied,
winding his lariat, and, reduced to an arm's-length of
rope, he made short and frenzied plunges to break free.
Suddenly he stopped, dragged back the limit of the line,
and stood trembling.

Instantly Martha understood.  She ran forward,
dropping her knitting, and picked up another bough.
The cougar had reached a vine maple a few rods from
the black.  She saw his tawny body outstretched on the
great curving branch of the parted bole.  "Pile them
pieces o' spruce on ther fire," she said coolly.  "Make
er smoke.  Then slack up Colonel's rope an' get him back
behind it."

She stepped between the horse and the cougar, again
lifting the heavy limb, swinging it, thrusting it, but avoiding
direct contact with the beast, and renewing her shouts.
Before she had finished her directions Alice had caught
up a resinous branch and thrown it on the embers.  It
crackled noisily and sent out a great cloud of smoke,
which the wind, setting from the river, carried directly
into the eyes and nostrils of the panther.  He began to
retreat, snarling, along the maple.  Presently he dropped
to the ground, and while Martha pressed him, step by
step, the girl, who had succeeded in loosening the lariat,
urged the horse around the fire.

Again the cougar turned and disappeared.  Colonel
was finally picketed near the old cedar trunk, and they
piled fresh boughs on the fire, still pursuing the panther
with thick, pungent smoke.  Then they rested, gathering
themselves, in the brief reprieve, for his certain return.

The black, less panic-ridden, continued to listen or
tug at his rope.  The other horse began to browse.  The
suspense pressed.  Then, suddenly, a rifle shot startled
the solitudes.  And while the two women stood marking
the puff of smoke, which rose a few yards off, there came
a clamor of snarls.  Two hounds slunk through the underbrush
into the open and waited, shaking.  A second report
rang through the hills, then, the cries having ceased, one
of the dogs plucked up courage and sounded a clarion.
After a moment his mate returned into the thicket, alert,
cautious, feeling ground.  The first hound crept in his
wake, and directly their baying, multiplied as by a score
of throats, filled the wood.

The dogs were Laramie's, and the women followed
them, seeking their master, but the hunter was Mose.
The cougar was stretched in his death throes before him,
on a bed of trampled fern and broken boughs.

"Saprie," he exclaimed as the teacher approached,
"if I ees have dat gun of Laramie's I doan' have some
trouble to keel heem de firs' shot.  But dis gun dat Yelm
Jim ees lend to me, he ees buy long tam 'go to de Hudson
Bay Companee; an' for sure dey ees sell heem one no
'count Injun gun."

"Oh," said Alice, her voice shaking, "it was a grand
shot—Mose.  And you—you came—just—in time."

"Monjee, Mees, ees it dis cougar ees give you some
trouble, a'ready?"

She could not speak again directly; she could only
nod her head, affirmatively.  But Martha smiled grimly.
"Wal, yes," she said; "he's be'n er trailin' us, off 'n on,
fur a good spell; an' Eben, he's prospectin' down ther
canyon with ther rifle."

"So," said Mose, "so, but it ees good t'ing I come
'long den.  You see dose dogs ees track me las' night to
Yelm Jim's cabane, an' I ees keep dem to hunt some
mowitch to-day.  Dey ees fine dogs for trail de deer,
ya-as, but A'm mooch shame how dey ees scare' of dis
cougar.  Cultus Pichou."  He paused to cuff aside one
of the snuffing hounds.  "So you ees come back now,
hey?  You ees have de brave heart now dat you ees see
dis cougar ees be keel.  Nawitka, Mees, you doan' have
to be some more 'fraid.  Dis sacré cougar," and he thrust
his foot against the lax body, "he ees sure 'nough dead."

They went back to the open, but in a little while, when
Mose had been shown the maple where the cougar had
crept in ambush, and the clump of hazels where he had
first appeared, the boy returned to secure the pelt.  Martha
joined him, but Alice stopped at the old cedar trunk and
sank down into its chairlike arms.  On a log near her
Mrs. Myers had left the provision bag, and not far from
it, against a fir, Mose had stood the musket.  She felt a
security in the gun and in having him within call, and
she closed her eyes, relaxing her strained muscles and
nerves.

She was roused by some moving body in the underbrush,
and she started up instantly, at tight tension once more.
A man was retreating from the open into the jungle,
riverward.  He looked back, scowling over his shoulder
at her, and she recognized the shaggy, unkempt head
and gaunt face of Slocum.  The next moment he was
gone, and with him had disappeared the food supply and
Yelm Jim's musket.

She ran, calling Mose, and met him returning with the
pelt.  But there was nothing he could do.  It was useless,
unarmed, to trail the trespasser.  He stood staring in
the direction the man had taken; the color glowed in
his cheeks.  He dropped the skin in a heap on the ground
and clenched his hands, slowly, twice, as he had the day
at school when Laramie struck him.  But his volubility
died.  The Indian in him wakened and effaced the White.
His lips set in a thin line; his face became a mask through
which his eyes only flamed heat.  Presently he turned and
stalked swiftly away, towards the settlement.  He stopped
once to whistle the dogs, but when Alice followed him,
calling him back, it was as though he had not heard.

"Oh," she said, returning to Martha, "Yelm Jim
will blame him.  He may punish him, cruelly."

"Land, no," answered Martha.  "Ef it hed be'n Laramie's
gun, I 'low Mose 'ud get licked in an inch o' his life,
but Yelm Jim ain't goin' ter blame him.  He's more likely
ter watch fur a good chanct to take it out'n some white
man.  Don't matter who, long's he's white."

She went over and picked up the cougar skin and spread
it on the earth, showing it from tip to tip.  "Mose took
him here in the shoulder," she said, "an' his second
shot fixed him right atween ther eyes.  Measures 'bout
nine feet."

But the teacher had turned away.  She went back to
the cedar stump and stood leaning weakly on it, looking
off in the direction of the canyon.  It seemed very far off.

Presently Martha joined her.  She had prepared a
pointed stick by holding it in the fire, and the end of it
still smouldered.  "I'm goin' down-stream ter dig wapato,"
she said.  "Them two prospectors is goin' ter be terrible
hungry when they get back, an' it'll taste pretty good."

Alice had seen this edible root, which is a favorite
food among the Indians; it grew in profusion along the
watercourse.  "I will go with you and help," she said,
"unless I had better stay to watch the horses."

Martha stood a thoughtful moment looking at the black.
"I dunno," she said, "how Dick Slocum kem to leave
Colonel.  He hed er mighty good chanct to take er horse
that 'ud carry him out er ther country, easy.  But he was
mighty scared o' makin' er noise, an' got erway in er
terrible hurry.  I jedge he didn't 'low ther was only one
gun in ther crowd; he hedn't located Eben an' ther rifle."

But evidently the outlaw had located the rifle, for,
lifting her keen eyes Martha discovered Forrest, the gun
in the curve of his arm, coming swiftly down the glade.
His glance swept the open anxiously, as he approached,
but at sight of the girl, unharmed, the tense lines softened
in his face.  "I thought I heard a shot," he said, and his
look again searched the place for the hunter; "I fixed
it at about here.  But I see I was mistaken.  The truth
is," he shook his head, smiling at his folly, "I got it into
my head that you needed me.  I couldn't think of anything
else.  You see you were so incautious yesterday, at the
river; then, too, I blamed myself for leaving you without
the protection of Eben's rifle.  And I had forgotten to
give you your book.  You dropped it yesterday at the
canyon, and I was afraid the time would drag without
anything to read."

He drew the little volume from his pocket, and flushing,
conscious of the shallowness of his excuse, looked off,
riverward.

"I jedge," said Martha briefly, "ef you head right off
fur ther river, up-stream, you kin hit Dick Slocum's trail.
He's jest gone off 'ith ther rations, bag an' all.  Keep ther
rifle handy; he's took Mose Laramie's gun."

Then for the first time Forrest looked straight at the
girl.  The line drew black between his brows.  He saw
that her face was grimy with smoke and moisture; that
the hand which had taken the book was scratched, bruised,
stained.  "Slocum?  Then I did hear a shot."  His
voice was quiet, but it took a new quality, the streak of
iron outcropping in the man.  "He did not offer to touch
you?"

"No, oh, no."  She swayed a little on her feet; it was
difficult to find words.  "The shot you heard was Mose's.
He—"

But that was enough.  Forrest was off, pushing swiftly
towards the river, picking up the fugitive's trail.  Martha
followed him a short distance, then turned down-stream.
It was not her way to wait in idleness for the chance rescue
of the provision bag, and she began industriously to dig
the wapato.  Presently she selected a more stubborn
plant and dropped to her knees.  "He kem back jest
ter bring that ther book," she said slowly, thrusting
the sharpened stick deep into the earth, "an' mebbe
ther rifle.  Lost 'bout half er day's prospectin'.  An'
he 'lowed he only hed one ter spare.  Ef it don't beat
all."

But the complete day was lost.  The rich ledge, of which
he had once found strong indications, remained locked
in that secret passage of the hills for any chance comer to
stumble upon.  The search for Slocum also proved fruitless.
Even Myers, who sauntered into camp an hour
after Forrest, to learn what kept the young prospector,
failed to trail the outlaw beyond a rocky point half a mile
up-stream, where he presumably had taken advantage of
low water to push up the gravelly bars of the river bed.

The two searchers returning met near camp.  "I
jedge," said Eben dryly, "ther next time we count on
doin' any prospectin', we'll leave ther women folks ter
home."

Forrest made no answer and the settler put his shoulder
to a clump of alders and pushed through.  The late sun,
slanting between the branches, was in his eyes, but across
the open he saw his wife at the camp-fire, preparing her
dish of wapato.  "I dunno," he added, "but what
Marthy's er pretty good hand ter have erlong sometimes.
An' I 'low ef she hed hed ther rifle she'd er fetched that
ther cougar.  Marthy's er mighty fine shot."

"Cougar?" repeated Forrest, "what cougar?"

Eben stopped and looked back.  "Didn't they tell
you 'bout that cougar?  Mose kem erlong an' killed him;
they was keepin' him off with bresh.  An' Mose was takin'
ther pelt when Slocum sneaked in an' lit out with his gun."

Forrest asked no more.  He pushed by Myers into
the open, and stumbled over something damp and soft
that clung to his shoes.  It was the skin; the hairy side,
turned back at the end where he had tripped, was of the
tawny, unmistakable color familiar in those days to every
woodsman on Puget Sound.

Alice was coming across the grass to meet him.  He
moved back a step, steadying himself with one hand on
an alder.  His whole young, well-knit body shook.
"Alice," he said, and his voice rang, deepened, and
broke.  "Alice—what happened?"

"Nothing—" she looked at the skin,—"Mose
killed him.  Nothing happened.  But Paul,—it was the
closest—" she laughed a little, bravely—"'*the
closest—shave—I ever had.*'"





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.. _`STRATTON'S WAY`:

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   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   STRATTON'S WAY

.. vspace:: 2

"Yes, sir, he's ther great tyee, an' I've hed him
spotted sence spring."  Lem waded a few steps
to a flat rock under the bank and seated himself
disgustedly.  "An' I hed him hooked, an' er clawin' fur
all he was worth in er riffle, 'ithout 'nough water ter carry
him over, when you kem poundin' up ther trail an' scared
him clear outn his skin.  Picked hisself up like er reg'lar
grasshopper an' got erway 'ith er bran' new line."

"Too bad."  Stratton checked his restless horse and
sat looking down at the boy with his mocking smile.  "But
here is the price of the best tackle to be had at Yelm
Station.  Better luck next time."

Lem caught the piece of silver and studied it closely.

"Oh, gee!" he began but clapped his hand over his mouth,
and put the coin swiftly away into his pocket.  He sprawled
out on the rock and trailed the toes of one bare foot
sensuously in the stream, regarding the rider with a sidelong
look that said plainly, "I bet you want somethin' o' me."

"I suppose," said Stratton, "that Miss Hunter, the
teacher, has gone home?"

"Naw."  Lem cast up his eyes with a grim smile.
"She stopped ter write er letter to her sister after school;
takes her a good spell, an' I kem on erhead to wait round
here at ther creek.  She ain't needin' me so much on
ther trail sence ther timber-cruiser left his horse fur her."

"The timber-cruiser?" repeated Stratton.  "I see,
you mean Forrest.  And he left the black for her use?"

"You bet; ther ain't nothin' half-way 'bout him; an'
I 'low he thinks when it kems to ther schoolmarm ther
ain't nothin' too good fur her."

"Yes?"  Stratton checked his horse again, watching
the boy quizzically.  "What grounds have you for believing
that, Jonathan?"

"My name's Lemuel; you kin call me Lem fur short."  He
paused long enough to give the correction weight, then
said, "I dunno.  He ain't ther kind ter make much show,
but I bet ther roots strikes deep.  An' ma, she calc'lates
he thinks ther sun 'bout rises an' sets in ther school-marm."

"Yes?" repeated Stratton dryly.  "Well, I should not
wonder.  Your mother is a shrewd and practical judge."

"Dad," the boy continued, warming to his subject,
"he 'lowed ther schoolmarm must have give him ther cold
shoulder that time up in ther hills.  He didn't seem to
care er durn 'bout losin' his hull day o' prospectin';
never said er word, an' he'd be'n countin' on findin'
that ther lost mine o' his fur more'n er year.  But ma,
she jedged he was jest all broke up on 'count o' that
cougar."

Stratton had heard the story.  It was one to carry far,
to gather weight with repetition, and Eben, as the
settlement historian, had been particularly glad to add it to
his repertoire.  There was a brief silence, during which
the rider waited, smiling a little, and Lem thoughtfully
trailed his other foot in the current, then, "Mebbe she
has took the bit in her teeth fur er spell," he went on,
"but ef he jest keeps er stiff upper lip she'll kem 'round.
Er girl's bound ter show some spirit ef she's any 'count.
Er man's got ter handle her 'bout like that ther sorrel
filly of Mill Thornton's.  He kin chase her all over ther
pasture fur half er day, an' she'll keep gettin' more
skittish an' shy, but ther minute he lets on he don't give
er durn, an' goes an' sets down by ther bars fur er rest,
she'll kem nosin' over his shoulder, huntin' his pockets
fur sugar.  Mill hisself 'lows girls is 'bout that erway,
an' he'd orter know."

"Yes?  And why should he, particularly, know?"

"On 'count o' Cousin Samanthy.  Ther hull settlement's
be'n calc'lating what she'll do 'bout Mill, fur ther last
year."

"And who is Cousin Samantha?"

"Land, don't you know?  Her dad owns that ther
ranch down ter the prairie, close ter Yelm Station.  Likely
she was tendin' Post Office, ef it was train time, when you
kem past."

"Yes, yes, she was."  Stratton laughed softly, and
allowed his horse to pace down into the stream.  "So
that pretty coquette I saw at the Station is your cousin.
Well, well."

"You bet.  I 'low she's pretty 'nough, an' sassy, too,
as ther Lord makes 'em.  An' she always lets on she
thinks er sight more o' that there sorrel filly than she
does o' Mill."

Stratton laughed again, and the chestnut splashed on
through the ford and trotted up the opposite bank.  A
little later he stopped at the schoolhouse, and the young
man dismounted and went up to the open door.

The teacher was there, writing at her desk.  She looked
up, and, seeing him on the steps, continued her
paragraph.  She had thought over that chance meeting at the
canyon a good many times, wondering at Forrest's
behavior, yet assuring herself that his reason was just;
it gathered weight since he had not been able to give
her an explanation.  Paul was not a man of moods;
it was his way to see any man's best until he had strong
proof of his other side.  Still, this stranger was so
interesting, so polished, so well accoutered, so altogether
different from any she had met on the Nisqually trail, or
for that matter, anywhere, it was a pity there should be
something objectionable in the way of knowing him.
She told herself this while she wrote her signature, and
folding the sheet, fitted it in an envelope, which she
sealed and addressed before she again raised her eyes.

He waited, watching her, smiling a little, interested,
but embarrassed not at all.  "Now may I come in?"
he asked.

She did not answer, but she rose from her chair, and
surprised, holding her head high, stood with the lovely
color coming and going in her face, while he walked up
the aisle.

"I am sure, Miss Hunter," he said, "that you must
have heard all about me by now.  I know your sister so
well; but I have somewhere,"—he felt in one pocket,
then another,—"the necessary introduction from the
Captain, your brother-in-law.  Ah, here it is."

So he had a letter from Philip.  Of course that changed
the situation.  She could not be rude to him, but—she
*would be careful*.  And his manner in presenting the note
was after all irreproachable.  He had at once the grace
of a Southerner, and the unhurried pose of an English
gentleman; there was, too, the touch of an accent in his
deliberate speech, at times almost a drawl, that made her
wonder if it had been inherited, with his long black lashes,
from a French or perhaps Spanish mother.

"Of course," she said, "I am always glad to meet my
sister's or the Captain's friends.  You must have come
directly from him; perhaps you have seen her lately."

"Yes, I saw them both in Olympia the day before
yesterday.  In fact your sister made me the bearer of a
good many messages to you.  I wish I could remember
them all.  But, most important, she is coming out, herself,
to see you within a week.  The Captain is getting an
outfit together for a trip to Mt. Rainier, and he hopes,
if you can arrange for a short vacation, to take you and
Mrs. Kingsley as far, at least, as the warm springs."

"Oh," she said, and the coolness dropped from her
face like a broken mask, "it will be lovely.  Lovely.  I
knew he would let me go.  And I can arrange a week of
vacation; the directors have been considering it, for the
older boys are needed through harvest."

"Then," he said, and his own face seemed to catch
and reflect the light in hers, "I am doubly glad that the
Captain has asked me to complete the party."

Her position on the edge of the platform brought her
eyes almost on a level with his, and she met his look for
a steady, searching, questioning instant.  "Lem is waiting
for me at the creek," she said, and went down and took
her hat from its peg on the wall.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MOSE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   MOSE

.. vspace:: 2

Yelm Jim sat brooding in his lodge.  He was
wrapped in his blanket and an old campaign hat
shaded his eyes from the fire, which was kindled on the
packed earth floor, and found partial vent through an
opening in the roof, around which hung haunches of
drying venison and bear.  The squaw Clak-la-sum-kah was
cooking bread, an unleavened mixture of flour and water,
in a frying-pan over the coals.  At the same time she
watched some fine trout, which were suspended from a
rod set in forked stakes above the embers.  Mose, who had
caught these fish, lounged on a couch that, built of shakes,
extended along three sides of the room, and was furnished
with woven mats of ribbon grass or the bast of cedar.
The wall behind him also was covered with this fabric,
which was of the color of ripened maize.

It was one of those intervals when the boy, having
incensed his father, sought refuge with his mother's
people while Laramie's wrath cooled.  At such times the
Indian in Mose effaced the white.  He bound his head
in a crimson handkerchief, and wrapped himself in a
blanket, which Clak-la-sum-kah had adorned with many
buttons for her grandson's use.  He looked a true Klickitat,
straight as a young hemlock, lithe as a nearly grown
cougar in the woods.  His face was a bronze oval, sharply
chiseled, and he had the eyes of a hawk.  He recalled
to the old chief his own youth, when, having a different
and much hyphened name, he had been a leader among
the young braves of the powerful Yakima nation beyond
the Cascades; when, hunting the buffalo, he had crossed
the Rockies and skirmished with the Blackfeet, or,
exacting tribute from weaker neighbors, had driven home
numberless horses to pasture on the vast Palouse plains.
He found in the boy an appreciative and tireless listener
when he recounted these past glories, and he painted them
brilliantly, in sharp contrast to the colorless present.
Mose had no brave companions, no followers in the hunt,
no tribe.

And the whites were responsible for this; they only
were to blame.  Not the Hudson Bay men, who, trading
for furs, brought guns and many useful things to the
Indians, but the "Bostons," who came at the first to rob
them of their country.  From the beginning the Yakimas
had understood and opposed them, and, when at last a
thousand warriors had crossed the Cascades to fall on the
white settlements of the salt water, Yelm Jim had been
among them.  They had met defeat, and he, himself, had
spent breaking years in the strong house of the "Bostons,"
and at the end of his captivity he had found himself poor
and forgotten and another tyee raised in his place.  For
this reason the old chief had not returned to his people,
but had buried himself in the forest.

But already the white settlers pressed hard on his
retreat; axes, the rasp of saws, their shrill voices scattered
the deer.  He must go farther and farther in search of
grouse that once had nested almost at his door; and now,
since Slocum had robbed Mose of the musket, the old chief
must set laboriously to work and shape the miserable
arrow points of agate.

When Yelm Jim thought of this final outrage he drew
yet more fiercely at his pipe, and in the shadow of his
ragged hatbrim his brows beetled and gloomed.  It was
not the right moment for young Kingsley to darken the
doorway.

One of Laramie's hounds, which had again tracked
Mose, sprang up growling, but at a word from the boy
settled back whimpering, with his nose between his paws.
His mate, snuffing suspiciously, moved to the intruder's
feet.

His familiar "Clahowya," said in a big, frank voice,
startled the lodge and the first dog belled a note.

"Clahowya," he repeated.  "Hello."

Still no answer except a longer note from the hound.

The young man stopped in the entrance and took off
his hat, using it slowly as a fan.  His close-cropped hair
clung in damp, blond waves to his shapely head.  The
tan of a brief outing had not spoiled his unusual fairness;
his face in the shadows was white, but his black eyes
gathered depth and brilliancy.

"I think you are the young fellow I'm looking for,"
he said, addressing the indifferent boy on the couch.
"It's dark to one coming in from the sunlight, and that
blanket and handkerchief hardly tally with the description
I had of you, but you must be Mose."

The boy regarded the trout which the squaw was turning.
"Nawitka," he said.

"You are?  Well then, Mose, I want you to guide us
to Mt. Rainier."  He paused, but the boy was silent and
the old chief continued to draw deeply at his pipe.  "You
understand," he went on, "we are going to the mountain
and want you to show us the way.  If the weather stays
fine I mean to try for the summit.  Nika cumtux?"  And
he repeated in Chinook with an elaborate gesture,
"Copa si-yah top."

Mose expressed his appreciation of the man's attempt
at the language in a fleeting smile, but he made no reply.
Yelm Jim also was silent, but he drew yet more furiously
at his pipe.

"Let him go with us," continued Kingsley, addressing
the chief, "and you shall have that pair of brown blankets
you were so interested in yesterday, at the camp."

Still another pause.  "If he goes with me up the
mountain you can have all my blankets, the tents, the
whole outfit, when we come back," added Kingsley.

Then Clak-la-sum-kah rose from her squatting posture
by the fire and said in her vehement guttural, "Wake,
wake.  Mose wake clatawa.  Wake clatawa copa si-yah
illahee.  Tyee Sahgalee hyas solleks.  Hy-as solleks.
Mose wake clatawa."

Kingsley looked from her to the boy, puzzled.  "What
is it she says?"

Mose rose from his lounging position and drew his
blanket close.  "Clak-la-sum-kah ees say 'no.'  You
mus' un'stan' Tyee Sahgalee ees same you all tam call
God.  Dat top of Rainier ees His plas.  He doan' lak it
for sure, we go dare.  Sacré, dat mountain ees goin' shake
an' smoke an' mek mooch fire we go dare, you can beli've
it.  But ya-as, Yelm Jim ees see it do dat long tam 'go.
He ees say Tyee Sahgalee, ees be mad, because de firs'
white man ees come."

Kingsley threw back his head and laughed.  "I see,"
he said, "I see.  And your Indian God wanted to reserve
this country for his favorite people.  But it's all foolishness,
Mose; you ought to know it.  That priest of your father's,
who has been coming out here every month from Olympia,
must have taught you different.  You don't believe any
such heathen nonsense.  And you will show us over the
trail.  You aren't afraid to try the summit with me,
though I doubt there's another boy in the settlement would
dare."

"I ees hunt on dat mountain, si-yah, to de red snow,"
answered the boy slowly; "no Indian ees go pas' de red
snow."

There was another silence.  Kingsley ran his hand
lightly down a tawny pelt that hung in the doorway.
"Miss Hunter showed me that other cougar skin," he
said.  "She thinks you saved her life."  He paused a
grave moment, still stroking the fur.  "And I know the
story of this one.  It's the pelt of the one you faced on
that log crossing over the Des Chutes.  You stopped
to take careful aim, with the brute snarling, and
the log dipping and heaving to the freshet underneath.
And when he dropped no one else would have
plunged into the flood as you did; not even to save
this skin."

Mose's lips parted in his fleeting smile.  "Dat ees not
good plas to swim by Laramie's claim; monjee, no."

Yelm Jim shook his head slowly, and for the first time
broke his silence with a profound, "Ugh."

"It was all the woods afloat that day," said Kingsley,
"Myers told me,—and the drift tearing down a current
gone mad."  He paused again and his glance moved
to a great shaggy trophy against the matting on the farther
wall.  "And that," he added, "must be the pelt of the
cinnamon bear you met up in the hills, single-handed,
with just your knife."

"Nawitka."  A sudden fire leaped in the old chief's
eyes.  "Hy-as close peltry.  Mose hy-as shookum
tumtum.  Hy-as skookum."

"Mose has the strong heart," interpreted Kingsley.
"Strong heart, yes.  I tell you I'd have paid a stiff price
to see that encounter."

"It ees good skin," said Mose, simply.  "Oh, ya-as,
for sure."

"See here, Mose,—" the young man drew nearer,—"in
the face of all this you can't make me believe you're
afraid of Rainier."

"A'm not 'fraid anyt'ing dese woods; bear, cougar,
hi-yu water, snow, doan' mek me 'fraid.  But Tyee
Sahgalee, ugh."  Mose drew his shoulders high in eloquent
conclusion, and resuming his place on the couch, turned
his face.

Kingsley laughed once more.  "Oh, well, think it
over.  We shall start for the mountain anyway, whether
we have a guide or not.  We shall break camp the day
after to-morrow.  Let me know if you make up your
mind to go, Mose; and you had better look at those
blankets.  They are pretty fine."

He turned away then, taking the river trail, and, as he
went, his lips shaped a gay whistle.  Once, as he approached
his camp, he turned from the path and stepped out on a
fallen fir that served as a footbridge to a green island,
and looking up-stream saw the splendor of a northern
sunset on the mighty dome.  "I don't wonder they believe
it," he said.  "I don't wonder."

Almost an hour later Mose also stopped at this crossing
and lifted his eyes to the mountain.  It loomed, vast,
white, symmetrical against the darkening east, its
consecrated summit touched with a holy fire.  He waited
while the glory paled to opal and to a cold silver.  When
he turned from the log his lips set in a thin line; his eyes
narrowed; his face hinted of cruelty.

Laramie's hounds had followed him; they crept through
the underbrush at heel.  But suddenly, on the edge of the
mam trail, he stopped and laid his hand on one of them.
"Back, Pichou," he said.  "Monjee, down, down, so."

He remained almost hidden by a tangle of alder, while
two riders passed.  Neither noticed him; the teacher
was talking, and Stratton, though he might have lifted his
arm and touched the boy, turned his head to watch her
face.  They moved slowly, at a walk, until the thoroughbred,
sighting the waiting figure, started, and, dancing,
crowding the black, circled suspiciously by.  Then,
directly, both horses broke into a light canter, taking
advantage of the bit of wider track.

Mose stepped out into the trail and stood looking after
them, but his gaze rested on Stratton's mount.  He loved
the thoroughbred, coveted him, every inch of the long
sleek body, the slender limbs, the swelling chest, the
dappled shading, that, like a reflection of leaves on a
forest pool, ran through the shining, chestnut coat.  Surely
there was never another like him.  Even among those fine
herds of which Yelm Jim boasted this horse must stand
the chief, the glory of the whole Palouse plains, the
envy of the proudest Yakima.

He walked on towards the bend around which the horses
had disappeared.  The noise of the river was in his ears.
After a while the air grew resinous with burning firboughs,
and finally, through the trees, he caught the glow of
Kingsley's camp-fire.  He and his wife had chosen to
pitch their tents here on the bank of the Nisqually, rather
than to share the cramped quarters of the settler.

She was seated with the teacher on a log in the full
light of the blazing boughs, when Mose stopped on the
edge of the open to reconnoiter, and he saw instantly
their resemblance to each other.  The two men, resting
a little apart, listened amusedly to their eager conversation,
while nearer, but to the right, Mill Thornton stood
with his hand at the bit of the young sorrel, waiting for a
last word with Samantha Myers.

She had joined the camp to "help an' hev er little fun."  And
she was a slim, graceful girl,—"all tech an' go,"
Eben would have told you,—with the beautiful color
that is as delicate as the tints of a seashell, and yet
impervious to life out-of-doors.  Her hair, as fine as corn silk,
was pale red, and when she bent over the tin reflector,
in which she was cooking some very light rolls, her head
seemed to catch the vital charm of the flames.

"But," Thornton was saying, "kem to think of it,
I never see er Myers yet that wasn't er good cook.  Ther's
your Uncle Eben, when he's driv to it, he kin stir up a
flapjack, an' turn her at eggsactly ther minute.  Beats all.
Yes," he resumed in afterthought, "take 'em as er fambly,
ther Myerses is er pretty smart crowd; but you, well,
I don't keer how many's on ther tree, Samanthy, you're
ther peach."

She stood erect and flashed him a look that startled the
boldness from his young eyes.  "Mebbe I am, Mill,"
she said, gently, "but I bet, even ef you do think so, you
wouldn't spare the sorrel long 'nough fur me to ride ter
Rainier."

"No," he answered, flushing, "no, I wouldn't.  She
ain't well 'nough broke.  You oughter not ask me."

"I'd resk her," she urged still, sweetly, and smiled into
his troubled face; "I'd love ter ride her, Mill.  But,"
she went on after a pause, and shrugging her shoulders,
drew herself aloof, "you're jest like Jake.  He's turrible
'fraid I'd get Ketchem killed."

"And yourself, too," he said warmly.

"But Uncle Eben," she added, "he 'lows I kin ride.
He ain't so powerful scared 'bout—*Ginger*."

With this she laughed, her hands on her hips, her
elbows shaking, and Thornton, himself laughing deeply,
in keen appreciation, turned to set his foot in the stirrup.
"You're all right, Samanthy," he said.  "You're all
right, but I 'low it wa'n't a peach I meant; it was jest er
sassy sweetbrier rose.  It's so blame' innercent lookin'
an' soft, but er feller can't tech it 'ithout feelin' ther
thorns."

The horse started, but she tripped after him a step to
say softly, "Say, Mill, why don't you call it eglantine?"

He wheeled.  "Who calls it eglantine?"

She laid a warning finger on her lip.  "Mr. Stratton.
But I never sensed what he was talkin' 'bout tell he showed
me that ther sweetbrier growin' ther by the table."

"Was he meanin' you?"

She started back to the reflector, but paused to nod her
head over her shoulder; a hundred imps danced in her
eyes.  "I'd love ter hear you call me that, Mill.  My
stars—eglantine!"

Her lips bubbled laughter; it followed him, teasing,
taunting, as he rode on through the wood.

Mose, passing him, stalked into the open and towards
the farther group.  Kingsley waved his hand in careless
recognition, and rising, threw back his tent-fly and drew
out the blankets.  "Well, Mose," he said, "what do you
think of these?"

The boy bent to feel their texture gravely.  "Dey ess
plent' good 'nough blankets, monjee, ya-as, an Yelm
Jim ees tell me—*go*.  But Tyee Sahgalee ees goin' be
hy-as mad.  Sacré, it ees pos'ble he ees keel you.  Den,
merci, some more white man doan' lak go Rainier."

He turned with this and stalked swiftly back into the
gloom.  Alice rose in astonishment.  Kingsley laughed.
"If I should lose myself over a precipice," he said, "or
drop into a crevasse, I suppose he would believe it was all
the vengeance of his Indian God."

"But," she answered, "his father is a devout Catholic.
The priest is making an acolyte of Mose."  She sank
back, helplessly, into her place.  "I—I suppose it's
impossible for him to grasp everything"—she was
thinking of Laramie and the globe—"at once."

Her sister leaned towards Kingsley.  A sudden
apprehension rose in her great, dark eyes, and her voice, in
emotion, dropped to contralto notes.  "I wish you would
give up that idea of trying for the summit," she said.

He laughed again, tossing his fine head.  "Oh, don't
bother, Louise; I shall be safe enough with Stratton along.
He never takes a risk."

Stratton smiled and adjusted the rolled blankets to his
back, leaning on them comfortably.  "The Captain's
right," he said.  "He knows me.  I always ask myself
first, 'Is it safe?'  And then, 'Is it worth while?'"

The teacher looked at him a searching moment and
arched her brows.  Then she reached and lifted her
sister's guitar from the end of the log.  Her fingers trailed
briefly over the strings and settled in a thread of tune.  She
repeated the accompaniment, singing softly, inviting
Kingsley's tenor.

   |  "She shone in the light of declining day,
   |    Each sail was set, and each heart was gay."

And presently the other man hummed an undernote, but
Louise was silent.  She had changed her position a little,
clasping her hands loosely around her knee, with her
face slightly lifted and turned to the darkening wood.  It
was the face of a dreamer, rapt, sensitive, who peopled
the shadows, and to whom the many voices of the night
tuned in unbroken symphony.

In the interlude Kingsley turned to her.  "Where is
your voice, Louise?  We need the contralto."

She started and looked at him, smiling.  It was then
she resembled Alice.  The expression was there and the
charm; but softened, finer, as the painting of a master
may be reproduced in pastel.

Her voice was beautiful.  She took up the song, subduing
her notes to her sister's lighter compass, but the music,
that had been simply pleasing, assumed, suddenly, the
touch and finish of grand opera.

   |  For the white squall rides on the surg-ing wave, And the
   |  bark is gulph'd in an o-cean's grave, For the
   |  white squall rides on the surg-ing wave, And the
   |  bark is gulph'd in an o-cean's grave, in an
   |  o-cean's grave, in an o - - ocan's grave.

.. vspace:: 1

.. figure:: images/img-063.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: music fragment

   Music fragment





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE INSTRUMENT OF TYEE SAHGALEE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE INSTRUMENT OF TYEE SAHGALEE

.. vspace:: 2

The summer day breaks early in the Puget Sound
country.  It was not yet four by Stratton's watch
when he stepped from his tent and stood analyzing the
weather, but all the sky overhead was changing to yellow,
and directly, while he looked, to streaks of flame.  The
heights, towering a thousand feet on the opposite side of
the gorge, were burnished copper, and Rainier, walling
the top of the canyon, warmed to amethyst and rose.  Its
crest, at an altitude of nearly fifteen thousand feet, was
hardly seven miles distant.

But the great forest that hemmed in the small open
where the camp was pitched, still gloomed in shadow, and
the air was sharp with the breath of near glacier and
snowfield.  Stratton saw that Mose had left his blanket,
gone already to bring up the horses, and the close report
of a gun told that Kingsley was off in search of the early
bird.  Then Samantha came from the other tent and
stirred the smouldering fire.  She added a dry hemlock
bough, watching the roused flames fasten on the resinous
wood.

"Good morning, Psyche," he said.

She lifted her glance, nodding.  She had a mouth like
a Cupid's bow and the short upper lip twitched with
enforced gravity before the shaft sped.  "Ef you hed er
wife, I 'low she'd get er new name 'bout every day, an'
mebbe twicet.  Land, it 'ud keep her busy rememberin'
who she was."

She tucked her sleeves up from her tapering arms, and
kneeling, dipped them deep in a bubbling pool.  Stratton
laughed softly, enjoying her, and lifting his bag, crossed
the open seeking a warm spring, which, screened in a
network of young cedars, afforded a morning plunge.  All
along the valley iron and soda deposits discolored the earth,
and mineral water, hot or sharply cold, sparkled in crystal
basins.

An hour later the little cavalcade formed in line, with
Kingsley leading on his big white horse, followed by
Samantha, whose clear piping voice rose in alternate
upbraiding or admonition, for she rode the indifferent
Ginger.  Mose, mounting Yelm Jim's piebald pony,
crowded the cayuse with the two pack animals; then
came Louise and the teacher, while Stratton closed the
rear.

The trail became more and more precipitous, switch-backing
across the face of a spur, taking the edge of a
cliff, breaking into sharp pitches to a rushing ford.
Trunks, logs, netlike boughs, shelving rock crowded
close.  The head of the Nisqually and its glacier were not
far off.  Then finally they turned up its beautiful
tributary, the Paradise.  Over the stream Eagle Peak, the first
of the Tatoosh Mountains, lifted a tremendous front, and
boulders, hurled from it, blocked the limpid current,
creating innumerable cascades.  The air was flooded with
drifting spray, and the wet, luxuriant earth, reflecting
the sun, filled the gorge with playing color.

At last Alice drew rein near the brink fronting a great
cataract.  Stratton dismounted and went to tighten her
horse's girth.  "Are you a little afraid?" he asked.

"Afraid?  Of the trail?  Oh, no.  I love it; it's my
element.  And Colonel can go anywhere.  He picks his
way through bogs, pits, better than I could, and he runs
straight up these rocky stairs.  I have only to cling on,"
and she laughed.

"Well, you can trust him."  Stratton's glance moved
from her horse to his own mount and back to the black.
"Sir Donald has found his match.  But, how was it
that Forrest gave up his horse?"

"He hasn't.  I am only keeping Colonel for him, while
he is at Freeport."

"I see," said Stratton slowly, "I see.  I hope if the time
comes when I must part with Sir Donald, I can leave him
in the same hands."

At this she swept him with a swift, critical look, ruffling
her brows.  "I have known Paul Forrest all my life,"
she said, and turned her eyes again to the cataract.

"I understand."  He smiled a little, both nettled and
amused.  "Before I can venture to ask a favor of you,
you must know and like me better than you do now."

She flashed him another look, tilting her chin.  "I
like you as well as I could like any American with
*un*-American ways."

.. _`"'I like you as well as I could like any American with un-American ways'"`:

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   :alt: "'I like you as well as I could like any American with *un*-American ways.'"

   "'I like you as well as I could like any American with *un*-American ways.'"

For an instant he betrayed his surprise, then, "Well,
thank you," he said; "I appreciate your frankness;
and perhaps you are right.  My mother was more a
French woman than an American; she was a Creole of
the Mississippi.  And my grandfather, on the other side,
was a factor of the Hudson Bay Company.  My father,
I suppose, passed over with New Georgia into the hands
of the United States.  After all, it is hard for most any
American to tell in just what generation he began.  But
I admit I have lived close to the border, Miss Hunter,
often on the other side.  In fact I haven't always been able
to determine the line."

"And I," she answered, with a gathering storm in her
eyes, "I have lived all of my life close to the boundary,
but in a different way.  The best patriot is he who fights
for his home while he defends his country, and the sun
for my family rose and set in 'Fifty-four, forty or fight.'  We
know the line; we never crossed to the other side.
My grandfather died with Marcus Whitman."

She spoke then to her horse, starting him briskly.
Stratton vaulted into his saddle.  "You touch-me-not!"
he said under his breath.  "You touch-me-not!"

Far ahead Samantha approached a second cataract.
It was a perilous place, for the trail, skirting a precipice,
rose from a bog in rocky and winding stairs worn smooth
and slippery by continuous spray.

Kingsley's horse cleared the morass; his iron shoes
struck fire from the shelving granite and he set himself
to the steps.  His master looked back.  "Make him leap,"
he shouted to Samantha, and while he spoke was carried
beyond a turn.

But Ginger delayed.  He snuffed the ooze with disfavor.
The girl jerked his muzzle high.  "Heft yourself,
Ginger," she shrilled, and cut him sharply on the flank.
"Now, now, Ginger, get up."

And against belief, Ginger gathered himself, but the
effort fell short.  His forefeet grappled the rock and he
sank back floundering in the ooze.  The trained pack
horses halted, and Mose threw himself from his pony and
pushed swiftly around the bog, through underbrush, to
Ginger's head.  But Samantha had already slipped from
her saddle, and worked herself free of the struggling
horse.  She moved back coolly from the abyss and emerged
from the mudhole, dripping, but unhurt.

She drew a full breath and looked about her.  Stratton,
who had arrival, grasped the situation and drew in his
horse, humorously regarding her.  "Ain't I a sight?"
she asked.

"Yes, Aphrodite, you are.  You are a vision to haunt
a man's dreams."

"I jedge you're 'bout right."  She paused and the
imps danced in her eyes.  "But I 'low it 'ud be er turrible
nightmare."

She reached and broke a low branch of hemlock, with
which she began hastily to brush the mud from her skirt.
Beyond the bog, Mose, who had extricated the unfortunate
pony, urged him up the granite stair.  His flanks were
slippery with ooze.  "My stars," she said, "I'm glad Mill
didn't kem this trip.  I'd never hear ther last of it.  He'd
run er joke ter death."

The ax was brought, and the bog was hurriedly bridged
with corduroy for the remaining horses.  Then finally
they trailed out of the heavy timber into the parks of
Paradise.  A succession of emerald slopes opened before them,
broken by clumps of amabilis fir and mountain hemlock;
where a higher top rose out of a shapely mass it became
a cathedral spire.  Sometimes the way wound through
an area of blooming heliotrope or asters; banks of gorgeous
snapdragon or flaming Indian paintbrush gave color, like
landscape gardening, to whole hillsides.  Then behind
them, pinnacle on pinnacle, closed the Tatoosh Range;
a last sharp ascent and they were on that small and lofty
Plateau, at an altitude of five thousand feet, since called
The Camp of Clouds, with the splendor of the great
summit almost overhead.

The tents were pitched; horses picketed.  It was
hardly mid-afternoon.  "By this time tomorrow," said
Kingsley, "if this weather stays with us, we shall have
made and I hope passed Gibraltar."

Stratton, lounging on a blanket, looked up to the black
cliff, which, rising sheer fifteen hundred feet, stood like
a mighty fortress against the whiteness of the dome.
"I hope so," he answered, "but, Captain, I never saw
anything look so tremendously like work."

Louise rested on a grassy knob, her hands clasped
loosely on her knee, inspiration in her lifted face.  She
hardly heard her husband's remark, or the other man's
reply, but Alice started from her place beside her.  "Phil,"
she said, "take me with you.  You can't understand what
it means to me, to be so near, to see the summit shining
there, and go no farther.  I'm very strong, Phil, and
clear-headed.  I'm not afraid of things.  I—oh, you
don't understand, but the mountain seems to beckon."

Kingsley walked a restless turn.  "I do understand,"
he said.  "I feel it myself.  But we don't know what we
are going through, and we can't be sure of the weather an
hour ahead; clouds are manufactured right here at a
moment's notice.  But wait, don't tease, and we'll
compromise.  I'm going off now to reconnoiter.  I believe
the most feasible start is from that ridge across this valley
of the Paradise, but I want to be sure.  There'll be no
time to waste in doubling back for fresh starts to-morrow.
And Mose has been up that way; he says, with care, we
can use the horses as far as the old snow.  A glacier cuts
in there, probably the source of the Cowlitz, and he
thinks we should be able to reach it in a couple of hours.
I'll take you that far—to the glacier."

At this Mose started from his recumbent position on
the earth.  He threw out his arms in protest.  "No, no,
Mees," he said.  "It ees bes' you doan' go dare.  Sacré, no."

"I'm not afraid," she answered smiling, "and if I'm
a trouble I'll turn back.  I promise."

"You doan' be some tro'ble, Mees," he said quickly.
"No, no, it ees dat Tyee Sahgalee ees goin' be mad.  Mebbe
he ees mek dis mountain burn an' break an' fall down.
Monjee, monjee, Mees, you can' ride quick 'nough
away."

She laughed, shaking her head.  "I don't believe that,
Mose," she said, "and you won't, after we have been there.
Tyee Sahgalee don't care how many of us go creeping up
there, any more than we care about the ants and spiders
that crawl to the cabin door."

"You mean it is you who don't care," said Stratton.
"You are ready to take the risks, whatever they are.  And
if you are determined to go on braving Providence, or Tyee
Sahgalee, or whoever it is, the rest of the day, I'm going
to join the expedition; that is, unless Mrs. Kingsley is
afraid to stay here alone with Samantha."

"Oh," answered Louise, at last awake to the situation,
"I want you to go."

"I thought so," and he smiled.  "I've proved something
of a mascot on occasion, and I'll look after the Captain."

The horses were brought and presently they were trailing
away up the pathless slopes in the wake of the piebald
pony; fording countless streams, leaping them, sinking
in pitfalls through treacherous banks of bloom.  When,
switchbacking up a lofty rise, Alice ventured to look
down, all the colored breadth of Paradise park unfolded
like a map, and the dome gathered majesty at every turn.
They gained a shoulder, rounded a curve, and before
them stretched the levels of a plateau carpeted with snow.
Then, as they moved across this field, mountain on
mountain opened, shading to blue distance.  Through a
gap, out of a woolly cloud, shone the opal crown of Adams,
and presently, far off St. Helens rose like a floating berg
on an uptossed sea.

They dismounted at the foot of a knob flanked by
loose rock.  The red stain of old snow was under their
feet and beyond the spur shone the clean, blue-green
edge of the glacier.  "We are higher than the treeline,
now," said Philip, "and above the clouds."

She drew a breath of delight, lifting her glance to the
near dome.  "And it looks as though we could reach the
summit in fifteen or twenty minutes.  Oh, Phil, come,
let's go."

Kingsley laughed.  "We haven't climbed nine thousand
feet; the hardest third of the ascent is above us.  Don't
you remember, the only two men who ever made that
summit were half a day in just passing Gibraltar.  We
may find it no longer passable."

While his look rested on the grim fortress a thin cloud
rose like smoke from its base.  It covered the cliff swiftly
and trailed across the dome.  "Out of nothing, without
notice," and he shook his head; "that's what I've heard."

He turned.  Stratton was busy searching for a safe
hitching-place for his horse; he never stood well.  But
Mose had stepped nearer Kingsley.  The boy's shoulders
were inclined forward, and his eyes, in that instant, were
those of a crouching animal about to spring.

"Well, Mose," he said carelessly, "your Tyee Sahgalee
is hiding his face.  I suppose you think we've come far
enough.  But we'll show him."

He moved on with Alice up the knob, and Stratton
joined them.  But presently Mose stalked by leading the
way to the glacier.  His face had the gray look of fear,
but his lips were set in the thin line that gave him an
older, sinister touch, the shadow of cruelty.

He moved swiftly and surely.  He did not once look
back.  He gave no direction or warning.  They followed,
slipping and stumbling through the moraine, and gaining
the ragged brow of the knob, found themselves suddenly
on the brink of a mighty precipice.  Far, far down, the
infant Cowlitz sprang into life and struggled out between
stupendous columns and needles.  Locked in the opposite
pinnacled cliffs shone the sheer, blue-seamed front of
the glacier, and the throes that gave the river birth
resounded through the gorge.

Stratton uncoiled the spare lariat he carried, and taking
an end, with Philip closing, and the girl between, drew
slowly along the rim.  Mose, curving far ahead, came out
on the slippery incline of the glacier.  Finally he stopped
under a great upheaval of ice, and resting against a block,
waited, with his back turned to them and his face lifted
to the clouding dome.

Behind them another cloud formed over the Tatoosh
Mountains, driving fast to meet the advancing column
from Gibraltar; and, in a little while, when they had come
out on the ice, and made slow headway up the tilting
surface from the abyss, mist lifted swiftly, flooding,
giving immensity to the darkening gorge.  Kingsley
walked a trifle in advance of Alice, with Stratton abreast
of him.  Suddenly Mose's tracks, on a recent light snowfall
which had offered foothold, swerved, and both men
stopped.  They were on the brink of a narrow, deep,
incredibly deep, crevasse.

Alice moved back, shivering.  She looked, a mute
question trembling on her lips, at Mose.  But he continued
to stand, oblivious, with his eyes fixed, expectantly,
on the clouding dome.

"See here," called Philip, "see here; next time you
let us know."  Then his glance returned to the crevasse.
"Reminds me of a tremendous white watermelon,"
he said, "with just one thin, clean slice gone."

"Yes?" questioned Stratton, smiling, "it strikes me
differently.  I thought right away of some curious metal,
with just enough taken, by some nice process, to shape a
gigantic blade."

"A blade, yes," said Alice, "for the hand of Tyee
Sahgalee."

Stratton's eyes met hers amusedly.  He wondered if
she was capable of superstition.  "Even then," he said,
"it is only a surface impression, lost the moment you
look down.  It's an ice-crevasse; nothing else."  He
turned to Kingsley, who was already studying the glacier
ahead.  "Of course this will not delay us to-morrow,
Captain, but it is time, now, to turn back."

"In a moment.  There's a streak on there that bothers
me.  Looks like a more serious break.  I want to see it
at closer range.  Wait here; I won't be fifteen minutes."

He moved back impetuously, and, giving himself short
headway, took the crevasse in a leap.  Showers of loosened
ice clinked down from the rim.  Most of the particles
struck the sides that closed in twenty feet below, and
rebounding, dropped again and sent back faint echoes
from the last level of the abyss.

Stratton stood watching Philip up the glacier, but
presently, Alice drew away from the crevasse and turned
to look back down the gorge.  The sun no longer shone.
All that brilliant vista of opal peak and amethyst spur,
shading to blue distance, was curtained in closing sheets
of mist.  There a great crag loomed an instant and was
gone.  Here an uptossed pile of ice-blocks flashed a sudden
prismatic light and grew dim.  Then they themselves
were wrapped in a noiseless, drenching cloud.

At the same moment she was startled by Stratton's
brief note of surprise and felt behind her a sudden jar.
She turned.  Mose was hurled sprawling at her feet, and,
clutching her skirt, was up instantly, panting, with
quivering nostril, eyes ablaze.  Then, in the recoil,
Stratton reeled on the brink of the crevasse, recovered,
stumbled on breaking crust, and went down.

