Add files from ibiblio as of 2025-03-03 08:28:01HEAD main

author: nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> 2025-03-03 08:28:01 -0800
committer: nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> 2025-03-03 08:28:01 -0800
commit: 60f0ac23a849ec052e1486748e5dfe95b71f2374 (patch)
tree: b8d90a6d85decf35d10a5e83b0cced10d3ff8b82 /43450-h/43450-h.html
parent: 06a4b8893f0bafb88b070e0237d559e0ebce3504 (diff)
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 13268 deletions
diff --git a/43450-h/43450-h.html b/43450-h/43450-h.html
deleted file mode 100644
index a33701e..0000000
--- a/43450-h/43450-h.html
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,13268 +0,0 @@
-<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
-<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd'>
-<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
-<head>
-<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
-<meta name="generator" content="Docutils 0.8.1: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/" />
-<style type="text/css">
-/* 
-Project Gutenberg common docutils stylesheet.
-
-This stylesheet contains styles common to HTML and EPUB.  Put styles
-that are specific to HTML and EPUB into their relative stylesheets.
-
-:Author: Marcello Perathoner (webmaster@gutenberg.org)
-:Copyright: This stylesheet has been placed in the public domain.
-
-This stylesheet is based on:
-
-  :Author: David Goodger (goodger@python.org)
-  :Copyright: This stylesheet has been placed in the public domain.
-
-  Default cascading style sheet for the HTML output of Docutils.
-
-*/
-
-/* ADE 1.7.2 chokes on !important and throws all css out. */
-
-/* FONTS */
-
-.italics    { font-style: italic }
-.no-italics { font-style: normal }
-
-.bold       { font-weight: bold }
-.no-bold    { font-weight: normal }
-
-.small-caps { } /* Epub needs italics */
-.gesperrt   { } /* Epub needs italics */
-.antiqua    { font-style: italic } /* what else can we do ? */
-.monospaced { font-family: monospace }
-
-.smaller    { font-size: smaller }
-.larger     { font-size: larger }
-
-.xx-small   { font-size: xx-small }
-.x-small    { font-size: x-small }
-.small      { font-size: small }
-.medium     { font-size: medium }
-.large      { font-size: large }
-.x-large    { font-size: x-large }
-.xx-large   { font-size: xx-large }
-
-.text-transform-uppercase { text-transform: uppercase }
-.text-transform-lowercase { text-transform: lowercase }
-.text-transform-none      { text-transform: none }
-
-.red        { color: red }
-.green      { color: green }
-.blue       { color: blue }
-.yellow     { color: yellow }
-.white      { color: white }
-.gray       { color: gray }
-.black      { color: black }
-
-/* ALIGN */
-
-.left       { text-align: left }
-.justify    { text-align: justify }
-.center     { text-align: center; text-indent: 0 }
-.centerleft { text-align: center; text-indent: 0 }
-.right      { text-align: right;  text-indent: 0 }
-
-/* LINE HEIGHT */
-
-body        { line-height: 1.5 }
-p           { margin: 0; 
-	      text-indent: 2em }
-
-/* PAGINATION */
-
-.title, .subtitle     { page-break-after:  avoid }
-
-.container, .title, .subtitle, #pg-header            
-                      { page-break-inside: avoid }
-
-/* SECTIONS */
-
-body         { text-align: justify }
-
-p.pfirst, p.noindent { 
-    text-indent: 0 
-}
-
-.boxed         { border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em }
-.topic, .note  { margin: 5% 0; border: 1px solid black; padding: 1em }
-div.section    { clear: both }
-
-div.line-block       { margin: 1.5em 0 }  /* same leading as p */
-div.line-block.inner { margin: 0 0 0 10% }
-div.line             { margin-left: 20%; text-indent: -20%; }
-.line-block.noindent div.line { margin-left: 0; text-indent: 0; }
-
-hr.docutils          { margin: 1.5em 40%; border: none; border-bottom: 1px solid black; }
-div.transition       { margin: 1.5em 0 }
-
-.vfill, .vspace      { border: 0px solid white }
-
-.title               { margin: 1.5em 0 }
-.title.with-subtitle { margin-bottom: 0 }
-.subtitle            { margin: 1.5em 0 }
-
-/* header font style */
-/* http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-fonts/#propdef-font-size */
-
-h1.title                        { font-size: 200%; }  /* for book title only */
-h2.title, p.subtitle.level-1    { font-size: 150%; margin-top: 4.5em;  margin-bottom: 2em }
-h3.title, p.subtitle.level-2    { font-size: 120%; margin-top: 2.25em; margin-bottom: 1.25em }
-h4.title, p.subtitle.level-3    { font-size: 100%; margin-top: 1.5em;  margin-bottom: 1.5em;  font-weight: bold; }
-h5.title, p.subtitle.level-4    { font-size:  89%; margin-top: 1.87em; margin-bottom: 1.69em; font-style: italic; }
-h6.title, p.subtitle.level-5    { font-size:  60%; margin-top: 3.5em;  margin-bottom: 2.5em }
-
-/* title page */
-
-h1.title, p.subtitle.level-1,
-h2.title, p.subtitle.level-2    { text-align: center }
-
-#pg-header,
-h1.document-title               { margin: 10% 0 5% 0 }
-p.document-subtitle             { margin:  0  0 5% 0 }
-
-/* PG header and footer */
-#pg-machine-header { }
-#pg-produced-by { }
-
-li.toc-entry            { list-style-type: none }
-ul.open li, ol.open li  { margin-bottom: 1.5em }
-
-.attribution            { margin-top: 1.5em }
-
-.example-rendered { 
-    margin: 1em 5%; border: 1px dotted red;  padding: 1em; background-color: #ffd }
-.literal-block.example-source   { 
-    margin: 1em 5%; border: 1px dotted blue; padding: 1em; background-color: #eef }
-
-/* DROPCAPS */
-
-/* BLOCKQUOTES */
-
-blockquote { margin: 1.5em 10% }
-
-blockquote.epigraph { }
-
-blockquote.highlights { }
-
-div.local-contents { margin: 1.5em 10% }
-
-div.abstract { margin: 3em   10% }
-div.image    { margin: 1.5em  0  }
-div.caption  { margin: 1.5em  0 }
-div.legend   { margin: 1.5em  0 }
-
-.hidden { display: none }
-
-.invisible { visibility: hidden; color: white } /* white: mozilla print bug */
-
-a.toc-backref {
-  text-decoration: none ;
-  color: black }
-
-dl.docutils dd {
-  margin-bottom: 0.5em }
-
-div.figure { margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em }
-
-img { max-width: 100% }
-
-div.footer, div.header {
-  clear: both;
-  font-size: smaller }
-
-div.sidebar {
-  margin: 0 0 0.5em 1em ;
-  border: medium outset ;
-  padding: 1em ;
-  background-color: #ffffee ;
-  width: 40% ;
-  float: right ;
-  clear: right }
-
-div.sidebar p.rubric {
-  font-family: sans-serif ;
-  font-size: medium }
-
-ol.simple, ul.simple { margin: 1.5em 0 }
-
-ol.toc-list,    ul.toc-list    { padding-left:  0  }
-ol ol.toc-list, ul ul.toc-list { padding-left:  5% }
-
-ol.arabic {
-  list-style: decimal }
-
-ol.loweralpha {
-  list-style: lower-alpha }
-
-ol.upperalpha {
-  list-style: upper-alpha }
-
-ol.lowerroman {
-  list-style: lower-roman }
-
-ol.upperroman {
-  list-style: upper-roman }
-
-p.credits {
-  font-style: italic ;
-  font-size: smaller }
-
-p.label {
-  white-space: nowrap }
-
-p.rubric {
-  font-weight: bold ;
-  font-size: larger ;
-  color: maroon ;
-  text-align: center }
-
-p.sidebar-title {
-  font-family: sans-serif ;
-  font-weight: bold ;
-  font-size: larger }
-
-p.sidebar-subtitle {
-  font-family: sans-serif ;
-  font-weight: bold }
-
-p.topic-title, p.admonition-title {
-  font-weight: bold }
-
-pre.address {
-  margin-bottom: 0 ;
-  margin-top: 0 ;
-  font: inherit }
-
-.literal-block, .doctest-block {
-  margin-left: 2em ;
-  margin-right: 2em; }
-
-span.classifier {
-  font-family: sans-serif ;
-  font-style: oblique }
-
-span.classifier-delimiter {
-  font-family: sans-serif ;
-  font-weight: bold }
-
-span.interpreted {
-  font-family: sans-serif }
-
-span.option {
-  white-space: nowrap }
-
-span.pre {
-  white-space: pre }
-
-span.problematic {
-  color: red }
-
-span.section-subtitle {
-  /* font-size relative to parent (h1..h6 element) */
-  font-size: 100% }
-
-table { margin-top: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; border-spacing: 0 }
-table.align-left, table.align-right { margin-top: 0 }
-
-table.table                { border-collapse: collapse; }
-
-table.table.hrules-table thead          { border: 1px solid black; border-width: 2px 0 0 }
-table.table.hrules-table tbody          { border: 1px solid black; border-width: 2px 0 }
-table.table.hrules-rows  tr             { border: 1px solid black; border-width: 0 0 1px }
-table.table.hrules-rows  tr.last        { border-width: 0 }
-table.table.hrules-rows  td, 
-table.table.hrules-rows  th             { padding: 1ex 1em; vertical-align: middle }
-
-table.table tr             { border-width: 0 }
-table.table td, 
-table.table th             { padding: 0.5ex 1em }
-table.table tr.first td    { padding-top: 1ex }
-table.table tr.last td     { padding-bottom: 1ex }
-table.table tr.first th    { padding-top: 1ex }
-table.table tr.last th     { padding-bottom: 1ex }
-
-
-table.citation {
-  border-left: solid 1px gray;
-  margin-left: 1px }
-
-table.docinfo {
-  margin: 3em 4em }
-
-table.docutils { }
-
-div.footnote-group          { margin: 1em 0 }
-table.footnote td.label     { width: 2em; text-align: right; padding-left: 0 }
-
-table.docutils td, table.docutils th,
-table.docinfo td, table.docinfo th {
-  padding: 0 0.5em;
-  vertical-align: top }
-
-table.docutils th.field-name, table.docinfo th.docinfo-name {
-  font-weight: bold ;
-  text-align: left ;
-  white-space: nowrap ;
-  padding-left: 0 }
-
-/* used to remove borders from tables and images */
-.borderless, table.borderless td, table.borderless th {
-  border: 0 }
-
-table.borderless td, table.borderless th {
-  /* Override padding for "table.docutils td" with "!important".
