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diff --git a/18150-8.txt b/18150-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f4c08d --- /dev/null +++ b/18150-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8543 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hidden Places, by Bertrand W. Sinclair + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Hidden Places + +Author: Bertrand W. Sinclair + +Release Date: April 11, 2006 [EBook #18150] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIDDEN PLACES *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +THE HIDDEN PLACES + +[Illustration: He did not shrink while those soft fingers went +exploring the devastation wrought by the exploding shell. +FRONTISPIECE. _See page 128._] + +THE HIDDEN PLACES + + +By BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR + + +Author of + +_"Big Timber," "Poor Man's Rock," etc._ + + + A.L. BURT COMPANY + Publishers New York + + Published by arrangement with Little, Brown and Company + Printed in U.S.A. + + + _Copyright, 1922,_ + BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. + + _All rights reserved_ + Published January, 1922. + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +THE HIDDEN PLACES + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Hollister stood in the middle of his room, staring at the door without +seeing the door, without seeing the bulky shadow his body cast on the +wall in the pale glow of a single droplight. He was seeing everything +and seeing nothing; acutely, quiveringly conscious and yet oblivious +to his surroundings by reason of the poignancy of his thought. + +A feeling not far short of terror had folded itself about him like a +shrouding fog. + +It had not seized him unaware. For weeks he had seen it looming over +him, and he had schooled himself to disregard a great deal which his +perception was too acute to misunderstand. He had struggled +desperately against the unescapable, recognizing certain significant +facts and in the same breath denying their accumulated force in sheer +self-defense. + +A small dressing-table topped by an oval mirror stood against the wall +beside his bed. Hollister took his unseeing gaze off the door with a +start, like a man withdrawing his mind from wandering in far places. +He sat down before the dressing-table and forced himself to look +steadfastly, appraisingly, at the reflection of his face in the +mirror--that which had once been a presentable man's countenance. + +He shuddered and dropped his eyes. This was a trial he seldom ventured +upon. He could not bear that vision long. No one could. That was the +fearful implication which made him shrink. He, Robert Hollister, in +the flush of manhood, with a body whose symmetry and vigor other men +had envied, a mind that functioned alertly, a spirit as nearly +indomitable as the spirit of man may be, was like a leper among his +own kind; he had become a something that filled other men with pitying +dismay when they looked at him, that made women avert their gaze and +withdraw from him in spite of pity. + +Hollister snapped out the light and threw himself on his bed. He had +known physical suffering, the slow, aching hours of tortured flesh, +bodily pain that racked him until he had wished for death as a welcome +relief. But that had been when the flame of vitality burned low, when +the will-to-live had been sapped by bodily stress. + +Now the mere animal instinct to live was a compelling force within +him. He was young and strong, aching with his desire for life in its +fullest sense. And he did not know how he was going to live and endure +the manner of life he had to face, a life that held nothing but +frustration and denial of all that was necessary to him, which was +making him suffer as acutely as he had ever suffered in the field, +under the knives of callous surgeons, in the shambles of the front +line or the ether-scented dressing stations. There is morphine for a +tortured body, but there is no opiate for agony of the spirit, the +sharp-toothed pain that stabs at a lonely heart with its invisible +lancet. + +In the darkness of his room, with all the noisy traffic of a seaport +city rumbling under his windows, Hollister lay on his bed and +struggled against that terrifying depression which had seized him, +that spiritual panic. It was real. It was based upon undeniable +reality. He was no more captain of his soul than any man born of woman +has ever been when he descends into the dark places. But he knew that +he must shake off that feeling, or go mad, or kill himself. One of the +three. He had known men to kill themselves for less. He had seen +wounded men beg for a weapon to end their pain. He had known men who, +after months of convalescence, quitted by their own hand a life that +no longer held anything for them. + +And it was not because life held out any promise to Hollister that he +lived, nor was it a physical, fear of death, nor any moral scruple +against self-destruction. He clung to life because instinct was +stronger than reason, stronger than any of the appalling facts he +encountered and knew he must go on encountering. He had to live, with +a past that was no comfort, going on down the pathway of a future +which he attempted not to see clearly, because when he did envisage it +he was stricken with just such a panic as now overwhelmed him. + +To live on and on, a pariah among his fellows because of his +disfigurement. A man with a twisted face, a gargoyle of a countenance. +To have people always shrink from him. To be denied companionship, +friendship, love, to know that so many things which made life +beautiful were always just beyond his reach. To be merely endured. To +have women pity him--and shun him. + +The sweat broke out on Hollister's face when he thought of all that. +He knew that it was true. This knowledge had been growing on him for +weeks. To-night the full realization of what it meant engulfed him +with terror. That was all. He did not cry out against injustice. He +did not whine a protest. He blamed no one. He understood, when he +looked at himself in the glass. + +After a time he shook off the first paralyzing grip of this unnameable +terror which had seized him with clammy hands, fought it down by sheer +resolution. He was able to lie staring into the dusky spaces of his +room and review the stirring panorama of his existence for the past +four years. There was nothing that did not fill him with infinite +regret--and there was nothing which by any conceivable effort he could +have changed. He could not have escaped one of those calamities which +had befallen him. He could not have left undone a single act that he +had performed. There was an inexorable continuity in it all. There +had been a great game. He had been one of the pawns. + +Hollister shut his eyes. Immediately, like motion pictures projected +upon a screen, his mind began to project visions. He saw himself +kissing his wife good-by. He saw the tears shining in her eyes. He +felt again the clinging pressure of her arms, her cry that she would +be so lonely. He saw himself in billets, poring over her letters. He +saw himself swinging up the line with his company, crawling back with +shattered ranks after a hammering, repeating this over and over again +till it seemed like a nightmare in which all existence was comprised +in blood and wounds and death and sorrow, enacted at stated intervals +to the rumble of guns. + +He saw himself on his first leave in London, when he found that Myra +was growing less restive under his absence, when he felt proud to +think that she was learning the lesson of sacrifice and how to bear up +under it. He saw his second Channel crossing with a flesh wound in his +thigh, when there seemed to his hyper-sensitive mind a faint +perfunctoriness in her greeting. It was on this leave that he first +realized how the grim business he was engaged upon was somehow rearing +an impalpable wall between himself and this woman whom he still loved +with a lover's passion after four years of marriage. + +And he could see, in this mental cinema, whole searing sentences of +the letter he received from her just before a big push on the Somme +in the fall of '17--that letter in which she told him with child-like +directness that he had grown dim and distant and that she loved +another man. She was sure he would not care greatly. She was sorry if +he did. But she could not help it. She had been so lonely. People were +bound to change. It couldn't be helped. She was sorry--but-- + +And Hollister saw himself later lying just outside the lip of a +shell-crater, blind, helpless, his face a shredded smear when he felt +it with groping fingers. He remembered that he lay there wondering, +because of the darkness and the strange silence and the pain, if he +were dead and burning in hell for his sins. + +After that there were visions of himself in a German hospital, in a +prison camp, and at last the armistice, and the Channel crossing once +more. He was dead, they told him, when he tried in the chaos of +demobilization to get in touch with his regiment, to establish his +identity, to find his wife. He was officially dead. He had been so +reported, so accepted eighteen months earlier. His wife had married +again. She and her husband had vanished from England. And with his +wife had vanished his assets, his estate, by virtue of a pre-war +arrangement which he had never revoked. + +He beheld himself upon the streets of London, one of innumerable stray +dogs, ruined, deserted, disfigured, a bit of war's wreckage. He did +not particularly consider himself a victim of injustice. He did not +blame Myra. He was simply numbed and bewildered. + +But that was before he grew conscious of what it meant to a sensitive +man, a man in whom all warm human impulses flowed so strongly, to be +penniless, to have all the dependable foundations of his life torn +from under his feet, to be so disfigured that people shunned him. + +He had to gather up the broken pieces of his life, fit them together, +go on as best he could. It did not occur to him at first to do +otherwise, or that the doing would be hard. He had not foreseen all +the strange shifts he would be put to, the humiliations he would +suffer, the crushing weight of hopelessness which gathered upon him by +the time he arrived on the Pacific Coast, where he had once lived, to +which he now turned to do as men all over the war-racked earth were +doing in the winter of 1919,--cast about in an effort to adjust +himself, to make a place for himself in civil life. + +All the way across the continent of North America Hollister grew more +and more restive under the accumulating knowledge that the horrible +devastation of his features made a No Man's Land about him which few +had the courage to cross. It was a fact. Here, upon the evening of the +third day in Vancouver, a blind and indescribable fear seized upon +him, a sickening conviction that although living, he was dead,--dead +in so far as the common, casual intimacies of daily intercourse with +his fellows went. It was as if men and women were universally +repulsed by that grotesquely distorted mask which served him for a +face, as if at sight of it by common impulse they made off, withdrew +to a safe distance, as they would withdraw from any loathsome thing. + +Lying on his bed, Hollister flexed his arms. He arched his chest and +fingered the muscular breadth of it in the darkness. Bodily, he was a +perfect man. Strength flowed through him in continuous waves. He could +feel within himself the surge of vast stores of energy. His brain +functioned with a bright, bitter clearness. He could feel,--ah, that +was the hell of it. That quivering response to the subtle nuances of +thought! A profound change had come upon him, yet essentially he, the +man, was unchanged. Except for those scars, the convoluted ridges of +tissue, the livid patches and the ghastly hollows where once his +cheeks and lips and forehead had been smooth and regular, he was as he +had always been. + +For a moment there came over him the wild impulse to rush out into the +street, crying: + +"You fools! Because my face is torn and twisted makes me no different +from you. I still feel and think. I am as able to love and hate as +you. Was all your talk about honorable scars just prattle to mislead +the men who risked the scars? Is all your much advertised kindliness +and sympathy for war-broken men a bluff?" + +He smiled sadly. They would say he was mad. They would classify him as +suffering from shell shock. A frock-coated committee would gravely +recommend him for treatment in the mental hospital at Essondale. They +would not understand. + +Hollister covered his face with a swift, tight clasping of his hands. +Something rose chokingly in his throat. Into his eyes a slow, scalding +wetness crept like a film. He set his teeth in one corner of his +pillow. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +When Hollister was eighteen years old he had been briefly troubled by +an affliction of his eyes brought on from overstudy. His father, at +the time, was interested in certain timber operations on the coast of +British Columbia. In these rude camps, therefore, young Hollister +spent a year. During that twelve months books were prohibited. He +lived in the woods, restored the strength of his eyes amid that +restful greenness, hardened a naturally vigorous body by healthy, +outdoor labor with the logging crews. He returned home to go on with +his University work in eastern Canada with unforgettable impressions +of the Pacific coast, a boyish longing to go back to that region where +the mountains receded from the sea in wave after wave of enormous +height, where the sea lapped with green lips at the foot of the ranges +and thrust winding arms back into the very heart of the land, and +where the land itself, delta and slope and slide-engraved declivities, +was clothed with great, silent forests, upon which man, with his axes +and saws, his machinery, his destructiveness in the name of industry, +had as yet made little more impression than the nibbling of a single +mouse on the rim of a large cheese. + +When he graduated he did return on a thirty-days' vacation, which the +lure of the semi-wild country prolonged for six months,--a whole +summer in which he resisted the importunities of his father to take +his part in the business upon which rested the family fortune. +Hollister never forgot that summer. He was young. He had no cares. He +was free. All life spread before him in a vast illusion of +unquestionable joyousness. There was a rose-pink tinge over these +months in which he fished salmon and trout, climbed the frowning +escarpments of the Coast Range, gave himself up to the spell of a +region which is still potent with the charm of the wilderness untamed. +There had always lingered in his receptive mind a memory of profound +beauty, a stark beauty of color and outline, an unhampered freedom, +opportunity as vast as the mountains that looked from their cool +heights down on the changeful sea and the hushed forests, brooding in +the sun and rain. + +So he had come back again, after seven years, scarcely knowing why he +came, except that the coast beckoned with a remote gesture, and that +he desired to get as far as possible from the charnel house of Europe, +and that he shrank from presenting himself among the acquaintances of +his boyhood and the few distant relatives left him upon the Atlantic +seaboard. + +His father died shortly after Hollister married. He had left his son +property aggregating several thousand dollars and a complicated +timber business disorganized by his sudden death. Hollister was +young, sanguine, clever in the accepted sense of cleverness. He had +married for love,--urged thereto by a headlong, unquestioning, +uncritical passion. But there were no obstacles. His passion was +returned. There was nothing to make him ponder upon what a +devastating, tyrannical force this emotion which he knew as love might +become, this blind fever of the blood under cover of which nature +works her ends, blandly indifferent to the consequences. + +Hollister was happy. He was ambitious. He threw himself with energy +into a revival of his father's business when it came into his hands. +His needs expanded with his matrimonial obligations. Considered +casually--which was chiefly the manner of his consideration--his +future was the future of a great many young men who begin life under +reasonably auspicious circumstances. That is to say, he would be a +success financially and socially to as great an extent as he cared to +aspire. He would acquire wealth and an expanding influence in his +community. He would lead a tolerably pleasant domestic existence. He +would be proud of his wife's beauty, her charm; he would derive a +soothing contentment from her affection. He would take pleasure in +friendships. In the end, of course, at some far-off, misty mile-post, +he would begin to grow old. Then he would die in a dignified manner, +full of years and honors, and his children would carry on after him. + +Hollister failed to reckon with the suavities of international +diplomacy, with the forces of commercialism in relation to the markets +of the world. + +The war burst upon and shattered the placidity of his existence very +much as the bombs from the first Zeppelins shattered the peace and +security of London and Paris. + +He reacted to the impetus of the German assault as young men of his +class uniformly reacted. There was in Hollister's mind no doubt or +equivocation about what he must do. But he did not embark upon this +adventure joyously. He could not help weighing the chances. He +understood that in this day and age he was a fortunate man. He had a +great deal to lose. But he felt that he must go. He was not, however, +filled with the witless idea that service with the Expeditionary Force +was to be an adventure of some few months, a brief period involving +some hardships and sharp fighting, but with an Allied Army hammering +at the gates of Berlin as a grand finale. The slaughter of the first +encounters filled him with the conviction that he should put his house +in order before he entered that bloody arena out of which he might not +emerge. + +So that when he crossed the Channel the first time he had disentangled +himself from his business at a great loss, in order to have all his +funds available for his wife in case of the ultimate disaster. + +Myra accompanied him to England, deferred their separation to the last +hour. They could well afford that concession to their affection, they +told each other. It was so hard to part. + +It scarcely seemed possible that four years had gone winging by since +then, yet in certain moods it seemed to Hollister as if an eternity +had passed. Things had been thus and so; they had become different by +agonizing processes. + +He did not know where Myra was. He, himself, was here in Vancouver, +alone, a stranger, a single speck of human wreckage cast on a far +beach by the receding tides of war. He had no funds worth considering, +but money was not as yet an item of consideration. He was not +disabled. Physically he was more fit than he had ever been. The +delicate mechanism of his brain was unimpaired. He had no +bitterness--no illusions. His intellect was acute enough to suggest +that in the complete shucking off of illusions lay his greatest peril. +Life, as it faced him, the individual, appeared to be almost too grim +a business to be endured without hopes and dreams. He had neither. He +had nothing but moods. + +He walked slowly down Granville Street in the blackest mood which had +yet come upon him. It differed from that strange feeling of terror +which had taken him unaware the night before. He had fallen easy prey +then to the black shadows of forlornness. He was still as acutely +aware of the barrier which his disfigurement raised between him and +other men. But with that morbid awareness there rose also now, for the +first time, resentment against the smug folk who glanced at him and +hurriedly averted their eyes. Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, as the +tide rises on a sloping shore, his anger rose. + +The day was cold and sunny, a January morning with a touch of frost in +the air. Men passed him, walking rapidly, clad in greatcoats. Women +tripped by, wrapped in furs, eyes bright, cheeks glowing. And as they +passed, singly, in chattering pairs, in smiling groups, Hollister +observed them with a growing fury. They were so thoroughly insulated +against everything disagreeable. All of them. A great war had just +come to a dramatic close, a war in which staggering numbers of men had +been sacrificed, body and soul, to enable these people to walk the +streets in comfortable security. They seemed so completely unaware of +the significance of his disfigured face. It was simply a disagreeable +spectacle from which they turned with brief annoyance. + +Most of these men and women honored the flag. In a theater, at any +public gathering, a display of the national colors caused the men to +bare reverently their heads, the women to clap their hands with +decorous enthusiasm. Without doubt they were all agreed that it was a +sacred duty to fight for one's country. How peculiar and illogical +then, he reflected, to be horrified at the visible results of fighting +for one's country, of saving the world for democracy. The thing had +had to be done. A great many men had been killed. A great number had +lost their legs, their arms, their sight. They had suffered +indescribable mutilations and disabilities in the national defense. +These people were the nation. Those who passed him with a shocked +glance at his face must be aware that fighting involves suffering and +scars. It appeared as if they wished to ignore that. The inevitable +consequences of war annoyed them, disturbed them, when they came face +to face with those consequences. + +Hollister imagined them privately thinking he should wear a mask. + +After all, he was a stranger to these folk, although he was their +countryman and a person of consequence until the war and Myra and +circumstances conspired against him. + +He stifled the resentment which arose from a realization that he must +expect nothing else, that it was not injustice so much as stupidity. +He reflected that this was natural. A cynical conclusion arose in his +mind. There was no substance, after all, in this loose talk about +sympathy and gratitude and the obligation of a proud country to those +who had served overseas. Why should there be? He was an individual +among other individuals who were unconsciously actuated by rampant +individualism except in moments of peril, when stark necessity +compelled them to social action. Otherwise it was every man for +himself. Yes, it was natural enough. He _was_ a stranger to these +people. Except for the color of his skin, he was no more to them than +a Hindoo or a Japanese. And doubtless the grotesque disarrangement of +his features appalled them. How could they discern behind that +caricature of a face the human desire for friendliness, the ache of a +bruised spirit? + +He deliberately clamped down the lid upon such reflections and +bethought himself of the business which brought him along the street. +Turning off the main thoroughfare, he passed half a block along a +cross street and entered an office building. Ascending to the fourth +floor, he entered an elaborate suite of offices which bore upon the +ground glass of the entrance door this legend: + + LEWIS AND COMPANY + + SPECIALISTS IN B.C. TIMBER. INVESTMENTS + +He inquired for Mr. Lewis, gave his card to a young woman who glanced +at him once and thereafter looked anywhere but at him while he spoke. +After a minute of waiting he was ushered into a private office. As he +neared this door, Hollister happened to catch a panoramic glimpse in a +wall mirror. The eyes of half a dozen clerks and other persons in that +room, both male and female, were fixed on him with the shocked and +eager curiosity he had once observed upon the faces of a crowd +gathered about the mangled victim of a street accident. + +Mr. Lewis was a robust man, a few years older than Hollister. The +cares of a rapidly developing business and certain domestic ties had +prevented Mr. Lewis from offering himself upon the altar of his +country. The responsibility of eight per cent. investments entrusted +to his care was not easily shaken off. Business, of course, was a +national necessity. However, since the armistice, Mr. Lewis had ceased +to be either explanatory or inferentially apologetic--even in his own +thought--for his inability to free himself from the demands of +commerce during a critical period. + +In any case he was there, sound in wind and limb, a tall, +square-shouldered, ruddy man of thirty-five, seated behind an oak +desk, turning Hollister's card over in his fingers with an +anticipatory smile. Blankness replaced the smile. A sort of horrified +wonder gleamed in his eyes. Hollister perceived that his face shocked +the specialist in B.C. timber, filled Mr. Lewis with very mixed +sensations indeed. + +"You have my card. It is several years since we met. I dare say you +find me unrecognizable," Hollister said bluntly. "Nevertheless I can +identify myself to your satisfaction." + +A peculiarity of Hollister's disfigurement was the immobility of his +face. The shell which had mutilated him, the scalpels of the German +field surgeons who had perfunctorily repaired the lacerations, had +left the reddened, scar-distorted flesh in a rigid mold. He could +neither recognizably smile nor frown. His face, such as it was, was +set in unchangeable lines. Out of this rigid, expressionless mask his +eyes glowed, blue and bright, having escaped injury. They were the +only key to the mutations of his mind. If Hollister's eyes were the +windows of his soul, he did not keep the blinds drawn, knowing that +few had the hardihood to peer into those windows now. + +Mr. Lewis looked at him, looked away, and then his gaze came slowly +back as if drawn by some fascination against which he struggled in +vain. He did not wish to look at Hollister. Yet he was compelled to +look. He seemed to find difficulty in speech, this suave man of +affairs. + +"I'm afraid I shouldn't have recognized you, as you say," he uttered, +at last. "Have you--ah----" + +"I've been overseas," Hollister answered the unspoken question. That +strange curiosity, tinctured with repulsion! "The result is obvious." + +"Most unfortunate," Mr. Lewis murmured. "But your scars are honorable. +A brother of mine lost an arm at Loos." + +"The brothers of a good many people lost more than their arms at +Loos," Hollister returned dryly. "But that is not why I called. You +recollect, I suppose, that when I was out here last I bought a timber +limit in the Toba from your firm. When I went overseas I instructed +you to sell. What was done in that matter?" + +Mr. Lewis' countenance cleared at once. He was on his own ground +again, dealing with matters in which he was competent, in consultation +with a client whom he recalled as a person of consequence, the son of +a man who had likewise been of considerable consequence. Personal +undesirability was always discounted in the investment field, the +region of percentum returns. Money talked, in arrogant tones that +commanded respect. + +He pressed a button. + +"Bring me," he ordered the clerk who appeared, "all correspondence +relating to this matter," and he penciled a few sentences on a slip of +paper. + +He delved into the papers that were presently set before him. + +"Ah, yes," he said. "Lot 2027 situated on the south slope of the Toba +Valley. Purchased for your account July, 1912. Sale ordered October, +1914. We had some correspondence about that early in 1915, while you +were in London. Do you recall it, Mr. Hollister?" + +"Yes. You wrote that the timber market was dead, that any sale +possible must be at a considerable sacrifice. Afterward, when I got to +the front, I had no time to think about things like that. But I +remember writing you to sell, even at a sacrifice." + +"Yes, yes. Quite so," Mr. Lewis agreed. "I recall the whole matter +very clearly. Conditions at that time were very bad, you know. It was +impossible to find a purchaser on short notice. Early in 1917 there +was a chance to sell, at a considerably reduced figure. But I couldn't +get in touch with you. You didn't answer our cable. I couldn't take +the responsibility of a sacrifice sale." + +Hollister nodded. In 1917 he was a nameless convalescent in a German +hospital; officially he was dead. Months before that such things as +distant property rights had ceased to be of any moment. He had +forgotten this holding of timber in British Columbia. He was too full +of bitter personal misery to trouble about money. + +"Failing to reach you we waited until we should hear from you--or from +your estate." Mr. Lewis cleared his throat as if it embarrassed him to +mention that contingency. "In war--there was that possibility, you +understand. We did not feel justified; so much time had elapsed. There +was risk to us in acting without verifying our instructions." + +"So this property is still to be marketed. The carrying charges, as I +remember, were small. I presume you carried them." + +"Oh, assuredly," Mr. Lewis asserted. "We protected your interests to +the very best of our ability." + +"Well, find me a buyer for that limit as soon as you can," Hollister +said abruptly. "I want to turn it into cash." + +"We shall set about this at once," Mr. Lewis said. "It may take a +little time--conditions, as a result of the armistice, are again +somewhat unsettled in the logging industry. Airplane spruce production +is dead--dead as a salt mackerel--and fir and cedar slumped with it. +However we shall do our best. Have you a price in mind, Mr. +Hollister, for a quick sale?" + +"I paid ten thousand for it. On the strength of your advice as a +specialist in timber investments," he added with a touch of malice. He +had taken a dislike to Mr. Lewis. He had not been so critical of +either men or motives in the old days. He had remembered Lewis as a +good sort. Now he disliked the man, distrusted him. He was too smooth, +too sleek. "I'll discount that twenty percent, for a cash sale." + +Mr. Lewis made a memorandum. + +"Very good," said he, raising his head with an inquiring air, as if to +say "If that is all----" + +"If you will kindly identify me at a bank,"--Hollister rose from his +chair, "I shall cease to trouble you. I have a draft on the Bank of +B.N.A. I do not know any one in Vancouver." + +"No trouble, I assure you," Lewis hastened to assent, but his tone +lacked heartiness, sincerity. + +It was only a little distance to the bank, but Lewis insisted on +making the journey in a motorcar which stood at the curb. It was plain +to Hollister that Mr. Lewis disliked the necessity of appearing in +public with him, that he took this means of avoiding the crowded +sidewalks, of meeting people. He introduced Hollister, excused himself +on the plea of business pressure, and left Hollister standing before +the teller's wicket. + +This was not a new attitude to Hollister. People did that,--as if he +were a plague. There came into his mind--as he stood counting the +sheaf of notes slide through a grill by a teller who looked at him +once and thereafter kept his eyes averted--a paraphrase of a hoary +quotation, "I am a monster of such frightful mien, as to be hated +needs but to be seen." The rest of it, Hollister thought grimly, could +never apply to him. + +He put the money in his pocket and walked out on the street. It was a +busy corner on a humming thoroughfare. Electric cars rumbled and +creaked one behind another on the double tracks. Waves of vehicular +traffic rolled by the curb. A current of humanity flowed past him on +the sidewalk. + +Standing there for a minute, Hollister felt again the slow rising of +his resentment against these careless, fortunate ones. He could not +say what caused that feeling. A look, a glance,--the inevitable +shrinking. He was morbidly sensitive. He knew that, knew it was a +state of mind that was growing upon him. But from whatever cause, that +feeling of intolerable isolation gave way to an inner fury. + +As he stood there, he felt a wild desire to shout at these people, to +curse them, to seize one of these dainty women by the arms, thrust his +disfigured face close to hers and cry: "Look at me as if I were a man, +not a monstrosity. I'm what I am so that you could be what you are. +Look at me, damn you!" + +He pulled himself together and walked on. Certainly he would soon run +amuck if he did not get over feeling like that, if he did not master +these impulses which bordered on insanity. He wondered if that inner +ferment would drive him insane. + +He went back to the second-rate hotel where he had taken refuge, +depressed beyond words, afraid of himself, afraid of the life which +lay in fragments behind him and spread away before him in terrifying +drabness. Yet he must go on living. To live was the dominant instinct. +A man did not put on or off the desire to live as he put on or off his +coat. But life promised nothing. It was going to be a sorry affair. It +struck Hollister with disheartening force that an individual is +nothing--absolutely nothing--apart from some form of social grouping. +And society, which had exacted so much from him, seemed peculiarly +indifferent to the consequences of those imperative exactions, seemed +wholly indifferent to his vital need. + +And it was not reward or recognition of service performed that +Hollister craved. He did not want to be pensioned or subsidized or to +have medals pinned on him. What he wanted was chiefly to forget the +war and what the war had visited upon him and others like him. +Hollister suffered solely from that sense of being held outside the +warm circle of human activities, fellowships, friendliness. If he +could not overcome that barrier which people threw up around +themselves at contact with him, if he could not occasionally know the +sound of a friendly voice, he felt that he would very soon go mad. A +man cannot go on forever enduring the pressure of the intolerable. +Hollister felt that he must soon arrive at a crisis. What form it +would take he did not know, and in certain moods he did not care. + +On the landing at the end of the narrow corridor off which his room +opened he met a man in uniform whom he recognized,--a young man who +had served under him in the Forty-fourth, who had won a commission on +the field. He wore a captain's insignia now. Hollister greeted him by +name. + +"Hello, Tommy." + +The captain looked at him. His face expressed nothing whatever. +Hollister waited for that familiar shadow of distaste to appear. Then +he remembered that, like himself, Rutherford must have seen thousands +upon thousands of horribly mutilated men. + +"Your voice," Rutherford remarked at length, "has a certain familiar +sound. Still, I can't say I know you. What's the name?" + +"Bob Hollister. Do you remember the bottle of Scotch we pinched from +the Black Major behind the brick wall on the Albert Road? Naturally +you wouldn't know me--with this face." + +"Well," Rutherford said, as he held out his hand, "a fellow shouldn't +be surprised at anything any more. I understood you'd gone west. Your +face _is_ mussed up a bit. Rotten luck, eh?" + +Hollister felt a lump in his throat. It was the first time for months +that any human being had met him on common ground. He experienced a +warm feeling for Rutherford. And the curious thing about that was that +out of the realm of the subconscious rose instantly the remembrance +that he had never particularly liked Tommy Rutherford. He was one of +the wild men of the battalion. When they went up the line Rutherford +was damnably cool and efficient, a fatalist who went about his grim +business unmoved. Back in rest billets he was always pursuing some +woman, unearthing surplus stores of whisky or wine, intent upon +dubious pleasures,--a handsome, self-centered debonair animal. + +"My room's down here," Hollister said. "Come in and gas a bit--if you +aren't bound somewhere." + +"Oh, all right. I came up here to see a chap, but he's out. I have +half an hour or so to spare." + +Rutherford stretched himself on Hollister's bed. They lit cigarettes +and talked. And as they talked, Rutherford kept looking at Hollister's +face, until Hollister at last said to him: + +"Doesn't it give you the willies to look at me?" + +Rutherford shook his head. + +"Oh, no. I've got used to seeing fellows all twisted out of shape. You +seem to be fit enough otherwise." + +"I am," Hollister said moodily. "But it's a devil of a handicap to +have a mug like this." + +"Makes people shy off, eh? Women particularly. I can imagine," +Rutherford drawled. "Tough luck, all right. People don't take very +much stock in fellows that got smashed. Not much of a premium on +disfigured heroes these days." + +Hollister laughed harshly. + +"No. We're at a discount. We're duds." + +For half an hour they chatted more or less one-sidedly. Rutherford had +a grievance which he took pains to air. He was on duty at Hastings +Park, having been sent there a year earlier to instruct recruits, +after recovering from a wound. He was the military man par excellence. +War was his game. He had been anxious to go to Siberia with the +Canadian contingent which had just departed. And the High Command had +retained him here to assist in the inglorious routine of +demobilization. Rutherford was disgruntled. Siberia had promised new +adventure, change, excitement. + +The man, Hollister soon perceived, was actually sorry the war was +over, sorry that his occupation was gone. He talked of resigning and +going to Mexico, to offer his sword to whichever proved the stronger +faction. It would be a picnic after the Western Front. A man could +whip a brigade of those greasers into shape and become a power. There +ought to be good chances for loot. + +Yet Hollister enjoyed his company. Rutherford was genial. He was the +first man for long to accept Hollister as a human being. He promised +to look Hollister up again before he went away. + +The world actually seemed cheerful to Hollister, after Rutherford had +gone,--until in moving about the room he caught sight of his face in +the mirror. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +About ten days later Tommy Rutherford walked into Hollister's room at +eight in the evening. He laid his cap and gloves on the bed, seated +himself, swung his feet to and fro for a second, and reached for one +of Hollister's cigarettes. + +"It's a hard world, old thing," he complained. "Here was I all set for +an enjoyable winter. Nice people in Vancouver. All sorts of fetching +affairs on the tapis. And I'm to be demobilized myself next week. +Chucked out into the blooming street with a gratuity and a couple of +medals. Damn the luck." + +He remained absorbed in his own reflections for a minute, blowing +smoke rings with meticulous care. + +"I wonder if a fellow _could_ make it go in Mexico?" he drawled. + +Hollister made no comment. + +"Oh, well, hang it, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he +remarked, with an abrupt change of tone. "I'm going to a hop at the +Granada presently. Banish dull care and all that, for the time being, +anyway." + +His gaze came to an inquiring rest on Hollister. + +"What's up, old thing?" he asked lightly. "Why so mum?" + +"Oh, nothing much," Hollister answered. + +"Bad thing to get in the dumps," Rutherford observed sagely. "You +ought to keep a bottle of Scotch handy for that." + +"Drink myself into a state of mind where the world glitters and +becomes joyful, eh? No, I don't fancy your prescription. I'd be more +apt to run amuck." + +"Oh, come now," Rutherford remonstrated. "It isn't so bad as that. +Cheer up, old man. Things might be worse, you know. + +"Oh, hell!" Hollister exploded. + +After which he relapsed into sullen silence, to which Rutherford, +frankly mystified and somewhat inclined to resent this self-contained +mood, presently left him. + +Hollister was glad when the man went away. He had a feeling of relief +when the door closed and retreating footsteps echoed down the hall. He +had grasped at a renewal of Rutherford's acquaintance as a man +drowning in a sea of loneliness would grasp at any friendly straw. And +Rutherford, Hollister quickly realized, was the most fragile sort of +straw. The man was a profound, non-thinking egotist, the adventurer +pure and simple, whose mentality never rose above grossness of one +sort and another, in spite of a certain outward polish. He could +tolerate Hollister's mutilated countenance because he had grown +accustomed to horrible sights,--not because he had any particular +sympathy for a crippled, mutilated man's misfortune, or any +understanding of such a man's state of feeling. To Rutherford that was +the fortune of war. So many were killed. So many crippled. So many +disfigured. It was luck. He believed in his own luck. The evil that +befell other men left him rather indifferent. That was all. When +Hollister once grasped Rutherford's attitude, he almost hated the man. + +He sat now staring out the window. A storm had broken over Vancouver +that day. To-night it was still gathering force. The sky was a +lowering, slate-colored mass of clouds, spitting squally bursts of +rain that drove in wet lines against his window and made the street +below a glistening area shot with tiny streams and shallow puddles +that were splashed over the curb by rolling motor wheels. The wind +droned its ancient, melancholy chant among the telephone wires, shook +with its unseen, powerful hands a row of bare maples across the way, +rattled the windows in their frames. Now and then, in a momentary lull +of the wind, a brief cessation of the city noises, Hollister could +hear far off the beat of the Gulf seas bursting on the beach at +English Bay, snoring in the mouth of False Creek. A dreary, +threatening night that fitted his mood. + +He sat pondering over the many-horned dilemma upon which he hung +impaled. He had done all that a man could do. He had given the best +that was in him, played the game faithfully, according to the rules. +And the net result had been for him the most complete disaster. So far +as Myra went, he recognized that domestic tragedy as a natural +consequence. He did not know, he was unable to say if his wife had +simply been a weak and shallow woman, left too long alone, thrown too +largely on her own resources in an environment so strongly tinctured +by the high-pitched and reckless spirit generated by the war. He had +always known that his wife--women generally were the same, he +supposed--was dominated by emotional urges, rather than cold reason. +But that had never struck him as of great significance. Women were +like that. A peculiar obtuseness concealed from him, until now, that +men also were much the same. He was, himself. When his feelings and +his reason came into conflict, it was touch and go which should +triumph. The fact remained that for a long time the war had separated +them as effectually as a divorce court. Hollister had always had a +hazy impression that Myra was the sort of woman to whom love was +necessary, but he had presumed that it was the love of a particular +man, and that man himself. This, it seemed, was a mistake, and he had +paid a penalty for making that mistake. + +So he accepted this phase of his unhappiness without too much rancor. +Myra had played fair, he perceived. She had told him what to expect. +And the accident of a misleading report had permitted her to follow +her bent with a moral sanction. That she had bestowed herself and +some forty thousand dollars of his money on another man was not the +thing Hollister resented. He resented only the fact that her glow of +love for him had not endured, that it had gone out like an untended +fire. But for some inscrutable reason that had happened. He had built +a dream-house on an unstable foundation. It had tumbled down. Very +well. He accepted that. + +But he did not accept this unuttered social dictum that he should be +kept at arm's length because he had suffered a ghastly disarrangement +of his features while acting as a shield behind which the rest of +society rested secure. No, he would never accept that as a natural +fact. He could not. + +No one said that he was a terrible object which should remain in the +background along with family skeletons and unmentionable diseases. He +was like poverty and injustice,--present but ignored. And this being +shunned and avoided, as if he were something which should go about in +furtive obscurity, was rapidly driving Hollister to a state +approaching desperation. + +For he could not rid himself of the social impulse any more than a +healthy man can rid himself of the necessity for food and drink at +certain intervals. If Hollister had been so crushed in body and mind +that his spirit was utterly quenched, if his vitality had been so +drained that he could sit passive and let the world go by unheeded, +then he would have been at peace. + +He had seen men like that--many of them--content to sit in the sun, +to be fed and let alone. Their hearts were broken as well as their +bodies. + +But except for the distortion of his face, he returned as he had gone +away, a man in full possession of his faculties, his passions, his +strength. He could not be passive either physically or mentally. His +mind was too alert, his spirit too sensitive, his body too crammed +with vitality to see life go swinging by and have no hand in its +manifestations and adventures. + +Yet he was growing discouraged. People shunned him, shrank from +contact. His scarred face seemed to dry up in others the fountain of +friendly intercourse. If he were a leper or a man convicted of some +hideous crime, his isolation could not be more complete. It was as if +the sight of him affected men and women with a sense of something +unnatural, monstrous. He sweated under this. But he was alive, and +life was a reality to him, the will to live a dominant force. Unless +he succumbed in a moment of madness, he knew that he would continue to +struggle for life and happiness because that was instinctive, and +fundamental instincts are stronger than logic, reason, circumstance. + +How he was going to make his life even tolerably worth living was a +question that harassed him with disheartening insistence as he watched +through his window the slanting lines of rain and listened to the +mournful cadences of the wind. + +"I must get to work at something," he said to himself. "If I sit still +and think much more----" + +He did not carry that last sentence to its logical conclusion. +Deliberately he strove to turn his thought out of the depressing +channels in which it flowed and tried to picture what he should set +about doing. + +Not office work; he could not hope for any inside position such as his +experience easily enabled him to fill. He knew timber, the making and +marketing of it, from top to bottom. But he could not see himself +behind a desk, directing or selling. His face would frighten clients. +He smiled; that rare grimace he permitted himself when alone. Very +likely he would have to accept the commonest sort of labor, in a mill +yard, or on a booming ground, among workers not too sensitive to a +man's appearance. + +Staring through the streaming window, Hollister looked down on the +traffic flow in the street, the hurrying figures that braved the storm +in pursuit of pleasure or of necessity, and while that desperate +loneliness gnawed at him, he felt once more a sense of utter defeat, +of hopeless isolation--and for the first time he wished to hide, to +get away out of sight and hearing of men. + +It was a fugitive impulse, but it set his mind harking back to the +summer he had spent holidaying along the British Columbia coast long +ago. The tall office buildings, with yellow window squares dotting the +black walls, became the sun-bathed hills looking loftily down on +rivers and bays and inlets that he knew. The wet floor of the street +itself became a rippled arm of the sea, stretching far and silent +between wooded slopes where deer and bear and all the furtive wild +things of the forest went their accustomed way. + +Hollister had wandered alone in those hushed places, sleeping with his +face to the stars, and he had not been lonely. He wondered if he could +do that again. + +He sat nursing those visions, his imagination pleasantly quickened by +them, as a man sometimes finds ease from care in dreaming of old days +that were full of gladness. He was still deep in the past when he went +to bed. And when he arose in the morning, the far places of the B.C. +coast beckoned with a more imperious gesture, as if in those solitudes +lay a sure refuge for such as he. + +And why not, he asked himself? Here in this pushing seaport town, +among the hundred and fifty thousand souls eagerly intent upon their +business of gaining a livelihood, of making money, there was not one +who cared whether he came or went, whether he was glad or sad, whether +he had a song on his lips or the blackest gloom in his heart. He had +done his bit as a man should. In the doing he had been broken in a +cruel variety of ways. The war machine had chewed him up and spat him +out on the scrap heap. None of these hale, unmanned citizens cared to +be annoyed by the sight of him, of what had happened to him. + +And he could not much longer endure this unapproachableness, this +palpable shrinking. He could not much longer bear to be in the midst +of light and laughter, of friendly talk and smiling faces, and be +utterly shut off from any part in it all. He was in as evil case as a +man chained to a rock and dying of thirst, while a clear, cold stream +flowed at his feet. Whether he walked the streets or sat brooding in +his room, he could not escape the embittered consciousness that all +about him there was a great plenty of kindly fellowship which he +craved and which he could not share because war had stamped its iron +heel upon his face. + +Yes, the more he thought about it, the more he craved the refuge of +silence and solitude. If he could not escape from himself, at least he +could withdraw from this feast at which he was a death's-head. And so +he began to cast about him for a place to go, for an objective, for +something that should save him from being purely aimless. In the end +it came into his mind that he might go back and look over this timber +in the valley of the Toba River, this last vestige of his fortune +which remained to him by pure chance. He had bought it as an +investment for surplus funds. He had never even seen it. He would have +smiled, if his face had been capable of smiling, at the irony of his +owning ten million feet of Douglas fir and red cedar--material to +build a thousand cottages--he who no longer owned a roof to shelter +his head, whose cash resources were only a few hundred dollars. + +Whether Lewis sold the timber or not, he would go and see it. For a +few weeks he would be alone in the woods, where men would not eye him +askance, nor dainty, fresh-faced women shrink from him as they +passed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The steamer backed away from a float of which Hollister was the sole +occupant. She swung in a wide semicircle, pointed her bluff bow down +the Inlet, and presently all that he could see of her was the tip of +her masts over a jutting point and the top of her red funnel trailing +a pennant of smoke, black against a gray sky. + +Hollister stood looking about him. He was clad like a logger, in thick +mackinaws and heavy boots, and the texture of his garments was +appropriate to the temperature, the weather. He seemed to have stepped +into another latitude,--which in truth he had, for the head of Toba +Inlet lies a hundred and fifty miles northwest of Vancouver, and the +thrust of that narrow arm of the sea carries it thirty miles into the +glacial fastnesses of the Coast Range. The rain that drenched +Vancouver became snow here. The lower slopes were green with timber +which concealed the drifts that covered the rocky soil. A little +higher certain clear spaces bared the whiteness, and all the tree +tops, the drooping boughs, carried a burden of clinging snow. Higher +still lifted grim peaks capped with massive snow banks that even +midsummer heat could never quite dispel. But these upper heights were +now hidden in clouds and wraiths of frost fog, their faces shrouded in +this winter veil which--except for rare bursts of sunshine or sweeping +northwest wind--would not be lifted till the vernal equinox. + +It was very cold and very still, as if winter had laid a compelling +silence on everything in the land. Except the faint slapping of little +waves against the ice-encrusted, rocky shore, and the distant, harsh +voices of some wheeling gulls, there was no sound or echo of a sound, +as he stood listening. + +Yet Hollister was not oppressed by this chill solitude. In that +setting, silence was appropriate. It was merely unexpected. For so +long Hollister had lived amid blaring noises, the mechanical thunder +and lightning of the war, the rumble of industry, the shuffle and +clatter of crowds, he had forgotten what it was like to be alone,--and +in the most crowded places he had suffered the most grievous +loneliness. For the time being he was unconscious of his mutilation, +since there was no one by to remind him by look or act. He was only +aware of a curious interest in what he saw, a subdued wonder at the +majestic beauty and the profound hush, as if he had been suddenly +transferred from a place where life was maddeningly, distractingly +clamorous to a spot where life was mute. + +The head of Toba is neither a harbor nor a bay. One turns out of the +island-studded Gulf of Georgia into an