She stood for an interminable moment, waiting, listening,
numbed, body and mind.  Then she was conscious
that Mose was going, and she went after him a few steps,
calling his name.  But his receding shape drifted faster
and faster, a fading shadow in the mist.  She turned back,
lifting her voice in a great cry to Philip.  And she was
answered from the abyss.

She dropped to her knees and crept close to look down.
Stratton was there, where the pale, green walls narrowed.
He rested wedgelike, caught at the armpits.  He looked
up and saw her.  "Be careful," he said, "I am all right."

Instantly the executive in her rose.  "I have the lariat,"
she said.

"Fasten it to the ice where Mose stood," he called.
"I can work along that far."

He remembered that the rope was new and strong,
one he himself had selected as a reserve in picketing his
own spirited horse.  The question was whether the ice
would take his weight.  He worked carefully, laboriously
along by shoulder and elbow, his body swinging from the
waist, starting a rain of ice at every move.  At last,
where the wall crumbled, leaving a ledge, he was able to
draw himself to his knees.  He cut foothold with his knife,
and other niches higher up for his hands, and pulled
himself erect on the slippery shelf.

Beyond him the chasm widened between sheer walls,
and it was in this shaft that the lowered rope hung.  It
swung for a moment, like a failing pendulum, and each
oscillation, though he stood alert, missed his reach a little
more.  The girl, peering into the abyss, understood, and
again disappeared.  The line was drawn up, and presently
it dropped almost at his shoulder.  He caught the end
and, looking up, met her eyes over the rim.  "That's
better," he said.

"Wait—one moment," she called and was gone once
more.  She did not return this time, but her voice came
to him, "Now, now, all ready."

The lariat tightened.  It creaked, ground on the edge
of the chasm; ice chips fell ceaselessly.  He swung out.
He was a big fellow, heavy.  Would the support hold?
Would Mose, his fury cooled, be neutral?  Why, yes,
surely the boy was even setting himself to ease the
strain.  He could feel an unmistakable give and pull
above on the rope, as he climbed, hand over hand.

He gained the top.  He reached a palm around a slight
pinnacle, for a final grasp on the line, and pulled himself
slowly out on the surface of the glacier.  He was a strong
man, physically, a man of steady nerve, one accustomed
to take risks with Nature, as in those times a man of the
Northwest must, but what he saw, in that brief pause,
sent a shiver through him.  He closed his eyes like one
brought suddenly into intense light.

The rope was fastened, as he had directed, to a thick
column in the upheaval, but it stretched diagonally to
the projection on the brink of the crevasse.  And it was
Alice, not Mose, who steadied it, throwing her weight on
it, twisting it on her hands, digging her heels in a shallow
cleft, straining back to ease the pressure on the knob.
Suppose the support had given way; suppose he had
dragged her—this brave girl, all life, charm, loveliness—down
to destruction.  It was horrible to think of.  Horrible.

Seeing him safe, she relaxed her hold and drew back,
making way for him.  She breathed deeply, her chest
heaving, and a moisture not of the cloud clung to her
lip, her brow in drops.

He pulled himself together and got to his feet.  He did
not speak to her, then; he could not.  But he put his hand
to his mouth and lifted his voice in a great hail.  Kingsley
responded, but his "Hello," came faintly, through billows
of mist.  The calls were repeated.  "We cannot wait,"
Stratton said.  "We must follow that rascal's tracks
down, while they last, to the horses."

"What made Mose do it?" she asked.  "Oh, what
made him?"

"Why, just Indian, I suppose; or say he was an instrument,
self-appointed, of his Tyee Sahgalee.  But he shall
be punished."  He closed his lips over the word, and a
heat, like the flash of a blade, leaped in his eyes.  But
when he took her hands to help her to her feet the look
changed.  The light returned, yet softened, steady, and
currents of tenderness, long pent in the man, surged to
his face.  Her palms were bruised, cut, cruelly.  He lifted
them, one, and then the other, swiftly, very gently, to his
lips.  "You did this—for me," he said.  "You could
do it—for me."

"Of course," she answered quickly, and drew the
hands away, "I must have done my best for anyone—for
Mose, if things had been reversed.  But, if I hadn't
been able, Phil would have come back in time; no doubt
he could have seen a better way."

She met his look briefly, but long enough for him to
fathom the clear depths of her eyes; and suddenly, before
her dauntless white spirit, his own soul, for the first time,
shrank.  It was as though another unsounded abyss
yawned between them, that the exigency of this hour
could not bridge.

They hurried on then, groping and slipping down the
glacier, taking Mose's trail.  Sometimes they stopped
while Stratton renewed his shout, waiting always for
Kingsley's answer, and they knew when he had crossed
the crevasse in safety, and that he followed on to the
gorge.

They made the rocky knob and finally, out of obscurity,
she caught Colonel's familiar neigh.  The call shrilled
again, inquiring, peremptory.  But when they came
to the end of the moraine where they had left the horses,
they found them gone.

The neigh was repeated once more, coming back faintly,
from far across the snowfield.  "Mr. Stratton," she cried,
"what has happened?  Where is Mose going?"

"Over the mountains to the Palouse plains, I haven't
a doubt," and the blade flashed again in his eyes.  "It's
the first thing a halfbreed does, and they always drive
stolen horses over there; it is impossible to find them
among those big, feeding bands of the Yakimas.  He
will stampede the rest in the valley, and Yelm Jim will
probably meet him somewhere below the springs and
help him take them through the Pass."

She stood for a moment with her head high, lips set,
looking with storming eyes into the mist.  Then, "There
isn't any time to waste," she said.  "We must take him
this side of the springs."  And she began to trail the
horses on across the snow.

"I wish there was a chance of it," said Stratton, "but
you will only spend yourself uselessly.  You are miserably
tired now.  The horses will make the down grade to the
springs very fast, and you must see that the trail through
the timber, afoot, is simply impossible at night.  We should
bury ourselves in one of those mudholes or plunge over
some cliff.  We could never make the fords."

But she hurried on.  There fell a long silence.  It grew
rapidly colder; the winds freshened, tearing the cloud-wrack,
driving it this way and that, bringing the ragged
ends together in bursts of hail or flurries of snow.  The
girl's drenched skirts hampered her, still she pressed
resolutely on.  Once she said, "An accident somewhere
might delay the band."  And Stratton caught at the hope.
He told her Mose would probably try to mount Sir Donald,
the fleetest horse, and that he had some unexpected
tricks.  He was as full of coquetry as—well—a pretty
woman, though as easily managed, if a man knew him.

It was twilight and they were descending the final pitch
into the park when Kingsley at last overtook them.  The
camp-fire, which Samantha had kindled with infinite
difficulty on the plateau, burned like a beacon in the
gloom.  "You should have seen that second crevasse,"
he said.  "It was tremendous.  No way over, no way
around; I tramped both directions to see.  We've simply
got to choose another route, to-morrow.  But what
became of the horses?"

"Mose took them."  It was Alice who answered.
"He took Colonel.  But I shall find him.  I've got to
find him if I have to walk every step of the way over the
mountains and through the Palouse.  You know how
much Paul thinks of his horse, Philip.  Oh, I can never
face him; I can never tell him—the truth."

She started on uncertainly, stumbled, and fell.  Stratton
lifted her, and carried her a few steps over a rough place.
"You mustn't trouble so much," he said gently, "We
are going to find that black if it takes a year.  Yes,
we are and punish that Klickitat."





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.. _`"I'M GOING TO MAKE HIM WHITE"`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   "I'M GOING TO MAKE HIM WHITE"

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The night was terrible.  The wind became a gale.
It assailed the tents; in the near hemlock grove it
wrenched off great boughs; it lifted lighter brands from the
fire and scattered them broadcast.  There was a constant
watch, which Samantha shared, to drag aside and beat out
dangerous embers.  The fire was enclosed in a circular
windbreak of rocks, and other stones were brought to pin
down the bellying canvas and ballast the working stakes.
Up the mountain clouds clashed in thunder; the plateau
was pelted by swift and furious storms of hail.

The final watch fell to Stratton.  The wind was piercing
and for warmth he tramped the earth.  Once he stopped
to lift a fresh log on the fire, and, drawing himself erect,
his eyes rested on the women's tent.  "She must be
sleeping," he told himself.  "I hope so; she was so
unhappy about that black.  That is her way—to take things
hard—pleasure or sorrow.  Jove, how she could love a
man.  But—she would hold him to his best, always,
in every common move of every day."  He shrugged his
shoulders and swung on his heel to look out into the
darkness of the valley.  It was so dense that the
flame-illumined plateau seemed to rim an abyss.  "That was
it—the reason I went so nearly to pieces for that minute,
there on the glacier.  I felt the Puritan in her all at once
demanding the best in me.  And there was no best; there
never can be."  He tramped another interval.  "But,"
he said at last, and the steel flashed again in his eyes,
"there is not a man living I am afraid to face; and if
I ever loved a woman—or thought I did—sooner or
later she was glad to have me tell her so.  I never have
failed to get what I wanted, all my life, and I am going
to want—*her*."

At daybreak it was snowing on the plateau.  He roused
Kingsley.  "Captain," he cried, shaking the sleeper,
"Captain, wake up; we must hurry."

Philip rose, stretching himself, stiffly, and drew aside
the tent-fly.  "It doesn't look much like the summit
to-day," he said.

"Summit?" repeated Stratton with disgust, "summit?
What we have to think of, is the quickest way to get these
women out of this."

A gust of wind rushed through the aperture, past
Kingsley, and filled the tent.  It lifted the canvas,
balloon-wise, scattering the ballast, up-pulling the stakes, and
carried it far afield.  It led the men a chase, but they
secured it and struggled with it back to the plateau.
Truly it was not a day for mountain-tops.

Camp was broken hurriedly, each of the men taking
the necessary shoulder pack, and leaving the bulk of the
outfit to be sent for when they should find horses.  They
pushed quickly down from the snow, which became rain
in the woods.  And Alice led the way.  She studied the
trail continually, separating the tracks of the ponies,
where they struck the path down the valley, from the
deeper, water-filled impressions of the American horses.
She set Stratton a pace, and kept it almost to the ford
of the Paradise.  Then suddenly she stopped an instant,
listening, and ran on along the bank to an old log
foot-crossing.  There on the end of the bridge, sheltered by
a trailing cedar, were her bridle and saddle; and picketed
on a grassy knoll under some alders she saw the black.

"Oh," she said, and took his head in her arms, "you
beauty!  You heart's desire!  But I knew—I knew Mose
couldn't take you; I knew it."

Stratton stood for a moment watching her.  "So,"
he said, "so the rascal was white enough to leave your
horse.  He brought him this far with the others to avoid
pursuit last night."

Alice looked off a thoughtful moment, through the
dripping trees.  "I knew his white conscience would get
to upbraiding him," she said.  "But I can't help feeling
glad he chose Colonel for the compromise."

Stratton laughed.  "I hope it will upbraid him some
more," he said, "and induce him to leave my horse."

She would not mount, but waited for Louise to take the
black.  She herself was not tired, and she moved lightly
up the log, pausing fearlessly, mid-channel, to watch
Colonel feel his steps through the ford and leading him
up the bank and on some distance, until she was assured
he would carry her sister quietly.  The rain fell with
renewed downpour, but she walked unmindful of boughs
that drenched her shoulders, and dripping skirts that
weighted her limbs.  Delight shone in her eyes; whole
face seemed to reflect some far illumination.  She had
recovered Forrest's horse; the day was faultless.

But at last she was in the saddle and descending to the
ford of the Nisqually.  The cloud-wrack was breaking
then, and shafts of sunlight struck the wet, green earth.
Stratton walked a trifle in advance, looking for a safe
crossing over the rising channels.  Suddenly he stopped,
and the black also halted, tossing his mane and shrilling
his ready, challenging neigh.  There, moving out of the
stream, up the opposite bank, was a riderless horse.  It
was Sir Donald.

Stratton whistled, a soft, imperative note.  The chestnut
wheeled.  The man repeated the call, and the horse
trotted gently back into the channel.  He halted once more
on a gravel bar, his head high, ears alert, then came on
across to his master.

"So," said Stratton, slowly, "So, Donald, you showed
the rascal your little trick.  You see, Miss Hunter, it
was as I thought.  Mose chose the best horse.  But he
never mounted him.  In his hurry he laid his hand on
the bit, and Sir Donald never allows that; he was trained
that way."

With this he vaulted into the saddle and led the way
over from bar to bar.  He returned bringing the black, and
while the others made the crossing Alice waited, seating
herself on a rock in the sun, and lifting her face to the
upper canyon.  Presently the clouds parted like a rent
veil on the mountain.  Once more Gibraltar menaced and
the summit shone in splendor.

"After all," she said, when Stratton rejoined her,
"I can't blame Mose for that belief.  I felt it
myself, for a moment, there on the glacier.  It was
the steps of the Great White Throne.  You can't understand."

"No," he replied, "No, you are right, I cannot.  I
am outside the circle."

He bent and offered his hand to mount her on his horse,
her sister having kept the black, and she sprang lightly
up.  "Then," she said, while he adjusted a stirrup,
"you see no excuse for Mose?"

"No," and his face hardened, "No, I only see the half-breed
threw me into that crevasse.  He took me off guard.
And he left us miles from anywhere, on that unknown
mountain, in a storm, without horses.  His motives do
not count."

Sir Donald started, trailing after the black.  The little
company filed slowly down to the mineral springs.  And
there, in the open, unpicketed, ready for the long trail,
they found the other horses quietly feeding in company
with Ginger and the pack animals.

While Samantha made a fire and prepared the coffee
the two men caught and picketed the herd, reserving the few
horses necessary for a hurried trip back to the plateau for
the outfit.  And it was Alice, who, going for a drink from
her favorite well, discovered Mose.  He was lying
semi-conscious on the wet earth, and over his black brows,
branded with the tip of an iron shoe, Sir Donald had set
his mark.

The teacher dipped her handkerchief in the basin and
bathed the hurt.  She went to ask Stratton's flask of him,
and mixed the boy a draught, and, a little later, when the
young man followed her to the spring, he found Mose able
to recognize him.  He stood a silent moment watching
him with hard eyes, and the boy met the look steadily;
his muscles stiffened as they had that day at school, when
he braced himself to Laramie's blow.  Stratton's lip
curled in disgust.  After all, he could not punish the fellow,
down, helpless like that.  He swung on his heel.

"Wait," said Alice, "it was just as you thought.
The scheme to steal the horses was Yelm Jim's; he was
to meet him at the branch to the Pass and help drive
them over the mountains to the Palouse plains.  But he
meant to leave Colonel; he only brought him as far as
the Paradise to avoid being overtaken.  And that trouble
at the crevasse was unpremeditated.  He was terribly
frightened by the gathering storm.  He believed it was a
judgment coming on us all, and he took the opportunity
to—use you—for a propitiation.  Afterwards, in the
night, he crept back up the valley far enough to see the
camp-fire, and you, safe—and keeping watch on the
plateau."

There was another brief silence.  Stratton stood,
still hard, uncompromising, frowning down at the boy.
"Be merciful," she said.  "Think; you were not hurt;
you have Sir Donald, unharmed.  Be generous.
Sometime,—who knows?—you yourself may ask it."

"No," he flashed, "No.  I live my life; I do as I please.
I ask nothing of anyone.  And in the end—I take what
I deserve.  That is my creed.  The boy must be punished."

He turned away, but she followed.  In her earnestness
she laid her hand on his sleeve.  "He has been punished,"
she said.  "Look.  He will carry Sir Donald's brand all
his life.  He's just a boy, Mr. Stratton.  He left home
angry, outraged, and Yelm Jim took the opportunity to
make him his tool.  But he has good in him, I know.
Remember, too, he saved my life.  And I need him;
I'll be responsible for him."

Her eyes were raised to Stratton eloquent with appeal;
the hand on his arm trembled.  "You need him; he saved
your life."  He paused and the hardness went out of
his face.  "And you saved mine—you saved mine; I
do not forget that.  And perhaps you were right just now;
sometime I may ask that mercy.  I may ask it of—you."

Her hand fell from his sleeve; she drew back a step.
"I will be ready," she said slowly, "if you are good to
Mose."  She looked back at the boy.  He was watching
her.  His lip quivered and his eyes filled with unaccustomed
tears.  "I'll be responsible for him," she repeated, "I'm
going to make him white."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`UNCLE SILAS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   UNCLE SILAS

.. vspace:: 2

It was the morning following his election and Judge
Kingsley was taking a late breakfast in his dining
room.  He had laid aside the newspaper,—an interesting
number, devoted chiefly to his final speech, a personal
and flattering editorial, and the returns,—to conclude
some business details with Forrest, who, seated near the
open French window, overlooking the terraced orchard,
made brief memoranda in his note-book.

The Judge, then, was a man in his first prime, with
that commanding presence that does not challenge
attention or respect, because he has long been sure of both.
He carried with ease a suggestion of coming weight, and
his voice, deliberate, sonorous, was that of a born orator.
"There, Forrest, I believe that is all."  He pushed back
his chair and crossed his hands on his ample front.
"Your father knew how to manage men, and, there at
Tumwater, he gave you a thorough apprenticeship.  He
left you his executive ability and his knowledge of timber.
But, if the Freeport mills pay expenses these first two
years, and Philip learns something of business and
the value of money, I shall have accomplished my
purpose."

Forrest smiled, his smile of the eyes, shaking his head.
"I'm not much of a diplomat; what I say is always just
what I think.  But I'll do my best."  He put the
notebook into his pocket, and looking at his watch, rose and
took his hat.  "I shall be able to catch the down steamer,"
he said.

"Better wait over a day or two; the young people
would miss you tonight at the ball.  And I want to speak
to you about another matter."  The Judge paused,
stroking his blond beard.  "I want to speak to you
about—Alice."

Forrest returned to his chair.  His eyes sought the
window, avoiding the Judge's scrutiny.  Louise was there,
swinging her child in a hammock under the cherry trees.
Her supple body swayed to the effort in unconscious grace;
the loose sleeves of her house gown fell away from her
uplifted, lovely arms, and the pose of her head brought
out the beautiful lines of throat and oval chin, but he
saw her absently.

After a moment the Judge added, "You never knew
her mother."

"No."  The young man turned in quick relief.  "No,
I never knew her.  I was still a small boy when my father
came to take charge of the Tumwater mills, and that
tragedy of the Cowlitz had happened several months
before.  It has always seemed unaccountable to me;
those old voyageurs understood a canoe; they must have
made that trip down to the Columbia a good many times."

"True," answered the Judge, "but there was a strong
spring chinook blowing, and the sudden melting of snows
at the headwaters.  The river was flooding; the current
changed and the accident occurred at a shifting log jam."

There was a brief silence, then he went on, "She was
on her way with Philip's mother to visit their early home
in Oregon.  There was something fine in that friendship
of those two young women.  Their lives had begun together
in that small frontier settlement; they married at the
same time men who were, themselves, warm friends,
comrades in adventure and endurance; and they came
that double wedding journey by canoe and trail, to
start a social foundation here at the new capital of the
young territory.  And later, they faced their tragedy of
the Indian war, when both husbands fell, fighting in the
same skirmish.  It softens the terror of that last journey
to know they met the end together.

"But I shall always blame myself for letting them
go down the Cowlitz without me;" and his voice
vibrated a soft undernote.  "I loved Alice Hunter.  We
were to have been married when she returned."

Forrest met the Judge's look; a sudden intelligence,
sympathy, shone in his young eyes.  "I understand,"
he said slowly, "I understand."

"I loved her always, from the first time I saw her,
riding her little pony along the bluffs of the upper
Columbia.  It was the day I reached the river after my long
journey overland, from New York.  She was the first—the
one woman.  And—she had promised to be my
wife—before John Hunter came."

"I understand," repeated Forrest, and his glance
moved in delicacy to the window.  "I understand."

He saw clearly, in that moment, this great man's devotion,
through years, to that memory; the fineness of his
solicitude for her children.  They had shared the home
he had established for his brother's boy.  He had lavished
benefits upon them; borne the expenses of their liberal
education; made himself their natural protector, guardian,
friend.

"And the new Alice is her reincarnation."

The Judge paused and Forrest gave him another look,
swift, searching, and rose from his chair.  He stood like
a soldier at attention; or, like a man who sees certain
danger, yet prepares himself for that inevitable of which
he is afraid.

"She has the same bright face, the same quick intelligence,
the dauntless spirit speaking in her eyes; the same
decided uptilt of the chin; the same ruddy, shining
hair."  The Judge rose and moved a step towards him.  "I was
still a young man when I brought her home, Paul, and I
have watched her grow.  You cannot understand that.
What it meant to see the child unfold; what it cost me
later, to be her every-day companion, friend, to shape her
pliant mind, and yet to—make no sign."

Forrest moved to the window, squaring his back to
the room.  He stood looking down across the orchard
and the maple-lined streets of the town, to the shining
sea; but his hand groped for the casing and held it with
a steadying grip.  The Judge drew nearer.  He dropped
his hand on the young man's shoulder, and the tender,
insistent pleading that was the chief charm of the orator
dominated his voice.  "I know I am facing very possible
defeat.  It is natural that you two should think a good
deal of each other, Paul, and there isn't another man on
earth to whom I could better trust her.  I am fond of
you; I believe in you; I have called you the man of the
future Northwest.  Still she has chosen that hard life up
in the wilderness, and you are leaving her there.  If there
is nothing between you, if you do not love her, I shall
ask her to go to Washington with me—to be my wife."

Forrest turned.  His face was gray; suddenly older.
"I don't stand in your way," he said.  "I am just her
friend, the one she depends on.  That's all.  She refused me."

"She refused you?"  The Judge laid both hands on
the young man's shoulders, compelling his look.  "She
refused you?  And you love her—*like this*."

Forrest drew away from his detaining grasp.  "I must
catch that steamer," he said.  He went back to his chair
and picked up his hat.  "Good-by."  He lifted his head,
smiling a little, and offered his hand; but his glance
moved beyond the Judge to the window once more, and
he started.  "She is here," he added unsteadily.  "She
is there with her sister on the terrace.  Good-by and
*good luck*."

He was gone and the Judge stood regarding the closed
door.  Then a light step on the threshold of the open
window roused him and he turned.

"Good morning, Uncle Silas," she said, "I had to
come right in and congratulate you on the election, though
Louise told me you were talking business with Paul."

Her glance searched the room.  Disappointment clouded
her face.

"He was here," answered the Judge.  "He hurried
away to catch the steamer back to Freeport."

"Why," she said in surprise, "Louise told me he came
over with them in the *Phantom* to hear the returns, and
I thought—of course it was expected he would wait to
go back with them after the ball.  But," and she
turned with recovered brightness to the small boy who
stood waiting on the threshold, "this is Lem Myers,
Uncle Silas.  He came to see town and the salt water."

"Good morning," said the Judge, weighing this future
voter with speculative eyes.  "Good morning.  You are
just in time for a cruise.  To-morrow my nephew will
show you what the *Phantom* can do.  I suppose you
never have boarded a yacht?"

"Wal, no," Lem moved towards the chair the politician
offered, stepping high in new and unaccustomed shoes.
"No, I dunno's I hev."

"But of course the first thing, you want to try Olympia
oysters.  Hop Sing manages a good pan roast."  He rang
and gave the order to the Chinese cook, and Lem
proceeded to adapt himself to the elegant appointments of
the table.

The teacher had taken the opposite chair.  "Oh,"
she said presently, "I know I have missed things; torchlight
processions and rallies, and orations,—I shall read
that last speech directly,—and I'm sure you have
been serenaded by all the bands.  I do love a band, Uncle
Silas."

"They will play again," said the Judge, laughing,
"and I hope one at a time, and tonight you can enjoy
the ball.  But no doubt that is what brought you all the
way from Nisqually.  You expect to lead that ball."

She shook her head.  "Your first dance belongs to
Mrs. Governor, Uncle Si; we can't choose.  That's the
penalty of greatness."

The Judge laughed again, a soft rumble.  "My dear,"
he said, after a moment, "isn't it about time you left off
calling me Uncle?"

She looked at him, flushing, with quick surprise.  "I
understand," she said softly, "I understand.  I should
have thought of it long ago.  Of course I always speak
of you differently to strangers, but among ourselves—why—  It
was you who taught me, at the first, when I
was a little girl."

"Oh, but you don't understand," he replied hurriedly.
"I mean—you see, my dear, when you were a child a
young man seemed so much your senior; the years between
us do not count so much since you are a woman.  In short,
it should be more natural to call me just Silas—or even Si."

"Call you—Si?  Oh, how could I?" and she threw
her head back and laughed and laughed.  "Good morning—Si.
I congratulate you on the election—Si—"
the words came with difficulty, between trills of
merriment.  "I am very proud of you—Si.  But it was what
we expected; you are the one man big enough for the
place—Si—and all the territory knew it.  Oh, indeed,
indeed, I cannot.  It's so ridiculously familiar.  But,
yes, I will do it, I'll try if you—" she paused and
looked away through the open window.  "The truth is—of
course I want to go to the ball, immensely, but I
came from Nisqually really—because—to ask—"

The Judge laughed, his pleasant undernote.  "I see,"
he said, "I see, you are ready to come home.  I've expected
it; I've waited for it, and I've missed you more than you
can ever know.  But things are changed.  I am going East
in a few months and the house here will be closed.  You
do not want to make your home with Louise at Freeport."  He
broke off and walked over to the window.  Directly
he turned, and, with his back to the light, his hands clasped
loosely behind him, stood regarding her.  "The home
here was broken up when you went away," he added,
"and I shall find it lonelier still at Washington—unless—"

"Oh," she interrupted brightly, "I'm sure you will be
very gay there.  Think what it means; to be the representative
from the big new Northwest.  A man distinguished,
almost rich, and a bachelor.  Why, you will never have a
dull moment—Si."

He caught the swift look from under her lashes and
smiled.  "You are still laughing at me, yet that life at
the capital would suit you well.  You were meant for
pleasant places, to hold your own among bright women
and distinguished men.  And I am eager to show what
manner of woman the crude West can produce.  My dear,
you would outshine them all."

"Oh," she said, and clapped her hands an instant to
her ears, "you need not practise those fine speeches on
me, your success is assured; you will live in a whirl.
And don't trouble about me, Uncle Silas; I'm not
asking to come home.  I—I only want you to go to
the Land Office with me.  I—I am going to—file a
claim."

"You are what?"

"I am going to locate a homestead."  And her voice
tripped on the word.

"You are going to locate a homestead?  You?"

"Oh, Uncle Silas,"—she rose and walked a few steps,
then turned facing him with tilting chin and ruffled brows.
"Why do you stand and frown like that at me?  I'm
not the first woman to take up Government land.  Do
you know of any reason why I shouldn't?  I'm native
born, and I'm twenty-one."

Lem cast an appreciative wink at the Judge, and,
having reached familiar terms with the dish which Hop
Sing had placed before him, he devoted himself to a second
generous installment of Olympia oysters.

"But," said the Judge, "you are not going to improve
that homestead like any settler?  You do not intend to
live there?"

"Yes," she answered, her voice again wavering, "I
do.  I am having the trail cut through to the schoolhouse
now; Mose Laramie is doing it, and I have made a contract
with him to cut the logs for my cabin.  In payment
he is to have the best gun I can find in Olympia.  I want
you to help me select it.  But this is the piece,"—she
paused to draw a township plat from her pocket.  "It
is all that's required; the soil is a good loam; a fairly
level bottom-land at the foot of a great side-hill.  And
at the same time, I want to make a timber filing on the
adjoining quarter up the slope.  It is almost free of
undergrowth except along the stream.  There are some fine old
trees.  You see, too, the section is at the headwaters of
the Des Chutes and I want to secure the water rights to
these falls."

She was unmistakably in earnest and the incredulity
in the Judge's face changed to dismay.  He took the map
and studied it.  "I see," he said slowly, "I see."  There
was a brief silence, then his voice, that voice of the
orator, took its pleading undernote.  "Why will you do
this thing?  If you must create your own opportunities,
there are other ways.  Why, it is unbelievable.  If ever
there was a woman made for civilization, you are that one,
yet you choose to bury yourself in the wilderness; to take
up a claim in the heart of a jungle; to share the hardships
of rough and ignorant pioneers."

"But I am a pioneer," and he saw the rising storm in
her eyes, "the daughter of pioneers.  You taught me
to be proud of it, Uncle Silas; you loved to remind me
my mother was born on the Columbia, and that her
father, a New England missionary, followed Marcus
Whitman to Oregon.  You never let me forget that my
other grandfather was among the first to enter the Straits
of Fuca, and sailed his own ship a hundred miles, straight
up Puget Sound, without chart or pilot.  You called it a
great record.  And my father was the pioneer surveyor.
You talked about those seasons you spent in camp with
him, while he blazed the great military road through the
forest, running his section lines over rocky spurs and
through cedar swamps, until I should count it a triumph
to have carried chain for him.  You see it was born in me,
Uncle Silas.  I can't help it—and I've got to turn it to
the best account.  It was my only inheritance."

Her voice broke at the last, and the assurance dropped
from her like a shell.  She stood before him, lovely,
irresistible, extenuating a weakness.

"Oh," he said in evident distress, "you have misunderstood
me.  I wouldn't have you any different.  Surely
you know it?  To me you are the embodiment of all that
is fine and sweet and best in this great Northwest that I
love.  You are the spirit of it all.  And your people were
above criticism, Alice.  Only, the memory of their
fortitude makes me tremble for you.  Your father, that
splendid young fellow with almost a lifetime before him,
was cut off in ambush; and your mother—was drowned
in the Cowlitz.  I want to have you—safe."

He began to walk the floor, slowly, with his hands still
clasped behind him, his head bent, a cloud on his face.
And she waited in respectful silence, watching him with
a sweet and regretful tenderness in her eyes.  She believed
she understood those memories from which had sprung
all his great kindness to her.  Finally he stopped at the
table and again spread out the plat.  "This must be near
the section Forrest told me about," he said.  "Why, it
looks like the very one.  He was debating on taking it up,
himself, at the time I offered him the management at
Freeport."

Her glance fell before his inquiring look, and the
ready color flamed.  "Paul doesn't know," she said.
"Please say nothing about it to any one.  You see,
Uncle Silas,—you see—the country is being settled
very fast, and if I don't make this entry, some one else
will."

There was another brief silence, then the Judge said,
"Poor Forrest! you are even bent on taking his chosen
section of land."

The color leaped again in her face.  She moved a few
steps to the window and stood with her back to him,
looking down through the orchard to the shimmering
Sound.  "He told you?" she said.

"Yes, he told me.  I asked him.  It had always seemed
so natural you should care something for him; he is well
worth caring for.  It seems incredible that you should
refuse a fine, interesting young fellow like him."  He
paused, and his voice took its soft undernote.  "I asked
him, Alice, because I want to take you to Washington.
There is only one way I can ask you to go.  My dear,
you understand—I love you."

She moved, startled, and laid her hand on the casing,
where Forrest's had been, waiting.  It was the gesture of
a woman who feels suddenly, without premonition, the
foundations of her world shake.  He saw her shoulders
lift; her whole body trembled.  His glance passed from
her, through the window, and on down the slope to the
shining sea, and slowly returned.  "It is, then, impossible,"
he said.  "I am impossible.  Well, forget all about it,
little girl; it's all right.  It's all right.  Your happiness
first; nothing else counts."

"Dear Uncle Silas."  She turned, smiling, though her
lip quivered and she brushed her hand across her eyes.
"*You* count.  I owe all I am to you.  And you—are
not impossible.  I—I'm very fond of you.  Its
true—Silas."  She nodded her head brightly, and dashed her
hand again across her eyes.  "And I will go to Washington—I'll
be—glad—proud—to be—your wife—as soon
as the homestead is safe."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`LEM AND THE *PHANTOM*`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   LEM AND THE PHANTOM

.. vspace:: 2

Lem never forgot that ball.  The teacher found him
a nook from which he overlooked the entire floor;
and he never tired of recounting to the always newly
impressed settlement, the glories of the pageant.  How
"ther Jedge led ther parade an' was ther biggest toad
in ther hull puddle."  How "two fiddles an' er pianer an'
er horn kep er goin' all ter oncet.  An' clothes—ther
Nisqually hedn't never seed sech clothes.  Why, ther
schoolmarm herself was fixed ter beat ther band, in er
dress as soft an' thin as tons o' tissue paper, an' er gold
chain, fine as er thread, clamped 'ith shiny little stones;
an' she hed er mighty fine an' sassy feather—he couldn't
fur ther life of him tell off'n what bird—stuck in her
hair.  An' pretty, land, ther wa'n't a girl there could
hold er candle to her.  An' ther boys all knew it; some of
'em, Mr. Stratton fur one, 'lowed they wouldn't dance
'ith nobody ef it couldn't be her; an' ther minute ther
fiddles struck up somebody was on hand ter streak her
off.  Gee, they'd orter seen her.  She jest picked up er
handful o' white goods, an' her little feet went chasin'
in an' out like er couple o' chipmunks foolin' in er holler
cedar stump."

But if the ball was unforgettable, the cruise on the
*Phantom*, the following day, marked an epoch in Lem's life.

"I think," said the teacher, as they approached the
water front, "we shall come back at flood-tide with a fine,
choppy sea."  Her eyes caught the sparkle of the waves,
and she inhaled the salt air in deep, full breaths.  There
was the noise of running water about the piers, and the
flat kerthug of the *Phantom* as she rose and dipped
uneasily; but no whitecaps as yet, though the Sound,
whipped by passing gusts, darkened and ruffled fitfully.

"Oh," said Stratton, who had joined the little party,
"you will come back in the teeth of a gale, I promise you."

Philip stood regarding Lem with quizzical gravity.
"I never knew it to fail with a new hand aboard, and
this time I believe we're shipping a Jonah."

Stratton laughed softly, and handed the ladies aboard.
Lem watched the feat with growing concern.

"There was once a man from Missouri," said Kingsley
seriously, "who had to be lassoed the first time, and
brought aboard."

"I'll resk it," and Lem pushed hastily forward, setting
his feet on the gangplank and reaching for the Captain's
hand.

"That's right, my boy; and it may encourage you to
know that Missourian lived to be our mayor in time."

The *Phantom* swung out with a lurch, and, slipping
into the seat next the teacher, Lem grasped firm hold.
Stratton took the helm and Philip went to the shrouds.
The sails swelled to a scurrying gust, then flapped loosely.
They filled again from another quarter and the yacht
careened to the swinging boom.  Lem's clutch tightened.
Alice covered his hand with her palm.  "Isn't it fine?"
she asked.

"I'd ruther be erstride o' Ginger."  He met her smile
with a sidelong glance and looked again with apprehension
at the flapping canvas.  "But Jake 'lowed I'd git used
to it."

"Who is Jake?" inquired Stratton.

"Jake?"  Lem relaxed his grip on the rail, for the
*Phantom* settled steadily.  "Jake?  He's my cousin;
Samanthy's brother.  An' he's be'n clear ter British
Columby.  He went over oncet fur ther Queen o' Victory's
birthday."

"And he had a great time, I'll wager," said Kingsley,
coming back to the helm.

"Yes, but he counted on seeing ther Queen.  He
'lowed she'd be to ther head o' ther parade, 'ith her gold
crown on, an' ther rest o' her fine truck."

"And wasn't she?"

"Naw, she wa'n't ther.  Aunt Lucindy 'lowed ther hull
thing was er fizzle; but then she counted on bringin'
back er lot o' goods; cloth an' hats an' shoes; I
dunnot what all.  You kin get 'em twice as cheap over
to Victory ef you don't hev ter pay no duty.  An' she
made errangements 'ith ther neighbors ter do buyin'
fur em."

"And," said Kingsley, "I suppose she made other
arrangements to elude the Customs officers?"

"Ef you mean she laid out ter fool ther Gov'ment men,
you're right.  She made er mattress ter fit over ther one
on the steamboat, an' she filled it 'ith ther goods.  But they
was too sharp fur her.  Fust thing she knew ther boss was
haulin' off ther covers, an' er rippin' open that ther tick.
An' he poured ther stuff all out onter ther cabin floor,
'ith ther hull crowd lookin' on; an' Jake says they laughed
like all purzest.  An' he took the goods,—Jake 'lowed
he kept ther pile,—'ith Aunt Lucindy er cryin' an' er
takin' on."

"But it was smuggling, Lem," said the teacher in
dismay.  "I hadn't believed a Myers could do a
dishonorable thing."

Lem threw back his head and narrowed his ferret eyes.
"You kin jes' bet er Myers ain't er goin' ter let er good
chancet slip; not ef he knows it; no, ma'am."

He thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned back
comfortably in his seat.  But if the temporary ease of
the yacht had lulled his apprehensions they were speedily
revived by a lurch that carried away his hat and enveloped
his head in spume.  He sprang to his feet, spluttering,
clutching at the helm, losing his foothold on the slanting
deck, while the *Phantom* raced down before the sudden flaw.

"Why, Lem, it's all right, there isn't a bit of danger.
And you shall have a new hat."  The teacher placed a
dry cushion and drew him down into his seat.  She
wrapped him in a shawl, pulling it snugly over his head,
and he cuddled in it like a frightened squirrel, making a
peephole for his small, bright eyes.

Her own hat was gone and she bent to search a locker
trying at the same time with one hand to secure a loosened
mass of wet, curling, wind-roughened hair.  Presently
she brought to light an oilskin hat, which she drew over
her head, tilting the brim so that the rollicking wind had
still a chance at the shorter hair, tumbling it, twisting it
into burnished spirals about her ears.  She stood for a
moment, catching easily the swing of the yacht, and looked
far out across the stirring reach of blue.  And surely the
spirit of that dauntless explorer, her grandfather,
dominated her; there was an exaltation in her face; delight
in every breath she drew.

Stratton watched her in undisguised pleasure.  "There
is no other country as favorable to the traffic," he was
saying.  "It is utterly impossible to guard the whole
border.  A regiment of soldiers might be able to patrol
the woods on the mainland, but it is easier to trail an
Indian than to follow a fleet craft through the Archipelago
de Haro."

"No doubt that's the way most smuggling is carried
on," replied Kingsley.  "And it's an open secret that
there are men on Puget Sound, living right in Seattle,
fine, well-established men, who wouldn't defraud each
other or any business man out of a dollar, yet conduct a
systematic and successful opium ring."

Louise turned to him in protest.  "Oh, Philip, you
don't know such men, personally.  You ought not to
repeat such an idle rumor.  Of course, if you had grounds
for the suspicion, knew certain circumstances, you
would do all in your power to aid the Government to
apprehend these men.  To stand neutral is to connive
in—*crime*."

"Oh, Mrs. Kingsley, that is a harsh word."  The
quick flush that leaped in Stratton's face as quickly
died, leaving it pale.  His glance moved seaward.  "There
are enormous duties on some things, for
instance—opium."  He paused and his look returned; he smiled.
"You forget you, yourself, are descended from people
who objected, strenuously, to the payment of exorbitant
duty.  But we should hardly say that those exemplary
Bostonians, who appropriated a whole cargo of tea,
committed a crime."

"Oh," she said, with growing indignation, "how can
you draw such a comparison?  How can you?  We are a
young territory, Mr. Stratton, with a wide, unsettled
border.  What will become of us if the few educated and
able men among us fail?  If they wilfully break established
laws; sink to the level of common smugglers, thieves?"

She rose in fine scorn from the place beside him and
took a distant seat.  Stratton's look followed her and the
flush again left his face pale.  "But I forgive her," he
said at last, softly, "I forgive her, she is so charming
when she is angry.  Where most any other woman's voice
would shrill, hers always drops to that nice contralto
note."

"And you know she is right," said Alice, taking the
vacant place.  "It's just what I should have said, if she
hadn't."

"Yes?"  And he smiled again.  "That surprises me—after
that experience on the mountain."

"That was different.  Mose believed he was justified.
He was true to his traditions.  That summit was his holy
of holies and we were vandals come to desecrate."  Her
eyes turned to the great crest of Mt. Rainier, looming
out of the southeast, its crater hollowed gently, like a
throne between its triple alabaster domes.  "Whenever
I try to shake that belief I feel guilty, Mr. Stratton.
It's so much more beautiful than any I can offer in
exchange.  After all, the most I can do is to educate Mose
in other ways, and give him an occupation.  The rest
may come."

"I am hopelessly dense," said Stratton.  "I fail to
see why you draw the line so sharply.  You forgive that
young rascal of a horse thief and help him.  But you are
uncompromising, exacting, if a man has the misfortune
to be—well—a gentleman."

She gave him a level look.  "I consider the motive;
whether he knows better."

"Oh," said Philip, laughing, "you don't know her,
Stratton.  In her secret heart she'd love to be a smuggler
and a pirate, and defying the Government, go sailing down
among those purple islands of De Haro.  And principle
or no principle, it would be great fun, I confess, to match
my little boat against a revenue cutter.  Only give me the
wind and a fair start, and I could set a pace for the best
of them.  There isn't a channel I haven't taken her
through; and I'll wager I know every tide-rip and shoal
the Sound over."

Kingsley said what he pleased; his life was an open
sea.  If sometimes he ran too close into the wind, he
knew, or he thought that he knew, how to recover, but
his glance moved to his wife and rested a moment.

But clearly Louise no longer listened.  Her face, the
face of a dreamer, rapt, sensitive, was turned to the
Olympic Mountains, shining across the ruffled sea.  It
was as though she saw farther than other women, and
beyond those amethyst peaks and shoulders, breaking
through cloud, up at the source of those shafts of mellow
light, that struck the gorges between the blue foothills,
she found a higher country all her own.

He drew his frame erect and began to whistle, lifting
his eyes to the swelling sails.  Then Alice took the guitar
from a sheltered place and caught the accompaniment.
And presently they began to sing.

   |  "'Twas a gallant bark, with a crew as brave
   |  As ever launched on the seething wave."
   |

The *Phantom* swung out from the old monastery on
Priest Point, and coming around, raced back before the
still freshening wind.  They skirted the Olympia peninsula,
and moved on up the narrowing arm.  Here were the
white walls of the capitol, rising from a grove of young
firs, and across the channel opened the wooded capes off
Cleale Place.  Then came the promontory, breaking from
Tumwater ridge; the Indian burial ground, where
the blankets, which screened the canoes of the dead in
the treetops, hung against the dark face of the bluff
like gaily painted squares.  And at last the yacht began
to feel a back current and stalked gently up towards the
white mills.

This was that "cradle" out of which Forrest had
stepped, and there off the bow rose the glooming cliffs,
where the lower Des Chutes hung a curtain of roped
pearls, and the long pale lips of the rapids curled and
menaced below.

Stratton took the guitar and repeated the tune, droning
a pleasing undernote.  And presently Louise awakened,
and the receding promontory, catching the contralto,
held the song a tragic moment and returned it transformed
to a requiem.

   |  "For the white squall rides on the surging wave,
   |    And the bark is gulfed in an ocean's grave,
   |      In an ocean's grave; in an ocean's grave."

But the soprano was silent.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE HOUSE-RAISING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE HOUSE-RAISING

.. vspace:: 2

..

   |  "I've travelled all over ther country, prospectin'
   |        an' diggin' fur gold;
   |    I've tunnelled, hydraulicked an' cradled, an' I hev
   |        be'n frequently sold.
   |  An' I hev be'n frequently s-o-old, an' I hev be'n
   |        frequently sold,
   |    I've tunnelled, hydraulicked an' cradled, an' I hev
   |        be'n frequently sold."
   |

Mose rested on his ax and listened.  It was a boy's
voice, loud and clear, though it slurred over
difficult notes, and filled in uncertain words with a whistle.
And it startled the woods, rising above the thunder of the
cataract, and rang a hundred echoes from cliff and spur.

   |  "So rollin' my grub in my blanket, an' leavin' my
   |        tools on ther ground,
   |    I started one mornin' to shank it, fur a country
   |        they call Puget Sound.
   |  Fur a country they call Puget So-ou-ound—"
   |

"Saprie, dat ees Lem Myers."  Mose lifted his ax
and lopped off a branch which trailed over the rustic
table he had completed.  All the space around him was
filled with building material; straight logs cut into even
lengths, rows of cedar shakes, piles of hewn flooring,
posts and rafters, newly made by hand from the felled
timber of the small clearing, and surrounded by a resinous
litter of boughs and chips.

   |  "'Arrivin' dead broke in mid-winter, I found it
   |      enveloped in fog,
   |  An' covered all over 'ith timber, thick as hair on
   |      ther back of er dog.
   |  Thick as hair on ther back of er do-o-g, thick as hair
   |      on ther back of er dog,—'

Aw, git up ther, Ginger, git up, I tell you."

Lem rounded a fallen hemlock, tugging at the halter
of the reluctant pony, who, heavily laden with hampers,
tinware and sundries, sidled this way and that at the
obstructions which culminated at the end of the new trail.
He lunged back from the long table, and rolling his
eyes, came to an immovable standstill.

Mose laid down his ax and walked over to the pony,
"Saprie, it ees not'ing to tek dese t'ings 'cross."  And
he waved his hand with pardonable pride towards a
small pavilion roofed in fir boughs.

"Guess we'll hev ter," answered Lem, surveying the
scene with evident satisfaction.  "This here no 'count
cayuse knows he ain't erlowed in nobody's front room.
No, sir, ther ain't no use tryin' ter make him budge."  And
he lifted his bare foot and gave the horse a resentful
thrust, which was received with a slight flinching of
the flanks, and increased exhibition of the whites of his
eyes.

"Hams?" enquired Mose, inhaling a deep breath
while he unbuckled the straps of a hamper.

"You bet," answered Lem.  "Hams and chickuns.
Ole Mother Girard cooked 'em."

"De ole madame ees be one good cook, for sure.  It
ees fine t'ing her Baptiste ees die, an' dat she ees able
sell de ranch, for it ees pos'ble she can stay all tam to
de cabane to work for de te'cher."

"This here," said Lem, lowering a second hamper to
the ground, "is prince-pally cake.  An' you kin jes'
bet ther ain't never be'n no sech cake in ther hull deestrict.
Ther schoolmarm made it herself, an' it's full o' ceetron,
an' raisins; I dunno what all.  She gimme this here
knife fur takin' ther seeds out.  I'd er done it fur nothin'
but I wa'n't goin' ter refuse no sech whittler's that."  He
took the knife from his pocket and exhibited the blades.
"I 'low it's ther same one I hed my eye on down ter
Yelm Station."

"Nawitka," answered Mose, returning the knife
after deliberate inspection, "it ees bran' new.  But to me
she ees give a'ready one piece gold monies, for dat
I ees work on de trail.  For dese logs an' shakes, an' dese
posts dat I ees help Mill T'ornton mek, she ees lak give
me one gran' new gun."

"Les see ther gold piece," said Lem.

"But no, it ees not here.  It ees bury in ver' good plas
to my fader's gardeen."

"I'll bet you was erfraid Mill er John Phiander'd
git it erway from you."

Mose flushed under the taunt and began to turn up his
denim sleeve.  "It ees bes' you doan' say dat to me,"
he said slowly.  "I am but 'fraid I lose dat gold monies
for it ees be so small.  Sacré, I t'ink I doan'
have some trouble to trash dose boys."  He doubled his
arm, clinching his hand.  "Feel dare, Lem Myers, and
dare.  Since I ees work to dose logs, Laramie, heemself
doan' have so beeg muscle."

Lem laid his fingers on the tense cords with a gradually
increasing pressure, while his glance moved from the
splendid forearm to the boy's frowning face.  "Oh, gee,"
he said reverently, "gee, but you've growed some, Mose.
I'd like ter see you tackle 'em both.  I 'low you could
lick either one of 'em 'lone, 'ith jes' one hand, or mebbe
'ith your little finger."

Mose smiled his fleeting smile and relaxed his arm.
"Saprie," he said, and turned again to the hamper,
"I beli've A'm able, ya-as."

"She baked this here cake in ther cookstove down ter
Yelm Station," said Lem, "an' it filled ther hull oven."  He
unfastened the lid of the basket and Mose came around
and looked over his shoulder.  The cake was wrapped
in a piece of muslin.  Lem brushed his hand across the
seat of his jeans and lifted the end of the cloth with the
tips of his thumb and finger.  "It ain't white clear
through," he added softly; "she made er kind o'
whitewash out'n eggs an' reg'lar first class sugar."

"It ees ver' gre't, for sure," said Mose, and he raised
a side of the hamper as though it was something holy,
and helped Lem carry it across to the pavilion.

When the remainder of Ginger's pack had been stored
they lingered in the arbor, making conjectures, and certifying
them, as to the contents of various bags and bundles,
until further investigation was stopped by the voice of
the teacher in the clearing.

It was a bright day at the end of February, the Puget
Sound spring, and she had found and fastened on her
breast a first cluster of Oregon currant.  The heart of the
blossoms was reflected on her cheeks; the light of the early
morning was in her eyes.  "Oh," she said, "what a
splendid table, Mose."  And turning to the town carpenter,
who accompanied her, "Isn't it fine?  And this is the boy
of whom I told you.  He has split all of the shakes, hewn
flooring, cut logs.  He has done everything except what
the young ranchers could do for me in a few odd days."

The carpenter admitted that Mose had done "uncommon
well."  Then while the boy, pleased and embarrassed,
led away and picketed the horses, she showed the man
the building site and talked over the material and plans.
But, presently, there were voices on the trail, and here
were the Laramies, the Phianders, with Eben Myers
and Martha and Mother Girard, followed by the people
from the prairie and many more.  The men walking,
bearing axes, saws, sometimes a rifle; the young folk
afoot also, while the older women and children rode
double and by threes on mules, draught horses, steers
and Indian ponies.  Then, were not those the hoof-beats
of John Phiander's Baldy, timed by the rapid pace of
Mill Thornton's sorrel?  And the plodders in the trail
must press quickly forward or crowd into the thicket, to
give the young blood room.