-     The right padding separates the table cells. */
-  padding: 0 0.5em 0 0 } /* FIXME: was !important */
-
-h1 tt.docutils, h2 tt.docutils, h3 tt.docutils,
-h4 tt.docutils, h5 tt.docutils, h6 tt.docutils {
-  font-size: 100% }
-
-ul.auto-toc {
-  list-style-type: none }
-</style>
-<style type="text/css">
-/* 
-Project Gutenberg HTML docutils stylesheet.
-
-This stylesheet contains styles specific to HTML.
-*/
-
-/* FONTS */
-
-/* em                { font-style: normal }
-strong            { font-weight: normal } */
-
-.small-caps       { font-variant: small-caps }
-.gesperrt         { letter-spacing: 0.1em }
-
-/* ALIGN */
-
-.align-left       { clear: left;
-		    float: left;
-		    margin-right: 1em }
-
-.align-right      { clear: right;
-		    float: right;
-		    margin-left: 1em }
-
-.align-center     { margin-left: auto;
-		    margin-right: auto }
-
-div.shrinkwrap    { display: table; }
-
-/* SECTIONS */
-
-body              { margin: 5% 10% 5% 10% }
-
-/* compact list items containing just one p */
-li p.pfirst       { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0 } 
-
-.first            { margin-top: 0 !important; 
-		    text-indent: 0 !important } 
-.last             { margin-bottom: 0 !important }
-
-span.dropcap      { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 }
-img.dropcap       { float: left; margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; max-width: 25% }
-span.dropspan     { font-variant: small-caps }
-
-.no-page-break    { page-break-before: avoid !important }
-
-/* PAGINATION */
-
-.pageno           { position: absolute; right: 95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 }
-.pageno:after     { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' }
-.lineno           { position: absolute; left:  95%; font: medium sans-serif; text-indent: 0 }
-.lineno:after     { color: gray; content: '[' attr(title) ']' }
-.toc-pageref      { float: right }
-
-@media screen {
-   .coverpage, .frontispiece, .titlepage, .verso, .dedication, .plainpage
-                       { margin: 10% 0; }
-
-   div.clearpage, div.cleardoublepage
-                       { margin: 10% 0; border: none; border-top: 1px solid gray; }
-
-   .vfill              { margin:  5% 10% }
-}
-
-@media print {
-   div.clearpage       { page-break-before: always; padding-top: 10% }
-   div.cleardoublepage { page-break-before: right;  padding-top: 10%  }
-
-   .vfill              { margin-top: 20% }
-   h2.title            { margin-top: 20% }
-}
-
-/* DIV */
-pre               { font-family: monospace; font-size: 0.9em; white-space: pre-wrap }
-
-</style>
-<title>THE SETTLER</title>
-<meta name="PG.Rights" content="Public Domain" />
-<meta name="PG.Title" content="The Settler" />
-<meta name="PG.Producer" content="Al Haines" />
-<link rel="coverpage" href="images/img-cover.jpg" />
-<meta name="DC.Creator" content="Herman Whitaker" />
-<meta name="DC.Created" content="1906" />
-<meta name="PG.Id" content="43450" />
-<meta name="PG.Released" content="2013-09-14" />
-<meta name="DC.Language" content="en" />
-<meta name="DC.Title" content="The Settler" />
-
-<link href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" rel="schema.DCTERMS" />
-<link href="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators" rel="schema.MARCREL" />
-<meta content="The Settler" name="DCTERMS.title" />
-<meta content="settler.rst" name="DCTERMS.source" />
-<meta content="en" scheme="DCTERMS.RFC4646" name="DCTERMS.language" />
-<meta content="2013-09-15T03:51:41.293424+00:00" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.modified" />
-<meta content="Project Gutenberg" name="DCTERMS.publisher" />
-<meta content="Public Domain in the USA." name="DCTERMS.rights" />
-<link href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43450" rel="DCTERMS.isFormatOf" />
-<meta content="Herman Whitaker" name="DCTERMS.creator" />
-<meta content="2013-09-14" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.created" />
-<meta content="width=device-width" name="viewport" />
-<meta content="EpubMaker 0.3.20a7 by Marcello Perathoner &lt;webmaster@gutenberg.org&gt;" name="generator" />
-</head>
-<body>
-<div class="document" id="the-settler">
-<h1 class="center document-title level-1 pfirst title"><span class="x-large">THE SETTLER</span></h1>
-
-<!-- this is the default PG-RST stylesheet -->
-<!-- figure and image styles for non-image formats -->
-<!-- default transition -->
-<!-- default attribution -->
-<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- -->
-<div class="clearpage">
-</div>
-<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- -->
-<div class="align-None container language-en pgheader" id="pg-header" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
-<p class="noindent pfirst"><span>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 </span><a class="reference internal" href="#project-gutenberg-license">Project Gutenberg License</a><span>
-included with this eBook or online at
-</span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a><span>.</span></p>
-<p class="noindent pnext"></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<div class="align-None container" id="pg-machine-header">
-<p class="noindent pfirst"><span>Title: The Settler
-<br />
-<br />Author: Herman Whitaker
-<br />
-<br />Release Date: September 14, 2013 [EBook #43450]
-<br />
-<br />Language: English
-<br />
-<br />Character set encoding: UTF-8</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-start-line"><span>*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK </span><span>THE SETTLER</span><span> ***</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-produced-by"><span>Produced by Al Haines.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 1em">
-</div>
-<p class="noindent pfirst"><span></span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="align-None container frontispiece">
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
-</div>
-<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 57%" id="figure-19">
-<img class="align-center block" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="The Settler" src="images/img-front.jpg" />
-<div class="caption centerleft figure-caption margin">
-<span class="italics">The Settler</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<div class="align-None container titlepage">
-<p class="center pfirst"><span class="x-large">THE SETTLER</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">BY</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">HERMAN WHITAKER</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="medium">AUTHOR OF
-<br />"THE MYSTERY OF THE BARRANCA"
-<br />"THE PLANTER" ETC.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
-<br />NEW YORK AND LONDON</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
-</div>
-<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure margin" style="width: 52%" id="figure-20">
-<img class="align-center block center" style="display: block; width: 100%" alt="Title page" src="images/img-title.jpg" />
-<div class="caption center centerleft figure-caption margin">
-<span class="italics">Title page</span></div>
-</div>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="align-None container verso">
-<p class="center pfirst"><span class="small">COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY HARPER &amp; BROTHERS</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="small">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="align-None container dedication">
-<p class="center pfirst"><span class="medium">TO
-<br />ALYSE</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst"><span class="bold large">CONTENTS</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="noindent pfirst"><span class="small">CHAP.</span></p>
-<ol class="upperroman simple">
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-park-lands">The Park Lands</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#a-deputation">A Deputation</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-trail">The Trail</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-coyote-snaps">The Coyote Snaps</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#jenny">Jenny</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-shadow">The Shadow</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#mr-flynn-steps-into-the-breach">Mr. Flynn Steps into the Breach</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#when-april-smiled-again">When April Smiled Again</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-devil">The Devil</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#friction">Friction</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-frost">The Frost</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-break">The Break</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-camp">The Camp</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-red-teamster">The Red Teamster</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#travail">Travail</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#a-house-party">A House-party</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#and-its-finale">—And Its Finale</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-persistence-of-the-established">The Persistence of the Established</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-wages-of-sin">The Wages of Sin</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#is-death">—Is Death</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#persecution">Persecution</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#denunciation">Denunciation</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-charivari">The Charivari</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#without-the-pale">Without the Pale</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-sunken-grade">The Sunken Grade</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#winnipeg">Winnipeg</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-nature-of-the-cinch">The Nature of the Cinch</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-strike">The Strike</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-bluff">The Bluff</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#fire">Fire</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#wherein-the-fates-substitute-a-change-of-bill">Wherein the Fates Substitute a Change of Bill</a></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first noindent pfirst"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-trail-again">The Trail Again</a></p>
-</li>
-</ol>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-park-lands"><span class="bold x-large">THE SETTLER</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 3em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst"><span class="bold large">I</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE PARK LANDS</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>The clip of a cutting axe flushed a heron from the
-bosom of a reedy lake and sent him soaring in
-slow spirals until, at the zenith of his flight, he
-overlooked a vast champaign.  Far to the south a yellow
-streak marked the scorched prairies of southern
-Manitoba; eastward and north a spruce forest draped the
-land in a mantle of gloom; while to the west the woods
-were thrown with a scattering hand over a vast expanse
-of rolling prairie.  These were the Park Lands of the
-Fertile Belt—a beautiful country, rich, fat-soiled, rank
-with flowers and herbage, once the hunting-ground of
-Cree and Ojibway, but now passed to the sterner race
-whose lonely farmsteads were strewn over the face of
-the land.  These presented a deadly likeness.  Each
-had its log-house, its huge tent of firewood upreared
-against next winter's drift, and the same yellow
-strawstacks dotted their fenceless fields.  One other thing,
-too, they had in common—though this did not lie to
-the eye of the heron—a universal mortgage, legacy of
-the recent boom, covered all.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>At the flap of the great bird's wing a man stepped
-from the timber and stood watching him soar.  He was
-a tall fellow, lean as a greyhound, flat-flanked, in color
-neither dark nor fair.  His eyes were deep-set and
-looked out from a face that was burned to the color of
-a brick.  His nose was straight and large, cheeks well
-hollowed; the face would have been stern but for the
-humor that lurked about the mouth.  Taken together,
-the man was an excellent specimen of what he was—a
-young American of the settler type.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Gone plumb out of sight," he muttered, rubbing his
-dazzled eyes.  "An' he wasn't no spring chicken.  Time
-to feed, I reckon."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A few steps carried him to his team, a rangy yoke of
-steers which were tied in the shade.  Having fed them,
-he returned to his work and chopped steadily until,
-towards evening, his wagon was loaded with poplar
-rails.  Then hitching, he mounted his load and
-"hawed" and "geed" his way through the forest.  As he
-came out on the open prairie the metallic rattle of a
-mower travelled down the wind.  Stopping, he listened,
-while a shadow deepened his tan.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Comes from Morrill's big slough," he muttered,
-whipping up the oxen.  "Who'll it be?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill, his near neighbor, was sick in bed, and the
-rattle could only mean that some one was trespassing
-on his hay rights—or rather the privilege which he
-claimed as such—for trespass such as he suspected
-was simply the outward sign of a change in the
-settlement's condition.  In the beginning the first-comers
-had found an abundance of natural fodder growing in
-the sloughs, where, for lack of a water-shed, the spring
-thaws stored flood-waters.  There was plenty then for
-all.  But with thicker settlement anarchy ensued.  New
-neighbors grabbed sloughs on unsettled lands, which
-old-timers had sealed to themselves, and so forced them
-to steal from one another.  Morrill and the man on
-the wagon had "hayed" together for the last three
-seasons, which fact explained the significance he
-attached to the rattle of the alien mower.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's Hines!" he muttered when, five minutes later,
-he sighted the mower from the crown of a roll.  "The
-son of a gun!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The man was running the first swath around a mile-long
-slough which lay in the trough of two great rolls.