arm of the sea a mile in +breadth. The cliffs and mountains grow higher, more precipitous mile +by mile, until the Inlet becomes a chasm with the salt water for its +floor. On past frowning points, around slow curves, boring farther and +farther into the mainland through a passage like a huge tunnel, the +roof of which has been blown away. Then suddenly there is an end to +the sea. Abruptly, a bend is turned, and great mountains bar the way, +peaks that lift from tidewater to treeless heights, formidable ranges +bearing upon their rocky shoulders the lingering remains of a glacial +age. The Inlet ends there, the seaway barred by these frowning +declivities. + +Hollister remembered the head of Toba after a fashion. He had the lay +of the land in his mind. He had never seen it in midwinter, but the +snow, the misty vapors drifting along the mountain sides, did not +confuse him. + +From the float he now perceived two openings in the mountain chain. +The lesser, coming in from the northwest, was little more than a deep +and narrow gash in the white-clad hills. On his right opened the +broader valley of the Toba River, up which he must go. + +For a space of perhaps five minutes Hollister stood gazing about him. +Then he was reminded of his immediate necessities by the chill that +crept over his feet,--for several inches of snow overlaid the planked +surface of the landing float. + +Knowing what he was about when he left Vancouver, Hollister had +brought with him a twenty-foot Hudson's Bay freight canoe, a capacious +shoal-water craft with high topsides. He slid this off the float, +loaded into it sundry boxes and packages, and taking his seat astern, +paddled inshore to where the rising tide was ruffled by the outsetting +current of a river. + +Here, under the steep shoulder of a mountain, rows of piles stood +gaunt above the tide flats. When Hollister had last seen the mouth of +the Toba, those same piles had been the support of long boom-sticks, +within which floated hundreds of logs. On the flat beside the river +there had stood the rough shacks of a logging camp. Donkey engines +were puffing and grunting in the woods. Now the booming ground was +empty, save for those decaying, teredo-eaten sticks, and the camp was +a tumbledown ruin when he passed. He wondered if the valley of the +Toba were wholly deserted, if the forests of virgin timber covering +the delta of that watercourse had been left to their ancient solitude. +But he did not stop to puzzle over this. In ten minutes he was over +the sandy bar at the river's mouth. The sea was hidden behind him. He +passed up a sluggish waterway lined by alder and maple, covered with +dense thickets, a jungle in which flourished the stalwart salmonberry +and the thorny sticks of the devil's club. Out of this maze of +undergrowth rose the tall brown columns of Douglas fir, of red cedar, +of spruce and hemlock with their drooping boughs. + +Sloughs branched off in narrow laterals, sheeted with thin ice, except +where the current kept it open, and out of these open patches flocks +of wild duck scattered with a whir of wings. A mile up-stream he +turned a bend and passed a Siwash rancheria. The bright eyes of little +brown-faced children peered shyly out at him from behind stumps. He +could see rows of split salmon hung by the tail to the beams of an +open-fronted smokehouse. Around another bend he came on a buck deer +standing knee-deep in the water, and at the sight of him the animal +snorted, leaped up the bank and vanished as silently as a shadow. + +Hollister marked all these things without ceasing to ply his paddle. +His objective lay some six miles up-stream. But when he came at last +to the upper limit of the tidal reach he found in this deep, slack +water new-driven piling and freshly strung boom-sticks and acres of +logs confined therein; also a squat motor tugboat and certain lesser +craft moored to these timbers. A little back from the bank he could +see the roofs of buildings. + +He stayed his paddle a second to look with a mild curiosity. Then he +went on. That human craving for companionship which had gained no +response in the cities of two continents had left him for the time +being. For that hour he was himself, sufficient unto himself. Here +probably a score of men lived and worked. But they were not men he +knew. They were not men who would care to know him,--not after a +clear sight of his face. + +Hollister did not say that to himself in so many words. He was only +subconsciously aware of this conclusion. Nevertheless it guided his +actions. Through long, bitter months he had rebelled against spiritual +isolation. The silent woods, the gray river, the cloud-wrapped hills +seemed friendly by comparison with mankind,--mankind which had marred +him and now shrank from its handiwork. + +So he passed by this community in the wilderness, not because he +wished to but because he must. + +Within half a mile he struck fast water, long straight reaches up +which he gained ground against the current by steady strokes of the +paddle, shallows where he must wade and lead his craft by hand. So he +came at last to the Big Bend of the Toba River, a great S curve where +the stream doubled upon itself in a mile-wide flat that had been +stripped of its timber and lay now an unlovely vista of stumps, each +with a white cap of snow. + +On the edge of this, where the river swung to the southern limit of +the valley and ran under a cliff that lifted a thousand foot sheer, he +passed a small house. Smoke drifted blue from the stovepipe. A pile of +freshly chopped firewood lay by the door. The dressed carcass of a +deer hung under one projecting eave. Between two stumps a string of +laundered clothes waved in the down-river breeze. By the garments +Hollister knew a woman must be there. But none appeared to watch him +pass. He did not halt, although the short afternoon was merging into +dusk and he knew the hospitality of those who go into lonely places to +wrest a living from an untamed land. But he could not bear the thought +of being endured rather than welcomed. He had suffered enough of that. +He was in full retreat from just that attitude. He was growing afraid +of contact with people, and he knew why he was afraid. + +When the long twilight was nearly spent, he gained the upper part of +the Big Bend and hauled his canoe out on the bank. A small flat ran +back to the mouth of a canyon, and through the flat trickled a stream +of clear water. + +Hollister built a fire on a patch of dry ground at the base of a +six-foot fir. He set up his tent, made his bed, cooked his supper, sat +with his feet to the fire, smoking a pipe. + +After four years of clamor and crowds, he marveled at the astonishing +contentment which could settle on him here in this hushed valley, +where silence rested like a fog. His fire was a red spot with a yellow +nimbus. Beyond that ruddy circle, valley and cliff and clouded sky +merged into an impenetrable blackness. Hollister had been cold and wet +and hungry. Now he was warm and dry and fed. He lay with his feet +stretched to the fire. For the time he almost ceased to think, +relaxed as he was into a pleasant, animal well-being. And so presently +he fell asleep. + +In winter, north of the forty-ninth parallel, and especially in those +deep clefts like the Toba, dusk falls at four in the afternoon, and +day has not grown to its full strength at nine in the morning. +Hollister had finished his breakfast before the first gleam of light +touched the east. When day let him see the Alpine crevasses that +notched the northern wall of the valley, he buckled on a belt that +carried a sheath-ax, took up his rifle and began first of all a +cursory exploration of the flat on which he camped. + +It seemed to him that in some mysterious way he was beginning his life +all over again,--that life which his reason, with cold, inexorable +logic, had classified as a hopeless ruin. He could not see wherein the +ruin was lessened by embarking upon this lone adventure into the +outlying places. Nevertheless, something about it had given a fillip +to his spirits. He felt that he would better not inquire too closely +into this; that too keen self-analysis was the evil from which he had +suffered and which he should avoid. But he said to himself that if he +could get pleasure out of so simple a thing as a canoe trip in a +lonely region, there was hope for him yet. And in the same breath he +wondered how long he could be sustained by that illusion. + +He had a blue-print of the area covering the Big Bend. That timber +limit which he had lightly purchased long ago, and which +unaccountably went begging a purchaser, lay south and a bit west from +where he set up his camp. He satisfied himself of that by the +blue-print and the staking description. The northeast corner stake +should stand not a great way back from the river bank. + +He had to find a certain particularly described cedar tree, thence +make his way south to a low cliff, at one extreme of which he should +find a rock cairn with a squared post in its center. From that he +could run his boundary lines with a pocket compass, until he located +the three remaining corners. + +Hollister found cedars enough, but none that pointed the way to a low +cliff and a rock cairn. He ranged here and there, and at last went up +the hillside which rose here so steeply as to be stiff climbing. It +bore here and there a massive tree, rough-barked pillars rising to a +branchy head two hundred feet in the air. But for the most part the +slope was clothed with scrubby hemlock and thickets of young fir and +patches of hazel, out of which he stirred a great many grouse and once +a deer. + +But if he found no stakes to show him the boundaries of his property, +he gained the upper rim of the high cliff which walled the southern +side of the Big Bend, and all the valley opened before him. Smoke +lifted in a pale spiral from the house below his camp. Abreast of the +log boom he had passed in the river, he marked the roofs of several +buildings, and back of the clearings in the logged-over land opened +white squares against the dusky green of the surrounding timber. He +perceived that a considerable settlement had arisen in the lower +valley, that the forest was being logged off, that land was being +cleared and cultivated. There was nothing strange in that. All over +the earth the growing pressure of population forced men continually to +invade the strongholds of the wilderness. Here lay fertile acres, +water, forests to supply timber, the highway of the sea to markets. +Only labor,--patient, unremitting labor--was needed to shape all that +great valley for cultivation. Cleared and put to the plow, it would +produce abundantly. A vast, fecund area out of which man, withdrawing +from the hectic pressure of industrial civilization, could derive +sustenance,--if he possessed sufficient hardihood to survive such +hardships and struggle as his forefathers had for their common lot. + +Hollister ranged the lower part of the hillside until hunger drove him +back to camp. And, as it sometimes happens that what a man fails to +come upon when he seeks with method and intent he stumbles upon by +accident, so now Hollister, coming heedlessly downhill, found the +corner stake he was seeking. With his belt-axe he blazed a trail from +this point to the flat below, so that he could find it again. + +He made no further explorations that afternoon. He spent a little time +in making his camp comfortable in ways known to any outdoor man. But +when day broke clear the following morning he was on the hill, compass +in hand, bearing due west from the original stake. He found the second +without much trouble. He ran a line south and east and north again and +so returned to his starting point by noon with two salient facts +outstanding in his mind. + +The first was that he suspected himself of having bought a poke which +contained a pig of doubtful value. This, if true, made plain the +difficulty of re-sale, and made him think decidedly unpleasant things +of "Lewis and Company, Specialists in B.C. Timber." The second was +that someone, within recent years, had cut timber on his limit. And it +was his timber. The possessive sense was fairly strong in Hollister, +as it usually is in men who have ever possessed any considerable +property. He did not like the idea of being cheated or robbed. In this +case there was superficial evidence that both these things had +happened to him. + +So when he had cooked himself a meal and smoked a pipe, he took to the +high ground again to verify or disprove these unwelcome conclusions. +In that huge and largely inaccessible region which is embraced within +the boundaries of British Columbia, in a land where the industrial +life-blood flows chiefly along two railways and three navigable +streams, there are many great areas where the facilities of +transportation are much as they were when British Columbia was a field +exploited only by trappers and traders. Settlement is still but a +fringe upon the borders of the wilderness. Individuals and +corporations own land and timber which they have never seen, sources +of material wealth acquired cheaply, with an eye to the future. Beyond +the railway belts, the navigable streams, the coastwise passages where +steamers come and go, there lies a vast hinterland where canoe and +pack-sack are still the mainstay of the traveler. + +In this almost primeval region the large-handed fashion of primitive +transactions is still in vogue. Men traffic in timber and mineral +stakings on the word of other men. The coastal slopes and valleys are +dotted with timber claims which have been purchased by men and +corporations in Vancouver and New York and London and Paris and +Berlin, bought and traded "sight unseen" as small boys swap +jackknives. There flourishes in connection with this, on the Pacific +coast, the business of cruising timber, a vocation followed by hardy +men prepared to go anywhere, any time, in fair weather or foul. +Commission such a man to fare into such a place, cruise such and such +areas of timber land, described by metes and bounds. This resourceful +surveyor-explorer will disappear. In the fullness of weeks he will +return, bearded and travel-worn. He will place in your hands a report +containing an estimate of so many million feet of standing fir, cedar, +spruce, hemlock, with a description of the topography, an opinion on +the difficulty or ease of the logging chance. + +On the British Columbia coast a timber cruiser's report comes in the +same category as a bank statement or a chartered accountant's audit of +books; that is to say, it is unquestionable, an authentic statement of +fact. + +Within the boundaries defined by the four stakes of the limit +Hollister owned there stood, according to the original cruising +estimate, eight million feet of merchantable timber, half fir, half +red cedar. The Douglas fir covered the rocky slopes and the cedar +lined the gut of a deep hollow which split the limit midway. It was +classed as a fair logging chance, since from that corner which dipped +into the flats of the Toba a donkey engine with its mile-long arm of +steel cable could snatch the logs down to the river, whence they would +be floated to the sea and towed to the Vancouver sawmills. + +Hollister had been guided by the custom of the country. He had put a +surplus fund of cash into this property in the persuasion that it +would resell at a profit, or that it could ultimately be logged at a +still greater profit. And this persuasion rested upon the cruising +estimate and the uprightness of "Lewis and Company, Specialists in +B.C. Timber, Investments, Etc." + +But Hollister had a practical knowledge of timber himself, acquired at +first hand. He had skirted his boundaries and traversed the fringes +of his property, and he saw scrubby, undersized trees where the +four-foot trunks of Douglas fir should have lifted in brown ranks. He +had looked into the bisecting hollow from different angles and marked +magnificent cedars,--but too few of them. Taken with the fact that +Lewis had failed to resell even at a reduced price, when standing +timber had doubled in value since the beginning of the war, Hollister +had grave doubts, which, however, he could not establish until he went +over the ground and made a rough estimate for himself. + +This other matter of timber cutting was one he could settle in short +order. It roused his curiosity. It gave him a touch of the resentment +which stirs a man when he suspects himself of being the victim of +pillaging vandals. No matter that despair had recently colored his +mental vision; the sense of property right still functioned +unimpaired. To be marred and impoverished and shunned as if he were a +monstrosity were accomplished facts which had weighed upon him, an +intolerable burden. He forgot that now. There was nothing much here to +remind him. He was free to react to this new sense of outrage, this +new evidence of mankind's essential unfairness. + +In the toll taken of his timber by these unwarranted operations there +was little to grieve over, he discovered before long. He had that +morning found and crossed, after a long, curious inspection, a chute +which debouched from the middle of his limit and dipped towards the +river bottom apparently somewhere above his camp. He knew that this +shallow trough built of slender poles was a means of conveying +shingle-bolts from the site of cutting to the water that should float +them to market. Earlier he had seen signs of felling among the cedars, +but only from a distance. He was not sure he had seen right until he +discovered the chute. + +So now he went back to the chute and followed its winding length until +it led into the very heart of the cedars in the hollow. Two or three +years had elapsed since the last tree was felled. Nor had there ever +been much inroad on the standing timber. Some one had begun operations +there and abandoned the work before enough timber had been cut to half +repay the labor of building that long chute. + +Nor was that all. In the edge of the workings the branches and litter +of harvesting those hoary old cedars had been neatly cleared from a +small level space. And on this space, bold against the white carpet of +snow, stood a small log house. + +Hollister pushed open the latched door and stepped into the musty +desolation of long abandoned rooms. It was neatly made, floored with +split cedar, covered by a tight roof of cedar shakes. Its tiny-paned +windows were still intact. Within, it was divided into two rooms. +There was no stove and there had never been a stove. A rough fireplace +of stone served for cooking. An iron bar crossed the fireplace and on +this bar still hung the fire-blackened pothooks. On nails and shelves +against the wall pans still hung and dishes stood thick with dust. On +a homemade bunk in one corner lay a mattress which the rats had +converted to their own uses, just as they had played havoc with papers +scattered about the floor and the oilcloth on the table. + +Hollister passed into the other room. This had been a bedroom, a +woman's bedroom. He guessed that by the remnants of fabric hanging +over the windows, as well as by a skirt and sunbonnet which still hung +from a nail. Here, too, was a bedstead with a rat-ruined mattress. And +upon a shelf over the bed was ranged a row of books, perhaps two dozen +volumes, which the rats had somehow respected,--except for sundry +gnawing at the bindings. + +Hollister took one down. He smiled; that is to say, his eyes smiled +and his features moved a little out of their rigid cast. Fancy finding +the _contes_ of August Strindberg, the dramatist, that genius of +subtle perception and abysmal gloom, here in this forsaken place. +Hollister fluttered the pages. Writing on the flyleaf caught his eye. +There was a date and below that: + + DORIS CLEVELAND--HER BOOK + +He took down the others, one by one,--an Iliad, a Hardy novel, "The +Way of All Flesh" between "Kim" and "The Pilgrim Fathers", a volume of +Swinburne rubbing shoulders with a California poet who sang of gibbous +moons, "The Ancient Lowly" cheek by jowl with "Two Years Before the +Mast." A catholic collection, with strong meat sandwiched between some +of the rat-gnawed covers. And each bore on the flyleaf the inscription +of the first, written in a clear firm hand: Doris Cleveland--Her Book. + +Hollister put the last volume back in place and stood staring at the +row. Who was Doris Cleveland and why had she left her books to the +rats? + +He gave over his wonder at the patently unanswerable, went out into +the living room, glanced casually over that once more, and so to the +outside where the snow crisped under his feet now that the sun had +withdrawn behind the hills. About the slashed area where the cedars +had fallen, over stumps and broken branches and the low roof of the +cabin, the virgin snow laid its softening whiteness, and the tall +trees enclosed the spot with living green. A hidden squirrel broke out +with brisk scolding, a small chirruping voice in a great silence. Here +men had lived and worked and gone their way again. The forest remained +as it was before. The thickets would soon arise to conceal man's +handiwork. + +Hollister shook off this fleeting impression of man's impermanence, +and turned downhill lest dark catch him in the heavy timber and make +him lose his way. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +A wind began to sigh among the trees as Hollister made his way +downhill. Over his evening fire he heard it grow to a lusty gale that +filled the valley all night with moaning noises. Fierce gusts +scattered the ashes of his fire and fluttered the walls of his tent as +though some strong-lunged giant were huffing and puffing to blow his +house down. At daylight the wind died. A sky banked solid with clouds +began to empty upon the land a steady downpour of rain. All through +the woods the sodden foliage dripped heavily. The snow melted, pouring +muddy cataracts out of each gully, making tiny cascades over the edge +of every cliff. Snowbanks slipped their hold on steep hillsides high +on the north valley wall. They gathered way and came roaring down out +of places hidden in the mist. Hollister could hear these slides +thundering like distant artillery. Watching that grim façade across +the river he saw, once or twice during the day, those masses plunge +and leap, ten thousand tons of ice and snow and rock and crushed +timber shooting over ledge and precipice to end with fearful crashing +and rumbling in the depth of a steep-walled gorge. + +He was tied to his camp. He could not stir abroad without more +discomfort than he cared to undergo. Every bush, every bough, would +precipitate upon him showers of drops at the slightest touch. He sat +by his fire in the mouth of the tent and smoked and thought of the +comfortable cabin up in the cedar hollow, and of Doris Cleveland's +books. He began by reflecting that he might have brought one down to +read. He ended before nightfall of a dull, rain-sodden day with a +resolution to move up there when the weather cleared. A tent was well +enough, but a house with a fireplace was better. + +The rain held forty-eight hours without intermission. Then, as if the +clouds had discharged their aqueous cargo and rode light as +unballasted ships, they lifted in aerial fleets and sailed away, white +in a blue sky. The sun, swinging in a low arc, cocked a lazy eye over +the southern peaks, and Hollister carried his first pack-load up to +the log cabin while the moss underfoot, the tree trunks, the green +blades of the salal, and the myriad stalks of the low thickets were +still gleaming with the white frost that came with a clearing sky. + +He began with the idea of carrying up his blankets and three or four +days' food. He ended by transporting up that steep slope everything +but his canoe and the small tent. It might be, he said to himself as +he lugged load after load, just a whim, a fancy, but he was free to +act on a whim or a fancy, as free as if he were in the first blush of +careless, adventurous youth,--freer, because he had none of the +impatient hopes and urges and dreams of youth. He was finished, he +told himself in a transient mood of bitterness. Why should he be +governed by practical considerations? He was here, alone in the +unsentient, uncritical forest. It did not matter to any one whether he +came or stayed. To himself it mattered least of all, he thought. There +was neither plan nor purpose nor joy in his existence, save as he +conceived the first casually, or snatched momentarily at the other in +such simple ways as were available to him here,--here where at least +there was no one and nothing to harass him, where he was surrounded by +a wild beauty that comforted him in some fashion beyond his +understanding. + +When he had brought the last of his food supply up to the cabin, he +hauled the canoe back into a thicket and covered it with the glossy +green leaves of the salal. He folded his tent in a tight bundle and +strung it to a bough with a wire, out of reach of the wood rats. + +These tasks completed, he began his survey of the standing timber on +his limit. + +At best he could make only a rough estimate, less accurate than a +professional cruiser's would be, but sufficient to satisfy him. In a +week he was reasonably certain that the most liberal estimate left +less than half the quantity of merchantable timber for which he had +paid good money. The fir, as a British Columbia logging chance, was +all but negligible. What value resided there lay in the cedar alone. + +By the time he had established this, the clear, cold, sunny days came +to an end. Rain began to drizzle half-heartedly out of a murky sky. +Overnight the rain changed to snow, great flat flakes eddying +soundlessly earthward in an atmosphere uncannily still. For two days +and a night this ballet of the snowflakes continued, until valley and +slope and the high ridges were two feet deep in the downy white. + +Then the storm which had been holding its breath broke with singular +fury. The frost bared its teeth. The clouds still volleyed, but their +discharge now filled the air with harsh, minute particles that stung +bare skin like hot sand blown from a funnel. The wind shrieked its +whole tonal gamut among the trees. It ripped the clinging masses of +snow from drooping bough and exposed cliff and flung it here and there +in swirling clouds. And above the treble voices of the storm +Hollister, from the warm security of the cabin, could hear the +intermittent rumbling of terrific slides. He could feel faint tremors +in the earth from the shock of the arrested avalanche. + +This elemental fury wore itself out at last. The wind shrank to chill +whisperings. But the sky remained gray and lowering, and the great +mountain ranges--white again from foot to crest, save where the slides +had left gashes of brown earth and bare granite--were wrapped in +winter mists, obscuring vapors that drifted and opened and closed +again. Hollister could stir abroad once more. His business there was +at an end. But he considered with reluctance a return to Vancouver. +He was not happy. He was merely passive. It did not matter to anyone +where he went. It did not matter much to himself. He was as well here +as elsewhere until some substantial reason or some inner spur rowelled +him into action. + +Here there was no one to look askance at his disfigurement. He was +less alone than he would be in town, for he found a subtle sense of +companionship in this solitude, as if the dusky woods and those grim, +aloof peaks accepted him for what he was, discounting all that +misfortune which had visited him in the train of war. He knew that was +sheer fantasy, but a fantasy that lent him comfort. + +So he stayed. He had plenty of material resources, a tight warm house, +food. He had reckoned on staying perhaps a month. He found now that +his estimate of a month's staples was away over the mark. He could +subsist two months. With care he could stretch it to three, for there +was game on that southern slope,--deer and the white mountain goat and +birds. He hunted the grouse at first, but that gave small return for +ammunition expended, although the flesh of the blue and willow grouse +is pleasant fare. When the big storm abated he looked out one clear +dawn and saw a buck deer standing in the open. At a distance of sixty +yards he shot the animal, not because he hankered to kill, but because +he needed meat. So under the cabin eaves he had quarters of venison, +and he knew that he could go abroad on that snowy slope and stalk a +deer with ease. There was a soothing pleasantness about a great blaze +crackling in the stone fireplace. And he had Doris Cleveland's books. + +Yes, Hollister reiterated to himself, it was better than a bedroom off +the blank corridor of a second-rate hotel and the crowded streets that +were more merciless to a stricken man than these silent places. +Eventually he would have to go back. But for the present,--well, he +occupied himself wholly with the present, and he did not permit +himself to look far beyond. + +From the deerskin he cut a quantity of fine strips and bent into oval +shape two tough sticks of vine maple. Across these he strung a web of +rawhide, thus furnishing himself with a pair of snowshoes which were a +necessity now that the snow lay everywhere knee-deep and in many +places engulfed him to the waist when he went into the woods. + +It pleased him to go on long snowshoe hikes. He reached far up the +ridges that lifted one after another behind his timber. Once he gained +a pinnacle, a solitary outstanding hummock of snow-bound granite +rising above all the rest, rising above all the surrounding forest. +From this summit he gained an eagle's view. The long curve of Toba +Inlet wound like a strip of jade away down to where the islands of the +lower gulf spread with channels of the sea between. He could see the +twin Redondas, Cortez, Raza, the round blob that was Hernando,--a +picturesque nomenclature that was the inheritance of Spanish +exploration before the time of Drake. Beyond the flat reaches of +Valdez, Vancouver Island, an empire in itself, lifted its rocky +backbone, a misty purple against the western sky. He watched a +steamer, trailing a black banner of smoke, slide through Baker Pass. + +Out there men toiled at fishing; the woods echoed with the ring of +their axes and the thin twanging of their saws; there would be the +clank of machinery and the hiss of steam. But it was all hidden and +muffled in those vast distances. He swung on his heel. Far below, the +houses of the settlement in the lower Toba sent up blue wisps of +smoke. To his right ran with many a twist and turn the valley itself, +winding away into remote fastnesses of the Coast Range, a strip of +level, fertile, timbered land, abutted upon by mountains that shamed +the Alps for ruggedness,--mountains gashed by slides, split by gloomy +crevasses, burdened with glaciers which in the heat of summer spewed +foaming cataracts over cliffs a thousand foot sheer. + + "Where the hill-heads split the tide + Of green and living air, + I would press Adventure hard + To her deepest lair. + + I would let the world's rebuke + Like a wind go by, + With my naked soul laid bare + To the naked sky." + +Out of some recess in his memory, where they had fixed themselves long +before, those lines rose to Hollister's lips. And he looked a long +time before he turned downhill. + +A week passed. Once more the blustery god of storms asserted his +dominion, leaving the land, when he passed, a foot deeper in snow. If +he had elected to stay there from choice, Hollister now kept close to +his cabin from necessity, for passage with his goods to the steamer +landing would have been a journey of more hardships than he cared to +undertake. The river was a sheet of ice except over the shallow +rapids. Cold winds whistled up and down the Toba. Once or twice on +clear days he climbed laboriously to a great height and felt the cold +pressure of the northwest wind as he stood in the open; and through +his field glasses he could see the Inlet and the highroads of the sea +past the Inlet's mouth all torn by surging waves that reared and broke +in flashing crests of foam. So he sat in the cabin and read Doris +Cleveland's books one after another--verse, philosophy, fiction--and +when physical inaction troubled him he cut and split and piled +firewood far beyond his immediate need. He could not sit passive too +long. Enforced leisure made too wide a breach in his defenses, and +through that breach the demons of brooding and despondency were quick +to enter. When neither books nor self-imposed tasks about the cabin +served, he would take his rifle in hand, hook on the snowshoes, and +trudge far afield in the surrounding forest. + +On one of these journeys he came out upon the rim of the great cliff +which rose like a wall of masonry along the southern edge of the flats +in the Big Bend. It was a clear day. Hollister had a pair of very +powerful binoculars. He gazed from this height down on the settlement, +on the reeking chimneys of those distant houses, on the tiny black +objects that were men moving against a field of white. He could hear a +faint whirring which he took to be the machinery of a sawmill. He +could see on the river bank and at another point in the nearby woods +the feathery puff of steam. He often wondered about these people, +buried, like himself, in this snow-blanketed and mountain-ringed +remoteness. Who were they? What manner of folk were they? He trifled +with this curiosity. But it did not seriously occur to him that by two +or three hours' tramping he could answer these idle speculations at +first hand. Or if it did occur to him he shrank from the undertaking +as one shrinks from a dubious experiment which has proved a failure in +former trials. + +But this day, under a frosty sky in which a February sun hung +listless, Hollister turned his glasses on the cabin of the settler +near his camp. He was on the edge of the cliff, so close that when he +dislodged a fragment of rock it rolled over the brink, bounded once +from the cliff's face, and after a lapse that grew to seconds struck +with a distant thud among the timber at the foot of the precipice. +Looking down through the binoculars it was as if he sat on the topmost +bough of a tall tree in the immediate neighborhood of the cabin, +although he was fully half a mile distant. He could see each garment +of a row on a line. He could distinguish colors--a blue skirt, the +deep green of salal and second-growth cedar, the weathered hue of the +walls. + +And while he stared a woman stepped out of the doorway and stood +looking, turning her head slowly until at last she gazed steadily up +over the cliff-brow as if she might be looking at Hollister himself. +He sat on his haunches in the snow, his elbows braced on his knees, +and trained the powerful lenses upon her. In a matter of half a minute +her gaze shifted, turned back to the river. She shrugged her +shoulders, or perhaps it was a shiver born of the cold, and then went +back inside. + +Hollister rested the binoculars upon his knee. His face did not alter. +Facile expression was impossible to that marred visage. Pain or anger +or sorrow could no longer write its message there for the casual +beholder to read. The thin, twisted remnants of his lips could tighten +a little, and that was all. + +But his eyes, which had miraculously escaped injury, could still glow +with the old fire, or grow dull and lifeless, giving some index to the +mutations of his mind. And those darkly blue eyes, undimmed beacons +amid the wreckage of his features, burned and gleamed now with a +strange fire. + +The woman who had been standing there staring up the hillside, with +the sun playing hide and seek in her yellow hair, was Myra Hollister, +his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Hollister sat in the snow, his gaze fixed upon this house on the river +bank, wrestling with all the implications of this incredible +discovery. He could neither believe what he had seen nor deny the +evidence of his vision. He kept watch, with the glasses ready to fix +upon the woman if she emerged again. But she did not reappear. The +cold began to chill his body, to stiffen his limbs. He rose at last +and made his way along the cliff, keeping always a close watch on the +house below until he came abreast of his own quarters and turned +reluctantly into the hollow where the cedars masked the log cabin. + +He cooked a meal and ate his food in a mechanical sort of abstraction, +troubled beyond measure, rousing himself out of periods of +concentration in which there seemed, curiously, to be two of him +present,--one questioning and wondering, the other putting forward +critical and sneering answers, pointing out the folly of his wonder. + +In the end he began to entertain a real doubt not only of the +correctness of his sight, but also of his sanity. For it was clearly +impossible, his reason insisted, that Myra would be pioneering in +those snowy solitudes, that she should live in a rude shack among +stumps on the fringe of a wilderness. She had been a creature of +luxury. Hollister could not conceive a necessity for her doing this. +He had so arranged his affairs when he went to France that she had +access to and complete control of his fortune. When she disclosed to +him by letter the curious transformation of her affections, he had not +revoked that arrangement. In the bewildering shock of that disclosure +his first thought had not been a concern for his property. And the +official report of him as killed in action which followed so soon +after had allowed her to reap the full benefit of this situation. When +she left London, if indeed she had left London, with her new associate +in the field of emotion she had at least forty-five thousand dollars +in negotiable securities. + +And if so--then why? + +Hollister's reason projected him swiftly and surely out of pained and +useless speculation into forthright doing. From surety of what he had +seen he passed to doubt, to uneasiness about himself: for if he could +not look at a fair-haired woman without seeing Myra's face, then he +must be going mad. He must know, beyond any equivocation. + +There was a simple way to know, and that way Hollister took while the +embers of his noonday fire still glowed red on the hearth. He took his +glasses and went down to the valley floor. + +It would have been a simple matter and the essence of directness to +walk boldly up and rap at the door. Certainly he would not be +recognized. He could account for himself as a traveler in need of +matches, some trifling thing to be borrowed. The wilderness is a +destroyer of conventions. The passer-by needs to observe no ceremony. +He comes from nowhere and passes into the unknown, unquestioned as to +his name, his purpose, or his destination. That is the way of all +frontiers. + +But Hollister wished to see without being seen. He did not know why. +He did not attempt to fathom his reluctance for open approach. In the +social isolation which his disfigurement had inflicted upon him, +Hollister had become as much guided by instinct in his actions and +impulses as by any coldly reasoned process. He was moved to his +stealthy approach now by an instinct which he obeyed as blindly as the +crawling worm. + +He drew up within fifty yards of the house, moving furtively through +thickets that screened him, and took up his post beside a stump. He +peered through the drooping boughs of a clump of young cedar. There, +in perfect concealment, hidden as the deer hides to let a roving +hunter pass, Hollister watched with a patience which was proof against +cold, against the discomfort of snow that rose to his thighs. + +For an hour he waited. Except for the wavering smoke from the +stovepipe, the place might have been deserted. The house was one with +the pervading hush of the valley. Hollister grew numb. But he held his +post. And at last the door opened and the woman stood framed in the +opening. + +She poised for an instant on the threshold, looking across the river. +Her gaze pivoted slowly until it encompassed the arc of a half-circle, +so that she faced Hollister squarely. He had the binoculars focused on +her face. It seemed near enough to touch. Then she took a step or two +gingerly in the snow, and stooping, picked up a few sticks from a pile +of split wood. The door closed upon her once more. + +Hollister turned upon the instant, retraced his steps across the flat, +gained the foot of the steep hill and climbed step by step with +prodigious effort in the deep snow until he reached the cabin. + +He had reaffirmed the evidence of his eyes, and was no longer troubled +by the vague fear that a disordered imagination had played him a +disturbing trick. He had looked on his wife's face beyond a question. +He accepted this astounding fact as a man must accept the indubitable. +She was here in the flesh,--this fair-haired, delicate-skinned woman +whose arms and lips had once been his sure refuge. Here, in a rude +cabin on the brink of a frozen river, chance had set her neighbor to +him. To what end Hollister neither knew nor wished to inquire. He said +to himself that it did not matter. He repeated this aloud. He believed +it to be true. How _could_ it matter now? + +But he found that it did matter in a way that he had not reckoned +upon. For he found that he could not ignore her presence there. He +could not thrust her into the outer darkness beyond the luminous +circle of his thoughts. She haunted him with a troublesome insistence. +He had loved her. She had loved him. If that love had gone glimmering +there still remained memory from which he could not escape, memories +of caresses and embraces, of mutual passion, of all they had been to +each other through a time when they desired only to be all things to +each other. These things arose like ghosts out of forgotten chambers +in his mind. He could not kill memory, and since he was a man, a +physically perfect man, virile and unspent, memory tortured him. + +He could not escape the consequences of being, the dominant impulses +of life. No normal man can. He may think he can. He may rest secure +for a time in that belief,--but it will fail him. And of this +Hollister now became aware. + +He made every effort to shake off this new besetment, this fresh +assault upon the tranquility he had attained. But he could not abolish +recollection. He could not prevent his mind from dwelling upon this +woman who had once meant so much to him, nor his flesh from responding +to the stimulus of her nearness. When a man is thirsty he must drink. +When he is hungry food alone can satisfy that hunger. And there arose +in Hollister that ancient sex-hunger from which no man may escape. + +It had been dormant in him for a time; dormant but not dead. In all +his life Hollister had never gone about consciously looking upon women +with a lustful eye. But he understood life, its curious +manifestations, its sensory demands, its needs. For a long time pain, +grief, suffering of body and anguish of mind had suppressed in him +every fluttering of desire. He had accepted that apparent snuffing out +of passion thankfully. Where, he had said to himself when he thought +of this, where would he find such a woman as he could love who would +find pleasure in the embrace of a marred thing like himself? Ah, no. +He had seen them shrink too often from mere sight of his twisted face. +The fruits of love were not for the plucking of such as he. Therefore +he was glad that the urge of sex no longer troubled him. + +Yet here in a brief span, amid these silent hills and dusky forests +where he had begun to perceive that life might still have +compensations for him, this passivity had been overthrown, swept away, +destroyed. He could not look out over the brow of that cliff without +thinking of the woman in the valley below. He could not think of her +without the floodgates of his recollection loosing their torrents. He +had slept with her head pillowed in the crook of his arm. He had been +wakened by the warm pressure of her lips on his. All the tender +intimacies of their life together had lurked in his subconsciousness, +to rise and torture him now. + +And it was torture. He would tramp far along those slopes and when he +looked too long at some distant peak he would think of Myra. He would +sit beside his fireplace with one of Doris Cleveland's books in his +hand and the print would grow blurred and meaningless. In the glow of +the coals Myra's face would take form and mock him with a seductive +smile. Out of the gallery of his mind pictures would come trooping, +and in each the chief figure was that fair-haired woman who had been +his wife. At night while he slept, he was hounded by dreams in which +the conscious repression of his waking hours went by the board and he +was delivered over to the fantastic deviltries of the subconscious. + +Hollister had never been a sentimental fool, nor a sensualist whose +unrestrained passions muddied the streams of his thought. But he was a +man, aware of both mind and body. Neither functioned mechanically. +Both were complex. By no effort of his will could he command the blood +in his veins to course less hotly. By no exercise of any power he +possessed could he force his mind always to do his bidding. He did not +love this woman whose nearness so profoundly disturbed him. Sometimes +he hated her consciously, with a volcanic intensity that made his +fingers itch for a strangling grip upon her white throat. She had +ripped up by the roots his faith in life and love at a time when he +sorely needed that faith, when the sustaining power of some such faith +was his only shield against the daily impact of bloodshed and +suffering and death, of all the nerve-shattering accompaniments of +war. + +Yet he suffered from the spur of her nearness, those haunting pictures +of her which he could not bar out of his mind, those revived memories +of alluring tenderness, of her clinging to him with soft arms and +laughter on her lips. + +He would stand on the rim of the cliff, looking down at the house by +the river, thinking the unthinkable, attracted and repulsed, a victim +to his imagination and the fever of his flesh, until it seemed to him +sometimes that in the loaded chamber of his rifle lay the only sure +avenue of escape from these vain longings, from unattainable desire. + +Slowly a desperate resolution formed within his seething brain, +shadowy at first, recurring again and again with insistent persuasion, +until it no longer frightened him as it did at first, no longer made +him shrink and feel a loathing of himself. + +She was his wife. She had ceased to care for him. She had given +herself to another man. No matter, she was still his. Legally, beyond +any shadow of a doubt. The law and the Church had joined them +together. Neither man nor God had put them asunder, and the law had +not released them from their bonds. Then, if he wanted her, why should +he not take her? + +Watching the house day after day, hours at a stretch, Hollister +brooded over this new madness. But it no longer seemed to him madness. +It came to seem fit and proper, a matter well within his rights. He +postulated a hypothetical situation; if he, officially dead, +resurrected himself and claimed her, who was there to say him nay if +he demanded and exacted a literal fulfilment of her solemn covenant to +"love, honor, and obey?" She herself? Hollister snapped his fingers. +The man she lived with? Hollister dismissed him with an impatient +gesture. + +The purely animal man, which is never wholly extinguished, which +merely lurks unsuspected under centuries of cultural veneer to rise +lustily when slowly acquired moralities shrivel in the crucible of +passion, now began to actuate Hollister with a strange cunning, a +ferocity of anticipation. He would repossess himself of this +fair-haired woman. And she should have no voice in the matter. Very +well. But how? + +That was simplicity itself. No one knew such a man as he was in the +Toba country. All these folk in the valley below went about +unconscious of his existence in that cabin well hidden among the great +cedars. All he required was the conjunction of a certain kind of +weather and the absence of the man. Falling snow to cover the single +track that should lead to this cabin, to bury the dual footprints that +should lead away. The absence of the man was to avoid a clash: not +because Hollister feared that; simply because in his mind the man was +not a factor to be considered, except as the possibility of his +interference should be most easily avoided. Because if he did +interfere he might have to kill him, and that was a complication he +did not wish to invoke. Somehow he felt no grudge against this man, +no jealousy. + +The man's absence was a common occurrence. Hollister had observed that +nearly every day he was abroad in the woods with a gun. For the +obscuring storm, the obliterating snowfall, he would have to wait. + +All this, every possible contingency, took form as potential action in +his obsessed mind,--with neither perception nor consideration of +consequences. The consummation alone urged him. The most primitive +instinct swayed him. The ultimate consequences were as nothing. + +This plan was scarcely formed in Hollister's brain before he modified +it. He could not wait for that happy conjunction of circumstances +which favored action. He must create his own circumstances. This he +readily perceived as the better plan. When he sought a way it was +revealed to him. + +A few hundred yards above the eastern limit of the flat where his +canoe was cached, there jutted into the river a low, rocky point. From +the river back to the woods the wind had swept the bald surface of +this little ridge clear of snow. He could go down over those sloping +rocks to the glare ice of the river. He could go and come and leave no +footprints, no trace. There would be no mark to betray, unless a +searcher ranged well up the hillside and so came upon his track. + +And if a man, searching for this woman, bore up the mountain side and +came at last to the log cabin--what would he find? Only another man +who had arisen after being dead and had returned to take possession of +his own! + +Hollister threw back his head and burst into sardonic laughter. It +pleased him, this devastating jest which he was about to perpetrate +upon his wife and her lover. + +From the seclusion of the timber behind this point of rocks he set +himself to watch through his glasses the house down the river. The +second day of keeping this vigil he saw the man leave the place, gun +in hand, cross on the river ice and vanish in the heavy timber of that +wide bottom land. Hollister did not know what business took him on +these recurrent absences; hunting, he guessed, but he had noted that +the man seldom returned before late in the afternoon, and sometimes +not till dusk. + +He waited impatiently for an hour. Then he went down to the frozen +river. Twenty minutes' rapid striding brought him to the door of the +house. + +The place was roughly built of split cedar. A door and a window faced +the river. The window was uncurtained, a bald square of glass. The sun +had grown to some little strength. The air that morning had softened +to a balminess like spring. Hollister had approached unseen over snow +softened by this warmth until it lost its frosty crispness underfoot. +Now, through the uncurtained window, his gaze marked a section of the +interior, and what he saw stayed the hand he lifted to rap on the +door. + +A man young, smooth-faced, dark almost to swarthiness, sat on a bench +beside a table on which stood the uncleared litter of breakfast. And +Myra sat also at the table with one corner of it between them. She +leaned an elbow on the board and nursed her round chin in the palm of +that hand, while the other was imprisoned between the two clasped +hands of the man. He was bending over this caught hand, leaning +eagerly toward her, speaking rapidly. + +Myra sat listening. Her lips were slightly parted. Her eyelids +drooped. Her breast rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic heave. Otherwise +she was motionless and faintly smiling, as if she were given up to +some blissful languor. And the man spoke on, caressing her imprisoned +hand, stroking it, looking at her with the glow of conquest in his hot +eyes. + +Hollister leaned on the muzzle of his grounded rifle, staring through +the window. He could see their lips move. He could hear faintly the +tense murmur of the man's voice. He saw the man bend his head and +press a kiss on the imprisoned hand. + +He turned softly and went down the bank to the river and walked away +over the ice. When he had put five hundred yards between himself and +that house, he turned to look back. He put his hand to his face and +wiped away drops of sweat, a clammy exudation that broke out all over +his body very much as if he had just become aware of escaping by a +hair's breadth some imminent and terrible disaster. In truth that was +precisely his feeling,--as if he had been capering madly on the brink +of some fearful abyss which he could not see until it was revealed to +him in a terrifying flash. + +He shivered. His ego grovelled in the dirt. He had often smiled at +theories of dual personality. But standing there on the frozen stream +with the white hills looming high above the green-forested lowlands he +was no longer sure of anything, least of all whether in him might lurk +a duality of forces which could sway him as they would. Either that, +or he had gone mad for a while, a brief madness born of sex-hunger, of +isolation, of brooding over unassuaged bitterness. + +Perhaps he might have done what he set out to do if the man had not +been there. But he did not think so now. The brake of his real manhood +had begun to set upon those wild impulses before he drew up to the +door and looked in the window. What he saw there only cleared with a +brusque hand the cobwebs from his brain. + +Fundamentally, Hollister hated trickery, deceit, unfairness, +double-dealing. In his normal state he would neither lie, cheat, nor +steal. He had grown up with a natural tendency to regard his own +ethics as the common attribute of others. There had somehow been born +in him, or had developed as an intrinsic part of his character early +in life, a child-like, trustful quality of faith in human goodness. +And that faith had begun to reel under grievous blows dealt it in the +last four years. + +Myra was not worth the taking, even if he had a legal and moral right +to take her (not that he attempted to justify himself now by any such +sophistry). She could not be faithful, it seemed, even to a chosen +lover. The man into whose eyes she gazed with such obvious +complaisance was not the man she lived with in that house on the river +bank. Hollister had watched him through the glasses often enough to +know. He was a tall, ruddy-faced man, a big man and handsome. +Hollister had looked at him often enough, reckoning him to be an +Englishman, the man Myra married in London, the man for whom she had +conceived such a passion that she had torn Hollister's heart by the +brutal directness of her written avowal. Hollister had watched him +swinging his ax on the woodpile, going off on those long tramps in the +bottom land. He might be within gunshot of the house at this moment. + +Hollister found himself pitying this man. He found himself wondering +if it had always been that way with Myra, if she were the helpless +victim of her own senses. There were women like that. Plenty of them. +Men too. Sufferers from an overstimulated sexuality. He could not +doubt that. He suspected that he was touched with it himself. + +What a muddle life was, Hollister reflected sadly, looking down from +the last opening before he plunged into the cedar grove that hid the +log cabin. Here, amid this wild beauty, this grandeur of mountain and +forest, this silent land virginal in its winter garment, human +passion, ancient as the hills themselves, functioned in the old, old +way. + +But he did not expend much thought on mere generalizations. The +problem of Myra and her lovers was no longer his problem; their +passions and pains were not his. Hollister understood very clearly +that he had escaped an action that might have had far-reaching +consequences. He was concerned with his escape and also with the +possible recurrence of that strange obsession, or mood, or madness, or +whatever it was that had so warped his normal outlook that he could +harbor such thoughts and plan such deeds. He did not want to pass +through that furnace again. + +He had had enough of the Toba Valley. No, he modified that. The valley +and the sentinel peaks that stood guard over it, the lowlands duskily +green and full of balsamy odors from the forest, was still a goodly +place to be. But old sins and sorrows and new, disturbing phases of +human passion were here at his elbow to dispel the restful peace he +had won for a little while. He must escape from that. + +To go was not so simple as his coming. The river was frozen, that +watery highway closed. But he solved the problem by knowledge gained +in those casual wanderings along the ridge above the valley. He knew +a direct way of gaining the Inlet head on foot. + +So he spent a last night before the fireplace, staring silently into +the dancing blaze, seeing strange visions in the glowing coals, lying +down to heavy, dreamless sleep at last in his bunk. + +At daybreak he struck out westward along the great cliff that frowned +on the Big Bend, his blankets and a small emergency supply of food in +a bulky pack upon his shoulders. When the sheer face of the cliff ran +out to a steep, scrubbily timbered hillside, he dropped down to the +valley floor and bore toward the river through a wide flat. Here he +moved through a forest of cedar and spruce so high and dense that no +ray of sun ever penetrated through those interlocked branches to warm +the earth in which those enormous trunks were rooted. Moss hung in +streamers from the lower boughs. It was dusky there in full day. The +wild things of the region made this their sanctuary. Squirrels scolded +as he passed. The willow grouse tamely allowed him to approach within +twenty feet before they fluttered to the nearest thicket. The deep +snow was crisscrossed by the tracks of innumerable deer driven down +from the highlands by the deeper snow above. + +For a time, in this shadowy temple of the pagan gods, Hollister was +forced to depend on a pocket compass to hold a course in the direction +he wished to go. But at last he came out in a slashing, a place where +loggers had been recently at work. Here a donkey engine stood black +and cold on its skids, half-buried in snow. Beyond this working a +clear field opened, and past the field he saw the outline of the +houses on the river bank and he bore straight for these to learn upon +what days the steamer touched the head of Toba and how he might best +gain that float upon which he had disembarked two months before. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Hollister stowed his pack in the smoking room and stood outside by the +rail, watching the Toba Valley fall astern, a green fissure in the +white rampart of the Coast Range. Chance, the inscrutable arbiter of +human destinies, had directed him that morning to a man cutting wood +on the bank of the river close by that cluster of houses where other +men stirred about various tasks, where there must have been wives and +mothers, for he saw a dozen children at play by a snow fort. + +"Steamer?" the man answered Hollister's inquiry. "Say, if you want to +catch her, you just about got time. Two fellows from here left awhile +ago. If you hurry, maybe you can catch 'em. If you catch 'em before +they get out over the bar, they'll give you a lift to the float. If +you don't, you're stuck for a week. There's only one rowboat down +there." + +Hollister had caught them. + +He took a last, thoughtful look. Over the vessel's bubbling wake he +could see the whole head of the Inlet deep in winter snows,--a white +world, coldly aloof in its grandeur. It was beautiful, full of the +majesty of serene distances, of great heights. It stood forth clothed +with the dignity of massiveness, of permanence. It was as it had been +for centuries, calm and untroubled, unmoved by floods and slides, by +fires and slow glacial changes. Yes, it was beautiful and Hollister +looked a long time, for he was not sure he would see it again. He had +a canoe and a tent cached in that silent valley, but for these alone +he would not return. Neither the ownership of that timber which he now +esteemed of doubtful value nor the event of its sale would require his +presence there. + +He continued to stare with an absent look in his eyes until a crook in +the Inlet hid those white escarpments and outstanding peaks, and the +Inlet walls--themselves lifting to dizzy heights that were shrouded in +rolling mist--marked the limit of his visual range. The ship's bell +tinkled the noon hour. A white-jacketed steward walked the decks, +proclaiming to all and sundry that luncheon was being served. +Hollister made his way to the dining saloon. + +The steamer was past Salmon Bay when he returned above decks to lean +on the rail, watching the shores flit by, marking with a little wonder +the rapid change in temperature, the growing mildness in the air as +the steamer drew farther away from the gorge-like head of Toba with +its aerial ice fields and snowy slopes. Twenty miles below Salmon Bay +the island-dotted area of the Gulf of Georgia began. There a snowfall +seldom endured long, and the teeth of the frost were blunted by +eternal rains. There the logging camps worked full blast the year +around, in sunshine and drizzle and fog. All that region bordering on +the open sea bore a more genial aspect and supported more people and +industries in scattered groups than could be found in any of those +lonely inlets. + +Hollister was not thinking particularly of these things. He had eaten +his meal at a table with half a dozen other men. In the saloon +probably two score others applied themselves, with more diligence than +refinement, to their food. There was a leavening of women in this male +mass of loggers, fishermen, and what-not. A buzz of conversation +filled the place. But Hollister was not a participant. He observed +casual, covert glances at his disfigured face, that disarrangement of +his features and marring of his flesh which made men ill at ease in +his presence. He felt a recurrence of the old protest against this. He +experienced a return of that depression which had driven him out of +Vancouver. It was a disheartenment from which nothing in the future, +no hope, no dream, could deliver him. He was as he was. He would +always be like that. The finality of it appalled him. + +After a time he became aware of a young woman leaning, like himself, +against the rail a few feet distant. He experienced a curious degree +of self-consciousness as he observed her. The thought crossed his mind +that presently she would look at him and move away. When she did not, +his eyes kept coming back to her with the involuntary curiosity of +the casual male concerning the strange female. She was of medium +height, well-formed, dressed in a well-tailored gray suit. Under the +edges of a black velvet turban her hair showed glossy brown in a +smooth roll. She had one elbow propped on the rail and her chin +nestled in the palm. Hollister could see a clean-cut profile, the +symmetrical outline of her nose, one delicately colored cheek above +the gloved hand and a neckpiece of dark fur. + +He wondered what she was so intent upon for so long, leaning immobile +against that wooden guard. He continued to watch her. Would she +presently bestow a cursory glance upon him and withdraw to some other +part of the ship? Hollister waited for that with moody expectation. He +found himself wishing to hear her voice, to speak to her, to have her +talk to him. But he did not expect any such concession to a whimsical +desire. + +Nevertheless the unexpected presently occurred. The girl moved +slightly. A hand-bag slipped from under her arm to the deck. She +half-turned, seemed to hesitate. Instinctively, as a matter of common +courtesy to a woman, Hollister took a step forward, picked it up. +Quite as instinctively he braced himself, so to speak, for the shocked +look that would gather like a shadow on her piquant face. + +But it did not come. The girl's gaze bore imperturbably upon him as he +restored the hand-bag to her hand. The faintest sort of smile lurked +about the corners of a pretty mouth. Her eyes were a cloudy gray. They +seemed to look out at the world with a curious impassivity. That much +Hollister saw in a fleeting glance. + +"Thanks, very much," she said pleasantly. + +Hollister resumed his post against the rail. His movement had brought +him nearer, so that he stood now within arm's length, and his interest +in her had awakened, become suddenly intense. He felt a queer +thankfulness, a warm inward gratefulness, that she had been able to +regard his disfigurement unmoved. He wondered how she could. For +months he had encountered women's averted faces, the reluctant glances +of mingled pity and distaste which he had schooled himself to expect +and endure but which he never ceased to resent. This girl's uncommon +self-possession at close contact with him was a puzzle as well as a +pleasure. A little thing, to be sure, but it warmed Hollister. It was +like an unexpected gleam of sunshine out of a sky banked deep with +clouds. + +Presently, to his surprise, the girl spoke to him. + +"Are we getting near the Channel Islands?" + +She was looking directly at him, and Hollister was struck afresh with +the curious quality of her gaze, the strangely unperturbed directness +of her eyes upon him. He made haste to answer her question. + +"We'll pass between them in another mile. You can see the western +island a little off our starboard bow." + +"I should be very glad if I could; but I shall have to take your word +for its being there." + +"I'm afraid I don't quite understand." + +A smile spread over her face at the puzzled tone. + +"I'm blind," she explained, with what struck Hollister as infinite +patience. "If my eyes were not sightless, I shouldn't have to ask a +stranger about the Channel Islands. I used to be able to see them well +enough." + +Hollister stared at her. He could not associate those wide gray eyes +with total darkness. He could scarcely make himself comprehend a world +devoid of light and color, an existence in which one felt and breathed +and had being amid eternal darkness. Yet for the moment he was selfish +enough to feel glad. And he said so, with uncharacteristic +impulsiveness. + +"I'm glad you can't see," he found himself saying. "If you could----" + +"What a queer thing to say," the girl interrupted. "I thought every +one always regarded a blind person as an object of pity." + +There was an unmistakably sardonic inflection in the last sentence. + +"But you don't find it so, eh?" Hollister questioned eagerly. He was +sure he had interpreted that inflection. "And you sometimes resent +that attitude, eh?" + +"I daresay I do," the girl replied, after a moment's consideration. +"To be unable to see is a handicap. At the same time to have pity +drooled all over one is sometimes irritating. But why did you just say +you were glad I was blind?" + +"I didn't mean that. I meant that I was glad you couldn't see _me_," +he explained. "One of Fritz's shells tore my face to pieces. People +don't like to look at the result. Women particularly. You can't see my +wrecked face, so you don't shudder and pass on. I suppose that is why +I said that the way I did." + +"I see. You feel a little bit glad to come across some one who doesn't +know whether your face is straight or crooked? Some one who accepts +you sight unseen, as she would any man who spoke and acted +courteously? Is that it?" + +"Yes," Hollister admitted. "That's about it." + +"But your friends and relatives?" she suggested softly. + +"I have no relatives in this country," he said. "And I have no friends +anywhere, now." + +She considered this a moment, rubbing her cheek with a gloved +forefinger. What was she thinking about, Hollister wondered? + +"That must be rather terrible at times. I'm not much given to slopping +over, but I find myself feeling sorry for you--and you are only a +disembodied voice. Your fix is something like my own," she said at +last. "And I have always denied that misery loves company." + +"You were right in that, too," Hollister replied. "Misery wants +pleasant company. At least, that sort of misery which comes from +isolation and unfriendliness makes me appreciate even chance +companionship." + +"Is it so bad as that?" she asked quickly. The tone of her voice made +Hollister quiver, it was so unexpected, so wistful. + +"Just about. I've become a stray dog in this old world. And it used to +be a pretty good sort of a world for me in the old days. I'm not +whining. But I do feel like kicking. There's a difference, you know." + +He felt ashamed of this mild outburst as soon as it was uttered. But +it was true enough, and he could not help saying it. There was +something about this girl that broke down his reticence, made him want +to talk, made him feel sure he would not be misunderstood. + +She nodded. + +"There is a great difference. Any one with any spirit will kick if +there is anything to kick about. And it's always shameful to whine. +You don't seem like a man who _could_ whine." + +"How can you tell what sort of man I am?" Hollister inquired. "You +just said that I was only a disembodied voice." + +She laughed, a musical low-toned chuckle that pleased him. + +"One gets impressions," she answered. "Being sightless sharpens other +faculties. You often have very definite impressions in your mind about +people you have never seen, don't you?" + +"Oh, yes," he agreed. "I daresay every one gets such impressions." + +"Sometimes one finds those impressions are merely verified by actual +sight. So there you are. I get a certain impression of you by the +language you use, your tone, your inflections--and by a something else +which in those who can see is called intuition, for lack of something +more definite in the way of a term." + +"Aren't you ever mistaken in those impressionistic estimates of +people?" + +She hesitated a little. + +"Sometimes--not often. That sounds egotistic, but really it is true." + +The steamer drew out of the mouth of Toba Inlet. In the widening +stretch between the mainland and the Redondas a cold wind came +whistling out of Homfray Channel. Hollister felt the chill of it +through his mackinaw coat and was moved to thought of his companion's +comfort. + +"May I find you a warm place to sit?" he asked. "That's an +uncomfortable breeze. And do you mind if I talk to you? I haven't +talked to any one like you for a long time." + +She smiled assent. + +"Ditto to that last," she said. + +"You aren't a western man, are you?" she continued, as Hollister took +her by the arm and led her toward a cabin abaft the wheelhouse on the +boat deck, a roomy lounging place unoccupied save by a fat woman +taking a midday nap in one corner, her double chin sunk on her ample +bosom. + +"No," he said. "I'm from the East. But I spent some time out here +once or twice, and I remembered the coast as a place I liked. So I +came back here when the war was over and everything gone to pot--at +least where I was concerned. My name is Hollister." + +"Mine," she replied, "is Cleveland." + +Hollister looked at her intently. + +"Doris Cleveland--her book," he said aloud. It was to all intents and +purposes a question. + +"Why do you say that?" the girl asked quickly. "And how do you happen +to know my given name?" + +"That was a guess," he answered. "Is it right?" + +"Yes--but----" + +"Let me tell you," he interrupted. "It's queer, and still it's simple +enough. Two months ago I went into Toba Inlet to look at some timber +about five miles up the river from the mouth. When I got there I +decided to stay awhile. It was less lonesome there than in the racket +and hustle of a town where I knew no one and nobody wanted to know me. +I made a camp, and in looking over a stretch of timber on a slope that +runs south from the river I found a log cabin----" + +"In a hollow full of big cedars back of the cliff along the south side +of the Big Bend?" the girl cut in eagerly. "A log house with two +rooms, where some shingle-bolts had been cut--with a bolt-chute +leading downhill?" + +"The very same," Hollister continued. "I see you know the place. And +in this cabin there was a shelf with a row of books, and each one had +written on the flyleaf, 'Doris Cleveland--Her Book.'" + +"My poor books," she murmured. "I thought the rats had torn them to +bits long ago." + +"No. Except for a few nibbles at the binding. Perhaps," Hollister said +whimsically, "the rats knew that some day a man would need those books +to keep him from going crazy, alone there in those quiet hills. They +were good books, and they would give his mind something to do besides +brooding over past ills and an empty future." + +"They did that for you?" she asked. + +"Yes. They were all the company I had for two months. I often wondered +who Doris Cleveland was and why she left her books to the rats--and +was thankful that she did. So you lived up there?" + +"Yes. It was there I had my last look at the sun shining on the hills. +I daresay the most vivid pictures I have in my mind are made up of +things there. Why, I can see every peak and gorge yet, and the valley +below with the river winding through and the beaver meadows in the +flats--all those slides and glaciers and waterfalls--cascades like +ribbons of silver against green velvet. I loved it all--it was so +beautiful." + +She spoke a little absently, with the faintest shadow of regret, her +voice lingering on the words. And after a momentary silence she went +on: + +"We lived there nearly a year, my two brothers and I. I know every +rock and gully within two miles of that cabin. I helped to build that +little house. I used to tramp around in the woods alone. I used to sit +and read, and sometimes just dream, under those big cedars on hot +summer afternoons. The boys thought they would make a little fortune +in that timber. Then one day, when they were felling a tree, a flying +limb struck me on the head--and I was blind; in less than two hours of +being unconscious I woke up, and I couldn't see anything--like that +almost," she snapped her finger. "On top of that my brothers +discovered that they had no right to cut timber there. Things were +going badly in France, too. So they went overseas. They were both +killed in the same action, on the same day. My books were left there +because no one had the heart to carry them out. It was all such a +muddle. Everything seemed to go wrong at once. And you found them and +enjoyed having them to read. Isn't it curious how things that seem so +incoherent, so unnecessary, so disconnected, sometimes work out into +an orderly sequence, out of which evil comes to some and good to +others? If we could only forestall Chance! Blind, blundering, witless +Chance!" + +Hollister nodded, forgetting that the girl could not see. For a minute +they sat silent. He was thinking how strange it was that he should +meet this girl whose books he had been poring over all these weeks. +She had a mind, he perceived. She could think and express her thoughts +in sentences as clean-cut as her face. She made him think, thrust him +face to face with an abstraction. Blind, blundering, witless Chance! +Was there nothing more than that? What else was there? + +"You make me feel ashamed of myself," he said at last. "Your luck has +been worse than mine. Your handicap is greater than mine--at least you +must feel it so. But you don't complain. You even seem quite +philosophic about it. I wish I could cultivate that spirit. What's +your secret?" + +"Oh, I'm not such a marvel," she said, and the slight smile came back +to lurk around the corners of her mouth. "There are times when I +rebel--oh, desperately. But I get along very nicely as a general +thing. One accepts the inevitable. I comfort myself with the selfish +reflection that if I can't see a lot that I would dearly love to see, +I am also saved the sight of things that are mean and sordid and +disturbing. If I seem cheerful I daresay it's because I'm strong and +healthy and have grown used to being blind. I'm not nearly so helpless +as I may seem. In familiar places and within certain bounds, I can get +about nearly as well as if I could see." + +The steamer cleared the Redondas, stood down through Desolation Sound +and turned her blunt nose into the lower gulf just as dark came on. +Hollister and Doris Cleveland sat in the cabin talking. They went to +dinner together, and if there were curious looks bestowed upon them +Hollister was too engrossed to care and the girl, of course, could not +see those sidelong, unspoken inquiries. After dinner they found chairs +in the same deck saloon and continued their conversation until ten +o'clock, when drowsiness born of a slow, rolling motion of the vessel +drove them to their berths. + +The drowsiness abandoned Hollister as soon as he turned in. He lay +wakeful, thinking about Doris Cleveland. He envied her courage and +fortitude, the calm assurance with which she seemed to face the world +which was all about her and yet hidden from her sight. She was really +an extraordinary young woman, he decided. + +She was traveling alone. For several months she had been living with +old friends of the family on Stuart Island, close by the roaring +tiderace of the Euclataw Rapids. She was returning there, she told +Hollister, after three weeks or so in Vancouver. The steamer would +dock about daylight the following morning. When Hollister offered to +see her ashore and to her destination, she accepted without any +reservations. It comforted Hollister's sadly bruised ego to observe +that she even seemed a trifle pleased. + +"I have once or twice got a steward to get me ashore and put me in a +taxi," she said. "But if you don't mind, Mr. Hollister." + +And Hollister most decidedly did not mind. Doris Cleveland had shot +like a pleasant burst of colorful light across the grayest period of +his existence, and he was loath to let her go. + +He dropped off to sleep at last, to dream, strangely enough and with +astonishing vividness, of the cabin among the great cedars with the +snow banked white outside the door. He saw himself sitting beside the +fireplace poring over one of Doris Cleveland's books. And he was no +longer lonely, because he was not alone. + +He smiled at himself, remembering this fantasy of the subconscious +mind, when the steward's rap at the door wakened him half an hour +before the steamer docked. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Quartered once more in the city he had abandoned two months earlier, +Hollister found himself in the grip of new desires, stirred by new +plans, his mind yielding slowly to the conviction that life was less +barren than it seemed. Or was that, he asked himself doubtfully, just +another illusion which would uphold him for awhile and then perish? +Not so many weeks since, a matter of days almost, life, so far as he +was concerned, held nothing, promised nothing. All the future years +through which he must live because of the virility of his body seemed +nothing but a dismal fog in which he must wander without knowing where +he went or what lay before him. + +Now it seemed that he had mysteriously acquired a starting point and a +goal. He was aware of a new impetus. And since life had swept away a +great many illusions which he had once cherished as proven reality, he +did not shrink from or misunderstand the cause underlying this potent +change in his outlook. He pondered on this. He wished to be sure. And +he did not have to strain himself intellectually to understand that +Doris Cleveland was the outstanding factor in this change. + +Each time he met her, he breathed a prayer of thanks for her +blindness, which permitted her to accept him as a man instead of +shrinking from him as a monster. Just as the man secure in the +knowledge that he possesses the comfort and security of a home can +endure with fortitude the perils and hardships of a bitter trial, so +Hollister could walk the streets of Vancouver now, indifferent to the +averted eyes, the quick glance of reluctant pity. He could get through +the days without brooding. Loneliness no longer made him shudder with +its clammy touch. + +For that he could thank Doris Cleveland, and her alone. He saw her +nearly every day. She was the straw to which he, drowning, clung with +all his might. The most depressing hours that overtook him were those +in which he visualized her floating away beyond his reach. + +To Hollister, as he saw more of her, she seemed the most remarkable +woman he had ever known. Her loss of sight had been more than +compensated by an extraordinary acuteness of mental vision. The world +about her might now be one of darkness, but she had a precise +comprehension of its nature, its manifestations, its complexities. He +had always taken blindness as a synonym for helplessness, a matter of +uncertain groping, of timidities, of despair. He revised that +conclusion sharply in her case. He could not associate the most remote +degree of helplessness with Doris Cleveland when they walked, for +instance, through Stanley Park from English Bay to Second Beach. That +broad path, with the Gulf swell muttering along the bouldery shore on +one side and the wind whispering in the lofty branches of tall trees +on the other, was a favorite haunt of theirs on crisp March days. The +buds of the pussy willow were beginning to burst. Birds twittered in +dusky thickets. Even the gulls, wheeling and darting along the shore, +had a new note in their raucous crying. None of these first undertones +of the spring symphony went unmarked by Doris Cleveland. She could +hear and feel. She could respond to subtle, external stimuli. She +could interpret her thoughts and feelings with apt phrases, with a +whimsical humor,--sometimes with an appealing touch of wistfulness. + +At the Beach Avenue entrance to the park she would release herself +from the hand by which Hollister guided her through the throngs on the +sidewalks or the traffic of the crossings, and along the open way she +would keep step with him easily and surely, her cheeks glowing with +the brisk movement; and she could tell him with uncanny exactness when +they came abreast of the old elk paddock and the bowling greens, or +the rock groynes and bathhouse at Second Beach. She knew always when +they turned the wide curve farther out, where through a fringe of +maple and black alder there opened a clear view of all the Gulf, with +steamers trailing their banners of smoke and the white pillar of +Point Atkinson lighthouse standing guard at the troubled entrance to +Howe Sound. + +No, he could not easily fall into the masculine attitude of a +protector, of guiding and bending a watchful care upon a helpless bit +of desirable femininity that clung to him with confiding trust. Doris +Cleveland was too buoyantly healthy to be a clinging vine. She had too +hardy an intellectual outlook. Her mind was like her body, vigorous, +resilient, unafraid. It was hard sometimes for Hollister to realize +fully that to those gray eyes so often turned on him it was always +night,--or at best a blurred, unrelieved dusk. + +In the old, comfortable days before the war, Hollister, like many +other young men, accepted things pretty much as they came without +troubling to scrutinize their import too closely. It was easy for him, +then, to overlook the faint shadows than ran before coming events. It +had been the most natural thing in the world to drift placidly until +in more or less surprise he found himself caught fairly in a sweeping +current. Some of the most important turns in his life had caught him +unprepared for their denouement, left him a trifle dizzy as he found +himself committed irrevocably to this or that. + +But he had not survived four years of bodily and spiritual disaster +without an irreparable destruction of the sanguine, if more or less +nebulous assurance that God was in his heaven and all was well with +the world. He had been stricken with a wariness concerning life, a +reluctant distrust of much that in his old easy-going philosophy +seemed solid as the hills. He was disposed to a critical and sometimes +pessimistic examination of his own feelings and of other people's +actions. + +So love for Doris Cleveland did not steal upon him like a thief in the +night. From the hour when he put her in the taxi at the dock and went +away with her address in his pocket, he was keenly alive to the +definite quality of attraction peculiar to her. When he was not +thinking of her, he was thinking of himself in relation to her. He +found himself involved in the most intimate sort of speculation +concerning her. From the beginning he did not close his eyes to a +possibility which might become a fact. Six months earlier he would +honestly have denied that any woman could linger so tenaciously in his +mind, a lovely vision to gladden and disturb him in love's paradoxical +way. Yet step by step he watched himself approaching that dubious +state, dreading a little the drift toward a definite emotion, yet +reluctant to draw back. + +When Doris went about with him, frankly finding a pleasure in his +company, he said to himself that it was a wholly unwise proceeding to +set too great store by her. Chance, he would reflect sadly, had swung +them together, and that same blind chance would presently swing them +far apart. This daily intimacy of two beings, a little out of it among +the medley of other beings so highly engrossed in their own affairs, +would presently come to an end. Sitting beside her on a shelving rock +in the sun, Hollister would think of that and feel a pang. He would +say to himself also, a trifle cynically, that if she could see him as +he was, perhaps she would be like the rest: he would never have had +the chance to know her, to sit beside her hearing the musical ripple +of her voice when she laughed, seeing the sweetness of her face as she +turned to him, smiling. He wondered sometimes what she really thought +of him, how she pictured him in her mind. She had very clear mental +pictures of everything she touched or felt, everything that came +within the scope of her understanding,--which covered no narrow field. +But Hollister never quite had the courage to ask her to describe what +image of him she carried in her mind. + +For a month he did very little but go about with Doris, or sit quietly +reading a book in his room. March drew to a close. The southern border +of Stanley Park which faced the Gulf over English Bay continued to be +their haunt on every sunny afternoon, save once or twice when they +walked along Marine Drive to where the sands of the Spanish Bank lay +bared for a mile offshore at ebb tide. + +If it rained, or a damp fog blew in from the sea, Hollister would pick +out a motion-picture house that afforded a good orchestra, or get +tickets to some available concert, or they would go and have tea at +the Granada where there was always music at the tea hour in the +afternoon. Doris loved music. Moreover she knew music, which is a +thing apart from merely loving melodious sounds. Once, at the place +where she was living, the home of a married cousin, Hollister heard +her play the piano for the first time. He listened in astonishment, +forgetting that a pianist does not need to see the keyboard and that +the most intricate movements may be memorized. But he did not visit +that house often. The people there looked at him a little askance. +They were courteous, but painfully self-conscious in his +presence,--and Hollister was still acutely sensitive about his face. + +By the time that April Fool's Day was a week old on the calendar, +Hollister began to be haunted by a gloomy void which would engulf him +soon, for Doris told him one evening that in another week she was +going back to the Euclataws. She had already stretched her visit to +greater length than she intended. She must go back. + +They were sitting on a bench under a great fir that overlooked a +deserted playground, emerald green with new grass. They faced a +sinking sun, a ball of molten fire on the far crest of Vancouver +Island. Behind them the roar of traffic on downtown streets was like +the faint murmur of distant surf. + +"In a week," Hollister said. If there was an echo of regret in his +voice he did not try to hide it. "It has been the best month I have +spent for a long, long time." + +"It has been a pleasant month," Doris agreed. + +They fell silent. Hollister looked away to the west where the deep +flame-red of low, straggling clouds shaded off into orange and pale +gold that merged by imperceptible tints into the translucent clearness +of the upper sky. The red ball of the sun showed only a small segment +above the mountains. In ten minutes it would be gone. From the east +dusk walked silently down to the sea. + +"I shall be sorry when you are gone," he said at last. + +"And I shall be sorry to go," she murmured, "but----" + +She threw out her hands in a gesture of impotence, of resignation. + +"One can't always be on a holiday." + +"I wish we could," Hollister muttered. "You and I." + +The girl made no answer. And Hollister himself grew dumb in spite of a +pressure of words within him, things that tugged at his tongue for +utterance. He could scarcely bear to think of Doris Cleveland beyond +sound of his voice or reach of his hand. He realized with an +overwhelming certainty how badly he needed her, how much he wanted +her--not only in ways that were sweet to think of, but as a friendly +beacon in the murky, purposeless vista of years that stretched before +him. Yes, and before her also. They had not spent all those hours +together without talking of themselves. No matter that she was +cheerful, that youth gave her courage and a ready smile, there was +still a finality about blindness that sometimes frightened her. She, +too, was aware--and sometimes afraid--of drab years running out into +nothingness. + +Hollister sat beside her visualizing interminable to-morrows in which +there would be no Doris Cleveland; in which he would go his way vainly +seeking the smile on a friendly face, the sound of a voice that +thrilled him with its friendly tone. + +He took her hand and held it, looking down at the soft white fingers. +She made no effort to withdraw it. He looked at her, peering into her +face, and there was nothing to guide him. He saw only a curious +expectancy and a faint deepening of the color in her cheeks. + +"Don't go back to the Euclataws, Doris," he said at last. "I love you. +I want you. I need you. Do you feel as if you liked me--enough to take +a chance? + +"For it is a chance," he finished abruptly. "Life together is always a +chance for the man and woman who undertake it. Perhaps I surprise you +by breaking out like this. But when I think of us each going separate +ways----" + +He held her hand tightly imprisoned between his, bending forward to +peer closely at her face. He could see nothing of astonishment or +surprise. Her lips were parted a little. Her expression, as he looked, +grew different, inscrutable, a little absent even, as if she were lost +in thought. But there was arising a quiver in the fingers he held +which belied the emotionless fixity of her face. + +"I wonder if it is such a desperate chance?" she said slowly. "If it +is, why do you want to take it?" + +"Because the alternative is worse than the most desperate chance I +could imagine," he answered. "And because I have a longing to face +life with you, and a dread of it alone. You can't see my ugly face +which frightens off other people, so it doesn't mean anything to you. +But you can hear my voice. You can feel me near you. Does it mean +anything to you? Do you wish I could always be near you?" + +He drew her up close to him. She permitted it, unresisting, that +strange, thoughtful look still on her face. + +"Tell me, do you want me to love you--or don't you care?" he demanded. + +For a moment Doris made no answer. + +"You're a man," she said then, very softly, a little breathlessly. +"And I'm a woman. I'm blind--but I'm a woman. I've been wondering how +long it would take you to find that out." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Not until Hollister had left Doris at her cousin's home and was +walking back downtown did a complete realization of what he had done +and pledged himself to do burst upon him. When it did, he pulled up +short in his stride, as if he had come physically against some +forthright obstruction. For an instant he felt dazed. Then a consuming +anger flared in him,--anger against the past by which he was still +shackled. + +But he refused to be bound by those old chains whose ghostly clanking +arose to harass him in this hour when life seemed to be holding out a +new promise, when he saw happiness beckoning, when he was dreaming of +pleasant things. He leaned over the rail on the Granville Street +drawbridge watching a tug pass through, seeing the dusky shape of the +small vessel, hearing the ripple of the flood tide against the stone +piers, and scarcely conscious of the bridge or the ship or the gray +dimness of the sea, so profound was the concentration of his mind on +this problem. It did not perplex him; it maddened him. He whispered a +defiant protest to himself and walked on. He was able to think more +calmly when he reached his room. There were the facts, the simple, +undeniable facts, to be faced without shrinking,--and a decision to be +made. + +For months Hollister, when he thought of the past, thought of it as a +slate which had been wiped clean. He was dead, officially dead. His +few distant relatives had accepted the official report without +question. Myra had accepted it, acted upon it. Outside the British War +Office no one knew, no one dreamed, that he was alive. He had served +in the Imperials. He recalled the difficulties and delays of getting +his identity reëstablished in the coldly impersonal, maddeningly +deliberate, official departments which dealt with his case. He had +succeeded. His back pay had been granted. A gratuity was still +forthcoming. But Hollister knew that the record of his case was +entangled with miles of red tape. He was dead--killed in action. It +would never occur to the British War Office to seek publicity for the +fact that he was not dead. There was no machinery for that purpose. +Even if there were such machinery, there was no one to pull the +levers. Nothing was ever set in motion in the War Office without +pulling a diversity of levers. So much for that. Hollister, recalling +his experience in London, smiled sardonically at thought of the +British War Office voluntarily troubling itself about dead men who +came to life. The War Office would not know him. The War Office did +not know men. It only knew identification numbers, regiments, ranks, +things properly documented, officially assigned. It was disdainful of +any casual inquiry; it would shunt such from official to official, +from department to department, until the inquirer was worn out, his +patience, his fund of postage and his time alike exhausted. + +No, the British War Office would neither know nor care nor tell. + +Surely the slate was sponged clean. Should he condemn himself and +Doris Cleveland to heartache and loneliness because of a technicality? +To Hollister it seemed no more than that. Myra had married again. +Would she--reckoning the chance that she learned he was alive--rise up +to denounce him? Hardly. His own people? They were few and far away. +His friends? The war had ripped everything loose, broken the old +combinations, scattered the groups. There was, for Hollister, nothing +left of the old days. And he himself was dead,--officially dead. + +After all, it narrowed to himself and Doris Cleveland and an ethical +question. + +He did not shut his eyes to the fact that for him this marriage would +be bigamy; that their children would be illegitimate in the eyes of +the law if legal scrutiny ever laid bare their father's history; nor +that by all the accepted dictums of current morality he would be +leading an innocent woman into sin. But current morality had ceased to +have its old significance for Hollister. He had seen too much of it +vaporized so readily in the furnace of the war. Convention had lost +any power to dismay him. His world had used him in its hour of need, +had flung him into the Pit, and when he crawled out maimed, +discouraged, stripped of everything that had made life precious, this +world of his fellows shunned him because of what he had suffered in +their behalf. So he held himself under no obligation to be guided by +their moral dictums. He was critical of accepted standards because he +had observed that an act might be within the law and still outrage +humanity; it might be legally sanctioned and socially approved and +spread intolerable misery in its wake. Contrariwise, he could conceive +a thing beyond the law being meritorious in itself. With the Persian +tent-maker, Hollister had begun to see that "A hair, perhaps, divides +the false and true." + +There was no falsity in his love, in his aching desire to lay hold of +happiness out of the muddle of his life, to bestow happiness if he +could upon a woman who like himself had suffered misfortune. Within +him there was the instinct to clutch firmly this chance which lay at +hand. For Hollister the question was not, "Is this thing right or +wrong in the eyes of the world?" but "Is it right for her and for me?" +And always he got the one answer, the answer with which lovers have +justified themselves ever since love became something more than the +mere breeding instinct of animals. + +Hollister could not see himself as a man guilty of moral obliquity if +he let the graveyard of the past retain its unseemly corpse without +legal exhumation and examination, and the delivering of a formal +verdict upon what was already an accomplished fact. + +Nevertheless, he forced himself to consider just what it would mean to +take that step. Briefly it would be necessary for him to go to London, +to secure documentary evidence. Then he must return to Canada, enter +suit against Myra, secure service upon her here in British Columbia. +There would be a trial and a temporary decree; after the lapse of +twelve months a divorce absolute. + +He was up against a stone wall. Even if he nerved himself to public +rattling of the skeleton in his private life, he did not have the +means. That was final. He did not have money for such an undertaking, +even if he beggared himself. That was a material factor as inexorable +as death. Actual freedom he had in full measure. Legal freedom could +only be purchased at a price,--and he did not have the price. + +Perhaps that decided Hollister. Perhaps he would have made that +decision in any case. He had no friends to be shocked. He had no +reputation to be smirched. He was, he had said with a bitter +wistfulness, a stray dog. And Doris Cleveland was in very much the +same position. Two unfortunates cleaving to each other, moved by a +genuine human passion. If they could be happy together, they had a +right to be together. Hollister challenged his reason to refute that +cry of his heart. + +He disposed finally of the last uncertainty,--whether he should tell +Doris. And a negative to that rose instantly to his lips. The past was +a dead past. Let it remain dead--buried. Its ghost would never rise to +trouble them. Of that he was very sure. + +Hollister went to bed, but not to sleep. He heard a great clock +somewhere in the town strike twelve and then one, while he still lay +staring up at the dusky ceiling. But his thoughts had taken a +pleasanter road. He had turned over the pages of his life history, +scanned them with a gloomy and critical eye, and cast them with +decisive finality into the waste basket. He was about to begin a new +book, the book of the future. It was pleasant to contemplate what he +and Doris Cleveland together would write on those blank pages. To hope +much, to be no longer downcast, to be able to look forward with +eagerness. There was a glow in that like good wine. + +And upon that he slept. + +Morning brought him no qualms or indecisions. But it did bring him to +a consideration of very practical matters, which yesterday's emotional +crisis had overshadowed. That is to say, Hollister began to take stock +of the means whereby they two should live. It was not an immediately +pressing matter, since he had a few hundred dollars in hand, but he +was not short-sighted and he knew it would ultimately become so. +Hence, naturally, his mind turned once more to that asset which had +been one factor in bringing him back to British Columbia, the timber +limit he owned in the Toba Valley. + +He began to consider that seriously. Its value had shrunk appreciably +under his examination. He had certainly been tricked in its purchase +and he did not know if he had any recourse. He rather thought there +should be some way of getting money back from people who obtained it +under false pretenses. The limit, he was quite sure, contained less +than half the timber Lewis and Company had solemnly represented it to +carry. He grew uneasy thinking of that. All his eggs were in that +wooden basket. + +He found himself anxious to know what he could expect, what he could +do. There was a considerable amount of good cedar there. It should +bring five or six thousand dollars, even if he had to accept the fraud +and make the best of it. When he reflected upon what a difference the +possession or lack of money might mean to himself and Doris, before +long, all his acquired and cultivated knowledge of business affairs +began to spur him to some action. As soon as he finished his breakfast +he set off for the office of the "Timber Specialist." He already had a +plan mapped out. It might work and it might not, but it was worth +trying. + +As he walked down the street, Hollister felt keenly, for the first +time in his thirty-one years of existence, how vastly important mere +bread and butter may become. He had always been accustomed to money. +Consequently he had very few illusions either about money as such or +the various methods of acquiring money. He had undergone too rigorous +a business training for that. He knew how easy it was to make money +with money--and how difficult, how very nearly impossible it was for +the penniless man to secure more than a living by his utmost exertion. +If this timber holding should turn out to be worthless, if it _should_ +prove unsalable at any price, it would be a question of a job for him, +before so very long. With the handicap of his face! With that +universal inclination of people to avoid him because they disliked to +look on the direct result of settling international difficulties with +bayonets and high explosives and poison gas, he would not fare very +well in the search for a decent job. Poverty had never seemed to +present quite such a sinister face as it did to Hollister when he +reached this point in his self-communings. + +Mr. Lewis received him with a total lack of the bland dignity +Hollister remembered. The man seemed uneasy, distracted. His eyes had +a furtive look in them. Hollister, however, had not come there to make +a study of Mr. Lewis' physiognomy or manner. + +"I went up to Toba Inlet awhile ago and had a look over that timber +limit of mine," he began abruptly. "I'd like to see the documents +bearing on that, if you don't mind." + +Mr. Lewis looked at him uncertainly, but he called a clerk and issued +an order. While the clerk was on his mission to the files Lewis put a +few questions which Hollister answered without disclosing what he had +in mind. It struck him, though, that the tone of Mr. Lewis' inquiry +bordered upon the anxious. + +Presently the clerk returned with the papers. Hollister took them up. +He selected the agreement of sale, a letter or two, the original +cruiser's estimate, a series of tax receipts, held them in his hand +and looked at Lewis. + +"You haven't succeeded in finding a buyer, I suppose?" + +"In the winter," Lewis replied, "there is very little stir in timber." + +"There is going to be some sort of stir in this timber before long," +Hollister said. + +The worried expression deepened on Mr. Lewis' face. + +"The fact is," Hollister continued evenly, "I made a rough survey of +that timber, and found it away off color. You represented it to +contain so many million feet. It doesn't. Nowhere near. I appear to +have been rather badly stung, and I really don't wonder it hasn't been +resold. What do you propose to do about this?" + +Mr. Lewis made a gesture of deprecation. + +"There must be some mistake, Mr. Hollister." + +"No doubt of that," Hollister agreed dryly. "The point is, who shall +pay for the mistake?" + +Mr. Lewis looked out of the window. He seemed suddenly to be stricken +with an attitude of remoteness. It occurred to Hollister that the man +was not thinking about the matter at all. + +"Well?" he questioned sharply. + +The eyes of the specialist in timber turned back to him uneasily. + +"Well?" he echoed. + +Hollister put the documents in his pocket. He gathered up those on the +desk and put them also in his pocket. He was angry because he was +baffled. This was a matter of vital importance to him, and this man +seemed able to insulate himself against either threat or suggestion. + +"My dear sir," Lewis expostulated. Even his protest was half-hearted, +lacked honest indignation. + +Hollister rose. + +"I'm going to keep these," he said irritably. "You don't seem to take +much interest in the fact that you have laid yourself open to a charge +of fraud, and that I am going to do something about it if you don't." + +"Oh, go ahead," Lewis broke out pettishly. "I don't care what you do." + +Hollister stared at him in amazement. The man's eyes met his for a +moment, then shifted to the opposite wall, became fixed there. He sat +half turned in his chair. He seemed to grow intent on something, to +become wrapped in some fog of cogitation, through which Hollister and +his affairs appeared only as inconsequential phantoms. + +In the doorway Hollister looked back over his shoulder. The man sat +mute, immobile, staring fixedly at the wall. + +Down the street Hollister turned once more to look up at the +gilt-lettered windows. Something had happened to Mr. Lewis. Something +had jolted the specialist in British Columbia timber and paralyzed his +business nerve centers. Some catastrophe had overtaken him, or +impended, beside which the ugly matter Hollister laid before him was +of no consequence. + +But it was of consequence to Hollister, as vital as the breaker of +water and handful of ship's biscuits is to castaways in an open boat +in mid-ocean. It angered him to feel a matter of such deep concern +brushed aside. He walked on down the street, thinking what he should +do. Midway of the next block, a firm name, another concern which dealt +in timber, rose before his eyes. He entered the office. + +"Mr. MacFarlan or Mr. Lee," he said to the desk man. + +A short, stout individual came forward, glanced at Hollister's scarred +face with that involuntary disapproval which Hollister was accustomed +to catch in people's expression before they suppressed it out of pity +or courtesy, or a mixture of both. + +"I am