But these gay fellows were capable of sobering down.
They were ready to "match muscle," urging each other
with dares and taunts to set their swelling chests and
heaving shoulders to the heavy timbers.  And surely the
Nisqually had never seen another such raising; never so
great a company.  People from Yelm and Tenalquet
were there, and from Tacoma, in Pierce County beyond
the Puyallup.  The walls went up apace; the huge fir
rafters were swung into position, and then appeared a
wondrous gable, its sloping eaves arching a roomy balcony.
Surely the settlement had yet to see as fine a cabin.  Wild
things crept to cover.  And the soughing of the chinook
in the branches, the distant thunder of the falls, the falling
of rock up the mountain, were not to be heard in this
tumult of construction, the babel of voices, multiplied
by the answering clamor of the speaking hills.

But while these experienced settlers, men who had
themselves conducted raisings and superintended the
building of a score of cabins, moved about, taking meekly
the orders of the town carpenter, their wives followed the
novel directions of the young teacher.  Never before had
the Nisqually looked on such a table.  All the long board
was fringed with cedar and twigs of flowering dogwood;
turkeys and chickens placed on huge wooden platters
were garnished with the glossy leaves of the Washington
holly; hams in big trenchers, bearing yet the fragrance
of pine, were decorated with crisp sprigs of salal; and
there were haunches of venison and rounds of bear meat,
or at intervals a wild goose, a brace of ducks, all decked
with bright shoots of spruce or fir.  But the center
of the board was given to the great white cake, throned
on a bank of moss and embellished, to Lem's delight,
with small flags.  Others, of a larger size, intermingled
with Japanese lanterns, were fastened in groups and
singly among the trees which bordered the clearing.
The boughs over the table flamed with them.

"I give it up, but I 'low ther's 'bout five hundred."  Lem
cast a final calculating glance over the table and
the surrounding decorations.  He was seated on a lofty
stump, his arms folded, his bare heels beating a slow
tattoo on the bark.  "Ther small ones down to Yelm
sells fur ten cents er half dozen."  He paused, then added
speculatively, "I wonder what she's goin' ter do with
'em when she gits through?"

His reverie was broken by a summons to table, and in
the general rush, he slipped from his perch and ferreted
into a place at the foot of the board.  Only the men were
seated, while the women served; the children played or
loitered about, watchful of the chance attention that
sometimes fell to them.  At last in her rounds the boy's
mother detected him.  "Wal, ef you don't beat all,"
she said, stopping short with a huge tray of carved venison
in her hands.  "You git right up an' make yourself scarce
tell ther men's through."

Lem sat with his head bent, hands folded meekly;
Ginger himself had never shown greater dejection, and,
like Ginger, he did not move.

"Oh, let him erlone," said Mill Thornton, lifting his
tankard and including the company with a bland smile.
"He's goin' ter sing ther Ole Settler fur us."

"I ain't nuther; I dunno it.  Ask Cousin Samanthy."
Lem cast a sidelong glance at the young man, who blushed
hotly and put down his embarrassment with a draught
from the tankard.  "She'd be mighty diserpointed ef
you didn't ask her; she's be'n gittin' ready fur a week."

With this Lem helped himself liberally from the platter
in his mother's hands, and cast another look at Samantha,
who, also flushing pinkly, stood in amazement, while
the coffee-pot which she carried poured a brown stream
on the earth.

"Pshaw, 'tain't so," she said, drawing her breath
quickly.  "Lem 'lowed all along he'd sing it ef I'd learn
him ther words.  Fur ther land sakes," she added, addressing
the coffee-pot, which she speedily righted; and at
the same time she caught the skirt of her pink cotton frock
out of range.

"I dunno 'em all," said Lem, and boldly held out his
empty cup.

"Guess you'll hev ter, Samanthy," said Eben, laughing.
"Come, now, tune up."

At this, a cry repeated warmly by a score of throats,
the girl put down the coffee-pot and darted away.  It
then became Mill Thornton's office to pursue and bring
her back.  He was encouraged by shouts and laughter
as the pink dress appeared and disappeared among the
trees.

She stopped at length all flushed and panting, and
turned her face shyly to her pursuer.  "I guess I'll hev
ter, Mill.  I'm ready ter drop."

"You're mighty pretty that erway," he said softly,
putting his hand on her arm,—he felt its plump roundness
through the thin sleeve,—"I'd like ter kiss you, ef I
'lowed you could stand it to hev that ther tiresome crowd
laffin'."

"My stars, Mill," she said and all the imps in her eyes
mocked him, "ain't you good?  You're most er an-gel.
I'll bet under your shirt you kin jest feel ther wings er
sproutin'."

But even then his courage failed him.  "Oh, kem on,"
he said, "ther ain't er girl in this hull deestrict kin beat
you singin'.  I'm ready ter lick ther fellow says so."

He led her back towards the waiting company, his
grasp tightening on her arm.  She hung her head and
came reluctantly, catching at a branch, dragging her feet.

"Well," said Eben, putting down his mug and drawing
his hand across his whiskers, "ef you're done er bein'
bashful, now, Samanthy, we're ready ter listen."

She straightened herself with a little cough and looked
at her audience.  Then her glance fell and she shrank
behind her captor with a faint, "I don't like ter."

But the young man did not relax his hold, and though
his face crimsoned, he impelled her forward, closing his
lips firmly over locked teeth, and watching her warily,
as an athlete measures an uncertain antagonist.  And
he confessed to her privately, afterwards, that it "took
more nerve" to make her sing than was required later
"to put a head on Pete Smith."

She met his look helplessly, but straightened herself
once more, with that little cough, and commenced in a
clear quavering soprano.

   |  "I've travelled all over ther country, prospectin'
   |      an' diggin' fur gold,
   |  I've tunnelled, hydraulicked an' cradled, an' I
   |      hev be'n frequently sold."


The men grew silent, those to whom the song was new
giving attention only to the singer, the others dividing
interest between her and the table.  But the words appealed
to most, and convinced that, well started, she would brave
out the ordeal, Thornton resumed his place.  He masked
his face in a set expression of indifference, but when
his glance moved to Samantha, his bold young heart
leaped and proclaimed itself through the batteries of his
eyes.

She finished the song and took up her interrupted work
of pouring coffee.  Eben cleared his throat, and parted
his beard, stroking it gently.  "That ther chase you jest
hed, Mill, 'minds me of er time I hed over to Montaner.
I dunno's I ever let on 'bout that ther hunt o' mine."

He paused, still stroking his whiskers, while the audience
grew attentive.  "It was er full grown grizzly," he went on,
"an' I'd give her a mighty mean shot, so't she was fightin'
ugly.  I hedn't another catridge an' I dunno's I'd hed
time ter load up ef I hed.  I natu'ally hed ter light out,
an' ther wa'n't er tree in sight; nothin' but er few scrub
hazels.  But I got ter circlin' round them, ther bear after
me, tell ther first thing I see we was wearin' er reg'lar ditch
in ther ground.  When it got 'bout's high's my head he
let up er minute ter get his wind, an' I see my chanct ter
climb out.  I was jest dead beat an' all I could do was
ter lay down close ter that bank an' watch that ther
grizzly chase hisself—didn't seem ter miss me—tell
he dropped."

There was a pregnant silence, then young Thornton
said gravely, "It was er mighty close call, Eben, sure;
'bout ther closest you ever hed.  But I 'low you never
showed us that ther grizzly's skin."

There was another brief silence, during which Eben
thoughtfully regarded his empty plate.  "You're right,"
he said at last, "you're right, Mill, but that ther pelt
wa'n't worth keepin'.  You see when I clumb down after
it I see it was spoiled.  That ther ditch was mighty narrer,
an' scrapin' round so long he jest natu'ally rubbed ther
hair clean offn both sides."

The men, laughing, rose by twos and threes to return
to their work.  It was then, while the women and children
closed in around the table, that Stratton rode into the
clearing.  Though he had travelled far that day his
person was not the worse for it; and Sir Donald's
shining coat, his long, lithe body, slender limbs and
swelling chest, must have delighted more critical eye
than Alice Hunter's.

"This is very nice of you," she said, going to meet
him.  "I was just feeling a little homesick for a face from
the Sound.  But Judge Kingsley is in Washington, and
no one else knew of the house-raising.  What happened
to bring you?"

"Why, this quarter section caught my fancy the first
time I saw it, last summer, and I made up my mind to
take it.  But I heard, yesterday, an entry had already
been made, by a woman; probably one of these Canadian
daughters of the settlement, and the easiest course
was to hurry straight on to the headwaters, and ward
off her improvements, and buy her off."

"She is not to be bought."

"You think not?  Then,"—he gave her a side glance
and finished tying the knot in Sir Donald's halter,—"I
may decide to contest."

"Contest—this claim? you wouldn't do that?"

"Oh, yes I would."  He paused to break a sword
fern, with which he flecked off nicely a remaining bit of
dust from his riding-boot.  "I think I could make out a
very good case.  I should cover it with a timber filing."

"A timber filing," she replied quietly, "doesn't hold
over a homestead right.  At least, the exception is rare."

"But I should prove the exception.  I should prove
that the land is worthless for agriculture, and the timber
entry of the adjoining quarter would strengthen the
point.  I might, however, find it advisable to make the
location under mineral rights."

"But there is no mineral, to my knowledge, on this
tract; though beyond, somewhere, in these hills, I have
heard—there are indications."

"Then," and he waived that possibility, "it is enough
that it is one of the best timbered sections in the Puget
Sound Basin.  These are fine old trees.  And"—  He
paused to fleck an ant from his sleeve—"I have friends
at court."

"Doubtless."  Her patience was exhausted.  "Such
as those irreproachable men of whom Phil Kingsley once
told us."  She flashed him a look with that swift uplifting
of her chin, and turned her face to the high shoulder of
the hill.  Her lips closed firmly; her breath came a little
hard and quick; the ready color burned in her cheek.

Her retort brought the steel to his own eyes, but he had
no answer.  Her glance returned.  "How could you find
a timber claim desirable in this mountainous place?
Twenty miles from a railroad, and on the Des Chutes,
where to raft logs, or even dream of it, is sheer
madness?"

"But suppose I should wish to put up a sawmill, and
cut the timber right here on the ground?  It would be a
great thing for the settlement."  His smile, which always
hinted of mockery, lingered, and he watched her with
the quiet enjoyment of the true angler, who is sure, but
plays cautiously, to lose nothing of the sport.

"It might benefit the settlement," she said, and flashed
him another look of fine scorn, though he saw her lip
tremble, "but it would be years before you could hope
for returns on the investment."

At this he laughed outright.  "I withdraw," he said,
"I withdraw.  You are in fighting trim to your fingertips.
You know too much about land law, Miss Hunter;
the Judge has been a thorough instructor, and what you
do not know about logging and milling, I am inclined to
think is not worth knowing.  But the homestead is yours.
Now please establish a record for hospitality.  I've had
a long ride since breakfast."

"Do you mean—"  She paused, flushing, then lifted
her face to him all sudden brightness and charm.  "Oh,
you do mean it; I see—I see.  You were only teasing me.
It's hard, sometimes, to tell just where your jest breaks
off—or begins.  But did you really want this section?

"Yes, I looked it up at the Land Office, as I came
through Olympia, intending to make a timber entry, and
found the homestead filing under your name."  He had
followed her to the table, taking the seat beside her.  And
he stopped a moment, while he divided a roasted pheasant
which he shared with her, then he said, "I do not pretend
to fathom your reasons for burying yourself here in the
wilderness; it is enough for me to know that you want
this land.  And the next quarter, on the other side of the
cataract, is vacant.  It is unsurveyed, but the squatter's
right will serve me as well.  I only want the place now
for a sort of shooting-box; somewhere to stay in the
hunting and fishing seasons, and, incidentally, to carry
on a little traffic with Laramie and one or two other
trappers, who have shown me already some very good
furs."

She looked him over interestedly from this new point
of view.  "So," she said, "So, you are to be my
nearest neighbor, with just the river between.  Last
autumn I thought I should have all the big heart of the
hills to myself, but since Christmas Mill Thornton has
taken up the next section but one on the school trail,
and now you follow.  The country is being settled very
fast."  She turned her eyes again to that high spur.  After
a moment she asked, "Have you been in Seattle lately,
or at the mills?"

"Yes, I was there two days ago and saw your sister.
She was well, but I think that the isolation wears on her,
though she will not say so.  She admits, however, that she
misses you, and she and the Captain are planning a
cruise among the islands.  They are timing it for your
spring vacation, confident you will join them."

"Oh," she said, and delight shone in her eyes, "you
don't know how that tempts me; it's my favorite cruise."

"And you will arrange to go?"

She shook her head.  "How can I?  That short
vacation means so much to me; I've planned it all away.
Mose is going to clear a strip towards the river, for
Colonel's pasture, and it must be big enough for the
two Jerseys which Judge Kingsley is sending me.  And I
must furnish the cabin and take actual possession.  But
I don't know what to say to Louise.  She doesn't know
about this homestead, Mr. Stratton; I don't want her to
know.  You see it's all a venture; I might have to
relinquish; I might—fail."

"I understand," he answered, again laughing, "and
I promise to keep the secret from the Captain,—he can
ridicule,—I promise, provided you go that cruise."

"I'm afraid I must."  She shook her head again, ruffling
her brows.  "After all I ought to be able to spare this
one week to my sister; she's going to think I'm forgetting
her, often enough, before I'm through."

While they were talking a man had entered the clearing
from the river side.  He moved with a noiseless, sliding
motion, and, seating himself at the lower end of the
table, aloof from the children, who still loitered there,
began unceremoniously to appease a prodigious appetite.
Alice watched him in half recognition.  His face in the
strong light of midday was more than forbidding; it
repelled while it also possessed the fascination of extreme
ugliness.  His old ragged hatbrim, turned back from a
slanting forehead, left unshaded a pair of small, beadlike,
shifting eyes.  Suddenly she remembered where she had
seen him before.  It was at Laramie's cabin the time
she had taken refuge from the storm.  He was that
midnight visitor, Smith.

None of the settlers gave him special attention, though
Samantha filled his cup and Martha supplied him with
an abundance of meat and bread.  That was the unwritten
code of the wilderness; no man was ever turned away
hungry.  And this man, though an escaped criminal,
convicted of some crime against a remote Government,
belonged to the community; as long as he respected its
primitive laws he might come and go unmolested.  But
to pillage his neighbor—that was the unpardonable
sin.  And presently, at the moment of his departure, Smith
crossed this line.

A short cruiser's ax, which young Thornton always
carried in his belt over a new trail, was lying on a fallen
tree directly in the outlaw's way.  He was hampered by
his gun, as he vaulted the log, but, by some sleight of
hand, he slipped the ax under his blouse.  Instantly
there was a loud outcry, and before he could reach the
cover of the jungle a cordon of settlers cut him off.

He swung about to break for the thicket at another
point, but there the crowd closed.  He stood motionless,
weighing the odds, then he put his gun aside, setting the
stock against a stump, and the ax reappeared, resting in
the hollow of his arm.  He caressed the edge of the blade
lightly, with his long nervous fingers, and at the same
time raised his shifting eyes to the owner, who confronted
him.  "A'm have some look at your ax, Mill," he said at
last in a thick, choppy voice; "mebbe I lak to buy heem,
ya-as, you want to sell heem, hey?"

Thornton drew a step nearer.  "I 'low," he answered
with slow emphasis, "you've examined that ther little
ax of mine mighty close, Pete."

Smith understood.  There was little use of subterfuge
or denial.  This cordon of men had become a tribunal,
that, having already condemned, awaited the transgressor's
punishment.  His only escape hung on action, swift,
sure.  He swung the ax lightly, in a flash, but the instant
it left his hand, the young rancher dipped his great
shoulder, and rushing under the hurled blade, grappled
with him.  The confusion he had expected to create
failed; his chances of reaching the friendly jungle shrank
again.  He writhed, twisted out of Thornton's grasp, and,
snakelike, struck.  Harder pressed, he fought, without
system, ferociously, like a cornered rat, squeaking
horribly and using his teeth.

There could be no doubt of the outcome.  Nature,
in creating Thornton, had made an athlete, and the great
primal passions, latent in every man, sprang unleashed
to meet the beast with whom he had to deal.  His quick
blows gathered impetus.  His victim gave back slowly,
snapping, snarling, steps he made no effort to regain.
And the human ring moved with them, riverwards.  It
was miserable, but very swift, and the finish came when
the retreating man tripped backward over a root and
went down.

Laramie sprang to raise him, but at the same instant
the teacher, throwing off Stratton's detaining arm, pushed
into the circle and stood before the fallen man.  She did
not speak at once; the words, struggling in her throat,
choked.  But Thornton's great doubled forearm relaxed
and dropped at his side.  He met the command, the
reproach in her brave eyes and the fury in his own died.

"I will not have it," she said at last, and her voice rang.
"Remember,"—her look swept the cordon,—"from
this day I will not have fighting on *my land*."

There was a brief silence.  Laramie moved back to his
place.  Behind her the outlaw rolled on his side, then to
his stomach, and began to worm himself towards a cedar
that had broken the ring.  No one stopped him.  He
covered the ground with incredible swiftness, with a
writhing motion, learned of necessity and long contact
with the jungle, and like some hideous goblin crawled
under the dragging boughs of the tree.

Myers cleared his throat.  "Pete orter kep' erway,"
he said mildly.  "I 'low he didn't get mor'n was due him.
Tell you, I've seen er man over in Montaner catch it er
sight worse fur doin' less.  That ther's a mighty good
little ax o' Mill's."

Stratton, who had followed Alice closely, lifted Smith's
rifle and walked coolly over to the cedar and passed it
between the boughs.  The outlaw was on his feet, and he
clutched the gun and ran across the remaining bit of
open, and dropped out of sight in the dense undergrowth.

"Of course," she said, replying to Eben, "I understand
that.  The man must be punished; but there are better
ways."

"Ther nighest sheriff," said Eben, still mildly, "lives
to Olympia, sixty miles straight.  That's ther closest
jedge, too, an' court."

"Still, here are men enough to hold him," and her voice
deepened to a dominant note; "lock him in his cabin,
guard him until the right officers can arrive.  He should
have been turned over to the Government long ago,
you all know it, for greater crimes.  It must be done now."

She set her lips and turned, and for the first time realized
Smith was gone.  Stratton stood waiting near the cedar.
He saw the sudden relief flash through the consternation
in her face.  "You let him go," she said slowly.  "You
could have stopped him.  It was your duty."

"Yes," he came towards her, "I let him go.  I even
helped him off.  Pardon me or—punish me."

She stood for a moment looking up into his face, but he
bore the scrutiny easily enough, smiling, with a tinge of
mockery.  "Oh," she said, "how could you?  How could
you?  But I know the reason; it was an impulse—of
the heart—to take the losing side.  It was wrong—but
I—like you for it."

"You like me?" he laughed softly, "You like
me?"  He paused, enjoying the confusion in her face.
She turned it away.  "So," he went on, "So you think I
sided with the under dog?  No, no, Miss Hunter, I am
not that kind of a man.  It just seemed the quickest way
to terminate that miserable row.  You should never have
witnessed it; you should not have been here.  This
wilderness is no place for you."

Instantly her confusion was gone.  "Oh," she said,
"surely this has been proof enough.  It is the one place,
the right place; the settlement needs me.  But—it's
going to be the hardest work," she shook her head
gravely, "and I want you to help me."  She stood
another moment searching his face, then, "You are a
strange man," she added.  "Why is it you cover your
best and delight in showing your worst side?"

"There is no best," he answered quickly.  "I am
past appeal."  And he turned and walked swiftly away
towards the river and that section of land he had come
to see.

Smith was gone; the episode was closed, and the men
had resumed their interrupted work.  Then, presently, the
teacher called Mose and the older children to her
assistance, and an arch was formed of stout saplings twined
with hemlock and cedar.  And when Stratton had returned
and it had been set up on the finished floor, he helped to
decorate it with flags and yards on yards of gay ribbon,
in loops and bows and streamers.  There were also,
nodding under the smartest twigs, mysterious little
packages wrapped in bright papers with fringed ends,
so that Lem with increasing difficulty held his wonder.
Garlands strung from the rafters, were studded with other
flags and supported every variety of Japanese lantern.

The day drew to a close.  On the ashes of last year's
camp-fire, Mose kindled a new blaze, and the people
gathered around it for a brief interval of rest.  They
discussed the gabled roof, the roomy balcony, and then
the conditions of the soil.  And afterwards Myers spun
a grizzly yarn, rivaled by Laramie's recital of the elk hunt
from which he had lately returned.  And the women,
brought together from remote solitudes, exchanged small
personalities, sure of a sympathetic ear.  They took up
the misfortunes of Slocum's family, left without a head,
and the fatal accident that had befallen young Girard,
soothing his mother with a reminder of the good bargain
she had made in selling the ranch, and the comfortable
home she was to find with the teacher.

But when the round moon looked over the high shoulder
of the slope, and the lighted lanterns began to show blue
or red or orange spheres along the edge of the clearing,
and filled the cabin with a soft illumination, Eben brought
his violin, and with various trials of the bow upon the
strings, led the way into the building.  Then, when Mill
Thornton had danced a hornpipe, and all the young folk
had warmed their blood to the tune of Money Musk,
followed by a stirring jig, the teacher led them a new step,
fitting to the music of the settlement the qualities of the
cotillion.  She came under the arch, and reaching, took one
of the small flags.  But it was not to Stratton that she gave
it, but to Laramie, who stood frowning in the doorway.
Laramie, who had not danced these many years.  And to
the astonishment of everybody the Canadian answered
the salutation of her pretty head, and sticking the flag
in his buttonhole, commenced with much shuffling of
the cowskin boots, a series of gyrations and curvetings
that filled the newer generation with amazement and
delight.

It was an easy matter for Samantha to learn that little
novelty as to the flags, and the more difficult methods
with the ribbons.  Lem, there in the corner, with folded
arms and watchful eyes imitating Laramie's wild motions,
saw the teacher open that first package with the fringed
ends, and still with that swaying movement, unfold and
place on her head a yellow tissue hat.  Then here were
all of these large girls following her example, and Laramie
himself pulling off his old squirrel-skin cap, and flinging
it aside for a red bonnet.  Mill Thornton too, and all the
boys from Yelm and Tenalquet, were rigging themselves
out in every kind of head-gear, and with flags and ribbons;
making their best steps, and cheered on by the shouts and
laughter of the older people ranged along the walls.

The bow ran faster and faster, as though it laughed in
its sleeve at the wild figures they cut.  Then, at length,
the teacher slipped aside to relieve Eben.  It was a
different music, sweeter, softer, that she drew from the
old cracked instrument, and she kept time with one
foot, thrust a little forward; a smile played on her lips,
there was a shining light in her eyes, and the yellow hat
was pale against her ruddy hair.

But finally the measure changed.  The revellers quieted
under the unfamiliar strain.  It was no longer dance
music but Schubert's Serenade.  A far-away look came
over her face; a sweet tenderness.  Her soul was in her
touch; she called a speaking sadness from the strings.
A great hush fell over the room.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A FACE IN THE NIGHT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A FACE IN THE NIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

Mason, the watchman at the Freeport mills, stood
as was his habit when off duty, quite at the end of
the dock, his red hair blowing in the wind, his hands
thrust in the pockets of his oily brown jeans, and his feet
planted firmly apart, notwithstanding one was an insecure
wooden peg around which the leg of his trousers fluttered
loosely.  It was after the hour of closing, and about the
doorways of the cabins, which nestled well under the bluff.
groups of workmen loitered, or like Mason, enjoyed the
breezier, salter atmosphere of the wharf.  The sound of
bagpipes came from a distant quarter up the beach, and
the rival notes of an accordion floated over from a passing
fishing-smack.  But above all rose the deep wash of the
sea.  A lumber ship, with the light lines of her deckload
showing above her low black hull, swung out from the
upper dock and took on a boatful of tuneful sailors who
had crossed the harbor from the town.  Her tug, lying to
the northward, awaited her cable.  And out beyond the
headland and its black reflection, the late sun reddened
the *Phantom's* sails.

Mason's nautical gaze rested on the yacht, and he said,
addressing Hop Sing, the cook, who had been transferred
from the Judge's house to the mills, "A fine craft, ay,
sir; a bit too narrer at ther beam, but a fine craft, sir."

Sing smiled blandly and tucked his long yellow finders
into his wide sleeves.  "*Phlantom*, she all lit-e," he
admitted.  "Mlisser Phil, he all lit-e."

The yacht swung into the shadow of the Head; the
lightening cable between the ship and tug crossed her
bows.  The steamer with increased belching of smoke
and pounding of machinery forged away and the vessel
slowly answered the straining line.  Mason leaned forward
with a low exclamation; then, no longer able to hold
himself, he lifted his voice in a hoarse shout.  "Luff,
luff 'er."

Even as he spoke the *Phantom* veered suddenly, and
came around close-hauled, all but grazing the stern of
the ship.  And Mason saw the master at the helm, his
cap pushed back, his eyes on the flapping canvas, while
his lips coolly shaped the end of a chorus.  A woman, young
and pretty, with a cloud of blond hair, was seated near
him, strumming time on a banjo, and, as Mason moved to
take the line, she looked up at him with a gay laugh.

Stratton relieved Kingsley of the tiller while he went
into the bows with the coiled line.  The old sailor caught
it and made a twist around a pile, hauling taut.  "It wore
neatly done," he said with the pride glowing in his homely
face; "ay, sir, but it wore a close call, sir."

Philip laughed.  "Not much of a trick if you know
the *Phantom*, Mason.  No, I'm not coming ashore.  Here,
give these packages to Mr. Forrest.  Tell him I'm taking
a run over to Tacoma.  Will look in at the camp about
those logs.  That's all.  Cast off."

Mason watched the *Phantom* swing out, then went up
the wharf to the store.  It was a long, low building with
few windows and a massive door.  The interior was
gloomy, musty; sacks of flour piled in great lines
partitioned the room; hams and bacon hung from the ceiling.
At one side of the entrance the office was separated from
the main floor by a latticed railing, and gave the manager
an opportunity to work at his desk, and at the same time
see those who entered.  The window at his elbow overlooked
the dock and informed him if an arriving vessel
demanded his attention there.

Several men sauntered after Mason and joined the
group gathered at the door.  One entered, and Forrest
turned from his desk to take the day's tally from him.
Presently Hop Sing slipped through the idle and jeering
crowd to collect an allowance of groceries.  Mason laid
his packages down and waited, leaning on the railing.
His glance moved from the cook to the sawyer, a heavy,
burly fellow, who stood in the entrance.  As the Chinaman
passed out this man turned with a sudden thrust of his
powerful shoulder and Hop Sing plunged headlong on to the
dock.  There was a round of applause while he floundered
in a broken crock of molasses and a burst bag of
buckwheat, and the sawyer moved back with a gruff laugh.
At the same instant something was thrown behind him,
and he, too, fell, sprawling on the floor.  The cry of
derision was transferred to him, and Mason, having
recovered his equilibrium, stooped and gravely felt of
his wooden leg.  "When a man's er peg like this," he
said aggressively, forestalling the sawyer's anger, "he
aren't to be walked over.  I've known 'um to crack."

And the crowd cheered, for there was a story current
at the mills that Mason had once, in an emergency,
unstrapped this leg and used it for a weapon; not only
to the discomfiture of his antagonist, but to the serious
damage of the instrument, both having been laid up,
afterwards, for extensive repairs.

The amusement shone for a moment in Forrest's eyes,
but his face was tired and worn; the line between his
brows had grown habitual.  It deepened when the old
sailor repeated Kingsley's message.  He took a small
packet of mail which the watchman had brought with
the bundles, and hastily cut the string.  "Here, Mason,"
he said, "take these letters over to Mrs. Kingsley.

"Ay sir."  The answer was hearty, but Forrest caught
the consternation in the tone.  He knew that it took less
courage for this crippled sailor to brave the sawyer than
face a woman; and he understood, when Mason stopped
at the corner outside to light his pipe, it was a subterfuge
to gain time.

The Captain's house, like the cabins, stood in an
enclosure filled with slabs and sawdust and covered with
rough planking.  The board walk, which led from the
store to the cookhouse and mills, branched to this building,
and, raised on higher piling, extended on around the
headland to an old abandoned hotel.  It was there, going
slowly with her toddling baby in the direction of the ruin,
that Mason discovered Mrs. Kingsley as he crossed up
from the store.

The waves broke in a continuous swash under the
planking, casting at intervals a piece of wreckage or rope
of seaweed on the shore.  The collection of drift there
was wet from the ebbing tide.  Far out, beyond the
shadow of the Head, a pink flush still rested on he water,
and the *Phantom*, moving into this glow with all her
white sails set, heeled gently, a golden craft on a painted
sea.  And it was in that direction, towards the receding
yacht, Louise's face was turned.  She had stopped and
the child, steadying himself with his hand on her skirt,
stood dropping pebbles slowly between the rails.

Mason slackened his pace, setting his wooden peg
lightly.  It was difficult to approach any woman, but this
one, young, pretty and with her back turned—  He
halted, waiting, with a forlorn hope that she would look
around.  But she did not.  He coughed softly and pulled
off his cap.  Still she stood with her eyes towards the
*Phantom*.  He put on his cap and removed his pipe from
his mouth, regarding her in mild helplessness.  The
small, proud head, the high, soft knot of dark hair, the
graceful, slender figure in its trim gown, the shapely hand
that rested on the railing; he noted all with growing
awe.  Then his clutch tightened on the letters and he
cleared his throat with a gentle thump of the wooden peg.

She turned, startled, and looked at him.  Her eyes
were full of tears.

He thrust the letters into her hand in speechless haste
and fled.

"Mason," she said, "oh, Mason."  But he failed to
hear.  She did not repeat the call; she waited, listening
to the thump, thump, of the receding peg, then her glance
fell to the articles he had given her.  One of the letters
was pencilled and unstamped.  She read it first.

.. vspace:: 2

"DEAR LOUISE:—

.. vspace:: 1

"I am sorry, but business kept me in town again last
night, and I am on my way now to Tacoma.  I have to
hunt up a boom near there, and am taking a little crowd
along for company.  We will look in on the Yacht Club's
dance and I wish you were coming.  You really ought
to find some sort of a nursemaid.  I would stop off half
an hour to see you, but must make the most of this
wind.  Will be back tomorrow evening.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "Yours,
       "PHIL."

.. vspace:: 2

The hand holding the note trembled a little, and she
lifted her clouding eyes again to the *Phantom*.  "It is
of no use," she said slowly, "I might as well be any piece
of drift thrown here out of the tide.  But—I had to try
it.  It was the only way."

She stood for a long time watching the yacht.  It moved
a lessening shape on the fading sea, and swung at last
behind a point into the long southward sweep of the
Sound.  Then she was conscious that the child had left
her.  He was toddling to the ruin.  She ran to overtake
him.  "Silas," she called.  "No, Silas, no."  But her
voice and her rapid steps only hurried him laughing and
crowing through the open bar-room door.

The broad floor of fine planking was still firm and
smooth except about the place where the pool table had
stood, and in front of the bar.  The baby ran to hide
there, peeping out at his mother with little exultant bursts
of delight.

But this old bar, the last remaining bit of furniture in
the place, guarded the sagging door of a small ell evidently
once used as a tap-room.  It stopped at the first story,
and the flooring, made of rougher, wider lumber than that
in the main building, was laid in short patched strips.
It was rotting about the rusty nailheads; sometimes
there were breaks.  All this was lighted dimly by one small
window, high up in the unfinished wall and curtained by
the bluff, and she saw a dozen pitfalls in the ruin, yawning
for her baby's feet.  She drew the door shut, but it was
without a lock and dragged back a foot or more.

The great rear door of the bar-room also stood open;
it was loose on its hinges and grounded on the floor.  The
threshold dipped to a balcony, dismembered of railing
and stairs.  She caught the child up in her arms and
hurried out through the front entrance back along the
walk.

It was twilight when she entered her gate.  A first star
glimmered over the mills, and on the water front across
the harbor Seattle's lamps shone whitely.  Close at hand
the burning slabpile at the end of the waste-chute took on
a redder glow, sending long searching tongues of flame
into the gloom of the bluff.  She went in and lighted a
swinging lamp.  Its crimson shade sent a pleasing warmth
through the room, which possessed the attractive element
that follows the touch of a refined and orderly woman.
There were no housemaids in that milling camp; no other
women.  The few men who had wives made their homes
over in the town, where they spent the week-end.  Once
during the day Mason came in to make things "ship-shape,"
but he took the hour when she was at the cook-house,
where the meals for the Captain's family, which
included Forrest, were served in a small private
dining-room off the main hall.

The night was cool and she lighted the fire in the grate
and seated herself in a low wicker chair to read her
remaining letter.  It was from her sister, briefer than usual,
for she expected to follow it within the week to go
that promised cruise among the islands.

"... The country is being settled very fast," she
wrote.  "Mill Thornton is clearing on his new homestead
for a cabin, and Mr. Stratton has built a charming little
lodge of cedar shakes thatched with bark, on his timber
claim up the headwaters.  It is tucked away in a clump of
fine old trees, and the first time I saw him there, leaning
in the doorway, with one of Laramie's dogs fawning over
him, and bargaining with the trapper over a beaver pelt
at his feet, I couldn't help calling, 'Good morning, Robin
Hood.'  It was so pleasant to find the place unspoiled,
for most of the settlers set up their homes in a great
burn, with not even an alder saved; not a flower or blade
of grass left to ease the eyes."

But, though she had so much to tell about these matters,
of her own homestead there was not a word.  Louise
folded the letter, puzzled, and laid it aside.  She sat for
an interval looking absently into the fire.  "I don't
understand," she said at last.  "I don't understand why
she is staying up there in the wilderness.  She has promised
to marry Uncle Silas, and yet she has let him go to
Washington without her.  She is willing to have the whole
continent between them; and when a woman loves,
as she should love the man she is going to marry, she is
ready to shape her plans and interests to his.  She wants
to give him her companionship, to be at hand to help him
the first moment he may need her.  But Alice seems
happy.  I wonder what her reason is."

She had learned in this solitude to think aloud, gathering
comradery from the sounds of her voice, and young Silas,
growing tired of his playthings, came over to her knee.
He looked up into her face gravely, trying to fathom
her meaning.  She laughed softly and lifted him to her
lap.  He was a lovely child; a little copy of Philip
Kingsley in form and gesture; he had the same
close-curling blond hair.  He returned his mother's caress
warmly, putting his stout arm about her neck and kissing
her mouth, her cheek, again and again.  Presently she
undressed him, but she deferred the bed-going, enticing
him, with surprise and frolic, to stay awake.  She dreaded
the silence that was to follow; the interminable loneliness
of the slow night.  But at last he went to sleep in her arms.

When she had tucked him away in his bed in an inner
room and returned, she moved about restlessly, giving
housewifely touches to things already arranged.  "After
all, it is the business," she said.  "It must be—nearly
always—the business.  I am too exacting.  I expect
too much."

She reached the window and lifted her hand to draw
the blind.  But she started and dropped her arm, letting
the shade spring back to the roller.  Someone stood on
the walk without.  His long figure rose in the square of
light which, blocked on the piazza, included the breadth
of fence where he leaned.  His dark, repulsive face was
raised to her, and he seemed to fix her with his small,
snakelike eyes.  The next instant he dropped his goblin
shape and shrank writhing away into the gloom.

She shivered and her fingers trembled when she reached
again for the cord and drew the blind.  She went into the
hall and pushed the heavy bolt above the lock on the front
door.  When she had gone through the house and secured
every door and window, she came back, still shivering,
to the fire.  "It is nothing," she told herself, and put her
hand on the mantel, reassuring herself as a woman must
when denied human support, "it was nothing.  The man
stopped a moment in passing, attracted by the light.  I
must have some—courage.  But his face—was terrible."

Presently she went over to the piano and began to sound
the keys; she struck loud, clarion chords, martialling
forces to put down her fears.  Her shaking fingers grew
surer; she commenced to shape a bit of Wagner, and
then a fragment of Schubert.  That was the music she
loved.  She opened a folio of sonatas.  She played with
ease and skill and her frame swayed with a slight, rhythmic
motion.  Her soul was in her touch and in her eyes,
grown large and misty.  It was then her face was
beautiful.

At last she turned a page and a loose sheet fluttered out.
It was that sea song of Barry Cornwall's, that had been
a favorite quartette in the old days aboard the *Phantom*.
She began to play it, and presently her voice flooded the
night.

   |  "For the white squall rides on the surging wave,
   |  And the bark is 'gulfed in an ocean's grave,
   |  In an ocean's grave; in an ocean's grave."
   |

Forrest, coming that way from his customary rounds
of the mills, heard it, and the passion, the despair of it,
held him at the gate.  But he dropped his hand from
the latch at the end and turned away.  "There is nothing
I can do for her."  he told himself.  "She is past feeling
the solitude now.  She is past being afraid."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PRESSURE OF THE THUMB-SCREW`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE PRESSURE OF THE THUMB-SCREW

.. vspace:: 2

The following night Forrest was seated near the open
fire in his room off the store.  His journal and
ledger were on the table before him, and opposite Kingsley
tilted his chair comfortably, and clasping his hands at
the back of his head, lifted his glance to the lamp-lighted
ceiling.  He was smoking and looked a trifle bored.

"It amounts to this," said Forrest; "lumber has
dropped to eight dollars a thousand and we've simply got
to cut down expenses."  He paused with his hands on the
arms of his chair, his body slightly inclined forward, and
looked at Philip with clear, stern eyes.  "I am running
the lightest possible force; I have dispensed with a
bookkeeper and am doing his work nights.  But here are still
unpaid bills for machinery, saw-logs and towing; some
weeks it even comes to a question of the wages of the men.
I could, though, have met these demands better if I hadn't
been so handicapped.  For instance, in the matter of the
*Corona*.  I made out the bills of lading; I relied on the
funds at a certain time and gave promises of payment.
And then found out you had received the checks and had
them cashed, and put most of the money to personal use.
It not only places me in a difficult position but weakens
the credit, the standing of the mills."

"I suppose so," said Kingsley, knocking the ashes
carefully from his cigar.  "I suppose so; I hadn't looked
at it in that way.  But the *Enterprise* will be here in a few
days and her shipment ought to make things straight."

"Temporarily, yes.  But see here, why can't you limit
yourself to a salary?  Say two hundred a month?  If
you could do this, and devote a definite time to work,
I should know what to depend on, and we could pull
through the year without calling on the Judge."

"Two hundred a month?" repeated Philip, and laughed.

"Yes.  You know the Judge advised a regular salary."

"You seem to forget I have practically a half interest
in this property."

"On the other hand, it is that I remember," answered
Forrest dryly.  "If the mills should go under it would
bar me, of course, from another position of trust; but for
you it would mean financial ruin."

Kingsley smoked for a brief interval in silence.  Then
he said, "I don't see the necessity of all this.  There's
Stratton, now, talks differently.  He thinks I have a sure
thing; that another year or two will see the opening of
a great lumber traffic with the Orient.  He calls Puget
Sound the Gateway of the Pacific.  I wish you could hear
him."

"I have heard him," answered Forrest, again dryly.
"But with me, his opinion doesn't count for much.  To
hold my faith a man has got to do the things he talks
about.  And Stratton isn't a man who works.  In short,
it's a problem where he gets his money.  My friend Bates,
of the Customs Service, has been in Victoria a good deal;
he knows something about Stratton's family.  His father,
before he died, made a fortune in the fur trade, but his
mother, who lived a rather smart life over there, spent
it faster.  Stratton is like her."

"He has taken up his father's business," said Kingsley
warmly.  "He is building a fine coasting schooner, now,
to carry on an extensive trade, northward, with the
Indians."

Forrest shook his head.  "That's just it.  A man
dabbling spasmodically in furs, and living extravagantly
most of the time about town, is hardly expected to have
capital to invest in a fine steam-schooner."

Philip watched a puff of smoke rise and expand in blue
haze above him.  "I know what you're driving at," he
said.  "You're referring to his possible connection with
a smuggling ring.  Stratton told me all about it.  There's
nothing in it.  Bates happens to have a grudge against
him."

"Bates is hardly the man to satisfy a personal grudge
in that way.  He merely answered a question or two I
asked him."  Forrest paused and went on in a slightly
deepened tone.  "It seems to me incredible that you
should let a fellow like Stratton manage you."

"Manage?"  The Captain's chair came down abruptly
on its front legs.  "See here, even you can't say that,
Paul.  Stratton is my friend; I'm fond of him, but I do
as I damn please."

Forrest was silent.

Kingsley rose to his feet and threw his cigar in the
fire.  "It's time I went up to the house," he said.  "The
crowd will be ready to go on to town, soon, and I've hardly
seen Louise."

Forrest pushed back his chair and rose.  "You agree,
then, to the two hundred," he said quietly.

"Oh, come, you are worse than thumb-screws."  He
laughed a short, constrained laugh and looked at his
watch.

"The Judge, you remember, takes it for granted."

"Oh, well,"—he ran his fingers swiftly through his
close-cropped hair, and repeated the movement,—"I
don't see how I can do it—but—I suppose so for
awhile—yes."

He picked up his cap and started out through the store.
Forrest followed him to the outer door.  But there Philip
stopped.  "Come up to the house with me," he said,
"and bring your violin.  I've been telling them about
you."

He stood jingling his keys in his pockets, and whistling
in snatches, much like a schoolboy who tries to forget,
yet remembers the unpleasant ending of a scrape, while
Forrest went back to his room for the instrument.

It was a moonless night, but in the direction of the
mills the burning slabpile brought out the lines of the
bluff.  It lighted the upper wharf and the great piles of
finished or rough lumber.  The whitewashed walls of
the cabins reflected the glare.  Everywhere, in the open
doorways, seated on timbers or blocks in the vicinity of
the fire, wherever there was protection from the north
wind, or the flames threw heat, groups of workmen loitered.
Suddenly Kingsley said, "I would like to see the whole
thing dumped into that slabfire."

Forrest put his hand on Philip's shoulder.  Both stopped
and the light shone on the manager's face.  The laugh
lurked in his eyes, and the lines about his mouth softened.
"And you'd like to see me at the bottom of the heap."

"I'm sick of these mills," said Philip petulantly.  "I
hate the place."

"And me.  Come, say so."

"Well, then, yes, and you, since you are determined
to put me through."  He threw off Forrest's hand, and
seeing the old watchman approaching on the branch walk,
went a step to meet him.  "I want you to go over to the
cookhouse, Mason," he said, "and tell Sing to bring a
little supper up.  Take him down to the *Phantom* and get
a dozen of champagne from the port cabin locker.  Here's
the key."

He rejoined Forrest and they finished the distance in
silence.  But when they entered the parlor, where
Kingsley's friends awaited him, his manner changed.  "You
must blame Paul for keeping me," he said lightly; "he
was determined to talk.  When he has a point to gain he
has the grip of a vise; never lets go.  You've simply got
to yield through sheer weariness."

Every one laughed, and he crossed the room to seat
himself beside the girl with a small blond head, who had
accompanied him the previous day with a banjo.  But
his glance moved again and again to his wife.  For the
first time it nettled him to see another man interested in
her.  And Stratton was interested; Stratton, who was
undeniably hard to please.  It is the way of some men
to appraise their wives according to the value placed on
them by other men, and Kingsley began to make an
inventory of her points; that was a nice flush in her
cheeks, and he had nearly forgotten about that lighting
of her dark eyes.  And, too, that was a pretty way she
wore her hair.  Then he remembered how splendid it
was unbound, for it rippled to her knees, and was soft
as a black velvet cloak.  And when she sang,
presently, to the accompaniment of Forrest's violin, the
Captain told himself she had never been in better voice.
He resolved to be at the mills oftener; on the whole, if
he had not just been forced into that miserable limit of
two hundred dollars, he would like to set up an establishment
over in town.

When she went from the room to consult Sing about
that little supper, Philip followed her.  She believed he
had come to look in at little Silas, and she quietly threw
open the inner door.  The light streamed into the dark
interior, showing the small white bed, the charming face
of the sleeping child.  There was a rosy glow on the
round cheek, and one stout, dimpled arm, bared to the
elbow, encircled his curly head.

Kingsley stood watching him a silent moment, then he
put his arm around his wife and said softly, "He's all
right; yes, he's fine.  But he's been growing since I saw
him; I hadn't thought it was so long.  I must get home
oftener.  Do you know you were in great voice to-night;
I never heard you sing so well."

"Yes?" she answered, smiling, "I am glad you think
so.  I sang for you."

"And this color in your cheeks; is it for me, too?"

"You know that I am glad to have you home."

He bent and kissed her.  Her head rested an instant
on his breast; he brushed his cheek against her hair.
"You miss me, then, when I'm away?"

"Yes."  She lifted her face.  An intensity of expression
that he had seen rarely, and always disliked, came over
it; the force in her low voice jarred.  Why couldn't she
stay pleasant, as she had been there in the crowd.  "I
would do anything to keep you at home, Philip.
Anything, if you would spend your evenings with me; your
nights, as you used to."

His arm fell.  "I thought you understood the outside
business would keep me away," he said coolly.  "I
explained it at the first when you wanted to live here at
the mills."

She moved a step away.  Her heart cried, "It is not
the business," but she said aloud, turning to him again
with a smile, "A woman doesn't often reason; she only
feels."

"That's the trouble; you feel too much; more than
most women.  When you are not serious, though, you
are a very attractive woman."

She stood quite still, with her slender fingers locked,
and that intensity growing in her eyes.  "Do you know,
Philip, sometimes I wonder how you ever could have
cared for me; for the best that is in me is what you have
overlooked.  I should think,"—she paused and forced
again that brave little smile,—"I should think that
you might be—happier, if you had married a different
kind—of woman."

At this he laughed.  So she was a little jealous, that
explained things, and of that flyaway, there in the other
room.  "There's the woman one marries," he answered
lightly, "and the woman with whom one has a good time;
they are seldom alike."

She was silent.  There is nothing so cuts a proud and
refined woman as the enforced knowledge of her husband's
coarser grain; but her disappointment finds no expression;
she covers her shame.

"But I don't blame you," he went on, still lightly,
"I don't blame you; I don't deny you've had cause.
I'm coming home oftener, after this, though; or, perhaps,
before long, I can arrange to take a house in town.  You
would like that?"

"Yes.  The loneliness is harder than I believed it
could be; it wears on me.  And I can't grow accustomed
to the mill people.  Last evening I saw a strange face at
the window.  It haunts me.  I woke up in the night time,
seeing it.  It was—terrible.  I have never been a brave
woman, Philip.  I am—afraid."

Her whole body trembled, overcome by the recollection
of that face.  But Kingsley laughed again.  "Well, I
don't wonder.  For sheer physical ugliness, this crew
Forrest has picked up might, almost to a man, dispute
the palm.  But Alice is coming; she'll show you pluck;
she has it to spare.  And we'll have that cruise through
the islands.  We'll make it a small family affair and take
along little Si.  Meantime Paul must see that the night
watchman gives the house special attention, and I'll
ask him to come in oftener with his violin."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SALMON-TROLLERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SALMON-TROLLERS

.. vspace:: 2

"O-h, o-h, Mason, I hate to, but I've got to let
you land him.  He's a *wh-a-le*."  She spoke softly;
her eyes shone.  She put the line in the old sailor's hands.
"Now, now, Mason; oh, I don't mind a little water;
that's all—right."

But it was a deluge, for the great salmon floundered first
against her, almost in her lap, and then into the bottom
of the skiff, at her feet.  Mason bent to remove the hook,
and Louise, in the bow, held little Silas over to see the big
fish.  "Mighty purty play; weighs all o' twenty pund;
bet you a bottle."

"I believe it's a Chinook," said Alice.

The sailor's homely face glowed.  He looked back to be
sure the child's view was unobstructed.  "Aye, sir, it's
a Chinook, an' big's they make 'em.  Bet you a bottle."

But the wager passed again unchallenged, and having
met Louise's amused glance, Mason took up his oars
abashed.  Nothing but the excitement of landing that fish
could have so loosened his tongue.  He pulled a good
stroke that brought them quickly to the shore.  The
wind came in long puffs from the north and the sea broke
on the beach in a deliberate swell.  The water was a cold
blue, shading to brown in the shallows, for it was ebb-tide.
They drew up to the float between the wharves and Mason
steadied the boat while Alice lifted the baby out and,
giving him to his mother, stopped to take a great bunch of
flowering rhododendrons from high in the bow.  Then
he raised the salmon by the gills and stumped proudly
ahead up the walk.

Alice looked at her sister and smiled.  "There's a
watch-dog you can trust," she said.  "Yes, I mean it.
He has a big, warm heart underneath, and little Si knows
it, already."

"I think you are right," admitted Louise, "but it is
strange it should have taken you hardly twenty-four hours
to find it, while I have been months getting within speaking
distance."

"I suppose," said Alice thoughtfully, "it's a way I
have of wanting to utilize the material at hand.  There's
something, too, in meeting a man on his own ground.
When you want to reach a sailor," and she laughed
softly, "take a boat.  Oh, Mason," she called, for he
had made the turn up the branch walk to the house,
"wait.  Come around and weigh the salmon at the store."

She led the way, and the gloomy building seemed to
gather a sudden radiance when she entered the door.
Her face reflected a soft illumination from the showy
pink flowers heaped in her arm.  Forrest stepped down
from his stool at the desk, and came outside the railing
to meet her.  Then, "What's that, Mason?" he asked.
"You don't mean to tell me she really did catch a fish."

"Aye, sir,"—Mason stopped to put the salmon on
the scales,—"twenty-two pund."