-It was a pretty piece of hay, thick, rank, and so long
-that one might have tied two spears together across a
-horse's back.  Indeed, when the settler rattled down
-the bank and stopped his oxen they were hidden to
-the horns, which fact accounted for Hines not seeing
-them until his team brought against the load.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hullo!" he cried, startled.  "Didn't expect to see
-you, Carter!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't reckon you did," the settler replied.  The shadow
-was now gone from his face.  Cool, cheerful, unconcerned,
-he sat in the mower's path, swinging an easy leg.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines gave him an uneasy glance.  "Been cutting
-poles?" he asked, affecting nonchalance.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes.  Corral needed raising a couple of rails,"
-Carter carelessly answered.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Encouraged, Hines made an observation about the
-crops which the other answered, and so the talk drifted
-on until Hines, feeling that he had established a footing,
-said, "Well, I must be moving."  But as he backed
-his horses to drive around, the steers lurched forward
-and again blocked the way.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Pretty cut of hay this."  Carter ignored the other's
-savage glance.  "Ought to turn Morrill thirty tons,
-don't you reckon?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines shuffled uneasily in the mower seat.  "I didn't
-allow," he growled, "as Morrill would want hay this year?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No?"  The monosyllable was subtly sarcastic.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines flushed.  "What kin a dead man do with
-hay?" he snarled.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Is Morrill dead?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No!  But Doc Ellis tol' me at Stinkin' Water as he
-couldn't live through winter."  He almost yelled it;
-opposition was galling his savage temper.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"So you thought you'd beat the funeral?" Carter
-jeered.  "Savin' man!  Well—he ain't dead yet?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The challenge was unmistakable.  But though brutal,
-ferocious as a wolf, Hines shared the animal's preferences
-for an easy prey.  Corner him and he would turn, snarling,
-but his was the temper which takes no chances with
-an equal force.  Now he lived up to his tradition.
-Viciously setting his teeth, he awaited the other's action.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Carter was in no hurry.  Leaning back on his
-load, he sprawled at ease, turning his eyes to the
-fathomless vault above.  Time crept on.  The oxen ceased
-puffing and cropped the grass about them, the horses
-switched impatience of the flies.  The sun dropped and
-hung like a split orange athwart the horizon, the hollows
-blued with shadows, which presently climbed the knolls
-and extinguished their golden lights.  Soon the last red
-ray kindled the forest, silver specks dusted the
-darkening sky, only the west blushed with the afterglow.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines tired first.  "Quitting-time," he growled, backing
-his horses.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Took you a long time to find it out," Carter drawled,
-giving the words a significance the other had not
-intended.  "But grace is always waiting for the sinner.  So
-long!  But say!" he called after the disappearing figure,
-"if you hear any one inquiring after this slough, you can
-tell them as Merrill's goin' to cut it to-morrow."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Whipping up his oxen, he swung up the bank and
-headed south on Merrill's hay trail.  Fresh from their
-rest, the steers stepped out to a lively rattling of chains,
-and in a quarter of an hour stopped of their own volition
-before his cabin.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As Carter entered, the sick man leaned on his elbow
-and looked up at his magnificent inches: he loomed
-like a giant in the gloom of the cabin.  There was envy
-in the glance but no spite.  It was the look the sick
-bestow on the rudely healthy.  For Carter's physique
-was a constant reminder to Morrill of his own lost
-strength—he had been a college athlete, strong and
-well set-up, the kind of man to whom women render
-the homage of a second lingering glance.  Three years
-ago, inherited lung trouble had driven him from the
-Eastern city in which he had laid the foundation of a
-pretty law practice, but the dry air and open life of the
-central plains had not checked the ravages of the
-disease.  Still, though but the wraith of his former self,
-he had kept a brave face, and now he cheerfully
-answered Carter's greeting.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Cast your eye over this," he said, holding out an
-open letter.  "It's from my sister Helen."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Handling it as tenderly as though it were a feather
-from the wing of love, Carter held the letter to the lamp.
-It was written in a small, feminine hand which took all
-manner of flourishes unto itself as it ran along the lines.
-Carter regarded them with a look in which surprise
-struggled with respect.  "Oh, shore!" he laughed at
-last.  "Them curly cues is mighty pretty, Bert, but it
-would take too long for me to cipher 'em out.  What's
-it all about?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She's coming out.  Arrives in Lone Tree day after
-to-morrow."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Phew!" Carter whistled.  "Short notice."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He thoughtfully stroked his chin.  Lone Tree lay
-sixty miles to the south and the Eastern mail-train came
-in at noon.  But this was not the cause of his worry.
-His ponies could cover the distance within the time.
-But there was Hines.  If he did not try the slough,
-others might.  Morrill mistook his silence.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I hate to ask you to go," he said, hesitatingly.
-"You've done so much for me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Done nothing," the big man laughed.  "'Twasn't that.
-Jes' now I warned Hines off that big slough o' yours,
-an' I intended to begin cutting it to-morrow morning."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill impulsively extended his hand.  "You're a
-good fellow, Carter."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Shucks!" the other laughed.  "Ain't we two the
-only Yanks in these parts?  But say! won't she find
-this a bit rough?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill glanced discontentedly at the log walls, the
-soap-boxes which served for seats, the home-made table,
-and the peg ladder that led to the loft above.  Three
-years' hard work had rubbed the romance from his
-rough surroundings, but he remembered that it had
-once been there.  "Oh, I don't know," he answered.
-"She'll like it.  Has all the romantic notions about
-keeping home in a log-house, you see."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Never had 'em," the other mused, "though mebbe
-that was on account of being born in one.  What's
-bringing her out?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, now that father's dead I'm all the kin she's
-got.  He didn't leave anything worth mentioning, so
-Helen has to choose between a place in a store and
-keeping house for me.  But say! your team's moving!
-Don't tell her I'm sick," he called, as Carter rushed for the
-door.  "She'd worry, and think I was worse than I am."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Couldn't very well," Carter muttered, as he ran
-after his team.  "No, she really couldn't," he repeated,
-as he caught up and climbed upon his load.  "Poor
-chap!—An' poor little girl!"</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="a-deputation"><span class="bold large">II</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">A DEPUTATION</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Fifty miles in a day is big travel in the East, yet a
-team of northern ponies will, if the load be light, run
-it on three legs.  The fourth, unless cinched with a
-kicking-strap, is likely to be in the buck-board half the time;
-but if the driver is good at dodging he need not use a strap.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Starting next morning at sunrise, Carter ran through
-the settlements, fed at the mission in the valley of the
-Assiniboin at noon, then, climbing out, he rattled
-south through the arid plains which cumber the earth
-from the river to Beaver Creek.  There Vickery, the
-keeper of the stopping-house, yelled to him to put in
-and feed.  He had not seen a man for two weeks, and
-his wells of speech were full to overflowing.  But Carter
-shook denial.  Far off a dark smudge rose from under
-the edge of the world—the smoke of the express, he
-thought.  One would have believed it within a dozen
-miles, yet when, an hour later, he rattled into Lone
-Tree, it seemed no nearer than when first it impinged
-on the quivering horizon.  This appearance, however,
-was deceptive as the first, for he had scarcely unhitched
-at the livery before an engine and two toy cars stole
-out from under the smudge.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"General manager's private car," the station agent
-answered Carter's inquiry.  "The old man lays over
-here to talk with a deputation.  It's over at the hotel
-now, feeding and liquoring up."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The old grievance?" Carter asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The agent nodded.  "That and others.  They say
-we're coming their flesh and blood.  You should hear
-old man Cummings orate on that.  And they accuse
-us of exacting forty bushels of wheat out of every
-hundred we tote out to the seaboard."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Wheat at forty-five, freight to Montreal at
-twenty-seven?" Carter mused.  "Don't that pretty near size
-it, Hooper?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Is that our fault?" the agent ruffled, like an irate
-gobbler.  "Did we freeze their wheat?  Sound grain is
-worth sixty-eight, and if they will farm at the north pole
-they must expect to get frozen."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And if you will railroad at the north pole," Carter
-suggested, "you ought to—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Get all that's coming to us," the agent finished.
-"But we don't.  Our line runs through fifteen hundred
-miles of country that don't pay for axle-grease.  We
-must make running expenses, and ought to pay a
-reasonable interest to our stockholders, though we haven't
-yet.  The settled lands have to bear hauling charges
-on the unsettled.  But these fellows don't see our side
-of it.  Where would they be without the line, anyway?
-Now answer me that, Carter."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Back East, landless, homeless, choring for sixteen a
-month an' board," Carter slowly answered.  "I'm not
-bucking your railroad, Hooper.  But here's the point—your
-people and the government sent out all sorts of
-lying literature an' filled these fellows with the idea
-that they were going to get rich quick; whereas this is
-a poor man's country an' will be for a generation to
-come.  Five generations of farmers couldn't have built
-this line which one generation must pay for.  There's
-the point.  They've clapped a mortgage an' a
-fifteen-hundred-mile handicap on their future, an' the interest
-is going to bear their noses hard down on the grindstone.
-They'll make a living, but they ain't going to have much
-of a time.  Their children's children will reap the profit
-off their sweat."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No," the agent profanely agreed, "they ain't going
-to have a hell of a time."  Having spent his mature
-years in one continuous wrangle over freights and rates,
-it was positively disconcerting to find a farmer who
-could appreciate the necessities of railroad economics,
-and after a thoughtful pause the agent said, "You ain't
-so slow—for a farmer."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Thank you," Carter gravely answered.  "Some day,
-if I'm good, I may rise to the heights of railroading."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The agent grinned appreciatively.  "Coming back to
-the deputation, these fellows might as well tackle a
-grizzly as the old man.  There's not enough of you to
-supply grease for a freight-train's wheels."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I don't know," Carter gently murmured.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Ten minutes ago the agent would have hotly proved
-his point; now he replied, quite mildly: "If you think
-different, tag on to the deputation.  Here it comes, all
-het-up with wrongs and whiskey."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There's Bill Cummings!" Carter indicated an elderly
-man, very white of beard, very red of face, and
-transparently innocent in expression.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He's bell-wether," the agent said, grinning.  Then,
-as the approaching locomotive blew two sharp blasts,
-he added, "Blamed if the old man won't make mutton
-of the entire flock if they don't clear out of the way!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A quick scattering averted the catastrophe while
-increasing the heat of the deputation.  Very much
-disrumpled, it filed into the car, with Carter tagging on
-behind.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The general manager, who was smoking by an open
-window, tossed out his cigar as he rose.  Not a tall
-man, power yet expressed itself in every movement of
-his thick-set body; it lurked in his keen gray glance;
-was given off like electrical energy in his few crisp words
-of welcome.  From the eyes, placed well apart in the
-massive head, to the strong jaw his every feature
-expressed his graduation in the mastership of men; told
-eloquently of his wonderful record, his triumphs over
-man and nature.  Beginning a section hand, he had
-filled almost every position in the gift of his road,
-driving spikes in early days with the same expertness he
-now evidenced in directing its enormous affairs—the
-road which had sprung from his own fertile imagination;
-the road which, from nothing, he had called into
-being.  Where others had only discerned mountains,
-gulfs, cañons, trackless forest, he had seen a great trunk
-line with a hundred feeders—mills, mines, factories,
-farms, and steamships plying to the Orient for trade.