Mr. MacFarlan." + +"I want legal advice on a matter of considerable importance," +Hollister came straight to the point. "Can you recommend an able +lawyer--one with considerable experience in timber litigation +preferred?" + +"I can. Malcolm MacFarlan, second floor Sibley Block. If it's legal +business relating to timber, he's your man. Not because he happens to +be my brother," MacFarlan smiled broadly, "but because he knows his +business. Ask any timber concern. They'll tell you." + +Hollister thanked him, and retraced his steps to the office building +he had just quitted. In an office directly under the Lewis quarters he +introduced himself to Malcolm MacFarlan, a bulkier, less elderly +duplicate of his brother the timber broker. Hollister stated his case +briefly and clearly. He put it in the form of a hypothetical case, +naming no names. + +MacFarlan listened, asked questions, nodded understanding. + +"You could recover on the ground of misrepresentation," he said at +last. "The case, as you state it, is clear. It could be interpreted as +fraud and hence criminal if collusion between the maker of the false +estimate and the vendor could be proven. In any case the vendor could +be held accountable for his misrepresentation of value. Your remedy +lies in a civil suit--provided an authentic cruise established your +estimate of such a small quantity of merchantable timber. I should say +you could recover the principal with interest and costs. Always +provided the vendor is financially responsible." + +"I presume they are. Lewis and Company sold me this timber. Here are +the papers. Will you undertake this matter for me?" + +MacFarlan jerked his thumb towards the ceiling. + +"This Lewis above me?" + +"Yes." + +Hollister laid the documents before MacFarlan. He ran through them, +laid them down and looked reflectively at Hollister. + +"I'm afraid," he said slowly, "you are making your move too late." + +"Why?" Hollister demanded uneasily. + +"Evidently you aren't aware what has happened to Lewis? I take it you +haven't been reading the papers?" + +"I haven't," Hollister admitted. "What has happened?" + +"His concern has gone smash," MacFarlan stated. "I happen to be sure +of that, because I'm acting for two creditors. A receiver has been +appointed. Lewis himself is in deep. He is at present at large on +bail, charged with unlawful conversion of moneys entrusted to his +care. You have a case, clear enough, but----" he threw out his hands +with a suggestive motion--"they're bankrupt." + +"I see," Hollister muttered. "I appear to be out of luck, then." + +"Unfortunately, yes," MacFarlan continued. "You could get a judgment +against them. But it would be worthless. Simply throwing good money +after bad. There will be half a dozen other judgments recorded against +them, a dozen other claims put in, before you could get action. Of +course, I could proceed on your behalf and let you in for a lot of +costs, but I would rather not earn my fees in that manner. I'm +satisfied there won't be more than a few cents on the dollar for +anybody." + +"That seems final enough," Hollister said. "I am obliged to you, Mr. +MacFarlan." + +He went out again into a street filled with people hurrying about +their affairs in the spring sunshine. So much for that, he reflected, +not without a touch of contemptuous anger against Lewis. He understood +now the man's troubled absorption. With the penitentiary staring him +in the face-- + +At any rate the property was not involved. Whatever its worth, it was +his, and the only asset at his command. He would have to make the best +of it, dispose of it for what he could get. Meantime, Doris Cleveland +began to loom bigger in his mind than this timber limit. He suffered a +vast impatience until he should see her again. He had touches, this +morning, of incredulous astonishment before the fact that he could +love and be loved. He felt once or twice that this promise of +happiness would prove an illusion, something he had dreamed, if he did +not soon verify it by sight and speech. + +He was to call for her at two o'clock. They had planned to take a +Fourth Avenue car to the end of the line and walk thence past the +Jericho Club grounds and out a driveway that left the houses of the +town far behind, a road that went winding along the gentle curve of a +shore line where the Gulf swell whispered or thundered, according to +the weather. + +Doris was a good walker. On the level road she kept step without +faltering or effort, holding Hollister's hand, not because she needed +it for guidance, but because it was her pleasure. + +They came under a high wooded slope. + +"Listen to the birds," she said, with a gentle pressure on his +fingers. "I can smell the woods and feel the air soft as a caress. I +can't see the buds bursting, or the new, pale-green leaves, but I know +what it is like. Sometimes I think that beauty is a feeling, instead +of a fact. Perhaps if I could see it as well as feel it--still, the +birds wouldn't sing more sweetly if I could see them there swaying on +the little branches, would they, Bob?" + +There was a wistfulness, but only a shadow of regret in her tone. And +there were no shadows on the fresh, young face she turned to +Hollister. He bent to kiss that sweet mouth, and he was again thankful +that she had no sight to be offended by his devastated features. His +lips, unsightly as they were, had power to stir her. She blushed and +hid her face against his coat. + +They found a dry log to sit upon, a great tree trunk cast by a storm +above high-water mark. Now and then a motor whirred by, but for the +most part the drive lay silent, a winding ribbon of asphalt between +the sea and the wooded heights of Point Grey. English Bay sparkled +between them and the city. Beyond the purple smoke-haze driven inland +by the west wind rose the white crests of the Capilanos, an Alpine +background to the seaboard town. Hollister could hear the whine of +sawmills, the rumble of trolley cars, the clang of steel in a great +shipyard,--and the tide whispering on wet sands at his feet, the birds +twittering among the budding alders. And far as his eyes could reach +along the coast there lifted enormous, saw-toothed mountains. They +stood out against a sapphire sky with extraordinary vividness, with +remarkable brilliancy of color, with an austere dignity. + +Hollister put his arm around the girl. She nestled close to him. A +little sigh escaped her lips. + +"What is it, Doris?" + +"I was just remembering how I lay awake last night," she said, +"thinking, thinking until my brain seemed like some sort of machine +that would run on and on grinding out thoughts till I was worn out." + +"What about?" he asked. + +"About you and myself," she said simply. "About what is ahead of us. I +think I was a little bit afraid." + +"Of me?" + +"Oh, no," she tightened her grip on his hand. "I can't imagine myself +being afraid of _you_. I like you too much. But--but--well, I was +thinking of myself, really; of myself in relation to you. I couldn't +help seeing myself as a handicap. I could see you beginning to chafe +finally under the burden of a blind wife, growing impatient at my +helplessness--which you do not yet realize--and in the end--oh, well, +one can think all sorts of things in spite of a resolution not to +think." + +It stung Hollister. + +"Good God," he cried, "you don't realize it's only the fact you +_can't_ see me that makes it possible. Why, I've clutched at you the +way a drowning man clutches at anything. That I should get tired of +you, feel you as a burden--it's unthinkable. I'm thankful you're +blind. I shall always be glad you can't see. If you could--what sort +of picture of me have you in your mind?" + +"Perhaps not a very clear one," the girl answered slowly. "But I hear +your voice, and it is a pleasant one. I feel your touch, and there is +something there that moves me in the oddest way. I know that you are a +big man and strong. Of course I don't know whether your eyes are blue +or brown, whether your hair is fair or dark--and I don't care. As for +your face I can't possibly imagine it as terrible, unless you were +angry. What are scars? Nothing, nothing. I can't see them. It wouldn't +make any difference if I could." + +"It would," he muttered. "I'm afraid it would." + +Doris shook her head. She looked up at him, with that peculiarly +direct, intent gaze which always gave him the impression that she did +see. Her eyes, the soft gray of a summer rain cloud--no one would have +guessed them sightless. They seemed to see, to be expressive, to glow +and soften. + +She lifted a hand to Hollister's face. He did not shrink while those +soft fingers went exploring the devastation wrought by the exploding +shell. They touched caressingly the scarred and vivid flesh. And they +finished with a gentle pat on his cheek and a momentary, kittenish +rumpling of his hair. + +"I cannot find so very much amiss," she said. "Your nose is a bit +awry, and there is a hollow in one cheek. I can feel scars. What does +it matter? A man is what he thinks and feels and does. I am the maimed +one, really. There is so much I can't do, Bob. You don't realize it +yet. And we won't always be living this way, sitting idle on the +beach, going to a show, having tea in the Granada. I used to run and +swim and climb hills. I could have gone anywhere with you--done +anything--been as good a mate as any primitive woman. But my wings are +clipped. I can only get about in familiar surroundings. And sometimes +it grows intolerable. I rebel. I rave--and wish I were dead. And if I +thought I was hampering you, and you were beginning to regret you had +married me--why, I couldn't bear it. That's what my brain was buzzing +with last night." + +"Do any of those things strike you as serious obstacles now--when I +have my arms around you?" Hollister demanded. + +She shook her head. + +"No. Really and truly right now I'm perfectly willing to take any sort +of chance on the future--if you're in it," she said thoughtfully. +"That's the sort of effect you have on me. I suppose that's natural +enough." + +"Then we feel precisely the same," Hollister declared. "And you are +not to have any more doubts about me. I tell you, Doris, that besides +wanting you, I _need_ you. I can be your eyes. And for me, you will be +like a compass to a sailor in a fog--something to steer a course by. +So let's stop talking about whether we're going to take the plunge. +Let's talk about how we're going to live, and where." + +A whimsical expression tippled across the girl's face, a mixture of +tenderness and mischief. + +"I've warned you," she said with mock solemnity. "Your blood be upon +your own head." + +They both laughed. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"Why not go in there and take that cedar out yourself?" Doris +suggested. + +They had been talking about that timber limit in the Toba, the +possibility of getting a few thousand dollars out of it, and how they +could make the money serve them best. + +"We could live there. I'd love to live there. I loved that valley. I +can see it now, every turn of the river, every canyon, and all the +peaks above. It would be like getting back home." + +"It is a beautiful place," Hollister agreed. He had a momentary vision +of the Toba as he saw it last: a white-floored lane between two great +mountain ranges; green, timbered slopes that ran up to immense +declivities; glaciers; cold, majestic peaks scarred by winter +avalanches. He had come a little under the spell of those rugged +solitudes then. He could imagine it transformed by the magic of +summer. He could imagine himself living there with this beloved woman, +exacting a livelihood from those hushed forests and finding it good. + +"I've been wondering about that myself," he said. "There is a lot of +good cedar there. That bolt chute your brothers built could be +repaired. If they expected to get that stuff out profitably, why +shouldn't I? I'll have to look into that." + +They were living in a furnished flat. If they had married in what +people accustomed to a certain formality of living might call haste +they had no thought of repenting at leisure, or otherwise. They were, +in fact, quite happy and contented. Marriage had shattered no +illusions. If, indeed, they cherished any illusory conceptions of each +other, the intimacy of mating had merely served to confirm those +illusions, to shape them into realities. They were young enough to be +ardent lovers, old enough to know that love was not the culmination, +but only an ecstatic phase in the working out of an inexorable natural +law. + +If Doris was happy, full of high spirits, joyfully abandoned to the +fulfilment of her destiny as a woman, Hollister too was happier than +he had considered it possible for him ever to be again. But, in +addition, he was supremely grateful. Life for him as an individual had +seemed to be pretty much a blank wall, a drab, colorless routine of +existence; something he could not voluntarily give up, but which gave +nothing, promised nothing, save monotony and isolation and, in the +end, complete despair. So that his love for this girl, who had given +herself to him with the strangely combined passion of a mature woman +and the trusting confidence of a child, was touched with gratitude. +She had put out her hand and lifted him from the pit. She would always +be near him, a prop and a stay. Sometimes it seemed to Hollister a +miracle. He would look at his face in the mirror and thank God that +she was blind. Doris said that made no difference, but he knew better. +It made a difference to eyes that could see, however tolerantly. + +In Hollister, also, there revived the natural ambition to get on, to +grasp a measure of material security, to make money. There were so +many ways in which money was essential, so many desirable things they +could secure and enjoy together with money. Making a living came +first, but beyond a mere living he began to desire comfort, even +luxuries, for himself and his wife. He had made tentative plans. They +had discussed ways and means; and the most practical suggestion of all +came now from his wife's lips. + +Hollister went about town the next few days, diligently seeking +information about prices, wages, costs and methods. He had a practical +knowledge of finance, and a fair acquaintance with timber operations +generally, so that he did not waste his own or other men's time. He +met a rebuff or two, but he learned a great deal which he needed to +know, and he said to Doris finally: + +"I'm going to play your hunch and get that timber out myself. It will +pay. In fact, it is the only way I'll ever get back the money I put +into that, so I really haven't much choice in the matter." + +"Good!" Doris said. "Then we go to the Toba to live. When?" + +"Very soon--if we go at all. There doesn't seem to be much chance to +sell it, but there is some sort of returned soldiers' cooperative +concern working in the Big Bend, and MacFarlan and Lee have had some +correspondence with their head man about this limit of mine. He is +going to be in town in a day or two. They may buy." + +"And if they do?" + +"Well, then, we'll see about a place on Valdez Island at the +Euclataws, where I can clear up some land and grow things, and fish +salmon when they run, as we talked about." + +"That would be nice, and I dare say we would get on very well," Doris +said. "But I'd rather go to the Toba." + +Hollister did not want to go to the Toba. He would go if it were +necessary, but when he remembered that fair-haired woman living in the +cabin on the river bank, he felt that there was something to be +shunned. Myra was like a bad dream too vividly remembered. There was +stealing over Hollister a curious sense of something unreal in his +first marriage, in the war, even in the strange madness which had +briefly afflicted him when he discovered that Myra was there. He could +smile at the impossibility of that recurring, but he could not smile +at the necessity of living within gunshot of her again. He was not +afraid. There was no reason to be afraid. He was officially dead. No +sense of sin troubled him. He had put all that behind him. It was +simply a distaste for living near a woman he had once loved, with +another whom he loved with all the passion he had once lavished on +Myra, and something that was truer and tenderer. He wanted to shut the +doors on the past forever. That was why he did not wish to go back to +the Toba. He only succeeded in clearly defining that feeling when it +seemed that he must go--unless this prospective sale went +through--because he had to use whatever lever stood nearest his hand. +He had a direct responsibility, now, for material success. As the +laborer goes to his work, distasteful though it may be, that he may +live, that his family may be fed and clothed, so Hollister knew that +he would go to Toba Valley and wrest a compensation from that timber +with his own hands unless a sale were made. + +But it failed to go through. Hollister met his man in MacFarlan's +office,--a lean, weather-beaten man of sixty, named Carr. He was frank +and friendly, wholly unlike the timber brokers and millmen Hollister +had lately encountered. + +"The fact is," Carr said after some discussion, "we aren't in the +market for timber in the ordinary, speculative sense. I happen to know +that particular stand of cedar, or I wouldn't be interested. We're a +body of returned men engaged in making homes and laying the foundation +for a competence by our joint efforts. You would really lose by +selling out to us. We would only buy on stumpage. If you were a broker +I would offer you so much, and you could take it or leave it. It would +be all one to us. We have a lot of standing timber ourselves. But +we're putting in a shingle mill now. The market looks good, and what +we need is labor and shingle bolts, not standing timber. I would +suggest you go in there with two or three men and get the stuff out +yourself. We'll take all the cedar on your limit, in bolts on the +river bank at market prices, less cost of towage to Vancouver. You can +make money on that, especially if shingles go up." + +There seemed a force at work compelling Hollister to this move. He +reflected upon it as he walked home. Doris wanted to go; this man Carr +encouraged him to go. He would be a fool not to go when opportunity +beckoned, yet he hesitated; there was a reluctance in his mind. He was +not afraid, and yet he was. Some vague peril seemed to lurk like a +misty shadow at his elbow. Nothing that he had done, nothing that he +foresaw himself doing, accounted for that, and he ended by calling +himself a fool. Of course, he would go. If Myra lived there,--well, no +matter. It was nothing to him, nothing to Doris. The past was past; +the future theirs for the making. So he went once more up to Toba +Inlet, when late April brought spring showers and blossoming shrubs +and soft sunny days to all the coast region. He carried with him +certain tools for a purpose, axes, cross-cut saws, iron wedges, a froe +to flake off uniform slabs of cedar. He sat on the steamer's deck and +thought to himself that he was in vastly different case to the last +time he had watched those same shores slide by in the same direction. +Then he had been in full retreat, withdrawing from a world which for +him held nothing of any value. Now it held for him a variety of +desirable things, which to have and to hold he need only make effort; +and that effort he was eager to put forth, was now indeed putting +forth if he did no more than sit on the steamer's deck, watching green +shore and landlocked bays fall astern, feeling the steady throb of her +engines, hearing the swish and purl of a cleft sea parting at the bow +in white foam, rippling away in a churned wake at her stern. + +He felt a mild regret that he went alone, and the edge of that was +dulled by the sure knowledge that he would not long be alone, only +until such time as he could build a cabin and transport supplies up to +the flat above the Big Bend, to that level spot where his tent and +canoe were still hidden, where he had made his first camp, and near +where the bolt chute was designed to spit its freight into the river. + +It was curious to Hollister,--the manner in which Doris could see so +clearly this valley and river and the slope where his timber stood. +She could not only envision the scene of their home and his future +operations, but she could discuss these things with practical wisdom. +They had talked of living in the old cabin where he had found her +shelf of books, but there was a difficulty in that,--of getting up the +steep hill, of carrying laboriously up that slope each item of their +supplies, their personal belongings, such articles of furniture as +they needed; and Doris had suggested that they build their house in +the flat and let his men, the bolt cutters, occupy the cabin on the +hill. + +He had two hired woodsmen with him, tools, food, bedding. When the +steamer set them on the float at the head of Toba Inlet, Hollister +left the men to bring the goods ashore in a borrowed dugout and +himself struck off along a line blazed through the woods which, one of +Carr's men informed him, led out near the upper curve of the Big Bend. + +A man sometimes learns a great deal in the brief span of a few +minutes. When Hollister disembarked he knew the name of one man only +in Toba Valley, the directing spirit of the settlement, Sam Carr, whom +he had met in MacFarlan's office. But there were half a dozen loggers +meeting the weekly steamer. They were loquacious men, without +formality in the way of acquaintance. Hollister had more than trail +knowledge imparted to him. The name of the man who lived with his wife +at the top of the Big Bend was Mr. J. Harrington Bland; the logger +said that with a twinkle in his eye, a chuckle as of inner amusement. +Hollister understood. The man was a round peg in this region of square +holes; otherwise he would have been Jack Bland, or whatever the +misplaced initial stood for. They spoke of him further as "the +Englishman." There was a lot of other local knowledge bestowed upon +Hollister, but "the Englishman" and his wife--who was a "pippin" for +looks--were still in the forefront of his mind when the trail led him +out on the river bank a few hundred yards from their house. He passed +within forty feet of the door. Bland was chopping wood; Myra sat on a +log, her tawny hair gleaming in the sun. Bland bestowed upon Hollister +only a casual glance, as he strode past, and went on swinging his axe; +and Hollister looking impersonally at the woman, observed that she +stared with frank curiosity. He remembered that trait of hers. He had +often teased her about it in those days when it had been an impossible +conception that she could ever regard seriously any man but himself. +Men had always been sure of a very complete survey when they came +within Myra's range, and men had always fluttered about her like moths +drawn to a candle flame. She had that mysterious quality of attracting +men, pleasing them--and of making other girls hate her in the same +degree. She used to laugh about that. + +"I can't help it if I'm popular," she used to say, with a mischievous +smile, and Hollister had fondly agreed with that. He remembered that +it flattered his vanity to have other men admire his wife. He had been +so sure of her affections, her loyalty, but that had passed like +melting snow, like dew under the morning sun. A little loneliness, a +few months of separation, had done the trick. + +Hollister shrugged his shoulders. He had no feeling in the matter. She +could not possibly know him; she would not wish to know him if she +could. His problems were nowise related to her. But he knew too much +to be completely indifferent. His mind kept turning upon what her life +had been, and what it must be now. He was curious. What had become of +the money? Why did she and her English husband bury themselves in a +rude shack by a river that whispered down a lonely valley? + +Hollister's mind thrust these people aside, put them out of +consideration, when he reached the flat and found his canoe where he +left it, his tiny silk tent suspended intact from the limb. He ranged +about the flat for an hour or so. He had an impression of it in his +mind from his winter camp there; also he had a description of it from +Doris, and her picture was clearer and more exact in detail than his. +He found the little falls that trickled down to a small creek that +split the flat. He chose tentatively a site for their house, close by +a huge maple which had three sets of initials cut deeply in the bark +where Doris told him to look. + +Then he dragged the canoe down to the river, and slid it afloat and +let the current bear him down. The air was full of pleasant odors from +the enfolding forest. He let his eyes rest thankfully upon those calm, +majestic peaks that walled in the valley. It was even more beautiful +now than he had imagined it could be when the snow blanketed hill and +valley, and the teeth of the frost gnawed everywhere. It was less +aloof; it was as if the wilderness wore a smile and beckoned with +friendly hands. + +The current and his paddle swept him down past the settlement, past a +busy, grunting sawmill, past the booming ground where brown logs +floated like droves of sheep in a yard, and he came at last to where +his woodsmen waited with the piled goods on a bank above tidewater. + +All the rest of that day, and for many days thereafter, Hollister was +a busy man. There was a pile of goods to be transported up-stream, a +house to be fashioned out of raw material from the forest, the +shingle-bolt chute to be inspected and repaired, the work of cutting +cedar to be got under way, all in due order. He became a voluntary +slave to work, clanking his chains of toil with that peculiar pleasure +which comes to men who strain and sweat toward a desired end. As +literally as his hired woodsmen, he earned his bread in the sweat of +his brow, spurred on by a vision of what he sought to create,--a home +and so much comfort as he could grasp for himself and a woman. + +The house arose as if by magic,--the simple magic of stout arms and +skilled hands working with axe and saw and iron wedges. One of +Hollister's men was a lean, saturnine logger, past fifty, whose life +had been spent in the woods of the Pacific Coast. There was no trick +of the axe Hayes had not mastered, and he could perform miracles of +shaping raw wood with neat joints and smooth surfaces. + +Two weeks from the day Hayes struck his axe blade into the brown trunk +of a five-foot cedar and said laconically, "She'll do", that ancient +tree had been transformed into timbers, into boards that flaked off +smooth and straight under iron wedges, into neat shakes for a +rain-tight roof, and was assembled into a two-roomed cabin. This was +furnished with chairs and tables and shelves, hewn out of the raw +stuff of the forest. It stood in the middle of a patch of earth +cleared of fallen logs and thicket. Its front windows gave on the Toba +River, slipping down to the sea. A maple spread friendly arms at one +corner, a lordly tree that would blaze crimson and russet-brown when +October came again. All up and down the river the still woods spread a +deep-green carpet on a floor between the sheer declivity of the north +wall and the gentler, more heavily timbered slope of the south. +Hollister looked at his house when it was done and saw that it was +good. He looked at the rich brown of the new-cleared soil about it, +and saw in his mind flowers growing there, and a garden. + +And when he had quartered his men in the cabin up the hill and put +them to work on the cedar, he went back to Vancouver for his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +A week of hot sunshine had filled the Toba River bank full of roily +water when Hollister breasted its current again. In midstream it ran +full and strong. Watery whisperings arose where swirls boiled over +sunken snags. But in the slow eddies and shoal water under each bank +the gray canoe moved up-stream under the steady drive of Hollister's +paddle. + +Doris sat in the bow. Her eyes roved from the sun-glittering stream to +the hills that rose above the tree-fringed valley floor, as if sight +had been restored to her so that her eyes could dwell upon the +green-leaved alder and maple, the drooping spruce bows, the vastness +of those forests of somber fir where the deer lurked in the shadows +and where the birds sang vespers and matins when dusk fell and dawn +came again. There were meadow larks warbling now on stumps that dotted +the floor of the Big Bend, and above the voices of those +yellow-breasted singers and the watery murmuring of the river there +arose now and then the shrill, imperative blast of a donkey engine. + +"Where are we now, Bob?" + +"About half a mile below the upper curve of the Big Bend," Hollister +replied. + +Doris sat silent for awhile. Hollister, looking at her, was stricken +anew with wonder at her loveliness, with wonder at the contrast +between them. Beauty and the beast, he said to himself. He knew +without seeing. He did not wish to see. He strove to shut away thought +of the devastation of what had once been a man's goodly face. Doris' +skin was like a child's, smooth and soft and tinted like a rose petal. +Love, he said to himself, had made her bloom. It made him quake to +think that she might suddenly see out of those dear, blind eyes. Would +she look and shudder and turn away? He shook off that ghastly thought. +She would never see him. She could only touch him, feel him, hear the +tenderness of his voice, know his guarding care. And to those things +which were realities she would always respond with an intensity that +thrilled him and gladdened him and made him feel that life was good. + +"Are you glad you're here?" he asked suddenly. + +"I would pinch you for such a silly question if it weren't that I +would probably upset the canoe," Doris laughed. "Glad?" + +"There must be quite a streak of pure barbarian in me," she said after +a while. "I love the smell of the earth and the sea and the woods. +Even when I could see, I never cared a lot for town. It would be all +right for awhile, then I would revolt against the noise, the dirt and +smoke, the miles and miles of houses rubbing shoulders against each +other, and all the thousands of people scuttling back and forth, +like--well, it seems sometimes almost as aimless as the scurrying of +ants when you step on their hill. Of course it isn't. But I used to +feel that way. When I was in my second year at Berkeley I had a brain +storm like that. I took the train north and turned up at home--we had +a camp running on Thurlow Island then. Daddy read the riot act and +sent me back on the next steamer. It was funny--just an irresistible +impulse to get back to my own country, among my own people. I often +wonder if it isn't some such instinct that keeps sailors at sea, no +matter what the sea does to them. I have sat on that ridge"--she +pointed unerringly to the first summit above Hollister's timber, +straight back and high above the rim of the great cliff south of the +Big Bend--"and felt as if I had drunk a lot of wine; just to be away +up in that clear still air, with not a living soul near and the +mountains standing all around like the pyramids." + +"Do you know that you have a wonderful sense of direction, Doris?" +Hollister said. "You pointed to the highest part of that ridge as +straight as if you could see it." + +"I do see it," she smiled, "I mean I know where I am, and I have in my +mind a very clear picture of my surroundings always, so long as I am +on familiar ground." + +Hollister knew this to be so, in a certain measure, on a small scale. +In a room she knew Doris moved as surely and rapidly as he did +himself. He had dreaded a little lest she should find herself feeling +lost and helpless in this immensity of forest and hills which +sometimes made even him feel a peculiar sense of insignificance. It +was a relief to know that she turned to this wilderness which must be +their home with the eagerness of a child throwing itself into its +mother's arms. He perceived that she had indeed a clear image of the +Toba in her mind. She was to give further proof of this before long. + +They turned the top of the Big Bend. Here the river doubled on itself +for nearly a mile and crossed from the north wall of the valley to the +south. Where the channel straightened away from this loop Hollister +had built his house on a little flat running back from the right-hand +bank. A little less than half a mile below, Bland's cabin faced the +river just where the curve of the S began. They came abreast of that +now. What air currents moved along the valley floor shifted in from +the sea. It wafted the smoke from Bland's stovepipe gently down on the +river's shining face. + +Doris sniffed. + +"I smell wood smoke," she said. "Is there a fire on the flat?" + +"Yes, in a cook's stove," Hollister replied. "There is a shack here." + +She questioned him and he told her of the Blands,--all that he had +been told, which was little enough. Doris displayed a deep interest in +the fact that a woman, a young woman, was a near neighbor, as +nearness goes on the British Columbia coast. + +From somewhere about the house Myra Bland appeared now. To avoid the +heavy current, Hollister hugged the right-hand shore so that he passed +within a few feet of the bank, within speaking distance of this woman +with honey-colored hair standing bareheaded in the sunshine. She took +a step or two forward. For an instant Hollister thought she was about +to exercise the immemorial privilege of the wild places and hail a +passing stranger. But she did not call or make any sign. She stood +gazing at them, and presently her husband joined her and together they +watched. They were still looking when Hollister gave his last backward +glance, then turned his attention to the reddish-yellow gleam of +new-riven timber which marked his own dwelling. Twenty minutes later +he slid the gray canoe's forefoot up on a patch of sand before his +house. + +"We're here," he said. "Home--such as it is--it's home." + +He helped her out, guided her steps up to the level of the bottomland. +He was eager to show her the nest he had devised for them. But Doris +checked him with her hand. + +"I hear the falls," she said. "Listen!" + +Streaming down through a gorge from melting snowfields the creek a +little way beyond plunged with a roar over granite ledges. The few +warm days had swollen it from a whispering sheet of spray to a +deep-voiced cataract. A mist from it rose among the deep green of the +fir. + +"Isn't it beautiful--beautiful?" Doris said. "There"--she pointed--"is +the canyon of the Little Toba coming in from the south. There is the +deep notch where the big river comes down from the Chilcotin, and a +ridge like the roof of the world rising between. Over north there are +mountains and mountains, one behind the other, till the last peaks are +white cones against the blue sky. There is a bluff straight across us +that goes up and up in five-hundred-foot ledges like masonry, with +hundred-foot firs on each bench that look like toy trees from here. + +"I used to call that gorge there"--her pointing finger found the mark +again--"The Black Hole. It is always full of shadows in summer, and in +winter the slides rumble and crash into it with a noise like the end +of the world. Did you ever listen to the slides muttering and +grumbling last winter when you were here, Bob?" + +"Yes, I used to hear them day and night." + +They stood silent a second or two. The little falls roared above them. +The river whispered at their feet. A blue-jay perched on the roof of +their house and began his harsh complaint to an unheeding world, into +which a squirrel presently broke with vociferous reply. An up-river +breeze rustled the maple leaves, laid cooling fingers from salt water +on Hollister's face, all sweaty from his labor with the paddle. + +He could see beauty where Doris saw it. It surrounded him, leaped to +his eye whenever his eye turned,--a beauty of woods and waters, of +rugged hills and sapphire skies. And he was suddenly filled with a +great gladness that he could respond to this. He was quickened to a +strange emotion by the thought that life could still hold for him so +much that seemed good. He put one arm caressingly, protectingly, +across his wife's shoulder, over the smooth, firm flesh that gleamed +through thin silk. + +She turned swiftly, buried her face against his breast and burst into +tears, into a strange fit of sobbing. She clung to him like a +frightened child. Her body quivered as if some unseen force grasped +and shook her with uncontrollable power. Hollister held her fast, +dismayed, startled, wondering, at a loss to comfort her. + +"But I _can't_ see it," she cried. "I'll never see it again. Oh, Bob, +Bob! Sometimes I can't stand this blackness. Never to see you--never +to see the sun or the stars--never to see the hills, the trees, the +grass. Always to grope. Always night--night--night without beginning +or end." + +And Hollister still had no words to comfort her. He could only hold +her close, kiss her glossy brown hair, feeling all the while a +passionate sympathy--and yet conscious of a guilty gladness that she +could not see him--that she could not look at him and be revolted and +draw away. He knew that she clung to him now as the one clear light in +the darkness. He was not sure that she (or any other woman) would do +that if she could see him as he really was. + +Her sobs died in her throat. She leaned against him passively for a +minute. Then she lifted her face and smiled. + +"It's silly to let go like that," she said. "Once in awhile it comes +over me like a panic. I wonder if you will always be patient with me +when I get like that. Sometimes I fairly rave. But I won't do it +often. I don't know why I should feel that way now. I have never been +so happy. Yet that feeling came over me like a suffocating wave. I am +afraid your wife is rather a temperamental creature, Bob." + +She ended with a laugh and a pout, to which Hollister made appropriate +response. Then he led her into the house and smiled--or would have +smiled had his face been capable of that expression--at the pleasure +with which her hands, which she had trained to be her organs of +vision, sought and found doors and cupboards, chairs, the varied +equipment of the kitchen. He watched her find her way about with the +uncanny certainty of the sightless, at which he never ceased to +marvel. When she came back at last to where he sat on a table, +swinging one foot while he smoked a cigarette, she put her arms around +him and said: + +"It's a cute little house, Bob. The air here is like old wine. The +smell of the woods is like heaven, after soot and smoke and coal gas. +I'm the happiest woman in the whole country." + +Hollister looked at her. He knew by the glow on her face that she +spoke as she felt, that she was happy, that he had made her so. And he +was proud of himself for a minute, as a man becomes when he is +conscious of having achieved greatness, however briefly. + +Only he was aware of a shadow. Doris leaned against him talking of +things they would do, of days to come. He looked over her shoulder +through the west window and his eye rested on Bland's cabin, where +another woman lived who had once nestled in his arms and talked of +happiness. Yes, he was conscious of the shadow, of regrets, of +something else that was nameless and indefinable,--a shadow. Something +that was not and yet still might be troubled him vaguely. + +He could not tell why. Presently he dismissed it from his mind. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Hollister likened himself and Doris, more than once in the next few +days, to two children in a nursery full of new toys. He watched the +pride and delight which Doris bestowed upon her house and all that it +contained, the satisfaction with which she would dwell upon the +comforts and luxuries that should be added to it when the cedars on +the hill began to produce revenue for them. + +For his own part he found himself eager for work, taking a pleasure +far beyond his expectation in what he had set himself to do, here in +the valley of the Toba. He could shut his eyes and see the whole plan +work out in ordered sequence,--the bolt chute repaired, the ancient +cedars felled, sawed into four-foot lengths, split to a size, piled by +the chute and all its lateral branches. Then, when a certain quantity +was ready, they would be cast one after another into that trough of +smooth poles which pitched sharply down from the heart of his timber +to the river. One after another they would gather way, slipping down, +faster and faster, to dive at last with a great splash into the +stream, to accumulate behind the confining boom-sticks until they were +rafted to the mill, where they would be sawn into thin sheets to make +tight roofs on houses in distant towns. And for the sweat that labor +with axe and saw wrung from his body, and for the directing power of +his brain, he would be rewarded with money which would enable him to +satisfy his needs. For the first time in his life Hollister perceived +both the complexity and the simplicity of that vast machine into which +modern industry has grown. In distant towns other men made machinery, +textiles, boots, furniture. On inland plains where no trees grew, men +sowed and reaped the wheat which passed through the hands of the +miller and the baker and became a nation's daily bread. The axe in his +hand was fashioned from metallic ore dug by other men out of the +bowels of the earth. He was fed and clothed by unseen hands. And in +return he, as they did, levied upon nature's store of raw material and +paid for what he got with timber, rough shaped to its ultimate uses by +the labor of his hands. + +All his life Hollister had been able to command money without effort. +Until he came back from the war he did not know what it meant to be +poor. He had known business as a process in which a man used money to +make more money. He had been accustomed to buy and sell, to deal with +tokens rather than with things themselves. Now he found himself at the +primitive source of things and he learned, a little to his +astonishment, the pride of definitely planned creative work. He began +to understand that lesson which many men never learn, the pleasure of +pure achievement even in simple things. + +For two or three days he occupied himself at various tasks on the +flat. He did this to keep watch over Doris, to see that she did not +come to grief in this unfamiliar territory. But he soon put aside +those first misgivings, as he was learning to put aside any fear of +the present or of the future, which arose from her blindness. His love +for her had not been borne of pity. He had never thought of her as +helpless. She was too vivid, too passionately alive in body and mind +to inspire him with that curiously mixed feeling which the strong +bestow upon the maimed and the weak. But there were certain risks of +which he was conscious, no matter that Doris laughingly disclaimed +them. With a stick and her ears and fingers she could go anywhere, she +said; and she was not far wrong, as Hollister knew. + +Within forty-eight hours she had the run of the house and the cleared +portion of land surrounding. She could put her hand on every item of +her kitchen equipment. She could get kindling out of the wood box; +light a fire in the stove as well as he. All the stock of food staples +lay in an orderly arrangement of her own choice on the kitchen +shelves. She knew every object in the two rooms, each chair and box +and stool, the step at the front door, the short path to the river +bank, the trunk of the branchy maple, the rugged bark of a great +spruce behind the house, as if within her brain there existed an exact +diagram of the whole and with which as a guide she could move within +those limits as swiftly and surely as Hollister himself. + +He never ceased to wonder at the mysterious delicacies of touch and +hearing which served her so well in place of sight. But he accepted +the fact, and once she had mastered her surroundings Hollister was +free to take up his own work, no matter where it led him. Doris +insisted that he should. She had a sturdy soul that seldom leaned and +never thought of clinging. She could laugh, a deep-throated chuckling +laugh, and sometimes, quite unexpectedly, she could go about the house +singing. And if now and then she rebelled with a sudden, furious +resentment against the long night that shut her in, that, as she said +herself, was just like a small black cloud passing swiftly across the +face of the sun. + +Hollister began at the bottom of the chute, as he was beginning at the +bottom of his fortune, to build up again. Where it was broken he +repaired it. Where it had collapsed under the weight of snow or of +fallen trees he put in a new section. His hands grew calloused and the +muscles of his back and shoulders grew tough with swinging an axe, +lugging and lifting heavy poles. The sun burned the scar-tissue of his +face to a brown like that on the faces of his two men, who were piling +the cut cedar in long ricks among the green timber while he got the +chute ready to slide the red, pungent-smelling blocks downhill. + +Sometimes, on a clear still day when he was at the house, he would +hear old Bill Hayes' voice far off in the woods, very faint in the +distance, shrilling the fallers' warning, "_Timb-r-r-r_." Close on +that he would hear a thud that sent tremors running through the earth, +and there would follow the echo of crashing boughs all along the +slope. Once he said lightly to Doris: + +"Every time one of those big trees goes down like that it means a +hundred dollars' worth of timber on the ground." + +And she laughed back: + +"We make money when cedar goes up, and we make money when cedar comes +down. Very nice." + +May passed and June came to an end; with it Hollister also came to the +end of his ready money. It had all gone into tools, food, wages, all +his available capital sunk in the venture. But the chute was ready to +run bolts. They poured down in a stream till the river surface within +the boom-sticks was a brick-colored jam that gave off a pleasant +aromatic smell. + +Then Hollister and his two men cast off the boom, let the current +sweep it down to Carr's new shingle mill below the Big Bend. When the +bolts were tallied in, Hollister got a check. He sat with pad and +pencil figuring for half an hour after he came home, after his men had +each shouldered a fifty-pound pack of supplies and gone back up the +hill. He gave over figuring at last. The thing was profitable. More so +than he had reckoned. He got up and went into the kitchen where Doris +was rolling pie crust on a board. + +"We're off," he said, putting an arm around her. "If we can keep this +up all summer, I'll build a new wing on the house and bring you in a +piano to play with this winter." + +Hollister himself now took a hand at cutting cedar. Each morning he +climbed that steep slope to the works, and each night he came trudging +down; and morning and night he would pause at a point where the trail +led along the rim of a sheer cliff, to look down on the valley below, +to look down on the roof of his own house and upon Bland's house +farther on. Sometimes smoke streamed blue from Bland's stovepipe. +Sometimes it stood dead, a black cylinder above the shake roof. +Sometimes one figure and sometimes two moved about the place; more +often no one stirred. But that was as near as the Blands had come in +eight weeks. Hollister had an unspoken hope that they would remain +distant, no matter that Doris occasionally wondered about this woman +who lived around the river's curve, what she was like and when she +would meet her. Hollister knew nothing of Bland, nothing of Myra. He +did not wish to know. It did not matter in the least, he assured +himself. He was dead and Myra was married. All that old past was as a +book long out of print. It could not possibly matter if by chance they +came in contact. Yet he had a vague feeling that it did matter,--a +feeling for which he could not account. He was not afraid; he had no +reason to be afraid. Nevertheless he gazed sometimes from the cliff +top down on the cabin where Bland and Myra lived, and something +stirred him so that he wished them gone. + +He came off the hill one evening in the middle of June to find a canoe +drawn up on the beach, two Siwashes puttering over a camp fire, and a +tall, wirily slender, fair-haired man who might have been anywhere +between twenty-seven and thirty-five sitting in the front doorway, +talking to Doris. + +Hollister noted the expression on the man's face when their eyes met. +But he did not mind. He was used to that. He was becoming indifferent +to what people thought of his face, because what they thought no +longer had power to hurt him, to make him feel that sickening +depression, to make him feel himself kin to those sinners who were +thrust into the outer darkness. Moreover, he knew that some people +grew used to the wreckage of his features. That had been his +experience with his two woodsmen. At first they looked at him askance. +Now they seemed as indifferent to his disfigurement as they were to +the ragged knots and old fire-scars on the trees they felled. Anyway, +it did not matter to Hollister. + +But this fair-haired man went on talking, looking all the while at +Hollister, and his look seemed to say, "I know your face is a hell of +a sight, but I am not disturbed by it, and I don't want you to think I +am disturbed." Behind the ragged mask of his scars Hollister smiled at +this fancy. Nevertheless he accepted his interpretation of that look +as a reality and found himself moved by a curious feeling of +friendliness for this stranger whom he had never seen before, whom he +might never see again,--for that was the way of casual travelers up +and down the Toba. They came out of nowhere, going up river or down, +stopped perhaps to smoke a pipe, to exchange a few words, before they +moved on into the hushed places that swallowed them up. + +The man's name was Lawanne. He was bound up-stream, after grizzly +bear. + +"I was told of an Englishman named Bland who is quite a hunter. I +stopped in here, thinking this was his place and that I might get him +to go on with me," he said to Hollister. + +"That's Bland's place down there," Hollister explained. + +"So Mrs. Hollister was just telling me. There didn't seem to be +anybody about when I passed. It doesn't matter much, anyway," he +laughed. "The farther I get into this country, the less keen I am to +hunt. It's good enough just to loaf around and look at." + +Lawanne had supper with them. Hollister asked him, not only as a +matter of courtesy but with a genuine feeling that he wanted this man +to break bread with them. He could not quite understand that sudden +warmth of feeling for a stranger. He had never in his life been given +to impulsive friendliness. The last five years had not strengthened +his belief in friendships. He had seen too many fail under stress. +But he liked this man. They sat outside after supper and Doris joined +them there. Lawanne was not talkative. He was given to long silences +in which he sat with eyes fixed on river or valley or the hills above, +in mute appreciation. + +"Do you people realize what a panoramic beauty is here before your +eyes all the time?" he asked once. "It's like a fairyland to me. I +must see a lot of this country before I go away. And I came here quite +by chance." + +"Which is, after all, the way nearly everything happens," Doris said. + +"Oh," Lawanne turned to her, "You think so? You don't perceive the +Great Design, the Perfect Plan, in all that we do?" + +"Do you?" she asked. + +He laughed. + +"No. If I did I should sit down with folded hands, knowing myself +helpless in the inexorable grip of destiny. I should always be +perfectly passive." + +"If you tried to do that you could not remain passive long. The +unreckonable element of chance would still operate to make you do this +or that. You couldn't escape it; nobody can." + +"Then you don't believe there is a Destiny that shapes our ends, +rough-hew them how we will?" Lawanne said lightly. + +Doris shook her head. + +"Destiny is only a word. It means one thing to one person, something +else to another. It's too abstract to account for anything. Life's a +puzzle no one ever solves, because the factors are never constant. +When we try to account for this and that we find no fixed law, nothing +but what is subject to the element of chance--which can't be reckoned. +Most of us at different times hold our own fate, temporarily at least, +in our own hands without knowing it, and some insignificant happening +does this or that to us. If we had done something else it would all be +different." + +"Your wife," Lawanne observed to Hollister, "is quite a philosopher." + +Hollister nodded. He was thinking of this factor of chance. He himself +had been a victim of it. He had profited by it. And he wondered what +vagaries of chance were still to bestow happiness or inflict suffering +upon him in spite of his most earnest effort to achieve mastery over +circumstances. He felt latterly that he had a firm grip on the +immediate future. Yet who could tell? + +Dusk began to close on the valley while the far, high crests of the +mountains still gleamed under a crimson sky. Deep shadows filled every +gorge and canyon, crept up and up until only the snowy crests +glimmered in the night, ghostly-silver against a sky speckled with +stars. The valley itself was shrouded under the dark blanket of the +night, through which the river murmured unseen and distant waterfalls +roared over rocky precipices. The two Indians