"That's so," said Forrest incredulously, "twenty-two
and a quarter; well, for a Chinook that's a prize."

But the smile in her face died.  Looking across the
rhododendrons at him, it came over her again, as it had
when she met him on her arrival the previous day, that
he was losing his boyish color; that he was harassed and
worn.  "Don't you ever go fishing, Paul?  Or cruising,
or anywhere?"

He shook his head, smiling a little.  "Hardly, this
year.  It's impossible to get away."

Little Silas, tugging at his mother's hand, drew her to
the door.  But Alice lingered.  "Can't Phil Kingsley
manage these mills yet, for even one day?"

He glanced in warning at Louise.  "It takes us both,"
he answered quietly.  "This milling business is pretty
big; it reaches out; and he tends to the other end.  But
I'm all right.  I like to work; I'm used to it.  And I need
it, lots of it, to keep me level-headed."

"You are that, but shall I tell you what I think, Paul
Forrest?  I think it's making you old, fast; or else, you
are not well."

"Oh, yes, I am.  But, I was up late last night; I was
bothered some about a trial balance; that's all.  I'm
going to take this evening off.  I want to try that
accompaniment, if you will sing that new serenade for me."

He stood watching them from the entrance, Mason
following with the salmon, while they crossed up the dock,
then he went back to his desk.  She had reached over
the railing, in passing, to lay on his ledger a branch of
rhododendron.  He picked it up, smiling a little, and looked
at it.  No one else was in the store at the moment, and
he touched the petals gently; his hand moved over the
stiff, spiky leaves.  "So," he told himself, "So, she has
left me a bit of the woods.  And she is like this plant;
straight and self-reliant and independent like the stem;
and with this same nice color of the blossom in her
cheek."  He laid the cool pink cluster against his own face; he
pressed it with his lips.  Then, suddenly, his whole frame
began to tremble; his shoulders heaved.  "I love her;
I love—her," and he crushed the flower between his
palms and threw it down.  "My God, how can I help
loving her?"

Two hours later, when Forrest had finished his rounds
of the mills, he found her with Mrs. Kingsley at the
burning slabpile.  Mason, with his wooden peg planted
firmly in the sawdust as a brace, steadied the baby on an
inverted keg, and whirled chips into the fire for his
amusement.  The strong light brought out the indigo anchor
tattooed on the sailor's big, rough hand.  The young
mother watched his maneuvers.  She leaned with her
elbow on a projecting shelf of lumber, and her head and
throat were wrapped, Madonna-wise, in a black lace
scarf.  Alice was seated near her on a great fir block.
The flames illumined her uncovered ruddy hair.  She
was interested in the efforts of a workman who, a little
apart, but availing himself of the firelight, was mending
a pair of jeans.  Another patched a shoe, and farther still,
a trio drew up an empty box, and converting it into a
table, started a spirited game of poker.  She commenced
to hum a bit of the gypsy chorus from the Bohemian Girl;
and as Forrest approached she looked up smiling, and
took up the words.  He seated himself by her.  Louise's
contralto caught the measure, and presently the harmony
was rounded by his fine baritone.  They sang on through
all the familiar parts; the arias, duets, choruses; and
once more the romance and mystery of the place and
night gave setting to this man and spoke for him.  The
girl looked up absently to the trees on the bluff.  High up
a fallen hemlock, caught on a stony spur, reared its gnarled
roots from the gloom.  Had they not rested today on the
brink of the canyon?  Had they not threaded the windfall?
And this sound of running water, was it not the near
thunder of the Des Chutes?

At last the child grew tired and his mother took him
away to bed.  Forrest went down to the store for his
violin, and Alice walked that way with him.  "I want
to speak to you about Louise," she said.  "She tells me
nothing, she is so proud, but something troubles her.
You have noticed it?"

"Yes," he answered, "yes, I have noticed it; but I
know she is a very sensitive woman.  She would face
any hardship from a sense of duty; it amounts to
martyrdom.  She exacts, also, considerable from others."

"Oh, I understand all that.  Of course she came here
to the mills because she thought she owed it to Philip.
But he is seldom here.  Is it really the business keeps
him away?"

"Yes, it's business, sometimes, and—sometimes—well,
if you must know, it's a gay crowd and a
pleasant evening over in town."

"I was confident of it."  She paused, ruffling her brows,
then she added earnestly, "But you don't know what a
security it is to me, Paul, to feel that you are here, and
will take care of her."

He shook his head.  "I will do what I can always,
of course, but it's less than you think."

"It's more than you think.  It's meeting the small
emergencies of every day; sometimes through Mason or
Sing; sometimes personally, in your quiet way.  And
it's tiding her through the slow evenings when you can;
she loves your violin, and the practice will be a help to
you both."

"All right," he answered, smiling, "I promise that much."

They had reached the store and she waited on the
edge of the dock while he went in for his instrument.
When he came back they lingered, listening to the swash
and gurgle of the tide among the piers.  "You always
liked this," he said presently; "you must often miss the
sea."

"Yes," she answered, "you don't know how I've
missed it.  Sometimes, I've wanted it beyond anything."  She
looked at him.  In the semi-darkness of the not yet
risen moon, his face seemed to gather paleness.  It touched
her as its strength never had.  The maternal down in
the depths of her stirred.  "And of course," she added
gently, "you know, Paul, I couldn't think of the Sound,
or indeed of any of the old life here, and leave out you."

It was not the words alone, nor the kind, sweet tone,
nor yet her dear physical nearness, but rather that the
silence which followed was eloquent with unspoken
thought.  It was as though he heard her spirit cry
suddenly, "I can never leave out you."

"You do know it," he said.  "You do know it."  And
then it broke from him.  "What made you promise
to marry Judge Kingsley?  What made you, when you
knew how much I thought of you?"

She did not answer, but she turned and walked up
the dock towards the house.  After a moment he overtook
her.  "Don't hurry so," he said.  "Are you afraid
of me?  I won't hurt you."

"Hurt me?  You?  Oh, I wish you would."  But she
continued to hurry and he suited his steps to hers.  They
reached the gate.  "Wait, just a moment," he said.
"You are going away tomorrow.  I know I shouldn't
have said—what I did; it was worse than unfair to
the Judge; but I want to know this—why did you put
off that marriage?  Why didn't you go to Washington
with him, as he hoped?  As I hoped, for there, at least
you would have been—safe!"

"Please don't worry about me, Paul," she answered,
and looked past him, steadily, holding her chin high, "I
can take care of myself.  You ought to know that.  I'm
very strong-minded; it grows on me.  I like to do things;
be the head.  And I love the settlement; I want to finish
my work.  Sometimes—sometimes, when I think of
it, I'm afraid of Washington.  I shall find it too crowded;
I'm so used to lots of room."  She paused, but silence was
harder than speech and she went on quickly, "Not one
man in a thousand would understand me, but Uncle
Silas—dear Silas—" she dashed her hand across her
eyes and turning, ran up the steps to the door—"knows
how to manage me.  He—" she groped for the
knob—"He is ready to—wait."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MAN IN THE TIDE-RIP`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MAN IN THE TIDE-RIP

.. vspace:: 2

On Orcas, one of the larger islands of the Archipelago
de Haro, there is an eminence of several thousand
feet.  The eastern side rises in abrupt benches from the
sea, but westward it breaks less precipitously to a narrow,
bluff-locked harbor.  Stratton objected to this anchorage;
it was a place of strong currents and shallows.  But
Kingsley laughed.  He knew Orcas like a book.  He had
been up to that summit and the view was worth stopping
over a day for.  There was a ranch on the shore of a lake
high up in the timber where the night could be passed
comfortably, and a couple of horses, the only ones on
the island, could be secured there for the trail.  The party
could divide, Alice going up with Stratton that afternoon,—it
was a matter of a few hours,—while he and Louise
would ride up early the following morning.

In the end Philip had his way, and Stratton, who had
exerted himself, hitherto, to make the cruise one of
unalloyed pleasure, lapsed into moody silence.  He found
himself, late in the afternoon, riding with Alice, up a
sharp pitch of the mountain.  Below them dipped a cross-cut
of trail, and overhead another section of the switchback
hung like a tilting shelf under a knobby shoulder
that concealed the true dome.  They gained the spur and
halted, breathing the horses on a breadth of level.  The
girl turned a little in her saddle to look down.  There was
the inlet where the *Phantom*, like a toy ship, rode at
anchor; and there was the lake, a big, opal-filled
bowl, with the farmhouse, where they had left Philip
with Louise and the child, balanced like a tiny box on its
rim.  Northward islands on islands rose purple or amethyst
out of the sea; southward and westward the Olympic
Mountains stretched a gleaming barricade, and the Straits
of Juan de Fuca divided like the fingers of a great reaching
hand.

"I love it; oh, you don't know how I love it."  Her
glance returned to Stratton and she started; the glow
in her face died.  "But you—I see it doesn't compensate
you for the rough trail and this excuse of a mount.
When you ride you want Sir Donald."

"No, it is not that."  He smiled briefly, with effort,
and pulled his shoulders straight.  "I happened to
remember a man—I once knew.  He was wrecked off
this island; there on the north shore.  It was another
such day as this, clear and shining, but his sloop was
caught in a tide-rip.  You can see it down there; that
creeping, white-lipped streak.  The rocks under it grip
like teeth."  He paused and the hand directing her
attention fell.  He lifted his hat and wiped a sudden
moisture from his face.  "It all happened in a moment,"
he added, "and the boat was broken into kindling."

"But he, your friend,"—she leaned towards him all
suspense, sympathy, charm,—"he was saved?"

"Yes, he was saved.  But it is a long story.  Wait until
we reach the summit; I can tell you better up there."

He turned his horse, falling behind her as they resumed
the climb.  Presently they entered a cool belt of timber.
The air was freighted with the balsam of fir and pine,
and she looked about her, drawing full breaths; a soft
delight rose in her eyes.  "Isn't it the best perfume on
earth?" she asked.  "At Nisqually it just lacks the tang
of the sea.  And there are the Alaska cedars they spoke
of at the farm.  The stream should run through them."

The horses quickened their pace and stopped where
the rill widened into a pool.  They dropped eager muzzles
and began to take long, still draughts.  She freed her
foot from the stirrup and slipped lightly down.  "We must
fill the flask," she said, "where the spring bubbles through
the rock."

Stratton tied the horses and followed her up the bank.
She reached the place and stooped to fill her saddle-cup.
"Oh," she said, pausing between draughts.  "It's the
kind of water to dream of hot summer nights; the kind
you think of on dusty roads and want desperately."

She waited while he drank, watching him expectantly.
"Yes," he admitted, "it is a spring to remember in a
desert."

He stooped to fill the flask, but he did it clumsily,
without his usual care, and drenched his sleeve.  The
pleasure in her face faded; she continued to watch him,
but with ruffled brows.  "Oh," she said at last, "I
wouldn't have believed you could be so unrelenting; but
you are determined to remind me, every step of the way,
that you didn't want to stop at Orcas Island.  You're
the most unsatisfactory man, on a trip, I ever knew.
Still, you were different last year, on the Paradise
trail."

"Was I?  Well, you see, I keep thinking of that
man—in the tide-rip; he stopped here at this stream,
to rest."

"The man who was wrecked?  Did he come up here?"

"Yes, he thought that he was on the mainland.  He
tried to reach the settlement this way.  But there isn't
time to tell the story here."

He turned and led the way quickly back to the horses,
and they mounted and rode on through the wood.  At
the foot of the final pitch they left the horses and pushed
up over shelving rock to the bald summit.  The sun was
low in the west and the light touched the houses of a
little seaport, eastward on the mainland; and above the
craggy heights that overtopped the town a snow mountain
caught the glory.  Far southward the crown of Rainier
seemed to rise like an opal island straight out of the
shining sea.

Suddenly Stratton laid his hand on her arm.  "Wait,"
he said, "this is the end.  The summit breaks there, a
sheer drop of a thousand feet, with a lake below.

"You know," she said.  "You've been here before?"

"It is plain enough.  Look down."

She looked; but she was obliged to creep another step
and drop to her knees before she saw the lake, far, far
below, tucked like a great sapphire in a high pocket of
the mountain.  "Oh," she said, "it seems fathoms deep;
and there isn't a lasting snowfield on this mountain.
What feeds it?"

He helped her back from the precipice and to her
feet.  "It is probably one of the Cascades' reservoirs,"
he answered; "supplied by some subterranean stream
under the bed of the Straits."

She walked back a few rods and seated herself on a
bench of rock.  Her glance moved from the great white
dome, on along the craggy peaks of the Cascades,
northward.  "Of course," she said presently, "that dim line
of shore off there is the Vancouver coast.  Think,
Mr. Stratton, how near we came to losing all these lovely
islands.  While Congress was calling them 'a number
of barren rocks, not worth the hour of discussion,' Sir
Douglas was grazing great flocks of sheep on the fertile
slopes of San Juan,—that must be it, that long, even
shore between us and the end of Vancouver,—and
investing its best harbor with British soldiers.  Doesn't
it rouse your blood, even now?  Can't you almost hear
that old pioneer slogan, 'Fifty-four, forty or fight?'"

Stratton laughed.  "I am afraid not.  You see I have
lived in Victoria, and I have heard a good deal more about
that old explorer Vancouver.  You know he claimed all
of this territory in the king's name.  He called it New
Georgia by right of discovery.  And I have known some
pretty fine people across the border, Miss Hunter.  In
fact they have treated me better than some I have known
on this side.  But there is hope; with you to teach me
I may turn out a fairly good American patriot—yet."

She shook her head, looking him over gravely, and he
laughed again, and seated himself near her on the ledge.
"Now, I am ready for that story," she said.

He looked off to that far line of the British coast.  "I
am almost sorry I promised to tell it," he answered;
"still, you may hear it sometime, through others, and
understand it less.  I, well, I think a good deal
of him; I want you to see it from his side.  He was
just a boy, Miss Hunter; a dare-devil sort of boy, fond
of adventure and proud of his little boat.  He never had
been taught to regard the Government patriotically, as
you do, and the men who tempted him were upright,
irreproachable men,"—his lip curled,—"the ones of
whom the Captain told you.  One of them had been a
close friend of this boy's father, and held a Government
position of trust; the other, in whose office the boy was
reading law, was a prominent attorney known all over
the Northwest.  They both knew how to appeal.  His
mother lived in Victoria at the time; he had made several
trips across to see her in his new sloop; and they told
him, laughing, he could go unsuspected anywhere, he
looked so honest."

Stratton paused and his listener turned her face to him,
waiting.  "I understand," she said at last, and set her
lips, "it was a case of smuggling.  There was—a ring.
And of course it was opium.  Uncle Silas says it usually
is opium; the duty is so great, and there is such an immense
profit on a smuggled lot."

"Yes, it was opium."  He turned his face a little
more from her, watching still that far amethyst coast.
"And there was a ring.  He was to have a third interest
in the profit to start a business he liked better than the
law.  But the revenue officers saw the chest carried to
his sloop.  They followed.  There was a splendid breeze
at first, and he led them a chase, dodging between these
islands, cross-cutting from channel to channel.  But the
wind fell at sunset, or rather shifted, and he found
himself in unfamiliar water.  Still he slipped the cutter off
this island and made a landing.  He concealed the stuff,
intending to return for it when the pursuit was over.
But he was slow in finding a safe hiding-place and the tide
changed; and when the sloop swung out on her first tack
she was caught in that tide-rip."

Stratton paused.  He passed his hand across his eyes,
but Alice was silent.  She looked off at the white mountain,
and waited, holding her chin high and creasing her brows.
Clearly the man in the tide-rip had lost her sympathy.
Her attitude said, "It was what he deserved."

"He was thrown ashore," Stratton continued, "with
wreckage, and he spent the night miserably, crawling
under cover with his cache.  At daybreak he found this
trail; he believed he was on the mainland and that this
was the way to that town over there, where he had arranged
to meet his accomplices.  He decided to carry the chest
with him to the edge of the settlement.  But the sun beat
down mercilessly on that switchback, and he had eaten
nothing since the wreck of his sloop.  The chest gathered
weight with every step.  He travelled slower and slower,
at one moment determined to abandon it, and the next
reminding himself that it must pay for the loss of his
boat.  At last, from that high shoulder where we stopped
to-day, he saw the revenue cutter creeping up the cove.
That spurred him on to the stream.  There, tired out,
indifferent, he threw himself down to ease his aching
muscles and take breath.  He fell asleep.  When he
wakened it was late; the sun was almost gone.  He rose
and took the chest and hurried on to this final pitch.  But
looking back, he saw the Customs men below, finishing
the wood.  He found nowhere to hide the stuff; he dared
not leave it, and, with increasing panic, he reached this
summit, and ran on down, to find himself cut off by
that cliff."

Stratton's even voice caught and broke.  His forehead
was wet with big, clinging drops, as though he himself
had just made that great physical effort.  His glance
moved from the precipice, and, meeting the girl's clear,
direct look, a sudden quiver swept his face.  "And?"
she said.

"He saw no way around," Stratton resumed quietly,
"and in his extremity, he sent the chest over the brink.
Then he came back to this bench and waited for
the officers.  They recognized him; one, the captain
of the cutter, had known his father well, for years.
'There was a man above us on the trail,' he said; 'we
hardly could have passed him, but he may have passed
you.  He carried a small chest or box.'

"And the boy looked him straight in the face and
smiled.  'I guess you've missed your trail, captain,' he
answered.  'You see this path ends here; be careful,
it's a frightful drop.  It looks like an old Indian trail;
there at your feet are the ashes of signal fires.  But the
road you want branches below the switchback.  Your
man probably doubled back through the timber and
struck across to the south shore.'  And then he added
frankly enough, 'I, myself, came up here for a sight of my
sloop.  She was stolen, and an Indian I met on the
mainland had seen such a boat near this island.  He put me
over in his canoe.'"

"Oh," said Alice, "you call him a boy, yet he could
stand and say all that like any hardened criminal."

"No," Stratton flushed hotly, and for an instant the
steel flashed in his eyes, "even you should not call him
that.  He had been told, and shown, that some of
the best men on the border took advantage of the Government;
that the United States was able to stand it.  You
should remember, too, it was his first—offence."

She gave him a straight, uncompromising look.  "Was
the chest found?" she asked.

"No.  There was no trace of it below the cliff; he
looked, afterwards, and the lake is very deep, as
you thought.  There was no proof against him; those
inspectors never for a moment doubted him.  The man,
whom they had seen boarding the sloop with the chest
at Victoria, was a desperate character, under suspicion
before; they believed he had stolen the boat, and that
he had come upon the Indian waiting for his passenger,
and had bribed him to take him off the island instead.
And the boy went with them down the switchback, and
identified the wreckage on the north shore.  And they
took him aboard the cutter and landed him at home,
in Seattle, the next day."

"I understand," she said slowly, "it all rested with
him.  It would have been a triumph, his salvation, if he
had confessed."

"I knew it."  Stratton's face hardened.  "I knew it.
You sit here like young Justice, inexorable; you who
never were tempted; never made a mistake; and nothing
but the fundamental right will do.  But think how that
confession would have hampered him.  A story like that
clings.  His whole future hinged on that day.  And he had
the confidence of those prominent men; the truth must
have involved them.  After all," he added, "the opium
was lost.  He gained nothing, and he had his punishment
in the wreck of his sloop."

"Yes," she admitted, "he was punished in a way, but—"

"Listen," he pleaded.  "He was reared very differently
from you.  His father was a man of honor, true, but
he had business interests that kept him long intervals
from home.  And his mother, I think, hardly gave him
much thought when he was a child.  She was a very
beautiful woman with luxurious tastes.  There was most
always a gay company around her, and it could never
have greatly concerned her how her husband's money
was made, so that she had it to spend.  I will not say
much about her,—she is gone, now, out of his life,—but
the boy was taught early not to trouble her, and to
look out for himself.  I believe the only lessons she ever
gave him were in quick, flippant retort, and to cover his
hurts.  He learned early, too, that the surest way to please
her was to amuse her friends.  Once, when he came into
a room, unexpectedly, and conversation dropped, she
looked at him, smiling, and said, 'Boy, what is
disgrace?'  And he answered directly, 'Disgrace, mother,
is being caught.'"

"And she?" said Alice, after a moment.

"She?  Why, she laughed, I think, with the others, and
tapped him on the shoulder with her fan; or perhaps
that time she clapped her adorable hands."  He rose to
his feet and stood looking off to that dim British coast.
A great weariness settled over his face.  "You see, in
the end, it amounted to this; he thought, when he thought
at all, that wrong rested only in detection.  One must
make and leave a good impression, but right motive,
sincerity, in his world did not count.  Then things changed.
He saw life differently, through the eyes of the woman he
loves."

Stratton's voice vibrated a little on the word.  He
turned and looked down at her, and that quiver again
swept his face.  But she did not see it.  Her glance rested
thoughtfully on the white peak, eastward, across the
channel.  That reference to the boy's mother, his training,
home, struck the maternal chord, so strong in her, and she
saw suddenly, clearly, the other side.  The mountain
began to flush with a sunset glow; a gentleness, almost
tenderness, rose in her face.

"She is not like the women he has always known,"
Stratton went on.  "She walks a higher level.  Sometimes,
she is so much a saint, he is afraid of her.  He
dreads her judgment, and yet he dreads more to have a
suspicion of the truth reach her, some day, through others.
Lately there are rumors afloat touching those men, who
made a tool of him, and any time, a chance word from one
of them may involve him.  What do you think, Miss
Hunter?  You see she is like you in some ways; she
takes your Puritan view of life and has your habit of
sifting things.  In her place would you think better of
him if he told you?  Could you, yourself, forgive him
if—you loved him?"

She did not answer directly; she was weighing the
question.  At last her look came back from the mountain;
she rose to her feet.  "Yes," she said slowly, "Yes, I
think that I could forgive him; it was a first offence.
Of course it must have been the only time.  I should
forgive him for the same reason, or much the same reason,
I did Mose.  But, I could never love such a man,
Mr. Stratton.  Even if I never knew the truth, I should feel
the stain.  And I am the kind of woman who builds love
on respect.  The man I am going to care for, in the way
you mean, has lived a clean life.  He stands a man among
men, sound to the core."

With this she turned and began to go down to her
horse.  Stratton waited a silent moment, watching her
move lightly over the steep and jagged path.  "The man
she is going to care for," he repeated softly; "she means,
of course, the Judge.  But she will never make that
marriage, never."  He started to follow her, then he stopped
and looked off once more, to that far Vancouver coast.
"Strange, after these years, the sight of this place should
make me go all to pieces.  And strange how I bungled into
that story.  I had to tell her.  That insistent something
in her had me promising, down there at the switchback.
Still, I could have told another woman easily enough, and
won her to my side.  Why am I always losing my hold
when I talk to her?  But I shouldn't have come ashore;
I should have stayed aboard the yacht.  God, how I hate
this island."

He hurried on then, for she was already waiting in the
saddle.  She watched him with a grave kindness as he
drew near.  "You are still thinking of your friend,"
she said, "but please don't rely on my opinion.  There
are sweet and gentle women in the world who live just
to forgive.  Perhaps she, the one you mentioned, is one
of them."  She turned her horse into the trail, but glanced
back over her shoulder to add, smiling a little, "You've
been a good champion; tell him, when the time comes,
to let you say a word for him."

"Trust me for that," he answered, and started his own
horse; "if—the time comes I will speak for him."





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.. _`THE FIERY LANE`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE FIERY LANE

.. vspace:: 2

Once, during Alice's brief stay at the mills, she had
overheard Forrest censure a workman for finishing
his pipe inside the restricted limits.  This gave her an
opportunity, that evening, to lead adroitly to the subject of
forest fire.  It was a perpetual menace in the settlement,
she said; it sprang sometimes from almost nothing; a
match dropped in a dry place, or a burning fragment
shaken from a pipe; embers left alive by a passing camper;
and oftener yet, it began with the ignition of slashed
underbrush, when, to clear a bit of open for his cabin or
pasture, a settler devastated whole areas of fine trees
that could not be reproduced in a century.  She wondered
if Forrest, who so well understood the dangers as well as
the values of timber, had ever devised a scheme, some
practical, inexpensive method within the reach of ranchers,
for its protection.  And he had answered that of course the
settlers should make it a local law never to start a "burn"
in the dry season.  But any man who knew the Washington
woods, had learned that one of the surest ways to handle
a first blaze was to smother it with shovelled earth.  Even
in midsummer the ground under the forest litter was
damp; it was made porous by a network of roots and held
moisture like a sponge; the trees drew from innumerable
small reservoirs.  But if he himself owned a section he
would take the precaution to cut a broad swathe around
the unprotected sides; and, if it was near a considerable
water power, for instance those upper falls of the Des
Chutes, he would keep in readiness a length of canvas
hose, the big kind used for carrying a stream some distance
in hydraulic mining, and be able to tap the river at a
moment's warning.

She was particularly interested in this scheme, and
gathered small details as to the size and make of the hose,
and how he would connect it with the stream.  He drew
a rough plan on a card, showing a point where the river
could be tapped with little trouble, by taking advantage
of a certain jutting rock, to brace the necessary bit of flume
and sluice-gate.  "But," he had added, throwing aside
the sketch to take his violin, "the chances are some other
man will file on that section; he may even hit upon this
little mechanism and have it all constructed before I see
the headwaters again."

Afterwards Alice found that card, on Louise's table
where he had left it, and saved it for future reference.
The hose could not be secured in the Puget Sound towns;
she could not obtain it in Portland; but finally it was
purchased through a house carrying mining supplies in
San Francisco.

Mill Thornton, who managed its final transportation,
over twenty miles of trail from Yelm Station, was greatly
interested in the innovation.  She showed him Forrest's
drawing, explaining it, and read to him a circular, which
was enclosed with the hose and described its use.  Then
they went down to the falls and located the stone ledge.
And in the end she contracted with the young rancher to do
the mechanical work, in exchange for enough of the water
power to supply a small flume to his claim.  This was
really another stroke of policy to insure her own trees, and
Eben, who came out to "hev er look at ther water works,"
laughed.  "Fur long-headedness," he told Thornton,
"yes, an' grit, I 'low I'll stake my next pile on ther
schoolmarm; yes, sir, ther schoolmarm, an' ergainst any durn
man in this here hull deestrict."

It was Alice's intention to keep the canvas stretched in
position during the dry season.  Later, if the cleared land
should cease to husband moisture, she might utilize it for
irrigation.  It had been laid for trial across the new
meadow, which, cutting a wide swathe through the
jungle, reached from the small open that surrounded the
cottage to the river; but Myers having brought two Jerseys,
which he had pastured several weeks, and turned them
into the field, it was necessary, until a track outside
could be leveled, to store the hose in the stable.

The meadow fence was built of heavy cedar rails, fixed
horizontally and without nails.  They needed no fastening
but the uprights that held the crossed ends of each section.
Parallel with it and forming a lane, ran a pile of dry
brush, accumulated in clearing and ready to burn after the
first rainfall.  Backward from it and the untouched jungle
that bordered the stream, sheltering that nest of a cottage
pushing up and up the grassy slope, rose the ranks of
the trees, free of undergrowth as a park, and including
what Forrest had called "the heart of the red firs."

Time was precious on school mornings, and the teacher,
early astir, was leading the black to water.  She saw the
sun touch the tops of the higher trees as she crossed the
open from the stable.  She noticed that the light wind
drew from the river and was fragrant with balsams,
and that it brought, already, a promise of heat.  Then
suddenly she stopped and inhaled a deeper breath, that
was a different pungence.  It was, unmistakably the
burning resin of boughs.  In the moment she waited, trying
to locate the fire, Mother Girard with her empty pail,
hurried from the meadow.  She came to say that one of
the Jerseys had been milked, and that the trail of the
trespasser was still fresh on the dew.  It left the lower end
of the field, and, skirting the brush pile, turned up-stream.
And it was there, at the farther end of the slashing, that,
while she listened, the teacher saw a thin line of smoke.

Mose, working on that track for the hose near the upper
end of the meadow fence, dropped his spade and ran.  He
tried to beat out the breaking flames, but others were
eating under and through the dry criss-cross of branches;
every instant they seized on a new layer, snapped, crackled,
sent out another jet of smoke.  It was not a case for
shovelled earth.  The pile was too high, too porous; it exposed
a dozen open draughts on all sides, and the breeze, sucking
in, found as many flues.  Clearly the brush pile must burn,
and only a miracle could save that portion of the fence
bordering the narrow lane.  He hurried to the corner to
disconnect the rails.  At the same time a standing tree, the
first in a clump of young firs at the end of the slashing,
ignited.  The resinous needles sizzed, popped like a string
of firecrackers.  With the wind pulling as it did from the
river, this meant the fire would sweep directly into the
big timber, and in that event the cabin also was doomed.
He left the fence, running to bring an ax to cut away some
hazels adjoining the dangerous clump.  Then, as he went,
he suddenly remembered the canvas hose.  In a moment
he was at the stable and met the teacher and Mother
Girard dragging the roll through the door.

The three together got it to the meadow and over the
lowered bars.  But while they ran, unrolling the canvas
towards the river, two other trees in that clump began to
send out those ominous little reports.  The field was long,
it seemed to increase in length, but before they reached
the end of it Thornton came.  He was able alone to finish
stretching the hose and connect it with the flume, and sent
Mose back to the nozzle end.  The old mother hurried
to drive the Jerseys to a safer distance, and Alice started
to return to the maple near the stable where she had tied
the horse.  But, as she followed the fence, she noticed
that some of the dead branches which littered the lane
outside were burning.  Every moment flames crept from
another undermined section of the brush pile, but every
moment counted.  Any instant the big canvas would begin
to fill; it was yet possible to save the fence.  She climbed
up and swung herself over into the lane.  She ran along,
pulling away the more dangerous limbs.  And it grew
hotter with each step.  She covered her cheek with her
hand; that too seemed to blister.  She stumbled around,
baffled, and looked towards the river.  The whole clump of
young firs was a blazing mass, and the hazels adjoining
shrivelled and crackled.  She started to go back into the
field.  Then she saw that smoke was rising in little puffs
all among the rails.  A curling red wave rippled along the
top one, reaching for her hand; tiny blue tongues, orange
ones, lapped and licked the scorching cedar everywhere.
Then, while she wavered, trying to choose the less dangerous
bars, she was enveloped in a great outpour of smoke.
She staggered a few steps stifled, blinded; her feet tripped
over a tangled mesh of twigs and she went down.

Beyond the fence the canvas began to distend.  It
rounded full; like a waking leviathan it stretched,
squirmed.  Thornton, running with the flow to help Mose
at the nozzle, passed without seeing her.  Then Stratton
came.  He had hurried from his lodge at the first hint of
smoke; he had learned, in a word from Mose, where to
look for her, and he discovered her.  He put his shoulder
to an upright and wrenched it away.  He grasped the
rails,—his hands blistered,—and flung them down.  He bent
to lift her, shielding her with his body, but at the same
time a burning sapling, looped in the slashing, sprang,
released like an unstrung bow, and struck the back of his
head.  He pitched, groaning, face downward.  The
smoke thinned but the brush pile became a roaring
furnace.  He got to his knees, groped for her, and half
dragged, half carried her out of that fiery lane.

Her dress was burning; he smothered the flames,
turning her on the meadow grass; he strangled more
persistent vipers with his arms.  But the pain from the
blow was very great.  He saw things all red, all black;
they mixed in a blur.  He stretched himself on the earth
a breathing space and closed his eyes.  "Great God,"
he muttered, "Great God, she must not have inhaled
fire."  And the words begun in imprecation ended like a
prayer.

When he recovered enough to see, he found her sitting up,
dazed a little, trembling, but watching Thornton and Mose,
who at last had turned the flood on the blazing brush
pile.  The spray of it drifted over them, and presently
a cloud of steam.  With Stratton's help she was able to
rise, and they went up through the field towards the cabin.
Sometimes he put his arm under her shoulders, holding her
on her feet; and sometimes he stumbled apart and stood
for an instant with his eyes closed, while his teeth gripped
the nether lip.  Neither spoke until they reached the
balcony steps.  Then they stopped and she looked back
at the men with the hose.  "They will save the trees,"
she said.  "See, the fire is under control; they have
saved the trees."

But Stratton was looking at her.  The coolness and
mockery had dropped from him in that hour, like a broken
mask.  The emotions and passions kept in leash through
months fought in his face.  He saw her rock unsteadily
again on her feet, and new strength surged to his arms.
"Damn the trees," he answered, and lifted her and
carried her up to the door.  "Damn Slocum and his pipe;
damn—myself."

She did not hear him.  Her body had yielded to complete
collapse.  He watched her still face, cradled in the
curve of his arm, and once while he crossed the room he
bent his lips to her cheek.  But something, that
indefinable something that had baffled him on the glacier,
seemed to push him back.  It was as though her white
spirit cried "no," and again his own soul shrank.

He laid her on a couch.  He brought water and bathed
her face.  One cheek, the right one, was blistered; her
lips were scorched; and one hand, also the right one, was
burned horribly.  He found olive oil in a small cupboard
and, with little further search, some cotton stuff which he
tore into bandages.  He wrapped the hand,—both of his
own were smarting, miserably,—and fixed an oiled pad
for her cheek; and he moistened her lips, pouring oil
between them, generously.

At this she opened her eyes and smiled.  "Don't
trouble," she said, "I didn't inhale any fire.  I
remembered to cover my mouth."  Her lids drooped again, but
she added softly, "They are fine—old—trees."

"The finest in the world," he answered, "but the
price—was too high."

He lifted her other hand to bandage a slighter burn, and
his own fingers trembled.  When he finished he did not
release it directly, but sat looking down at the uncovered,
gently hollowed palm.  She had very nice hands; he
had always noticed that; not too small but beautifully
made.  Then it came over him where, once before, he
had seen their loveliness spoiled.  It was that day on
Mt. Rainier when she had rescued him from the crevasse.
And now, at last, he had been able to square that debt.  He
bent suddenly and kissed the palm.  "Keep your trees,"
he said; "stay here in the wilderness as long as you want
to, but give me the right to be near you, always, and
protect you."

Her eyelids fluttered open.  She looked at him startled.
He leaned nearer.  His voice quickened; it became a
sensitive, soft-toned instrument, vibrant with tenderness.
"Marry me, Alice," he said, "and I will shape my whole
life to yours.  You shall never see a city or a crowd if you
say so.  I will create an Eden out of this homestead;
and when the settlement grows too civilized, when there
is nothing left to reclaim or build, I will take you to new
solitudes; I will carry you away in that schooner of mine,
up and up into the Alaska wilderness, and on some
unknown fiord set up another Paradise."

"Oh," she said at last, "please, please don't say any
more."  She tried to rise but her lips went white and she
sank back on her pillows.  In her haste she had pressed
on the maimed hand.  "I shouldn't have allowed you
to say this," she hurried on with great effort,
"but—I am very—tired.  I—I don't think clearly.  Wait.
Listen.  We have just come through a desperate time
together.  You saved—me.  How can I be angry with
you—so soon?  But you have no right to speak like
this to me.  I have no right to hear you.  You know I am
going to marry Judge Kingsley."

"You are not.  Unless," his voice held a threat, "you
believe that you love him."

She closed her eyes again; the lids quivered, her lips,
her whole face.  "If I had not," she answered, and the
words were almost a whisper, "could I have promised
to marry him?"

He was silent then.  He leaned back in his chair.
Presently he reached, groping, and found a strip of the
cotton stuff, which he dipped in the basin of water, and
laid on his eyes.

Finally she looked at him.  "Oh," she said, "you were
hurt.  You should have told me.  I should have seen.
What can I do for you?"

"Nothing," he answered, "nothing, thank you.  It is a
pain in my head that takes me from time to time.  Something
struck me, I think, out there in that fiery lane."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said.  "I'm so sorry—in both
ways.  Please don't think I'm ungrateful.  I have always
liked you, and believed in you, even when you seemed to
lose faith in yourself.  I knew, underneath, you were all
right.  And if it was friendliness you asked—"

"Friendliness?"  He threw the bandage aside and
started to his feet.  "Friendliness?  No.  It's you I
want—all of you—heart and body and soul—to have—to
keep."  He moved, stumbling a little to the door.  He put
his hand to his eyes and waited a moment, then he turned
and came back half way.  "I was wrong," he said, and
his voice struck a lower key, "I was wrong, pardon me.
And I accept that friendliness, yes, as long as you say so."

He swung on his heel then, and went out of the room.
That night, in his lodge, he laid ink and stationery
on his table and commenced a letter.  He wrote the date,
and under it, in a large firm hand:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "JUDGE SILAS KINGSLEY,
   \    "WASHINGTON, D.C.
   \  "MY DEAR SIR:—

.. vspace:: 1

Then he paused.  He laid the pen down and leaned back
in his chair for a long interval in thought.  But when he
resumed the task it was with quickness and decision and
no further halt.

.. vspace:: 2

"I am addressing you, as Miss Hunter's guardian, to
let you know that today I have asked her to be my wife.
Though I had contemplated this for some time the matter
was precipitated by a serious fire on her homestead,
during which I was privileged to be of service.  She was
rescued from a dangerous position, painfully, though not
deeply burned, and I trust will send you the particulars
soon.

"It is natural you should wish to learn something
further in regard to my financial circumstances and social
standing, and I am enclosing the cards of several Seattle
friends whom it is very possible you know; also the address
of Sir McDonald of Victoria, who was my father's close
friend and can tell you all about me.  You will remember
I have taken up my father's business of fur dealer, which
he carried on so long and successfully, and, as soon as the
construction of my new steam-schooner is completed,
I expect to equip her for extensive operations northward
in Alaska, making a specialty of sealskins and sable,
with what can be secured of otter and silver fox.  I believe
I may be considered in a position to support a wife
comfortably.

"As to the rest, I have every reason to think Miss Hunter
is not indifferent to me, though she feels, in honor, bound
by her promise to you.  I trust you will understand it is
most difficult for me to make this statement, but I am
confident you will not care to longer hold her to an
engagement, which she made in gratitude and through a
conscientious sense of duty, and which I believe was urged
on your part, simply through a desire to see her future
secure.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "Most sincerely and respectfully yours,
   \    "MARK DOUGLAS STRATTON."

.. vspace:: 2

He folded this letter slowly and put it in the envelope,
which he addressed carefully.  The pain had returned to
his head.  The Judge's name seemed suddenly to be
written in blood.  It trailed from his pen.  Still he finished,
and groping in his pocketbook found a stamp.

Then he rose to his feet.  He closed his eyes and clasped
his hands at the back of his head.  "My God," he groaned,
"Oh, my—God!"  He went over and threw himself face
downward on his bed.  But in a moment he was up again,
stumbling across the floor, in agony.  Finally he stopped
and knelt near the inner wall and felt for the third board.
It was of hewn cedar and heavy enough to go unnailed.
He raised it, not without difficulty, and found a long
narrow box set in the earth, underneath.  He lifted the lid
and took out one of several packages that filled it.  He
unrolled the wrapping of coarse flannel far enough to
reach a small tin; then he laid the bundle aside and stood
turning this in his hands.  It was a five-tael opium can
such as is used in transporting the crude drug.  "Well,"
he told himself, "why not?  The stuff is sold, daily, over
every druggist's counter, for pain not half—as
horrible—as this."

He took his knife and sprung the end of the tin enough
to pour a little of the thick, sticky substance into a glass.
"It is—strong—of course," he said; "a drop or two,
diluted, ought to be sufficient."  He added the water,
stirred it, and drank it off.

In a very short time the relief came.  He sat down on
the edge of his bed and drew off one of his riding-boots;
then he tried to pull the other and failed.  He stretched
himself, dressed, on the couch, and groping weakly,
found a blanket and succeeded in covering his knees.

When he wakened it was daybreak and some one, a
man, was working in the room.  He was kneeling by that
uncovered box and removing the packages to a canvas
sack, open beside him on the hewn floor.  Stratton
watched him a silent moment, then, "Where is Slocum,
Smith?" he asked.

The man turned on his knees.  It was a writhing movement
and he threw his head like a startled snake.  "Slocum
hyas scare," he answered.  "He doan' come here
today."

"Afraid of me, is he?  Well, he has reason to be.  I
told him to keep away from that homestead.  I told him,
when I gave him that tobacco, to be careful where he
smoked."

"Slocum hyas cultus," said the man.  "Slocum no
count."  He resumed his work, but after a silent moment,
he reared his head again to say, "Mose find some plas
where Slocum ees sleep.  He ees see Slocum's blanket
by one beeg cedar log, an' some brush on top, nawitka,
to mek roof.  An' Mose ees know it ees Slocum's bed,
for he ees fin under dat blanket, Yelm Jim's gun."

Stratton understood.  He seemed to see Alice, now, with
that bandaged hand, following Mose through the underbrush
to see for herself that human lair.  His glance moved
from Smith and that stuff on the floor.  A great revulsion
suddenly came over him.  The pain in his head was dull;
it no longer troubled him, but he turned his face to the wall
and set his teeth over a groan.

At last he heard Smith put the plank back in its place
and start with the filled sack across the floor.  He stopped
him at the door.  "It will be safer for Slocum, after this,"
he said, "to stay on the other side of the Pass.  Let him
help you through the mountains, this trip, Smith, but see
that you leave him there."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MAN WHO BUNGLED`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MAN WHO BUNGLED

.. vspace:: 2

Early in the autumn Samantha and young Thornton
were married.  The teacher, in a letter to her sister,
said it was a charming wedding.  She told how the
schoolhouse was converted into a bower for the occasion; how
all the settlement was there, displaying heirlooms of
finery, but nothing equalled Laramie's vest of blue and
crimson satin brocade, which he wore over a new woolen
shirt, and with an extra polish of the cowskin shoes.  And
she told how, when the old minister, imported from Olympia
for the ceremony, stood waiting on the platform under a
canopy of fern, and she, herself, commenced a bit of
Mendelssohn's march on Eben's violin, the bridal couple
in the doorway made a picture to remember; how
Samantha was delightful in a crisp white muslin, and when
she hung back shyly, Mill grasped her arm and dragged
her up the aisle.  How his face was red—possibly his
stiff collar was a size too small—and his eyes flashed
defiance, like a pirate convoying a risky prize.  She told
also how, when the ordeal was safely through, and
Samantha rode the sorrel to her new home, Thornton walking
at her side, all the district followed for the housewarming.
But though she described minutely this cabin, and the
improvements and values of the claim, of that other
section almost adjoining, where lived their nearest
neighbor, she still had nothing to say.

And it was an early autumn morning, a few days after
the wedding, that the bars of the lower meadow fence
were found down, and Mother Girard again discovered
that one of the Jerseys, straying or driven out under cover
of the timber, had been milked.  The impressions were
still fresh on the dew and the teacher joined Mose in
search of the trespasser.  This time the track skirted
the jungle, and, rounding the slope, entered the canyon,
where they met a beaten path leading from the upper end
of Stratton's quarter-section.  The river was bridged
there by a fallen tree, below which it widened into a ford,
and this new trail wound up the precipitous side of the
gorge, some distance beyond the cliff that was capped by
the leaning tower.  The footprints took that direction.

Suddenly they both stopped and stood looking up at the
stronghold.  Then they turned to each other.  A line of
smoke, rising behind the tower, marked a camp-fire.

"But," she said at last, "if he wants milk he must ask
me for it."  And she started bravely up the side of the
canyon.

Mose pressed after her closely.  Finally he said, "It
ees bes' you let me go firs', Mees.  He ees have one good
gun, for sure."

She swung around.  "Isn't it Slocum?"

Mose shook his head.  "No, Slocum doan' come roun'
dis ranch some more.  Monjee, he's too mooch 'fraid to
stop roun' here.  But Pete Smith, he doan' care, so long
he ain' see Mill."

"Pete Smith."  She paused, shivering a little, then she
laughed.  "It's funny, Mose, how creepy just his name
makes me feel.  I—I guess I will let you go first—if you
aren't afraid.  But wait, what makes you think it is Pete
Smith?"

"For dat las' night, when A'm come back wid dose
trout I catch down stream, I see heem by Mo'sieur's
plas.  Sacré, but he ees going fin' he ees lose some blankets,
an' flour an' sugar, 'bout ev'ryt'ing, when he comes home."

"You mean Pete had broken into the lodge.  Oh, you
should have gone directly for Mill Thornton.  But you
tried to stop him, Mose?  You at least warned him that you
surely would get word to Mr. Stratton?"

Again Mose shook his head.  "You mus' on'stan' it
ees bes' I let Pete 'lone.  He doan' want me talk to heem
dare.  Monjee, no.  It ees lak I doan' see heem.  Nawitka,
I come straight 'way home."

He moved his rifle into the curve of his arm, and pushed
by Alice, leading on up the bluff, through labyrinths of
hazel and alder, up short sections of gullies.  Just under
the summit he stopped.  "I doan' lak lose dis fine new
gun," he said softly, and began to fondle the stock.  "She's
mooch more fine dan dat good gun of Pete Smith's.
Nawitka, Mees, mebbe he ees watch us come 'cross de
gorge.  Mebbe he ees goin' have one drop on us.  Den it
ees bes' I leave dis gran' gun here; you think so, ya-as?

"Perhaps, Mose.  I hadn't thought of—that.  It
seemed safe to have it along.  He's the most hideous man.
But he can't help that.  And if he is on—guard—well,
leave the gun, Mose.  Of course he wouldn't harm us.
He wouldn't dare."

Mose stood the rifle carefully in a hollow trunk, and
moved on cautiously.  She kept very close to him up to
the top of the bluff, and there she laid her hand on his
arm.  "I'm frightened, Mose," she whispered.  "I'm
frightened."

He looked at her gravely.  "Mebbe you doan' care so
mooch 'bout dat milk now," he said.

She pulled herself straight.  "It isn't the loss of the
milk, Mose; you should understand that.  It's the
principle.  He can't take anything of mine.  It's wrong.
Besides, if I let this go, unnoticed, we might wake up any
morning to find greater things missing.  We might even
find Colonel gone."

She lifted her head higher and moved forward with new
resolve.  Mose kept pace with her, and presently they
halted, screened by a mesh of young hemlock boughs,
and looked out into the boulder-strewn open behind the
tower.

Smith was there.  He was removing from the fire a trout
which he had cooked on a long sharpened stick.  He
worked with a noiseless, gliding motion, and even when
he seated himself on the flat rock, which became at once
both chair and table, and fell hurriedly to eating his
breakfast, he kept up a ceaseless pantomime; beating the
earth softly with his foot, starting up, subsiding, shivering,
looking behind him, listening, and like an animal long
hunted, again starting.

Two horses stood near him accoutered for the trail.
One, his own, brought from Laramie's meadow, where
at intervals it was pastured, carried saddle-bags and a
snug blanket roll at the crupper; the other was an
indifferent pack-animal laden with camp supplies.

"He ees tek de long trail, for sure," whispered Mose.
"Monjee, how ees it he ees leave Colonel?"

"If those are Mr. Stratton's things he's got to take
them back," she said.  "Come, we must make him."

Mose shook his head.  "We doan' be able."

"We must."  Then she squared her shoulders and
walked forward with a clear "Good-morning."

Instantly the man was on his feet, and grasping the
rifle which stood at hand, against the tower wall, he
dropped to his knee behind the improvised table.  The
gun rested across the rock and he took sight carefully.

The girl came on into the open.  "Don't be afraid of
me," she said and steadied her voice, "I only want to talk
to you."

He lifted his head and looked at her in astonishment.
She came a few steps further, and Mose, silent, alert,
stalked after her and stood waiting.  "I came to speak
to you about milking my cow," she said, and ruffled her
brows.  "You should have asked me."

At this Smith laughed and rising from his knee, seated
himself again on the rock.  But he held his gun in readiness.

"I suppose," she went on, "it seems—to you—a
very small matter, compared with breaking into Mr. Stratton's
house."

He laughed again, loudly, insolently.

She watched him with the rising storm in her eyes.
She was no longer afraid.  Clearly the man was
unashamed; the spark of good that she had been taught to
believe was latent in the breast of the lowest man, was
lacking here.  He must be the exception that proved the
rule.  "You've got to take these things back," she said at
last, decisively, yet holding her voice in check; "now,
at once."

Smith lifted his gun higher, scowling.  "You go home,"
he said gruffly.  "Mose, you go.  Be quick 'bout it."

She remembered suddenly the day at school when Lem
had admitted that men in the settlement sometimes struck
women, but she did not move.  Then she was conscious
that Mose was walking back towards the wood.  "Mose,"
she said, and turning, stamped her foot, "stay here."

He stopped and looked over his shoulder.  "It ees bes'
dat you come right 'way," he said.  "Mebbe Mill T'ornton
ees able to do somet'ing, you spik to heem."

The man laughed still more insolently.  "You go,"
he repeated.

The next instant he sprang to his feet and faced the
wood on the other side of the open.  There was a brief
interval filled with the sounds of bodies moving through
low boughs, the snapping of twigs, the striking of hoofs
on loose rock, then Stratton's smooth, deliberate voice
said, "Well, Smith, I think I have a horse now that won't
refuse his pack, and I have tested him at a ford."

Smith put down his gun and hurried to take the led
animal, and Stratton rode on past the clump of scrub firs,
where the waiting horses were hitched, and saw suddenly
the girl by the tower.  A great wave of color surged over
his face and left it white.  His big frame rocked slowly
as though he gathered himself from a heavy and
unexpected blow; then he sat motionless.

"Oh," she said, and hurried to meet him, "I'm so
glad you came this way, instead of going straight through
to the bridge.  This man has looted your lodge.  I was
just trying to make him take back your things."