-And because his was the faith that moves mountains,
-the magnificent dream had taken form in wood and iron.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Purblind to all but their own interests, the settlers
-saw only the proximate result of that mighty
-travail—the palace-car with its luxurious fittings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We pay for this," Carter's neighbor growled.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"My, but I'd like his job!" another whispered.  "Nothing
-to do but sit there and dictate a few letters."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A third gave the figures of the manager's salary, while
-a fourth added that it was screwed out of the farmers.
-So they muttered their private envy while Cummings
-voiced their public grievance.  When surveys were run
-for the trunk line, settlers had swarmed in, pre-empting
-land on either side of the right of way, and when, to
-avoid certain engineering problems, the surveys were
-shifted south, they found themselves from fifty to sixty
-miles from a market.  A branch had been promised—</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"When settlement and traffic justify it."  The
-manager cut the oration short.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He had listened quietly while Cummings talked of
-rights, lawsuits, and government intervention; now he
-launched his ultimatum on the following silence:
-"Gentlemen, our road is not run for fun, but profit, and
-though we should very much like to accommodate you,
-it is impossible under the circumstances.  I am pleased
-to have met you, and"—the corners of the firm mouth
-twitched ever so slightly—"and I shall be pleased to
-meet you again when you can advance something more
-to our advantage than costs and suits.  I bid you good-day."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Business-like, terse, devoid of feeling, the laconic
-answer acted upon the deputation like a blow in the face.
-Cummings actually recoiled, and his expression of
-sheep-like surprise, baffled wonder, innocent anger set
-Carter chuckling.  He was still smiling as he shouldered
-forward.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A minute, please."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The manager glanced at his watch.  "I can't spare
-you much more."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I won't need it," Carter answered, and so took up
-the case.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Humorously allowing that Cummings had stepped off
-with the wrong foot, that he and his fellows had no case
-in law, Carter went on, in short, crisp sentences, to give
-the number of settlers on the old survey, the acreage
-under cultivation and of newly broken ground, the
-lumbering outlook in the spruce forests north of the
-Park Lands, the number of tye-camps already there
-established, finishing with a brief description of the rich
-cattle country the proposed line would tap.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Ten minutes had added themselves to the first while
-he was talking, but the manager's gray glance had
-evinced no impatience.  "Now," he commented, "we
-have something to go on.  The settlements alone would
-not justify us in building, but with the lumber—and
-colonization prospects—"  He mused a while, then, after
-expressing regrets for the haste that called him away, he
-said, "But if you will put all this and other information
-into writing, Mr. Carter, I'll see what we can do."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He's big, the old man."  Nodding at the black trail
-of smoke, the agent thus commented on his superior five
-minutes later.  Then, indicating the deputation which
-was making its jubilant way back to the clapboard
-hotel, he said, "They ain't giving you all the credit, are
-they?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shrugging at the last remark, Carter answered the
-first.  "He's a big man, shorely.  But, bless you"—he
-flipped a thumb at the delegation—"they don't see it.
-Any of 'em is willing to allow that the manager has had
-chances that didn't fly by his particular roost—just as
-though the same opportunity hadn't been tweaking him
-by the nose this last twenty years.  There it lay, loose,
-loose enough for people to break their shins on, till this
-particular man picked it up.  He's big.  Puts me in
-mind of them robber barons you read of in history.
-Big, powerful chaps, who trod down everything that
-came in their own way while dealing out a rough sort
-of justice.  There's a crowd"—he looked at the agent
-interrogatively—"that haven't had what's coming to
-them.  In their times moral suasion, as the parsons call
-it, hadn't been invented and folks were a heap blooded.
-A little bleeding once in a while kept down the temperature,
-and I've always allowed that the barons prevented
-a sight more murder than they did."  Then, nailing his
-point, he finished: "The historians fixed a cold deck for
-them like the one they'll deal this general manager.
-But you can't stop the world.  She waggles in spite of
-them, and it's the big men that make her go.  But
-there!  I must eat.  What does your ticker say of the
-express?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Half an hour late.  You'll just have nice time."  And
-as he watched the tall figure swinging across the
-tracks, the agent gave words to a thought that was
-even then in the general manager's mind—"There's a
-division superintendent going to seed on a farm."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Having made up ten minutes, however, the train
-rolled in while Carter was still at dinner, and as—for
-some motive too subtle for even his own definition—he
-had not mentioned her coming, Miss Helen Morrill had
-become a subject of bashful curiosity to assembled Lone
-Tree before he came dashing across the tracks.  Apart
-from his size, sunburn, and certain intelligence of
-expression, there was really nothing to distinguish this
-particular young man from the people who, at home,
-were not on her visiting-list, and if polite the girl turned
-rather a cold ear to a magnificently evolved and smoothly
-told set of lies as he escorted her over to the hotel.
-Morrill was busy with the hay, and as he, Carter, had to
-come to town for a mower casting he had agreed to bring
-her out.  Her brother was well!  A bit delicate!  He
-dare not raise her hopes too high.  Oh, he'd pull through!
-This clear northern air—and so forth.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That clear northern air!  Glowing with color, infinite,
-flat, the prairies basked under the afternoon sun.  From
-the car windows the girl had seen them unfolding: the
-great screeds of God on which he had written his
-wonders.  Now nothing interposed between her and their
-vast expanse.  Swimming in lambent light they reached
-out through the quivering distance till merged with the
-turquoise sky.  After she had dined, Carter showed her,
-from the hotel veranda, the train from which she had
-dismounted, no larger than a toy, puffing defiance at a
-receding horizon.  Other things he told her—curious facts,
-strange happenings drawled forth easily with touches of
-humor that kept her interested and laughing.  Not until
-the moon's magic translated the prairie's golden sheen
-to ashes, and she unconsciously offered her hand as she
-rose to retire, did she realize how completely she had
-cancelled her first impression.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was then that Lone Tree closed in on Carter with
-invitations to drink and requests for verification of a
-theory that the northern settlement was spreading itself
-on educational lines.  "She's a right smart-looking girl,"
-said the store-keeper, its principal exponent, "and Silver
-Creek is surely going to turn out some scholars."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But he clucked his sympathy when he heard the
-truth.  "An' you say he's having hemerrages?  Shore,
-shore!  Here, come over to the store.  That girl don't
-look like she'd been raised on sow-belly, an' sick folks is
-mighty picky in their eating."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So, by moonlight, the buck-board was loaded up with
-jams, jellies, fruits, and meats, the best in stock and of
-fabulous value at frontier prices.  While the evil deed
-was being perpetrated neither man looked at the other.
-The store-keeper cloaked his villany by learned
-discourse of freight rates, while Carter spoke indifferently
-of crops.  Only the parting hand-shake revealed each
-conspirator to the other.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-trail"><span class="bold large">III</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE TRAIL</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>"To make Flynn's for noon," Carter had said the
-preceding evening, "we shall have to be early
-on the trail."  And there was approbation in his glance
-when he found Helen Morrill waiting upon the veranda.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What pretty ponies!" she exclaimed, quickly adding,
-"Are they—tame?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Regular sheep," he reassured her.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>However, she still dubiously eyed the "sheep," which
-were pawing the high heavens in beliance of their pacific
-character, until, catching the humorous twinkle in
-Carter's eye, she saw that he was gauging her courage.
-Then she stepped in.  As they felt her weight the ponies
-plunged out and raced off down the trail; but Carter's
-arm eased her back to her seat, and when, flushed and
-just a little trembling, she was able to look back Lone
-Tree lay far behind, its grain-sheds looking for all the
-world like red Noah's arks on a yellow carpet.  Over
-them, but beyond the horizon, hung a black smudge,
-mark of a distant freight-train.  Wondering if one ever
-lost sight of things in this country of distances, she
-turned back to the ponies, which had now found a
-legitimate outlet for their energies, and were knocking
-off the miles at ten to the hour.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter drew a loose rein, but she noticed that even
-when talking he kept the team in the tail of his eye.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," he answered her question, "that Devil horse
-will bear watching, and Death, the mare, is just about
-as sudden.  Why did I name her that?"  He twinkled
-down upon her.  "You mightn't feel complimented if
-I told."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well—if I must," he drawled when she pressed the
-question.  "You see there's two things that can get
-away with a right smart man—death and woman.  So,
-being a female—there!  I told you that you wouldn't be
-complimented."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I don't mind," she laughed.  "Like curses,
-slights on my sex come home to roost, Mr. Carter.
-You are not dead yet."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nor married," he retorted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This morning they had taken up their acquaintanceship
-where it was laid down the night before, but now
-something in his manner—it was not freedom; assurance
-would better describe it—caused a reversion to her first
-coldness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Doubtless," she said, with condescension, "some
-good girl will take pity on you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He looked squarely in her eyes.  "Mebbe—though
-the country isn't overstocked.  Still, they've been
-coming in some of late."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The suddenness of it made her gasp.  How dare he?
-Even if he had been a man of her own station!  Turning,
-she looked off and away, giving him a cold, if pretty,
-shoulder, till instinct told her that he was making good
-use of his opportunities.  But when she turned back
-he was discreetly eying the ponies, apparently lost in
-thought.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His preoccupation permitted minute study, and in
-five minutes she had memorized his every feature, from
-the clean profile to the strong chin and humorous mouth.