attending Lawanne +squatted within the red glow of their fire on the bank. Downstream a +yellow spot broke out like a candle flame against black velvet. + +"There is some one at Bland's now," Hollister said. + +"That's their window light, eh?" Lawanne commented. "I may go down and +see him in the morning. I am not very keen on two or three weeks alone +in these tremendous silences. This valley at night now--it's awesome. +And those Siwashes are like dumb men. _You_ wouldn't go bear-hunting, +I suppose?" + +There was a peculiar gratification to Hollister in being asked. But he +had too much work on hand. Neither did he wish to leave Doris. Not +because it might be difficult for her to manage alone. It was simply +an inner reluctance to be separated from her. She was becoming a vital +part of him. To go away from her for days or weeks except under the +spur of some compelling necessity was a prospect that did not please +him. That which had first drawn them together grew stronger. Love, the +mysterious fascination of sex, the perfect accord of the +well-mated--whatever it was it grew stronger. The world outside of +them held less and less significance. Sometimes they talked of that, +wondered about it, wondered if it were natural for a man and a woman +to become so completely absorbed in each other, to attain that +singular oneness. They wondered if it would last. But whether it +should prove lasting or not, they had it now and it was sufficient. + +Lawanne went down to Bland's in the morning. He was still there when +Hollister climbed the hill to his work. + +Before evening he had something else to think about besides Lawanne. A +trifle, but one of those trifles that recurs with irritating +persistence no matter how often the mind gives it dismissal. + +About ten o'clock that morning a logger came up to the works on the +hill. + +"Can you use another man?" he asked bluntly. "I want to work." + +Hollister engaged him. By his dress, by his manner, Hollister knew +that he was at home in the woods. He was young, sturdily built, +handsome in a swarthy way. There was about him a slightly familiar +air. Hollister thought he might have seen him at the steamer landing, +or at Carr's. He mentioned that. + +"I have been working there," the man replied. "Working on the boom." + +He was frank enough about it. He wanted money,--a stake. He believed +he could make more cutting shingle bolts by the cord. This was true. +Hollister's men were making top wages. The cedar stood on good ground. +It was big, clean timber, easy to work. + +"I'll be on the job to-morrow," he said, after they had talked it +over. "Take me this afternoon to get my outfit packed up here." + +Hollister was haunted by the man's face at odd times during the day. +Not until he was half-way home, until he came out on that ledge from +whence he could look--and always did look with a slight sense of +irritation--down on Bland's cabin as well as his own, did he recall +clearly where and when he had seen Charlie Mills. + +Mills was the man who sat looking at Myra across the table that winter +morning when Hollister was suffering from the brief madness which +brought him to Bland's cabin with a desperate project in his +disordered mind. + +Well, what of it, Hollister asked himself? It was nothing to him. He +was a disinterested bystander now. But looking down on Bland's cabin, +he reflected that his irritation was rooted in the fact that he did +not want to be a bystander. He desired to eliminate Myra Bland and all +that pertained to her from even casual contact with him. It seemed +absurd that he should feel himself to be in danger. But he had a dim +sense of danger. And instead of the aloofness which he desired, he +seemed to see vague threads drawing himself and Doris and Myra Bland +and this man Mills closer and closer together, to what end or purpose +he could not tell. + +For a minute Hollister was tempted to turn the man away when he went +back up there in the morning. But that, he concluded with a shrug of +his shoulders, was carrying a mere fancy too far. + +It did not therefore turn his thoughts into a more placid channel to +find, when he reached the house, Myra sitting in the kitchen talking +to Doris. Yet it was no great surprise. He had expected this, looked +forward to it with an uneasy sense of its inevitability. + +Nothing could have been more commonplace, more uneventful than that +meeting. Doris introduced her husband. They were all at their ease. +Myra glanced once at his face and thereafter looked away. But her flow +of small talk, the conversational stop-gap of the woman accustomed to +social amenities, went on placidly. They were strangers, meeting for +the first time in a strange land. + +Bland had gone up-river with Lawanne. + +"Jim lives to hunt," Myra said with a short laugh. It was the first +and nearly the last mention of her husband she made that evening. + +Hollister went out to wash himself in a basin that stood on a bench by +the back door. He felt a relief. He had come through the first test +casually enough. A slightly sardonic grimace wrinkled his tight-lipped +mouth. There was a grim sort of humor in the situation. Those three, +whose lives had got involved in such a tangle, forgathered under the +same roof in that lonely valley, each more or less a victim of +uncomprehended forces both within and exterior to themselves. Yet it +was simple enough. Each, in common with all humanity, pursued the +elusive shadow of happiness. The diverging paths along which they +pursued it had brought them to this common point. + +Hollister soaped and scrubbed to clean his hands and face of the sweat +and dirt of his day's labor. Above the wash bench Myra's face, +delicately pink and white and framed by her hair that was the color of +strained honey, looked down at him through an open window. Her blue +eyes rested on him, searchingly, he thought, with a curious appraisal, +as if he were something to be noted and weighed and measured by the +yardstick of her estimation of men. If she only knew, Hollister +reflected sardonically, with his face buried in the towel, what a +complete and intimate knowledge she had of him! + +Looking up suddenly, his eyes met hers fixed unwaveringly upon him and +for an instant his heart stood still with the reasonless conviction +that she did know, she must know, that she could not escape knowing. +There was a quality of awareness in her steady gaze that terrified him +for a moment by its implication, which made him feel as if he stood +over a powder magazine and that she held the detonator in her hand. +But immediately he perceived the absurdity of his momentary panic. +Myra turned her head to speak to Doris. She smiled, the old dimpling +smile which gave him a strange feeling to see again. Certainly his +imagination was playing him tricks. How could she know? And what would +she care if she did know,--so long as he made no claims, so long as he +let the dead past lie in its grave. For Myra was as deeply concerned +to have done with their old life as he. He rested upon that assumption +and went into the house and sat down to his supper. + +Later, towards sundown, Myra went home. Hollister watched her vanish +among the thickets, thinking that she too had changed,--as greatly as +himself. She had been timid once, reluctant to stay alone over night +in a house with telephones and servants, on a street brilliantly +lighted. Now she could apparently face the loneliness of those +solitudes without uneasiness. But war and the aftermath of war had +taught Hollister that man adapts himself to necessity when he must, +and he suspected that women were not greatly different. He understood +that after all he had never really known Myra any more than she had +known him. Externally they had achieved knowledge of each other +through sight, speech, physical contact, comprehension of each other's +habits. But their real selves, the essence of their being, the shadowy +inner self where motives and passions took form and gathered force +until they were translated for good or evil into forthright +action,--these they had not known at all. + +At any rate he perceived that Myra could calmly enough face the +prospect of being alone. Hollister cast his eye up to where the cedars +towered, a green mass on the slope above the cliff. He thought of +Charlie Mills and wondered if after all she would be alone. + +He felt ashamed of that thought as soon as it formed in his mind. And +being ashamed, he saw and understood that he still harbored a little +bitterness against Myra. He did not wish to bestow bitterness or any +other emotion upon her. He wanted her to remain completely outside the +scope of his feelings. He would have to try, he perceived, to +cultivate a complete indifference to her, to what she did, to where +she went, to insulate himself completely against her. Because he was +committed to other enterprises, and chiefly because, as he said to +himself, he would not exchange a single brown strand of Doris +Cleveland's hair for all of Myra's body, even if he had that choice. + +The moon stole up from behind the Coast Range after they had gone to +bed. Its pale beams laid a silver square upon the dusky floor of their +room. Doris reached with one arm and drew his face close up to hers. + +"Are you happy?" she demanded with a fierce intensity. "Don't you ever +wish you had a wife who could see? Aren't you _ever_ sorry?" + +"Doris, Doris," he chided gently. "What in the world put such a notion +as that into your head?" + +She lay thoughtful for a minute. + +"Sometimes I wonder," she said at last. "Sometimes I feel that I must +reassure myself that you are contented with me. When we come in +contact with a woman like Mrs. Bland, for instance--Tell me, Bob, is +she pretty?" + +"Yes," he said "Very." + +"Fair or dark?" + +"Fair-skinned. She has blond hair and dark blue eyes, almost purple. +She is about your height, about the same figure. Why so curious?" + +"I just wondered. I like her very much," Doris said, with some slight +emphasis on the last two words. "She is a very interesting talker." + +"I noticed that," Hollister observed dryly. "She spoke charmingly of +the weather and the local scenery and the mosquitoes." + +Doris laughed. + +"A woman always falls back on those conversational staples with a +strange man. That's just the preliminary skirmishing. But she was here +all afternoon, and we didn't spend five hours talking about the +weather." + +"What did you talk about then?" Hollister asked curiously. + +"Men and women and money mostly," Doris replied. "If one may judge a +woman by the impressionistic method, I should say that Mrs. Bland +would be very attractive to men." + +It was on the tip of Hollister's tongue to say, "She is." Instead he +murmured, "Is that why you were doubting me? Think I'm apt to fall in +love with this charming lady?" + +"No," Doris said thoughtfully. "It wasn't anything concrete like that. +It's a feeling, a mood, I suppose. And it's silly for me to say things +like that. If you grow sorry you married me, if you fall in love with +another woman, I'll know it without being told." + +She pinched his cheek playfully and lay silent beside him. Hollister +watched the slow shift of the moonbeams across the foot of the bed, +thinking, his mind darting sketchily from incident to incident of the +past, peering curiously into the misty future, until at last he grew +aware by her drooped eyelashes and regular breathing that Doris was +asleep. + +He grew drowsy himself. His eyelids grew heavy. Presently he was +asleep also and dreaming of a fantastic struggle in which Myra +Bland--transformed into a vulture-like creature with a fierce beaked +face and enormous strength--tore him relentlessly from the arms of his +wife. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +From day to day and from week to week, apprehending mistily that he +was caught in and carried along by a current--a slow but irresistible +movement of events--Hollister pursued the round of his daily life as +if nothing but a clear and shining road lay before him; as if he had +done for ever with illusions and uncertainties and wild stirrings of +the spirit; as if life spread before him like a sea of which he had a +chart whereon every reef was marked, every shoal buoyed, and in his +hands and brain the instruments and knowledge wherewith to run a true +course. He made himself believe that he was reasonably safe from the +perils of those uneasy waters. Sometimes he was a little in doubt, not +so sure of untroubled passage. But mostly he did not think of these +potential dangers. + +He was vitally concerned, as most men are, with making a living. The +idea of poverty chafed him. He had once been a considerable toad in a +sizable puddle. He had inherited a competence and lost it, and power +to reclaim it was beyond him. He wasted no regrets upon the loss of +that material security, although he sometimes wondered how Myra had +contrived to let such a sum slip through her fingers in a little over +two years. He assumed that she had done so. Otherwise she would not +be sitting on the bank of the Toba, waiting more or less passively for +her husband to step into a dead man's shoes. + +That was, in effect, Bland's situation. He was an Englishman of good +family, accustomed to a definite social standing, accustomed to money +derived from a source into which he never troubled to inquire. He had +never worked. He never would work, not in the sense of performing any +labor as a means of livelihood. He had a small income,--fifty or sixty +dollars a month. When he was thirty he would come into certain +property and an income of so many thousand pounds a year. He and his +wife could not subsist in any town on the quarterly dole he received. +That was why they had come to live in that cabin on the Toba River. +Bland hunted. He fished. To him the Toba valley served well enough as +a place to rusticate. Any place where game animals and sporting fish +abounded satisfied him temperamentally. + +He had done his "bit" in the war. When he came into his money, they +would go "home." He was placidly sure of himself, of his place in the +general scheme of things. He was suffering from temporary +embarrassment, that was all. It was a bit rough on Myra, but it would +be all right by and by. + +So much filtered into Hollister's ears and understanding before long. +Archie Lawanne came back downstream with two grizzly pelts, and +Hollister met Bland for the first time. He appraised Bland with some +care,--this tall, ruddy Englishman who had supplanted him in a woman's +affections, and who, unless Hollister's observation had tricked him, +was in a fair way to be himself supplanted. + +For Hollister was the unwilling spectator of a drama to which he could +not shut his eyes. Nor could he sit back in the rôle of cynical +audience, awaiting in cushioned ease the climax of the play and the +final exit of the actors. + +Mills was the man. Whether he was more than a potential lover, whether +Myra in her _ennui_, her hunger for a new sensation--whatever +unsatisfied longings led her to exercise upon men the power of her +undeniable attraction--had now given her heart into Charlie Mills' +keeping, Hollister of course neither knew nor cared. + +But he did know that they met now and then, that Mills seemed to have +some curious knowledge of when Bland was far afield. Mills could be +trusted to appear on the flat in the evening or on a Sunday, if Myra +came to see Doris. + +He speculated idly upon this sometimes. Myra he knew well enough, or +thought he did. He began to regard Mills with a livelier interest, to +talk to the man, to draw him out, to discover the essential man under +the outward seeming. He was not slow to discover that Mills was +something more than so much bone and sinew which could be applied +vigorously to an axe or a saw. + +Hollister's speculations took a new turn when Archie Lawanne and +Bland came back from the bear hunt. For Lawanne did not go out. He +pitched a tent on the flat below Hollister's and kept one Siwash to +cook for him. He made that halt to rest up, to stretch and dry his +bear-skins. But long after these trophies were cured, he still +remained. He was given to roaming up and down the valley. He extended +his acquaintance to the settlement farther down, taking observation of +an earnest attempt at coöperative industry. He made himself at home +equally with the Blands and the Hollisters. + +And when July was on them, with hot, hazy sunshine in which berries +ripened and bird and insect life filled the Toba with a twitter and a +drone, when the smoke of distant forest fires drifted like pungent fog +across the hills, Hollister began to wonder if the net Myra seemed +unconsciously to spread for men's feet had snared another victim. + +This troubled him a little. He liked Lawanne. He knew nothing about +him, who he was, where he came from, what he did. Nevertheless there +had arisen between them a curious fellowship. There seemed to reside +in the man a natural quality of uprightness, a moral stoutness of soul +that lifted him above petty judgments. One did not like or dislike +Lawanne for what he did or said so much as for what he suggested as +being inherent within himself. + +There was a little of that quality, also, about Charlie Mills. He +worked in the timber with a fierce energy. His dark face glistened +with sweat-beads from morning till night. His black hair stood in +wisps and curls, its picturesque disorder heightened by a trick he had +of running his fingers through it when he paused for a minute to take +breath, to look steadfastly across at the slide-scarred granite face +of the north valley wall, with a wistful look in his eyes. + +"Those hills," he said once abruptly to Hollister, "they were here +long before we came. They'll be here long after we're gone. What a +helpless, crawling, puny insect man is, anyway. A squirrel on his +wheel in a cage." + +It was a protesting acceptance of a stark philosophy, Hollister +thought, a cry against some weight that bore him down, the momentary +revealing of some conflict in which Mills foresaw defeat, or had +already suffered defeat. It was a statement wrung out of him, +requiring no comment, for he at once resumed the steady pull on the +six-foot, cross-cut saw. + +"Why don't you take it easier?" Hollister said to him. "You work as if +the devil was driving you." + +Mills smiled. + +"The only devil that drives me," he said, "is the devil inside me. + +"Besides," he continued, between strokes of the saw, "I want to make a +stake and get to hell out of here." + +Hollister did not press him for reasons. Mills did work as if the +devil drove him, and in his quiescent moments an air of melancholy +clouded his dark face as if physical passivity left him a prey to some +inescapable inner gloom. + +All about him, then, Hollister perceived strong undercurrents of life +flowing sometimes in the open, sometimes underground: Charlie Mills +and Myra Bland touched by that universal passion which has brought +happiness and pain, dizzy heights of ecstasy and deep abysses of +despair to men and women since the beginning of time; Lawanne +apparently succumbing to the same malady that touched Mills; Bland +moving in the foreground, impassive, stolidly secure in the possession +of this desired woman. And all of them bowed before and struggling +under economic forces which they did not understand, working and +planning, according to their lights, to fulfill the law of their +being, seeking through the means at hand to secure the means of +livelihood in obedience to the universal will to live, the human +desire to lay firm hold of life, liberty, such happiness as could be +grasped. + +Hollister would sit in the evening on the low stoop before his cabin +and Doris would sit beside him with her hand on his knee. A spirit of +drowsy content would rest upon them. Hollister's eyes would see the +river, gray now with the glacial discharge, slipping quietly along +between the fringes of alder and maple, backed by the deeper green of +the fir and cedar and groves of enormous spruce. His wife's ears drank +in the whispering of the stream, the rumbling of distant waterfalls, +and her warm body would press against him with an infinite suggestion +of delight. At such times he felt the goodness of being alive, the +mild intoxication of the fragrant air which filled the valley, the +majestic beauty of those insentient hills upon which the fierce +midsummer sun was baring glacial patches that gleamed now like blue +diamonds or again with a pale emerald sheen, in a setting of worn +granite and white snowdrifts five thousand feet above. + +In this wilderness, this vast region of forest and streams and wild +mountain ranges, men were infinitesimal specks hurrying here and there +about their self-appointed tasks. Those like himself and Doris, who +did not mind the privations inseparable from that remoteness, fared +well enough. The land held out to them manifold promises. Hollister +looked at the red-brown shingle bolts accumulating behind the +boom-sticks and felt that inner satisfaction which comes of success +achieved by plan and labor. If his mutilated face had been capable of +expression, it would have reflected pride, satisfaction. Out of the +apparent wreckage of his life he was laying the foundations of +something permanent, something abiding, an enduring source of good. He +would tangle his fingers in Doris' brown hair and feel glad. + +Then perhaps his eyes would shift downstream to where Bland's stark, +weather-beaten cabin lifted its outline against the green thickets, +and he would think uneasily upon what insecure tenure, upon what +deliberate violation of law and of current morality he held his +dearest treasure. What would she think, if she knew, this dainty +creature cuddling against his knee? He would wake in the night and lie +on elbow staring at her face in the moonlight,--delicate-skinned as a +child's, that lovable, red-lipped mouth, those dear, blind eyes which +sometimes gave him the illusion of seeing clearly out of their gray +depths. + +What would she think? What would she, say? What would she do? He did +not know. It troubled him to think of this. If he could have swept +Myra out of North America with a wave of his hand, he would have made +one sweeping gesture. He was jealous of his happiness, his security, +and Myra's presence was not only a reminder; it had the effect upon +him of a threat he could not ignore. + +Yet he was compelled to ignore it. She and Doris had become fast +friends. It all puzzled Hollister very much sometimes. Except for the +uprooting, the undermining influences of his war experience, he would +have been revolted at his own actions. He had committed technical +bigamy. His children would be illegitimate before the law. + +Hollister's morality was the morality of his early environment; his +class was that magnificently inert middle class which sets its face +rigorously against change, which proceeds naively upon the assumption +that everything has always been as it is and will continue to be so; +that the man and woman who deviates from the accepted conventions in +living, loving, marrying, breeding--even in dying--does so because of +innate depravity, and that such people must be damned by bell, book +and candle in this world, as they shall assuredly be damned in the +next. + +Hollister could no longer believe that goodness and badness were +wholly matters of free will. From the time he put on the king's +uniform in a spirit of idealistic service down to the day he met Doris +Cleveland on the steamer, his experience had been a succession of +devastating incidents. What had happened to him had happened to +others. Life laid violent hands on them and tossed them about like +frail craft on a windy sea. The individual was caught in the vortex of +the social whirlpool, and what he did, what he thought and felt, what +he became, was colored and conditioned by a multitude of circumstances +that flowed about him as irresistibly as an ocean tide. + +Hollister no longer had a philosophy of life in which motives and +actions were tagged and labeled according to their kind. He had lost +his old confidence in certain arbitrary moral dicta which are the +special refuge of those whose intelligence is keen enough to grapple +competently with any material problem but who stand aghast, +apprehensive and uncomprehending, before a spiritual struggle, before +the wavering gusts of human passion. + +If he judged himself by his own earlier standard he was damned, and he +had dragged Doris Cleveland down with him. So was Myra smeared with +the pitch of moral obloquy. They were sinners all. Pain should be +their desert; shame and sorrow their portion. + +Why? Because driven by the need within them, blinded by the dust of +circumstance and groping for security amid the vast confusion which +had overtaken them, they reached out and grasped such semblence of +happiness as came within reach of their uncertain hands. + +The world at large, Hollister was aware, would be decisively +intolerant of them all, if the world should by chance be called to +pass judgment. + +But he himself could no more pass harsh judgment upon his former wife +than he could feel within himself a personal conviction of sin. Love, +he perceived, was not a fixed emotion. It was like a fire which glows +bright when plied with fuel and burns itself out when it is no longer +fed. To some it was casual, incidental; to others an imperative law of +being. Myra remained essentially the same woman, whether she loved him +or some other man. Who was he to judge her? She had loved him and then +ceased to love him. Beyond that, her life was her own to do with as +she chose. + +Nor could Hollister, when he faced the situation squarely, feel that +he was less a man, less upright, less able to bear himself decently +before his fellows than he had ever been. Sometimes he would grow +impatient with thinking and put it all by. He had his moods. But also +he had his work, the imperative necessity of constant labor to +satisfy the needs both of the present and the future. No man goes into +the wilderness with only his hands and a few tools and wins security +by any short and easy road. There were a great many things Hollister +was determined to have for himself and Doris and their children,--for +he did not close his eyes to the natural fulfilment of the mating +impulse. He did not spare himself. Like Mills, he worked with a +prodigious energy. Sometimes he wondered if dreams akin to his own +drove Charlie Mills to sweat and strain, to pile up each day double +the amount of split cedar, and double for himself the wages earned by +the other two men,--who were themselves no laggards with axe and saw. +Or if Mills fantastically personified the timber as something which +stood between him and his aching desire and so attacked it with all +his lusty young strength. + +Sometimes Hollister sat by, covertly watching Mills and Myra. He could +make nothing of Myra. She was courteous, companionable, nothing more. +But to Hollister Mills' trouble was plain enough. The man was on his +guard, as if he knew betrayal lurked in the glance of his eye, in the +quality of his tone. Hollister gauged the depths of Mills' feelings by +the smoldering fire in his glance,--that glow in Mills' dark eyes when +they rested too long on Myra. There would be open upon his face a look +of hopelessness, as if he dwelt on something that fascinated and +baffled him. + +Sometimes, latterly, he saw a hint of that same dubious expression +about Archie Lawanne. But there was a different temper in Lawanne, a +flash of the sardonic at times. + +In July, however, Lawanne went away. + +"I'm coming back, though," he told Hollister before he left. "I think +I shall put up a cabin and winter here." + +"I'll be glad to see you," Hollister replied, "but it's a lonely +valley in the winter." + +Lawanne smiled. + +"I can stand isolation for a change," he said. "I want to write a +book. And while I am outside I'll send you in a couple that I have +already written. You will see me in October. Try to get the +shingle-bolt rush over so we can go out after deer together now and +then." + +So for a time the Toba saw no more of Lawanne. Hollister missed him. +So did Doris. But she had Myra Bland to keep her company while +Hollister was away at work in the timber. Sometimes Bland himself +dropped in. But Hollister could never find himself on any common +ground of mutual interest with this sporting Englishman. He was a +bluff, hearty, healthy man, apparently without either intellect or +affectation. + +"What do you think of Bland?" he asked Doris once. + +"I can't think of him, because I can't see him," she answered. "He is +either very clever at concealing any sort of personality, or he is +simply a big, strong, stupid man." + +Which was precisely what Hollister himself thought. + +"Isn't it queer," Doris went on, "how vivid a thing personality is? +Now Myra and Mr. Lawanne are definite, colorable entities to me. So is +Charlie Mills, quiet as he is. And yet I can't make Bland seem +anything more than simply a voice with a slightly English accent." + +"Well, there must be something to him, or she wouldn't have married +him," Hollister remarked. + +"Perhaps. But I shouldn't wonder if she married him for something that +existed mostly in her own mind," Doris reflected. "Women often do +that--men too, I suppose. I very nearly did myself once. Then I +discovered that this ideal man was something I had created in my own +imagination." + +"How did you find that out before you were committed to the +enterprise?" he asked curiously. + +"Because my reason and my emotions were in continual conflict over +that man," Doris said thoughtfully. "I have always been sure, ever +since I began to take men seriously, that I wouldn't get on very long +with any man who was simply a strong, healthy animal. And as soon as I +saw that this admirable young man of mine hadn't much to offer that +wasn't purely physical, why, the glamor all faded." + +"Maybe mine will fade too," Hollister suggested. + +"Oh, you're fishing for compliments now," she laughed. "You know very +well you are. But we're pretty lucky, Robert mine, just the same. +We've gained a lot. We haven't lost anything yet. I wouldn't +back-track, not an inch. Would you--honest, now?" + +Hollister answered that in a manner which seemed to him suitable to +the occasion. And while he stood with his arm around her, Doris +startled him. + +"Myra told me a curious thing the other day," she said. "She has been +married twice. She told me that her first husband's name was the same +as yours--Bob Hollister--that he was killed in France in 1917. She +says that you somehow remind her of him." + +"There were a good many men killed in France in '17," he observed. +"And Hollister is not such an uncommon name. Does the lady suspect I'm +the reincarnation of her dear departed? She seems to have consoled +herself for the loss, anyway." + +"I doubt if she has," Doris answered. "She doesn't unburden her soul +to me, but I have the feeling that she is not exactly a happy woman." + +The matter rested there. Doris went away to do something about the +house. Hollister stood glowering at the distant outline of Bland's +cabin. A slow uneasiness grew on him. What did Myra mean by that +confidence? Did she mean anything? He shook himself impatiently. He +had a profound distaste for that revelation. In itself it was nothing, +unless some obscure motive lurked behind. That troubled him. Myra +meant nothing--or she meant mischief. Why, he could not say. She was +quit of him at her own desire. She had made a mouthful of his modest +fortune. If she had somehow guessed the real man behind that mask of +scars, and from some obscure, perverted motive meant to bring +shipwreck to both of them once more, Hollister felt that he would +strangle her without a trace of remorse. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +All that summer the price of cedar went creeping up. For a while this +was only in keeping with the slow ascension of commodity costs which +continued long after the guns ceased to thunder. But presently cedar +on the stump, in the log, in the finished product, began to soar while +other goods slowed or halted altogether in their mysterious climb to +inaccessable heights,--and cedar was not a controlled industry, not a +monopoly. Shingles and dressed cedar were scarce, that was all. For +the last two years of the war most of the available man-power and +machinery of British Columbia loggers had been given over to airplane +spruce. Carpenters had laid down their tools and gone to the front. +House builders had ceased to build houses while the vast cloud of +European uncertainty hung over the nation. All across North America +the wind and weather had taken toll of roofs, and these must be +repaired. The nation did not cease to breed while its men died daily +by thousands. And with the signing of the armistice a flood of +immigration was let loose. British and French and Scandinavians and +swarms of people from Czecho-Slovakia and all the Balkan States, +hurried from devastated lands and impending taxes to a new country +glowing with the deceptive greenness of far fields. The population had +increased; the housing for it had not. So that rents went up and up +until economic factors exerted their inexorable pressure and the tap +of the carpenter's hammer and the ring of his saw began to sound in +every city, in every suburb, on new farms and lonely prairies. + +Cedar shingles began to make fortunes for those who dealt in them on a +large scale. By midsummer Carr's mill on the Toba worked night and +day. + +"Crowd your work, Hollister," Carr advised him. "I've been studying +this cedar situation from every angle. There will be an unlimited +demand and rising prices for about another year. By that time every +logging concern will be getting out cedar. The mills will be cutting +it by the million feet. They'll glut the market and the bottom will +drop out of this cedar boom. So get that stuff of yours out while the +going is good. We can use it all." + +But labor was scarce. All the great industries were absorbing men, +striving to be first in the field of post-war production. Hollister +found it difficult to enlarge his crew. That was a lonely hillside +where his timber stood. Loggers preferred the big camps, the less +primitive conditions under which they must live and work. Hollister +saw that he would be unable to extend his operations until deep snow +shut down some of the northern camps that fall. Even so he did well +enough, much better than he had expected at the beginning. Bill +Hayes, he of the gray mustache and the ear-piercing faller's cry, was +a "long-stake" man. That is to say, old Bill knew his weaknesses, the +common weaknesses of the logger, the psychological reaction from hard +work, from sordid living, from the indefinable cramping of the spirit +that grows upon a man through months of monotonous labor. Town--a +pyrotechnic display among the bright lights--one dizzy swoop on the +wings of fictitious excitement--bought caresses--empty pockets--the +woods again! Yet the logger dreams always of saving his money, of +becoming a timber king, of setting himself up in some business--knowing +all the while that he is like a child with pennies in his hand, +unhappy until they are spent. Bill Hayes was past fifty, and he knew +all this. He stayed in the woods as long as the weakness of the flesh +permitted, naively certain that he had gone on his last "bust", that +he would bank his money and experience the glow of possessing capital. + +The other man was negligible--a bovine lump of flesh without +personality--born to hew wood and draw water for men of enterprise. + +And there was always Mills, Mills who wanted to make a stake and "get +to hell out of here", and who did not go, although the sum to his +credit in Hollister's account book was creeping towards a thousand +dollars, so fierce and unceasing an energy did Mills expend upon the +fragrant cedar. + +Hollister himself accounted for no small profit. Like Mills, he worked +under a spur. He wrestled stoutly with opportunity. He saw beyond the +cedar on that green slope. With a living assured, he sought fortune, +aspired to things as yet beyond his reach,--leisure, an ampler way of +life, education for his children that were to be. + +This measure of prosperity loomed not so distant. When he took stock +of his resources in October, he found himself with nearly three +thousand dollars in hand and the bulk of his cedar still standing. +Half that was directly the gain derived from a rising market. Labor +was his only problem. If he could get labor, and shingles held the +upper price levels, he would make a killing in the next twelve months. +After that, with experience gained and working capital, the forested +region of the British Columbia coast lay before him as a field of +operations. + +Meantime he was duly thankful for daily progress. Materially that +destiny which he doubted seemed to smile on him. + +Late in October, when the first southward flight of wild duck began to +wing over the valley, old Bill Hayes and Sam Ballard downed tools and +went to town. The itch of the wandering foot had laid hold of them. +The pennies burned their pockets. Ballard frankly wanted a change. +Hayes declared he wanted only a week's holiday, to see a show or two +and buy some clothes. He would surely be back. + +"Yes, he'll be back," Mills commented with ironic emphasis. "He'll be +broke in a week and the first camp that pays his fare out will get +him. There's no fool like a logger. Strong in the back and weak in +the head--the best of us." + +But Mills himself stayed on. What kept him, Hollister wondered? Did he +have some objective that centered about Myra Bland? Was the man a +victim of hopeless passion, lingering near the unobtainable because he +could not tear himself away? Was Myra holding him like a pawn in some +obscure game that she played to feed her vanity? Or were the two of +them caught in one of those inextricable coils which Hollister +perceived to arise in the lives of men and women, from which they +could not free themselves without great courage and ruthless disregard +of consequences? + +Sometimes Hollister wondered if he himself were not overfanciful, too +sensitive to moods and impressions. Then he would observe some +significant interchange of looks between Mills and Myra and be sure of +currents of feeling, furtive and powerful, sweeping about those two. +It angered him. Hollister was all for swift and forthright action, +deeds done in the open. If they loved, why did they not commit +themselves boldly to the undertaking, take matters in their own hands +and have an end to all secrecy? He felt a menace in this secrecy, as +if somehow it threatened him. He perceived that Mills suffered, that +something gnawed at the man. When he rested from his work, when he sat +quiescent beside the fire where they ate at noon together, that cloak +of melancholy brooding wrapped Mills close. He seldom talked. When he +did there was in his speech a resentful inflection like that of a man +who smarts under some injury, some injustice, some deep hurt which he +may not divulge but which nags him to the limits of his endurance. + +Hollister was Mills' sole company after the other two men left. They +would work within sight of each other all day. They ate together at +noon. Now and then he asked Mills down to supper out of pity for the +man's complete isolation. Some chord in Hollister vibrated in sympathy +with this youngster who kept his teeth so resolutely clenched on +whatever hurt him. + +And while Hollister watched Mills and wondered how long that effort at +repression would last, he became conscious that Myra was watching +_him_, puzzling over him; that something about him attracted and +repulsed her in equal proportions. It was a disturbing discovery. Myra +could study him with impunity. Doris could not see this scrutiny of +her husband by her neighbor. And Myra did not seem to care what +Hollister saw. She would look frankly at him with a question in her +eyes. What that question might be, Hollister refused even to consider. +She never again made any remark to Doris about her first husband, +about the similarity of name. But now and then she would speak of +something that happened when she was a girl, some casual reference to +the first days of the war, to her life in London, and her eyes would +turn to Hollister. But he was always on his guard, always on the +alert against these pitfalls of speech. He was never sure whether they +were deliberate traps, or merely the half-regretful, backward looking +of a woman to whom life lately had not been kind. + +Nevertheless it kept his nerves on edge. For he valued his peace and +his home that was in the making. There was a restfulness and a +satisfaction in Doris Cleveland which he dreaded to imperil because he +had the feeling that he would never find its like again. He felt that +Myra's mere presence was like a sword swinging over his head. There +was no armor he could put on against that weapon if it were decreed it +should fall. + +Hollister soon perceived that if he were not to lose ground he must +have labor. Men would not come seeking work so far out of the beaten +track. In addition, there were matters afoot that required attention. +So he took Doris with him and went down to Vancouver. Almost the first +man he met on Cordova Street, when he went about in search of bolt +cutters, was Bill Hayes, sober and unshaven and a little crestfallen. + +"Why didn't you come back?" Hollister asked. + +Hayes grinned sheepishly. + +"Kinda hated to," he admitted. "Pulled the same old stuff--dry town, +too. Shot the roll. Dang it, I'd ought to had more sense. Well, that's +the way she goes. You want men?" + +"Sure I want men," Hollister said. "Look here, if you can rustle five +or six men, I'll make it easier for you all. I'll take up a cook for +the bolt camp. And I won't shut down for anything but snow too deep to +work in." + +"You're on. I think I can rustle some men. Try it, anyhow." + +Hayes got a crew together in twenty-four hours. Doris attended to her +business, which required the help of her married cousin and a round of +certain shops. Almost the last article they bought was a piano, the +one luxury Doris longed for, a treat they had promised themselves as +soon as the cedar got them out of the financial doldrums. + +"I suppose it's extravagance," Doris said, her fingers caressing the +smooth mahogany, feeling the black and ivory of the keyboard, "but +it's one of the few things one doesn't need eyes for." + +She had proved that to Hollister long ago. When she could see she must +have had an extraordinary faculty for memorizing music. Her memory +seemed to have indelibly engraved upon it all the music she had ever +played. + +Hollister smiled indulgently and ordered the instrument cased for +shipping. It went up on the same steamer that gave passage to +themselves and six woodsmen and their camp cook. There were some bits +of new furniture also. + +This necessitated the addition of another room. But that was a simple +matter for able hands accustomed to rough woodwork. So in a little +while their house extended visibly, took on a homier aspect. The +sweet-peas and flaming poppies had wilted under the early frosts. Now +a rug or two and a few pictures gave to the floors and walls a +cheerful note of color that the flowers had given to their dooryard +during the season of their bloom. + +About the time this was done, and the cedar camp working at an +accelerated pace, Archie Lawanne came back to the Toba. He walked into +Hollister's quite unexpectedly one afternoon. Myra was there. + +It seemed to Hollister that Lawanne's greeting was a little eager, a +trifle expectant, that he held Myra's outstretched hand just a little +longer than mere acquaintance justified. Hollister glanced at Mills, +sitting by. Mills had come down to help Hollister on the boom, and +Doris had called them both in for a cup of tea. Mills was staring at +Lawanne with narrowed eyes. His face wore the expression of a man who +sees impending calamity, sees it without fear or surprise, faces it +only with a little dismay. He set down his cup and lighted a +cigarette. His fingers, the brown, muscular, heavy fingers of a +strong-handed man, shook slightly. + +"You know, it's good to be back in this old valley," Lawanne said. "I +have half a notion to become a settler. A fellow could build up quite +an estate on one of these big flats. He could grow almost anything +here that will grow in this latitude. And when he wanted to experience +the doubtful pleasures of civilization, they would always be waiting +for him outside." + +"If he had the price," Mills put in shortly. + +"Precisely," Lawanne returned, "and cared to pay it--for all he got." + +"That's what it is to be a man and free," Myra observed. "You can go +where you will and when--live as you wish." + +"It all depends on what you mean by freedom," Lawanne replied. "Show +me a free man. Where is there such? We're all slaves. Only some of us +are too stupid to recognize our status." + +"Slaves to what?" Myra asked. "You seem to have come back in a +decidedly pessimistic frame of mind." + +"Slaves to our own necessities; to other people's demands; to burdens +we have assumed, or have had thrust upon us, which we haven't the +courage to shake off. To our own moods and passions. To something +within us that keeps us pursuing this thing we call happiness. To +struggle for fulfilment of ideals that can never be attained. Slaves +to our environment, to social forces before which the individual is +nothing. It's all rot to talk about the free man, the man whose soul +is his own. Complete freedom isn't even desirable, because to attain +it you would have to withdraw yourself altogether from your fellows +and become a law unto yourself in some remote solitude; and no sane +person wants to do that, even to secure this mythical freedom which +people prattle about and would recoil from if it were offered them. +Yes, I'll have another cup, if you please, Mrs. Hollister." + +Lawanne munched cake and drank tea and talked as if he had been denied +the boon of conversation for a long time. But that could hardly be, +for he had been across the continent since he left there. He had been +in New York and Washington and swung back to British Columbia by way +of San Francisco. + +"I read those two books of yours--or rather Bob read them to me," +Doris said presently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself for writing +such a preposterous yarn as 'The Worm'." + +"Ah, my dear woman," Lawanne's face lit up with a sardonic smile. "I +wish my publishers could hear you say that. 'The Worm' is good, sound, +trade union goods, turned out in the very best manner of a thriving +school of fictionsmiths. It sold thirty thousand copies in the regular +edition and tons in the reprint." + +"But there never were such invincible men and such a perfect creature +of a woman," Doris persisted. "And the things they did--the strings +you pulled. Life isn't like that. You know it isn't." + +"Granted," Lawanne returned dryly. "But what did you think of 'The Man +Who Couldn't Die'?" + +"It didn't seem to me," Doris said slowly, "that the man who wrote the +last book could possibly have written the first. That _was_ life. Your +man there was a real man, and you made his hopes and fears, his love +and sufferings, very vivid. Your woman was real enough too, but I +didn't like her. It didn't seem to me she was worth the pain she +caused." + +"Neither did she seem so to Phillips, if you remember," Lawanne said. +"That was his tragedy--to know his folly and still be urged blindly on +because of her, because of his own illusions, which he knew he must +cling to or perish. But wait till I finish the book I'm going to write +this winter. I'm going to cut loose. I'm going to smite the +Philistines--and the chances are," he smiled cynically, "they won't +even be aware of the blow. Did you read those books?" He turned +abruptly to Myra. + +She nodded. + +"Yes, but I refuse to commit myself," she said lightly. "There is no +such thing as a modest author, and Mrs. Hollister has given you all +the praise that's good for you." + +Hollister and Mills went back to their work on the boom. When they +finished their day's work, Lawanne had gone down to the Blands' with +Myra. After supper, as Mills rose to leave for the upper camp, he said +to Doris: + +"Have you got that book of his--about the fellow that couldn't die? +I'd like to read it." + +Doris gave him the book. He went away with it in his hand. + +Hollister looked after him curiously. There was strong meat in +Lawanne's book. He wondered if Mills would digest it. And he wondered +a little if Mills regarded Lawanne as a rival, if he were trying to +test the other man's strength by his work. + +Away down the river, now that dark had fallen, the light in Bland's +house shone yellow. There was a red, glowing spot on the river bank. +That would be Lawanne's camp. Hollister shut the door on the chill +October night and turned back to his easy-chair by the stove. Doris +had finished her work. She sat at the piano, her fingers picking out +some slow, languorous movement that he did not know, but which soothed +him like a lullaby. + +Vigorously he dissented from Lawanne's philosophy of enslavement. He, +Hollister, was a free man. Yes, he was free,--but only when he could +shut the door on the past, only when he could shut away all the world +just as he had but now shut out the valley, the cold frosty night, his +neighbors and his men, by the simple closing of a door. But he could +not shut away the consciousness that they were there, that he must +meet Myra and her vague questioning, Mills with his strange +repression, his brooding air. He must see them again, be perplexed by +them, perhaps find his own life, his own happiness, tangled in the web +of their affairs. Hollister could frown over that unwelcome +possibility. He could say to himself that it was only an impression; +that he was a fool to labor under that sense of insecurity. But he +could not help it. Life was like that. No man stood alone. No man +could ever completely achieve mastery of his relations to his +fellows. Until life became extinct, men and women would be swayed and +conditioned by blind human forces, governed by relations casual or +intimate, imposed upon them by the very law of their being. Who was he +to escape? + +No, Hollister reflected, he could not insulate himself and Doris +against this environment, against these people. They would have to +take things as they came and be thankful they were no worse. + +Doris left the piano. She sat on a low stool beside him, leaned her +brown head against him. + +"It won't be so long before I have to go to town, Bob," she said +dreamily. "I hope the winter is open so that the work goes on well. +And sometimes I hope that the snow shuts everything down, so that +you'll be there with me. I'm not very consistent, am I?" + +"You suit me," he murmured. "And I'll be there whether the work goes +on or not." + +"What an element of the unexpected, the unforeseen, is at work all the +time," she said. "A year ago you and I didn't even know of each +other's existence. I used to sit and wonder what would become of me. +It was horrible sometimes to go about in the dark, existing like a +plant in a cellar, longing for all that a woman longs for if she is a +woman and knows herself. And you were in pretty much the same boat." + +"Worse," Hollister muttered, "because I sulked and brooded and raged +against what had overtaken me. Yet if I hadn't reacted so violently, +I should never have come here to hide away from what hurt me. So I +wouldn't have met you. That would almost make one think there is +something in the destiny that you and Lawanne smile at." + +"Destiny and chance: two names for the same thing, and that thing +wholly unaccountable, beyond the scope of human foresight," Doris +replied. "Things happen; that's all we can generally say. We don't +know why. Speaking of Lawanne, I wonder if he really does intend to +stay here this winter and write a book?" + +"He says so." + +"He'll be company for us," she reflected. "He's clever and a little +bit cynical, but I like him. He'll help to keep us from getting bored +with each other." + +"Do you think there is any danger of that?" Hollister inquired. + +She tweaked his ear playfully. + +"People do, you know. But I hardly think we shall. Not for a year or +two, anyway. Not till the house gets full of babies and the stale odor +of uneventful, routine, domestic life. Then _you_ may." + +"Huh," he grunted derisively, "catch me. I know what I want and what +contents me. We'll beat the game handily; and we'll beat it together. + +"Why, good Lord," he cried sharply, "what would be the good of all +this effort, only for you? Where would be the fun of working and +planning and anticipating things? Nearly every man, I believe," he +concluded thoughtfully, "keeps his gait because of some woman. There +is always the shadow of a woman over him, the picture of some +woman--past, present, or future, to egg him on to this or that." + +"To keep him," Doris laughed, "in the condition a poet once described +as: + + 'This fevered flesh that goes on groping, wailing + Toward the gloom.'" + +They both laughed. They felt no gloom. The very implication of gloom, +of fevered flesh, was remote from that which they had won together. + +When Hollister went up to the works in the morning, he found Mills +humped on a box beside the fireplace in the old cabin, reading "The +Man Who Couldn't Die." At noon he was gone somewhere. Over the noon +meal in the split-cedar mess-house, the other bolt cutters spoke +derisively of the man who laid off work for half a day to read a book. +That was beyond their comprehension. + +But Hollister thought he understood. + +Later in the afternoon, as he came down the hill, he looked from the +vantage of height and saw Lawanne's winter quarters already taking +form on the river bank, midway between his own place and Bland's. It +grew to completion rapidly in the next few days, taking on at last a +shake roof of hand-dressed cedar to keep out the cold rains that now +began to beat down, the forerunner of that interminable downpour which +deluges the British Columbia coast from November to April, the +torrential weeping of the skies upon a porous soil which nourishes +vast forests of enormous trees, jungles of undergrowth tropical in its +density, in its variety of shrub and fern. + +For a month after that a lull seemed to come upon the slow march of +events towards some unknown destiny,--of which Hollister nursed a +strange prescience that now rose strong in him and again grew so +tenuous that he would smile at it for a fancy. Yet in that month there +was no slack in the routine of affairs. The machinery of Carr's mill +revolved through each twenty-four hours. Up on the hill Hollister's +men felled trees with warning shouts and tumultuous crashings. They +attacked the prone trunks with axe and saw and iron wedges, +Lilliputians rending the body of a fallen giant. The bolt piles grew; +they were hurled swiftly down the chute into the dwindling river, +rafted to the mill. All this time the price of shingles in the open +market rose and rose, like a tide strongly on the flood, of which no +man could prophesy the high-water mark. Money flowed to Hollister's +pockets, to the pockets of his men. The value of his standing timber +grew by leaps and bounds. And always Sam Carr, who had no economic +illusions, urged Hollister on, predicting before long the inevitable +reaction. + +The days shortened. Through the long evenings Hollister's house +became a sort of social center. Lawanne would come in after supper, +sometimes inert, dumb, to sit in a corner smoking a pipe,--again +filled with a curious exhilaration, to talk unceasingly of everything +that came into his mind, to thump ragtime on the piano and sing a +variety of inconsequential songs in a velvety baritone. Myra came +often. So did Bland. So did Charlie Mills. Many evenings they were all +there together. As the weeks went winging by, Doris grew less certain +on her feet, more prone to spend her time sitting back in a deep arm +chair, and Myra began to play for them, to sing for them--to come to +the house in the day and help Doris with her work. + +The snow began at last, drifting down out of a windless sky. Upon +that, with a sudden fear lest a great depth should fall, lest the +river should freeze and make exit difficult, Hollister took his wife +to town. This was about the middle of November. Some three weeks later +a son was born to them. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +When they came back to the Toba, Hollister brought in a woman to +relieve Doris of housework and help her take care of the baby, +although Doris was jealous of that privilege. She was a typical mother +in so far as she held the conviction that no one could attend so well +as herself the needs of that small, red-faced, lusty-lunged morsel of +humanity. + +And as if some definite mark had been turned, the winter season closed +upon the valley in a gentle mood. The driving rains of the fall gave +way to January snows. But the frost took no more than a tentative +nibble now and then. Far up on the mountains the drifts piled deep, +and winter mists blew in clammy wraiths across the shoulders of the +hills. From those high, cold levels, the warmth of day and the frosts +that gnawed in chill darkness started intermittent slides rumbling, +growling as they slipped swiftly down steep slopes, to end with a +crash at the bottom of the hill or in the depths of a gorge. But the +valley itself suffered no extremes of weather. The river did not +freeze. It fell to a low level, but not so low that Hollister ever +failed to shift his cedar bolts from chute mouth to mill. There was +seldom so much snow that his crew could not work. There was growing +an appreciable hole in the heart of his timber limit. In another year +there would be nothing left of those great cedars that were ancient +when the first white man crossed the Rockies, nothing but a few +hundred stumps. + +With the coming of midwinter a somnolent period seemed also to occur +in Hollister's affairs. One day succeeded another in placid routine. +The work went on with clock-like precision. It had passed beyond a +one-man struggle for economic foothold; it no longer held for him the +feeling of a forlorn hope which he led against the forces of the +wilderness. It was like a ball which he had started rolling down hill. +It kept on, whether he tended it or not. If he chose to take his rifle +and go seeking venison, if he elected to sit by his fire reading a +book, the cedars fell, their brown trunks were sawn and split, the +bolts came sliding down the chute in reckonable, profitable +quantities, to the gain of himself and his men. + +Mills remained, moody, working with that strange dynamic energy, +sparing of words except that now and then he would talk to Hollister +in brief jerky sentences, in a manner which implied much and revealed +nothing. Mills always seemed on the point of crying out some deep woe +that burned within him, of seeking relief in some outpouring of +speech,--but he never did. At the most he would fling out some cryptic +hint, bestow some malediction upon life in general. And he never +slackened the dizzy pace of his daily labor, except upon those few +occasions when from either Hollister or Lawanne he got a book that +held him. Then he would stop work and sit in the bunk house and read +till the last page was turned. But mostly he cut and piled cedar as if +he tried to drown out in the sweat of his body whatever fever burned +within. + +Hollister observed that Mills no longer had much traffic with the +Blands. For weeks at a time he did not leave the bolt camp except to +come down to Hollister's house. + +Lawanne seemed to be a favored guest now, at Bland's. Lawanne worked +upon his book, but by fits and starts, working when he did work with a +feverish concentration. He had a Chinese boy for house-servant. He +might be found at noon or at midnight sprawled in a chair beside a +pot-bellied stove, scrawling in an ungainly hand across sheets of +yellow paper. He had no set hours for work. When he did work, when he +had the vision and the fit was on and words came easily, chance +callers met with scant courtesy. But he had great stores of time to +spare, for all that. Some of it he spent at Bland's, waging an +interminable contest at cribbage with Bland, coming up now and then +with the Blands to spend an evening at Hollister's. + +"It's about a man who wrecked his life by systematically undermining +his own illusions about life," he answered one day Hollister's curious +inquiry as to what the new book was about, "and of how finally a very +assiduously cultivated illusion made him quite happy at last. Sound +interesting?" + +"How could he deliberately cultivate an illusion?" Doris asked. "If +one's intelligence ever classifies a thing as an illusion, no +conscious effort will ever turn it into a reality." + +"Oh, I didn't say _he_ cultivated the illusion," Lawanne laughed. + +"Besides, do you really think that illusions are necessary to +happiness?" Doris persisted. + +"To some people," Lawanne declared. "But let's not follow up that +philosophy. We're getting into deep water. Let's wade ashore. We'll +say whatever is is right, and let it go at that. It will be quite all +right for you to offer me a cup of tea, if your kitchen mechanic will +condescend. That Chink of mine is having a holiday with my shotgun, +trying to bag a brace of grouse for dinner. So I throw myself on your +mercy." + +"This man Bland is the dizzy limit," Lawanne observed, when the tea +and some excellent sandwiches presently appeared. "He bought another +rifle the other day--paid forty-five bones for it. That makes four he +has now. And they have to manage like the deuce to keep themselves in +grub from one remittance day to the next. He's a study. You seldom run +across such a combination of physical perfection and child-like +irresponsibility. He was complaining about his limited income the +other day--'inkum' in his inimitable pronunciation. I suggested that +right here in this valley he could earn a considerable number of +shekels if he cared to work. He merely smiled amiably and said he +didn't think he cared to take on a laborer's job. It left a chap no +time for himself, you know. I suppose he'll vegetate here till he +comes into that money he's waiting for. He refers to that as if it +were something which pertained to him by divine right, something which +freed him from any obligation to make any effort to overcome the +sordid way in which they live at present." + +"He doesn't consider it sordid," Hollister said. "Work is what he +considers sordid--and there is something to be said for his viewpoint, +at that. He enjoys himself tramping around with a gun, spending an +afternoon to catch half a dozen six-inch trout." + +"But it _is_ sordid," Lawanne persisted. "Were you ever in their +house?" + +Hollister shook his head. + +"It isn't as comfortable as your men's bunk house. They have boxes for +chairs, a rickety table, a stove about ready to fall to pieces. There +are cracks in the walls and a roof that a rat could crawl through--or +there would be if Mrs. Bland didn't go about stuffing them up with +moss and old newspapers. Why can't a gentleman, an athlete and a +sportsman make his quarters something a little better than a Siwash +would be contented with? Especially if he has prevailed on a woman to +share his joys and sorrows. Some of these days Mr. Bland will wake up +and find his wife has gone off with some enterprising chap who is +less cocksure and more ambitious." + +"Would you blame her?" Doris asked casually. + +"Bless your soul, no," Lawanne laughed. "If I were a little more +romantic, I might run away with her myself. What a tremendous jar that +would give Bland's exasperating complacency. I believe he's a +hang-over from that prehistoric time when men didn't believe that any +woman had a soul--that a woman was something in which a man acquired a +definite property right merely by marrying her." + +Doris chuckled. + +"I can imagine how Mr. Bland would look if he heard you," she said. + +"He'd only smile in a superior manner," Lawanne declared. "You +couldn't get Bland fussed up by any mere assertion. The only thing +that would stir him deeply would be a direct assault on that vague +abstraction which he calls his honor--or on his property. Then he +would very likely smite the wrongdoer with all the efficiency of +outraged virtue." + +Hollister continued to muse on this after Lawanne went away. He +thought Lawanne's summing up a trifle severe. Nevertheless it was a +pretty clear statement of fact. Bland certainly seemed above working +either for money or to secure a reasonable degree of comfort for +himself and his wife. He sat waiting for a windfall to restore his +past splendor of existence, which he sometimes indirectly admitted +meant cricket, a country home, horses and dogs, a whirl among the +right sort of people in London now and then. That sort of thing and +that sort of man was what Myra had fallen in love with. Hollister felt +a mild touch of contempt for them both. + +His wife had also let her thoughts focus on the Blands. + +"I wonder," she said, "if they are so very poor? Why don't you offer +Bland a job? Maybe he is too proud to ask." + +Bland was not too proud to ask for certain things, it seemed. About a +week later he came to Hollister and in a most casual manner said, "I +say, old man, can you let me have a hundred dollars? My quarterly +funds are delayed a bit." + +Hollister gave him the money without question. As he watched Bland +stride away through the light blanket of snow, and a little later +noticed him disappear among the thickets and stumps going towards the +Carr camp, where supplies were sold as a matter of accommodation +rather than for profit, Hollister reflected that there was a mild sort +of irony in the transaction. He wondered if Myra knew of her husband's +borrowing. If she had any inkling of the truth, how would she feel? +For he knew that Myra was proud, sensitive, independent in spirit far +beyond her capacity for actual independence. If she even suspected his +identity, the borrowing of that money would surely sting her. But +Hollister put that notion aside. + +For a long time Myra had ceased to trouble him with the irritating +uncertainty of their first meetings. She apparently accepted him and +his mutilated face as part of Doris Hollister's background and gave +him no more thought or attention. Always in the little gatherings at +his house Hollister contrived to keep in the shadow, to be an onlooker +rather than a participant,--just as Charlie Mills did. Hollister was +still sensitive about his face. He was doubly sensitive because he +dreaded any comment upon his disfigurement reaching his wife's ears. +He had succeeded so well in thus effacing himself that Myra seemed to +regard him as if he were no more than a grotesque bit of furniture to +which she had become accustomed. All the sense of sinister +possibilities in her presence, all that uneasy dread of her nearness, +that consciousness of her as an impending threat, had finally come to +seem nothing more than mere figments of his imagination. Especially +since their son was born. That seemed to establish the final bond +between himself and Doris. Myra, the past which so poignantly included +Myra, held less and less significance. He could look at Myra and +wonder if this _was_ the same woman he had held in his arms, whose +kisses had been freely and gladly bestowed upon him; if all the +passion and pain of their life together, of their tearing apart, had +ever really been. He had got so far beyond that it seemed unreal. And +lately there had settled upon him a surety that to Myra it must all be +just as unreal--that she could not possibly harbor any suspicion that +he was her legal husband, hiding behind a mask of scars--and that +even if she did suspect, that suspicion could never be translated into +action which could deflect ever so slightly the current of his present +existence. + +He was working at the chute mouth when Bland came to ask for that +loan. He continued to work there. Not long after he noticed Bland +leave his own house and go down the flat, he saw Myra coming along the +bank. That was nothing. There was a well-beaten path there that she +traveled nearly every afternoon. He felt his first tentative misgiving +when he saw that Myra did not stop at the house, that she walked past +and straight towards where he worked. And this slight misgiving grew +to a certainty of impending trouble when she came up, when she faced +him. Movement and the crisp air had kindled a glow in her cheeks. But +something besides the winter air had kindled an almost unnatural glow +in her eyes. They were like dusky pansies. She was, he thought, with +curious self-detachment, a strikingly beautiful woman. And he recalled +that anger or excitement, any emotion that stirred her, always made +her seem more alluring, always made her glow and sparkle as if in such +moments she was a perfect human jewel, flashing in the sun of life. + +She nodded to Hollister, looked down on the cedar blocks floating in +the cold river, stood a moment to watch the swift descent of other +bolts hurtling down the chute and joining their fellows with +successive splashes. + +"You let Jim have some money this morning?" she said then; it was a +statement as much as an interrogation. + +"Yes," Hollister replied. + +"Don't let him have any more," she said bluntly. "You may never get it +back. Why should you supply him with money that you've worked for when +he won't make any effort to get it for himself? You're altogether too +free-handed, Robin." + +Hollister stood speechless. She looked at him with a curious +half-amused expectancy. She knew him. No one but Myra had ever called +him that. It had been her pet name for him in the old days. She knew +him. He leaned on his pike pole, waiting for what was to follow. This +revelation was only a preliminary. Something like a dumb fury came +over Hollister. Why did she reveal this knowledge of him? For what +purpose? He felt his secure foundations crumbling. + +"So you recognize me?" + +"Did you think I wouldn't?" she said slowly. "Did you think your only +distinguishing characteristic was the shape of your face? I've been +sure of it for months." + +"Ah," he said. "What are you going to do about it?" + +"Nothing. Nothing. What is there to do?" + +"Then why reveal this knowledge?" he demanded harshly. "Why drag out +the old skeleton and rattle it for no purpose? Or have you some +purpose?" + +Myra sat down on a fallen tree. She drew the folds of a heavy brown +coat closer about her and looked at him steadily. + +"No," she replied. "I can't say that I have any definite purpose +except--that I want to talk to you. And it seemed that I could talk to +you better if we stopped pretending. We can't alter facts by +pretending they don't exist, can we?" + +"I don't attempt to alter them," he said. "I accept them and let it go +at that. Why don't you?" + +"I do," she assured him, "but when I find myself compelled to accept +your money to pay for the ordinary necessaries of living, I feel +myself being put in an intolerable position. I suppose you won't +understand that. I imagine you think of me as a selfish little beast +who has no scruples about anything. But I'm not quite like that. It +galls me to have Jim borrow from you. He may intend to pay it back. +But he won't; it will somehow never be quite convenient. And I've +squandered enough of your money. I feel like a thief sometimes when I +watch you work. You must hate me. Do you, Robin?" + +Hollister stirred the snow absently with the pike-pole point. He tried +to analyze his feelings, and he found it difficult. + +"I don't think so," he said at last. "I'm rather indifferent. If you +meddled with things I'd not only hate you, I think I would want to +destroy you. But you needn't worry about the money. If Bland doesn't +repay the hundred dollars it won't break me. I won't lend him any more +if it disturbs you. But that doesn't matter. The only thing that +matters is whether you are going to upset everything in some rash mood +that you may sometime have." + +"Do you think I might do that?" + +"How do I know what you may do?" he returned. "You threw me into the +discard when your fancy turned to some one else. You followed your own +bent with a certain haste as soon as I was reported dead. I had ceased +to be man enough for you, but my money was still good enough for you. +When I recall those things, I think I can safely say that I haven't +the least idea what you may do next. You aren't faring any too well. +That's plain enough. I have seen men raise Cain out of sheer +devilishness, out of a desperate notion to smash everything because +they were going to smash themselves. Some people seem able to amuse +themselves by watching other people squirm. Maybe you are like that. +You had complete power over me once. I surrendered to that gladly, +then. You appear to have a faculty of making men dance to any tune you +care to play. But all the power you have now, so far as I'm concerned, +is to make me suffer a little more by giving the whole ugly show away. +No, I haven't the least idea what you may do. I don't know you at +all." + +"My God, no, you don't," she flung out. "You don't. If you ever had, +we wouldn't be where we are now." + +"Probably it's as well," Hollister returned. "Even if you had been +true, you'd have faltered when I came back looking like this." + +"And that would have been worse than what I did do," she said, +"wouldn't it?" + +"Are you justifying it as an act of mercy to me?" he asked. + +Myra shook her head. + +"No. I don't feel any great necessity for justifying my actions. No +more than you should feel compelled to justify yours. We have each +only done what normal human beings frequently do when they get torn +loose from the moorings they know and are moved by forces within them +and beyond them, forces which bewilder and dismay them. The war and +your idea of duty, of service, pried us apart. Natural causes--natural +enough when I look back at them--did the rest. We all want to be +happy. We all grab at that when it comes within reach. That's all you +and I have done. We will probably continue doing that the same as +every one else." + +"I have it," Hollister said defiantly. "That is why I don't want any +ghosts of the old days haunting me now." + +"If you have, you are very fortunate," she murmured. "But don't leave +your wife alone in a city throbbing with the fevered excitement and +uncertainty of war, where every one's motto is a short life and a +merry one! Not if she's young and hot-blooded, if she has grown so +accustomed to affection and caresses that the want of them afflicts +her with a thirst like that of a man lost in a desert. Because if she +has nothing to do but live from day to day on memories and hopes, +there will be a time when some man at hand will obscure the figure of +the absent one. That is all that happened to me, Robin. I longed for +you. Then I began to resent your complete absorption by the war +machine. Then you got dim, like the figure of a man walking away down +a long road. Do you remember how it was? Leave once in six months or +so. A kiss of welcome and a good-by right on its heels. There were +thousands like me in London. The war took our men--but took no account +of us. We were untrained. There were no jobs to occupy our hands--none +we could put our hearts into--none that could be gotten without +influence in the proper quarters. We couldn't pose successfully enough +to persuade ourselves that it was a glorious game. They had taken our +men, and there was nothing much left. We did not have to earn our +keep. If you had only not stuck so closely to the front lines." + +"I had to," Hollister said sharply. "I had no choice. The country----" + +"The country! That shadowy phantasm--that recruiting sergeant's +plea--that political abstraction that is flung in one's face along +with other platitudes from every platform," Myra broke out +passionately. "What does it really mean? What did it mean to us? Men +going out to die. Women at home crying, eating their hearts out with +loneliness, going bad now and then in recklessness, in desperation. +Army contractors getting rich. Ammunition manufacturers getting rich. +Transportation companies paying hundred per cent. dividends. One +nation grabbing for territory here, another there. Talk of saving the +world for democracy and in the same breath throttling liberty of +speech and action in every corner of the world. And now that it's all +over, everything is the same, only worse. The rich are richer and the +poor poorer, and there are some new national boundaries and some +blasted military and political reputations. That's all. What was that +to you and me? Nothing. Less than nothing. Yet it tore our lives up by +the roots. It took away from us something we had that we valued, +something that we might have kept. It doesn't matter that you were +sincere, that you wanted to serve, that you thought it a worthy +service. The big people, the men who run things, they had no such +illusions; they had their eye on the main chance all the time. It paid +them--if not in money then in prestige and power. How has it paid you? +You know, every time you look in a mirror. You know that the men that +died were the lucky ones. The country that marched them to the front +with speeches and music when the guns were talking throws them on the +scrapheap when they come back maimed. I have no faith in a country +that takes so much and gives a little so grudgingly. I've learned to +think, Robin, and perhaps it has warped me a little. You have +suffered. So have I, partly because I was ignorant of the nature I was +born with, which you didn't understand and which I'm only myself +beginning to understand--but mostly because the seats of the mighty +were filled by fools and hypocrites seeking their own advantage. Oh, +life is a dreary business sometimes! We want so to be happy. We try so +hard. And mostly we fail." + +Her eyes filled with tears, round drops that gathered slowly in the +corners of her puckered lids and spilled over the soft curves of her +cheek. She did not look at Hollister. She stared at the gray river. +She made a little gesture, as if she dumbly answered some futile +question, and her hands dropped idly into her lap. + +"I feel guilty," she continued after a little, "not because I failed +to play up to the rôle of the faithful wife. I couldn't help that. But +I shouldn't have kept that money, I suppose. Still, you were dead. +Money meant nothing to you. It was in my hands and I needed it, or +thought I did. You must have had a hard time, Robin, coming back to +civil life a beggar." + +"Yes, but not for lack of money," Hollister replied. "I didn't need +much and I had enough. It was being scarred so that everybody shunned +me. It was the horror of being alone, of finding men and women always +uneasy in my presence, always glad to get away from me. They acted as +if I were a monstrosity that offended them beyond endurance. I +couldn't blame them much. Sometimes it gave me the shivers to look at +myself in the glass. I am a horrible sight. People who must be around +me seem to get used to me, whether they like it or not. But at first I +nearly went mad. I had been uprooted and disfigured. Nobody wanted to +know me, to talk to me, to be friendly. However, that's past. I have +got a start. Unless this skeleton is dragged out of the closet, I +shall get on well enough." + +"I shall not drag it out, Robin," she assured him with a faint smile. +"Some day I hope I'll be able to give you back that money." + +"What became of it?" He voiced a question which had been recurring in +his mind for a year. "You must have had over forty thousand dollars +when I was reported dead in '17." + +Myra shrugged her shoulders. + +"We were married six months after that. Jim has some rather well-to-do +people over there. They were all very nice to me. I imagine they +thought he was marrying money. Perhaps he thought so himself. He had +nothing except a quarterly pittance. He has no sense of values, and I +was not much better. There is always this estate which he will come +into, to discount the present. He had seen service the first year of +the war. He was wounded and invalided home. Then he served as a +military instructor. Finally, when the Americans came in, he was +allowed to resign. So we came across to the States. We went here and +there, spending as we went. We cut a pretty wide swath too, most of +the time. There were several disastrous speculations. Presently the +money was all gone. Then we came up here, where we can live on next to +nothing. We shall have to stay here another eighteen months. Looking +back, the way we spent money seems sheer lunacy. The fool and his +money--you know. And it wasn't our money. That hurts me now. I've +begun to realize what money means to me, to you, to every one. That's +why when Jim calmly told me that he had borrowed a hundred dollars +from you I felt that was a little more than I could stand. That's +piling it on. I wondered why you gave it to him--if you let him have +it in a spirit of contemptuous charity. I might have known it wasn't +that. But don't lend him any more. He really doesn't need it. +Borrowing with Jim is just like asking for a smoke. He's queer. If he +made a bet with you and lost he'd pay up promptly, if he had to pawn +his clothes and mine too. Borrowed money, however, seems to come in a +different category. When this estate comes into his hands perhaps I +shall be able to return some of this money that we wasted. I think +that--and the fact that I'm just a little afraid to break away and +face the world alone--is chiefly what keeps me faithful to him now." + +"Is it as bad as that?" Hollister asked. + +"Don't misunderstand me, Robin," she protested. "I'm not an abused +wife or anything like that. He's perfectly satisfied, as complacent as +an English gentleman can be in the enjoyment of possession. But he +doesn't love me any more than I love him. He blandly assumes that love +is only a polite term for something else. And I can't believe +that--yet. Maybe I'm what Archie Lawanne calls a romantic +sentimentalist, but there is something in me that craves from a man +more than elementary passion. I'm a woman; therefore my nature demands +of a man that he be first of all a man. But that alone isn't enough. +I'm not just a something to be petted when the fit is on and then told +in effect to run along and play. There must be men who have minds as +well as bodies. There must be here and there a man who understands +that a woman has all sorts of thoughts and feelings as well as sex. +Meanwhile--I mark time. That's all." + +"You appear," Hollister said a little grimly, "to have acquired +certain definite ideas. It's a pity they didn't develop sooner." + +"Ideas only develop out of experience," she said quietly. "And our +passions are born with us." + +She rose, shaking free the snow that clung to her coat. + +"I feel better for getting all that steam off my chest," she said. +"It's better, since we must live here, that you and I should not keep +up this game of pretence between ourselves. Isn't it, Robin?" + +"Perhaps. I don't know." The old doubts troubled Hollister. He was +jealous of what he had attained, fearful of reviving the past, a +little uncertain of this new turn. + +"At any rate, you don't hold a grudge against me, do you?" Myra asked. +"You can afford to be indifferent now. You've found a mate, you're +playing a man's part here. You're beating the game and getting some +real satisfaction out of living. You can afford to be above a grudge +against me." + +"I don't hold any grudge," Hollister answered truthfully. + +"I'm going down to the house, now," Myra said. "I wanted to talk to +you openly, and I'm glad I did. I think and think sometimes until I +feel like a rat in a trap. And you are the only one here I can really +talk to. You've been through the mill and you won't misunderstand." + +"Ah," he said. "Is Charlie Mills devoid of understanding, or Lawanne?" + +She looked at him fixedly for a second. + +"You are very acute," she observed. "Some time I may tell you about +Charlie Mills. Certainly I'd never reveal my soul to Archie Lawanne. +He'd dissect it and gloat over it and analyze it in his next book. And +neither of them will ever be quite able to abandon the idea that a +creature like me is something to be pursued and captured." + +She turned away. Hollister saw her go into the house. He could picture +the two of them there together. Doris and Myra bending over young +Robert, who was now beginning to lie with wide-open blue eyes, in +which the light of innocent wonder, of curiosity, began to show, to +wave his arms and grope with tiny, uncertain hands. Those two women +together hovering over his child,--one who was still legally his wife, +the other his wife in reality. + +How the world would prick up its donkey ears--even the little cosmos +of the Toba valley--if it knew. But of course no one would ever know. +Hollister was far beyond any contrition for his acts. The end +justified the means,--doubly justified it in his case, for he had had +no choice. Harsh material factors had rendered the decision for him. +Hollister was willing now to abide by that decision. To him it seemed +good, the only good thing he had laid hold of since the war had turned +his world upside down and inside out. + +He went about his work mechanically, deep in thought. His mind +persisted in measuring, weighing, turning over all that Myra had said, +while his arms pushed and heaved and twisted the pike pole, thrusting +the blocks of cedar into an orderly arrangement within the +boom-sticks. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Hollister had gone down to Lawanne's with a haunch of venison. This +neighborly custom of sharing meat, when it is to be had for the +killing, prevails in the northern woods. Officially there were game +seasons to be observed. But the close season for deer sat lightly on +men in a region three days' journey from a butcher shop. They shot +deer when they needed meat. The law of necessity overrode the legal +pronouncement in this matter of food, as it often did in other ways. + +While Hollister, having duly pleased Lawanne's China-boy by this +quarter of venison, sat talking to Lawanne, Charlie Mills came in to +return a book. + +"Did you get anything out of that?" Lawanne asked. + +"I got a bad taste in my mouth," Mills replied. "It reads like things +that happen. It's too blamed true to be pleasant. A man shouldn't be +like that, he shouldn't think too much--especially about other people. +He ought to be like a bull--go around snorting and pawing up the earth +till he gets his belly full, and then lie down and chew his cud." + +Lawanne smiled. + +"You've hit on something, Mills," he said. "The man who thinks the +least and acts the most is the happy man, the contented man, because +he's nearly always pleased with himself. If he fails at anything he +can usually excuse himself on the grounds of somebody else's +damnfoolishness. If he succeeds he complacently assumes that he did it +out of his own greatness. Action--that's the thing. The contemplative, +analytical mind is the mind that suffers. Man was a happy animal until +he began to indulge in abstract thinking. And now that the burden of +thought is laid on him, he frequently uses it to his own +disadvantage." + +"I'll say he does," Mills agreed. "But what can he do? I've watched +things happen. I've read what some pretty good thinkers say. It don't +seem to me a man's got much choice. He thinks or he don't think, +according to the way he's made. When you figure how a man comes to be +what he is, why he's nothing but the product of forces that have been +working on all the generations of his kind. It don't leave a man much +choice about how he thinks or feels. If he could just grin and say 'It +doesn't matter', he'd be all right. But he can't, unless he's made +that way. And since he isn't responsible for the way he's made, what +the hell can he do?" + +"You're on the high road to wisdom when you can look an abstraction +like that in the face," Lawanne laughed. "What you say is true. But +there's one item you overlook. A man is born with, say, certain +predispositions. Once he recognizes and classifies them, he can begin +to exercise his will, his individual determination. If our existence +was ordered in advance by destiny, dictated by some all-conscious, +omnipotent intelligence, we might as well sit down and fold our hands. +But we still have a chance. Free will is an exploded theory, in so far +as it purposes to explain human action in a general sense. Men are +biologically different. In some weakness is inherent, in others +determination. The weak man succumbs when he is beset. The strong man +struggles desperately. The man who consciously grasps and understands +his own weaknesses can combat an evil which will destroy a man of +lesser perception, lesser will; because the intelligent man will avoid +what he can't master. He won't butt his head against a stone wall +either intellectually, emotionally, or physically. If the thing is +beyond him and he knows it is beyond him, he will not waste himself in +vain effort. He will adapt himself to what he can't change. The man +who can't do that must suffer. He may even perish. And to cling to +life is the prime law. That's why it is a fundamental instinct that +makes a man want to run when he can no longer fight." + +Hollister said nothing. He was always a good listener. He preferred to +hear what other men said, to weigh their words, rather than pour out +his own ideas. Lawanne sometimes liked to talk at great length, to +assume the oracular vein, to analyze actions and situations, to put +his finger on a particular motive and trace its origin, its most +remote causation. Mills seldom talked. It was strange to hear him +speak as he did now, to Lawanne. + +Mills walked back through the flat with Hollister. They trudged +silently through the soft, new snow, the fresh fall which had enabled +Hollister to track and kill the big deer early that morning. The sun +was setting. Its last beam struck flashing on the white hills. The +back of the winter was broken, the March storms nearly at an end. In a +little while now, Hollister thought, the buds would be bursting, there +would be a new feel in the air, new fragrant smells arising in the +forest, spring freshets in the rivers, the wild duck flying north. +Time was on the wing, in ceaseless flight. + +Mills broke into his reflections. + +"Come up in the morning, will you, and check in what cedar I have +piled? I'm going to pull out." + +"All right." Hollister looked his surprise at the abrupt decision. +"I'm sorry you're going." + +Mills walked a few paces. + +"Maybe it won't do me any good," he said. "I wonder if Lawanne is +right? It just struck me that he is. Anyway, I'm going to try his +recipe. Maybe I can kid myself into thinking everything's jake, that +the world's a fine sort of place and everything is always lovely. If I +could just myself think that--maybe a change of scenery will do the +trick. Lawanne's clever, isn't he? Nothing would fool him very long." + +"I don't know," Hollister said. "Lawanne's a man with a pretty keen +mind and a lively imagination. He's more interested in why people do +things than in what they do. But I dare say he might fool himself as +well as the rest of us. For we all do, now and then." + +"I guess it's the way a man's made," Mills reflected. "But it's rather +a new idea that a man can sort of make himself over if he puts his +mind to it. Still, it sounds reasonable. I'm going to give it a try. +I've got to." + +But he did not say why he must. Nor did Hollister ask him. He thought +he knew--and he wondered at the strange tenacity of this emotion which +Mills could not shake off. A deep-rooted passion for some particular +woman, an emotion which could not be crushed, was no mystery to +Hollister. He only wondered that it should be so vital a force in the +life of a man. + +Mills came down from the hill camp to settle his account with +Hollister in the morning. He carried his blankets and his clothes in a +bulky pack on his sturdy shoulders. When he had his money, he rose to +go, to catch the coastwise steamer which touched the Inlet's head that +afternoon. Hollister helped him sling the pack, opened the door for +him,--and they met Myra Bland setting foot on the porch step. + +They looked at each other, those two. Hollister knew that for a second +neither was conscious of him. Their eyes met in a lingering fixity, +each with a question that did not find utterance. + +"I'm going out," Mills said at last. A curious huskiness seemed to +thicken his tongue. "This time for good, I hope. So-long." + +"Good-by, Charlie," Myra said. + +She put out her hand. But either Mills did not see it or he shrank +from contact, for he passed her and strode away, bent a little forward +under his pack. Myra turned to watch him. When she faced about again +there was a mistiness in her eyes, a curious, pathetic expression of +pity on her face. She went on into the house with scarcely a glance at +Hollister. + +In another week spring had ousted winter from his seasonal supremacy. +The snow on the lower levels vanished under a burst of warm rain. The +rain ceased and the clouds parted to let through a sun fast growing to +full strength. Buds swelled and burst on willow and alder. The soil, +warmed by the sun, sent up the first shoots of fern and grasses, a +myriad fragile green tufts that would presently burst into flowers. +The Toba rose day by day, pouring down a swollen flood of snow-water +to the sea. + +And life went on as it always did. Hollister's crew, working on a +bonus for work performed, kept the bolts of cedar gliding down the +chute. The mill on the river below swallowed up the blocks and spewed +them out in bound bundles of roof covering. Lawanne kept close to his +cabin, deep in the throes of creation, manifesting strange vagaries of +moroseness or exhilaration which in his normal state he cynically +ascribed to the artistic temperament. Bland haunted the creeks where +the trout lurked, tramped the woods gun in hand, a dog at his heels, +oblivious to everything but his own primitive, purposeless pleasures. + +"I shouldn't care to settle here for good," he once said to Hollister. +"But really, you know, it's not half bad. If money wasn't so dashed +scarce. It's positively cruel for an estate to be so tied up that a +man can't get enough to live decently on." + +Bland irritated Hollister sometimes, but often amused him by his calm +assurance that everything was always well in the world of J. +Carrington Bland. Hollister could imagine him in Norfolk and gaiters +striding down an English lane, concerned only with his stable, his +kennels, the land whose rentals made up his income. There were no +problems on Bland's horizon. He would sit on Hollister's porch with a +pipe sagging one corner of his mouth and gaze placidly at the river, +the hills, the far stretch of the forest,--and Hollister knew that to +Bland it was so much water, so much up-piled rock and earth, so much +growing wood. He would say to Myra: "My dear, it's time we were going +home", or "I think I shall have a go at that big pool in Graveyard +Creek to-morrow", or "I say, Hollister, if this warm weather keeps on, +the bears will be coming out soon, eh?", and between whiles he would +sit silently puffing at his pipe, a big, heavy, handsome man, wearing +soiled overalls and a shabby coat with a curious dignity. He spoke of +"family" and "breeding" as if these were sacred possessions which +conferred upon those who had them complete immunity from the sort of +effort that common men must make. + +"He really believes that," Myra said to Hollister once. "No Bland ever +had to work. They have always had property--they have always been +superior people. Jim's an anachronism, really. He belongs in the +Middle Ages when the barons did the fighting and the commoners did the +work. Generations of riding in the bandwagon has made it almost +impossible for a man like that to plan intelligently and work hard +merely for the satisfaction of his needs." + +"I wonder what he'd do if there was no inheritance to fall back on?" +Hollister asked. + +"I don't know--and I really don't care much," Myra said indifferently. +"I shouldn't be concerned, probably, if that were the case." + +Hollister frowned. + +"Why do you go on living with him, if that's the way you feel?" + +"You seem to forget," she replied, "that there are very material +reasons! And you must remember that I don't dislike Jim. I have got so +that I regard him as a big, good-natured child of whom one expects +very little." + +"How in heaven's name did a man like that catch your fancy in the +first place?" Hollister asked. He had never ceased to wonder about +that. Myra looked at him with a queer lowering of her eyes. + +"What's the use of telling you?" she exclaimed petulantly. "You ought +to understand without telling. What was it drove you into Doris +Cleveland's arms a month after you met her? You couldn't know her--nor +she you. You were lonely and moody, and something about her appealed +to you. You took a chance--and drew a prize in the lottery. Well, I +took a chance also--and drew a blank. I'm a woman and he's a man, a +very good sort of a man for any woman who wants nothing more of a man +than that he shall be a handsome, agreeable, well-mannered animal. +That's about what Jim is. I may also be good-looking, agreeable, +well-mannered--a fairly desirable woman to all outward appearances--but +I'm something besides, which Jim doesn't suspect and couldn't understand +if he did. But I didn't learn that soon enough." + +"When did you learn it?" Hollister asked. He felt that he should not +broach these intimately personal matters with Myra, but there was a +fascination in listening to her reveal complexes of character which he +had never suspected, which he should have known. + +"I've been learning for some time; but I think Charlie Mills gave me +the most striking lesson," Myra answered thoughtfully. "You can +imagine I was blue and dissatisfied when we came here, to bury +ourselves alive because we could live cheaply, and he could hunt and +fish to his heart's content while he waited to step into a dead man's +shoes. A wife's place, you see, is in the home, and home is wherever +and whatever her lord and master chooses to make it. I was quite +conscious by that time that I didn't love Jim Bland. But he was a +gentleman. He didn't offend me. I was simply indifferent--satiated, if +you like. I used to sit wondering how I could have ever imagined +myself going on year after year, contented and happy, with a man like +Jim. Yet I had been quite sure of that--just as once I had been quite +sure you were the only man who could ever be much of a figure on my +horizon. Do you think I'm facile and shallow? I'm not really. I'm not +just naturally a sensation-seeker. I hate promiscuity. _He_ convinced +me of that." + +She made a swift gesture towards Mills' vanishing figure. + +"I ran across him first in London. He was convalescing from a leg +wound. That was shortly after I was married, and I was helping +entertain these stray dogs from the front. It was quite the fashion. +People took them out motoring and so on. I remembered Mills out of all +the others because he was different from the average Tommy, quiet +without being self-conscious. I remembered thinking often what a pity +nice boys like that must be killed and crippled by the thousand. When +we came here, Charlie was working down at the settlement. Somehow I +was awfully glad to see him--any friendly face would have been welcome +those first months before I grew used to these terrible silences, this +complete isolation which I had never before known. + +"Well, the upshot was that he fell in love with me, and for +awhile--for a little while--I thought I was experiencing a real +affection at last, myself; a new love rising fine and true out of the +ashes of old ones. + +"And it frightened me. It made me stop and think. When he would stare +at me with those sad eyes I wanted to comfort him, I wanted to go away +with him to some distant place where no one knew me and begin life all +over again. And I knew it wouldn't do. It would only be the same thing +over again, because I'm made the way I am. I was beginning to see that +it would take a good deal of a man to hold my fitful fancy very long. +Charlie's a nice boy. He's clean and sensitive, and I'm sure he'd be +kind and good to any woman. Still, I knew it wouldn't do. Curious +thing--all the while that my mind was telling me how my whole +existence had unfitted me to be a wife to such a man--for Charlie +Mills is as full of romantic illusions as a seventeen-year-old +girl--at the same time some queer streak in me made me long to wipe +the slate clean and start all over again. But I could never convince +myself that it was anything more than sex in me responding to the +passion that so deeply moved him. That suspicion became certainty at +last. That is why I say Charlie Mills taught me something about +myself." + +"I think it was a dear lesson for him," Hollister said, remembering +the man's moods and melancholy, the bitterness of frustration which +must have torn Mills. "You hurt him." + +"I know it, and I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it," she said +patiently. "There was a time just about a year ago when I very nearly +went away with him. I think he felt that I was yielding. But I was +trying to be honest with myself and with him. With all my vagaries, my +uncertain emotions, I didn't want just the excitement of an affair, an +amorous adventure. Neither did he. He wanted me body and soul, and I +recoiled from that finally, because--I was afraid, afraid of what our +life would become when he learned that truth which I had already +grasped, that life can't be lived on the peaks of great emotion and +that there was nothing much else for him and me to go on." + +She stopped and looked at Hollister. + +"I wonder if you think I'm a little mad?" she asked. + +"No. I was just wondering what it is about you that makes men want +you," he returned. + +"You should know," she answered bluntly. + +"I never knew. I was like Mills: a victim of my emotions. But one +outgrows any feeling if it is clubbed hard enough. I daresay all these +things are natural enough, even if they bring misery in their wake." + +"I daresay," she said. "There is nothing unnatural in a man loving me, +any more than it was unnatural for you to love Doris, or for Doris to +have a son. Still you are inclined to blame me for what I've done. +You seem to forget that the object of each individual's existence, man +or woman, is not to bestow happiness on some one else, but to seek it +for themselves." + +"That sounds like Lawanne," Hollister observed. + +"It's true, no matter who it sounds like," she retorted. + +"If you really believe that, you are certainly a fool to go on living +with a man like Jim Bland," Hollister declared. It did not occur to +him that he was displaying irritation. + +"I've told you why and I do not see any reason for changing my idea," +she said coolly. "When it no longer suits me to be a chattel, I shall +cease to be one. Meantime--_pax_--_pax_-- + +"Where is Doris and the adorable infant?" Myra changed the subject +abruptly. "I don't hear or see one or the other." + +"They were all out in the kitchen a minute ago, bathing the kid," he +told her, and Myra went on in. + +Hollister's work lay almost altogether in the flat now. The cut cedar +accumulating under the busy hands of six men came pouring down the +chute in a daily stream. To salvage the sticks that spilled, to +arrange the booms for rafting down stream, kept Hollister on the move. +At noon that day Myra and Doris brought the baby and lunch in a basket +and spread it on the ground on the sunny side of an alder near the +chute mouth, just beyond the zone of danger from flying bolts. The +day was warm enough for comfortable lounging. The boy, now grown to be +a round-faced, clear-skinned mite with blue eyes like his father, lay +on an outspread quilt, waving his chubby arms, staring at the mystery +of the shadows cast upon him by leaf and branch above. + +Hollister finished his meal in silence, that reflective silence which +always overtook him when he found himself one corner of this strange +triangle. He could talk to Myra alone. He was never at a loss for +words with his wife. Together, they struck him dumb. + +And this day Doris seemed likewise dumb. There was a growing +strangeness about her which had been puzzling Hollister for days. At +night she would snuggle down beside him, quietly contented, or she +would have some story to tell, or some unexpectedness of thought which +still surprised him by its clear-cut and vigorous imagery. But by day +she grew distrait, as if she retreated into communion with herself, +and her look was that of one striving to see something afar, a +straining for vision. + +Hollister had marked this. It had troubled him. But he said nothing. +There were times when Doris liked to take refuge in her own +thought-world. He was aware of that, and understood it and let her be, +in such moods. + +Now she sat with both hands clasped over one knee. Her face turned +toward Myra for a time. Then her eyes sought her husband's face with a +look which gave Hollister the uneasy, sickening conviction that she +saw him quite clearly, that she was looking and appraising. Then she +looked away toward the river, and as her gaze seemed to focus upon +something there, an expression of strain, of effort, gathered on her +face. It lasted until Hollister, watching her closely, felt his mouth +grow dry. It hurt him as if some pain, some terrible effort of hers +was being communicated to him. Yet he did not understand, and he could +not reach her intimately with Myra sitting by. + +Doris spoke at last. + +"What is that, Bob?" she asked. She pointed with her finger. + +"A big cedar stump," he replied. It stood about thirty feet away. + +"Is it dark on one side and light on the other?" + +"It's blackened by fire and the raw wood shows on one side where a +piece is split off." + +He felt his voice cracked and harsh. + +"Ah," she breathed. Her eyes turned to the baby sprawling on his +quilt. + +Myra rose to her feet. She picked up the baby, moved swiftly and +noiselessly three steps aside, stood holding the boy in her arms. + +"You have picked up baby. You have on a dress with light and dark +stripes. I can see--I can see." + +Her voice rose exultantly on the last word. Hollister looked at Myra; +she held the boy pressed close to her breast. Her lips were parted, +her pansy-purple eyes were wide and full of alarm as she looked at +Hollister. + +He felt his scarred face grow white. And when Doris turned toward him +to bend forward and look at him with that strange, peering gaze, he +covered his face with his hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +"Everything is indistinct, just blurred outlines. I can't see colors +only as light and dark," Doris went on, looking at Hollister with that +straining effort to see. "I can only see you now as a vague form +without any detail." + +Hollister pulled himself together. After all, it was no catastrophe, +no thunderbolt of fate striking him a fatal blow. If, with growing +clarity of vision, catastrophe ensued, then was time enough to shrink +and cower. That resiliency which had kept him from going before under +terrific stress stood him in good stead now. + +"It seems almost too good to be true," he forced himself to say, and +the irony of his words twisted his lips into what with him passed for +a smile. + +"It's been coming on for weeks," Doris continued. "And I haven't been +able to persuade myself it was real. I have always been able to +distinguish dark from daylight. But I never knew whether that was pure +instinct or because some faint bit of sight was left me. I have looked +and looked at things lately, wondering if imagination could play such +tricks. I couldn't believe I was seeing even a little, because I've +always been able to see things in my mind, sometimes clearly, +sometimes in a fog--as I see now--so I couldn't tell whether the +things I have seen lately were realities or mental images. I have +wanted so to see, and it didn't seem possible." + +Asking about the stump had been a test, she told Hollister. She did +not know till then whether she saw or only thought she saw. And she +continued to make these tests happily, exulting like a child when it +first walks alone. She made them leave her and she followed them among +a clump of alders, avoiding the trunks when she came within a few +feet, instead of by touch. She had Hollister lead her a short distance +away from Myra and the baby. She groped her way back, peering at the +ground, until at close range she saw the broad blue and white stripes +of Myra's dress. + +"I wonder if I shall continue to see more and more?" she sighed at +last, "or if I shall go on peering and groping in this uncertain, +fantastic way. I wish I knew." + +"I know one thing," Myra put in quickly. "And that is you won't do +your eyes any good by trying so hard to see. You mustn't get excited +about this and overdo it. If it's a natural recovery, you won't help +it any by trying so hard to see." + +"Do I seem excited?" Doris smiled. "Perhaps I am. If you had been shut +up for three years in a room without windows, I fancy you'd be excited +at even the barest chance of finding yourself free to walk in the sun. +My God, no one with sight knows the despair that the blind sometimes +feel. And the promise of seeing--you can't possibly imagine what a +glorious thing it is. Every one has always been good to me. I've been +lucky in so many ways. But there have been times--you know, don't you, +Bob?