Stratton drew a great breath.  He shook himself like a
man throwing off a weight, and swung himself down from
the saddle.  "You were?  Well, thank you, Miss Hunter,
but he should have told you that I gave him the key."  He
paused and his eyes moved to Smith, who had gone to
an aperture in the tower, and was lifting from it other
supplies for the fresh pack-horse.  "In fact," he added,
"I have engaged Pete to go over the Pass with me, to cook
and look after my outfit."

Her glance moved to Sir Donald's full leather saddlebags
and snug blanket roll, and returned to his master.
"You have engaged this man," she said slowly, "to go
over the mountains with you?"

"Yes, I am starting on a long hunting and trading trip,
through the Palouse and Big Bend country, and Smith
knows the plains and the Indians.  He will be invaluable
to me in that uncertain wilderness.  But I shall probably
go down the Columbia, when I strike the railroad, and
come back to the Sound from Portland, by way of the
Northern Pacific."

"You are going a long hunting trip," she repeated,
and met his look steadily.  "You have engaged this man,
this outlaw, for your camp cook and guide.  You know you
are helping him to elude the Government.  Oh, how can
you, an intelligent, educated American, be so indifferent to
the laws?  I don't understand you.  I don't understand you."

She turned away.

"Wait, just a moment," he said.  "Is the case so
different from your own?  You took this other half-breed
Indian into your house; you gave him a new start; yet
the rascal had stolen our horses; he had left us high up,
nine thousand feet, on Mt. Rainier in the face of a storm.
He did even worse."

"Hush," she said.  Mose stood, waiting, a few yards
off.  His face was turned to the lower gorge and she
looked at him with apprehension.  "There is no
comparison," she went on softly.  "You know it.  He was
just a boy, untaught, his character unformed, and he
believed he was right.  There was plenty of good in him,
ready to be brought out by any one who cared to take the
trouble.  I have proved that; he has repaid me a hundred
times.  But this fellow—this desperado—think of his
record.  Look in his face."

She moved on with this, to join Mose, but her foot
struck something that clinked against a stone, and she
stopped to look down.  Then she stooped and picked up
the object, turning it curiously in her hands.  It was a
small tin receptacle, unlike anything she had ever seen
before.  There were some strange characters marked on
it, presumably Chinese, and while she studied them she
noticed that the can had sprung a little at the upper edge,
and a sticky substance began to ooze into her palm.  It
emitted a sickish odor and she held the thing out to
Stratton in sudden disgust.  "What is it?" she asked.  "Do
you know?  Did you drop it?"

Again he pulled himself together.  He took the tin and
hurled it over the cliff.  Some distance down it struck
a projecting ledge, and sent back, faintly, a clink.
"I know what it is, yes," he said grimly.  "The man
who dropped it—bungled."

His glance moved again to Smith and the steel flashed
in his eyes.  But the outlaw had not heard.  He was
engrossed in a full canvas bag which he was adjusting
to the pack saddle.

"Come, there is water here," Stratton went to the rock
where Smith had breakfasted, and lifted a flask.  "Hold
out your hands."

She held them out, turning them under the stream he
poured.  "Rub them," he said; "it stains.  Again, the
odor clings.  The stuff should never have touched your
hands."

"What is it?" she repeated.

He was silent.

"What is it?" she persisted.  "Can't you tell me?"

"Yes, yes, I can—if I must."  He threw his head with
a sudden reckless decision.  "It stands for shame,
ostracism, degradation, according to your code.  The man who
touches it takes his fate in his hands.  It sticks, its slime
covers him, sucks him down.  Look in my face."

But at the look she gave him, that straight, searching
look, which forever expected a best in him, the boldness
went out of his face.  A quiver swept it, as though he felt
deep down the twist of a probe.  "Once, up there below
the Paradise," he said, "you promised your mercy.  The
time has come; I ask it—now."

"You mean it is"—but her voice failed.  Her eyes
widened with fear, and yet there rose in them an appeal.
"You mean," she repeated, "you were going to—"  But
the word would not out; it died in her throat.  Then,
"Promise me you will not," she entreated.  "Promise—no
matter how desperate you may feel—you will
always put the feeling down.  I should blame myself; I
should feel someway responsible.  I couldn't help it.
It would spoil my life."

He drew his hand slowly across his eyes and moved back,
leaning on the tower wall.  So she thought that.  She
believed that he had contemplated self-destruction, and
in that crude, spectacular way.  And of course she
attributed his reason to her rejection of him.  He could
have laughed aloud at his escape.  "I promise," he
answered.  "I promise.  I will leave it to Nature.  When
the time comes she can provide a way."

"Thank you, I trust you."  She gave him her hand.
"Good-by."

She hesitated, glancing once more at the outlaw, but of
him she had nothing further to say.  Stratton stood
watching her down the trail; when she disappeared he
moved to the edge of the cliff and waited for a final glimpse
of her, far below in the canyon.

At last he noticed that his guide was ready.  "Ride on
with the pack-horses," he said.  "I will overtake you in
time to make Nisqually ford.  And the next time you find
a leaking can, Smith, be careful where you throw it."

When the man was gone he sank down on a rock and
dropped his face in his hands.  Finally he lifted his head
and sat for an interval looking down the gorge in the
direction she had taken.  "She is so bright and quick,"
he told himself, "and yet she could not see the truth.  With
all of her knowledge of smuggling, and opium and rings,
she has never seen or had a description of the stuff.  It is
strange, strange—for I went all to pieces, there, for a
minute.  It must be, after all, because she is so ready to
take a man on trust.  She is so tremendously honest herself,
she won't accept a man's own doubt of himself.  But
I—I—had a narrow escape.  Strange, too, what a hold she
has had on me from the start.  I would have braved it
out, lied to a man; I would have laughed it off with any
other woman; but she lifted her eyes, probing for that
everlasting best in me, and I babbled like a fool."

Presently he drew a letter from his pocket.  It was an
answer to the one he had written the Judge.  It had
miscarried at first, and he had travelled so much the last
weeks, it had been forwarded and missed him repeatedly.
He had received it that morning at the Station on the
prairie below the Myers claim.  He opened the sheet and
re-read it slowly.

.. vspace:: 2

"WASHINGTON, D.C., July 20th, 18—.

.. vspace:: 1

"MY DEAR STRATTON:—In response to your letter
I want to remind you that I knew your father, John
Stratton, well.  He was a strong and capable man and
always a gentleman.  I am certainly interested in the
career of his son.  I also satisfied myself somewhat as to
your standing, before I came East, because it is my
custom to know about my nephew Philip's friends.  I
learned nothing of a disparaging nature.

"But in regard to the initial point of your letter, I can
only say that a release from a marriage engagement
should depend altogether on the direct request of the lady.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "Very truly yours,
       "SILAS KINGSLEY."

.. vspace:: 2

Stratton held the letter a thoughtful interval, then
he rose and went over and laid it on Smith's smouldering
fire.  He stood watching it break into flame and curl up
like a brown, dead leaf.  "But it will influence him," he
said.  "He can't help it; it will raise a question."

He turned to untie his fretting horse.  "So, Donald,
old fellow, there is light ahead; we are almost out of the
woods.  A little more dishonor," he set his foot in the
stirrup and swung himself up, "and we can afford to
make a fresh start."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WATER-LOGGED`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   WATER-LOGGED

.. vspace:: 2

At Freeport the following winter was severe.  Snow
lay for weeks, thawing, freezing, accumulating with
every squall that came over from the mountains, and
falling in small avalanches which started landslides all
along the bluff.  On some mornings the upper part of the
harbor below Duwamish flats was covered with ice, which
the rising tide lifted and broke into sheets.  The logs
taken from the water were glazed, and in still places inside
the boom, ice packed solid.  And with the unusual cold
a lull in construction settled over the Northwest; there
came a second drop in the prices of exported lumber.
Many of the smaller mills closed under a subsidy.  But
the Judge, in answer to Forrest's statements of the
situation, advised the cutting down of expenses to a minimum,
and keeping things going, if only to give employment to
the men.  He had heard the Puget Sound country was
flooded with idle mechanics, laborers, hundreds of
construction hands discharged since the completion of the
Northern Pacific.  And of course the prevailing Eastern
panic had in many instances caused the recall of invested
capital.  But he was confident that another half-year
would see a pronounced revival; at any rate he would be
able to make a trip home by that time, and he wanted to
be on the ground and see conditions for himself before he
came to a final decision.

At the close of January the men still received "reg'lar
pay," to quote Mason, but the books showed that the
manager's salary was accumulating to his credit.  Other
accounts indicated that the junior partner was overdrawing.
He had his impulses of industry and economy when
he tried to balance a considerable delinquency by spending
an interval at the mills; but he always annulled the results
by a yet deeper plunge, and his only systematic restriction
was in deferring to take a house in town.

Forrest was thinking of Kingsley while he finished his
rounds of the mills.  It was at the close of a bleak day;
there was an increasing wind; ragged cloud scurried
overhead, the forerunner of the black masses driving up in the
southwest.  Philip was presumably in Victoria.  He had
not heard from him for a week.  "But," he told himself,
as he came down the steps from the landing to the walk,
"it's useless to bother the Judge with this side of it, now.
It's as he says, he can't understand things fully until
he is on the ground."

He stopped at the branch to Kingsley's house to speak
to the old watchman, who was stumping up from the
lower dock.  "Well, Mason," he said, "it's another blow."

"Ay, sir."  The old sailor swung around to look at
the running sea.  He knew the ships over the harbor were
taking precautions against the growing storm; stretching
an extra hawser, dropping a second and third anchor,
clearing decks.  But there was no vessel at the Freeport
wharves; the bark that had sailed that morning left no
other receiving.

"Keep the slab-fire low, Mason, and have an eye to
the boom."

"Ay, ay, sir."

"And, Mason, go back and put the signal out for the
*Success*.  Let me know when she's in sight."

"Ay, sir?"  The old sailor's voice took a rising
inflection; his unlovely features worked.

"Yes," said Forrest, "I'm going over to Seattle for the
doctor.  Little Si is worse."

He turned then, and went up to the gate.  Louise heard
him on the steps and met him at the door.  He followed
her silently in to that inner room where little Silas lay.
His head was propped high with pillows and the place
sounded with his labored breathing.  Forrest stood for
a moment watching him: the heaving of the breast under
the loose white gown; the flutter of the half-closed
eyelids; the milky whiteness of the forehead between the
crayon-like brows and rings of tumbled hair.  The child
was very lovable; he had always shown his fondness for
him in demonstrative, winning ways; and in the earlier
stages of his illness he had called for him, begging to be
carried or rocked, and Forrest had devoted late hours
to him, sharing the mother's vigil; ready with the comfort
and security of his strong arms.  Now, while he looked
at the unconscious face, this large-hearted, homeless,
home-loving man seemed to feel a small hand on his
heart-strings; the touch tightened when the baby coughed.

He turned to Louise.  "I'm going over on the *Success*,"
he said.  "The doctor will come back with me.  Is there
anything else I can do?"

"No, unless—you can find Philip."

"I am afraid he is still in Victoria.  He would hardly
have started to cross the Straits in this storm."

"No," she assented, "not in this storm."  She lifted
her hand to her head in a bewildered way, and turned to
her baby with the mechanical effort of one long worn
out with anxiety and watching.  But when the child
coughed again, a harder paroxysm, the motherhood leaped
to her eyes.  "Paul," she cried, "oh, Paul."

He did not try to answer that appeal; he could not look
at her.  But he took the child's medicine from the table
and stood for a moment, thoughtful, irresolute.  A man
who has the charge of workmen in an isolated place, out
of range of a physician, picks up the rudiments of
medicine and surgery, and presently he went to a stand holding
a few general remedies.  He poured a little of the liquid
from the bottle he carried, into an empty vial, and added
several drops of ammonia.  He gave the baby a potion
from the mixture, lifting the blond head higher, rearranging
the pillows gently, with a woman's touch.  He waited
a brief interval, watching the result.  "It's a very strong
stimulant," he said.  "Only use it every alternate time,
or—if the attack is bad.  I won't be longer than I can
help."

While he walked down to the store he saw Mason's
signal-light on the wharf, but the little mail steamer,
plying between Seattle and a near port, was not yet in
sight, though nearly an hour late.  Forrest unlocked the
door and lighted his desk lamp.  "There isn't a rowboat
on this beach," he thought.  "Nothing but Sing's
dugout; and what could she do in this sea?"

He began to post his books, but the child's face drifted
between him and the open page, and that appeal of the
mother's rang an undernote to the rush and scream of the
wind.  He laid his pen down and sat staring, absent,
harassed, up at the rafters.  A timber creaked; the great
building shook in a heavier gust, and the sea swept with
a long hiss and swash on the beach under the piling.
Then presently above all these noises there came the
shrill toot of a whistle.

It was a sound that brought him to his feet.  He threw
his books into the safe, lifted his overcoat from the counter,
and was about to extinguish the light, when the door
opened and Mason entered with a rush of sharp air.
"She's gone by, sir," he said.  "Headlight stove in, sir;
sea smashing on the wheel-house."

The manager's hand dropped from the burner.

"But she answered the signal, Mason; she whistled
the landing."

"Ay, sir, an' wore away, sir, er rollin' like er porpoise."

"Well, Mason, it means the dugout.  She's on the
beach above the float."

Mason's watery eyes blinked.  "Ay, sir, an' more'n half
full, sir."

"Then we'll bail her."

He laid his top coat back on the counter and turned out
the light, and while he led the way down to the float, he
blamed himself and excused and blamed himself anew,
for depending on that little steamer.

Sheltered though it was by the wharves and the headland,
the small landing rose and dipped; breaking crests
swept sheer over it.  Mason set his lantern on a pile and
the manager helped him turn and empty the beached
canoe.  Roughly hewn from a cedar log, with bow and
stern cut square and hollowed slightly like a scow, it had
a clumsy appearance even as dugouts go, and in mild
weather two men together could hardly have risked
passage in her.  Launched, she swashed in the tide like
a thing water-logged.

No one knew how the craft first drifted to Freeport,
though Hop Sing had appropriated her, to use on still
evenings during the salmon run, when he visited his
friends employed at the cannery a mile up the coast.  The
paddle was not in its usual hiding-place, a niche under
the flooring of the nearest dock, and Forrest hurried up
to the cook-house.

"Give me the paddle to the dugout, Sing," he said,
stopping on the threshold; "I'm going over to Seattle."

The Chinaman whirled on his cork soles and looked at
him.  Then he swung his towel over his shoulder and his
face expanded in a smile.  "What for you jokee me,
Boss?  Hully sit down.  I bling supper belly click.  Steak
muchee cold."

"Never mind supper, Sing; or just give me some coffee
right here, while you find that paddle."

He poured the steaming coffee, black and bitter from
long waiting, and gave the cup to Forrest.  "What for
you takee dugout?  He no good.  Too muchee blow,
blow."  His voice shrilled incredulously, but something
in the manager's face made him turn abruptly and trip
across the kitchen to his own private closet, where, after a
brief search under his bunk, he brought forth the missing
paddle.

He had a catlike aversion to moisture and cold, but
Forrest had eased him through many a buffeting from the
mill crew, and presently he lighted his lantern and
followed him down to the float.  He found Mason steadying
the lurching dugout while the young man took his place
forward of the stern.  And he waited silently, but with
growing concern, until the old sailor cast off the painter
and gave the great even push which propelled the craft
out between docks, then he, too, held his light aloft, vying
with the watchman to illuminate the way.  The wind filled
his wide, white sleeves, baring his arms above the jade
bracelets; it played havoc with his unwound cue and set
all his loose garments fluttering; but he stood there long,
shivering, with teeth chattering, holding the lantern yet
higher and straining his eyes to follow that small,
receding shape.

As he swung clear of the wharves Forrest felt the strong
ebb, and low as the dugout was, she careened to the wind
when she drifted out of the protection of the headland.
A wave broke, drenching him through.  Far to the
northward he saw the revolving light on West Point; then
a smaller flame appeared on the opposite shore, and he
knew by the position of these lamps when he had reached
the open, where the gale had its fullest sweep of the Sound.
Another crest broke over him; another; still he made
headway and held his course quartering to the trough.
The deep whistle of an ocean collier came to him, and off
the point he saw her lamps; a tug passed close at hand.
He heard plainly the noise of her screw, but she went by
without heeding his hail, and he caught the counter
motion of her wake.  Presently he noticed water about
his knees, and groping, found the can; and while he bailed
he tried with one hand to keep the dugout under control,
but she swung broadside, taking a sea.  He dropped the
can and grasped the paddle with a great dip that brought
her slowly around.  His muscles ached; his fingers
cramped; how that year of confinement at the mills had
unfitted him.

When the beacons disappeared he knew that he had
made a little more than half the distance.  But the dugout
never headed for the city lamps; she drove before the
wind, and the most he could do was to swing her out of
the trough, and ease her northeast by north, hoping to
strike the point which marked the harbor entrance above
the town.

A passenger steamer rounded the Head behind him,
her brilliant windows now thrown high, now showing
a narrow rim as she rolled in the trough.  She came
rapidly and passed far to leeward.  While he watched her,
shouting repeatedly, against reason, the dugout shipped a
sea that all but swamped her.  He threw off his coat;
loosened and kicked off his shoes.  He bailed for a time,
then, ceaselessly.  The water was very cold; it swashed
over his limbs, numbing him to the core.  A cloud broke
overhead, pelting him with a storm of hail.  The stones
cut the waves with a sharper swish, hiss; they stung his
face, his hands.  When he stopped a breathing space
the thought of little Silas spurred him, and again and
again Louise's voice seemed to reach him, audibly, in
desperate appeal.

The hail passed.  The city lights grew clearer, off the
starboard but falling astern.  Then at last he noticed that
a deeper stroke of the paddle swung the dugout eastward
and kept her headed so.  The tide was running in.  A
black hulk loomed out of the darkness, showing a red
lantern at her bow.  Was it not the old collier that was
burned at the coal bunkers, years ago, and towed here to
beach north of town?  This light, standing out in advance
of all others, became an inspiration.  The lines of a trestle
detached from the gloom.  His paddle struck something,
presumably a sunken pile, and snapped at the handle,
the blade whirling away in the darkness.  He heard the
sea breaking on a gravelly shore; felt the undertow.
A crest swept over him, and another heavier comber
lifted the dugout and hurled it full against the trestle.
When the water receded he found himself clinging to a pile;
the solid beach was under him, though the surge washed
to his armpits.  The next wave cast him on the gravel.

He dragged himself higher and rested briefly, pulling
himself together, then he rose and made his way, in the
teeth of the wind, down to the water-front of the town.
He found a small tug, that sometimes did towing for
the mills, under steam.  He hailed her from the dock,
sheltering his numb body behind a pile of cord-wood,
while he waited for the master to answer him.  Then,
"I'm Forrest," he said, "of Freeport, and I want you to
put me over at the mills as soon as you can.  I came for
a doctor and I'll have him down here in fifteen or twenty
minutes."

"All right," the man replied, "I'm just starting for a
run down to the Straits, but glad to accommodate you.
Hell of a night."

Forrest was already out of hearing.  He left a summons
as brief at the doctor's door.  "Tug's waiting," he called
back.  "Arlington Dock."

Then he hurried on to the hotel which Kingsley
frequented.  He glanced at the office clock as he entered
the lighted room.  It was a quarter past eleven.  He had
been over three hours making that trip across the harbor;
a distance of two miles.

There was a stove near him and he put his numb hands
out to the heat while he asked for Philip.  It was as he
had feared; the Captain had not come back from his
last little run to Victoria.  The sudden warmth made him
faint, but he leaned on the desk, trying to shape a
telegram.

His effort was manifest and the men around the stove
watched him curiously.  He was hatless, coatless, without
shoes; and the steam rose from his remaining clothes;
the water, dripping from them, formed in pools on the
floor.  The clerk went over to the bar and brought him
a glass of brandy.  "See here, Forrest," he said, "drink
this; then tell us what happened to you.  How did you
come over from the mills?"

He drank a part of the liquor and set the glass down.
"In a small boat," he answered briefly, "and I made a
bad landing."

"Looks like it," the clerk said, dryly.  "Come in here
and get into some clothes of mine."

"No, thank you," replied Forrest, "I'm going right
back; have a tug waiting.  But lend me a coat, Charley,
if you can, and some sort of a fit in shoes."

He wrote his telegram while the man brought the things,
and he threw on the coat on his way to the door.

"Never saw such a man," said the clerk, addressing
the group near the stove.  "Ready to tell a story when it's
another fellow, just spreads it on, but when it's himself
won't say a blamed word.  But he's got the nerve; yes,
sir, he's all nerve and—backbone."

When Forrest reached the wharf he found the doctor
waiting with the tug-master in the little pilot-house.
They made a place for him, but he turned aside into the
engine-room, and sinking down on a bench near the
boiler, stretched his hands out again to the heat.  The
steam and odor of oil, the lurching of the boat, following
that draught of brandy, affected him strangely.  In the
uncertain light the engineer seemed to expand into a figure
foreign and grotesque.  Once when he stooped to open
the furnace door he paused, looking up at Forrest with a
laugh.  With the red glow on his grimy face it became an
impish, insulting laugh, and the manager drew himself
up to resent it; but he did not; he was too weak.

The next time he was roused was when the tug bumped
the Freeport dock.  The piles all seemed to be swaying
and lifting when he stepped ashore, but the fresh air
steadied him, and the sight of Mason's rugged face helped
to clear his vision.  Here also was Hop Sing out again
with his lantern, and his smile rivalled the welcome of the
old watchman.  The sailor made fast the line with an
extra flourish and thump of the wooden leg, and the cook
demonstrated his satisfaction in a pigeonwing or two,
as he lighted the way to the house.

Forrest was not the man to let these attentions go.
"Well, Sing," he said, "I'm afraid you won't see that
boat of yours again."

"Oh, I no clare, Boss, I no clare."  He wheeled on his
cork soles, showing his yellow teeth.  "Mason, he makee
belly good fire your loom.  Byme by, plitty click, I bling
supper; oyster soup, flied chicken, belly hot, nicee."

But Forrest was looking up across the gate and his steps
quickened.  The door had opened and Louise stood
against the flood of light.  She came forward to the edge
of the piazza.  "There has been a change," she said
softly.  "He seems to be in a quiet sleep."

Forrest waited in the parlor while the doctor followed
her to that inner room.  It seemed a long time before they
returned, but he was rubbing his plump hands.  "Mrs. Kingsley
was right," he said, and smiled.  "There has
been a change, undoubtedly.  And you should have a
diploma, sir; that ammonia buoyed the child over a
crisis.  But it must be used sparingly; sparingly."  He
opened his medicine case and laid out a box of tablets and
a vial with a few brief directions.  Then he took up his
hat and top coat,—the tug was waiting for him,—and
went to the door.  "Of course, he is still a very sick child,
but, with careful nursing, and I see he has that, he will
pull through.  Good night; yes, your baby will pull
through."

Forrest closed the door softly and came back to the
fire.  "Phil wasn't in town," he said, "but I left a
telegram to be forwarded.  He will be able to catch the mail
steamer in the morning, if he isn't already on the way."

He lifted a piece of bark from the wood-basket and laid
it on the fire.  She watched him.  Little clouds of steam
began to curl up from his clothes.  Suddenly she put her
hand on his arm.  "Paul," she said, "what happened?
How did you cross the harbor?"

"Why, the *Success* went by without stopping, and I
took a small boat.  I'm going now to change my clothes.
When I come back you must lie down; you need some
sleep."

"But there wasn't a small boat; the *Phantom* is away
with the tender; there isn't a ship's boat; not any kind
of a rowboat on this beach.  Unless—Paul, you didn't go
in that dugout?"

"Yes," he said lightly, "that's what made me so long.
She isn't fleet."

"Fleet."  She knew what it meant.  He had shared her
anxiety and care; it had been one more responsibility
thrust upon him; and now, in her extremity, he had risked
himself for her child.  She could not tell what peril the
dugout had lumbered through, but it had been peril in
the darkness and that sea.  And Philip, her husband, who
should have been the one to face it, was doubtless passing
the night gaily, in some warm and brilliant room.  Oh,
the shame of it, the bitterness, the sting of it!  A sob broke
from her lips.  She sank down on a sofa and dropped her
face on her arm.  "I cannot—bear it," she said.
"I—cannot—bear—it."

She did not cry as another woman might; there was no
easy rush of tears, but the long pent grief of months, borne
silently through weary days and slower nights, welled
and found vent to the search of a probe.

A glory from the crimson lamp-shade touched her hair,
which was unbound for comfort, and held half its length
in two loose braids, as she had worn it when they were
children.  The strained position of her arm, thrown up
over the head of the sofa, pulled back her sleeve, showing
its smooth whiteness from below the elbow; it tapered
perfectly to the wrist.  The slender, shaking figure, her whole
attitude, was an unconscious appeal to him, and roused
a tumult of feeling; not only resentment against Philip,
but immeasurable pity, tenderness for her, out of which rose
a sudden and overwhelming desire to take her in his arms
and comfort her.

He turned and looked into the fire; the frowning line
deepened between his level brows.  "Don't make so much
of it," he said.  "I'm none the worse for a little wetting."

.. _`"He turned and looked into the fire"`:

.. figure:: images/img-196.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "He turned and looked into the fire."

   "He turned and looked into the fire."

"None the worse?"  He started at the vibration in her
voice.  She rose to her feet.  "Do you think I do not
know you have done a desperate thing?  Do you think I
have no gratitude?"

"Oh, no," he answered smiling, "I couldn't think that."

She came a little nearer.  "You have a bruise on your
forehead; your hand—I noticed it when you lifted the
wood—is cut—terribly."  She took the hand in her
own palm and examined the hurt, touching it gently with
her handkerchief.  "How was it, Paul?  Tell me."

"Why, I hadn't noticed it, but it probably happened
when I made a landing."  He winced slightly under her
soft dabs.  "I ran the dugout in at that old trestle above
town, and struck a pile.  Now you know the worst;
there's nothing left to imagine."  He laughed and drew
his hand away.  "I'm going down to my room now, but
I shall be back in a little while.  Sing is bringing me a
supper."

He opened the door and went out, closing it softly.  "To
have a wife like that," he thought, "and yet neglect her."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`"ANDROMEDA HAS FOUND A PERSEUS"`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   "ANDROMEDA HAS FOUND A PERSEUS"

.. vspace:: 2

The great boom which cleared Duwamish Head of its
big timber and cut the cable car-track across the face
of the promontory, created also frequent and heavy
landslides that changed the gravelly beach at Freeport into
the broad and sandy expanse which became Seattle's
favorite bathing resort.  In the earlier times, beyond the
old hotel, the high tide washed sheer to the foot of the bluff,
and the incomparable view of blue sea and wooded island,
framed by the shining Olympic Mountains, was limited
to the outlook from the balcony at the rear of the ruin.

Louise stood upon this balcony, facing the northwest.
The bluff was on her left, so near she might have lifted
her hand and touched the damp soil.  It was midsummer
and a resinous fragrance mingled with the salt air.  The
distant coast was veiled in smoke, and the sun, low in the
west, barred the Sound blood red.

The swell broke with a long swash and gurgle under the
floor; a passing gust set the door behind her creaking;
the heavier one at the opposite end of the bar-room was
also swinging, and between its widening crack Stratton
appeared on the walk.  At sight of her he started and
paused, then he came on into the ruin.  His glance swept
the interior, from the threshold, and rested on the door
behind the bar.  It was closed and fitted with a new,
strong lock.

At the sound of his tread she turned, and he came
forward quickly, smiling and offering his hand.  "Good
afternoon," he said, in his conventional way, "it is rather
nice here, isn't it?  I hope I do not intrude?"

"No," she said, and answered his smile, "I am glad
to share it.  Did the *Phantom* bring you?"

"No, the *Success* left me."  His gesture called her
attention to the small mail steamer moving westward.
"I ran over about a little matter of business.  I saw young
Silas on the dock with that old character Mason.  The
boy is growing."

"Yes, he lives out of doors so much.  They are great
playfellows, and I can trust Mason.  He takes him rowing
every afternoon, often twice, out of the shadow of the Head
into the sunshine."

"But you,"—he paused with a light emphasis, looking
down into her sweet, inscrutable face,—"you stay in the
shadow.  Do you know what I thought of just now, coming
up the walk?  It was Andromeda—chained."

"You had the sea," she looked about her thoughtfully,
"and this bluff; Andromeda—perhaps—but without
a Perseus."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Yes."  She met the unmistakable admiration in his
eyes with a clear look and a slight uplifting of her oval
chin.  "It is too bad, but the comparison is misapplied."

She moved towards the doorway.  He waited a moment,
watching her in mingled amusement and pique.  "Another
touch-me-not," he told himself; "I had not thought
she could be so like her sister.  Don't let me take you
back," he said aloud, following a step; "it is pleasanter
here, away from the interminable buzz of those saws."

But she moved on into the building.  He joined her.
"We are sailing over to Tacoma tonight," he said.  "The
yacht club is arranging a little hop.  Come with us.  Go
over the harbor with me, when the *Success* picks me up
on the return trip.  I will give you a merry time, I promise
you."

"It is always that on board the *Phantom*," she
answered brightly.  "And of course Philip would run in for
me, if I could leave little Si.  You see I have only Mason
to depend on, and at night he is on duty."

"But bring the boy.  We will tuck him away in a berth
down below.  He will like it.  Why, he took that cruise
among the islands last year like an old salt, and then
he had just begun to toddle."

She shook her head.  "He is better off at home.  He
couldn't sleep; not in that gay company."

Stratton wondered how far she meant to disregard that
matter of his escort.  He was not accustomed to indifference
from a woman.  And any other, in a like position,
would grasp at the opportunity he offered.  "My dear
Mrs. Kingsley," he said, and his voice was no longer
conventional, "throw aside those Puritan scruples, for
once, and let me show you how easy it is to accomplish—what
you desire.  I know the Captain.  Come, go with
me on this moonlight excursion, tonight."

She met his gaze bravely, smiling a little, but there was
in her eyes the look of one who has felt in a wound the
quick turn of a probe.  "Thank you, no," she said.

The child was coming up the walk and she hurried to
meet him.  "Muvver," he called excitedly, "Mason can
take us to row, now."  Then he stopped, looking at
Stratton, and added doubtfully, "The boat is big 'nough
for you, too."

Stratton laughed and took out his watch.  "Thank
you.  I have over an hour to spare, but you must put me
aboard the *Success*, sure, when she comes back."

Mason, who had waited at the branch walk, turned and
stumped ahead to the landing.  He held the boat steady
and the young man stepped into the stern and lifted the
boy in.  But when he offered his hand to Louise she drew
back and said, "Oh, I am not going; did you think so?
Good-by, Silas.  Take care of him, Mason."

"Ay, mum?"  The old sailor's voice held a note of
inquiry.  He had lost his shyness, in a measure, at the time
of the child's illness.  And since then Forrest had seen
that there was always a rowboat at the mills.  He had
made it Mason's duty, during the boy's convalescence,
to take him and his mother out in search of the sunshine.
She had rarely missed these little trips.

But whatever chagrin Stratton may have felt was not
apparent.  He settled into his place, lifted his hat to her,
and taking a cigar from his case, occupied himself, while
the boat was under shelter of the wharves, with getting
a light.

She watched them out, waving her hand and smiling
an answer to her baby's repeated "Good-by."  Then she
turned and went up from the landing.  "If it was a way,"
she said under her breath, "then I have let it go."

She walked in the direction of the mills, on past the
last cabins, to the beginning of a path that zigzagged
up the side of the promontory.  She pushed up quickly,
finding in the tangible difficulty of the ascent relief for her
hot thoughts.  Sometimes the earth gave under her and
she sprang to a spur of rock; she grasped the tough,
springy boughs of young firs to ease her weight.  She
invited the touch of the prickly needles on her hands and
face, and she drew full breaths of the fragrance exhaled
from her palms.

She gained the summit moist and panting, and paused
to look down on the rowboat, and on across the harbor to
the infant city on her hills.  There was no dwelling near;
the trail took the contour of the bluff, which in places
became a precipice, and everywhere around her stretched
the forest or the sea.  She crossed to the westward side
and stopped where a fallen hemlock had cut a swathe
through the timber, creating an unobstructed view.  Out
of the smoke film that shrouded the distant shore, rising
columns parted in dun rolling clouds, showing where the
forest fires burned; but the Olympics reared their giant
heads from the pall, sometimes thrusting a shoulder
through.  And to this woman it was not solitude; she
had come into the presence of old friends.  She turned her
eyes to that grand company of peaks and forgot the narrow
limits of the life below the bluff; she stood above the
drift and shadow and, for a moment, Philip.

Her hands were clasped loosely behind her; her lifted
head exposed the beautiful lines of throat and chin; her
breath came a little hard and quick and there was a soft
color in her cheeks.  The likeness to her sister had never
seemed as marked to Forrest as it was then, when he
came upon her unexpectedly, by the fallen hemlock, on
his way to the mills.  Was not this the trail to the
headwaters?  Had they not paused to choose a way through
the windfall?

She did not see him, and he waited, mastered by that
brief illusion.  And while he watched her face she saw
the heights of the Olympics change from rose to burnished
brass; every peak and spur flamed a signal to the
departing sun.

   |          "'But breathe the air of mountains
   |  And their unapproachable summits will lift thee
   |      to the level of themselves.'"

She repeated the words softly with a clear modulation,
deepening to a contralto note, and after a moment added
a preceding line.

   |  "'Assert thyself; rise up to thy full height.'"

But there she stopped, and lifting her arms with a little
outward gesture, expressive of futile effort, let them drop,
and turning her face, saw Forrest.

He came forward quickly to say, "I've only been
here a moment, and I couldn't help listening; I'm
fond of those lines.  But, when did you ever assert
yourself?"  He looked down at her with his smile of the
eyes.  "It's there the resemblance stops."

"You mean to Alice?"

"Yes, sometimes you are very like her," and he turned
his glance to the mountain-tops.

"You mean physically.  I think, in other ways, I must
often seem purposeless, even weak—to you."

"Ob, no," he said quickly, "I couldn't ever believe
that.  You are stronger than most women; strong to
endure.  But you lack her executive ability."  Then he
stopped, for he saw that she had given his words a
personality he had not meant.

"What would you have me do?"  The vibration in her
voice hurt him; he could not meet the intensity of appeal
in her eyes.  "It had commenced before we came to
Freeport.  I felt that he was growing tired of me, but I
believed, if I could be alone with him, in a dull place like
this, I might win him back.  It seemed the only chance;
but—it has failed."  The tears were streaming down
her face; she reached out her hands to him.  "What
would you have me do?" she repeated.  "Tell me."

Forrest had never known her to lose her self-control
but once before; the night he had crossed the harbor
in the dugout.  Even then it was quickly over; she had
not spoken of Kingsley's neglect; he had never heard
her so much as breathe a reproach.  His great heart ached
for her, while he felt the futility of any sympathy he could
offer her.  He broke away some young growth in front
of the fallen tree, and she allowed him, passively, to seat
her in the crotch of a great branch.  "You are pretty
tired," he said gently.  "It's a hard pull up the bluff.
And this solitary life is telling on you; I feel the strain of
it, myself, sometimes.  We will both be glad to get away
from Freeport."

She threw her arm up over the bole, and dropped her
face on it, sobbing.  He stood looking seaward.  Far out
the water was still barred blood-red.  Presently he said,
"You know the mills are about to shut down?  We have
been waiting for the Judge, but he will be here in another
month, perhaps sooner.  There isn't a doubt he will
close.  You know we are falling behind.  Lumber has
dropped to seven dollars a thousand; the San Francisco
market is glutted; the bone-yard there has stopped
receiving."

She knew that he had said all this to give her time, and
she struggled with those crowding emotions, trying and
failing, and trying again to beat them down.  He waited,
with his back towards her, his face to the painted sea.
He was a resourceful man, quick to grasp a difficulty and
its solution, for others as well as himself, but now he halted,
baffled, like a man come to a blind wall.  His mind ran
through that first slow year at Freeport, and it flashed over
him what an interminable blank it would have been
without her.  Confined as they were to the narrow limits of
the mills, it had been as close as life on shipboard.  They
had taken their meals together; they had met, passed and
repassed countless times daily on the short walks.  He had
been glad to show a helpful interest in little Silas.  He
had fallen easily into the way of spending his evenings,
when he could, with her; she loved his violin.  He saw
now how those hours had dulled the poignancy of putting
Alice out of his life.  He remembered how he had
commenced to watch in Louise for a repetition of those many
little airs he liked; the lifting of the chin, the high pose
of the head, the ready change of color; all modified, it was
true, softened and blended with much that was not her
sister's, but there, palpable, near, breathing, flesh and
blood.  And most of all he understood what she had done
for him when that business depression laid a fatal hand
on the mills.  He had meant to do great things and he was
one to take defeat hard; but she, this sweet, proud woman,
with the courage in her voice and the heart-break in her
eyes, had taught him by example how to fight a losing
battle to the end, and—like a man.

The silence was broken by the neigh of a horse.  It was
unusual on that promontory; saddle-animals never took
the foot-path over the bluff to the mills, and afterwards
Forrest remembered the sound.  Then, though he turned
and looked in the direction of the neigh, he gave it small
attention.  His glance fell to her; and that attitude, the
hidden face, the slender shaking figure, brought back an
onrush of the tumult he had felt the night she so nearly
lost her child; bitter resentment against Philip, immeasurable
pity, tenderness for her, and a desire to take, and
protect and comfort her.

"See here," he said, and his deep voice vibrated a
a little, holding each word like a caress, "See here, don't
make so much of it; he isn't worth it.  No man on earth is."

She became suddenly still.  Her hand clenched on a fold
of her skirt, but she did not lift her face.  Her head was
uncovered and he stood regarding the blue and purple
lights of that high, dark coil of her hair.  "See here,"
he went on finally, "I can't let you be discouraged.
You've done too much for me.  Don't you know it?  Of
course you made a mistake; you should never have come
to the mills.  But it was my mistake, too, and I don't like
to think what this life here would have meant without you.
Why, you and little Si have stood for what I like best;
you've made a home for me.  Without you I should have
lived like a miserable castaway."

She lifted her face with a supreme effort.  Her eyes said,
"Thank you," and her lips shaped an explanation he
was not slow to grasp.  "You were right, it's the solitude.
I exaggerate—lately—I am annoyed by the—smallest
things.  Just now it was Mr. Stratton.  He happened—to
ask me to go—with him—on an excursion aboard the
*Phantom*.  As if—Philip—would not run in for me—any
time—that I wished.  But, Paul, if the mills close,
what will you do?"

"I?" he answered and smiled, "why, there's a piece
of land out on the upper Des Chutes that I've been anxious
to secure for a long time.  I'm going to homestead it and,
incidentally, prospect the hills.  You see this business
depression is giving me an opportunity I've been waiting
for."

"The upper Des Chutes," she repeated.  "I see, you
are going to take up a systematic search for the lost
prospect, and make your headquarters on the ground."

"Yes," he said, "or pretty close to it.  I can't tell you
how I want to find myself in the thick of the timber again.
You don't know how I hesitated between that homestead
and this position at the mills.  My inclinations, every
fiber in me reached out to that section at the headwaters,
but, of course, I needed a little more capital to start with;
that is, to carry on the developments I had in view.  I am
afraid, though, it was Alice who turned the scales."  He
paused, smiling a little and shaking his head.  "You see
I hadn't learned, then, to take defeat, and I never could
believe her refusal was final.  I couldn't ask her to bury
herself up there in the wilderness."

"You mean you asked Alice to be your wife, and
she—refused.  Oh, Paul, how could she?"  She rose to her
feet.  Her voice was low and thrilling, and she looked at
him again through springing tears.  "How could she?
To—to think we have always taken so much—your
best—and in return have given you—worse than nothing."

She held out her hands once more, and this time he took
them in his friendly grasp.  "You forget," he said, with his
smile of the eyes, "You forget all I've been saying.  The
debt is on my side.  I never can do as much for you."

While he said this a workman came down the path.
He was the sawyer at the mills.  Her hands dropped and
she stepped back to the seat she had left.  The man looked
at her and then at Forrest as he passed, turning his head
slowly to prolong the stare.

"I didn't know the mill men ever came up here," she
faltered.

"They don't, often."  Forrest stood watching the curve
where the man had disappeared.  "A lighter grounded
on Alki Point; he has been helping to float her.  That's
what took me up the trail."  He began to walk in the
direction the man had gone.  Presently he looked back.
"I must hurry on," he said.  "Come with me, if you are
ready; I would be glad to help you down."

She followed him in silence along the promontory.
When they passed beyond the curve another man pushed
out of the thicket into the trail.  He ran with a gliding,
half writhing motion to a point where a branch track,
faint, little used, dipped over the Head.  He took this
course, twisting, swinging himself by low boughs, doubling
where the path was lost in a precipitous gully, and so
gained the beach.  He crept under the bluff, rounding it
and splashing ankle-deep in water, for the tide was running
in, until he reached the rear balcony of the old hotel.
He paused a moment, listening, with his beady eyes fixed
on the walk stretching from the main entrance; then he
laid the saddle-bags which he carried on the platform
while he swung himself up.  He waited another instant,—the
sea broke with a gurgle among the piles; a passing
gust set one of the doors creaking,—and picking up the
empty bags he ran through the tap-room behind the bar.
He found a key, strung on a cord around his neck, and
fitted it in the new lock and opened the door.  When he
came out the saddle-bags were filled, and heavy, for he
made his way up the promontory with difficulty.  As he
reached the summit the stillness was again broken by the
neigh of a horse.

Forrest heard the sound faintly, while he helped Louise
down the last pitch of the trail.  But again he gave it little
attention, for he noticed that the sawyer was the center of a
small crowd at the corner of the cookhouse.  The whole
group turned to look at these two as they approached;
curiously, as though they were strangers but just arrived.

She raised her face to Forrest with a mute question.  He
felt it, though his own gaze was directed straight ahead
to the quiet harbor.  The right hand at his side clenched,
twice, and the line deepened to a great cleft between his
brows.  But he knew this crew and the futility of trying
to put their rough conjectures down.  To call the sawyer
to account was to invite a wider notoriety, such as this
woman could not endure.  "I have been a fool," he told
himself; "a blind fool.  My God, the shame, the folly of
it.  And the most I can do is to keep it from her."

Aloud he said, and met that question in her face with
his quiet smile, "I'm afraid that was a pretty steep grade
for you; I hope the outlook up there paid you for the
climb."  His glance moved then over the stacked lumber
of the mill yard, and he paused to say to a man in the crowd,
"Dickman, that pile of scantling is listing; see to it in
the morning, the first thing.  And say, Johnson," he added,
stopping again, "that new chain came today; I'll give
it to you, now, at the store.  You'll need it in the morning
when you hoist that big red fir from the boom."

The rowboat was waiting for the *Success* outside the
docks.  The little steamer, veering from her course,
slowed down to take Stratton aboard.  He sprang lightly
over the side and stood watching Mason pull away.  Then
he looked shoreward.  He lifted his hat and smiled at the
man and woman on the walk, and his lingering glance said,
"Andromeda has found a Perseus."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE GRAND COUP`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GRAND COUP

.. vspace:: 2

The *Phantom* was becalmed.  The heated atmosphere
was freighted with smoke that hung tissuelike
along the shores of the Sound, showing only the ghostly
lines of the forest.  The deck and the white sails reflected,
intensified the glare of the sky and the shimmering sea.
The top of the cabin and the seats were sprinkled with
fine white ashes, and flakes sifted slowly through the still
air.

"Some rancher starts his brush pile burning, or a
prospector fails to put out his camp-fire, and to pay for
it, here is the whole country ablaze; it ought to be a state's
prison crime."  Kingsley pulled his cap over his cloudy
brows and leaned back in his seat, tired and bored.

Stratton, to whom the remark was addressed, made no
response.  He was stretched full length on a blanket
spread on a shady strip of the deck.  Like the sea, he was
motionless, and a silk handkerchief, laid over his face,
outlined his features gruesomely.

Presently Philip started erect and took off his cap.  He
threw it on the seat beside him, and ran his fingers, defining
wavy ridges, through his hair.  "It's no use, Stratton,"
he said, "I'm in a hole.  Come, wake up, I want to talk
things over."

Stratton swept aside the handkerchief and rose on his
elbow.  "I am listening," he answered, "but I am afraid
of this glare; it brings on this infernal pain in my head.
I must get to New York or somewhere, and see an oculist.
Anyway, what is the use of going all over the ground again,
Captain?  We discussed it thoroughly yesterday and the
day before.  It amounts to this,—you have plunged a
little beyond your depth.  You are afraid that the mills
will be attached for your own personal debts, and when
Judge Kingsley comes home, in a few weeks, he is going
to find, well, not what he expects, unless—"

"He's going to find that I've made a tremendous mess
of things," Philip broke in.  "I've got to ask him, first of
all, to put up for me, and he can't afford to.  Why, he won't
be able; he can't sell anything; real estate is dead,
completely; he's land-poor, like everybody else these times.
Besides, he's gone security for people; he's been ready to
stake any one who voted for him—or says he did.  They've
got him all tied up in new town sites, fisheries, every sort of
a scheme."

"If my schooner had made good," said Stratton, "I
would be glad to tide you through.  But that was pretty
hard luck, Captain.  I put my faith in her; I could have
sworn by that master and crew.  And she had picked up a
fine lot of peltries, fifteen hundred prime sealskins, when
she struck that rock off Unimak Pass and went down.
She cost me a good deal of money; I was hard pressed
to outfit her, and now—nothing to show for it."

"Too bad," answered Kingsley thoughtfully, "too bad.
I guess, Mark, we're in the same hole, together."

There was a brief silence, then Stratton said, "There
is just one way out, Captain."

"You mean—well, just what do you mean?"

"I mean with your standing, your family relations,
above all to Judge Silas Kingsley, it would be perfectly
safe; the *Phantom* could go unsuspected anywhere; carry
anything.  And you know every island, current, tide-rip,
shoal from Seattle to British Columbia.  Then—there is
that lonely old ruin around the bluff at Freeport.  Why, at
high tide you could run almost under the walls."

Philip laughed unpleasantly.  "You are reckoning
without my wife.  She's the sort of woman to make it a
matter of conscience and give the whole thing away."

"She would, I have no doubt of it, if she knew."  Stratton
paused a moment, then said, "It is very unfortunate
you never took that house you talked so much about
taking, in town.  But how is it you never bring her with
us on a cruise, now?  She used to like the water."

A wave of color crossed Philip's open face.  "See here,"
he said, "leave my wife out."

"As you like."  Stratton shrugged his shoulders.
"But if you had set up that establishment in town it would
have been the best thing for her, and—for Forrest."

"For Forrest?"

"Yes.  When two are young, you know, and have
practically no other companionship—"

"Oh, you don't know her," Kingsley interrupted
lightly; "you don't know Forrest."

"I know that she is a very bright and pretty woman;
one of the most interesting I ever met.  The kind any man
would look at twice.  And Forrest is a well set up fellow;
the sort all women like.  Then, too, music is her passion,
and you know what he can do with his violin; he makes
it a voice; it speaks for him."

"Paul is a good fellow," answered Philip, growing
annoyed; "one in a hundred; a man you can trust.
I've known him all my life."

"Possibly," said Stratton, "possibly, but when you
have a man to deal with, it is safer to appraise him as such
and not as a saint.  But, Captain, leaving Mrs. Kingsley
out, there is some one I could put in charge of it—there
at the ruin.  He is familiar with the network of by-ways
south and east to the Cascades; under pressure he can
travel on his own trail.  He could carry the stuff from the
top of Duwamish Head by horse, directly to that lodge of
mine up the Nisqually.  The country there is so rough,
so full of natural hiding-places, above all it is so far from
the border, it could be cached indefinitely, until I was able
to dispose of it in lots at Portland.  Or, I had rather convey
it in large amounts over the Pass to the Palouse wilderness,
and board an east-bound train on the Columbia, somewhere,
with a view to making a hunting trip to the Yellowstone.
It could be easily forwarded in the camp outfit,
and so on to Chicago—perhaps New York."

"You seem to have it pretty well planned," said Kingsley
dryly.

Stratton met his look steadily.  "I have," he answered.

"Great Scott.  Great Scott, it's true, then.  Forrest
was right; Bates was right; you are connected with that
ring."

Stratton smiled.  "I admit I once served an apprenticeship."

"You once served an apprenticeship?" repeated Philip
quickly.  "You mean you are now able to conduct one
of your own.  And—you know a man who can take
charge of the dope at that old hotel.  See here, tell me
this, have you tried the experiment there, already?"

Stratton nodded his head.  "Several times.  I had to,
Captain.  It was my only way to make the final payments
on my schooner; she cost me more than I expected; and
I had to outfit her."

"What I want to know is, did you smuggle any of the
stuff over on my yacht?"

Again Stratton nodded.  "You see how well the scheme
worked.  You never suspected it."

"I could inform on you," said Kingsley hotly.  "I will
do it, by George, the first time I see Bates."

"No,"—Stratton watched his victim's face,—"you
will not, Captain, when you stop to think."

"Why not?"

"Because you yourself would be implicated."

Instantly Kingsley was on his feet.  His brilliant eyes
flashed.  But while he expressed his indignation Stratton
remained in his lounging position, smiling, mocking, almost
indifferent.  "I would like to know, though," said Philip
at last, with tempered heat, "just how you would settle
the question of the purchase price at Victoria."

Then Stratton rose and came over to the helm.  "Leave
that with me, Captain," he said.  "Understand, all you've
got to do is to run the *Phantom*; nothing else concerns you.
And I promise to hurry the business through, and see you
out of the hole, with firm ground to stand on, in one grand
coup."