-A clean, wholesome face she thought it.  She failed,
-however, to classify him for, despite his homely speech,
-he simply would not fit in with the butchers, bakers,
-and candle-stick makers of her limited experience.  One
-thing she felt, and that very vividly: he was not to be
-snubbed or slighted.  So—</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Do we follow the railroad much farther?" she asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A smart mile," he answered.  Then, with a sidelong
-glance at the space between them, he added, "I wouldn't
-sit on the rail."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Thank you," she said, coldly.  "I'm quite comfortable."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Tastes differ," he genially commented.  Then, stretching
-his whip, he added, "See that wolf!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In a flash she abolished the space.  "Oh, where?  Will
-he—follow us?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mebbe not," he said, adding, as he noticed a disposition
-on her part to edge out, "But he shorely looks
-hungry."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was only a coyote, and afterwards she could never
-recall the episode without a blush, but the fact remains
-that while the grizzled apparition crowned a roll, she
-threw dignity overboard and clung to Carter.  It was
-well, too, that she did, for more from deviltry than fear
-of the gray shadow the ponies just then bolted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Ensued a minute of dust, wind, bumpings; then,
-without any attempt to check their speed, Carter got
-the mad little brutes back to the trail.  Several furious
-miles had passed before, answering a gasping question
-as to whether he couldn't stop them, that imperturbable
-driver said:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I ain't trying very hard.  They're going our way,
-and we've got to hit this trail some licks to make Flynn's
-by noon.  He's the first settler north of the valley."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>They did hit it some "licks."  One after another the
-yellow miles slid beneath the buck-board, deadly in their
-sameness.  With the exception of that lone coyote, they
-saw no life.  Right and left the tawny prairies reached
-out to the indefinite horizon; neither cabin nor
-farmstead broke their sweep; save where the dark growths
-of the Assiniboin Valley drew a dull line to the north,
-no spot of color marred that great monochrome.  Just
-before they came to the valley Carter dashed around
-the Red River cart of a Cree squaw.  Shortly after they
-came on her lord driving industrious heels into the ribs
-of a ragged pony.  Then the trail shot through a
-bluff—rugged, riven, buttressed with tall headlands to whose
-scarred sides dark woods clung, the mile-wide valley lay
-before them.  Up from its depths rose the cry of a bell.
-Clear, silvery, resonant, it flowed with the stream,
-echoed in dark ravines, filled the air with its rippling
-music.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Catholic mission," Carter said, and as he spoke the
-ponies plunged after the trail which fell at an angle of
-forty-five into a black ravine.  The girl felt as though
-the earth had dropped from under, then, bump! the
-wheels struck and went slithering and ricochetting
-among the ruts and bowlders.  A furious burst down
-the last slopes and they were galloping out on the
-bottom-lands.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" she exclaimed, regaining breath.  "What recklessness!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now do you really call that reckless?"  His mild
-surprise would have been convincing but for the wicked
-twinkle.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course—I do," she said, choking with fright and
-indignation.  "I believe—you did it on purpose."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, well."  He shook a sorrowful head.  "And to
-think I shouldn't have knowed it!  Look out!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>They had swung by the log mission with the black-robed
-priest in the door, circled the ruins of a Hudson
-Bay fort, and now the Assiniboin Ford had suddenly
-opened before them.  Fed fat by mountain streams, the
-river poured, a yeasty flood, over the ford, a roaring
-terror of swift waters.  While the girl caught her breath
-they were in to the hubs, the thills; then the green
-waters licked up through the buck-board staves.  Half
-wading, half swimming, the ponies were held to the
-narrow passage by that master-hand.  On either side
-smooth, sucking mouths drew down to dangerous currents,
-and, reaching, Carter flicked one with his whip.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Cree Injun drowned there last flood."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A moment later he turned the ponies sharply
-upstream and told of two settlers who had lingered a
-second too long on that turn.  Indeed, it seemed to Helen
-as though each race, every eddy, perpetuated the
-memory of some unfortunate.  She sighed her relief when,
-with a rush, the ponies took them up the bank, out of
-the roar and swirl, into the shade of a ravine.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Glancing up, she caught Carter regarding her with
-serious admiration.  "You'll do," he said.  Then she
-realized that this man, whom she had been trying to
-classify with her city tradesmen, had been trying her
-out according to his standards.  The thought brought
-sudden confusion.  She blushed.  But with ready tact
-he turned and kept up a rapid fire of comment on the
-country through which they were passing till she
-recovered her composure.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For they were now in the Park Lands, the antithesis
-of the arid plains on the other side of the river.
-Flower-bespangled, dotted with clump poplar, retaining in
-August a suggestion of spring's verdure, the prairies
-rolled off and away in long earth billows.  Everywhere
-rank herbage bowed in sunlit waves under the wind.
-Nor was there lack of life.  Here an elk sprang from
-behind a bluff.  A band of jumping deer followed him
-over the horizon.  There a covey of prairie-chickens rose
-on whirring wing; a fox grinned at them from the crest
-of a sand-hill.  A rich country, the girl was remarking
-on the lack of settlers when Carter extended his whip.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There's the first of them.  That's Flynn's place."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Speeding through the enormous grain-fields west of
-Winnipeg, Helen had seen from the cars solitary cabins
-of frame or sod, pinned down, as it were, in the exact
-centre of a carpet of wheat, emphasizing with their
-loneliness that vastness about them.  But this was different,
-more homelike, if quite as strange.  Built of hewn logs
-and lime-washed, Flynn's house nestled with its stables
-and out-buildings under the wing of a poplar bluff.
-Around it, of course, stretched the wheat; but here it
-was merely an oasis, a bright shoal in the sea of brown
-that flowed on to a distant dark line, the spruce forests
-of the Riding Mountains.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bathed in sunshine, with cattle wandering at will,
-knee-deep in pasture, it made a beautiful picture.  The
-girl came under its spell.  She felt the freedom, the
-witchery of those sun-washed spaces; their silences,
-whispers, cloud-shadows, the infinity which broods upon
-them.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Is our place like this?" she asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Prettier."  Carter indicated the distant forest line.
-"We are close in to the bush and the country is broken
-up into woodland, lake, and rolling prairie."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then I can be happy," she sighed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Quickly averting his eyes that their sympathy might
-not dampen her mood, he drew her attention to a man
-who was cutting green fodder on the far side of the
-wheat-field.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There's Flynn."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-coyote-snaps"><span class="bold large">IV</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE COYOTE SNAPS</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>A tall Irishman of the gaunt Tipperary breed,
-Flynn straightened as Carter reined in, and thrust
-out a mighty paw.  "Ye're welcome, ma'am; an' ye've
-come in season, for the woman's just called to dinner.
-Just drive on an' unhitch before the door."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, it's a fine stand of wheat."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Walking beside them, he replied to Carter's comment:
-"Too foine.  It's a troifle rank to ripen before the
-frost."  A wistful shade clouded his face, extinguished the
-mercurial twinkle in his eye.  "It 'll freeze, shure."  The
-accent on the last syllable was pitiable, for it told of long
-waiting, hope deferred, labor ill-requited.  It was the
-voice of one who bolsters himself that the stroke of
-fate may not utterly kill, who slays expectation lest it
-betray him.  Yet in its pessimism dead hope breathed.
-"Yes, it 'll freeze," Flynn assured the malicious fates.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>At close range the house was not nearly so picturesque.
-A motley of implements strewed the yard: ploughs, harrows,
-rakes, a red-and-green binder, all resting hap-hazard
-among a litter of chips, half-hewn logs, and other debris.
-The stables were hidden by huge manure piles.  The
-place lacked every element of the order one sees on an
-Eastern farm—rioted in the necessary disorder of
-newness.  Flynn's generation were too busy making farms;
-tidiness would come with the next.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Not realizing this, Helen was drawing unfavorable
-parallels from the pervading squalor, when Mrs. Flynn,
-who was simply Flynn in petticoats, came bustling out
-with welcomes.  Miss Morrill must come right in!  It
-was that long since she, Mrs. Flynn, had set eyes on a
-woman's face that she had almost forgotten what they
-looked like!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"An' you that fond av your glass, mother?" Flynn teased.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Glass, ye say?" Mrs. Flynn retorted.  "Sure an'
-'twas yerself that smashed it three months ago.  It's
-the bottom av a milk-pan he's been shaving in ever
-since, my dear," she added.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Flynn winked.  "An' let me advise you, Carter.  If
-ivir ye marry, don't have a glass in the house an' ye'll
-be able to see ye'self in ivery tin."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Out at the stable the merriment died from his face,
-and facing Carter he asked: "Phwat's up between ye
-and Hines?  I was taking dinner with Bender yesterday,
-an' while we was eating along came Hines.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'There's a man,' he says, spaking to Bender av you.
-'There's a man! big, impident, strong.  Ye're no chicken,
-Bender, but ye couldn't put that fellow's shoulders to
-the ground.'  I'm not needing to tell you the effect on
-Bender?" Flynn finished.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter nodded.  He knew the man.  Big, burly,
-brutal, Bender was a natural product of the lumber-camps
-in which he had lived a life that was little more
-than a calender of "scraps."  Starting in at eighteen
-on the Mattawa, he had fought his way to the head of
-its many camps, then passed to the Michigan woods and
-attained the kingship there.  He </span><em class="italics">lived</em><span> rather than </span><em class="italics">loved</em><span>
-to fight.  But, though in the northern settlements Carter
-was the only man who approximated the lumberman's
-difficult standard in courage and inches, so far fate had
-denied him cause of quarrel.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The coyote!" Flynn exclaimed, when Carter had
-told of Hines's attempt on Morrill's hay-slough.  "An'
-him sick in bed, poor man.  I wouldn't wipe me feet on
-Hines's dirty rag av a soul.  But he's made ye some
-mischief.  'Ye're a liar, Hines!' Bender growls.  'I can
-lick him er any other man betwixt this an' the Rockies.'</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hines didn't like the lie, but he gulped it.  'Talk's
-cheap,' he snarls.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Carter's a good neighbor,' Bender answers.  'But if
-he gives me a cause—'</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'A </span><em class="italics">cause</em><span>?' Hines cackles, laughing.  'Why, him an'
-Morrill have grabbed all the best hay in Silver Creek an'
-defy anny man to touch it.  Run your mower into their
-big slough an' ye'll have cause enough.'</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That made Bender hot.  'I'll do it!' he roars, 'this
-very day.'  But," Flynn finished, "he had to run out to
-the blacksmith's to fix his mower sickle, so he won't get
-out till to-morrow morning."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If ye need anny help—" he said, tentatively, as
-Carter pondered with frowning brow.  Then, catching the
-other's eye, he hastily added: "Ye'll pardon me!  But
-Bender's a terr'ble fighter!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His alarm was so palpable that Carter laughed.
-"Don't bother," he said.  "I'm not going to roll, bite,
-chew, or gouge with Bender."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Look here!" Flynn interposed, with additional alarm.
-"Ye'll not be after making anny gun-plays?  This is
-Canada, ye'll mind, where they hang folks mighty easy."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter laughed again.  "There won't be any fight.