--when it has been simply hell, when I struggled in a black abyss, +afraid to die and yet full of bitter protest against the futility of +living." + +The tears stood in her eyes and she reached for Hollister's hand, and +squeezed it tightly between her own. + +"What a lot of good times we shall have when I get so that I can see +just a little better," she said affectionately. "Your blind woman may +not prove such a bad bargain, after all, Bob." + +"Have I ever thought that?" he demanded. + +"Oh, no," she said smiling, "but _I_ know. Give me the baby, Myra." + +She cuddled young Robert in her arms. + +"Little, fat, soft thing," she murmured. "By and by his mother will be +able to see the color of his dear eyes. Bless its little heart--him +and his daddy are the bestest things in this old world--this old world +that was black so long." + +Myra turned her back on them, walked away and stood on the river bank. +Hollister stared at his wife. He struggled with an old sensation, one +that he had thought long put by,--a sense of the intolerable burden of +existence in which nothing was sure but sorrow. And he was aware that +he must dissemble all such feelings. He must not let Doris know how +he dreaded that hour in which she should first see clearly his +mutilated face. + +"You ought to see an oculist," he said at last. + +"An oculist? Eye specialists--I saw a dozen of them," she replied. +"They were never able to do anything--except to tell me I would never +see again. A fig for the doctors. They were wrong when they said my +sight was wholly destroyed. They'd probably be wrong again in the +diagnosis and treatment. Nature seems to be doing the job. Let her +have her way." + +They discussed that after Myra was gone, sitting on a log together in +the warm sun, with the baby kicking his heels on the spread quilt. +They continued the discussion after they went back to the house. +Hollister dreaded uncertainty. He wanted to know how great a measure +of her sight would return, and in what time. He did not belittle the +oculists because they had once mistaken. Neither did Doris, when she +recovered from the excitement engendered by the definite assurance +that her eyes were ever so slightly resuming their normal function. +She did believe that her sight was being restored naturally, as torn +flesh heals or a broken bone knits, and she was doubtful if any eye +specialist could help that process. But she agreed in the end that it +would be as well to know if anything could be done and what would aid +instead of retard her recovery. + +"But not for awhile," she said. "It's just a glimmer. Wait a few +days. If this fog keeps clearing away, then we'll go." + +They were sitting on their porch steps. Doris put her arms around him. + +"When I can see, I'll be a real partner," she said happily. "There are +so many things I can do that can't be done without eyes. And half the +fun of living is in sharing the discoveries one makes about things +with some one else. Sight will give me back all the books I want to +read, all the beautiful things I want to see. I'll be able to climb +hills and paddle a canoe, to go with you wherever you want to take me. +Won't it be splendid? I've only been half a woman. I have wondered +sometimes how long it would be before you grew weary of my moods and +my helplessness." + +And Hollister could only pat her cheek and tell her that he loved her, +that her eyes made no difference. He could not voice the fear he had +that her recovered sight would make the greatest difference, that the +reality of him, the distorted visage which peered at him from a mirror +would make her loathe him. He was not a fool. He knew that people, the +women especially, shrank from the crippled, the disfigured, the +malformed, the horrible. That had been his experience. It had very +nearly driven him mad. He had no illusions about the men who worked +for him, about his neighbors. They found him endurable, and that was +about all. If Doris Cleveland had seen him clearly that day on the +steamer, if she had been able to critically survey the unlovely thing +that war had made of him, she might have pitied him. But would she +have found pleasure in the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand? +Hollister's intelligence answered "No." For externally his appearance +would have been a shock, would have inhibited the pleasant intimacy at +which they so soon arrived. + +Doris made light of his disfigurement. She could comprehend clearly +many things unseen--but not that. Hollister knew she must have created +some definite image of him in her mind; something, he suspected, which +must correspond closely to her ideal of a man, something that was dear +to her. If that ideal did not--and his intelligence insisted that he +could not--survive the reality, then his house was built on sand and +must topple. + +And he must dig and pry at the foundations. He must do all that could +be done for her eyes. That was her right,--to see, to be free of her +prison of darkness, to be restored to the sight of beauty, to +unclouded vision of the world and all it contained, no matter what the +consequence to him. He would play the game, although he felt that he +would lose. + +A cloud seemed to settle on him when he considered that he might lose +everything that made life worth while. And it would be an irrevocable +loss. He would never again have courage to weave the threads of his +existence into another such goodly pattern. Even if he had the +courage, he would never have the chance. No such fortuitous +circumstances would ever again throw him into the arms of a +woman,--not such a woman as Doris Cleveland. + +Hollister looked at her beside him, and his heart ached to think that +presently she might not sit so with her hand on his knee, looking up +at him with lips parted in a happy smile, gray eyes eager with +anticipation under the long, curving, brown lashes. She was so very +dear to him. Not alone because of the instinctive yearning of flesh to +flesh, not altogether because of the grace of her vigorous young body, +the comeliness of her face, the shining coils of brown hair that gave +him a strange pleasure just to stroke. Not alone because of the quick, +keen mind that so often surprised him by its sureness. There was some +charm more subtle than these, something to which he responded without +knowing clearly what it was, something that made the mere knowledge of +her presence in his house a comfort, no matter whether he was beside +her or miles away. + +Lawanne once said to him that a man must worship a God, love a woman, +or find a real friendship, to make life endurable. God was too dim, +too nebulous, for Hollister's need. Friendship was almost +unattainable. How could a man with a face so mutilated that it was +grotesque, repellent, cultivate the delicate flower of friendship? +Doris loved him because she could not see him. When she could see, she +would cease to love. And there would be nothing left for +him--nothing. He would live on, obedient to the law of his being, a +sentient organism, eating and sleeping, thinking starkly, without joy +in the reluctant company of his fellows, his footsteps echoing +hollowly down the long corridor of the years, emptied of hope and all +those pleasant illusions by which man's spirit is sustained. But would +he? Would it be worth while? + +"I must go back to work," he said at last. + +Doris rose with him, holding him a moment. + +"Presently I shall be able to come and _watch_ you work! I might help. +I know how to walk boom-sticks, to handle timber with a pike pole. I'm +as strong as an ox. See!" + +She put her arms around him and heaved, lifting the hundred and eighty +pounds of his weight clear of the ground. Then she laughed, a low, +pleased chuckle, her face flushed with the effort, and turned into the +house. + +Hollister heard her at the piano as he walked away, thundering out the +rollicking air of the "Soldier's Chorus", its naive exultance of +victory, it seemed to Hollister, expressing well her mood,--a victory +that might mean for him an abyss of sorrow and loneliness out of which +he might never lift himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +For a week Hollister nursed this fear which so depressed him, watching +the slow return of his wife's vision, listening to her talk of all +they could do together when her sight was fully restored. From doubt +of ocular treatment she changed to an impatient desire of whatever +benefit might lie in professional care. A fever of impatience to see +began to burn in her. + +So Hollister took her out to Vancouver, thence to Seattle, on to San +Francisco, passing from each city to a practitioner of higher standing +in the next, until two men with great reputations, and consulting fees +in proportion, after a week of observation announced their verdict: +she would regain normal vision, provided so and so--and in the event +of such and such. There was some mystery about which they were +guarded. They spoke authoritatively about infusions into the vitreous +humor and subsequent absorption. They agreed in language too technical +for a layman to understand that the cause of Doris' blindness was +gradually disappearing. Only when they put aside the formal language +of diagnosis and advised treatment did Hollister really fathom what +they were talking about. What they said then was simple. She must +cease to strain for sight of objects. She must live for a time in +neutral lights. The clearing up of her eyes could perhaps be helped by +certain ray treatments, certain forms of electrical massage, which +could be given in Vancouver as well as anywhere. + +Whereupon the great men accepted their fees and departed. + +So too did Hollister and his wife depart for the North again, where +they took a furnished apartment overlooking the Gulf of Georgia, close +to a beach where Robert junior could be wheeled in a pram by his +nurse. And Hollister settled himself to wait. + +But it was weary work to nurse that sense of impending calamity, to +find his brain ceaselessly active upon the forecast of a future in +which he should walk alone, and while he was thus harassed still to +keep up a false cheerfulness before Doris. She was abnormally +sensitive to impressions. A tone spoke volumes to her. He did not wish +to disturb her by his own anxiety at this critical period. + +All the while, little by little, her sight was coming She could +distinguish now any violent contrast of colors. The blurred detail of +form grew less pronounced. In the chaos of sensory impressions she +began to distinguish order; and, when she began to peer unexpectedly +at the people she met, at the chubby boy in his cot, at her husband's +face, Hollister could stand it no longer. He was afraid, afraid of +what he might see in those gray eyes if she looked at him too long, +too closely. + +He was doubly sensitive now about his face because of those weeks +among strangers, of going about in crowded places where people stared +at him with every degree of morbid curiosity, exhibiting every shade +of feeling from a detached pity to open dislike of the spectacle he +presented. That alone weighed heavily on him. Inaction rasped at his +nerves. The Toba and his house, the grim peaks standing aloof behind +the timbered slopes, beckoned him back to their impassive, impersonal +silences, those friendly silences in which a man could sit and +think--and hope. A man doomed to death must prefer a swift end to a +lingering one. Hollister gradually came to the idea that he could not +possibly sit by and watch the light of comprehension steal slowly into +his wife's eyes. Better that she should fully regain her sight, and +then see with what manner of man she had lived and to whom she had +borne a son. Then if she could look at him without recoiling, if the +essential man meant more to her than the ghastly wreckage of his face, +all would be well. And if not,--well, then, one devastating buffet +from the mailed fist of destiny was better than the slow agony of +daily watching the crisis approach. + +So Hollister put forth the plausible fact that he must see about his +affairs and took the next steamer for the Toba. + +Lawanne, expecting letters, was at the float to meet the steamer. +Hollister went up-stream with him. They talked very little until they +reached Lawanne's cabin. There was a four-mile current to buck, and +they saved their breath for the paddles. Myra Bland waved as they +passed, and Hollister scarcely looked up. He was in the grip of a +strange apathy. He was tired, physically weary. His body was dull and +heavy, sluggish. So was his mind. He was aware of this, aware that a +nervous reaction of some sort was upon him. He wished that he could +always be like that,--dull, phlegmatic, uncaring. To cease thinking, +to have done with feeling, to be a clod, dead to desires, to high +hopes and heart-numbing fears. + +"Come in and have a cup of tea and tell me the latest Vancouver +scandal," Lawanne urged, when they beached the canoe. + +Hollister assented. He was as well there as anywhere. If there were an +antidote in human intercourse for what afflicted him, that antidote +lay in Archie Lawanne. There was no false sentiment in Lawanne. He did +not judge altogether by externals. His was an understanding, curiously +penetrating intelligence. Hollister could always be himself with +Lawanne. He sat down on the grass before the cabin and smoked while +Lawanne looked over his letters. The Chinese boy brought tea and +sandwiches and cake on a tray. + +"Mrs. Hollister is recovering her sight?" Lawanne asked at length. + +Hollister nodded. + +"Complete normal sight?" + +Hollister nodded again. + +"You don't seem overly cheerful about it," Lawanne said slowly. + +"You aren't stupid," Hollister replied. "Put yourself in my place." + +It was Lawanne's turn to indicate comprehension and assent by a nod. +He looked at Hollister appraisingly, thoughtfully. + +"She gains the privilege of seeing again. You lose--what? Are you sure +you stand to lose anything--or is it simply a fear of what you may +lose?" + +"What can I expect?" Hollister muttered. "My face is bound to be a +shock. I don't know how she'll take it. And if when she sees me she +can't stand me--isn't that enough?" + +"I shouldn't worry, if I were you," Lawanne encouraged. "Your wife is +a little different from the ordinary run of women, I think. And, take +it from me, no woman loves her husband for his Grecian profile alone. +Nine times out of ten a man's looks have nothing to do with what a +woman thinks of him, that is if she really knows him; whereas with a +man it is usually the other way about, until he learns by experience +that beauty isn't the whole works--which a clever woman knows +instinctively." + +"Women shy away from the grotesque, the unpleasant," Hollister +declared. "You know they do. I had proof of that pretty well over two +years. So do men, for that matter. But the women are the worst. I've +seen them look at me as if I were a loathsome thing." + +"Oh, rats," Lawanne returned irritably. "You're hyper-sensitive about +that face of yours. The women--well, take Mrs. Bland as an example. I +don't see that the condition of your face makes any great difference +to her. It doesn't appear to arouse any profound distaste on her +part." + +Hollister could not counter that. But it was an argument which carried +no weight with him. For if Myra could look at him without a qualm, +Hollister knew it must be because her mind never quite relinquished +the impression of him as he used to be in the old days. And Doris had +nothing like that to mitigate the sweeping impression of first sight, +which Hollister feared with a fear he could not shake off by any +effort of his will. + +He went on up to his own house. The maple tree thrust one heavy-leaved +branch over the porch. The doors were shut. All about the place hung +that heavy mantle of stillness which wraps a foresaken home, a +stillness in which not even a squirrel chattered or a blue-jay lifted +his voice, and in which nothing moved. He stood amid that silence, +hearing only a faint whisper from the river, a far-off monotone from +the falls beyond the chute. He felt a heaviness in his breast, a +sickening sense of being forsaken. + +He went in, walked through the kitchen, looked into the bedroom, came +back to the front room, opening doors and windows to let in the sun +and air and drive out the faint, musty odor that gathers in a closed +house. A thin film of dust had settled on the piano, on chairs, on the +table. He stood in the middle of the room, abandoned to a horrible +depression. It was so still, so lonely, in there. His mind, quick to +form images, likened it to a crypt, a tomb in which all his hopes laid +buried. That was the effect it had on him, this deserted house. His +intelligence protested against submitting to this acceptance of +disaster prior to the event, but his feelings overrode his +intelligence. If Doris had been lying white and still before him in +her coffin, he could not have felt more completely that sense of the +futility of life, of love, of hope, of everything. As he stood there, +one hand in his pocket, the other tracing with a forefinger an aimless +pattern in the dust on the piano, he perceived with remarkable clarity +that the unhappiness he had suffered, the loneliness he had endured +before he met Doris Cleveland was nothing to what now threatened, to +what now seemed to dog his footsteps with sinister portent. + +In the bedroom occupied by their housekeeper stood the only mirror in +the house. Hollister went in there and stood before it, staring at the +presentment of himself in the glass. He turned away with a shiver. He +would not blame her if with clear vision she recoiled from that. He +could expect nothing else. Or would she endure that frightful mien +until she could first pity, then embrace? Hollister threw out his +hands in a swift gesture of uncertainty. He could only wait and see, +and meanwhile twist and turn upon the grid. He could not be calm and +detached and impersonal. For him there was too much at stake. + +He left all the doors and windows wide and climbed the hill. If he +were to withstand the onslaught of these uncertainties, these +forebodings which pressed upon him with such damnable weight, he must +bestir himself. He must not sit down and brood. He knew that. It was +not with any particular enthusiasm that he came upon his crew at work, +that his eye marked the widening stump-dotted area where a year before +the cedars stood branch to branch, nor when he looked over the long +ricks of bolts waiting that swift plunge down the chute. + +Bill Hayes gave a terse account of his stewardship during Hollister's +absence. So many cords of bolts cut and boomed and delivered to the +mill. Hollister's profits were accelerating, the fruit of an +insatiable market, of inflated prices. As he trudged down the hill, he +reflected upon that. He was glad in a way. If Doris could not or would +not live with him, he could make life easy for her and the boy. Money +would do that for them. With a strange perverseness, his mind dwelt +upon the most complete breaking up of his domestic life. It persisted +in shadowing forth scenes in which he and Doris took part, in which it +was made plain how and why they could no longer live together. In +Hollister's mind these scenes always ended by his crying despairingly +"If you can't, why, you can't, I suppose. I don't blame you." And he +would give her the bigger half of his funds and go his way. He would +not blame her for feeling like that. Nevertheless, Hollister had +moments when he felt that he would hate her if she did,--a paradox he +could not understand. + +He slept--or at least tried to sleep--that night alone in his house. +He cooked his breakfast and worked on the boom until midday, then +climbed the hill to the camp and ate lunch with his men. He worked up +there till evening and came down in the dusk. He dreaded that lonely +house, those deserted rooms. But he forced himself to abide there. He +had a dim idea of so disciplining his feelings, of attaining a numbed +acquiescence in what he could not help. + +Some one had been in the house. The breakfast dishes were washed, the +dust cleared away, the floor swept, his bed made. He wondered, but +gave credit to Lawanne. It was like Archie to send his Chinese boy to +perform those tasks. + +But it was Myra, he discovered by and by. He came off the hill in +mid-afternoon two days later and found her clearing up the kitchen. + +"You don't mind, do you?" she asked. "I have nothing much to do at +home, and it seems a shame for everything here to be neglected. When +is Doris coming back?" + +"I don't know exactly. Perhaps two or three weeks, perhaps as many +months." + +"But her eyes will be all right again?" + +"So they say." + +Hollister went out and sat on the front doorstep. His mind sought to +span the distance to Vancouver. He wondered what Doris was doing. He +could see her sitting in a shaded room. He could see young Robert +waving fat arms out of the cushioned depths of his carriage. He could +see the sun glittering on the sea that spread away westward, from +beneath the windows of the house where they lived. And Doris would sit +there anticipating the sight of all those things which had been hidden +in a three-year night,--the sea rippling in the sun, the distant +purple hills, the nearer green of the forest and of grass and flowers, +all the light and color that made the world beautiful. She would be +looking forward to seeing him. And that was the stroke which Hollister +dreaded, which made him indifferent to other things. + +He forgot Myra's presence. Six months earlier he would have resented +her being there, he would have been uneasy. Now it made no difference. +He had ceased to think of Myra as a possible menace. Lately he had not +thought of her or her affairs at all. + +She came now and sat down upon the porch step within arm's length of +him, looking at him in thoughtful silence. + +"Is it such a tragedy, after all?" she said at last. + +"Is what?" + +He took refuge in refusal to understand, although he understood +instantly what Myra meant. But he shrank from her intuitive +penetration of his troubled spirit. Like any other wounded animal, he +wanted to be left alone. + +"You know what I mean," she said. "You are afraid of Doris seeing you. +That's plain enough. Is it so terrible a thing, after all? If she +can't stand the sight of your face, you're better off without her." + +"It's easy to be philosophic about some one else's troubles," +Hollister muttered. "You can be off with one love and be reasonably +sure of another before long. I can't. I'm not made that way, I don't +think. And if I were, I'm too badly handicapped." + +"You haven't a very charitable opinion of me, have you, Robin?" she +said reflectively. "You rather despise me for doing precisely what you +yourself have done, making a bid for happiness as chance offered. Only +I haven't found it, and you have. So you are morally superior, and +your tragedy must naturally be profound because your happiness seems +threatened." + +"Oh, damn the moral considerations," he said wearily. "It isn't that. +I don't blame you for anything you ever did. Why should I? I'm a +bigamist. I'm the father of an illegitimate son. According to the +current acceptance of morality, I've contaminated and disgraced an +innocent woman. Yet I've never been and am not now conscious of any +regrets. I don't feel ashamed. I don't feel that I have sinned. I +merely grasped the only chance, the only possible chance that was in +reach. That's all you did. As far as you and I are concerned, there +isn't any question of blame." + +"Are you sure," she asked point-blank, "that your face will make any +difference to Doris?" + +"How can it help?" he replied gloomily. "If you had your eyes shut and +were holding in your hands what you thought was a pretty bird and +suddenly opened your eyes and saw it was a toad, wouldn't you recoil?" + +"Your simile is no good. If Doris really loved you, it was not because +she pictured you as a pretty bird. If she could love you without +seeing you, if you appealed to her, why should your marred face make +her turn away from you?" + +But Hollister could not explain his feeling, his deep dread of that +which seemed no remote possibility but something inevitable and very +near at hand. He did not want pity. He did not want to be merely +endured. He sat silent, thinking of those things, inwardly protesting +against this miraculous recovery of sight which meant so great a boon +to his wife and contained such fearful possibilities of misery for +himself. + +Myra rose. "I'll come again and straighten up in a day or two." + +She turned back at the foot of the steps. + +"Robin," she said, with a wistful, uncertain smile, "if Doris _does_ +will you let me help you pick up the pieces?" + +Hollister stared at her a second. + +"God God!" he broke out. "Do you realize what you're saying?" + +"Perfectly." + +"You're a strange woman." + +"Yes, I suppose I am," she returned. "But my strangeness is only an +acceptance, as a natural fact, of instincts and cravings and desires +that women are taught to repress. If I find that I've gone swinging +around an emotional circle and come back to the point, or the man, +where I started, why should I shrink from that, or from admitting +it--or from acting on it if it seemed good to me?" + +She came back to where Hollister sat on the steps. She put her hand on +his knee, looked searchingly into his face. Her pansy-blue eyes met +his steadily. The expression in them stirred Hollister. + +"Mind you, Robin, I don't think your Doris is superficial enough to be +repelled by a facial disfigurement. She seems instinctively to know +and feel and understand so many things that I've only learned by +bitter experience. She would never have made the mistakes I've made. I +don't think your face will make you any the less her man. But if it +does--I was your first woman. I did love you, Robin. I could again. I +could creep back into your arms if they were empty, and be glad. Would +it seem strange?" + +And still Hollister stared dumbly. He heard her with a little rancor, +a strange sense of the futility of what she said. Why hadn't she +acquired this knowledge of herself long ago? It was too late now. The +old fires were dead. But if the new one he had kindled to warm himself +were to be extinguished, could he go back and bask in the warmth that +smoldered in this woman's eyes? He wondered. And he felt a faint +irritation, as if some one had accused him of being faithless. + +"Do you think it's strange that I should feel and speak like this?" +Myra persisted. "Do people never profit by their mistakes? Am I so +unlovable a creature? Couldn't you either forget or forgive?" + +He shook his head. + +"It isn't that." His voice sounded husky, uncertain. "We can't undo +what's done, that's all. I cross no more bridges before I come to +them." + +"Don't mistake me, Robin," she said with a self-conscious little +laugh. "I'm no lovesick flapper. Neither am I simply a voluptuous +creature seeking a new sensation. I don't feel as if I couldn't live +without you. But I do feel as if I could come back to you again and it +would be a little like coming home after a long, disappointing +journey. When I see you suffering, I want to comfort you. If she makes +you suffer, I shall be unhappy unless I can make you feel that life +still holds something good. If I could do that, I should perhaps find +life good myself. And it doesn't seem much good to me, any more. I'm +still selfish. I want to be happy. And I can't find happiness +anywhere. I look back to our old life and I envy myself. If the war +marred your face and made you suffer, remember what it has done to me. +Those months and months that dragged into years in London. Oh, I know +I was weak. But I was used to love. I craved it. I used to lie awake +thinking about you, in a fever of protest because you could not be +there with me, in a perfect passion of resentment at the circumstances +that kept you away; until it seemed to me that I had never had you, +that there was no such man, that all our life together was only a +dream. Think what the war did to us. How it has left us--you scarred +and hopeless; I, scarred by my passions and emotions. That is all the +war did for any one--scarred them, those it didn't kill. Oh, Robin, +Robin, life seems a ghastly mockery, sometimes. It promises so much +and gives so little." + +She bent her head. Her shoulders shook with sobs she tried to +strangle. Hollister put his hand on the thick coils of honey-colored +hair. He was sorry for her--and for himself. And he was disturbed to +find that the touch of her hair, the warm pressure of her hands on his +knee, made his blood run faster. + +The curious outbreak spent itself. She drew herself away from him, and +rising to her feet without a word she walked rapidly away along the +path by the river. + +Hollister looked after her. He was troubled afresh, and he thought to +himself that he must avoid scenes like that. He was not, it appeared, +wholly immune from the old virus. + +And he was clearly conscious of the cold voice of reason warning him +against Myra. Sitting there in the shadow of his silent house, he +puzzled over these new complexities of feeling. He was a little +bewildered. To him Doris meant everything that Myra had once been. He +wanted only to retain what he had. He did not want to salvage anything +from the wreckage of the past. He was too deeply concerned with the +dreadful test that fully restored eyesight would impose on Doris. He +knew that Doris Cleveland's feeling for him had been profound and +vital. She had given too many proofs for him to doubt that. But would +it survive? He did not know. He hoped a little and feared much. + +Above this fear he found himself now bewildered by this fresh swirl of +emotion. He knew that if Myra had flung herself into his arms he would +have found some strange comfort in that embrace, that he could not +possibly have repulsed her. It was a prop to his soul--or was it, he +asked himself, merely his vanity?--that Myra could look behind the +grimness of his features and dwell fondly on the essential man, on the +reality behind that dreadful mask. + +Still, Hollister knew that to be only a mood, that unexpected +tenderness for a woman whom he had hated for betraying him. It was +Doris he wanted. The thought of her passing out of his life rested +upon him like an intolerable burden. To be in doubt of her afflicted +him with anguish. That the fires of her affection might dwindle and +die before daily sight of him loomed before Hollister as the +consummation of disaster,--and he seemed to feel that hovering near, +closely impending. + +That they had lived together sixteen months did not count. That she +had borne him a child,--neither did that count. That she had pillowed +her brown head nightly in the crook of his arm--that he had bestowed a +thousand kisses on her lips, her hair, her neck--that she had lain +beside him hour after hour through the long nights, drowsily +content--none of these intimacies counted beside vision. He was a +stranger in the dark. She did not know him. She heard his voice, knew +his tenderness, felt the touch of him,--the unseen lover. But there +remained for her the revelation of sight. He was still the mysterious, +the unknown, about which her fancies played. + +How could he know what image of him, what ideal, resided tenaciously +in her mind, and whether it would survive the shock of reality? That +was the root of Hollister's fear, a definite well-grounded fear. He +found himself hoping that promise of sight would never be fulfilled, +that the veil would not be lifted, that they would go on as they were. +And he would feel ashamed of such a thought. Sight was precious. Who +was he to deny her that mercy,--she who loved the sun and the hills +and the sea; all the sights of earth and sky which had been shut away +so long; she who had crept into his arms many a time, weeping +passionate tears because all the things she loved were forever wrapped +in darkness? + +If upon Hollister had been bestowed the power to grant her sight or to +withhold it, he would have shrunk from a decision. Because he loved +her he wished her to see, to experience the joy of dawn following that +long night in which she groped her way. But he dreaded lest that light +gladdening her eyes should mean darkness for him, a darkness in which +everything he valued would be lost. + +Then some voice within him whispered suggestively that in this +darkness Myra would be waiting with outstretched hands,--and Hollister +frowned and tried not to think of that. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +At noon next day Hollister left the mess-house table and went out to +sit in the sun and smoke a pipe beyond the Rabelaisian gabble of his +crew. While he sat looking at the peaks north of the valley, from +which the June sun was fast stripping even the higher snows, he saw a +man bent under a shoulder pack coming up the slope that dropped away +westward toward the Toba's mouth. He came walking by stumps and +through thickets until he was near the camp. Then Hollister recognized +him as Charlie Mills. He saw Hollister, came over to where he sat, and +throwing off his pack made a seat of it, wiping away the sweat that +stood in shining drops on his face. + +"Well, I'm back, like the cat that couldn't stay away," Mills said. + +The same queer undercurrent of melancholy, of sadness, the same hint +of pain colored his words,--a subtle matter of inflection, of tone. +The shadowy expression of some inner conflict hovered in his dark +eyes. Again Hollister felt that indefinable urge of sympathy for this +man who seemed to suffer with teeth grimly clenched, so that no +complaint ever escaped him. A strange man, tenacious of his black +moods. + +"How's everything?" Mills asked. "You've made quite a hole here since +I left. Can I go to work again?" + +"Sure," Hollister replied. "This summer will just about clean up the +cedar here. You may as well help it along, if you want to work." + +"It isn't a case of wanting to. I've got to," Mills said under his +breath. Already he was at his old trick of absent staring into space, +while his fingers twisted tobacco and paper into a cigarette. "I'd go +crazy loafing. I've been trying that. I've been to Alaska and to +Oregon, and blew most of the stake I made here in riotous living." He +curled his lip disdainfully. "It's no good. Might as well be here as +anywhere. So I came back--like the cat." + +He fell silent again, looking through the trees out over the stone rim +under which Bland's house stood by the river. He sat there beside +Hollister until the bolt gang, moving out of the bunk house to work, +saw and hailed him. He answered briefly. Then he rose without another +word to Hollister and carried in his pack. Hollister saw him go about +selecting tools, shoulder them and walk away to work in the timber. + +That night Hollister wakened out of a sound sleep to sniff the air +that streamed in through his open windows. It was heavy with the +pungent odor of smoke. He rose and looked out. The silence of night +lay on the valley, over the dense forest across the river, upon the +fir-swathed southern slope. No leaf stirred. Nothing moved. It was +still as death. And in this hushed blackness--lightened only by a pale +streak in the north and east that was the reflection of snowy mountain +crests standing stark against the sky line--this smoky wraith crept +along the valley floor. No red glow greeted Hollister's sight. There +was nothing but the smell of burning wood, that acrid, warm, heavy +odor of smoke, the invisible herald of fire. It might be over the next +ridge. It might be in the mouth of the valley. It might be thirty +miles distant. He went back to bed, to lie with that taint of smoke in +his nostrils, thinking of Doris and the boy, of himself, of Charlie +Mills, of Myra, of Archie Lawanne. He saw ghosts in that dusky +chamber, ghosts of other days, and trooping on the heels of these came +apparitions of a muddled future,--until he fell asleep again, to be +awakened at last by a hammering on his door. + +The light of a flash-lamp revealed a logger from the Carr settlement +below. The smoke was rolling in billows when Hollister stepped +outside. Down toward the Inlet's head there was a red flare in the +sky. + +"We got to get everybody out to fight that," the man said. "She +started in the mouth of the river last night. If we don't check it and +the wind turns right, it'll clean the whole valley. We sent a man to +pull your crew off the hill." + +In the growing dawn, Hollister and the logger went down through woods +thick with smoke. They routed Lawanne out of his cabin, and he joined +them eagerly. He had never seen a forest fire. What bore upon the +woodsmen chiefly as a malignant, destructive force affected Lawanne as +something that promised adventure, as a spectacle which aroused his +wonder, his curious interest in vast, elemental forces unleashed. They +stopped at Bland's and pressed him into service. + +In an hour they were deployed before the fire, marshalled to the +attack under men from Carr's, woodsmen experienced in battle against +the red enemy, this spoiler of the forest with his myriad tongues of +flame and breath of suffocating smoke. + +In midsummer the night airs in those long inlets and deep valleys move +always toward the sea. But as day grows and the sun swings up to its +zenith, there comes a shift in the aerial currents. The wind follows +the course of the sun until it settles in the westward, and sometimes +rises to a gale. It was that rising of the west wind that the loggers +feared. It would send the fire sweeping up the valley. There would be +no stopping it. There would be nothing left in its wake but the +blackened earth, smoking roots, and a few charred trunks standing +gaunt and unlovely amid the ruin. + +So now they strove to create a barrier which the fire should not pass. +It was not a task to be perfunctorily carried on, there was no time +for malingering. There was a very real incitement to great effort. +Their property was at stake; their homes and livelihood; even their +lives, if they made an error in the course and speed of the fire's +advance and were trapped. + +They cut a lane through the woods straight across the valley floor +from the river to where the southern slope pitched sharply down. They +felled the great trees and dragged them aside with powerful donkey +engines to manipulate their gear. They cleared away the brush and the +dry windfalls until this lane was bare as a traveled road--so that +when the fire ate its way to this barrier there was a clear space in +which should fall harmless the sparks and embers flung ahead by the +wind. + +There, at this labor, the element of the spectacular vanished. They +could not attack the enemy with excited cries, with brandished +weapons. They could not even see the enemy. They could hear him, they +could smell the resinous odor of his breath. That was all. They laid +their defenses against him with methodical haste, chopping, heaving, +hauling the steel cables here and there from the donkeys, sweating in +the blanket of heat that overlaid the woods, choking in the smoke that +rolled like fog above them and about them. And always in each man's +mind ran the uneasy thought of the west wind rising. + +But throughout the day the west wind held its breath. The flames +crawled, ate their way instead of leaping hungrily. The smoke rose in +dun clouds above the burning area and settled in gray vagueness all +through the woods, drifting in wisps, in streamers, in fantastic +curlings, pungent, acrid, choking the men. The heat of the fire and +the heat of the summer sun in a windless sky made the valley floor a +sweat-bath in which the loggers worked stripped to undershirts and +overalls, blackened with soot and grime. + +Night fell. The fire had eaten the heart out of a block half a mile +square. It was growing. A redness brightened the sky. Lurid colors +fluttered above the hottest blaze. A flame would run with incredible +agility up the trunk of a hundred-foot cedar to fling a yellow banner +from the topmost boughs, to color the billowing smoke, the green of +nearby trees, to wave and gleam and shed coruscating spark-showers and +die down again to a dull glow. + +Through the short night the work went on. Here and there a man's +weariness grew more than he could bear, and he would lie down to sleep +for an hour or two. They ate food when it was brought to them. Always, +while they could keep their feet, they worked. + +Hollister worked on stoically into the following night, keeping +Lawanne near him, because it was all new and exciting to Lawanne, and +Hollister felt that he might have to look out for him if the wind took +any sudden, dangerous shift. + +But the mysterious forces of the air were merciful. During the +twenty-four hours there was nothing but little vagrant breezes and the +drafts created by the heat of the fire itself. When day came again, +without striking a single futile blow at the heart of the fire, they +had drawn the enemy's teeth and clipped his claws--in so far as the +flats of the Toba were threatened. The fire would burn up to that +cleared path and burn itself out--with men stationed along to beat out +each tiny flame that might spring up by chance. And when that was +done, they rested on their oars, so to speak; they took time to sit +down and talk without once relaxing their vigilance. + +In a day or two the fire would die out against that barrier, always +provided the west wind did not rise and in sportive mockery fling +showers of sparks across to start a hundred little fires burning in +the woods behind their line of defense. A forest fire was never beaten +until it was dead. The men rested, watched, patrolled their line. They +looked at the sky and sighed for rain. A little knot of them gathered +by a tree. Some one had brought a box of sandwiches, a pail of coffee +and tin cups. They gulped the coffee and munched the food and +stretched themselves on the soft moss. Through an opening they could +see a fiery glow topped by wavering sheets of flame. They could hear +the crackle and snap of burning wood. + +"A forest fire is quite literally hell, isn't it?" Lawanne asked. + +Hollister nodded. His eyes were on Bland. The man sat on the ground. +He had a cup of coffee in one hand, a sandwich in the other. He was +blackened almost beyond recognition, and he was viewing with patent +disgust the state of his clothes and particularly of his hands. He +set down his food and rubbed at his fingers with a soiled +handkerchief. Then he resumed eating and drinking. It appeared to him +a matter of necessity rather than a thing from which he derived any +satisfaction. Near him Charlie Mills lay stretched on the moss, his +head pillowed on his folded arms, too weary to eat or drink, even at +Hollister's insistence. + +"Dirty job this, eh?" Bland remarked. "I'll appreciate a bath. Phew. I +shall sleep for a week when I get home." + +By mid-afternoon of the next day, Sam Carr decided they had the fire +well in hand and so split his forces, leaving half on guard and +letting the others go home to rest. Hollister's men remained on the +spot in case they were needed; he and Lawanne and Bland went home. + +But that was not the end of the great blaze. Blocked in the valley, +the fire, as if animated by some deadly purpose, crept into the mouth +of a brushy canyon and ran uphill with demoniac energy until it was +burning fiercely over a benchland to the west of Hollister's timber. + +The fight began once more. With varying phases it raged for a week. +They would check it along a given line and rest for awhile, thinking +it safely under control. Then a light shift of wind would throw it +across their line of defense, and in a dozen places the forest would +break into flame. The fire worked far up the slope, but its greatest +menace lay in its steady creep westward. Slowly it ate up to the very +edge of Hollister's timber, in spite of all their checks, their +strategy, the prodigious effort of every man to check its vandal +course. + +Then the west wind, which had held its breath so long, broke loose +with unrestrained exhalation. It fanned the fire to raging fury, sent +it leaping in yellow sheets through the woods. The blaze lashed +eagerly over the tops of the trees, the dreaded crown fire of the +North Woods. Where its voice had been a whisper, it became a roar, an +ominous, warning roar to which the loggers gave instant heed and got +themselves and their gear off that timbered slope. + +They could do no more. They had beaten it in the valley. Backed by the +lusty pressure of the west wind, it drove them off the hill and went +its wanton way unhindered. + +In the flat by Hollister's house the different crews came together. +There was not one of them but drooped with exhaustion. They sat about +on the parched ground, on moss, against tree trunks, and stared up the +hill. + +Already the westerly gale had cleared the smoke from the lower valley. +It brought a refreshing coolness off the salt water, and it was also +baring to their sight the spectacular destruction of the forest. + +All that area where Hollisters cedars had stood was a red chaos out of +which great flames leaped aloft and waved snaky tongues, blood-red, +molten gold, and from which great billows of smoke poured away to +wrap in obscurity all the hills beyond. There was nothing they could +do now. They watched it apathetically, too weary to care. + +Hollister looked on the destruction of his timber most stolidly of +all. For days he had put forth his best effort. His body ached. His +eyes smarted. His hands were sore. He had done his best without +enthusiasm. He was not oppressed so greatly as were some of these men +by this vast and useless destruction. What did it matter, after all? A +few trees more or less! A square mile or two of timber out of that +enormous stand. It was of no more consequence in the sum total than +the life of some obscure individual in the teeming millions of the +earth. It was his timber. So was his life a possession peculiar to +himself. And neither seemed greatly to matter; neither did matter +greatly to any one but himself. + +It was all a muddle. He was very tired, too tired to bear thinking, +almost too tired to feel. He was conscious of himself as a creature of +weariness sitting against a tree, his scarred face blackened like the +tired faces of these other men, wondering dully what was the sum of +all this sweat and strain, the shattered plans, the unrewarded effort, +the pain and stress that men endure. A man made plans, and they +failed. He bred hope in his soul and saw it die. He longed for and +sought his desires always, to see them vanish like a mirage just as +they seemed within his grasp. + +Lawanne and Bland had gone home, dragging themselves on tired limbs. +Carr's men rested where they chose. They must watch lest the fire back +down into the valley again and destroy their timber, as it had +destroyed Hollister's. They had blankets and food. Hollister gave his +own men the freedom of the house. Their quarters on the hill stood in +the doomed timber. The old log house would be ashes now. + +He wondered what Doris was doing, if she steadily gained her sight. +But concrete, coherent thought seemed difficult. He thought in +pictures, which he saw with a strange detachment as if he were a ghost +haunting places once familiar. + +He found his chin sinking on his breast. He roused himself and walked +over to the house. His men were sprawled on the rugs, sleeping in +grotesque postures. Hollister picked his way among them. Almost by the +door of his bedroom Charlie Mills sprawled on his back, his head +resting on a sofa cushion. He opened his eyes as Hollister passed. + +"That was a tough game," Hollister said. + +"It's all a tough game," Mills answered wearily and closed his eyes +again. + +Hollister went on into the room. He threw himself across the bed. In +ten seconds he was fast asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +For another day, a day of brilliant sunshine and roaring west wind, +the fire marched up over the southern slope. Its flaming head, with a +towering crest of smoke, went over a high ridge, and its lower flank +smoldered threateningly a little above the valley. The second night +the wind fell to a whisper, shifting freakishly into the northeast, +and day dawned with a mass formation of clouds spitting rain, which by +noon grew to a downpour. The fire sizzled and sputtered and died. +Twenty hours of rain cleared the sky of clouds, the woods of smoke. +The sun lifted his beaming face over the eastern sky line. The birds +that had been silent began their twittering again, the squirrels took +up their exploration among the tree tops, scolding and chattering as +they went. Gentle airs shook the last rain drops from leaf and bough. +The old peace settled on the valley. There was little to mark the ten +days of effort and noise and destruction except a charred patch on the +valley floor and a mile-wide streak that ran like a bar sinister +across the green shield of the slope south of the Big Bend. Even that +desolate path seemed an insignificant strip in the vast stretch of the +forest. + +Hollister and his men went, after the rain, up across that ravaged +place, and when they came to the hollow where the great cedars and +lesser fir had stood solemn and orderly in brown-trunked ranks, the +rudest of the loggers grew silent, a little awed by the melancholy of +the place, the bleakness, the utter ruin. Where the good green forest +had been, there was nothing but ashes and blackened stubs, stretches +of bare rock and gravelly soil, an odor of charred wood. There was no +green blade, no living thing, in all that wide space, nothing but a +few gaunt trunks stark in the open; blasted, sterile trunks standing +like stripped masts on a derelict. + +There was nothing left of the buildings except a pile of stone which +had been the fireplace in the log house, and a little to one side the +rusty, red skeleton of the mess-house stove. They looked about +curiously for a few minutes and went back to the valley. + +At the house Hollister paid them off. They went their way down to the +steamer landing, eager for town after a long stretch in the woods. The +fire was only an exciting incident to them. There were other camps, +other jobs. + +It was not even an exciting incident to Hollister. Except for a little +sadness at sight of that desolation where there had been so much +beauty, he had neither been uplifted nor cast down. He had been +unmoved by the spectacular phases of the fire and he was still +indifferent, even to the material loss it had inflicted on him. He was +not ruined. He had the means to acquire more timber if it should be +necessary. But even if he had been ruined, it is doubtful if that fact +would have weighed heavily upon him. He was too keenly aware of a +matter more vital to him than timber or money,--a matter in which +neither his money nor his timber counted one way or the other, and in +which the human equation