Kingsley was silent.  Presently he went forward into
the bows, and stood looking off to where the silver smoke
film met the shining sea.  Finally his lips breathed a
whistle.  Stratton had taken his place at the tiller.  He
lighted a cigar and settled himself comfortably, but his
eyes were fixed watchfully on the man forward.  It was
the look of a gambler who has staked high, and is sure,
yet not sure of his antagonist.

At last a shadow cut the Sound far out, northward;
the streak broadened, the mainsail flapped loosely, and the
*Phantom* heeled to the sudden flaw.  Kingsley sprang to
the sheets.  The gust passed but was followed by another,
veering westerly, and another still, that steadied to a
freshening breeze.

Philip came back to the helm.  "Well," he said, "it
looks like Seattle to-night, after all; dinner, perhaps, at
the Arlington."

But Stratton, looking in his companion's face, started a
little, and with his hand still on the tiller, swung the
*Phantom* slowly around, shaping a course for Victoria.

They did not dine in Seattle that night, but the next
evening found them at *table d'hote* in the English city.
Later, in the long northern twilight, the little yacht crept
out of the winding harbor and coasted the island northward
to an obscure, forest-girt cove, where she came to anchor.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HIDE AND SEEK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   HIDE AND SEEK

.. vspace:: 2

An hour after the *Phantom* left her moorings in
Victoria harbor, Bates, of the United States Customs,
reported to his superior officer on board the cutter at
anchor in the stream.  When he had finished with the
matter on which he had been detailed, he stopped to state
that on his way through Chinatown he had noticed
Stratton entering the house of a certain merchant and
highbinder.  "And," he continued, "returning, probably
two hours later, my attention was attracted to a coolie
who came out of the same place.  He carried the baskets
of a vegetable vender, suspended from the usual shoulder
pole, but it was singular that, at the close of the day, and
so far from the Chinese garden tracts in the suburbs,
from which he must have been supplied,—those baskets
should be full.  I was walking in the same direction, and,
at the end of the second block, a second fellow came up
the cross street and fell in behind.  His baskets also were
heaped, apparently with produce, to the brim.  They
moved away in their swinging trot, more and more rapidly,
and so bent on a direct course, that I felt justified in
taking a hansom and following.  On the edge of the town
they turned out of the main thoroughfare, which would
have led them to the gardens, and entered a little used
trail; what seemed to be a short cut through the forest
to some obscure harbor on the coast.  I could go no
farther in the cab, but, coming back by the park road,
I saw from a height of Beacon Hill, which overlooks the
channel, a small yacht with the lines and rigging of the
*Phantom*, stealing up the shore."

This self-imposed task had delayed Bates an extra hour,
during which he had held the cutter, which was under steam
and ready to make the run across the Straits to the American
port of entry.  But his commanding officer accepted
the information without comment.  However, when the
revenue boat had steamed out of the Arm, headed for her
home port, he remained on the bridge, searching with his
binoculars, first the Vancouver coast astern, and then,
slowly, the great reach of running sea, that stretched
away to the distant and tawny pall which hung over the
American side and showed the vast sweep of the forest
fires.

There was a strong wind, drawing in from the Pacific,
and the little steamer labored in an ugly trough.  When
she staggered, quartering, up a mother wave, she plunged
down, and half seas over, in the next crest.  She made
her harbor, decks streaming, port light stove in, at
midnight, and, after a brief stop and slight repairs, she was
under way again, moving southward into the smoke.  Finally,
at the end of several hours, she was brought to, and,
under slow bells, began to patrol a certain course.

The smoke gathered density.  It was permeated with
a lurid glare, and, driven by cross winds, it moved around
a center, enfolding the cutter with the effect of a vast,
brassy, electrical cloud.  It was also a place of conflicting
seas.  The long, white, wicked fingers of a tide-rip reached
out ceaselessly, and withdrew to the center of the whirlpool.
The moon hung like a crimson lantern directly above
and cast a red trail through the vortex.  Then suddenly,
while the little steamer skirted, listing to the maelstrom,
a great gust tore the smoke asunder and Foulweather
Bluff loomed through the rift.  At the same moment a
small yacht, under full sail bore down upon the headland.

The next instant she veered and coming around in the
narrow space between the cutter and the cliff, raced out,
all but grazing the side of the steamer, and heeled to the
whirlpool.  Her great mainsail dipped lower and lower;
the white fingers of the tide-rip clutched at it, caught it,
held it, dragged it slowly in.  The decks were awash.
Then the grip of the maelstrom relaxed; the little craft
righted, shivering; her canvas filled with a big gust from
the Straits and she swung away into the night.

It all happened very swiftly, and the smoke closed in,
curtaining Foulweather, with a greater density.
Bates, who was on the bridge, had seen that the yacht
carried no headlight, and he had recognized clearly,
one of the two men who sailed her.  The face of the first
was hidden, for he leaned, straining every muscle, on the
stumbling helm; but the second stood on the slanting
deck, bracing his back on the canting cabin, alert,
watchful, like a man on guard.  His glance was raised to the
steamer's bridge, and fixing his eyes on the inspector,
his right hand crept to his hip pocket.  There was no
doubt; he was Stratton.  And even while the little vessel
hovered on the edge of the maelstrom, the officer gave the
command to back, turn, go ahead.  The cutter was in hot
pursuit.  Directly the gun on her port bow boomed through
the thick atmosphere.  No response.  Again the report
rang peremptory, threatening.  And still no answer.

At daybreak the steamer doubled back on her course and
headed for the lower end of Whidby Island, which divides
the Sound into two long broad channels.  She patrolled
this point for a long interval, and finally the lookout saw
the bowsprit and rigging of a small yacht detach from the
gray pall that shrouded the west passage.  But instantly
she swung away from the cutter and vanished like a
phantom in the smoke.  Once more the gun thundered a halt;
and once more the silence was broken only by the noise
of the ship's machinery, and the breaking of the sea on the
cutwater.  The revenue vessel steamed on under slow
bells toward Seattle.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FOR LITTLE SILAS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   FOR LITTLE SILAS

.. vspace:: 2

The lamps across the harbor began to show red spots
through the smoke; the nearer lights on the landings
of the mills, and at the ends of the wharves, shone with pale
rings around their disks.  With twilight a fog was creeping
in.  The burning slab-pile sent up its great tongues of
flame against the blackness of the bluff, and became a
beacon for such craft as groped along the Head, feeling
a way to the city.  It illuminated the usual groups of
workmen, and singled out the old watchman's square
figure.  He was seated on a block, shaping a miniature
boat for little Silas, and the child, standing by his knee,
with his hands clasped loosely behind him, awaited the
results with grave interest.

The boy's mother had just left him, with permission
to stay until the toy was finished.  She felt the increasing
dampness in the air, but she stopped at her gate, shrinking
from the silence of the house, and looked back to the
group at the fire.  Presently she turned and walked slowly
in the direction of the old hotel.  The swell broke with a
long tramp and swash at the foot of the bluff, for it was
flood-tide.  In dark places, where the water ruffled about
the piers, there were flashes of phosphorous light.  Louise
watched it, leaning from the railing.  It was a light she
loved.  She liked, too, those night voices of the sea.  They
intruded on her loneliness with a mild insistence; in
sympathy, yet expostulation.

But it was at such times she most excused Philip.  "Men
seldom are as constant as women," she told herself.
"Marriage to them can never mean as much.  Our work,
our whole living must hinge on it; every hour is shaped
to it; but with them it is only a halt at the end of the day."

She lifted her glance and started erect.  She brushed
her clouding eyes and stood staring out into the thick
atmosphere.  Something loomed there from the sea.  It
was the bowsprit and forward rigging of a small vessel,
close in beyond the walls of the ruin.  There was a familiar
dip in the lines of the loosely furled jib.  "The *Phantom*,"
she exclaimed.  "She has missed the landing in the
smoke."  And she hurried up the approach to the front
entrance and on through the empty bar-room to the rear
balcony.

But the hail that sprang to her lips failed, and she shrank
back into the shadow of the interior.  This craft carried
no lights.  There was no stir of landing; none of the
excitement of going unintentionally aground.  Instead there was
a great hush, strange, sinister.  Then, while Louise
wavered, afraid of she knew not what, a tender pushed out
from the side, and was pulled with muffled oars to the
ruin.  She heard the bow touch the piling, and the two
men in her stood up, head and shoulders above the
platform.  But the light was too uncertain for her to
determine whether or not one was Philip, and she withdrew
farther into the room.

They lifted some bulky object, apparently a trunk, up
to the balcony, She lacked the courage to stay and meet
them, and she ran softly through to the walk, but there
she wavered again.  It flashed over her that if this were
not Philip it might mean some peril to the mills; something
that Forrest should know about.  She went back and
concealed herself behind the bar.  It was very dark there,
and she dropped to her knees, creeping under and drawing
her skirts close.

The men brought their burden in, walking with the
crunching sound made by rubber boots.  They came
behind the bar to the tap-room door and set the chest down,
while one felt in his pocket for a key, and groping, found
the lock.  It seemed, in that strained silence, they must
hear the thumping of her heart.  They went in and left the
chest and came out directly, closing and relocking the
door.  But as the key was withdrawn it fell with a muffled
clink to the floor.  She knew that it rested partly on the
edge of her skirt but she dared not stir.  She remained
crouching, on her knees, another breathless interminable
moment, then one said impatiently, "I've left my match-safe
on board."

She knew that quick, incautious voice, and yet she could
not master her unreasoning terror.  It was Philip, but
Philip shrouded in mystery; and the Philip she had known,
with all his faults, had been open, above concealment,
clear as day.

"Hush, you don't want any matches here," the other
answered softly, and he dropped to his knees, feeling the
floor.  "Never mind," he said, rising, "Smith has the
duplicate.  Come, we must get away."

Louise waited, listening, until the tender pushed off,
then she took the key and rose from her cramped position.
She walked unsteadily around the bar and stopped,
supporting herself on it for a moment.  She was facing
the dim square of light that marked the rear entrance, and
she saw the mast of the little vessel rising tall and spectral
through the gloom.  Then presently her jib unfolded,
her mainsail ran up, and she stood away and like a
phantom dissolved in the smoke.

Louise turned and walked to the front door and on down
towards her gate.  Her fingers locked and unlocked over
the key.  "It was Philip," she told herself.  "He comes
here to the mills, secretly, at night, where he is master,
and puts something in hiding.  And I—I dared not
speak to him.  I crept like a coward—out of sight.
I had done nothing—wrong—and yet I was—afraid."

Little Silas was waiting with Mason at the gate.  She
stopped in the light of the slab-fire to admire the fine lines
of the finished boat.  The old sailor stumped away radiant,
and she went in with the child and lighted the swinging
lamp and set the crimson shade.  She drew the blinds
and seated herself in the low wicker chair by the open
fire to give the boy his hour.  But afterwards, when he had
been tucked snugly in his bed and she came back to the
room, she took the key from her pocket and studied it,
turning it slowly in her hands, as though she expected to
find in it some difference from other keys; some clue to
that mystery in the tap-room.  There was a lurking dread
in her eyes; lines settled at the corners of her sweet mouth.
"The other man was Mr. Stratton," she said at last.
"And some one else has the duplicate.  Oh, I don't
understand.  I don't understand."

She returned the key to her pocket and went over to
the piano.  But she played mechanically, in fragments.
Why had the tap-room been fitted with a strong lock?
What was this terrible thing Philip had brought ashore?
Awful crimes she had read of in newspapers flashed
through her mind.  What did this chest contain?  She
rose and began to walk the floor.

Suddenly the great silence that hung over the mills at
night was broken by a hoarse whistle.  The color went
from her lips.  Her body rocked slowly; she stood locking
and unlocking her slender hands.  The echo died along
the bluff.  She drew a great breath.  "Why," she said,
and laughed mirthlessly, "it is only one of the tugs; the
*Tyee* probably, coming in for wood or water."

But her hand stole to her pocket and closed over the
key.  She went to the front door and stood alert, listening,
on the piazza, straining her eyes to define the lines of the
steamer which was making her landing in the mingled
smoke and fog.  "Of course it's one of the tugs," she
repeated, and walked the length of the porch, hurriedly,
and halted, again listening.

The few men who had lingered near the slab-fire
commenced to go down to the dock.  She watched their
figures grow dimmer, until they were only moving shadows
in the thick atmosphere.  The moon, rising above the
lower, heavier strata, began to show a crimson run.  Then,
after a while, she heard Forrest's step on the walk.  She
went to the steps to meet him.  She saw that two men
waited a few yards behind him at the branch walk.

He followed her into the hall, and pushing the door to,
stood with his hand on the knob.  "The revenue cutter
is here," he said.  "The inspectors think they have
located dope.  They are coming in here, now, to go through
the house."  He paused, looking down into her white face.
"I tried my best to prevent it," he added, "but they will
do it very quietly.  One of them is my friend Bates.  You
have nothing to fear."

But the terror grew in her eyes.  She made an effort to
speak, but the words failed her.  She shaped her lips again.
It was hardly more than a whisper.  "What did you say
they were looking for?"

"Opium.  It generally is opium, and of course it's
just a matter of form to come in here.  A man is detailed
to go through the mills and he makes a clean sweep of
every building."

She caught the sound of the clicking gate.  "Paul,"
she said, "make some excuse for me.  Do it.  Stay
yourself, and light them through the rooms.  Delay them if
you can."

She turned and ran through the hall, and pausing to
snatch up Mason's candle and matches at the back door,
ran out around the house to the walk, in the moment
Forrest admitted the officers.

It did not seem strange to Forrest that she had wished
to avoid these men; he, himself, had felt the humiliation
of their visit, for, though it was not remarkable that
suspicion should have fallen on any of that rough Freeport
crew, it was carrying the matter pretty far to include
Mrs. Kingsley's home.  He had asked the inspectors to exempt
it, but Bates had replied, "I'm sorry, but the fact is,
Forrest, that's the place I'm detailed specially to
search."  And what had she meant by "Delay them if you can?"

He took a lamp and lighted the officers through the
rooms.  Little Silas wakened and sat up in his bed,
rubbing his eyes.  He saw these men open his mother's
bureau, drawer after drawer, and thrust their hands
through her things, and he turned to Forrest for explanation.
But the young man stood back, waiting in silence,
with frowning brows.

There was no one on the walk when Louise hurried
to the ruin.  The fog and smoke had become very dense
along the front of the bluff, but the moonlight filtered
through enough to show objects, with the indistinctness
of wet nights.  The walls of the hotel loomed out of the
pall, lonesomely.  The floor complained at her tread.
She went quickly behind the bar, and drawing the key from
her pocket, found the lock.  Inside the tap-room she lighted
the candle.  The floor was strewn with sand, dust, pebbles
and bits of broken board.  The tide still swashed under
the worm-eaten planks; they shook at her step.

She put the candle down and tried to move the chest.
It yielded slowly to her straining effort.  Her first impulse
had been to drag it through to the rear balcony and push
it over into the sea, but she had not considered its weight.
She locked the door and stood briefly scanning the floor.
The short, uneven strips were rotting about the old
nail-heads, which in places had worked up from the boards.
There were widening cracks where ends joined.  She
knelt down and tried to start some of these rusty nails, but
they were firmer than they looked.  She moved from one
to another in growing haste, still on her knees, and tugged
at the stubborn iron with her tender hands.  The jagged
roughness tore her fingers, imbedding splinters at every
wrench.  She reached a looser nail.  Her renewed effort
forced the wood around it, and she began to use it as a claw,
prying and digging faster and faster, working out the next.
Presently she was able to lift this plank, and she used it
as a lever under the second, bearing gradually with
increasing weight.  It gave without breaking and she laid
it aside while she raised a third strip.  There was an
increased rush of air.  The flickering candle-flame was
snuffed out.  Still the light from the high window showed
the chest, and she dragged it to the aperture.  It fell
slanting, and caught in the flooring.  At the same instant
some one outside tried the tap-room door.

She grasped the chest with the strength of desperation.
It slowly righted and went through.  The tide closed over
it with a deeper swash.

Again she heard that cautious noise.  Some one was
trying to force a key in the lock.  It was obstructed by
the one she had left there, and the attempt was followed
by a muttered curse.  She laid the planks back in their
order, and brushing the sand and pebbles hastily over
them, rose, panting, and faced the door.  There was no
further disturbance, but the room suddenly darkened.
She turned, lifting her eyes to the high window, and saw
against the light the head of a man.  It appeared briefly
and moved down, but she caught the brutish profile.  It
was the face that had once alarmed her, peering into her
room out of the night.

She threw the door open, and relocking it from the
outside, ran swiftly through the bar-room and down the walk.
Presently she glanced back fearfully, but the man had not
followed, and she paused to hurl the key and the candle
far out in the tide.

As she approached her gate she saw that Forrest was
waiting at the foot of the piazza steps, while the inspectors
came along the side of the house from the rear.  They
moved slowly, prodding the sawdust and planking that
built up the yard, and she hoped to gain the porch before
they came that far.  But they met her while she was still
on the walk.  Bates swept her with his keen glance, but
the lantern, which the other man was adjusting, flashed
that moment full in his face, and, blinded, he passed
without stopping her, going in the direction of the ruin.

Forrest saw her and stood holding the gate.  The slab-fire
suddenly burst into brighter flame.  It showed him
clearly the stains of earth and brine upon her gown; the
grime of dust and moisture on her worn face.  She raised
her hand to ward off his look, and her sleeve, rent to the
elbow, fell back from her beautiful forearm, baring a long
deep, bleeding hurt, ploughed there by the brass-bound
end of the falling chest.  "Louise, Louise," he said.
"What is it?  Tell me."

She pushed him aside and went up the steps.

"Trust me," he said.  "Let me help you."

"No," she answered, "No.  Don't ask me."  Then
she turned and looked down at him, and through the
anguish in her eyes he saw the old heart-breaking appeal.
"I—I did it—for—little Silas."  Her voice broke in
a great tearless sob.  She went in and closed the door.

After a moment Forrest turned and followed the officers
around to the ruin.  As he approached he heard the sound
of blows.  What wall had they found to require such
battering?  He was there in time to see the hinges of the
old tap-room door wrenched out of the soft wood.  It fell
inward, starting a cloud of dust from the rotting floor.
Bates stepped on it, and flashed his lantern over the
interior.  His keen eyes swept the empty place and came
back to meet the glance of the other inspector.  He laughed.
"Well, Bates," he said, "I guess we're fooled."

Bates's eyes moved to the fallen door.  "This lock was
put on this room for a purpose," he said.  "And the
*Phantom* could land almost under these walls at high
tide.  She may be stumbling around out there now, feeling
her way in through the smoke."

"The *Phantom*?"  Forrest started.  He leaned an
instant on the bar behind him, then he pulled himself
erect and stood staring into the empty tap-room.  The
lantern shining in his face showed it hard and gray with
the deepening furrow cleaving his brows.  "The *Phantom*
was here," he told himself.  "The stuff was left in
there—and *she*—knew it.  She concealed it, moved it,
somehow, while those men were at the house."

Bates turned and looked at him.  "I suppose, Forrest,"
he said, "you can't account for this lock?  You could
hardly think of using this old ruin for storage purposes."

"No, no."  His voice rang.  He met the inspector's
look clearly, with his quick, upward fling of the head.
"I ought to know all about it, but I never saw it before.
My work kept me in the other direction, at the mills."

"Of course," said Bates slowly, "of course, as I thought.
I've simply got to patrol this beach, to-night, and wait
for daylight to pick up a clue."

Forrest walked with the officers back towards the cutter.
"I should have known about that lock," he told himself.
"I should have found out why that horse was up there
on the bluff that day.  I should have learned what brought
Stratton here alone.  A little investigation would have
shown how things were going.  I might have kept Philip
out of the scheme; brought things to a climax in time."

When the trio made the turn in the bluff that shut them
off from a view of the ruin, Smith swung himself down
from the rear balcony to the rim of beach which the ebbing
tide had bared.  He groped under the stringers and found
a dark lantern, which he lighted and held beneath the
building.  It showed the top of the chest above the water,
and he pushed along between the wall and the bluff to the
side of the tap-room, and dipped under the floor.
Presently he emerged, dragging the chest.  He stooped and
lifted, worked it on to his shoulder, and went splashing
knee-deep and waist-deep in hollows, around to the
western exposure of the headland.  When it seemed
accessible he used his lantern again and found the path.
A short distance up he wormed himself, crouching,
through a tangle of hazel and salal and reached a little
spur flanked by an old cedar snag.

He put his burden down, and by the light of his lantern
took two pairs of saddle-bags from the hollow heart of
the trunk, and filled them with the contents of the chest.
What remained he put into a coarse sack.  Then he
picked up the empty chest and ran back a pace or two
and hurled it out into the tide.  He waited, listening, but
he heard only the rush and ebb of the sea, and he returned
to the cedar, and taking the weighted bags on his shoulders,
pushed on up to the summit.

He stopped there, gathering breath.  The ledge where
he stood seemed to run shelf wise along an abyss.  The
mingled fog and smoke gave immensity to the distance
below.  He bent his head, listening again, and caught
faintly the voice of the sea, nothing more.  Then suddenly
out of the night behind him there came a gentle nicker.
His big lips broke in a leer.  He ran, groping along the
ridge trail to his horse.

He threw the bags across his saddle and stopped to
fold the sack inside his blanket, which he carried rolled
at the crupper.  Then he moved away up the ridge,
running afoot with the horse.  Once he swung himself
up behind the load for a brief interval, while he gathered
wind, but he was down again directly and slipping over
the ground with the same ease.

Finally he halted.  Out of the stillness he heard the
sound of hoofs crossing a bridge.  He fell to his knees an
instant with his ear to the ground, and when he rose his
lips again broke in their horrible leer.  He moved on to
a point where the trail cut a thoroughfare, and, presently,
Stratton joined him.  He took one pair of the saddlebags
with him on the chestnut, and Smith mounted and
they rode on together in the direction of the Nisqually.





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.. _`"AS LONG AS WE TWO LIVE"`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   "AS LONG AS WE TWO LIVE"

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Forrest stood on the upper landing of the mills.
It was hardly midday and the air was charged
with the singing and buzzing of saws and the rumble of
the tramway.  The town across the harbor was hidden
in the thick pall, and the sun hung overhead a blood-red
ball.  Ashes and cinders fell everywhere; one breathed,
tasted smoke.

The cutter, which had steamed over to the town during
the night, had returned and was lying at the lower wharf,
and Forrest was watching Bates.  He had stayed to patrol
the mills but had gone aboard when the steamer arrived,
and had now come over the gangway and was walking
up from the dock.  Presently he mounted the stairs to
the landing, but the manager did not turn, and he came
over and stood by him, looking off into the smoke.  "Of
course, Forrest," he said at last, "you think a lot of the
Judge.  You are under obligations to him."

"I think a great deal of him, yes."  Forrest gave the
inspector a level look.  "He is one of the best friends I
ever had; but 'obligations' is hardly the word."  He
paused, looking off again into the smoke, then said,
"Judge Kingsley is able to meet and brave through—what
he must.  It's Kingsley's wife I've got to think of.
You don't know her, Bates."  He paused, steadying
his voice.  "She has the old, rigorous New England sense
of duty; the blood and principles of generations of
Puritans are condensed in her.  And yet she is so gentle, so
sweet—but you can't understand without seeing her."

"I see," said Bates slowly, "I see.  But, Forrest,
suppose Kingsley is left out of this, could you put us on
Stratton's track?"

Forrest swung around.  "You ought to know, Bates,
I'm not that sort of a man.  And she—isn't that kind of a
woman.  She would wring the misery out of a thing like
this, as no other woman would, and suffer the shame of
it all her life,—but the expiation would mean something
to her.  She could stand the disgrace better, when it came
to it, than covered guilt."

"I understand all that, Forrest,"—Bates lifted his
hand with a sweeping gesture that dismissed that side
of the question,—"but it's this way: the *Phantom* was
at her moorings over there at Seattle, when the cutter
ran across last night.  The captain boarded her
immediately, and found Kingsley sleeping like a kid in his
cabin below.  Stratton had come up from Victoria with
him, yes, but he had gone ashore.  He couldn't tell just
where he was at that time, but he usually put up at the
Arlington.  And, yes, they had run pretty close to
Foulweather Bluff, just as we saw, and he was sorry about the
matter of the headlight,—the glass had smashed in and
he hadn't the chance to rig another,—but he was ready
if they had come to collect the fine.  And of course he had
heard the cutter's salute, but it was too great a risk to
bring the *Phantom* around in the smoke; we had just
come mighty near a collision.  Then, when the captain told
him he would have to make a thorough search of the
yacht, he sat coolly advising him where to look.  Hadn't
he better cut up the cushions?  He never had been certain
what was inside.  And there was a place on the port side
that had always sounded a little hollow.  They would
find a hatchet in that locker if they wanted to rip off a few
boards.  In short, Forrest, there was absolutely nothing
to show, beyond the fact that the *Phantom* brought over
our man.  But, whatever Kingsley knows, or doesn't
know, I must get on Stratton's track right away.  That
thoroughbred which he usually keeps in the Arlington
stables when he is in town is gone; and that's about
the only clue I have to work on."

"Then," said Forrest, with another level look, "if
I were you I would go up to the top of this bluff and look
around."

Bates started.  A sudden understanding leaped in his face.

"And," continued Forrest, "if I happened to miss my
trail anywhere up the ridge, I think I would shape a course
straight through to a shooting-box he owns, up the
Nisqually."

"Thank you for that, Forrest," Bates grasped his hand
warmly, "thank you.  When you went into the milling
business the Government lost the chance of a mighty
good man."

He turned with this and ran lightly down the stairs.
A moment later the noon whistle sounded and the
workmen began to come out on the landing.  Forrest stood
waiting while Bates hurried back to the cutter.  A small
vessel moved out from the shrouded city front, her set jib
showing lighter in the dense grayness, and like a spectre
drifted towards the mills.  But Forrest saw her absently.
He was thinking that he must go over to the little
dining-room.  Louise had not met him there at the usual
breakfast hour, but she would hardly miss the midday meal.
Young Silas would make it necessary for her to come.
And he must sit there, passively, as though nothing had
occurred, while she was in such desperate straits.  How
could he look into her face?  How could he crush down
any longer what he thought of Philip?  What he hoped
for Stratton?  The recollection of him, his handsome,
mocking face, his fascination, incredible power over
Kingsley, most of all his responsibility for the wrecked
life of this sweet woman, made his muscles tingle, and
sent the blood with a rush through his veins.  It was the
passion of a strong and much-enduring man brought to
his limit.  His arms ached for physical contact.  Some
day, soon, he would like to set his hands on Stratton in one
tremendous, unforgettable grip.

But Louise was not coming to the dining-room.  Little
Silas, mounting the stairs with Mason, was saying so.
His "muvver" was not hungry; she was going to have
some tea at home.  But he was ready, and he had told
Sing to watch, and when he saw him coming with Uncle
Paul, to bring in the soup.

Forrest went over to the dining-room with the boy, and
a little later the *Phantom* swung in to her wharf.  Kingsley
came ashore and went directly up the walk to his house.
His wife did not meet him at the door.  He did not find
her in the parlor.  Of course she was at lunch, or was it
dinner here at the mills?  He sat down to the piano and
ran his fingers over the keys.  Presently the noise brought
her into the room, and he looked up with a nod and smile,
drumming on to the end of his tune.  Then he wheeled
around on the stool and rose to his feet.  "Well, Louise,"
he said, "I have good news for you."  She received his
kiss on her cheek, at which he laughed, and putting his
hand under her chin, compelled her sweet lips.  "We are
going home to Olympia."

He waited for her to speak, but she did not.  She only
stood locking and unlocking her slim hands, and looking
at him with tragic, circle-rimmed eyes.  "You'll be glad
to get away from Freeport," he added.

"Yes," she answered slowly, "I shall be very—glad—to
leave Freeport; I am going—but not to Olympia;
not with you."

"You are not going to Olympia, Louise?  Not with me?"

"That is what I said."  Her breast heaved and she went
on with apparent effort.  "We made a—terrible mistake;
I have known it for a long time.  Still, I believed we
could live out our lives together—for the sake of little
Silas."

"Do you mean—our marriage, Louise?  Do you think
that was a mistake?"

"Yes."  Her face grew very white, and she put one
hand on a table, leaning a little on the support.

His own face clouded.  It was the way of this man to
value things according to the difficulty of possession;
and he found himself suddenly shaken by a new and
strange tenderness for his wife, while at the same time he
felt a swift and bitter suspicion.  He turned and walked
the floor, retracing his steps, and going the length of the
room again.  "It is true, then," he said.  "It is true."

"What is true?"

"What Stratton told me.  This thing the mill-hands
are bruiting about."  She started and stood quivering
from head to foot, and he added slowly, watching her,
"This story about you and Paul."

She did not speak directly.  She was like one brutally
struck.  Then infinite contempt rose in her face; her
deep eyes flamed, and her voice, when she found speech,
took its contralto notes.  "You say that.  You.  When
you know the situation was thrust upon him.  When you,
yourself, left me alone with our baby, in this rough milling
camp, for weeks together, with no possible protection
but his.  Think of it.  When I told you I was afraid, you
asked him to see that the house had special watch at night;
when I said that I missed you, you asked him to bring
his violin and spend his evenings with me; even when
Si's hard illness came, it was not you who shared my
anxiety; it was not you who quieted him, carried him
in your strong arms.  No, it was not you, but Paul Forrest.
And he saved—little Silas; you know he risked his own
life for him."  Her voice broke.  "Oh, you must see
that he was forced into it; you must.  He had enough else
to do—but—you left him no alternative."

"I left him no alternative?  Well, I own it.  But you,
Louise, come, out with it.  It's true.  You do love him."

"No," and her voice thrilled him, "No.  When a
woman is married and has her little child—to think of,
she doesn't turn so easily to—other loves."

At this he began to walk the floor again.  She watched
him with lifted head and flaming eyes.

"I wonder," he said, stopping suddenly and regarding
her with a touch of humor in his face, "I wonder if you
think I don't care anything for you."

"Yes, you have led me to think so."

He laughed aloud.  "Why, I couldn't care that," he
snapped his fingers, "for any other woman.  I couldn't
love any woman but you.  Don't you know it,
Sweetheart?"  He put his arm around her, drawing her head
against his shoulder.  "Come, say you forgive me."

But she drew away, freeing herself desperately with her
two arms.  His own fell.  She moved back and the step
was immeasurable space between them.  "No," she said.
"No.  Do not ask it."

He took another turn across the floor, uncertainly,
his hands seeking his pockets.  "Tell me this," he said
quietly, stopping before her.  "Is there something else?
Something more than—well—my neglect.  Something
I don't know about."

"How can I tell you?"  She pressed her hands to her
head and let them fall, meeting his look.  "Your way
of loving has never been my way.  I could never make you
understand how much I cared for you.  You were everything
to me, Philip; everything.  I worshipped you.
To have you indifferent, away, to lose you as I did, was to
have nothing.  But I still could teach Silas to respect you,
to believe in you.  No slight, no neglect of me could make
me doubt you in—other ways.  You were a man of honor
among men; you had your place—until—last night."

His glance wavered while she spoke.  He felt an
unaccountable weakness, a sudden tightness at the throat,
and he reached back to a chair behind him and sank down.

"Philip," she said, "how could you do it?
How—could—you?"  Tears rushed to her eyes; she brushed
them impatiently away.  "Think of it.  To lend the
*Phantom*, that clean, white yacht, to an opium smuggler;
to make him your companion, friend; to be his willing
tool.  Oh, the shame of it!  The shame of it!  How could
you?"

He dropped his face in his hands.  He felt suddenly
that a court of justice might be more merciful than this
proud, sweet, unrelenting woman.  Then he made an
effort to pull himself together.  "I see," he said, "you
saw the revenue boat and you accepted Forrest's version.
The captain of the cutter would have told you different.
There is some suspicion hanging over Stratton, I admit,
and those inspectors were looking for the *Phantom*, in fact
they boarded her, merely because he happened to make
the cruise with me over from Victoria.  They of course
found nothing."

"No," she said slowly, "they found—nothing."  There
was a brief silence, then she went on.  "I was
there, in the old hotel, when you landed.  I often walked
that way when the house seemed too—unbearably—lonely.
I liked the sounds of the tide.  I believed, at first,
the *Phantom* had missed the dock in the smoke; then I
thought it might be another boat, and some secret plot
going on about the mills; something Paul should know.
I am not a very brave woman, as you have often said,
and I crept under the bar to wait.  I was even afraid when
I knew it was you.  The key you dropped fell on my skirt.
Afterwards, when the cutter came, I understood.  And
while the inspectors searched through these rooms,
I went back to the ruin and lifted enough of the floor to
get—the chest—through."

"You did that?  Oh, Louise, Louise!"  He dropped
his face again in his hands.  He saw in a flash the magnitude
of what she had done; the terrible moral as well as
the physical effort it had cost her.  But he felt more, in
that bitter moment, that it was to her, the one in all the
world from whom he had most cared to hide his dishonor,
he owed his salvation.  "Oh, Louise," he repeated,
"and you did it for me."

"No."  Her voice rang.  "No.  I did it for little Silas;
to save him the disgrace.  I am going to take him away,
where the smallest hint or suspicion can never reach him.
But I will not have a divorce—unless you wish."  And the
break in her voice, the white stillness of her face more
than her words convinced him.

He rose to his feet.  "The scheme was all Mark
Stratton's," he said.  "He took advantage of my being in a
tight place.  He promised to assume the whole risk;
let him shoulder the disgrace."

She was silent.

"Louise," he said desperately, "you can't be so hard.
I know what I did.  I know there isn't the shadow of
excuse for me, but you can't be so hard.  You don't mean
a separation.  You are only trying me.  Fix a limit; give
me a certain time to prove myself.  Give me some sort
of hope, Louise."

He was very handsome at that moment.  He possessed
great personal magnetism; his emotion softened his voice
and the brilliancy of his black eyes.  He came a step
towards her, opening his arms impetuously.  "I will do
anything you say, Sweetheart; only don't leave me."

She stood shrinking against the table.  "I could never
respect myself—again," she said slowly, with manifest
effort, "unless—you accepted your share of the
atonement; and—my own confession—would follow;
but—little Silas—would begin life—handicapped."

"Silas.  Well, it's all right, put him first; I deserve it.
But count in old Si, too; it would cut him pretty bad.
After all, we are in the same boat.  Let us forget it and
make a new start."  Her face was very white; her body
rocked.  He thought that she was falling.  He took her
in his arms.  "Sweetheart," he said, "don't send me
away; I love you so."

But she laid her palms against his breast, holding herself
aloof.  His arms fell.  "Then make it a probation,"
he pleaded.  "I will be good.  Promise me you will come
back—in a year."

She shook her head.  She was almost past speaking.
She braced herself with her hand on the table again, her
whole body trembling.  "No," she said at last, "no.
Please go; don't say any more.  It must be
separation—nothing less—as long as we two live!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`"A MAN OF STRAW"`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   "A MAN OF STRAW"

.. vspace:: 2

Smith, having slower horses and the bulk of the
outfit, started for the Pass at daybreak, with the
understanding that Stratton would overtake him at the
crossing of the Nisqually; and it was hardly two hours
later that the thoroughbred forded the Des Chutes above
the lodge, and, followed by a pack-animal, made a sharp
ascent to the rock tower, where his master halted to load
the remainder of the cache.

The forest fires that had been the salvation of the
*Phantom*, had proved a disadvantage on the road from
Seattle.  The two horsemen had been forced to make wide
détours around blazing timber; sometimes the trail was
lost in the charred ruins of burned out tracts, and arriving
at the ranch where Stratton had expected to pick up
pack-animals, they found the buildings completely wiped away,
and all signs of humanity and life gone.  But Smith
annulled these delays by starting a red trail backward
from the Nisqually plains through the untouched woods
they had travelled; cutting off any chance of pursuit for
several days.

Stratton had been further handicapped by the pain in
his head, which the heat and glare brought on with
increasing violence.  There were moments when riding
became impossible, and he threw himself from the saddle,
prone on the earth, to wait for harder paroxysms to pass.
But as they approached the headwaters, they came into
the shade of clean, unbroken timber; the smoke decreased
to scarcely more than a haze, and, while Smith pressed
Laramie to forage for the necessary pack-horses, Stratton
was able to allow himself twenty-four hours of absolute
rest, induced by a few drops of the mixture he had learned
to use in the solitude of his lodge, and this put him on his
feet again.

Still he made slow progress down the rough path from
the tower that morning, and even when he struck the
main trail he halted repeatedly, like a man of two minds.
Finally he wheeled and, encumbered by the pack-horse,
which led indifferently, paced back, and turned into a
by-way that brought him into the school branch.  He held
Sir Donald at a walk and studied the ground, until, though
he noticed Mose's footprints in a moist place, he was
satisfied the black had not yet passed.  Presently he
stopped, listening.  The track, there, doubled a trunk of
great girth; a hollow cedar stump, roofed like an arbor
by the branches of young alders, which also screened
a break in the inner wall, like a curtain before a door.

The sound became a brisk and steady lope.  To this
man, who had waited for it often, who was accustomed
to read the individuality of horses as a psychologist
studies men, it was unmistakable.  He backed the
pack-animal into the salal, and held the thoroughbred in,
while Colonel, falling to a gentle pace, rounded the curve
and came to a playful standstill.

"Good morning."  Alice's glance moved from Stratton
to the laden pack-horse.  "But it looks like good-by,"
she said.

"Yes, I turned back to say it.  I missed seeing you at
the homestead, yesterday, and I am starting on another
trading and hunting trip.  I should find elk now, in the
mountains, and I hope to bring you the horns of a goat."

"I'll have a place for all you bring," she answered,
her lips dimpling.  "Mose told me you were going.  But,"
she added seriously, "I'm glad you are going alone.
Mose saw Pete Smith, late last evening, creeping along
from the foot-bridge, and this morning, of course you
know, Mill Thornton's horse was gone."

"Not the sorrel?"  Sir Donald, accustomed to every
fluctuation of his master's voice, trembled and wheeled.
But the hand on the bridle steadied and brought him
around.  "No," Stratton added, "No, I had not heard.
I came the other way, by the ford and the canyon trail,
and so missed seeing Mrs. Mill.  And Thornton believes
it was Smith?"

"Yes, he is sure of it.  There was a clear track on the
wet grass across my claim to strike the canyon trail.  He
followed it far enough to be certain, then started for the
prairie to get Jake's horse.  Ketchem is very swift and
he expected to bring the Government detectives back
with him.  They have tracked Pete to the settlement,
and spent last night at the Myers homestead."

Stratton put his hand on the black's glossy neck, giving
it a quick, firm stroke.  "And they are looking
for—Smith?" he asked.

"Yes.  He has committed some new crime; Samantha
didn't understand what.  I doubt if the man who told Mill
knew.  But," she halted an instant, compelling his eyes
with her clear, steadfast look that seemed to expect a best
in him, "you will help the Government now.  You will
stop him if the opportunity comes.  And you know how
Mill needs his horse.  Think if it was Sir Donald; think
how it must go all against the grain of a fine, mettlesome
creature to be touched, even, by those unclean, wicked
hands."

"I will do what I can about the sorrel," he answered.
"But I am going a long and hazardous journey; I may
never see you again."  He gave the black another quick,
firm stroke, then, meeting her eyes, once more lost
himself.  "Smith is with me," he said.  "Those men are
looking for me.  Think.  Go back to that day at the tower
when you stumbled on that strange, leaking tin.  Go back
farther to that time on Orcas Island; the story I told you
there on the summit.  I was that boy."

"You were that boy?"

"Yes.  The time has come; I want you to know it
from me.  I was that boy.  And you,"—he paused, and
the quiver that was the surface stir of unsounded depths
swept his face.  "You were that woman.  I can't give you
up.  You don't know how I love you.  Wait.  Listen.
Never mind that friendliness; I break the truce.  Never
mind your impossible duty to the Judge.  When a woman
loves a man, as you are capable of loving, she doesn't
hold him off the breadth of the whole continent; she goes
when he calls.  Wait.  Listen.  Forget that Puritan
conscience of yours, this one half-hour, and I pledge myself
to live up to it the rest of my life.  Trust me.  Promise
you will join me in Chicago, New York, Montreal,
whenever, wherever I write."

The color flamed in her face.  "I shall be late to school,"
she said.  "Turn Sir Donald, please."

She spoke to her horse, but the thicket crowded close
and the chestnut continued to hold the way.  "Wait, just
one moment more," Stratton went on, "you do not understand.
I will take you away, to the ends of the earth, if I
must, and make a new start.  I can do it; I can become
the most rigid patriot, I swear, with you to back me.
It rests completely with you, to make of me your kind of
man, or to send me—I don't care where."

"I could never be any man's prop," she answered.
"I thought you knew that!"  Then suddenly her manner
changed.  Her face softened; her eyes filled with a great
appeal.  "Face it out, pay the price," she said.  "I will
help you; only be the man of character, of force, I have
believed you to be, and not—a man of straw."

"Force," he caught at the word.  "Force.  Would you
like me better if I should carry you away?  I could do it,
now, to-day; over the mountains, into the big Palouse
wilderness.  Sir Donald is very fleet,"—he watched her
narrowly,—"and so is the black."

"Carry me away?  Carry me?"  Again her manner
changed.  She tipped back her head, laughing in soft
derision.

"I know every byway northward to the British boundary
and far beyond," he went on hurriedly.  "Only give
me the start over the divide, and the whole roused
Northwest could never find you."

"But you forget my part; I should find a way
back."  And she laughed again, less merrily, still in
derision.

He backed his horse a little among the alders, close to
the cedar trunk, and swung himself from the saddle,
moving to the chestnut's head and thrusting his arm
through the bridle.  The position brought him again to
the neck of the black, and he slipped the same hand on
through the coil of Colonel's lariat.  "At least you are not
afraid of me," he said.  "I am glad of that."

"Afraid?  Afraid of you?  Oh, no.  Why should I be?
But the children will be waiting."  Though the words
were brave her voice trembled.  It was not the first time
she had tried to laugh this man off dangerous ground,
but now, suddenly looking into his face, for the first time,
she felt he had passed beyond her influence.

She was afraid.  This was not the Stratton she had
known; whose companionship hitherto had seemed
a security on the trail; whose frequent visits to the
headwaters had kept her in touch with the outside world;
the friend who had once saved her from fire; whom, earlier,
she had rescued from an ice-crevasse.  That Stratton had
been mocking, debonair; a few times she had seen him
shaken with passion, but he had shown her strong
under-currents of fine feeling; and, always, in any mood, he had
remembered to be courteous, chivalrous; that was bred
in the bone.  But this man—it was as though she had
not seen him before.  His face was determined, hard.
It might have been chiseled of rock.  His silence was a
threat.  And, clearly, he did not mean to let her pass.

She turned in her saddle to look at the space behind her
and gathered her rein.  And instantly Stratton laid his
palm on her hand and drew the bridle from her surprised
hold.  "You will hate me at first," he said, "perhaps
hard and long; but—I can be patient—you will love me
in the end and marry me."

He made a hitch in the rein and dropping it on the
black's neck, lifted his hand to the silk handkerchief
knotted at his throat.

"I will not," she said, and caught a great breath, "I
will not."  She reached for the bridle, but again his hand
closed over hers.  She flashed him a look; unspeakable
contempt, aversion, rose in her face.  "You ruffian,"
she added.  "You common ruffian, outlaw."

And he let the hand go.  He released, too, his hold on
the coiled lariat, and stood back like a man unexpectedly
struck.  He had ceased to bar the way; she was free to
ride on, but she failed to notice that.  She saw only this
"ruffian" and her eyes stormed.  "Listen," she said,
and her voice, like her sister's, deepened to contralto
notes.  "I warn you.  I can die just once and it will come
to that before I ever bring myself to marry you.  As long
as I live I shall never love any man but—*Paul Forrest*."

So, at last, in this moment of great anger, the truth
which she had not even admitted to herself, was surprised
from her.  Then she was silent.  A wave of color surged
and ebbed in her face.  She began to tremble, a little at
first, then harder; her whole body rocked.

And Stratton watched her.  The light like a blade
flashed in his eyes, but he gathered himself, slowly, in
check, the Stratton she knew once more.  "So," he said,
finally, "so, after all, it is the black's master, as I thought,
as I feared at the beginning.  You might have told me;
it was hardly fair to me to fabricate that yarn about the
Judge, and stay by it so long."

"It was not a fabrication.  I am going to marry Judge
Kingsley," her voice broke and she finished almost in a
whisper, "as I told you."

"I see," he answered slowly, "I see."  He paused and
went on yet more slowly.  "To think of it, the irony of it,
that Forrest should love your sister."

Colonel had started, but she drew him in and turned,
again facing this man.  "Hush," she said, and he saw
that she shook once more, from head to foot.  "Hush.
Deny it.  Own that you know, it isn't true."

He folded his arms, one drawn still through his bridle,
and met her look steadily.  "But I believe it," he answered.
"I am sorry, but I believe it.  How do you know it isn't
true?"

"You know them both, yet you can ask.  You—you
must have seen that she could never care for any man but
Philip Kingsley."

"I grant that," he answered and smiled.  "I spoke
merely of Forrest.  It is he who is generally blamed."

"Blamed?"  She lifted her chin high; her eyes storming.

"Yes, it is common talk among the mill men; I have
overheard it discussed in a hotel lobby at Seattle, and at
Olympia, where they are generally and intimately known."

"But you—you have denied it?"

He shook his head.  "I am sorry, but how could I deny it?"

"Because Paul Forrest isn't that kind of man; you
know it.  You know he is as true, as steadfast as these
hills."

"True to her," Stratton persisted softly, "true to her, yes."

"No—to me."

Then suddenly on the silence there rang an ominous
sound.  Colonel wheeled and looked, head up, sensitive
ears playing, towards the Nisqually trail; he wheeled
again and she allowed him to set the pace in the direction
of the school.

Plainly there were many hoof-beats and they struck into
the branch leaving the river trail.  Stratton spoke to the
indifferent pack-horse, touched him smartly on the flank
and sent him careering after the black.  Then he urged
the thoroughbred quickly along the trunk to the break
that was like a door.  There was barely room to press
through, and the chestnut's head rose among the alder
branches that roofed the stump.  But a word, a firm touch
on the forelegs, and the trained animal dropped to his
knees.  Another word and he rolled to his side with his
head flattened to receive his master's weight.  It was the
method used in breaking a cavalry mount for field drill;
and Sir Donald remained motionless, while Bates and his
deputies thundered by with Thornton, in hot pursuit of
the black and the laden pack-horse.

Stratton rested lightly, easing his weight by bracing
one knee on the earth.  A bough rustled outside of the
trunk; a twig snapped faintly, and he was conscious that
a pair of ferret eyes peered cautiously, briefly, around
through the aperture.  But he made no sign until the posse
had passed; then he threw out his arm, feeling, and drew
Lem, struggling, towards him.  "You spy," he whispered,
and the anger flashed in his eyes; "you spy.  Tell
what you know and I will skin you—by inches—alive."

Then he tossed the shaking boy aside, in a heap, and
in another instant had his horse up and out of his hiding-place,
and mounting, galloped lightly back in the direction
of Nisqually crossing and the Pass.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE ROCKSLIDE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE ROCKSLIDE

.. vspace:: 2

Stratton made a steep rise and stopped, breathing
the chestnut on a level shoulder of the Pass.  Behind
him a clump of mountain hemlock and some scrub pines
marked the tree line, and, looking ahead, he saw, rounding
a bald and higher spur, a rider with two pack-horses.
For a brief interval these figures moved, well-defined,
gathering nearness in the slanting rays of the low sun,
then a black buttress closed, shutting them out like a
mighty door.  The man was Smith.  He had not waited
at Nisqually ford and he rode Thornton's sorrel.

Stratton whistled, a soft, peremptory note, and the
thoroughbred sprang, moving swiftly down a short incline,
and up towards the buttress.  The passage grew difficult.
The trail, which took the edge of a precipitous slope, was
obstructed by fallen rock.  Presently these loose
accumulations increased to a slide.  Sir Donald dropped to a
walk, picking his way lightly.  Finally, under the cliff,
he halted, balanced nicely on a huge rocking slab, and
inspected with suspicion the pitfalls before him.  His
master waited, motionless; the bridle hung loosely, but
in a firm, alert hand.  "It's all right, old fellow," he
said, "It's all right, but take your own time."

The chestnut shook his mane in remonstrance and put
one forefoot out cautiously, trying for hold.  Then he
withdrew, backing carefully, swiftly, off the slab, and
with hoofs set, head high, whole body quivering, waited.
The next instant the solid earth shook, and like a sprung
mine, clang, clash, roar, a terrific cannonading filled the
gorge.

Stratton understood.  Smith had seen him at the lower
curve, and, bent on deferring a meeting until the return
of the sorrel was impossible, had pressed hurriedly on.
The autumn frosts, thawing by day, continually split and
loosened rock on the face of the cliff, and this incautious
passing of the horses, a false step, a stumble, had been
the slight jar necessary to start a fresh avalanche.

The final echo died far off; the profound silence which
had followed him all day settled again like an intangible
presence over the gorge.  It was a stillness to challenge
the very breathing of a man, if he lived, and Stratton
waited, listening, for any slight disturbance beyond the
buttress.  None reached him.  But the sorrel was fleet.
She would have sprung like the wind at the first crack
of the catastrophe; and if there had been space to pass
the pack-animals, it was possible she had carried Smith
out of the track of the slide.