-Listen!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And Flynn did listen.  As he grasped the other's
-meaning, his face cleared and his hearty laugh carried
-to the house where Helen was making the acquaintance
-of the smaller Flynns.  Six in number, bare-legged, and
-astonishingly regular in gradation, they scampered like
-mice on her entrance and hid behind the cotton partition
-that divided bedroom from kitchen.  For a while they
-were quiet, then Helen became aware of a current of
-stealthy talk underflowing Mrs. Flynn's volubility.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Ain't her waist small?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Bet you she wears stays the hull time."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Like them mother puts on to meetin'?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Shore!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Git out; her face ain't red.  Mother nearly busts
-when she hitches her'n."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Ain't that yaller hair pretty?"  This sounded like a
-girl, though it was hard to decide, for all wore a single
-sexless garment.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Bet you it ain't all her'n.  Dad says as them city
-gals is all took to pieces when they go to bed."  This was
-surely a boy, and, unfortunately for him, the remark
-sailed out on a pause in his mother's comment.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"James!" she exclaimed, raising shocked hands.
-"Come right here."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He came slowly, suspiciously, then, divining from his
-parent's look the enormity of his crime, he dived under
-her arm, shot out-doors, and was lost in the wheat.  After
-him, a cataract of bare limbs, poured the others, all
-escaping but one small girl whom Helen caught, kissed,
-and held thereafter in willing bondage until, after
-dinner, Carter drove round to the door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though they had rested barely an hour after their
-forty-mile run, the ponies repeated the morning's
-performance, to the horror of Mrs. Flynn; then, as though
-realizing that they had done all that reputation required,
-they settled down to a steady jog—in which respect,
-colloquially, they were imitated by their human freight.
-A little tired, Helen was content to sit and take silent
-note of the homesteads which now occurred at regular
-intervals, while Carter was perfecting his plan for the
-discomfiture of the warlike Bender.  Slough, lake,
-wood-land, farm passed in slow and silent procession.  Once
-he roused to answer her comment as they rattled by
-some Indian graves that crowned a knoll.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"To keep the coyotes from robbing the resurrection,"
-he explained the poplar poles that roofed in the graves.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He spoke again when the buck-board ran in among a
-score of curious mud pillars.  About thrice the height
-of a man, inscriptionless, they loomed, weird guardians
-of that lonely land till he robbed their mystery.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Them?  Mud chimneys.  You see, when a Cree
-Indian dies his folks burn down the cabin to keep his
-spirit from returning, and as mud won't burn the
-chimneys stand.  Small-pox cleaned out this village."  Then,
-with innocent gravity, he went on to tell of a stray
-scientist who had written a monograph on those very
-chimneys.  "'Monoliths' he called 'em.  Allowed that
-they were dedicated to a tribal god, and was used to
-burn prisoners captured in war.  It was a beautiful
-theory and made a real nice article.  Why did I let
-him?  Well, now, 'twould have been a sin to enlighten
-him, he was that blamed happy poking round them
-chimneys, and the folks that read his article wouldn't
-know any better."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Chuckling at the remembrance, he relapsed again to
-his planning, and did not speak again till they had
-crossed the valley of Silver Creek from which the
-northern settlement took its name.  Then, indicating a black
-dot far off on the trail, he said:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There comes Molyneux."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Two in the rig," he added, a few minutes later.  "A
-man and a woman.  That 'll be Mrs. Leslie."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Unaccustomed to the plainsman's vision, which senses
-rather than sees the difference of size, color, movement
-that mark cattle from horses, a single rig from a double
-team, Helen was dubious till, swinging out from behind
-a poplar bluff, the team bore down upon them.  Two
-persons were in the rig: a man of the blackly handsome
-type, and a stylish, pretty woman, who, as Carter turned
-out to drive by, waved him to stop.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Monopolist!" she scolded, when the rigs ranged side
-by side.  "Here I'm just dying to meet Miss Morrill
-and you would have whisked her by.  Now do your duty."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Captain Molyneux," she said, introducing her
-companion in turn.  "A neighbor.  We just heard this
-morning that you were coming and I was so glad; and
-I'm gladder now that I've seen you."  Her glance
-travelled admiringly over Helen's face and figure.  "You
-know there are so few women here, and they—"  Her
-pretty nose tip-tilted.  "Well, you'll see them.  Soon I
-shall make my call; carry you off for a few days, if your
-brother will permit it.  But there!  I'm keeping you
-from him.  Good-bye.  Now you may go, Mr. Carter."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A touch of merry defiance in the permission caused
-Helen to glance up at her companion.  Though Mrs. Leslie's
-glance was almost caressing whenever it touched
-him, he had stared straight ahead of him while she
-chatted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't like them?" the girl asked.  "Why?  She
-likes you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His sternness vanished and he smiled down upon her.
-"Now, what made you think that?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I didn't think; I felt it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Funny things, feelings, ain't they?  I mind one that
-took me fishing when I ought to have been keeping
-school.  'Twas a beautiful day.  Indian-summer back
-East.  You know 't: still, silent, broody, warm; first
-touch of gold in the leafage.  I just </span><em class="italics">felt</em><span> that I had to
-go fishing.  But when dad produced a peeled hickory
-switch that night he told me: 'Son, feelings is treacherous
-things.  This will teach you the difference between
-thinking and knowing.'  It did—for a while."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But you don't like them?" she persisted, refusing to
-be side-tracked.  Then she blushed under his look of
-grave surprise, realizing that she had broken one of the
-unwritten canons of frontier etiquette.  "I beg your
-pardon," she said, hastily.  "I didn't mean to—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His smile wiped out the offence.  Stretching his whip,
-he said, "There's your house."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen cried aloud.  Nestling under the eaves of green
-forest, it faced on a lake that lay a scant quarter-mile
-to the south.  North, west, and south, trim clump
-poplar dotted its rolling land and rose in the fields of
-grain.  Here nature, greatest of landscape-gardeners,
-had planned her best, setting a watered garden within
-a fence of forest.  Just for a second the house flashed
-out between two green bluffs, a neat log building,
-lime-washed in settler style, then it was snatched again from
-her shining eyes.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Carter had seen a figure standing at the door.
-"Clear grit!" he mentally ejaculated.  "Blamed if he
-ain't up and dressed to save her feelings."  Then, aloud,
-he gave her necessary warnings.  "Now you mustn't
-expect too much.  He's doing fine, but no doubt pulled
-down a bit since you saw him."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Two hours later Carter stepped out from his own
-cabin.  He and Morrill had "homesteaded" halves of
-the same section, and as he strode south the latter's
-lamp beamed a yellow welcome through the soft night.
-Already he had refused an invitation to supper, deeming
-that the brother and sister would prefer to spend their
-first evening alone together, and now ignoring the
-lamp's message, he entered Merrill's stable, saddled the
-latter's cattle pony in darkness thick as ink, led him out,
-and rode quietly away.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now of all equines, your northern cross-bred pony is
-the most cunning.  For three black miles Shyster
-behaved with propriety, then, sensing by the slack line
-that his rider was preoccupied, he achieved a vicious
-sideling buck.  Well executed, it yet failed of its intent.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You little devil!" Carter remonstrated, as he applied
-correctives in the form of quirt and spurs.  "Rest don't
-suit your complaint.  To-morrow you go on the mower."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hullo!" a voice cried from the darkness ahead.
-"Who's that cussing?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was Danvers, an English remittance-man, a typical
-specimen of the tribe of Ishmael which is maintained in
-colonial exile on "keep-away" allowances.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you lost?" Carter asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Lost?  No!"  There was an aggrieved note in Danvers'
-tone.  "You fellows seem to think that I oughtn't
-to be out after dark.  There's Jed Hines going about
-and telling people that I knocked at my own door one
-night to inquire my way."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Tut, tut," Carter sympathized.  "And Jed counted
-such a truthful man!  You'll find it hard to live that
-down.  But where might you be heading for now—if
-it's any of my darn business?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Morrill's.  Heard his sister had arrived.  I'm going
-to drop in and pay my respects."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Humph! that's neighborly.  They've had just two
-hours to exchange the news of three years; they'll
-shorely be through by this.  Keep right on, son.  In
-five-and-twenty minutes this trail will land you at Jed
-Hines's door."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, get out!" Danvers exclaimed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Sir, to you?" Carter assumed a wonderful stiffness.
-"I'll give you good-night."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, here!" the youth called after him.  "I didn't
-mean to doubt you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter rode on.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Ridden by a vivid memory of the jeering Hines,
-Danvers became desperate.  "Oh, Carter!  Say, don't
-get mad!  Do tell a fellow!  How shall I get there?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter reined in.  "Where?  To Hines's?  Keep right
-along."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"N-o!  Morrill's?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, let me see.  One—two—three—take the third
-fork to the left and second to the right; that ought to
-bring you—to your own door," he finished, as he
-listened to the departing hoof-beats.  "That is, if
-you follow directions, which ain't likely.  Anyway," he
-philosophically concluded, "you ain't agoing to bother
-that girl much to-night."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Spurring Shyster, he galloped on, and in ten
-minutes caught Murchison, an Englishman of the yeoman
-class, out at his stables.  Receiving a hearty affirmative,
-rounded out with full-mouthed English "damns," in
-answer to his question, he declined Murchison's
-invitation to "put in," and rode on—rode from homestead to
-homestead, asking always the same question, receiving
-always the same answer.  Remittance-men, Scotch
-Canadians, Seebach, the solitary German settler, alike
-listened, laughed, and fell in with the plan as Flynn had
-done.  He covered many miles and the moon caught
-him on trail before he permitted the last man to carry
-his cold legs back to bed.  It was long past midnight
-when he unsaddled at Morrill's stable.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Softly closing the door on his tired beast, he stood
-gazing at the house.  Far-off in the woods a night-owl
-hooted, a bittern boomed on the lake shore, the still air
-pulsed to the howl of a timber-wolf.  Though born of
-the plains, its moods had never palled upon him.
-Usually he had been stirred.  But now he had no ears for the
-night nor eyes for the lake chased in rippled silver.
-He listened, listened, as though his strained hearing
-would drag the girl's soft sleep breathing from the
-house's jealous embrace.  Soon he leaned back against
-the door musing; and when, having inspected the cabin
-from one side, the moon sailed over and looked down
-on the other, he was still there.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>As the first quivering flushes shot through the grays
-of dawn Bender came out of his cabin.  He intended
-to be at work on Merrill's big slough at sunrise.  But as
-he rammed home the sickle into its place in the
-mower-bar a projecting rivet caused it to buckle and break.
-That spelled another journey to the blacksmith's, and
-the sun stood at noon before the sickle was in place.