was everything. + +The steamer that took out his men brought in a letter from his wife, +which Lawanne sent up by his Chinese boy. He had written to her the +day before the fire broke out. He could not recall precisely what he +wrote, but he had tried to make clear to her what troubled him and +why. And her reply was brief, uncommonly brief for Doris, who had the +faculty of expressing herself fully and freely. + +Hollister laid the letter on the table. The last line of that short +missive kept repeating itself over and over, as if his brain were a +phonograph which he had no power to stop playing: + +"I shall be home next week on the Wednesday boat." + +He got up and walked across the room, crossed and recrossed it half a +dozen times. And with each step those words thrust at him with deadly +import. He had deluded himself for a while. He had thought he could +beat the game in spite of his handicap. He had presumed for a year to +snap his fingers and laugh in the face of Fate, and Fate was to have +the last laugh. + +He seemed to have a fatalistic sureness about this. He made a +deliberate effort to reason about it, and though his reason assumed +that when a woman like Doris Cleveland loved a man she did not love +him for the unblemished contours of his face, there was still that +deep-rooted, unreasoning feeling that however she might love him as +the unseen, the ideal lover, she must inevitably shrink from the +reality. + +He stood still for a few seconds. In the living quarters of his house +there was, by deliberate intention, no mirror. Among Hollister's +things there was a small hand glass before which he shaved off the +hairs that grew out of the few patches of unscarred flesh about his +chin, those fragments of his beard which sprouted in grotesquely +separated tufts. But in the bedroom they had arranged for the +housekeeper there was a large oval glass above a dresser. Into this +room Hollister now walked and stood before the mirror staring at his +face. + +No, he could not blame her, any one, for shrinking from _that_. And +when the darting shuttle of his thought reminded him that Myra did not +shrink from it, he went out to the front room and with his body sunk +deep in a leather chair he fell to pondering on this. But it led him +nowhere except perhaps to a shade of disbelief in Myra and her +motives, a strange instinctive distrust both of her and himself. + +He recognized Myra's power. He had succumbed to it in the old careless +days and gloried in his surrender. He perceived that her compelling +charm was still able to move him as it did other men. He knew that +Myra had been carried this way and that in the great, cruel, +indifferent swirl that was life. He could understand a great many +things about her and about himself, about men as men and women as +women, that he would have denied in the days before the war. + +But while he could think about himself and Myra Bland with a calmness +that approached indifference, he could not think with that same +detachment about Doris. She had come, walking fearlessly in her +darkened world, to him in his darkened world of discouragement and +bitterness. There was something fine and true in this blind girl, +something that Hollister valued over and above the flesh-and-blood +loveliness of her, something rare and precious that he longed to keep. +He could not define it; he simply knew that it resided in her, that it +was a precious quality that set her apart in his eyes from all other +women. + +But would it stand the test of sight? If he were as other men he would +not have been afraid; he would scarcely have asked himself that +question. But he knew he would be like a stranger to her, a strange +man with a repellingly scarred face. He did not believe she could +endure that, she who loved beauty so, who was sensitive to subtleties +of tone and atmosphere beyond any woman he had ever known. Hollister +tried to put himself in her place. Would he have taken her to his +arms as gladly, as joyously, if she had come to him with a face +twisted out of all semblance to its natural lines? And Hollister could +not say. He did not know. + +He threw up his head at last, in a desperate sort of resolution. In a +week he would know. Meantime-- + +He had no work to occupy him now. There were a few bolts behind the +boom-sticks which he would raft to the mill at his leisure. He walked +up to the chute mouth now and looked about. A few hundred yards up the +hill the line of green timber ended against the black ruin of the +fire. There the chute ended also. Hollister walked on across the rocky +point, passed the waterfall that was shrinking under the summer heat, +up to a low cliff where he sat for a long time looking down on the +river. + +When he came back at last to the house, Myra was there, busy at her +self-imposed tasks in those neglected rooms. Hollister sat down on the +porch steps. He felt a little uneasy about her being there, uneasy for +her. In nearly two weeks of fighting fire he had been thrown in +intimate daily contact with Jim Bland, and his appraisal of Bland's +character was less and less flattering the more he revised his +estimate of the man. He felt that Myra was inviting upon herself +something she might possibly not suspect. He decided to tell her it +would be wiser to keep away; but when he did so, she merely laughed. +There was a defiant recklessness in her tone when she said: + +"Do you think I need a chaperone? Must one, even in this desolate +place, kow-tow to the conventions devised to prop up the weak and +untrustworthy? If Jim can't trust me, I may as well learn it now as +any other time. Besides, it doesn't matter to me greatly whether he +does or not. If for any reason he should begin to think evil of +me--well, the filthy thought in another's mind can't defile me. I +can't recall that I was ever greatly afraid of what other people might +think of me, so long I was sure of myself." + +"Nevertheless," Hollister said, "it is as well for you not to come +here alone while I am here alone." + +"Don't you like me to come, Robin?" she asked. + +"No," he said slowly. "That wasn't why I spoke--but I don't think I +do." + +"Why?" she persisted. + +Hollister stirred uneasily. + +"Call a spade a spade, Robin," she advised. "Say what you think--what +you mean." + +"That's difficult," he muttered. "How can any one say what he means +when he is not quite sure what he does mean? I'm in trouble. You're +sorry for me, in a way. And maybe you feel--because of old times, +because of the contrast between what your life was then and what it is +now--you feel as if you would like to comfort me. And I don't want you +to feel that way. I look at you--and I think about what you said. I +wonder if you meant it? Do you remember what you said?" + +"Quite clearly. I meant it, Robin. I still mean it. I'm yours--if you +need me. Perhaps you won't. Perhaps you will. Does it trouble you to +have me a self-appointed anchor to windward?" + +She clasped her hands over her knees, bending forward a little, +looking at him with a curious serenity. Her eyes did not waver from +his. + +Hollister made no answer. + +"I brought a lot of this on you, Robin," she went on in the musical, +rippling voice so like Doris in certain tones and inflections as to +make him wonder idly if he had unconsciously fallen in love with Doris +Cleveland's voice because it was like Myra's. "If I had stuck it out +in London till you came back, maimed or otherwise, things would have +been different. But we were started off, flung off, one might say, +into different orbits by the forces of the war itself. That's neither +here nor there, now. You may think I'm offering myself as a sort of +vicarious atonement--if your Doris fails you--but I'm not, really. I'm +too selfish. I have never sacrificed myself for any man. I never will. +It isn't in me. I'm just as eager to get all I can out of life as I +ever was. I liked you long ago. I like you still. That's all there is +to it, Robin." + +She shifted herself nearer him. She put one hand on his shoulder, the +other on his knee, and bent forward, peering into his face. Hollister +matched that questioning gaze for a second. It was unreadable. It +conveyed no message, hinted nothing, held no covert suggestion. It was +earnest and troubled. He had never before seen that sort of look on +Myra's face. He could make nothing of it, and so there was nothing in +it to disturb him. But the warm pressure of her hands, the nearness of +her body, did trouble him. He put her hands gently away. + +"You shouldn't come here," he said quietly. "I will call a spade a +spade. I love Doris--and I have a queer, hungry sort of feeling about +the boy. If it happens that in spite of our life together Doris can't +bear me and can't get used to me, if it becomes impossible for us to +go on together--well, I can't make clear to you the way I feel about +this. But I'm afraid. And if it turns out that I'm afraid with good +cause--why, I don't know what I'll do, what way I'll turn. But wait +until that happens--Well, it seems that a man and a woman who have +loved and lived together can't become completely indifferent--they +must either hate and despise each other--or else--You understand? We +have made some precious blunders, you and I. We have involved other +people in our blundering, and we mustn't forget about these other +people. I _can't_. Doris and the kid come first--myself last. I'm +selfish too. I can only sit here in suspense and wait for things to +happen as they will. You," he hesitated a second, "you can't help me, +Myra. You could hurt me a lot if you tried--and yourself too." + +"I see," she said. "I understand." + +She sat for a time with her hands resting in her lap, looking down at +the ground. Then she rose. + +"I don't want to hurt you, Robin," she said soberly. "I can't help +looking for a way out, that's all. For myself, I must find a way out. +The life I lead now is stifling me--and I can't see where it will ever +be any different, any better. I've become cursed with the twin devils +of analysis and introspection. I don't love Jim; I tolerate him. One +can't go through life merely tolerating one's husband, and the sort of +friends and the sort of existence that appeals to one's husband, +unless one is utterly ox-like--and I'm not. Women have lived with men +they cared nothing for since the beginning of time, I suppose, because +of various reasons--but I see no reason why I should. I'm a rebel--in +full revolt against shams and stupidity and ignorance, because those +three have brought me where I am and you where you are. I'm a disarmed +and helpless _revolte_ by myself. One doesn't want to go from bad to +worse. One wants instinctively to progress from good to better. One +makes mistakes and seeks to rectify them--if it is possible. One sees +suffering arise as the result of one's involuntary acts, and one +wishes wistfully to relieve it. That's the simple truth, Robin. Only a +simple truth is often a very complex thing. It seems so with us." + +"It is," Hollister muttered, "and it might easily become more so." + +"Ah, well," she said, "that is scarcely likely. You were always pretty +dependable, Robin. And I'm no longer an ignorant little fool to rush +thoughtlessly in where either angels or devils might fear to tread. We +shall see." + +She swung around on her heel. Hollister watched her walk away along +the river path. He scarcely knew what he thought, what he felt, except +that what he felt and thought disturbed him to the point of sadness, +of regret. He sat musing on the curious, contradictory forces at work +in his life. It was folly to be wise, to be sensitive, to respond too +quickly, to see too clearly; and ignorance, dumbness of soul, was also +fatal. Either way there was no escape. A man did his best and it was +futile,--or seemed so to him, just then. + +His gaze followed Myra while his thought ran upon Doris, upon his boy, +wondering if the next steamer would bring him sentence of banishment +from all that he valued, or if there would be a respite, a stay of +execution, a miracle of affection that would survive and override the +terrible reality--or what seemed to him the terrible reality--of his +disfigured face. He had abundant faith in Doris--of the soft voice and +the keen, quick mind, the indomitable spirit and infinite +patience--but he had not much faith in himself, in his own power. He +was afraid of her restored sight, which would leave nothing to the +subtle play of her imagination. + +And following Myra with that mechanical noting of her progress, his +eyes, which were very keen, caught some movement in a fringe of +willows that lined the opposite shore of the river some three hundred +yards below. He looked more sharply. He had developed a hunter's +faculty for interpreting movement in the forest, and although he had +nothing more positive than instinct and a brief flash upon which to +base conclusions, he did not think that movement of the leaves was +occasioned by any creature native to the woods. + +On impulse he rose, went inside, and taking his binoculars from their +case, focused the eight-power lenses on the screen of brush, keeping +himself well within the doorway where he could see without being seen. + +It took a minute or so of covering the willows before he located the +cause of that movement of shrubbery. But presently he made out the +head and shoulders of a man. And the man was Bland, doing precisely +what Hollister was doing, looking through a pair of field glasses. +Hollister stood well back in the room. He was certain Bland could not +see that he himself was being watched. In any case, Bland was not +looking at Hollister's house. It was altogether likely that he had +been doing so, that he had seen Myra sitting beside Hollister with her +hand on his shoulder, bending forward to peer into Hollister's face. +And Hollister could easily imagine what Bland might feel and think. +But he was steadily watching Myra. Once he turned the glasses for a +few seconds on Hollister's house. Then he swung them back to Myra, +followed her persistently as she walked along the bank, on past +Lawanne's, on towards their own rude shack. And at last Bland shifted. +One step backward, and the woods swallowed him. One moment his +shoulders and his head stood plain in every detail, even to the +brickish redness of his skin and the curve of his fingers about the +glasses; the next he was gone. + +Hollister sat thinking. He did not like the implications of that +furtive observance. A suspicious, watchful man is a jealous man. And a +jealous man who has nothing to do but watch and suspect and nurse that +mean passion was a dangerous adjunct to an unhappy woman. + +Hollister resolved to warn Myra, to emphasize that warning. No one +could tell of what a dull egotist like Bland might be capable. The +very fact of that furtive spying argued an ignoble streak in any man. +Bland was stiff-necked, vain, the sort to be brutal in retaliation for +any fancied invasion of his rights. And his conception of a husband's +rights were primitive in the extreme. A wife was property, something +that was his. Hollister could imagine him roused to blind, blundering +fury by the least suspicious action on Myra's part. Bland was the type +that, once aroused, acts like an angry bull,--with about as much +regard or understanding of consequences. Hollister had been measuring +Bland for a year, and the last two or three weeks had given him the +greatest opportunity to do so. He had appraised the man as a dullard +under his stupid, inflexible crust of egotism, despite his veneer of +manners. But even a clod may be dangerous. A bomb is a harmless thing, +so much inert metal and chemicals, until it is touched off; yet it +needs only a touch to let loose its insensate, rending force. + +Hollister rose to start down the path after Myra with the idea that he +must somehow convey to her a more explicit warning. As he stepped out +on the porch, he looked downstream at Bland's house and saw a man +approach the place from one direction as Myra reached it from the +other. He caught up his glasses and brought them to bear. The man was +Mills,--whom he had thought once more far from the Toba with the rest +of his scattered crew. Nevertheless this was Mills drawing near +Bland's house with quick strides. + +Hollister's uneasiness doubled. There was a power for mischief in that +situation when he thought of Jim Bland scowling from his hiding place +in the willows. He set out along the path. + +But by the time he came abreast of Lawanne's cabin he had begun to +feel himself acting under a mistaken impulse, an exaggerated +conclusion. He began to doubt the validity of that intuition which +pointed a warning finger at Bland and Bland's suspicions. In +attempting to forestall what might come of Bland's stewing in the +juice of a groundless jealousy, he could easily precipitate something +that would perhaps be best avoided by ignoring it. He stood, when he +thought of it, in rather a delicate position himself. + +So he turned into Lawanne's. He found Archie sitting on the shady side +of his cabin, and they fell into talk. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Lawanne had been thumping a typewriter for hours, he told Hollister, +until his fingers ached. He was almost through with this task, which +for months had been a curious mixture of drudgery and pleasure. + +"I'm through all but typing the last two chapters. It's been a fierce +grind." + +"You'll be on the wing soon, then", Hollister observed. + +"That depends," Lawanne said absently. + +But he did not explain upon what it depended. He leaned back in his +chair, a cigarette in his fingers, and stared for a minute up at the +trees. + +"I'll get the rest of it pounded out in two or three days," he came +back to his book, "then I think I'll go up the Little Toba, just to +see what that wild-looking gorge is like twenty or thirty miles back. +Better come along with me. Do you good. You're sort of at a +standstill." + +"I can't," Hollister explained. "Doris is coming back next week." + +Lawanne looked at him intently. + +"Eyes all right?" + +"I don't know. I suppose so," Hollister replied. "She didn't say. She +merely wrote that she was coming on the Wednesday steamer." + +"Well, that'll be all right too," Lawanne said. "You'll get over being +so down in the mouth then." + +"Maybe," Hollister muttered. + +"Of course. What rot to think anything else." + +Hollister did not contradict this. It was what he wanted to feel and +think, and could not. He understood that Lawanne, whatever his +thought, was trying to hearten him. And he appreciated that, although +he knew the matter rested in his wife's own hands and nothing any one +else could do or say had the slightest bearing on it. His meeting with +Doris would be either an ordeal or a triumph. + +"I might get Charlie Mills to go with me," Lawanne pursued his own +thought. + +"Mills didn't go out with the rest of the crew?" Hollister asked. He +knew, of course, that Charlie Mills was still in the Toba valley +because he had seen him with his own eyes not more than half an hour +earlier. His question, however, was not altogether idle. He wondered +whether Mills had gone out and come back, or if he had not left at +all. + +"No. He turned back at the last minute, for some reason. He's camping +in one of the old T. & T. shacks below Carr's. I rather like Mills. +He's interesting when you can get him to loosen up. Queer, tense sort +of beggar at times, though. A good man to go into the hills with--to +go anywhere with--although he might not show to great advantage in a +drawing-room. By Jove, you know, Hollister, it doesn't seem like nine +months since I settled down in this cabin. Now I'm about due to go +back to the treadmill." + +"Do you have to?" Hollister asked. "If this satisfies you, why not +come back again after you've had a fling at the outside?" + +"I can't, very well," Lawanne for the first time touched on his +personal affairs, that life which he led somewhere beyond the Toba. "I +have obligations to fulfill. I've been playing truant, after a +fashion. I've stolen a year to do something I wanted to do. Now it's +done and I'm not even sure it's well done--but whether it's well done +or not, it's finished, and I have to go back and get into the collar +and make money to supply other people's needs. Unless," he shrugged +his shoulders, "I break loose properly. This country has that sort of +effect on a man. It makes him want to break loose from everything that +seems to hamper and restrain him. It doesn't take a man long to shed +his skin in surroundings like these. Oh, well, whether I come back or +not, I'll be all the same a hundred years from now." + +A rifle shot cut sharp into the silence that followed Lawanne's last +words. That was nothing uncommon in the valley, where the crack of a +gun meant only that some one was hunting. But upon this report there +followed, clear and shrill, a scream, the high-pitched cry that only a +frightened woman can utter. This was broken into and cut short by a +second whip-like report. And both shots and scream came from the +direction of Bland's house. + +Hollister rose. He looked at Lawanne and Lawanne looked at him. Across +Hollister's brain flashed a thought that would scarcely have been born +if he had not seen Bland spying from the willows, if he had not seen +Charlie Mills approaching that house, if he had not been aware of all +the wheels within wheels, the complicated coil of longings and desires +and smoldering passions in which these people were involved. He looked +at Lawanne, and he could not read what passed in his mind. But when he +turned and set out on a run for that shake cabin four hundred yards +downstream, Lawanne followed at his heels. + +They were winded, and their pace had slowed to a hurried walk by the +time they reached the cabin. The door stood open. There was no sound. +The house was as still as the surrounding woods when Hollister stepped +across the threshold. + +Bland stood just within the doorway, erect, his feet a little apart, +like a man bracing himself against some shock. He seemed frozen in +this tense attitude, so that he did not alter the rigid line of his +body or shift a single immobile muscle when Hollister and Lawanne +stepped in. His eyes turned sidewise in their sockets to rest briefly +and blankly upon the intruders. Then his gaze, a fixed gaze that +suggested incredulous disbelief, went back to the body of his wife. + +Myra lay in a crumpled heap, her face upturned, open-eyed, +expressionless, as if death had either caught her in a moment of +impassivity or with his clammy hands had forever wiped out all +expression from her features. There were no visible marks on her,--but +a red stain was creeping slowly from under her body, spreading across +the rough floor. + +Mills sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his hands braced on +his knees to keep his body erect. And upon him there was to be seen no +visible mark of the murderer's bullet. But his dark-skinned face had +turned waxy white. His lips were colorless. Every breath he drew was a +laborious effort. A ghastly smile spread slowly over his face as he +looked up at Hollister and Lawanne. + +"You fool. You damned, murdering fool!" Lawanne turned on Bland. "You +did this?" + +Bland did not answer. He put his hand to his face and wiped away the +sweat that had gathered in a shiny film on his skin, from which all +the ruddiness had fled. Myra's pale, dead face seemed to hold him in +some horrible fascination. + +Hollister shook him. + +"Why did you do that?" he demanded. + +Bland heaved a shuddering sigh. He looked up and about him stupidly. + +"I don't know," he croaked. "I don't know--I don't know." + +A gleam of something like reason came into his eyes. + +"I suppose I shall have to give myself up to the authorities," he +mumbled. "My God!" + +The last two words burst from his lips like a cry, as for the first +time he saw the full import of what he had done, realized the horror, +the madness, and the consequences of his act. He shrank against the +wall with a groan, putting out his hands as if to ward off some +invisible enemy. Then, thrusting Hollister aside, he rushed out of the +door, his rifle still clasped in both hands. He ran down the bank, out +into the shallows of the river, splashing through water to his knees. +He gained the opposite side where the heavy woods lifted silent and +solemn, full of dusky places. Into that--whether for sanctuary or +driven by some unreckoning panic, they did not know--but into that he +plunged, the last sight either Hollister or Lawanne ever had of him. + +They turned to Mills. Myra was dead. They could do nothing for her. +But Mills still lived. The sound of his labored breathing filled the +room. He had shifted a little, so that he could reach out and lay one +hand on the dead woman's face, where it rested, with a caressing +touch. A red pool was gathering where he sat. + +"How bad are you hurt, Charlie?" Hollister said. "Let me see." + +"No use," Mills said thickly. "I'm done. He got me right through the +middle. And I wouldn't live if I could. Not now. + +"Don't touch me," he protested, as they bent over him. "You can't do +anything. There's a hole in me you could put your hand in. But it +don't hurt. I won't last more than a minute or two, anyway." + +"How did it happen?" Lawanne asked. + +"I was sitting here talking to her," Mills said. "There was nothing +wrong--unless it's wrong for a man to love a woman and tell her so. I +found her sitting here, crying. She wouldn't tell me why. And I +suppose maybe that stirred me up. I hadn't meant to start it +again--because we'd had that out long ago. But I tried to persuade her +to go away with me--to make a fresh start. I wanted her--but I've been +doing that for a long time. She's only stuck to this Bland--because--oh, +I don't know why. I don't savvy women. She liked me. But not enough. I +was trying to persuade her to break loose. I don't remember--maybe I +had hold of her hand. A man doesn't remember when he's begging for a +chance. I don't know where he came from. Maybe he heard what I was +saying. Maybe it just didn't look good to him. I know his face was +like a wild man's when I saw him in the door." + +Mills paused to catch his breath. The words tumbled out of him as if +he had much to say and knew his time was short. + +"Don't think he meant to kill her. He popped me. Then she screamed and +jumped in front of me with her arms out--and he gave it to her." + +Mills' voice broke. His fingers stroked feebly at the twisted coils of +Myra's pale, honey-colored hair. His lips quivered. + +"Finished. All over--for both of us. Butchered like beef by a crazy +fool. Maybe I'm crazy too," he said in a husky whisper. "It don't seem +natural a man should feel like I've felt for months. I didn't want to +feel like that. Couldn't help it. I've lived in hell--you won't savvy, +but it's true. I'm glad it's over. If there is any other life--maybe +that'll be better. I hope there isn't. I feel as if all I want is to +sleep forever and ever. No more laying awake nights thinking till my +head hurts and my heart is like a lump of lead. By God, I _have_ been +crazy." + +His body began to sag, and Hollister knelt beside him and supported +him. He shook his head when Lawanne offered him a drink. His eyes +closed. Only the feeble motion of his fingers on the dead woman's face +and the slow heave of his breast betokened the life that still clung +so tenaciously to him. + +He opened his eyes again, to look at Hollister. + +"I used to think--dying--was tough," he whispered. "It isn't. Like +going--to sleep--when you're tired--when you're through--for the day." + +That was his last word. He went limp suddenly and slid out of +Hollister's grasp. And they let him lie, a dead man beside the dead +woman on the floor. They stood up themselves and stared at the bodies +with that strange incredulity men sometimes feel in the face of sudden +death. + +Both Lawanne and Hollister were familiar with death, death by the +sniper's bullet, by machine gun and shell, by bayonet and poison gas. +This was different. It was not war. It was something that touched them +more deeply than any of the killing they had seen in war. The low hum +of foraging bees about the door, the foxglove swaying in summer airs, +the hushed peace of the distant hills and nearer forest,--this was no +background for violence and death. It shocked them, chilled and +depressed them. Hollister felt a new sort of ache creep into his +heart. His eyes stung. And Lawanne suddenly turned away with a choking +sound muffled in his throat. + +They went out into the sunlight. Away down the valley a donkey engine +tooted and whirred. High above them an eagle soared, wheeling in great +circles about his aerial business. The river whispered in its channel. +The blue jays scolded harshly among the thickets, and a meadow lark +perched on a black stump near at hand, warbling his throaty song. Life +went on as before. + +"What'll we do?" Lawanne said presently. "We've got to do something." + +"There's not much we can do, now," Hollister replied. "You go down to +Carr's and tell them to send a man with a gas-boat out to Powell River +with word to the Provincial Police of what has happened. I'll keep +watch until you come back." + +In an hour Lawanne returned with two men from the settlement. They +laid the bodies out decently on a bed and left the two men to keep +vigil until sundown, when Hollister and Lawanne would take up that +melancholy watch for the night. + +"I wonder," Hollister said to Lawanne, as they walked home, "what'll +become of Bland? Will he give himself up, or will they have to hunt +him?" + +"Neither, I think," Lawanne answered slowly. "A man like that is +certainly not himself when he breaks out like that. Bland has the +cultural inheritance of his kind. You could see that he was stupefied +by what he had done. When he rushed away into the woods I think it was +just beginning to dawn on him, to fill him with horror. He'll never +come back. You'll see. He'll either go mad, or in the reaction of +feeling he'll kill himself." + +They went into Lawanne's cabin. Lawanne brought out a bottle of +brandy. He looked at the shaking of his fingers as he poured for +Hollister and smiled wanly. + +"I don't go much on Dutch courage, but I sure need it now," he said. +"Isn't it queer the way death affects you under different +circumstances? I didn't see such an awful lot of action in France, but +once a raiding party of Heinies tumbled into our trench, and there was +a deuce of a ruction for a few minutes. Between bayonets and bombs we +cleaned the lot, a couple of dozen of them. After it was all over, we +stacked them up like cordwood--with about as much compunction. It +seemed perfectly natural. There was nothing but the excitement of +winning a scrap. The half-dozen of our own fellows that went west in +the show--they didn't matter either. It was part of the game. You +expected it. It didn't surprise you. It didn't shock you. Yet death is +death. Only, there, it seemed a natural consequence. And here +it--well, I don't know why, but it gives me a horror." + +Lawanne sat down. + +"It was so unnecessary; so useless," he went on in that lifeless tone. +"The damned, egotistic fool! Two lives sacrificed to a stupid man's +wounded vanity. That's all. She was a singularly attractive woman. She +would have been able to get a lot out of life. And I don't think she +did, or expected to." + +"Did you have any idea that Mills had that sort of feeling for her?" +Hollister asked. + +"Oh, yes," Lawanne said absently. "I saw that. I understood. I was +touched a little with the same thing myself. Only, _noblesse oblige_. +And also I was never quite sure that what I felt for her was sympathy, +or affection, or just sex. I know I can scarcely bear to think that +she is dead." + +He leaned back in his chair and put his hands over his eyes. Hollister +got up and walked to a window. Then on impulse he went to the door. +And when he was on the threshold, Lawanne halted him. + +"Don't go," he said. "Stay here. I can't get my mind off this. I +don't want to sit alone and think." + +Hollister turned back. Neither did he want to sit alone and think. For +as the first dazed numbness wore off, he began to see himself standing +alone--more alone than ever--gazing into a bottomless pit, with Fate +or Destiny or blind Chance, whatever witless force was at work, +approaching inexorably to push him over the brink. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +To the world outside the immediate environs of the Toba, beyond those +who knew the people concerned, that double murder was merely another +violent affair which provided material for newspapers, a remote event +allied to fires, divorces, embezzlements, politics, and scandals in +high finance,--another item to be glanced quickly over and as quickly +forgotten. + +But one man at least could not quickly forget or pass it over lightly. +Once the authorities--coming from a great distance, penetrating the +solitude of the valley with a casual, business-like air--arrived, +asked questions, issued orders, sent two men abroad in search of the +slayer, and removed the bodies to another jurisdiction, Hollister had +nothing more to do with that until he should be called again to give +formal testimony. + +He was left with nothing to do but brood, to sit asking unanswerable +questions of a world and a life that for him was slowly and +bewilderingly verging upon the chaotic, in which there was no order, +no security, no assurance of anything but devastating changes that had +neither rhyme nor reason in their sequence. There might be logical +causes, buried obscurely under remote events, for everything that had +transpired. He conceded that point. But he could not establish any +association; he could not trace out the chain; and he revolted against +the common assumption that all things, no matter how mysterious, work +out ultimately for some common good. + +Where was the good forthcoming out of so much that was evil, he asked? +Looking back over the years, he saw much evil for himself, for +everything and every one he cared about, and mingled with it there was +little good, and that good purely accidental, the result of fortuitous +circumstances. He knew that until the war broke out he had lived in a +backwater of life, himself and Myra, contented, happy, untried by +adversity. Once swung out of that backwater they had been swept away, +powerless to know where they went, to guess what was their +destination. + +Nothing that he could have done would have altered one iota the march +of events. Nothing that he could do now would have more than the +slightest bearing on what was still to come. He was like a man beaten +to a dazed state in which he expects anything, in which his feeble +resistance will not ward off a single blow aimed at him by an unseen, +inscrutable enemy. + +Hollister, sitting on the bank of the river, looked at the mountains +rising tier upon tier until the farthest ranges were dazzling white +cones against a far sky line. He saw them as a chaos of granite and +sandstone flung up by blind forces. Order and logical sequence in the +universe were a delusion--except as they were the result of ordered +human thought, effected by patient, unremitting human effort, which +failed more often than it succeeded. + +He looked at one bold peak across the valley, standing so sheer above +the Black Hole that it seemed to overhang from the perpendicular; a +mass of bald granite, steep cliff, with glacial ice and perpetual snow +lurking in its crevasses. Upon its lower slopes the forest ran up, a +green mantle with ragged edges. From the forest upward the wind wafted +seeds to every scanty patch of soil. They took root, became saplings, +grew to substantial trees. And every winter the snow fell deep on that +mountain, piling up in great masses delicately poised, until a mere +nothing--a piece of stone loosened by the frost; a gust of wind; +perhaps only the overhanging edge of a snow-drift breaking under its +own weight--would start a slide that gathered speed and bulk as it +came down. And as this insensate mass plunged downward, the small +trees and the great, the thickets and the low salal, everything that +stood in its path, was overwhelmed and crushed and utterly destroyed. +To what end? For what purpose? + +It was just the same with man, Hollister thought. If he got in the way +of forces greater than himself, he was crushed. Nature was blind, +ruthless, disorderly, wantonly destructive. One had to be alert, +far-seeing, gifted with definite characteristics, to escape. Even then +one did not always, or for long, escape being bruised and mauled by +the avalanches of emotion, the irresistible movement of circumstance +over which one could exert no control. + +How could it be otherwise? Hollister thought of all that had happened +to all the people he knew, the men he had seen killed and maimed, +driven insane by the shocks of war; of Doris, stricken blind in the +full glow of youth; Myra pulled and hauled this way and that because +she was as she was and powerless to be otherwise; himself marred and +shunned and suffering intolerable agonies of spirit; of Bland, upon +whom had fallen the black mantle of unnecessary tragedy; and Mills, +who had paid for his passion with his life. + +All these things pressed upon Hollister; a burden of discouragement, +of sadness. Not one of all these, himself included, but wanted +happiness according to his conception of happiness. And who and what +was responsible for each one's individual conception of what he +wanted? Not one of them had demanded existence. Each had had existence +thrust upon him. Nature, and a thousand generations of life and love +and pain, such environment in which, willy-nilly, they passed their +formative years, had bestowed upon each his individual quota of +character, compounded of desires, of intellect, of tendencies. And the +sum total of their actions and reactions--what was it? How could they +have modified life, bent it purposefully to its greatest fulfilment? + +Hollister tried to shake himself free of these morbid abstractions. +He was alive. He had a long time yet to live. He was a strong man, in +whom the fire of life burned with an unquenchable flame. He had a +great many imperative requisitions to make on life's exchequer, and +while he was now sadly dubious of their being honored, either in full +or in part, he must go on making them. + +There was a very black hole yawning before him. The cumulative force +of events had made him once more profoundly uncertain. All his props +were breaking. Sometimes he wondered if the personal God of the +Christian orthodoxy was wreaking upon him some obscure vengeance for +unknown sins. + +He shook himself out of this depressing bog of reflection and went to +see Archie Lawanne. Not simply for the sake of Lawanne's society, +although he valued that for itself. He had a purpose. + +"That boat's due to-morrow at three o'clock," he said to Lawanne. +"Will you take my big canoe and bring Doris up the river? + +"I can't," he forestalled the question he saw forming on Lawanne's +lips. "I can't meet her before that crowd--the crew and passengers, +and loggers from Carr's. I'm afraid to. Not only because of myself, +but because of what effect the shock of seeing me may have on her. +Remember that I'll be like a stranger to her. She has never seen me. +It seems absurd, but it's true. It's better that she sees me the first +time by herself, at home, instead of before a hundred curious eyes. +Don't you see?" + +Lawanne saw; at least, he agreed that it was better so. And after they +had talked awhile, Hollister went home. + +But he was scarcely in his own dooryard before he became aware that +while he might plan and arrange, so also could others; that his wife +was capable of action independent of him or his plans. + +He glanced down the river and saw a long Siwash dugout sweep around +the curve of the Big Bend. It straightened away and bore up the long +stretch of swift water that ran by his house. Hollister could +distinguish three or four figures in it. He could see the dripping +paddles rise and fall in measured beat, the wet blades flashing in the +sun. + +He gained the porch and turned his glasses on the canoe. He recognized +it as Chief Aleck's dugout from a rancherie near the mouth of the +river, a cedar craft with carved and brilliantly painted high-curving +ends. Four Siwash paddlers manned it. Amidships two women sat. One was +the elderly housekeeper who had been with them since their boy's +birth. The other was Doris, with the baby in her lap. + +A strange panic seized Hollister, the alarm of the unexpected, a +reluctance to face the crisis which he had not expected to face for +another twenty-four hours. He stepped down off the porch, walked +rapidly away toward the chute mouth, crossed that and climbed to a +dead fir standing on the point of rocks beyond. From there he watched +until the canoe thrust its gaudy prow against the bank before his +house, until he saw the women ashore and their baggage stacked on the +bank, until the canoe backed into the current and shot away +downstream, until Doris with the baby in her arms--after a lingering +look about, a slow turning of her head--followed the other woman up +the porch steps and disappeared within. Then Hollister moved back over +the little ridge into the shadow of a clump of young firs and sat down +on a flat rock with his head in his hands, to fight it out with +himself. + +To stake everything on a single throw of the dice,--and the dice +loaded against him! If peace had its victories no less than war, it +had also crushing defeats. Hollister felt that for him the final, most +complete _débacle_ was at hand. + +He lifted his head at a distant call, a high, clear, sweet +"Oh-_hoo-oo-oo_" repeated twice. That was Doris calling him as she +always called him, if she wanted him and thought he was within range +of her voice. Well, he would go down presently. + +He looked up the hill. He could see through a fringe of green timber +to a place where the leaves and foliage were all rusty-red from the +scorching of the fire. Past that opened the burned ground,--charred, +black, desolate. Presently life would be like that to him; all the +years that stretched ahead of him might be as barren as that black +waste. + +His mind projected itself into the future from every possible angle. +He did not belittle Doris' love, her sympathy, her understanding. He +even conceded that no matter how his disfigurement affected her, she +would try to put that behind her, she would make an effort to cling to +him. And Hollister could see the deadly impact of his grotesque +features upon her delicate sensibility, day after day, month after +month, until she could no longer endure it, or him. She loved the +beautiful too well, perfection of line and form and color. Restored +sight must alter her world; her conception of him must become +transformed. The magic of the unseen would lose its glamor. All that +he meant to her as a man, a lover, a husband, must be stripped bare of +the kindly illusion that blindness had wrapped him in. Even if she did +not shrink in amazed reluctance at first sight, she must soon cease to +have for him any keener emotion than a tolerant pity. And Hollister +did not want that. He would not take it as a gift--not from Doris; he +could not. + +Love, home, all that sweet companionship which he had gained, the +curious man-pride he had in that morsel of humanity that was his +son,--he wondered if he were to see all these slowly or swiftly +withdrawn from him? + +Well, he would soon know. He stood up and looked far along the valley. +Suddenly it seemed a malevolent place, oppressive, threatening, grim +in spite of its beauty. It seemed as if something had been lurking +there ready to strike. The fire had swept away his timber. In that +brilliant sunshine, amid all that beauty, Myra's life had been snuffed +out like a blown candle flame--to no purpose. Or was there some +purpose in it all? Was some sentient force chastening him, scourging +him with rods for the good of his soul? Was it for some such +inscrutable purpose that men died by the hundred thousand in Europe? +Was that why Doris Cleveland had been deprived of her sight? Why Myra +had been torn by contradictory passions during her troubled life and +had perished at last, a victim of passions that burst control? All +this evil that some hidden good might accrue? Hollister bared his +teeth in defiance of such a conclusion. But he was in a mood to defy +either gods or devils. In that mood he saw the Toba valley, the whole +earth, as a sinister place,--a place where beauty was a mockery, where +impassive silence was merely the threatening hush before some +elemental fury. This serene, indifferent beauty was hateful to him in +that moment, the Promethean rock to which circumstance had chained him +to suffer. It needed only as a capsheaf the gleam of incredulous +dismay which should appear in his wife's eyes when she looked first +upon the mutilated tissue, the varying scars and cicatrices, the +twisted mask that would be revealed to her as the face of her +husband. + +This test was at hand. He reassured himself, as he had vainly +reassured himself before, by every resource his mind and courage could +muster, and still he was afraid. He saw nothing ahead but a black void +in which there was neither love nor companionship nor friendly hands +and faces, nothing but a deep gloom in which he should wander +alone,--not because he wished to, but because he must. + +He turned with a sudden resolution, crossed the low rocky point and +went down to the flat. He passed under the trestle which carried the +chute. The path to the house turned sharply around a clump of alder. +He rounded these leafy trees and came upon Doris standing by a low +stump. She stood as she did the first time he saw her on the steamer, +in profile, only instead of the steamer rail her elbow rested on the +stump, and she stared, with her chin nestled in the palm of one hand, +at the gray, glacial stream instead of the uneasy heave of a winter +sea. And Hollister thought with a slow constriction gathering in his +breast that life was a thing of vain repetitions; he remembered so +vividly how he felt that day when he stood watching her by the rail, +thinking with a dull resentment that she would presently look at him +and turn away. And he was thinking that again. + +Walking on soft leaf-mold he approached within twenty feet of her, +unheard. Then she lifted her head, looked about her. + +"Bob!" + +"Yes," he answered. He stopped. She was looking at him. She made an +imperative gesture, and when Hollister still stood like a man +transfixed, she came quickly to him, her eyes bright and eager, her +hands outstretched. + +"What's the matter?" she asked. "Aren't you glad to see me?" + +"Are you glad to see me?" he countered. "_Do_ you see me?" + +She shook her head. + +"No, and probably I never shall," she said evenly. "But you're here, +and that's just as good. Things are still a blur. My eyes will never +be any better, I'm afraid." + +Hollister drew her close to him. Her upturned lips sought his. Her +body pressed against him with a pleasant warmth, a confident yielding. +They stood silent a few seconds, Doris leaning against him +contentedly, Hollister struggling with the flood of mingled sensations +that swept through him on the heels of this vast relief. + +"How your heart thumps," Doris laughed softly. "One would think you +were a lover meeting his mistress clandestinely for the first time." + +"You surprised me," Hollister took refuge behind a white lie. He would +not afflict her with that miasma of doubts and fears which had +sickened him. "I didn't expect you till to-morrow afternoon." + +"I got tired of staying in town," she said. "There was no use. I +wasn't getting any better, and I got so I didn't care. I began to feel +that it was better to be here with you blind, than alone in town with +that tantalizing half-sight of everything. I suppose the plain truth +is that I got fearfully lonesome. Then you wrote me that letter, and +in it you talked about such intimately personal things that I couldn't +let Mrs. Moore read it to me. And I heard about this big fire you had +here. So I decided to come home and let my eyes take care of +themselves. I went to see another oculist or two. They can't tell +whether my sight will improve or not. It may go again altogether. And +nothing much can be done. I have to take it as it comes. So I planned +to come home on the steamer to-morrow. You got my letter, didn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I happened to get a chance to come as far as the Redondas on a +boat belonging to some people I knew on Stuart Island. I got a launch +there to bring me up the Inlet, and Chief Aleck brought us up the +river in the war canoe. My, it's good to be with you again." + +"Amen," Hollister said. There was a fervent quality in his tone. + +They found a log and sat down on it and talked. Hollister told her of +the fire. And when he saw that she had no knowledge of what tragedy +had stalked with bloody footprints across the Big Bend, he put off +telling her. Presently she would ask about Myra, and he would have to +tell her. But in that hour he did not wish to see her grow sad. He was +jealous of anything that would inflict pain on her. He wanted to +shield her from all griefs and hurts. + +"Come back to the house," Doris said at last. "Baby's fretting a +little. The trip in a small boat rather upset him. I don't like to +leave him too long." + +But Robert junior was peacefully asleep in his crib when they reached +the house. After a look at him, they went out and sat on the porch +steps. There, when the trend of their conversation made it +unavoidable, he told her what had overtaken Charlie Mills and Myra +Bland. + +Doris listened silently. She sighed. + +"What a pity," she murmured. "The uselessness of it, the madness--like +a child destroying his toys in a blind rage. Poor Myra. She told me +once that life seemed to her like swimming among whirlpools. It must +have been true." + +How true it was Hollister did not dare reveal. That was finished, for +Myra and himself. She had perished among the whirlpools. He scarcely +knew how he had escaped. + +"How lucky we are, you and I, Bob," Doris said after a time. She put +her arms around him impulsively. "We might so easily be wandering +about alone in a world that is terribly harsh to the unfortunate. +Instead--we're here together, and life means something worth while to +us. It does to me, I know. Does it to you?" + +"As long as I have you, it does," he answered truthfully. "But if you +could see me as I really am, perhaps I might not have you very long." + +"How absurd," she declared--and then, a little thoughtfully, "if I +thought that was really true, I should never wish to see again. +Curiously, the last two or three weeks this queer, blurred sort of +vision I have seems quite sufficient. I haven't wanted to see half so +badly as I've wanted you. I can get impressions enough through the +other four senses. I'd hate awfully to have to get along without you. +You've become almost a part of me--I wonder if you understand that?" + +Hollister did understand. It was mutual,--that want, that dependence, +that sense of incompleteness which each felt without the other. It was +a blessed thing to have, something to be cherished, and he knew how +desperately he had reacted to everything that threatened its loss. + +Hollister sat there looking up at the far places, the high, white +mountain crests, the deep gorges, the paths that the winter slides had +cut through the green forest, down which silvery cataracts poured now. +It seemed to have undergone some subtle change, to have become less +aloof, to have enveloped itself in a new and kindlier atmosphere. Yet +he knew it was as it had always been. The difference was in himself. +The sympathetic response to that wild beauty was purely subjective. He +could look at the far snows, the bluish gleam of the glaciers, the +restful green of the valley floor, with a new quality of appreciation. +He could even--so resilient and adaptable a thing is the human +mind--see himself engaged upon material enterprises, years passing, +his boy growing up, life assuming a fullness, a proportion, an orderly +progression that two hours earlier would have seemed to him only a +futile dream. + +He wondered if this would endure. He looked down at his wife leaning +upon his knee, her face thoughtful and content. He looked out over the +valley once more, at those high, sentinel peaks thrusting up their +white cones, one behind the other. He heard the river. He saw the +foxglove swaying in the wind, the red flare of the poppies at his +door. He smelled the fragrance of wild honeysuckle, the sharp, sweet +smells blown out of the forest that drowsed in the summer heat. + +It was all good. He rested in that pleasant security like a man who +has fought his way through desperate perils to some haven of safety +and sits down there to rest in peace. He did not know what the future +held for him. He had no apprehension of the future. He was not even +curious. He had firm hold of the present, and that was enough. He +wondered a little that he should suddenly feel so strong a conviction +that life was good. But he had that feeling at last. The road opened +before him clear and straight. If there were crooks in it, pitfalls by +the way, perils to be faced, pains to be suffered, he was very sure in +that hour that somehow he would find courage to meet them open-eyed +and unafraid. + +THE END + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Hidden Places, by Bertrand W. 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