But clearly this portion of the trail was now impassable.
He backed Sir Donald slowly away from the bastion, and
when he was able to turn him, rode down to a point where
a rivulet, cascading from a hidden snow field high up,
formed a gully in the slope.  He took this rocky stairway,
dismounting where he must, swinging into the saddle
again, making détours through crumbling earth, on over
slippery stone, doubling back, pressing up once more,
and so gained the summit of the cliff.  He left his horse and
crept to the eastern edge and looked down on the slide.
It was terrible.  For half a mile, obliterating the trail to
the next curve, stretched ruin.  Midway a crag, like a
broken mainmast, dismantled, toppled out of the wreckage,
and at the same time a warning and a menace, held the
Pass.  It was also a monument.  There was no longer
room for doubt; somewhere down there in the bottom of
the gorge, under tons of rock, the unfortunate sorrel was
buried with Smith.

Aside from the light provision Stratton carried in his
saddle-bag, and his blanket rolled at the crupper, the
camp outfit and the remainder of the opium had gone
down with the pack-horses.  But he could not return to
the Nisqually.  Even if Bates had given up the pursuit,
the roused settlement, by this time holding him responsible
for Thornton's horse, would keep a tireless watch for him.
He must go on.

He drew back from the precipice and stood erect.
The buttress was only the advanced paw of the monster
height that loomed above him.  He looked up, measuring
its sharp pitches, trying to shape a course around
the slide.  The sun dipped behind a spur, and the wind,
pulling up the defile, sharpened.  Then suddenly the
great peaks that encircled him seemed to draw closer.
They gathered personality; they became a tribunal,
austere, uncompromising, sitting in supreme judgment;
ready to follow quick sentence with swifter execution.
Each mighty, hoary head turned to him, waiting, watchful,
and a voice, intangible yet dominant like the silence, said,
"Next."

"No," he answered aloud, and set his lips, "No, not
yet.  There is a way through, or else I can make one."

But close on this challenge there rang a rifle-shot.  He
swung around and dropped to his knee.  Looking over
the opposite edge of the buttress, he saw three horsemen
at the curve which he had lately passed.  Bates he knew
instantly, from the powerful, white-faced bay he rode;
and the big fellow, holding the rifle in readiness, while he
checked in the long-limbed, nervous brown mount, was of
course Thornton; the third was probably a deputy, and
presently, while they waited reconnoitering the cliff,
Myers joined them, urging Ginger.  Then they all came
slowly forward, and disappeared under the rim of the
bastion.

Instantly Stratton was up.  He threw himself into the
saddle and put Sir Donald to the slope.  The men would
stop at the slide; they would turn back and doubtless
pick up his trail at the rivulet.  They would follow to the
surface of the cliff and from there he would be an easy
target along the bald face of the mountain.  He pushed
on tirelessly, winding, doubling, looking back often,
listening, but keeping a course, always, for a small spur
capped by two tilting tables of granite.  He made the last
steep stretch on foot, and Sir Donald, protesting, yet
invariably obedient, pricking this ear, the other, to his
master's brief, low command, followed to the level.  The
slabs, in falling from a higher ridge, had pitched shedwise
against a wall, and Stratton crowded the chestnut into
the hiding-place they roofed.  Again, as in the hollow
cedar trunk, there was not standing room for the horse;
but a soft, peremptory word, a light blow on the forelegs,
and he dropped to his knees, to his side, and became
motionless.  From his position, while he held down Sir
Donald's head, Stratton looked out through the crack
where the tables joined.  It gave him a view of the buttress
and a breadth of the trail approaching the lower curve.

Presently he saw Bates ride back to this bend with his
deputy, and, after a brief halt, again to reconnoiter the
top of the bastion, they rounded the curve and were gone.
A moment later Thornton appeared on the top of the
buttress, followed closely by Myers.  They had left their
horses, but the young rancher still carried his rifle, and
when they had inspected the slide from the cliff, they took
up the trail of the chestnut.  But the light was failing, and
the tracks were often lost on rocky stretches.  They were
forced to turn back repeatedly for the clue.  Finally, not
far from the granite tables, they stopped.  "I 'low you
might's well give it up, Mill," said Myers.  "Ther sorrel
was stumbling consider'ble on that ther last grade;
she was losin' her nigh shoe.  An' this here horse is
pickin' up his feet like he was ready ter walk on air.  It's
ther chestnut, sure; he's er mighty good stepper in er
mean place."

"An' it's Stratton I'm lookin' fur," answered Thornton
grimly.  "I don't keer what anybody says, he's responsible
fur my horse.  It was his business ter watch Smith; an'
ef my little filly was cut down in that ther slide, Stratton's
got to reckon 'ith me.  He was here, standin' on that ther
rock, when we kem 'round that curve; I saw him, an'
so'd you, plain's day.  He must hev gone up 'round ther
slide, I dunno how, but he must hev, while we was foolin'
erlong fur his blamed trail."

"Ther's somethin' mighty curious 'bout that ther
chestnut," said Eben, dropping his voice and casting an
apprehensive glance along the impossible way; "don't
act like er nat'ral born horse.  I dunno's I'd like ter
ketch up 'ith him after night.  You know that ther deputy
'lowed he got over ther woods, from ther schoolhouse trail,
'ithout leavin' er sign; an' Lem's ready ter swear, up and
down, he see 'em, horse an' man, fade out o' sight close by
that ther cedar snag.  Mebbe it ain't so, but where in
tarnation did he go?  An' that boy kem home skeered out'n
a hull year's growth."

"I dunno's I've figgered out these here inviserble folks
correct, myself," said Thornton with deep irony, "but,
fur a spirit horse, ther chestnut is able to take his fodder
mighty reg'lar."

Eben stroked his beard and laughed softly.  "Oh,
I 'low he kin stand it ter hev his wings clipped, when he
strikes ther bunch grass country.  An' ef Bates catches
ther Northern Pacific fur Portland, say to-morrow night,
like he counted on, he'll hev time ter make ther upper
Columbia an' lay fur his man, all right."

"I count on takin' him this side ther Pass, myself,"
answered Mill.  "Bates 'lowed ther Government 'ud set
up a mighty good reward; mebbe five hundred.  An'
ef that smart little filly o' mine went down in ther slide,
I 'low an extry pack-horse went with her.  Stratton can't
go far 'ithout his outfit; he's got to sneak back sometime
fur rations."

Eben already had started back down the gully, and
Thornton followed.  In a little while Stratton saw the two
men riding towards the curve below.  When they rounded
it, he brought the chestnut from his hiding-place and in the
deepening twilight resumed the perilous détour around the
slide.  The lack of "rations" need not trouble him.
He knew the art of woodcraft too well; he could snare a
bird, take a beaver like an Indian, and the Palouse
wilderness before him was an open book.  But had
he not his rifle, with ammunition in the saddle-bags;
besides his full cartridge-belt and good pistols?  There
was no further use of taking that overland train, and,
once through the Cascades, he would shape his course
northward for the Fraser.  Bates—he laughed aloud—Bates
might lie in wait until he rusted, there on the upper
Columbia.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE JUDGE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE JUDGE

.. vspace:: 2

Already Nature stretched busy hands out of the
shadows of the great park, and with manifold browns
and greens softened the newness and crudeness of the
little homestead enshrined at its heart.  The clearing
teemed with fresh life.  The charred rails of the meadow
fence were overgrown with tangles of wild blackberry
and raspberry, with which the stiff foliage of the Washington
holly disputed room.  Ferns, springing from the ashes
of the fire, reached a height of eight and ten feet and
opened umbrella fronds.  At the cottage sweetbrier and
wild honeysuckle interlaced with the tendrils of a Virginia
creeper and climbed to the eaves; maidenhair unfolded
pale canopies over the shallow boxes on the edge of the
balcony, where were planted sweet peas, and a syringa,
supported by a pillar, offered its branches to trellis the
insistent hopvine, which dropped from the gable a misty
curtain of green.  Backward, towards the small stable,
and the huge hayrick thatched with lichened bark, a wild
cherry held its own among thrifty young orchard trees,
and vigorous shoots of alder and maple pushed up
hedge-wise along the corral.  Everywhere Nature had been
encouraged to retouch, and eradicate and bring to a finish
the general plan.

Still, had you approached the clearing that September
afternoon,—however wayworn, however surprised,
charmed,—you must have allowed your glance to rest
longest on the bit of life in the landscape.  The teacher
had laid aside her pruning shears, and taking a rake from
the wall, proceeded to draw weeds and clippings into a
neat hummock.  Her simple gown of brown barred gingham,
catching a breath of wind, stirred gauzily.  Upon
her head the broad sun-hat with muslin bow and strings
became a picture hat, quaint, pleasing.  Still, had you
once known her, you must have noticed that her figure
had lost a little of its roundness; the skin its old
transparency and velvet smoothness; shadows lurked under
her brave eyes, and, sometimes, her sweet and
mirth-provoking mouth stiffened into a patient
self-suppression.

She stopped at length to rest, leaning on the gate, and
looked up the trail, which began a level stretch through
pale alders, dipped to a hollow and rose over a knob
where, set like a flaring torch, a first changing maple
illumined the way, and was lost to reappear briefly on
higher ground.  It was there on the hillside she presently
discovered Mose.  He came with his swift swinging stride
his gun on his shoulder, a brace of birds in his hand, and
was hidden directly in foliage.  She waited, and when he
came over the lower knoll, under the flaming maple, she
drew the wooden pin and threw the gate open.  "Grouse,
Mose?" she asked with evident interest.  "What beauties."

"But, ya-as, Mees," he answered, and smiled broadly,
"I ees keel dem by Myers' plas.  You know where de
creek ees come roun' dat ole fir log; well, it ees dare I
shoot dem.  Dis one she ees come tek drink; she doan
be so hard shot, for sure.  But dis one, saprie, he ees fool
me gre't; running an' flying, w-r-r-r, w-r-r-r, an' hiding
heemself unner dat beeg cedar stump."

His enthusiasm was reflected in her face; her eyes
caught from his a sudden fire.  "Oh," she said with a
soft intake of breath, "I know just how it happened.
And he was out again in a flash, almost at your feet; you
hadn't room to aim, but you waited and held yourself in,
till he rose; then you took him, nice and clean, in the
wing."

"Monjee, Mees," he said, and laughed aloud, "but
you ees on'stan' lak you ees dare."  He shifted the birds
to the gun hand, and closing the gate, set the pin.  "But
it ees good t'ing I ees fin' dose grouse, nawitka; for I
ees see mo'sieur, de Judge, down to Myers' plas.  He mus'
be long here 'bout dinner tam, for sure."

"So soon?" she answered in surprise.  "I thought
from his last letter that he would be delayed longer at the
mills.  But it is fortunate that we have the grouse," and
the corners of her mouth lifted and dimpled; "we'll
show him the right way to serve a bird."

"Nawitka, Mees."  Mose was feeling in the depths of
his blouse.  "But Eben Myers, he ees go pas' de Station
today, an' he ees tell me to bring you dis mail."  He
paused to scrutinize the address and weigh the letter
speculatively in his palm.  "Saprie, it ees good t'ing
Mose Laramie doan' have to write so mooch spelling, an'
mebbe read it all.  Monjee, he doan' be able, den, to shoot
some birds, an' fish by de Nisqually.  Den, Mees, it ees
pos'ble you ees be, sometams, hongry."

She laughed, shaking her head.  "But you are learning,
Mose.  The trouble was in having three languages forced
on you at the start.  They were bound to tangle, and I
guess the English was caught in the first knot at the
bottom of the snarl.  But it's all right; we only need a
little more patience and time."

She walked on with the boy towards the cottage, opening
the letter as she went, but when she glanced down the
page the humor faded from her face.  She reached the
branch path to the river, and turned that way.

The letter was from her sister; the first she had received
since Louise's rupture with Philip.  She dwelt on the
Judge's return and the closing of the mills.  He had told
her that Forrest had saved the property; that he had
met emergency after emergency with a level-headedness
not one young man in five hundred could have shown.
Why, there were times when he had done the work of
three responsible men, and most creditably.  But at last,
when she had finished the Judge's eulogy, to which was
added one gently eloquent of her own, she took up briefly
the matter of the separation.

Alice turned back and slowly re-read this portion.

"... I am leaving my husband.  I can never explain
it to you—please let the question rest—but Uncle Si
will tell you I am right.  It was necessary to tell him the
truth and he admits my only course is a separation.  There
can never be any sort of a compromise, as long as I live,
and I hope I shall never be obliged to see Philip Kingsley
again.

"I am starting home to Olympia with Uncle Si today,
but if you know of anyone in the settlement who can take
me in, with little Si, I would rather go out there and stay,
until I can shape my plans.  Possibly, when you give up
the school, I may be able to fill your place as well as any.
Uncle Silas, however, is urging me to go, at least for a time,
to Washington.  I own it will be hard to have you both
so far away, and I am tempted by the security of a strange
city, with the whole continent between me and—what
is past."

"Oh, Louise, my poor, sweet Louise, I'd love to see
Phil Kingsley taught his lesson, but I know you, dear."  Alice
walked on the remaining distance to the falls.  "You
shall come and stay with me, as long as you want to, but
you're going to forgive him, yes, you are, the first time he
asks it."

Still, Louise had explained to the Judge; why should
she find it more difficult to tell her?  And just what was
this reason, anyway?  Then suddenly, in one great shock,
the wedge which Stratton had tried to fix, drove home.
She stood, white, tense, on the trembling ledge, and stared
with unseeing eyes into the upper cataract.  Its thunder
and passion were lost in the greater forces that engulfed
her.  All that Stratton had said in their last interview, his
whole monstrous story, rejected hitherto, surged back,
statement on statement, and compelled her belief.  She
saw now what that friendly intimacy of nearly two years,
in that isolated place, must have meant to both Louise and
Forrest.  How she had created for him his only social
and home life; how, day after day, countless times each
day, she must have felt his quiet sympathy, helpfulness,
in sharp contrast to the neglect and irresponsibility of
Philip.  And they had played, sung, innumerable evenings
together; no man on earth could so appreciate her
beautiful voice, her personal sweetness; and she had always
loved his violin.  How could she—how could any
woman—have remained indifferent?  And he—how could he
help forgetting there were other women in the world?
All men, good, strong men, had their fancies when they
were boys in school; it was afterwards that they found
the right, the one woman.

For a long time the thought of Forrest had seemed to
bring him near.  She felt his presence; it was as though
he stood there, behind her on the ledge, watching her with
clear, reproachful, almost frowning gaze.  The color
surged and went in her face; her shoulders shook, and
the letter, which she had crushed in her hand, dropped
from her relaxed hold.  The torrent swirled it away.
"I don't blame you," she said, and to her halting phrases
the cataract stormed accompaniment, "Oh, I don't
blame you.  I know how you have fought it—stamped
it down.  But you can't kill it—it springs and springs
again; it can't die.  I know—I know.  I've been through
it—all."

At last she walked back through the meadow.  The
sun was dropping behind the purpling hills; birds piped
night calls in the thicket; one of the Jerseys was lowing
at the bars.

"Patience, Blossom, patience," she said, "Now, then,
slowly, slowly."  She laid her hand lightly on the tawny
neck, and the cow picked her way over the lowered rails
and turned towards the corral.

It was there, milking Blossom, that the Judge
discovered her, when he came from the stable where Mose
had helped him put up his horse.  He did not speak
directly, but stopped, leaning a little on the fence, his arms
resting on the top bar, and watched her.  There was in
his eyes the look of a man who has found at last what he
has long desired.

She did not yet know that he was there.  Her shoulder
was turned to him and she was looking up absently to a
high spur of the slope.  "My dear," he said, "My dear—it
is a long time since I climbed a fence, but no doubt
I could do it unless there is a gate."

She started and gave him a quick, backward glance,
while her hand sent a swifter stream into the pail.  Then
she sprang up from her stool and hurried smiling to the
rails.

But, presently, when she had shown him the little wicket,
screened by two infant alders, the Judge found himself
squeezing through, to wait for the almost filled pail.  "It
isn't nearly as difficult as it looks," she said, and her eyes
challenged him over her shoulder.

"No, thank you," he answered laughing, "I like,
better, just looking on."

But he lifted the brimming pail and carried it, not
without difficulty, to the house.  He set it down in the
living-room and stepped back into the cool doorway, where he
stood, fanning himself slowly, with his hat, and surveying
the interior with growing approval.

Mose was already seated in the chimney corner, turning
the roasting grouse on their spit.  At the same time he
tended a savory haunch of venison, while the old madame
divided her attention between a boiling pot on the crane,
and a tin reflector set in front of the fire.

"You see it's all very primitive," said Alice.

The Judge's eyes rested on the spit with manifest
satisfaction.  "It is the only right way to cook a bird," he
answered.

"Nawitka," said Mose gravely.  "But de mowitch,
too, dis tam de year, ees gre't."

"And this was the finest stag brought in this season,"
said the teacher.  "Mose trailed him to Nisqually ford.
Those are the antlers."  And if she, herself, had been the
hunter, she could not have shown greater pride in the
trophy over the doorway.  "And this is the pelt of the
cinnamon bear I wrote you about.  The one Mose tracked
with her two cubs.  She was very savage and it was his
last cartridge.  Isn't the fur splendid?"

"Bien," said the pleased and embarrassed boy, "dat
ees nothing.  Dat ees one ver' fine gun de Mees ees give
to me.  It ees mooch too fine for no 'count half-breed
lak me.  Laramie, my fader, ees say so."

The Judge went up the little stairway built across the
living-room, to the low gabled chamber under the eaves;
and when he came down, presently, brushed and freshened,
he found Alice laying the cloth in the balcony.  She had
changed the brown cotton frock for one of soft pink, and
where the surplice crossed below the full throat, she had
fastened a bunch of sweet peas.  Others were tucked in
her belt, and she gathered more from the long box on the
edge of the veranda, and with a handful of mignonette,
arranged them in a crystal bowl for the center of the board.

The light paled in the west; the high spur darkened;
a few thin clouds parted over a far crest, and showed a
young, ring-defined moon.  A gust of wind fluttered the
cloth and roughened her hair.  The Judge lighted the
lamp on the wall, and set the pink shade as she would have
it, so that a soft glamour fell on the modest array of glass
and china.  He filled the water pitcher and placed the
rustic chairs; and finally they were seated and he found
himself carving the savory grouse.

"What an Arcadia you have made of it," he said at
last.  "But it is simply sorcery; nothing else.  Any other
woman must have failed; or, succeeding, would have
made a wreck of herself and spoiled her life.  Even a man
could only have accomplished it through hardship and
long toil.  But you—you have a charmed life.  You
have looked—you have cast your spell—and presto
it was done."

"It took more than that," she answered and shook her
head gravely; "you should know it."

"Yes, yes," he said quickly, "you are right.  And I
do know it."

"It was work, the hardest kind.  Mose can prove it.
He helped Mill Thornton clear the building site; he helped
the settlers the day they came to slash and, again, to burn
the brush piles.  He cut logs for the cabin, shakes for the
stable, rails for fencing.  He opened the new trail."

"And wasn't that sorcery?  To make a steady laborer
of Mose?  To coerce all of these young ranchers into
service?"  The Judge laughed softly, deeply.

"You know it was the pioneer spirit," she answered.
"Nothing else influenced Mill Thornton to drive oxen
for his neighbor, grubbing out stumps, when his own
clearing was hardly under way, and Samantha wavered
in the balance.  Nothing else led Mr. Myers to lend his
cattle for the work, in plowing time.  And this same spirit,
that calls the whole district out in a body to fight a forest
fire, or hunt a trespasser, brought these men together to
give their best effort to my house-raising.  It meant a step
further for the settlement, and each man takes a personal
pride and interest in the new homestead he helped to
make.  Can't you understand that?  And, dear Uncle
Silas, can't you see what it means to me?"—Her voice
was low and vibrant; her eyes gathered a soft brightness.—"I
worked for it—endured—it's mine.  Every foot
of this ground is dear to me; every log in these walls.
You mustn't expect me to love any other home—as well."

"I understand," said the Judge slowly, "I think that
I understand.  But—Forrest will be here in a few days;
he intends to take up a systematic search for that lost
prospect.  And his heart is still set on this section.  What
will you do?"

"Meet my promise," she said, "of course.  What else
can I do?  I will commute it, if you advise that, or
relinquish, or sell him my right.  I'm ready any time.  But,—"
she rose from her chair and looked off to the meadow,
"I must go down and bring Colonel in.  Wait here, won't
you?—and have your cigar."

"I would rather walk with you," and he rose and went
with her down the steps.  "I noticed that meadow from
the spur up the trail; it is a fine field."

"And you noticed my hayrick," she said quickly.
"That was the best yield of timothy, to the acre, in the
settlement this year.  Jake Myers came from the prairie
with his father's team to help me with the harvesting.  I
undertook to drive in a load,"—she paused, and he
felt rather than saw, in the uncertain light, that her face
rippled a smile,—"and Mr. Stratton rode down the
trail just in time to see me spilled, hay and all, into the
field.  He was over the fence, in an instant, to rescue me
from the bottom of the heap.  And he stayed to help me
reload, though he must have found it hard learning to
use a pitchfork that warm afternoon."

The Judge laughed.  He knew how she had looked at
that moment, standing all flushed, irresistible, with a sweet
quiver of her mobile lips, and the unconscious appeal
growing in her eyes.  And clearly Stratton had made the
most of his opportunities, as any man must; as he had
feared.  "So, even Stratton came under the spell," he
said; "you made him spoil those immaculate hands.
And there was that other time, in the dry season when
this meadow slashing accidentally burned.  You did not
tell me fully, but I understood he arrived, then, at the right
moment, and helped to prevent a bad blaze.'

"It was a bad blaze; it looked for awhile as if the
whole fence, the buildings, the timber would go.  And
he found me fallen, my dress afire, and he risked himself
to save me.  He stayed hours, afterwards, bandaging my
burns, bathing my face, doing all he could, when he,
himself, must have been suffering agony.  Dear Uncle
Silas," her voice broke, "I believed in him; he
disappointed me, but I'm not ungrateful; I shall never
forget."

"I understand," the Judge answered slowly, "I think
that I understand.  And I appreciate, I am more than
grateful, for what he did, but I did not know he was
hurt.  How was it?"

"I had fallen close to the burning slash pile, and, when
he bent to move me, a blazing sapling sprang out and
struck the back of his head.  I didn't realize it at the
time, and he always avoided speaking of it if he could, but
it seemed to have left some permanent hurt that affected
his eyes; any over exertion or exposure to strong light
brought on paroxysms of pain, and once, when he had
been taken by an attack on the trail, he was forced to
stop here.  It was then he told me and that he meant to
go to New York and consult an oculist.  He was only
waiting for his schooner to come back from the North
with her cargo of furs.  You know she was wrecked—a
total loss; and the trip East, the services of a specialist,
demanded a great deal of ready money.  Sometimes—sometimes—I
believe that tempted him to—do what he
did.  It makes me feel responsible."

"I understand," said the Judge; "it is natural you
should feel so, in a measure.  But, my dear, he is not
what you think; he lived a dual life."

"Oh," she said, "of course you think so; every one
must.  He persisted, always, in showing his worst side.
But I knew him very well.  He told me things about his
early life; he was handicapped from the start, but he was
a man of fine and deep feeling—at heart.  In spite of
everything I shall always believe that."

"Perhaps, I do not dispute you."  And he added after
a moment, "Stratton himself wrote me something about
that fire; I doubted you knew it, but he asked me to
release you."

She stopped, surprised, and tried to read more than he
said in his face.  "To release me?"

"Yes.  I refused.  I answered that the request should
come from you.  Sometimes, off there in Washington, I
have expected it, Alice.  You seemed so happy here;
so—almost—eager to put off our marriage.  And Stratton
has a handsome face; personal charm; he was right
here on the ground.  My dear, tell me this; if that schooner
had returned, if he had not been tempted, would you
have wished my answer to him any different?"

She turned her face away, looking up to the black
shadows of the park.  "Dear Uncle Silas," she said, and
steadied her voice between the words, "if you—don't
want me—I shall never marry."

"Want you?"  The wind, drawing from the river,
brought a closer booming of the falls.  It toned with his
pleading undernote like a great minor chord.  "Want
you?  I want you so much that I am not willing to share
even your gratitude with any other man.  I want
you—your best—your love—nothing less will do."

They had stopped near a clump of alders, where, in
making the clearing, she had preserved an old cedar stump
with chairlike arms, overrun now with vines.  A little
farther on Colonel waited at the meadow bars.  She
walked a few steps and halted in uncertainty.  The Judge
moved enough to rest his arms on the flat surface of the
trunk, and stood leaning a little, watching her.  The
noise of the cataract filled the interlude.  A branch rustled
and a shower of dead leaves fell, slanting from the alders
to his feet.  Then she turned and came back.

"Dear Uncle Silas," she began, and meeting his look,
repeated, her voice shaking, "Dear Uncle Silas, I've got
to tell you.  It's—Paul.  It always was—Paul—before
I knew it—when I was a small girl and he carried my
books to school.  But he—he—"  Her breast heaved;
she turned her face away once more, to the gloom of the
park.  "You know—what happened.  Louise told
you—the truth!  It changes things, and, if you still want
me, I'll try my best to—get over it, and make you the
best wife—that I can."

Colonel moved restlessly and she walked the remaining
steps to the bars.  The Judge followed and dropped the
rails and she led the horse through.  Then, "It is all
right, little girl," he said, slowly; "it is all right; as it
should be.  But, whatever you heard through Louise,
you have made a mistake.  My dear—my dear, you
should have written me all about it at the start.  It could
hardly have made me happier, in the end, to know I had
spoiled two young lives, that were meant for each other."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`LEM CREATES FICTION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   LEM CREATES FICTION

.. vspace:: 2

Lem's treble piped above the low of the cows and
the answering bawl of the calves outside the corral.
He was seated on the top rail of the fence with a short
piece of maple in his hand, out of which he was trying to
shape a flute.

   |  "—An' I hev be'n frequently so-o-old, an' I hev
   |      be'n frequently sold;
   |  I've tunneled, hydraulicked, and cradled—an'—

Oh, shet up, Shorts, now do."

He closed his knife with a snap and, slipping down from
his perch, opened the wicket and let the white-faced calf
through.  Martha poured the foaming milk from her
measure into a pail and changed her seat.  At the same
time she lifted her glance to the county road, winding
up northward from the meadow.  "I should jedge," she
said, shading her eyes, "I should jedge that ther's Jake's
horse, but it don't look nothin' like Jake."

"Naw, it ain't," answered Lem, raising his ferret eyes
to the horseman.  "I'll jes' bet it's Mr. Forrest; yes,
sir, it's him.  He's borryed Ketchem down by ther station,
seein's he couldn't git word out fur his own horse."  And
he put the flute to his lips.

   |  "I've travelled all over ther country, prospectin'
   |      an' diggin' fur gold."


It was a discordant peal and the lad knew it.  He also
felt that this rider, descending now into the lane, regarded
him with laughing eyes.  Forrest drew his rein outside
the bars and Martha came over to the fence.  "How do
you do?" he said.  "You're looking well."

"Wal, yes," she answered with her serious smile, and
wiping her hand on her apron, she grasped the palm he
offered across the rail, "I'm fair ter middlin'.  I calc'late
you've kem prospectin', but Eben's off in ther hills; he
'lowed he was gittin' powerful clost ter ther head o'
that ther petrified man, an' you're likelier ter find er
needle in er haystack 'n him.  But ef you'll stop over
night 'ith us, mebbe he'll kem in."

"Thank you," said Forrest, "but I'm going right on
to the headwaters.  It's a long time since I had a night
under the stars.  I promised to leave Jake's horse with
Thornton.  I suppose Colonel is here; I'd like to see
him, and Miss Hunter too, for a few minutes, before I
ride on."

She shook her head.  "You'll find her an' ther horse
out to ther new ranch."

"Then," said Forrest, "I'll water Ketchem and go
on; but I would like a drink of that milk, first, if you have
it to spare."

"Land, yes."  She dipped the great tin measure into
the pail, and having wiped it also on her apron, handed
it to him over the rails.

"It always seems to me," he said, pausing between
draughts, "that this milk is a little better than any other."

"That's what ther schoolmarm always 'lowed.  She
said she tasted ther buttercups in it.  But that was before
ther Jedge sent her them Jerseys."

"So," said Forrest, amused and puzzled at the strangeness
of the gift, "So Judge Kingsley sent her some cattle?"

"You bet," Lem answered for his mother; "an' ther
ain't never be'n nothin' ter kem up ter them two cows
in ther hull deestrict.  'Bout ther color o' young squirrel,
an' slick's er peeled fir.  Ther Jedge he kem out here las'
week in his dogcart.  He'd heard 'bout ther new trail an'
'lowed he'd drive straight through."  The boy paused to
swing himself over the fence and down into the lane.
"But Mose, he didn't count on no dogcarts when he done
ther slashin'.  I went er piece ter show him ther branch.
You'd orter o' seen him;—thort I'd bu'st;—a-holdin'
onter ther reins 'ith one hand an' ther seat 'ith the other; a
bumpin' over logs an' snags; a gittin' ther wheels all tied
up; a grabbin' fur his hat an' yellin', 'Whoa, whoa,
Carlyle.'  Oh, Lord, I thort I'd die."

He seemed in imminent peril now; writhing, twisting,
bending his small shape convulsively, and finding vent at
last in explosive shrieks of laughter.  Forrest laughed,
too, from sheer sympathy, and turning his horse, rode
over to the trough.  So the Judge had presented Alice
with some cattle,—he smiled again at the quaintness of
the gift,—and she was boarding out at Thornton's new
ranch.  Strange she had not mentioned that, in some of
those letters her sister had given him to read; but she had
had a great deal to say about the clearing and Samantha.

Martha fixed her stool and resumed her milking, while
Lem, having recovered poise, followed the young man
slowly.  He raised the flute to his lips and piped softly,
then held the instrument off and eyed it with growing
dissatisfaction.  Forrest watched the eager horse plunge
his muzzle in the cool basin, and after preliminary splashing
and stamping, settle to a still, long draught.  Then
his glance moved to the boy.  "What's that you have,
Lem?  A whistle?"

"Yes, but I can't make her work."

"Let me try it."  Forrest took the flute and the knife
and made several careful cuts in the green wood.  "This
is a fine knife," he said.

"You kin jes' bet your life on that; ther schoolmarm
give it to me."

"Yes?" said Forrest.  "How is she, Lem?  She must
feel the long trail sometimes; in hot weather or when it
rains."

"Oh, I dunno.  She 'lows it don't 'mount ter much, long
as she has Colonel, an' all summer, off an' on, she's be'n
havin' pleasant comp'ny.  I mean Mr. Stratton.  He
wa'n't huntin' any ter speak of."

A quick flush flamed in Forrest's face.  He gathered the
bridle and raised the flute to his lips.  The strain was
soft, no longer discordant, and Ketchem stood moving
a sensitive ear.  "So, Stratton rode with her.  He has a
fine horse."

Lem took the instrument and examined the improvements.
"You kin jes' bet on that.  Ther ain't never be'n
no sech stepper in this here deestrict, leavin' out Colonel.
But ther ches'nut's mighty oncertain.  I'd hate ter resk
my money on him; ef it kem to it, I'd hate ter resk
myself."  He paused to try a measure.  "She blows pretty
good," he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.  "Yes,
we 'lowed Mill Thornton was powerful sweet on Cousin
Samanthy, but land, he couldn't hold er candle ter
Mr. Stratton.  He was over to school 'bout every day, when he
was here.  Ef it rained he kem in, but mos' gen'ly he
waited outside, er walkin' his horse up an' down tell
school let out.  You'd orter o' seen him."  And with a
sidelong glance at Forrest, he raised the flute again and
piped a surer strain.

Forrest was silent.  Lem repeated the blast with his eyes
on the startled young horse.  He moved forward, suddenly,
with a last shrill note, bringing the whistle close to
Ketchem's ear.  And he stood grinning his satisfaction,
while the animal lunged, reared, and was brought down,
trembling, by his rider's firm hand.

"You kin ride.  You kin keep your seat 'bout as good
as Mr. Stratton.  Dunno but what I'd resk you on that
ther spirit horse o' his.  I 'low you heard 'bout ther way
he give them Gov'ment men ther slip?"

"Yes," answered Forrest, "yes.  I learned through
Mr. Bates.  I happened to meet him the day I left
Seattle.  It seems Stratton used this shooting box out here
to cache his dope in.  He was bringing it through, with
Smith's help, in small lots from Victoria.  And the officers
cut him off going east towards the Pass.  They took his
pack-horse, and he, himself, barely escaped on that chestnut."

Lem laughed, a noiseless contortion.  "Them dep'ties
was mighty puzzled 'bout jes' ther way he give 'em ther
slip.  Not one in ther hull bunch ever s'picioned that
ther chestnut jes' natu'lly lifted his four feet off n ther
face of ther earth; yes, sir, and flew clean over ther heads
'mongst ther trees, an' struck back to ther Nisqually,
while they was a chasin' on after ther rest o' ther outfit."  Lem
caught a quick breath; his ferret eyes fell before his
listener's level look, and he hastened to add, "But that
ther pack-horse was John Phiander's Baldy,—he got er
good price for him,—an' when the Gov'ment men found
him he was up to his old tricks, a rollin' in er wide piece
o' ther trail, tryin' ter get rid o' his load.  Oh, gee, I
thort I'd bust; you'd orter o' seen him.  Them little cans,
what you call dope, worked loose an' scattered all over
creation.  But Baldy'd never o' hed that chanct, an'
they'd never o' sighted their man, ef he hedn't stopped
ter kidnap ther schoolmarm."

"What?"

Lem started and his sidelong glance moved from the
young man's challenging eyes to his strong whip hand.
"You ain't heard 'bout that, hev you?  I was chasin'
round after Shorts an' that ther red heifer, an' I kem
ercross 'em up ther branch.  Baldy was standin' quiet,
an' ther chestnut was stampin' an' rubbin' hisself like
all pursest on er alder.  Colonel he was snatchin' er
mouthful o' grass, an' ther schoolmarm was sittin' in
ther saddle 'ith her back to me.  I thort she was jes'
listenin', an' never sensed things tell I sneaked up close
behind an ole cedar snag an' see her hands was tied 'ith
er big silk hankerchief, what he wears roun' his neck.
He was passin' er hitchin' strap 'cross her lap an' makin'
it fast to ther cinch, an' he says mighty softlike, 'You
will hate me at first fur this—mebbe a good spell—but
in the end you air goin' ter love me, an' marry me.'"

Forrest frowned darkly at the water trough.  He reached
and swept the brimming surface with a sharp cut of his
whip.  Lem's lips twitched with keen appreciation.
"But," he went on slowly, "she jes' looked at him 'ith
her chin up in ther air, an' says, 'You ruffi'n—you
outlaw.  I kin die jes' once an' it's goin' ter kem ter that
before I ever marry you.'"

Forrest struck the flooding trough again, still more
sharply, so that the fretting young horse lunged and
wheeled, and Lem sidled out of possible range.  He saw
Ketchem brought firmly back, then went on cautiously,
"He stood watchin' her a minute an' I see his face was
whiter'n ashes, an' er kind o' white fire was blazin' out'n
his eyes.  Then he says powerful slow, 'Is it ther black's
master?'

"An' she looks off down ther trail 'ith her cheeks gittin'
pink as rhododendron flowers in ther springtime, an'
says, 'As long as I live I shall never love any man
but—'"  Lem paused, smiling his impish smile,—"'Jedge
Kingsley,'" he added.

Forrest's whip hand fell limp at his side.  He drew a
sharp breath and looked at the boy.  The sternness went
out of his face; there came over it a great weariness; his
eyes brimmed misery.

"Gee, gee," said Lem, "I wisht you'd a be'n there.
'You are goin' ter marry me,' says he.  An' he unslung
Colonel's lariat an' jumps on ther chestnut.  But he wa'n't
countin' ernough on that ther pack-horse.  I shied er
stone at him an' it took him smart on ther flank an he
broke away like mad fur Salal prairie.  Colonel he flung
up his head, an' 'fore he could make up his mind bout
Baldy, he heard them ther Gov'ment men poundin' up
ther trail.  The same minute he felt his rope, an he jes'
give ernother fling an' jerked clear, an' swung 'round an'
fit out fur ther schoolhouse.  A bird couldn't o' ketched
him.  An' when he got ther he gentled down, nice as er
kitten, an' waited fur Mose,—I 'low it must o' be'n
Mose,—ter kem an' untie ther schoolmarm."

There was a brief silence, during which the young man
again regarded the brimming trough and Lem watched
him.  Then the boy said, arbitrating with some remaining
atom of conscience, "I 'low I hedn't no call ter say what
I did 'bout ther Jedge."

"No," answered Forrest quickly, "No, Lem, you're
right.  But I'm hardly the man to repeat it, and I happened
to know it already.  I've known it for a long time."  A
pull at the bridle; a word to the horse.  "Good-by,
Lem," he said.  Then, as Ketchem broke into a canter, he
turned in his saddle to throw a piece of silver to the
rogue.

The lane was muddy, after a heavy rain, and the coin
dropped into a little pool.  But Lem secured it, and having
wiped it on the seat of his trousers, examined it narrowly.
"It's a dollar," he exclaimed.  "A hull dollar.  Beats me
what it's fur.  Mus' be fur talkin'.  I wisht,—" slowly,
as one who sees lost possibilities,—"gee, gee, I wisht
I'd a said more."  He slipped the money into his pocket
with a swift look at his mother, milking still in the corral,
"Ef dad knew he'd 'low it's bout time fur me ter be
payin' board."

Forrest found himself not in the old rough track of the
herds, but following a well beaten though narrow trail,
from which branched many paths.  Then at length he
rode along the frowning front of a great hill, and looking
up his eyes traced sections of an abandoned switchback
which he and Alice had pushed up that day, to find it
lost in the slide on the edge of the windfall.  And here, on
the bank of the creek that skirted the hill, was a deserted
shepherd's hut, where Eben had cached a deer, that he
had shot on the trail that morning.  But the roof had fallen
in, and between the fragments fern and salal crowded,
waist-high from the earth floor.

Forrest had believed that all he needed was to be
out-of-doors; to get in touch with the growing timber again;
to ride or tramp all day through the great stillness; to
have the opportunity to think over and outline,
undisturbed, his contemplated work, and he would be himself
once more.  But now, a bit of ruined cabin, the sound of
running water, the pungent wind idling through a glade,
a hundred small associations, brought the old futile desire
sweeping back with the force of a sudden mountain flood.
It was as though he saw her up there, easing her weight
as Colonel set himself to the pitch; how graceful she
was, dipping this way and that to his steps; avoiding
encroaching boughs; sending him a swift glance across
her shoulder, with the delight shining in her eyes.  And
how fond she was of a horse, of the forest, of all out-of-doors.
She was so bright, so warm, so full of life, sparkle,
charm.  How could he ever forget her?  How could he
ever ride or tramp the woods without remembering her?

But he must forget.  He couldn't go on feeling like this
about another man's wife.  And he was glad she loved
the Judge.  Yes, since she was going to marry, he was
glad she loved the Judge.  Sometimes—he had been a
little in doubt.  Still—what did all this Lem had told
him really amount to?  Of course the young imp had
exaggerated, for instance there was that yarn about
Stratton's horse, still—just what shreds of truth had he
possessed, out of which to fabricate the story?  Another
time he could have laughed at the boy's rendition of
Stratton's careful language, but had this man approached
her, disgraced, outlawed as he was, in that way?  Yes, he
was bold enough; he had stopped her, spoken to her,
pressed his case; that much was true.  The thought of
this quickened Forrest's blood; it ran hot in his veins.
Once more his hands tingled, burned, for close physical
contact with this man.

When he was again conscious of his surroundings it
was twilight in the forest.  The trees no longer stood out
singly but in confused masses.  Light fog began to lift
from the hollows, wet still from the recent rains; the air
grew chilly.  Then presently, through an opening ahead,
appeared the knob-like crest of the south hill, girdled
with a ribbon of mist; and as he rode towards the clearing,
there unfolded a company of peaks, shading from copper
and amethyst to a purplish black.  He passed a branch
trail, rising and winding up in the direction of the canyon,
and making a final curve, came upon Thornton's cabin,
and Samantha churning and singing in the little porch.

"How do you do?" he said, swinging down from the
saddle and taking her offered hand; "I sent my
congratulations to Mill, through Miss Hunter, some time ago,
but I must congratulate you both on this homestead.  It
makes a great showing.  I'm coming back in a day or
two to look over the section, but tonight I'm going right
on to the falls."

"You'll kem ercross Mill down ther," she answered,
smiling.  "He 'lowed he'd hev er look at ther river.  It's
out on a reg'lar tear.  You kin hear it, can't you?  It's
ripped out ther teacher's sluice-gate, an' carried away a
mighty nice little bridge Mr. Stratton put in below ther
falls."

So Alice had built a sluice-gate.  He smiled, puzzled,
and then with a flash of understanding.  Of course it
was she who had taught Thornton the problem of bringing
the stream to his land.  It was she who had suggested the
line of sluice-box he had noticed ahead, along the trail.
Well, he could spare the water.  He was glad to.

"I promised to leave Ketchem with Mill," he said, and
loosened his snug blanket roll from behind the saddle.
"Jake expects him down at the Station tomorrow.  I
would like to have a look at my own horse, and see Miss
Hunter for a moment before I go on."

"Why," said Samantha in surprise, "she ain't here.  I
'low she's too powerful busy tendin' to her own ranch."

"Her own ranch?" he repeated.

"Yes.  Fur ther land sakes, don't you know she
homesteaded that ther piece to ther falls?"

Forrest stood a silent moment.  His look moved from
Samantha's face to a high spur of the hill.  His breath
came a little heavily, with a slight uplift of the shoulders,
and he raised his hand to the handkerchief, knotted
loosely at his throat, and eased it, as though it choked.
Then he took up the strapped blanket from the step and
swung it to his back and started on down the trail.  He
had forgotten to say good-night, and Samantha waited,
watching him curiously, and holding in the fretting horse.
Presently he stopped in uncertainty, like a man lost, and
turned and came back.

"I didn't expect to find a house at the falls," he said
and forced a smile; "and, you see it seems pretty good
to me to get out-of-doors again.  I've been looking forward
to spending tonight in the open air.  I think, if that branch
I passed back there around the curve, goes to the canyon,
I'll try it."

"Yes, it does," answered Samantha.  "It goes up past
ther granite tower an' down to ther ford above Mr. Stratton's
place.  I 'low Pete Smith blazed that ther branch
ter skip our ranch.  He wa'n't goin' ter resk no chances
o' kemin' ercross Mill."

"Then," said Forrest, "that's the trail I want.  I
intend to prospect south from the canyon.  And I ought
to find it dry up there for a camp tonight; it's pretty wet
in the timber, and the tower should make a good
windbreak from this Chinook.  But I must hurry to make it
before dark."

"You better stop 'ith us," said Samantha, her warm
heart creeping into her tone.  "It's lonesome up ther,
an' I could cook you some mighty nice trout."

But he would not, and Samantha tied Ketchem and
walked with the young man as far as the curve.  "Say,"
she said impulsively, breaking the silence, "don't you feel
so cut up 'bout that ther homestead.  Uncle Eben always
'lowed you wanted that piece, an' 'at she knew it; an' I
dunno what she done it fur, but you jes' wait tell you find
out ther reason.  She ain't ther kind ter do a mean
thing."

"Oh, I know that; I know that," he answered quickly.
"Don't think I blame her.  It was her right, if she
wanted the land.  I don't need another reason.  Good-night."

But Samantha followed a step further.  "Say," she
called, "ef she hedn't filed on that piece Mill would.  He
counted on homesteadin' that one, 'stead o' this.  She
got in ahead o' him, but he jes' hates to own he got cut out
by er girl."

Her little, uncertain laugh, meant to cheer him, followed
him up the trail.  Then presently he reached the branch
and pushed up swiftly towards the tower.  "If I had
stopped at Olympia to make the entry at the Land Office,
I should have discovered the truth," he thought.  "And
of course—of course Mill, or some other man, must have
taken it long ago, if she had let the opportunity go.
Tomorrow, tomorrow—I'll go down and see what she has
made of it.  I couldn't now.  Not tonight."

He stumbled through a darker tangle of undergrowth
and came out in the open at the tower.  But the forces at
work earlier in the Pass had lately been busy here.
Suddenly a great crack yawned at his feet.  It seemed to mark
off, accurately, as though a master hand had drawn the
line, the whole jutting front of the cliff, and like the
beginnings of a moat enclosed the leaning column.  He
moved back a few yards to the trees, and found a dry
place for his blanket, under the spreading boughs of a
fir.  Presently the light of his camp-fire cut the gloom, and
the air was redolent with the savor of toasting bacon.

Twilight deepened.  The voice of the cataract came up
the wind.  Somewhere a dead bough creaked.  He
lounged, his elbow on the blanket, his head propped on
his hand, and looked off absently across the darkening
gorge.  Did he not see once more, at the foot of a near
and familiar slope, a small tent white and silent under
the dew and starshine?

His lips began to breathe a whistle.  Presently it rose,
still soft, sweet, tender, in Schubert's Serenade.

.. figure:: images/img-279.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: Music fragment

   Music fragment





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PRESSURE OF THE WILDERNESS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE PRESSURE OF THE WILDERNESS

.. vspace:: 2

The wilderness has great adaptability.  She fits
herself to the man; she plays on his moods.  To Stratton
she became an inquisitor, tireless, implacable.  She
wracked him with his defeat; she taunted him with
memories.  At last the hour came, when, far on his retreat
to the border, his worst perils past, he turned his horse
and started back.

There were nearer approaches to the Sound through
the mountains; a day's ride southeastward would have
taken him to the railroad on the Columbia, but he chose
to recross those miles of hostile country, where, to the
horsemen of the plains, Sir Donald had long been a
coveted and marked prize.  He had not known the full
value of Smith's service on those previous trips; his
Indian blood had been a passport where a solitary white
man could not go; and, while he had something to gain,
the outlaw on the night watch had been vigilant, safe.
During this last journey it was only through strategy and
an incessant fighting off of sleep, that Stratton had been
able to save the chestnut, probably his life.  And now,
returning, he was forced to make wide détours, avoiding
his former course.  He spent whole days, watchful, under
cover of shallow coulees, and pushed on warily at night,
riding knee-deep through arid tracts of sage brush, hiding
his trail when he could, in the meager channel of a stream,
or the rocks of a wash, keeping away, always, from
beaten tracks.

In that great silence, where the report of a gun carried
like a thunder-clap, he could not risk a shot at passing
game.  Once he snared a bird; again a squirrel; and
several times he caught fish, which he ventured a small
fire to prepare.  But his food supply, divided into rations,
and after a few days reparcelled, fell to almost nothing.

Finally the chestnut's hoofs struck the familiar
upward trail to the Pass.  His alertness quickened but
his master's dropped away.  He rode indifferently,
mechanically; his eyes gloomed retrospective under his
black contracted brows.  His face had lost its faultless
contour; lines seamed it.  He was like a man who had
lived hard and fast, tragic epochs in brief days.

It was midday when he lifted his head and looked about
him.  The horse had stopped on a grassy bench.  A slender
rill cascading from a lofty spur formed a limpid pool,
and overflowing, rippled between sunny banks and was
lost in a clump of pines.  Sir Donald had dropped his
eager muzzle to the basin.

Backward the autumn wind drew sharp across the great
plains, and upward, far up, a first snowfall held the Pass.
Stratton swung himself out of the saddle and loosened the
thoroughbred's girth.  He picketed him near the trees,
and with the limp saddle-bags flung over his arm, stood
for a moment watching the horse.  His handsome coat,
ungroomed for weeks, was dappled with foam; dry
froth discolored his heaving rib-defined sides; burs
tangled his silver mane; and the wet square where his
blanket had been was divided by a lurid galled spot.
Yet he stood all spirit, head high, looking at his master
with steady expectant, almost human eyes, turning a
sensitive ear for the anticipated word.  "Now make
the most of your hour, Donald, old fellow," Stratton said.
"It's a long pull still to Nisqually ford."

The chestnut, satisfied, fell to cropping the long grass
by the stream.  Stratton felt in his saddle-bag and drew
out a biscuit tin and another of sardines.  The first had
been previously opened, but he stood turning the second
in uncertainty, in his hands; then, looking up to that
cloud over the Pass, he put the can back.  He took three
biscuit from the remaining box, recovered it and dropped
it into the bag.

While he ate the biscuit a flock of geese passed, honking,
far below him over the sun-baked plain.  He stood
watching the wavering line until it disappeared, then he
unstrapped his blanket and spread it on the bank and threw
himself down.  He closed his eyes, but he did not sleep.
His features worked, and from time to time he moved his
head uneasily.  "Yes," he said aloud, at last, "that was
the weak link in the chain; I failed to ingratiate myself
with Forrest.  I could have done it—I could—if I
had foreseen the end.  It all hinged on him.  Granted
Kingsley's wife saw us that night; granted she moved
the stuff, concealed it, as Smith said, under that rotten
floor; she went to Forrest right off, I swear, and
eased her conscience.  And he put two and two together,
in his calculating way; he guessed at the clue and sent
Bates to look for it—at the top of the bluff.  Always,
everywhere it has been Paul Forrest.  He built on a first
word or two of suspicion from Bates, and tried to set the
Captain against me; he spied on me, thwarted me—made
himself my foil.  I could have won out; I could
have covered the disgrace; made a fresh start; lived it
down; proved myself her kind of man—if he had not
stood in the way.  And I would like just once—before
the finish—to meet him, hand to hand—and have it
out.  Damn him!—" he stretched his arms; the cords
knotted; his fingers seemed to grasp something tangible;
they clenched, relaxed, clenched again,—"Damn his
righteous, irreproachable soul."