-Falling to oiling with savage earnestness, that an ancient
-Briton might have exhibited in greasing his scythe-armed
-war-chariot, Bender then stuffed bread and meat
-into his jumper, hitched, and drove off north, looking
-for all the world like a grisly pirate afloat on a yellow
-sea.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Half an hour's easy jogging would carry him to
-Merrill's big slough, but on the way he had to pass two
-smaller ones.  The first, which had a hundred-yard belt
-of six-foot hay ringing its sedgy centre, tempted him
-sorely, yet he refrained, having in mind a bigger prey.
-At the next he reined in, and stared at a dozen cut
-swaths and a mower with feeding horses tied to its
-wheels.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was Molyneux's mower, and to Bender its presence
-could only mean that the settlement was rushing the
-sick man's sloughs.  "Invasion of the British!" he
-yelled.  "What 'll Carter say to this?  Remember Yorktown!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He was still laughing when a buck-board came rattling
-up the trail behind him.  It was Hines.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Cut that slough yet?" he asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Just going there," Bender answered; then gave the
-reason of his delay, garnished with furious anathema on
-the maker of sickles.  "But ain't that a joke?" he said,
-indicating Molyneux's mower.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines whinnied his satisfaction.  "Didn't think it was
-in the Britisher.  But my! won't that gall the long-geared
-son of a gun of a Yank?  Drive on an' I'll follow
-up an' see you started—mebbe see some of the fun," he
-added to himself, "if Carter's there."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Quarter of an hour brought them to the big slough,
-which, on this side, was ringed so thickly with willow-scrub
-that neither could see it till they reined on its
-edge.  Both stared blankly.  When Hines went by that
-morning a mile of solid hay had bowed in sunlit waves
-before the breeze.  Save a strip some twenty yards wide
-down the centre, it now lay in flat green swaths, while
-along the strip a dozen feeding teams were tied to as
-many mowers.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A bee, by G—!" Bender swore.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hell!" Hines snarled even in his swearing.  "Bilked,
-by the Almighty!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For a moment they stood, staring from the slough to
-each other, the lumberman red, angry, foolish, Hines
-the personification of venomous chagrin.  Presently his
-rage urged him to a great foolishness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You an' your casting!" he sneered.  "Scairt, you
-was—plumb scairt!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Astonishment, the astonishment with which a bull
-might regard the attack of an impertinent fly, obliterated
-for one moment all other expression from Bender's
-face.  Then, roaring his furious anger, he sprang from
-his mower.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Realizing his mistake, Hines had already lashed his
-ponies, but even then they barely jerked the buck-board
-tail from under the huge, clutching fingers.  Foaming
-with passion, Bender gave chase for a score of yards,
-then stopped and shook his great fist, pouring out
-invective.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"To-morrow," he roared, "I'll come over and cut on you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the matter?  You seem all het up?"  Carter's
-quiet voice gave Bender first notice of the buckboard
-that had come quietly upon him from the grassy
-prairie.  With Carter were Flynn, Seebach, and two
-others.  Not very far away a wagon was bringing others
-back from dinner.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We're all giving Morrill a day's cutting," Carter went
-on, with a quiet twinkle.  "I called at your place this
-morning with a bid, but you was away.  We're right
-glad to see you.  Who told you?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Gradually a grin wiped out Bender's choler.  "You're
-damn smart," he rumbled.  "Well—where shall I begin?"</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="jenny"><span class="bold large">V</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">JENNY</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Thus did the bolt which Hines forged for Carter
-prove a boomerang and recoil upon himself.  For
-next morning Bender started his mower on a particularly
-fine slough which Hines had left to the last because
-of its wetness.  Moreover, Hines had ten tons of cut
-hay bleaching near by in the sun and dare not try to
-rake it.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was oppressively hot the morning that Bender
-hitched to rake the stolen slough; fleecy thunder-heads
-were slowly heaving up from behind the swart spruce
-forest.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Twon't be worth cow-feed if it ain't raked to-day,"
-the giant remarked, as he overlooked his enemy's hay.
-Then his satisfaction gave place to sudden anger—a
-rake was at work on Hines's hay less than a quarter-mile away.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hain't seen me, I reckon," Bender growled.  Leaving
-his own rake, he crouched in a gully, skulked along
-the low land, gained a willow thicket, and sprang out
-just as the rake came clicking by.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now I've got you!" he roared.  Then his hands
-dropped.  He stood staring at a thin slip of a girl, who
-returned his gaze with dull, tired eyes.  It was Jenny
-Hines, Jed's only child.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," Bender growled, "what d' you reckon you're doing?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Raking."  Her voice was listless as her look.  Just
-eleven when her mother died, her small shoulders had
-borne the weight of Jed's housekeeping.  Heavy
-choring had robbed her youth, and left her, at eighteen,
-nothing but a faded shadow of a possible prettiness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender coughed, shuffled.  "Where's your dad?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Up at the house.  He allowed you wouldn't tech
-me.  But," she added, dully, "I'd liefer you killed me
-than not."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender's anger had already passed.  Rough pity now
-took its place.  His furious strength prevented him
-from realizing the killing drudgery, the lugging of heavy
-water-buckets, the milking, feeding of pigs, the hard
-labor which had killed her spirit and left this utter
-hopelessness; but he knew by experience that a young
-horse should not be put to a heavy draw, and here was
-a violation of the precept.  Bender was puzzled.  Had
-he come on a neighbor maltreating a horse, a curse
-backed by his heavy fist would have righted the wrong;
-but this frail creature's humanity placed her wrongs
-outside his rough remedial practice.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He whistled, swore softly, and, failing to invoke
-inspiration by these characteristic methods, he said,
-kindly: "Well, for onct Jed tol' the truth.  Must have strained
-him some.  Go ahead, I ain't agoing to bother you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Having finished raking his own hay, he fell to work
-with the fork, stabbing huge bunches, throwing them
-right and left, striving to work off the pain at his heart.
-But pity grew with exertion, and, pausing midway of
-the morning, he saw that she also was plying a weary
-fork.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You need a rest," he growled five minutes later.
-"Sit down."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She glanced up at the ominous sky.  "Can't.  Rain's
-coming right on."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Lifting her bodily, he placed her in a nest of hay.
-"Now you stay right there.  I'm running this."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Picking up her fork, he put forth all his magnificent
-strength while she sat listlessly watching.  It seemed
-as though nothing could banish her chronic weariness,
-her ineffable lassitude.  Once, indeed, she remarked,
-"My, but you're strong!" but voice and words lacked
-animation.  She added the remarkable climax, "Pa says
-you are a devil."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?" he questioned.  "An' you bet he's right, gal.
-Keep a right smart distance from men like me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I don't know," she slowly answered.  "I'd liefer
-be a devil.  Angels is tiresome.  Pa's always talking
-about them.  He's a heap religious—in spells."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Pausing in his forking, Bender stared down on the
-small heretic.  Vestigial traces of religious belief
-occupied a lower strata of his savage soul.  Crude they
-were, anthropomorphic, barely higher than superstitions,
-yet they were there, and chief among them was an idea
-that has appealed to the most cultured of men—that
-woman is incomplete, nay, lost, without religion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Shore, child!" he protested.  "Little gals shouldn't
-talk so.  That ain't the way to get to heaven."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"D' you allow to go there?" she demanded, with
-disconcerting suddenness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender grimaced, laughed at the ludicrousness of the
-question.  "Don't allow as I'd be comfortable.
-Anyway, lumbermen go to t'other place.  But that don't
-alter your case.  Gals all go to heaven."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well!"  For the first time she displayed some animation.
-"I ain't!  Pa's talked me sick of it.  I allow
-it's them golden streets he's after.  He'd coin 'em into
-dollars."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Seeing that Hines had not hesitated in minting this,
-his flesh and blood, Bender thought it very likely, and
-feeling his inability to cope with such reasonable heresies
-he attacked the hay instead.  Having small skill in
-women—the few of his intimate experience being as free
-of feminine complexities as they were of virtue—he was
-sorely puzzled.  Looking backward, he remembered his
-own pious mother.  Hines's wife had died whispering of
-religion's consolations; yet here was the daughter
-turning a determined back on the source of the mother's
-comfort.  It was unnatural to his scheme of things,
-contrary to the law of his vestigial piety.  He would
-try again!  But when, the hay finished, he came back
-to her, he quailed before her pale hopelessness; it called
-God in question.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Limbering up her rake, he watched her drive away, a
-small, thin figure, woful speck of life under a vast gray
-sky.  For twisting cloud masses had blotted out the
-sun, a chill wind snatched the tops from the hay-cocks
-as fast as Bender coiled them, blots of water splashed
-the dust before he finished his task.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Black care rode home with him; and as that night
-the thunder split over his cabin, he saw Jenny's eyes
-mirrored on the wet, black pane, and it was borne dimly
-upon him that something besides overwork was
-responsible for their haunting.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Bender had a friend, a man of his own ilk, with whom
-he had hit camp and log-drive for these last ten years.
-At birth it is supposable that the friend inherited a
-name, but in the camps he was known only as the
-"Cougar."  A silent man, broad, deep-lunged, fierce-eyed,
-nature had laid his lines for great height, then
-bent him in a perpetual crouch.  He always seemed
-gathering for a spring, which, combined with tigerish
-courage, had gained him his name.  Inseparable, if
-Bender appeared on the Mattawa for the spring drive,
-it was known that the Cougar might be shortly
-expected.  If the Cougar stole into a Rocky Mountain camp,
-a bunk was immediately reserved for his big affinity.
-Only a bottle of whiskey and two days' delay on the
-Cougar's part had prevented them from settling up the
-same section.  However, though five miles lay between
-their respective homesteads, never a Sunday passed
-without one man riding over to see the other, and it
-was returning from such a visit that Bender next fell
-in with Jenny Hines.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was night and late, but as Bender rode by the
-forks where Hines's private road joined on to the Lone
-Tree trail, a new moon gave sufficient light for him to
-see a whitish object lying in the grass.  He judged it a
-grain-sack till a convulsion shook it and a sob rose to
-his ears.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Good land, girl!" he ejaculated, when, a moment
-later, Jenny's pale face turned up to his, "what are you
-doing here?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He's turned me out."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Who?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Jed."  The absence of the parental title spoke
-volumes—of love killed by slow starvation, cold sternness,
-of youth enslaved to authority without mitigation of
-fatherly tenderness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Without understanding, Bender felt.  "What for?"