After an interval he spoke again.  "But it is too bad
about the Captain.  I will do my best for him; I will
shoulder it all; and with the Judge's influence he should
pull clear.  Why,—" he started to his elbow with the
shadow of his old, mocking smile,—"his wife can't witness
against him, even if she wants to.  A wife's testimony
isn't allowable in a Washington court."  He passed his
hand across his eyes and sank back on his blanket.
"I am sorry for that little woman though.  She is so
proud—so fine; it's going to cut—deep.  She never
liked me.  Once, that last time I met her there at the
ruin, she lifted her skirt and walked around the place
where I had stood.  How she must hate me now.  But
sometime, since it has made a reason for her to break with
Kingsley, she ought to thank me."

Then finally, after another interval, he struck the
keynote of his return.  "My God, I had to come back.  It
was impossible, unbearable to ride on; day after day,
alone—through the awful silence.  To see her face—that
last look she gave me, the contempt, the aversion of
it—following me, crowding me, haunting every sage bush.
I have got to change it.  She used to like me—she
would have loved me—and she will forgive me.  She
promised me, that time up at the Paradise, she promised
me her mercy.  She will forgive me—she must.  I have
got to see her—speak to her once more.  And I am
ready to—pay the price."

He rose to his feet and looked about him.  He started,
shivered a little, and drawing his hand across his eyes,
fixed them on the feeding horse.  But it was the narrowed,
strained effort of a dulled vision.  Sir Donald seemed
a long distance off; or was it later than he thought?
He looked at his watch, and finding a match, held the
flame close to the face.

"It is nothing," he muttered, and dropping the match,
put the watch back into his pocket.  "It is nothing—it
has happened before.  I have been staring too long at the
glare of the sun on those yellow plains.  It will pass.
In a moment or two—it will pass."

He began to walk slowly, unsteadily towards the horse.
He put out his hand like one who feels his way in the night.
"Donald, old fellow," he said.  "Donald, we are getting
to the end of the—rope."

Then he touched the chestnut's mane, and, at the
contact, his iron nerve gave completely away.  His whole
frame trembled.  His arm sank over the arching neck.
He dropped his face on it, sobbing, not as he had when
he was a child, but as such a man, not all men, can
sob—just once in a lifetime.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CRACK OF DOOM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CRACK OF DOOM

.. vspace:: 2

Once more, up in the Pass, the glare of the sun on the
fresh snow brought on that dullness of vision, and
Stratton was forced to halt, creeping, groping out of the
bitter wind to the shelter of a crag, where he spent the
night, miserably.  It was after that, though his sight
returned, he discovered it had lost accuracy.  Twice,
when the prize seemed sure, he missed his aim.  The
first time it was a young elk, lagging behind the herd in a
green pocket of a gorge; and again it was a stag that
crossed the trail in front of him.  Later, in making the
dangerously high water at Nisqually ford, his ammunition
became wet and useless.  But on the final morning, at his
old way camp hidden among some alders near the river,
he succeeded in snaring a squirrel.  This, with some late
blueberries, which he had gathered on a higher slope
the previous day, served to temper the keen edge of his
hunger.

The snowfall in the Pass at a lower altitude had been
a heavy rain, and when he mounted and turned into the
trail, taking up the last stage of his journey, clouds still
brooded over the hills; the gorges steamed fog that lifted
and fell, directly, in sheets of mist, through which again
filtered the mellow autumn sun.  Water dripped from
boughs, formed in every depression, and behind him the
flooding Nisqually thundered a deepening chord.  He
avoided the main trail past Thornton's homestead and
the teacher's claim to the bridge, taking instead the canyon
branch to his lodge, where he expected to find a change
of clothing.  The suit he wore was frayed at knees and
elbows, and, still damp from yesterday's ford, it absorbed
moisture speedily.  He must shave too, at the lodge, and
breakfast,—there was coffee there and an excellent
ham,—and put himself in condition for the interview with
Alice.  Afterwards he would ride on and give himself up
to Thornton.  The reward, if there was one, might
compensate the young rancher for the loss of his sorrel.

Everywhere the changing dogwood and maple flamed
through the October woods, and the brilliant leaves fell
in showers, through which Sir Donald paced lightly, with
suspicion.  The wind, which drew with him up the ascent,
billowed the tops of the firs below; the sound of them
was like the rush and wash of a great sea, but the drifting
mist closed in, obscuring the sun and the farther bluffs
of the gorge.  Then presently, looking up through the
trees, he saw the tower, pushing out of denser cloud like
a lighthouse on a gray and unfamiliar coast.  A moment
later he was conscious of a foreign and pleasing aroma
in the air.  It was coffee, the kind he had anticipated,—he
had always been particular about the brand he used
and how it was prepared,—and it flashed over him,
with disproportionate heat, that some passing woodsman
had filched it from the lodge.  The next instant, riding
up to the open, he came upon Forrest.

He was seated on a rock, with a plump and primely
broiled pheasant on the boulder before him, while he filled
his tin cup from a small coffee-pot which he had lifted
from the coals.  And Stratton's alertness failed him.  He
forgot the peril of capture, now, before he was ready;
the significance of surrender to this man.  He thought of
nothing but the fragrant cup and that savory bird.

Paul looked up.  He put down the coffee-pot and sprang
to his feet.  But his hand had hardly touched Sir Donald's
bridle—close under the bit,—when he dipped as quickly
back to escape the striking hoofs of the rearing animal.

Another moment, and, wheeling lightly on his hind
feet, the chestnut brought his master's shoulders in
contact with a stout bough, and he was unhorsed.  Then,
as he had been taught, the thoroughbred was off;
skimming the trail like a bird back to the main track and on
to the lodge.

His backward movement to avoid the horse took Forrest,
stumbling, across the crack in the cliff which moatwise
shut off the tower.  The seam had widened during the
night, and was full of water, which, where the rock
formation failed, was undermining the soil, carrying the wash
down through a small subcut into the trail towards the ford.

Stratton threw out his hand, grasping the fir to break
his fall, and staggered erect.  Blood streamed from his
lips, which had struck the rough bole; but he set his teeth
under them, hard.  The steel flashed in his eyes.  He
turned on Forrest and all the latent passion in him broke
into flame.  The fineness in him, the high resolve shrank
small.  He confronted suddenly, in this man, the
instrument of his disgrace and many-sided defeat.  The three
words he spoke were repeated slowly, in a low tone, and
yet they seemed hurled by some force from the depths
of his chest.

Forrest did not answer.  He glanced behind him
measuring the ground, which lifted a little to the left of
the tower and dropped again abruptly to the precipice.
It was this sink at the foundation which lowered the outer
column, tilting the whole structure.  He threw off his
coat and moved back a pace, taking advantage of the
rise, which brought him nearer Stratton's height, and
waited, watchful, eyes steady, head up, feet firm, hands
loose at his sides.  His whole altitude said plainly, "I'm
ready; come."

It all happened swiftly.  In the moment Stratton crossed
the break there came a tremendous jar.  Instantly he
recoiled.  Behind Forrest the whole tower toppled, block
on block, over the abyss.  The cliff under him heaved;
its face split, detaching at the seam.  He ran, clearing it
in a leap, and, like the crack of doom, the sounds of
that downfall filled the gorge.  He felt the next layer,
a strata of soft earth, give beneath his feet.  He struggled
for firm ground; he would have gained it, but Stratton
blocked the way.  He thrust a hand against the shoulder
of the reeling man, gave him backward impetus, and
sprang away.  Another instant, and with the last onrush
Forrest went down.

Stratton retreated a little further.  He turned, feeling
his steps, with one hand outstretched, the other pressed
to his eyes.  Then he stopped, listening, fixing his fogged
gaze on that awful brink, while the grinding, the striking
of rock on rock, the crash of falling trees, started anew by
that slide of soft earth, reverberated, multiplied echo on
echo, from bluff and spur.  He called once, but there was
no human response.  Then came—*Silence*.

He made his way to the rock which had been Forrest's
seat, and sinking down, set his elbows on the larger
boulder and dropped his face in his palms.  It rained for
a time heavily, but he paid little attention to the pelting
drops which the wind brought slanting upon his head.
After awhile the aroma of the cup which the lost man had
filled, seeped over his senses.  He drank it off at a draught,
and groping for the coffee-pot, carefully, with difficulty,
his hands shaking, poured a second cup; another.  But
the savor of the pheasant no longer attracted him.

"Oh, my God," he said at last, "what brought him
to this place?  What insane weakness brought me back?
But I must see her.  My God,"—his voice rose half in
threat, half prayer—"I must see her, before—he—is
found."

He got to his feet and commenced to grope his way
down to the main trail.  He was able to see the path, but
a yard ahead it ended in a blur.  It occurred to him that,
at the time of the slide, the teacher must have started to
school, and when he reached the better track he turned
back towards the Nisqually as far as the cut.  He made
frequent stops, resting on logs or stones and closing his
eyes to husband that glimmer of sight.  Sometimes he
stretched his spent body in complete relaxation on the
wet leaves.  The drip, drip of the foliage was continuous
around him, but he knew when the rain ceased, for,
though it was not possible to distinguish objects more
clearly, he saw the filtered brightness of the sun among
the trees.  Then again the mist closed in, cloaking the
timber.  His wet clothes gathered weight; they chilled,
numbed him.  He quickened his steps and other footfalls
seemed to follow.  It was the tread of that unseen
presence, which he had felt and defied, the day Smith was
overtaken, and he stood on the buttress above the
rockslide in the Pass.  Always it stalked with him, behind
him, beside him; when he halted it crowded him close.

He had hoped to meet Alice returning through the cut,
but he reached the schoolhouse finally, only to find the
door locked; the children and their teacher gone.  He
turned on the steps and looked up that steep trail through
the burn.  "She must have taken that way, around by
the Myers claim, on some errand," he told himself.
Then it flashed over him that somewhere, during those
wretched halts in the wilderness, he had lost a day; this
was not Friday, as he had conjectured, but Saturday, the
week-end holiday.

He sank down on the steps and looked back over the
level stretch of track he had just travelled.  It was
impossible to take up the return tramp to the headwaters so
soon, but Laramie would give him some sort of bed and
supper, and in the morning it might not be too late.  He
pulled himself together and rose.  Then he stopped,
listening.  He had caught the sound of galloping hoofs.
In a moment he whistled, his old, imperative note, that
Sir Donald so well understood.  The hoof-beats fell to
a trot and the chestnut appeared.  Stratton repeated the
summons, but with a new, uncertain key, for his lip, stiff
and swollen from the accident at the tower, had lost
flexibility.  The horse halted, head up, ears erect,
sensitive, eyes dilating.  But when his master started towards
him he wheeled a little, and the stirrup, swinging high from
the shifted saddle, struck him smartly.  He crashed off
through the jungle.  His dragging bridle looped a snag,
but he jerked free, and, making a détour around the
clearing, struck the trail, breaking again into a mad
gallop, back in the direction of the Nisqually.

"So, Donald, so—you too.  Well, I don't blame you,
old fellow; I don't blame you."  But this disappointment,
following so closely on the other, told on Stratton.
He sank down again on the steps.

After awhile he took out his pocketbook, and, finding
a piece of paper and a pencil, wrote without superscription
or signature,

"I came back to see you—I had to.  Not to excuse
myself, but to ask of you that mercy you once promised
me—there below the Paradise—and then to take—what
I deserve.  I have fallen pretty far since that day
on Mt. Rainier, and you are going to wish, all your
life, you had left me in that crevasse.  Great God, you
don't know how I have wished it, too, out there in the
terrible stillness of the Palouse; how miserably I wish it
now.  I would pay any price to see the old friendliness
in your face again.  But, this morning, up at the tower, I
lost the chance.  That is all.  It cannot help you now,
to know I would give anything to have Forrest safe—and
be in his place—buried deep in that slide."

All the sheet was a wavering scrawl, but the last lines
ran together word over word.  He folded the paper, but
after a thoughtful moment opened it and added at the
bottom of the page, "I want Thornton to have my horse."  Then
he refolded it and slipped it under the door.

He stood for an interval looking towards the Des
Chutes.  "She will not find it until Monday," he said,
"and by that time if I have not seen her, it will be too
late."  And he went down the steps and took the trail to
Laramie's.

He heard the increasing roar of the freshet as he walked,
and presently, when he reached the curve where the trail
turned down-stream, he found the flood over banks;
currents eddied through the underbrush, undermining the
trunks of hemlocks and firs; carrying out detached boughs
and logs.  At the crossing to the Phiander claim the rustic
footbridge was gone.

But Stratton remembered the banks were higher at
Laramie's homestead; the old fallen fir, which bridged the
channel there, had withstood the shock of many floods.
He moved on, quickening his steps where he could, but,
now that he had left the gravelly soil of the ridges for
the loam of the bottom-land, walking became more
difficult.  The mud clung to his boots; in places footing
oozed under him, and repeatedly, in lower levels, he was
forced to make wide détours, leaving the path to push
through tangles of alder and hazel or cottonwood.  Often
water washed above his ankles; at intervals it splashed
to his knees.

At last he struggled up a little rise and came out on a
low bluff.  The great uprooted trunk of the fir footbridge
was at his elbow, and he stopped, taking breath, and
sank into a half sitting position on the knuckle of one
gnarled root.  His rain-soaked clothes shaded into the
color of the dead, earth-stained tree, so that he might
have been a part of it.

The fir had fallen with a downward slant to the farther
bank, its top driving wedgelike between two cedars.
These trees were standing with their trunks submerged,
and, mid-channel, the log swung to the current and
formed a dam, holding back an increasing collection of
drift, through which the water rushed with the roar of
rapids.  The whole jam rose and fell with a concerted
upheaval.

The roots of the fir, ballasted by forest litter, formed a
short stairway up to the crossing, and presently Stratton
mounted, slowly, with difficulty and began to feel his steps
over the bridge.  At the same time a great fallen hemlock
swung down-stream, its upreared trunk coming foremost,
a tremendous battering ram.

It was over in a moment.  He stopped, mid-channel,
listening, and turned his clouding eyes up-stream.  The
hemlock drove through the crunching drift and ploughed
on through the bridge.  He plunged forward, face down,
with a sharp cry, and, impaled by a broken, submerged
root, was swept out with the wreckage.

Mose, coming from his father's cabin, heard that cry,
and quickened his pace to a run.  He reached the place
where the footbridge had been, and stood crossing himself
as he had been taught by the priest.  "Jesus—Mary,"
he whispered, and then, "Oh, Sahgalee, Tyee Sahgalee."

But the hemlock had grounded at a bend below.  Its
palisade of green boughs fringed the rampart of a fixed
jam.  He turned and ran, wading, down between the
alders and cottonwoods, and Laramie's dogs came splashing
after him, taking advantage of logs or any slight rise,
but swimming where they must.  He came out on a low
bluff above the drift, and when he saw what silent shape
it carried, he crossed himself once more.  Then he grasped
two stout trailing boughs and swung himself down on the jam.

Two sections of the footbridge held the body wedgelike,
but the face and breast were awash.  Mose fell to his
knees and tried to turn and lift the face from the water.
"Mo'sieur," he said, in an agony of entreaty and fear,
"Mo'sieur, you can' be hurt mooch."

But there was no answer.

"Mo'sieur," he repeated, and shifted his arm lower
to raise the submerged breast; "Monjee, mo'sieur, you
mus' help yourself, some."

Still no response; and the boy made no further attempt
to rouse him, for he had felt, suddenly, the grip of the
hemlock.  He withdrew his arm, and, cuffing aside one of the
snuffing hounds, laid his hand on the neck of the other
and rose.  Then he took breath and lifted his voice in a
great shout.  The dogs swelled it, belling a prolonged
note.  He listened and repeated the call with his palm to
his mouth.  This time it brought a faint reply from
Laramie, and the hounds sounded a louder clarion.

And the storming Des Chutes swept away the deep,
full-throated cry, and the speaking hills caught it and sent
it back like a lament from far promontories.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LOST PROSPECT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LOST PROSPECT

.. vspace:: 2

Below the falls the overflow had formed a
backwater through the meadow, and that Saturday
morning Alice took the Jerseys from the higher ground
of the home enclosure, and put them to graze on the slope.
She intended to ride directly on to the Station for the mail,
and made a short cut through the park to strike the trail
beyond the first knoll.  It was then, while the black paced
slowly among the wet trees, that the sound of the landslide
clashed through the hills.  Colonel stopped, trembling;
hoofs planted, head up, nostrils wide and quivering, then,
panic driven, broke.  A little later, when she had drawn
him down, and still quieting him, turned again towards
the trail, Stratton's horse, arrested by the washed out
bridge on his way to the lodge, thundered back in the
direction of the Nisqually.

There was a flash of the chestnut coat between the
branches; a glimpse of the empty saddle and he was
gone.  But instantly Alice saw that Stratton had returned.
He had, of course, taken the branch through the canyon
and the thoroughbred had refused the swollen ford;
he had bolted, skirting the submerged jungle to the main
trail, and left his master unhorsed, perhaps hurt, at the
crossing.

She turned and rode back towards the gorge, expecting
to pick up the trail at the foot of the bluff, where it wound
down from the tower.  "It's all right, Colonel," she said,
"it's all right.  You ought to know a slide by this time.
But I don't blame you; it was a monster; it sounded like
the whole canyon wall coming down."

Dropping from the open park to the underbrush of the
gorge, she turned the horse into a thinned way, evidently
once blazed by some passing woodsman.  Then, presently,
looking up between boughs, she saw a low cloud,
trailing over and blotting out the summit where the tower
had stood, and below it the demolished front of the cliff.
At the same moment, Colonel, pushing through a tangle of
salal, stumbled to his knees.  She glanced back to see
what had caused the fall and her eyes rested on a
weather-beaten stake, such as a surveyor or prospector uses in
marking off land, driven close to alow, outcropping ledge.
A few steps farther on she noticed a blaze in the bark of
a hemlock, in which had been cut a small arrow, pointing
downward at this rock.

The horse moved on and she lifted her eyes again to the
cliff.  Midway the slide had shaved off a jutting spur, and,
suddenly, a shaft of sunlight filtering through the clouds,
struck from this new surface a blaze of colors.  Instantly
she thought of the samples of ore Paul Forrest had once
shown her.  Here were the same blues and purples, the
shine of silver, the glint of dull yellow.  It was, she knew
it was, the lost prospect.  It was Paul who had driven that
stake.  It was here in this canyon, while he groped a
way out of the hills, he had stumbled on his find.  The
mist, hanging over as it did today, had obscured the tower
and given the gorge a different aspect than later, in
clear weather, it had shown.  But this was the place and
the slide had uncovered the mother lode.

She sat for a moment, holding in her horse and looking
up at that dazzling ledge.  She drew full breaths with
parted lips; the bloom of a wild rose was in her cheeks;
a soft brightness shone in her eyes.  Then she was
reminded of her present duty by a voice; a man's voice
calling faintly, "Help, oh—help."

A little below the broken spur the cliff began to dip
outward, forming an incline to the bottom of the gorge.
Trees had found hold on this pitch, and where the top
created a narrow bench, the uprooted trunk of a giant
fir, flanked by the stub of an old cedar, timbered a
barricade of splintered rock and earth.  The last soft
downrush had nearly filled this rampart, and streamed out
through the dip between the felled boles, covering slabs and
boulders, evening the slide to the appearance of a newly
graded roadway.  It was there, directly under the mineral
ledge, that Alice located the voice.  She concluded it was
Stratton's; that he had not been thrown at the ford, but
on the cliff; and he had been caught in the avalanche.

She answered the call, but it was not repeated, and she
quickly chose a way to reach the shelf.  She saw that the
trail from the ford up the bluff was lost in shifting granite;
and, for a long distance, passage up the fir was obstructed
by a network of boughs; but the fallen cedar, slowly
dying, had lost many of its branches; those remaining
were still pliable.  She left her horse, and, pushing through
a litter of snapped saplings and broken limbs, reached
this tree.

Its top was splintered and set like a brace against the
trunk of a standing hemlock.  Ragged boughs at first
retarded her; she was forced to work on her knees,
through their meshes.  Sometimes she swung herself down
to trudge ankle-deep, knee-deep through the soft fill
around a barrier.  She crawled over suspended boulders,
under tilting slabs that had found lodgment on the great
bole.  In one of these places, where a mighty fragment
of rock had struck, the bark was stripped loose in lengths.
Later she remembered this.

At last she gained the end of the tree, and sinking in
an accumulation of earth, found the support of a root
and drew herself up, slowly, bringing her eyes to the top
of the barricade.  The color went from her face; her
shoulders shook; her limbs; but she pulled herself
higher and leaned on the rim.  This man was not Stratton.
His body was buried; only his head and one shoulder
were uncovered; the face was turned from her.  But this
man was not Stratton.

She drew herself over the rampart and ran, stumbling
in loose mold, to reach him.  But when she saw his face
a hand of iron seemed to tighten on her throat; her limbs
gave under her.  "Paul," she said.  "Oh, Paul, Paul!"

The next moment she started up, her weakness gone.
Her cheek had touched his; it was warm.  A light breath
had come from his lips.  And he had called, he had been
able to call, not long ago.  She began to throw the loose
earth from his chest, his breast; digging, working like a
beaver with her two hands.  Presently she laid her palm
on his heart and caught a faint action.  She felt in the
pocket of his shirt for the emergency flask a timber-cruiser
keeps about him in the wilderness, but it was not there.
Still, the pocket was shallow, it might have dropped near,
and she resumed her task, prodding at intervals for the
flask.  She freed his arm; his side.  She had found no
rocks around the upper part of his body; nothing but soft
soil.  To be quite sure she reached, feeling, under his back.
And this brought from him a groan.  A quiver swept his
face, but when she had withdrawn her arm, he rested
white and still as before.

The dirt had filled deeper over his abdomen, but she
hurried to the rim of the rampart and selected a splinter
of rock which she used as a scoop.  At last his whole trunk
was released, but his limbs were planted deeper yet.  He
seemed to have fallen feet first, and settled, afterwards, a
little to one side.  If only those feet had not struck rock.
She was afraid—afraid—of—what she might unearth.
Still she worked.  And the faith of her missionary grandfather
rose strong in her, and battled with her fear.  "Dear
God," her heart cried, "do not let him have touched rock.
Show me—show me the best thing to do."

It commenced to rain heavily, and she stopped to turn
his face directly to the shower, throwing off her jacket
and using it to prop his head.  She spread her handkerchief
on a clean slab to catch the moisture, and, when it was
wet, pressed the drops from it, between his lips.  But
they were so few.  If only the slide had opened a spring
in the cliff; if only she could find the flask.

She went back, fighting down her despair, to her work.
A moment later she heard him sigh.  Relieved of the
pressure of earth, his empty lungs had slowly filled and at
last expelled their first good breath.  She looked at him
over her shoulder, holding her own breath, kneeling still
with her hands in the mold.  He opened his eyes—she
dared not move—and saw her, blankly at first, and then
with swift intelligence.  "Alice," he said, "why—Alice.
See here—I'm all right.  I can wait.  Please
don't.  That's work for a—man."

Instantly she was up and at his shoulder.  "Don't
try to talk," she said.  "Don't move; but can you
remember if you had your flask?"

He knit his brows.  "It was in my pocket—the coat.
But," he added with second recollection, "the slide must
have brought it down with me."

"All right, I'll find it.  Don't say any more; don't
try to think, or move, or do anything.  Rest."

He smiled a little and closed his eyes, and she hurried
back with fresh effort to her task.  Presently she was able
to run her hand down, through the loose soil, to the end
of the right limb.  It was straight, and not the crumpled
mass she had feared.  But, working her arm through a
wider range, she felt, a few inches from the leg, the edge
of a slab.  Then, directly, while she followed its contour
to satisfy herself it did not touch him anywhere, her
fingers came in contact with woolen cloth.  She dug
faster and faster, and finally unearthed the end of a sleeve;
his coat sleeve which trailed from beneath the rock.  She
pulled at it, tried to shift the stone, alternately strained
and dragged at the garment.  But it was of no use.  Her
glance wavered despairingly to that second, still buried,
limb, then she began to uncover the slab.  And while she
labored tirelessly, her heart cried, "Dear God, let me
be able to lift it; do not let it be very—big."

At last she uncovered the outer edge.  A little more
digging along the thin side and again under the sleeve,
then she set her hands, the strength of her young arms
to the rock.  It eased up slightly.  She put her knee to it,
bracing it while she tugged at the coat.  It slipped a trifle.
Again a lift, a wrench, a slip, and here was a pocket
exposed, and in it she found the small metal flask;
jammed, flattened, leaking a little, but holding, still,
brandy.

She poured it hot between his lips, and presently he
again opened his eyes.  "I'm all right," he repeated,
"yes—I am.  Don't trouble; don't stay here—in the
rain.  I can wait for Thornton or—Myers.  I'm all—right."

To prove the point he tried to get to his elbow, but
settled back, going white again to the lips.

She turned her face away.  Her eyes were dry, but the
dread in them was beyond tears.  After a moment she
compelled her glance to meet his.  Her lips moved, but
the iron hand again seemed to strangle the words in her
throat.  "Is it"—they were out at last—"is it—your—back?"

"No, oh, no."  He smiled his old smile of the eyes.
"It's only a dislocated shoulder.  With Thornton to
help me it won't take long to straighten it out."

She returned to that second limb.  "Dear God," she
still prayed, "I am so afraid.  But—if it is hurt—don't
let it be past help."  Aloud she said, and steadied
her voice, "Mill was to have gone to the Station this
morning."

"Of course—of course—I had forgotten.  I left
Ketchem for him last night.  But Myers is somewhere
here in the hills."

"Then the noise of the slide should bring him this
way."  She thrust the scoop carefully along the side of the
uncovered knee.  "Mose," she added, "went home with his
father, yesterday, to help drive the sheep to high ground.
Sheep"—her voice broke—"sheep—are so foolish—in a flood."

She laid the scoop down.  There was no further need
of digging; the leg was doubled back from the knee,
in a heap.  She got to her feet and turned, meeting his
look again bravely.  "You see," she said and smiled,
"there isn't a man; you'll have to use me.  What would
you have asked Mill to do?"

"Why, set this arm.  You could do it—it's simple—but
I don't like to ask it of you.  You take it—like this"—he
reached and she knelt beside him to allow him to
demonstrate with hers,—"and pull it out as far as you
can—so—only harder—much harder.  It's going to
hurt some, I'll probably make a fuss, but never mind—pull.
Then let it settle back into the shoulder socket—so.
You've seen the round bone that fits in a shoulder
of veal.  Well, just think of that."

"I understand the—movement," she said, and
steadied her voice again, "and I'm—str-o-ong.  I'll
do my best."

It was quickly and successfully done, and he did not
make a fuss.  He only closed his eyes at the last and set
his teeth on that pale under lip until it bled.  And
afterwards he rested so motionless that she gave him another
draught from the flask.  Then finally he was able to sit
up and examine that injured leg.  It was broken in two
places, he said; at the ankle and midway to the knee.
There was too, he noticed now, something wrong with that
left side; probably a fractured rib.  It was work for a
good surgeon, yes, but nothing to worry over.  And he
would have a look at that slide, right away, and see what
the possibilities were of getting down.

He worked his way to the rim of the ledge and she
moved with him, watching his face; every shadow of
pain that crossed it brought the anguish springing to her
eyes.  He raised his head, propping it on his hand, his
elbow on the rocks, and his clear glance swept the fallen
trees, and then more slowly the pitch stretching like
smooth roadway between.

Her eyes moved from him to the incline and back to
his face.  "Colonel is down there in those standing
alders," she said.  "Could we risk him anywhere on the
slide?"

"No."  He shook his head.  "No, my only chance is
to coast."

"To coast?  You mean"—and quick understanding
leaped in her face—"you want a sled.  There's a strip
of bark down there, you can see it, where that piece of
granite struck the cedar; it ought to make a good toboggan."

"The best kind," he answered, "if you can find some
one to bring it up."

His glance came back from the slide while he spoke,
but it moved no higher than the rim of the barricade.
It had stopped raining and a shaft of sunlight, piercing
the mist, flashed on a fragment of rock.  He reached and
took it, turning it in his hands slowly, to catch the play
of colors.  Then his eyes swept the splintered ore that
spilled over the rampart, and he swung himself a little,
starting up, though he was forced to sink back directly,
in an endeavor to see the ledge overhead.  Finally his
gaze met hers.

"It looks like my lost prospect."  His voice vibrated
a little; his face had grown suddenly young, boyish, and
the hope in it brought an answering light to her own.
"Here are the same traces of free gold, the rarest find in
the world, with this deposit of copper; and just a nice
showing of silver.  But I could have sworn that
outcropping was at least a mile from here."

"Your stake is just down there, on a line with those
alders.  Colonel stumbled on it when we came through
a little while ago.  And, you can't see it from here, but the
slide "—she paused, her lips trembling yet dimpling—"the
slide has opened a great mineral vein, right above us."

He started up again, forgetting his injuries, and again
sank back.  "What luck," he said softly, "what luck.
Strange," he added after a moment, "how I made that
miscalculation."

"I think it was easy.  You had broken your compass
that day; you hadn't a glimpse of the sun; the whole top
of this cliff must have been in cloud as it is today; the
tower shut off completely.  But, I'm going now."  She
bent to leave the flask beside him, propping it carefully
to avoid loss of that remaining potion of liquor through
the leak.  "I may be gone a long time, but I'll hurry.
I'm glad you have the prospect—to think of."

She stepped up on the edge of the rampart.  "Promise
you won't try to do anything," she said.

He shook his head, watching her with his smile of the
eyes.  "It's a safe promise.  I wish it was harder to make."

She paused another moment, sitting on the edge and
feeling for foothold on the root she had used in coming up;
then she swung lightly off.  Her eyes met his an instant
across the rim.  "Good-by," she said, and dipped from
sight.

He raised himself a little higher, bracing his shoulder
on a tilted slab, and waited for her to reappear on the bole
below.  She made her way quickly and surely down.

He believed she had gone for help, how uncertain and
remote she had let him know, but, while he still watched
that clump of alders, in which she had disappeared, she
came back; and she carried a rope, presumably Colonel's
lariat, coiled on her arm.  Presently she put it down and
began to cull out dangerous, snagged boughs from the
debris at the bottom of the pitch.  Where immovable
rocks and stumps menaced, she heaped springy branches.
And Forrest understood.  She was guarding against his
possible impact with the wreckage.

But at last she picked up the lariat and started back
up the cedar.  He saw her purpose and, also, the futility
of any effort of his to stop her.  "I might have guessed it,"
he said, and set his lips; "it was like her."

She reached the place where the slab of granite had
stripped the bark, and selecting a piece, made the lariat
fast, and began slowly, laboriously, to drag it up.  Sometimes
the soft soil banked in front of the tow, so deep she
was forced to tie it to the log, while she slipped down to
clear the track; and in one of these places she looked up
and saw Forrest's face, showing white above the ledge,
and she called an encouraging "Hello."

He answered in a soft whistle, and because she seemed
to work less desperately, he repeated the note at intervals.
It settled into snatches of a tune; a tune so sweet, so tender,
sometimes, she could hardly endure it, and yet again so full
of appeal it drew her on; the loveliest parts of Schubert's
Serenade, over and over, with the variations of a flute, and
the soft, full-throated cadence of a bird.

At last it came no more.  She had reached the barricade.
She paid out the tow-line, and with its noosed end over
her arm, mounted the trunk.  She halted on the root,
her breath coming hard and quick, and met his look again
across the rim.  "What made you?" he asked, his voice
shaking.  "What made you?  You might have slipped.
You might have started the whole slide."

She did not answer; she could not; she was tired
beyond speech.  She climbed slowly, with great difficulty,
up over the edge, struggled to her feet, stumbled, and
sank down.

He could not break her fall, as he had once, long ago,
in the windfall, but he moved enough to draw her head
to his shoulder.  "What made you?" he repeated.
"I'm not worth it.  What made you?"  And he kissed
her lips.

He relieved her arm of the dragging rope, and tried to
draw the tow up between the two trunks; but she stopped
him.  "You mustn't," she said.  "You need all your
strength.  You must save yourself for that ride.  I—I'm
very str-o-ng, Paul.  Only wait—just a moment."

"Of course we'll wait."  He anchored the tow by
slipping the lariat noose over the jagged top of the slab
on which he leaned.  "It's all right.  There's no hurry."

The chinook caught her loosened hair and it fell like a
shaken web, over her drenched shoulders, her waist.
The sunlight struck from it the best colors of his prospect;
glints of copper shading through the gold.  He never
had seen anything as beautiful except her face.

She gathered the shining mass in her hands and tried
hurriedly to divide it in a braid, but he put his arm around
her again and drew her head against his breast ihe
contact of her hair thrilled him; spirals of it caught and
clung to his hand.  His immeshed fingers lost their power.
Then he felt her whole warm body tremble.  "It was too
hard for you," he said.  "You shouldn't have tried it.
But I love you for it; I love you."

"I don't know how I ever could have doubted it."  She
lifted her head and looked at him.  A flush rose in
her face; she saw him through sudden mist.  "I did
doubt; I heard a monstrous story and I—believed it.

"Was it about Louise?"

"Yes," her voice was almost a whisper,—"Louise
and—you."

His arm fell from her shoulder.  He turned his face
to the gorge, knitting his brows.  "I want to explain
that story," he said.  "I want to explain it now before
we start down.  I was to blame, I should have looked
ahead, and yet I don't see how it could have been
avoided; not while she stayed alone there, and I kept my
position at the mills.  But—I never saw her in the same
light as other women; she was so far above reproach,
so spotless, so nearly—well—a saint.  And it was
so evident, always, she couldn't give a thought to
any man but Philip.  Then, too, I had known her all
my life, and she was your sister; like you in so many
ways.  And she was so solitary, so unhappy, troubled.  I
was so sorry for her, and that life there under the Head
was so miserably dull for us both.  We came to depend on
each other to tide over those slow evenings."  He paused,
resting a moment, then went on.  "You must see what it
meant to me, a homeless fellow who is pretty fond
of a home.  I liked those hundred comfortable little
turns she gave to a room.  And I thought a lot of young
Silas; he had a way of claiming me.  Then, there was
the music; it was her inspiration and mine.  After
all I can't hope to make it clear to you.  I don't
excuse myself, I don't want to, but—well—I had just
given up you.  She was a kind, sweet friend, in trouble,
and sometimes, at the most, a very nice reproduction, call
it a picture, of you.  If I stumbled, anywhere, it was the
weakness of a man who has been desperately hurt, crippled,
and is trying his best to get on his feet again."

"I understand," she said, "oh, I understand; but tell
me this, in the end, if there had been no Philip, would it
have made a difference?"

"No."  His look returned to her face; his voice
deepened and shook.  "You ought to know that.  You ought
to know there never can be a living woman so dear to me
as just the memory of you.  It came to that, a memory,
the day Judge Kingsley told me—how much he thought
of you.  I saw you were meant for that future he had to
offer; and I promised—I promised not to stand in
his way."

The furrow deepened between his brows, and he moved
a little and laid his hand on the rope.  She rose, gathering
her hair swiftly into that braid, and hurried to relieve
him of the strain.  And, presently, when the improvised
sled was drawn close up between the trees, and he had
dragged himself aboard, and stored the useless leg, he
gave the word and she cast off the line.

She propelled him with a careful shove out between
the trunks, and gathering momentum, he moved more and
more swiftly, ploughing a trail through the soft mold,
drawing small avalanches behind him that might at any
instant result in the fresh start of the whole slide.  She
followed down the cedar.  It was impossible to overtake
him on the higher and sharper portion of the pitch, but
midway the sled entered a deeper fill.  The incline lessened
there, and the bark clogged with accumulations, which
taxed Forrest's strength to clear.  At last he could do no
more.  The toboggan stopped, crept on, and stopped
again, fixed.

Instantly she was down from the log and making her
way out to him.  She gave him the remaining draught
from the flask, and, clearing the track, started the sled
with a long push, that carried it into the sharper pitch
below.  The next moment, while she turned to regain the
cedar, she knew that the danger, which had been so
imminent above, had overtaken them.  The slide was in
motion.

She ran with it, yet contrived to shift her course
diagonally, back to the log.  Crowding rock underneath
began to lift points and edges through the soft fill.  They
tripped her, cut through her shoes.  Still she kept her
footing.  A bough heaved up and, for a moment, its
meshes entrapped her; but she held herself erect, and,
like a river man, going with a swift and riffled current,
swung alertly on.  Presently she noticed that the
avalanche did not gain impetus; then that it lost a little,
and finally, almost as suddenly as it had started, it came
to a halt.  Looking down, while she finished the remaining
steps to the cedar, she saw that Forrest had been carried
before this upheaval.  The sled was slowing at the end of
the slope.  A good yard short of the wreckage it came to
a stop.

At the same time Eben Myers, coming up the canyon,
skirted the standing alders, and stopped to look at the
demolished cliff.  The cloud was lifting from the summit;
it parted in trailing ends, showing where the granite
bastion had stood.  "Kingdom Come!" he said slowly;
"it was ther tower.  Thundered like—"

He paused in astonishment, for, his glance moving
down the pitch, rested on the teacher, making her way
through the boughs of the fallen cedar.  "Well, I be
durned," he added, and, seeing the figure stretched on the
improvised toboggan, he repeated profoundly, "I be
durned."

He was the first to reach the sled.  Forrest stirred and
looked up at him with a faint smile.  "Hello Eben,"
he said weakly.  "How's the petrified man?"

Myers laughed, half in relief, half in embarrassment,
and lifted his hand to part his black whiskers.  "I dunno,"
he said.  "I'd orter o' got ter his dum head by now, but
I ain't lit on it this trip, an' my rations is plumb give out.
I dug, you kin bet on that, I dug ter satisfy that ther
blame Gov'ment dep'ty, Bates.  You see he's b'en ter
Washington, an' let on he knew er sight 'bout museums,
an' mummies, an' stuffed animals, an' bones, so's I
showed him them ther legs an' arms.  An' he 'lowed they
wa'n't nothin' but petrified trees."

"No?  Well, that's too bad, Eben.  I always wanted
to have a look at your find; I know a little about the
subject, and I might have saved you trouble and time.
I don't like to believe you've thrown away these two years."

Eben lifted his eyes again to the cliff.  "Kingdom
Come!" he said once more.  "But where was you?"

"Up there, at the top.  You see, Eben,—don't you?—what
that landslide did for me.  That's it; that streak
of mineral, shining up there, is my lost prospect.  A
dynamite blast couldn't have been surer.  It opened my
mine."

"'Pears that erway," Eben answered slowly, "an'
I 'low that ther vein shows up all o' twelve feet.  But,"
and his look returned to Forrest, "'pears, too, like ther
Almighty teched off that ther blast er little too quick."

"Oh, I'm all right.  It's only a broken bone or two;
nothing a surgeon can't fix.  I came down in that last
layer of soft earth, and Miss Hunter," he steadied his
voice, "found me and helped me out."

But if Forrest's light mention of his injuries had
deceived Eben, the teacher's manner quickly convinced him
there was little time to waste.  She brought the horse
from the alders, and despatched the settler with her saddle
cup to fill at the stream which flowed through the gorge.
And when Paul had taken a long draught, and she had
covered his chilled shoulders with her raincoat, which she
had carried strapped behind the saddle, she found in one
of the pockets a pencil, with which, on the blank page
of a letter, she wrote a telegram to the Judge.

Eben, who was converting his blanket into a sling for
Forrest's injured limb, promised to take the message
straight to Yelm Station, and she could trust Judge
Kingsley to send a surgeon, the best in Olympia, without delay.
But her heart sank at the long and unavoidable interval
he must spend on the road.  "Dear God," she cried,
under her breath, "hurry them; hurry them; let him
come in time."

At last the saddle sling was ready, and Myers tucked
the folded paper carefully into his pocket, weighing it
down with his small prospector's mallet and a ragged
plug of tobacco.  Forrest's eyes moved from the mineral
ledge and rested an instant on the place where the tower
had stood.  "You may meet a runaway horse somewhere
on the trail, Eben," he said.  "If you do, don't try to
take the bridle close under the bit.  He has been taught
a mean trick."

"Oh," said Alice, "you mean Sir Donald.  I had
forgotten.  Mr. Myers, you came down-stream.  Did you
see Mr. Stratton near the ford?"

"Did I see him?" Eben smiled his wide smile.  "Well,
no.  Ef I had, I jedge I'd er took him."

"I saw him."  Forrest's brows contracted; the line
between them grew black.  "He was up there at the tower,
but the slide left him safe."

"And you," she exclaimed, "you tried to stop Sir Donald."

"Yes.  Stratton was unhorsed; that's all.  Now,
Eben," he added, turning a little and reaching for the
settler's hand, "now, your shoulder, please; here, at
the armpit.  So."

Alice ran to the black's head.  It was miserable.  Miserable.
He closed his teeth hard over that white nether lip,
but the groan would out.  And, up in the saddle, his
shoulders sagged forward.  He could have buried his face
on those old familiar withers, and cried.  But he pulled
himself together; for the sake of this brave girl, who had
worked so tirelessly for him, who moved, now, ahead of
him, pushing down the encroaching salal, smoothing the
way through tangles of hazel and fern, he must hold
himself in check.  And presently the agony eased a little.
He could look about him; he was able to identify that
stake, to which Alice called his attention, while she led
the horse carefully by.  Then, after another moment,
he assured Eben that he could ride well enough, and urged
him to go on to the Station and hurry that telegram
through.  Afterwards he could come back with Thornton
and beat the timber for Stratton.  Mill would be the one
to take that chestnut; he was a good man with a horse.

But all this did not deceive Alice.  Her eyes were too
accustomed to every light and shade of Forrest's face;
she knew each fluctuation of his voice.  Still, though she
understood, she made no sign.  She talked sometimes,
to carry her part, but oftener she moved in silence her
hand on Colonel's bridle, watching his steps.  And so they
passed out of the park and into the trail above the
knoll.

Then, suddenly, his strength reached low ebb.  He
dipped forward to the black's neck.  She sprang to
support him.  "Paul, Paul," she encouraged, and raised
herself a-tiptoe on a bit of higher ground, to bring her
shoulder against him in a bracing lift; "you mustn't let
yourself go!  It's only a little farther; don't you hear the
falls?  Paul, Paul, we're almost—home."

He roused himself a little, and looked at her.  "Paul
Forrest," she said sharply, "*be a—man*."

He flushed, catching the taunt, and with a mighty effort,
both hands on the saddle horn, forced himself erect.  Her
eyes, dark with entreaty, across her shoulder met his.
"You see, Paul—dear," her lip trembled, "if you should
fall—I—could never put you up—alone."

"I won't fall."  He gripped the bridle.  "Don't be
afraid—I won't.  But I hear a stream
somewhere—close—and I'm—thirsty."

"It's here, the tiniest rill, at the bend.  Hold Colonel,
if you can, just a moment."

She caught the water in the flask, rinsing it quickly to
get the last of the brandy, and poured it into the cup.
The slight stimulant and the brief halt helped him to
gather himself once more.  They moved on around the bend.

Somewhere, down the wet, sunlit trail, a meadow lark
started a soft, deep-throated prelude; and was it not

   |  "All things—all things—come round to him—to him—who
   |      will but wait."

Alice laid her hand on the rein; the horse stopped.  And
there below them, at the foot of the knoll, its shadowy
eaves and roomy balcony clear against that background of
old trees, rose the cabin of his dreams.

The trail narrowed and dipped from the curve, skirting
a spur of rock, and she stepped on this ledge to give the
horse room.  It brought her nearer Forrest's level, and
she waited, her hand still on the bridle, watching his
face.  She saw his surprised glance linger on the cottage,
and move slowly to the clump of cedars she had saved
from the slashing to shade the western wall, and on towards
the meadow, seeking between the group of alders and the
other of maples, now turned scarlet, the old gnarled trunk
with chairlike arms.

That was her crowning hour, the thought of which had
buoyed her through days of weariness and made toil
possible.  "Paul," she said at last, and her voice vibrated
its contralto note, "you understand.  I did it—I filed on
the homestead—to hold it—*for you*."

.. _`312`:

He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not
believing.  "You—did it, to hold it—for me?"

"At first," she went on hurriedly, "I planned it in
payment for the use of Colonel.  I meant to commute it,
when you were ready to take it, or else relinquish my
right.  But I knew you would oppose me, Paul; I dared
not tell you.  And, afterwards, I learned to love it.  You
don't know how I love it.  It would be hard to give it up."

"I understand," he answered slowly.  "But don't
let it trouble you.  I have the mining claim; that's enough.
Hold your homestead, Alice.  It's yours; you worked—how
you must have worked—for it.  The Judge—will
find it a great country place."

"Dear Uncle Silas.  It shall always be his resting place.
You have seen him, haven't you, Paul?  He has told you
that—he knows?"

Forrest did not answer.  His face was very white.  She
believed his strength, once more, was going, and she
moved closer, raising herself a-tiptoe on the rock, to brace
her shoulder again to his weight.  "Oh," she said, "we
shouldn't have stopped here; we should have hurried
straight down."

"Why, I'm all right."  He leaned a little in spite of
himself, and the arm on her shoulder shook.  "Yes, I'm all
right.  But see here—see here—what does the
Judge—know?"

She waited a moment, and the lark, nearer now,
repeated his prelude,

   |  "All things—all things—-come round to him—to him—who
   |      will but wait."

Then she answered, almost in a whisper, with her lashes
fallen and a soft brightness in her face, "That I—love
you—Paul."

Colonel started, for the old madame, seeing them on the
knoll, had crossed the yard to open the gate.  Then,
suddenly, as they went down, breaking the cello interlude
of the falls, the voice of the lark, full, tender, impassioned,
rose in full song.


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   THE END.

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   "*Oppenheim's Latest Success*"

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   THE MISSIONER

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   By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

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   Fully Illustrated.  12mo.  Cloth.  $1.50

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Action, excitement, and mystery are three ingredients
always found in Mr. Oppenheim's novels.  His new story,
"The Missioner," is the compound of love and adventure
which this author so deftly produces, and his characters
have more than their usual individuality.

"The Missioner's" heroine is a beautiful English woman,
of the aristocratic class, rich, frivolous, and worldly.  The
hero is a young man of great personal magnetism, high
ideals, and unused to the insincerities of society.  Her
fashionable amusements and his work in the slums are the
antipodes from which they both move to meet on the
common ground made possible by their mutual interest and
appreciation.  But the lady has a mystery, and the suitor
has an arduous task in clearing away the complications.

The book has more the air of verisimilitude than have
some of Mr. Oppenheim's previous works, and it gains in
strength from the very likelihood of its happenings.  It
moves at a breathless rate from the country to London, to
Paris and back again, and the reader's interest keeps pace.

Those who read "The Missioner" in serial form pronounced
it the best story that this master of romance has
yet written.


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   *An exceedingly clever volume*.—BOSTON GLOBE

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   AN ORIGINAL GENTLEMAN

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   *By* ANNE WARNER

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   Author of "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," the "Susan
   Clegg" books, etc.

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   Frontispiece by Alice Barber Stephens.  Cloth.  $1.50

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Merry reading indeed.—*New York Tribune*.

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All are humorous....  In none is dialect used.—*New
York Sun*.

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The book brings out new possibilities in the author's
work and will add much to her popularity.—*Springfield
Republican*.

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Humor and novelty of plot characterize most of the
stories, and they are entirely worthy of the creator of
"Susan Clegg" and "Aunt Mary."—*Syracuse Herald*.

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Crisply told, quaintly humorous....  Only a woman
with discernment and tenderness, and only an artist
could make characters live and breathe as hers
do.—*Boston Transcript*.

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Exhibits her cleverness and her sense of humor....
Show much of that humor in the conception and that skill
in droll delineation of character which first brought Anne
Warner into notice with her "Susan Clegg" stories.—*New
York Times*.


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   "*Unique among novels*"

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   THE MAN WHO ENDED WAR

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   By HOLLIS GODFREY

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   Illustrated by Ch. Grunwald.  12mo.  Cloth.  $1.50

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Only anticipates events a few years.—*Chicago Tribune*.

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Holds the reader's interest relentlessly.—*Chicago
Record-Herald*.

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Vigor and imagination lend vitality to the plot.—*New
York Times*.

.. vspace:: 1

A reincarnation of an improved Jules Verne.—*Portland
Oregonian*.

.. vspace:: 1

A pretty love story adds zest to the
narrative.—*St. Louis Globe-Democrat*.

.. vspace:: 1

Hollis Godfrey has taken a stupendous theme and
written a most amazing story.—*Boston Globe*.

.. vspace:: 1

The handling of the various scenes is most excellent and
even masterly.—*Boston Transcript*.

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Those who like their fiction full of mystery will revel in
this galloping narrative.—*New York Evening Sun*.

.. vspace:: 1

Shows uncommon skill in utilization of the gigantic
possibilities of modern discovery.—*Boston Advertiser*.


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   *New Edition with Pictures from the Play*

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   THE REJUVENATION OF AUNT MARY

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   By ANNE WARNER

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   *Author of "Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop,"
   "A Woman's Will" etc.*

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   Illustrated.  12mo.  Cloth.  $1.30

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Always amusing and ends in a burst of
sunshine.—*Philadelphia Ledger*.

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Impossible to read without laughing.  A sparkling,
hilarious tale.—*Chicago Record-Herald*.

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The love story is as wholesome and satisfactory as the
fun.  In its class this book must be accorded the first
place.—*Baltimore Sun*.

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The humor is simply delicious.—*Albany Times-Union*.

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Every one that remembers Susan Clegg will wish also to
make the acquaintance of Aunt Mary.  Her "imperious
will and impervious eardrums" furnish matter for
uproarious merriment....  A book to drive away the blues
and make one well content with the worst
weather.—*Pittsburg Gazette*.

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Cheerful, crisp, and bright.  The comedy is sweetened
by a satisfying love tale.—*Boston Herald*.

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   LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
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