-he demanded.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Crowding against his stirrup, she remained silent, and
-the touch of her body against his leg, the mute appeal
-of the contact, sent a flame of righteous passion through
-Bender's big body.  Indecision had never been among
-his faults.  Stooping, he raised her to the saddle before
-him, and as she settled in against his broad breast a
-wave of tenderness flowed after the flame.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no!" she begged, when he turned in on Jed's
-trail.  "I won't go back!"  And he felt her violently
-trembling as he soothed and coaxed.  She tried to slip
-from his arms as they approached the cabin, and her
-terror filled him with such anger that his kick almost
-stove in the door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's me!" he roared, answering Hines's challenge.
-"Bender!  I came on your gal lying out on the prairies.
-Open an' take her in!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In response the window raised an inch; the moonlight
-glinted on a rifle-barrel.  "Kick the door ag'in!"  Jed's
-voice snarled, "an' I'll bore you.  Git! the pair
-of ye!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Come, come, Jed."  For her sake Bender mastered
-his anger.  "Come, this ain't right.  Let her in an'
-we'll call it by-gones."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no!" the girl protested.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though she had whispered, Jed heard, and her
-protest touched off his furious wolfish passion.  "Git!
-Won't you git!" he screeched, following the command
-with a stream of screamed imprecations, vile abuse.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If alone Bender would have beaten in the door, but
-there was no mistaking Hines's deadly intent.  Warned
-by the click of a cocking hammer, he swung Jenny in
-front again, galloped out of range; then, uncertain
-what to do, he gave his beast its head, and half an hour
-later brought up at his own door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There, sis," he said, as he lit his lamp, "make yourself
-happy while I stable Billy.  Then I'll cook up some
-grub, an' while we're eating we can talk over things."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She smiled wanly yet gratefully.  But when he
-returned she was rocking back and forth and moaning.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't take on so," he comforted.  "To-night I'll
-sleep in the stable; at daybreak we'll hit south for
-Mother Flynn's."  But the moans followed in quick
-succession, beaded sweat started on her brow, and as
-she swung forward he saw that which, two hours before,
-had turned Jed Hines into a foaming beast.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, my God!"  The exclamation burst from him.
-"You pore little thing! you pore little child!  Only a
-baby yourself!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Stooping, he lifted her into his bed, tucked her in,
-then stood, doubtful, troubled, looking down upon her.
-Two-thirds of the settlers in Silver Creek were of Scotch
-descent; were deeply dyed with the granite hardness,
-harsh malignancy, fervid bigotry which have caused the
-history of their race to be written in characters of blood.
-Fiercely moral, dogmatically religious, she could expect
-no mercy at their hands.  Hard-featured women, whose
-angular unloveliness had efficiently safeguarded their
-own virtue, would hate her the more because her fault
-had been beyond their compass.  Looking forward,
-Bender saw the poor little body a passive centre for a
-whorl of spite, jealousy, virulent spleen, and the rough
-heart of him was mightily troubled.  In all Silver Creek,
-Mrs. Flynn was the only woman to whom he felt he
-might safely turn.  But Flynn's farm lay eighteen miles
-to the south—too far; the child was in imminent labor.
-What should he do?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Jenny," he said, "any women folk been to your
-house lately?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>When she answered that they had been without a
-visitor for three months, Bender nodded his satisfaction.
-"Lie still, child," he said.  "I'll be back right smart."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He was not gone long—just long enough to drive over
-to and back from Carter's.  "I'm not trusting any of
-the women hereabouts," he told Carter.  "Though it
-ain't generally known, the Cougar was married once.
-The same Indians that did up Custer cleaned up his
-wife and family.  An' as he always lived a thousand
-miles from a doctor, he knows all about sech things.
-So if you'll drive like all hell for him, I'll tend to the
-little gal."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And Carter drove.  In one hour he brought the
-Cougar, but even in that short time a wonderful
-transformation was wrought in that rough cabin under
-Bender's sympathetic eyes.  From the travail of the
-suffering girl was born a woman—but not a mother.  For of
-the essence of life Jenny had not sufficient to endow the
-child of her labor.  The spark flickered down in herself,
-sank, till the Cougar, roughest yet gentlest of nurses,
-sweated with apprehension.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's death or a doctor," he told Carter, hiding his
-emotion under a surly growl.  "Now show what them
-ponies are good for."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And that night those small fiends did "show what
-they were good for";—made a record that stood for
-many a year.  Roused from his beauty-sleep, Flynn
-caught the whir of hot wheels and wondered who was
-sick.  It was yet black night when Carter called Father
-Francis, the silent mission priest, from his bed.  By
-lantern-light they two, layman and priest, spelled each
-other with pick and shovel in the mission acre, and when
-the last spadeful dropped on the small grave, Carter
-flew on.  At cock-crow he pulled into Lone Tree, sixty
-miles in six hours, without counting the stop at the
-mission.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I doubt I've killed you," he murmured, as the ponies
-stood before the doctor's door, "but it just had to be
-done."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The doctor himself answered the knock.  A heavy
-man, grizzled, gray-eyed, sun and wind had burned his
-face to leather, for his days and nights were spent on
-trail, pursuing a practice that was only limited by the
-endurance of horse-flesh.  From the ranges incurably
-vicious broncos were sent to his stables, devils in brute
-form.  He used seven teams; yet the toughest wore
-out in a year.  Day or night, winter or summer, a
-hundred in the shade or sixty below, he might be seen
-pounding them along the trails.  Even now he had just
-come in from the Pipe Stone, sixty miles southwest, but
-he instantly routed out his man.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hitch the buckskins, Bill," he said, "and let him
-run yours round to the stables, Carter.  He'll turn 'em
-out prancing by the time we're back."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It took Bill, the doctor, and Carter to get the buckskins
-clear of town, but once out the doctor handed the
-lines to Carter.  "Now let 'em run."  Then he fell
-asleep.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He woke as they passed the mission, exchanged words
-with the priest, and dozed again till Carter reined in at
-Bender's door.  Then, shedding sleep as a dog shakes
-off water, he entered, clear-eyed, into the battle with
-death.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was night when he came out to Bender and Carter,
-sprawled on the hay in the stable.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She'll live," he answered the lumberman's look,
-"but she must have woman's nursing.  Who's to be?
-Mrs. Flynn?" He shook his head.  "A good woman,
-but—she has her sex's weakness—damned long-tongued."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender looked troubled.  "There ain't a soul knows
-it—yet."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The doctor nodded.  "Yes, yes, but I doubt whether
-you can keep it, boys."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I think," Carter said, slowly, "that if it was rightly
-put Miss Morrill might—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That sweet-faced girl?"  The doctor's gray eyes lit
-with approval, and the cloud swept back from Bender's
-rugged face.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If she only would!" the giant stammered, "I'd—"  He
-cast about for a fitting recompense, and finding none
-worth, finished, "There ain't a damn thing I wouldn't
-do for her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The doctor took doubt by the ears.  "Well, hitch
-and let's see."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Realizing that the girl would probably have her fair
-share of the prejudice, he opened his case very gently
-an hour later.  But he might have saved his diplomacy.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course!" she exclaimed, as soon as she grasped
-the facts.  "Poor little thing!  I'll go right over with
-Mr. Bender.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And remember," the doctor said, finishing his
-instructions, "she needs mothering more than medicine."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So, satisfied, he and Carter hit the back trail, but not
-till he had examined Morrill with stethoscope and
-tapping finger.  "Must have some excuse for my trip," he
-said, "and you'll have to serve.  So don't be scared if
-you happen to hear that you have had another hemorrhage.
-Good!  Good!" he exclaimed at every tap, but
-once on trail he shook his head.  "May go in a month;
-can't last six.  Be prepared."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A fiery sunset was staining the western sky when, on
-his way back from Lone Tree, Carter stopped at Bender's
-door.  The glow tinged the furious cloud that rose
-from the Cougar's pipe.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Doing well," he laconically answered.  "Never saw
-a gal pull round better from a fainting spell."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nodding comprehension, Carter mentioned a doubt
-that had nettled him on the trail.  "Jed?  Do you
-think he'll—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Sudden ferocity flamed up in the Cougar's face.  "I
-tended to him this morning," he said, slowly, ominously.
-"He's persuaded as he mistook the girl's symptoms.
-Anyway, he ain't agoing to foul his own nest so long as
-no one knows."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Wants her back, I suppose?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The Cougar nodded.  "She's worth more to him than
-his best ox-team.  But he ain't agoing to get her.
-Don't go!  Miss Morrill's inside an' wants to run over
-home for some things.  Fine gal that."  The Cougar's
-set fierceness of face almost thawed as he delivered his
-opinion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Driving homeward, Helen opened the subject just
-where the Cougar had left it.  "She won't go back to
-her father," she said, "and I don't blame her.  But she
-can't stay here."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>However, Jenny's future was already provided.
-"You needn't to worry," Carter said.  "The doctor's
-fixed things.  He and his wife have neither chick nor
-child of their own; they'll take her in."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The girl exclaimed her surprised gladness.  To her,
-indeed, the entire incident was a revelation.  Here three
-rough frontiersmen had banded successfully together to
-protect a wronged child and keep her within their rough
-social pale.  Through all they had exhibited a tact and
-delicacy not always found in finer social stratas, and
-the lesson went far in modifying certain caste ideas—would
-have gone farther could she have known the fulness
-of their delicacy.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Only once was the cause of Jenny's illness ever hinted
-at among the three; that when Carter and Bender lay
-waiting for the doctor in the stable.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't happen to have made a guess at the
-man?" Carter had asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She hain't mentioned him," the giant answered, a
-little stiffly.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But he thawed when Carter answered: "You'll pardon
-me.  I was just wondering if a rope might help her
-case."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender had shaken his head.  "Las' year, you'll
-remember, one of Molyneux's remittance-men uster drive
-her out while Jed had her hired out to Leslie's.  But
-he's gone back to England."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Also Helen had learned to look beneath Bender's
-scarred surface.  Every day, while Jenny lay in his
-shanty, he would slip in between loads of hay to see
-her.  At first the presence of so much femininity
-embarrassed him.  One petticoat hanging on the wall while
-another floats over the floor is enough to upset any
-bachelor.  Only when sitting with Jenny did he find
-his tongue; then, giant of the camps, he prattled like a
-school-boy, freeing thoughts and feelings that had been
-imprisoned through all his savage years.  It was
-singularly strange, too, to see how Jenny reciprocated his
-feelings.  She liked Helen, but all of her petting could
-not bring the smile that came for Bender, in whom she
-sensed a kindred shy simplicity.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen was to get yet one other light from these
-unpromising surfaces, a light bright as those of Scripture
-which are said to shine as lamps to the feet.  A few
-days after Jenny's departure Bender rode up to the
-door where Carter sat talking with Morrill.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Got any stock to sell?" he inquired.  "Cows in calf?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Going in for butter-making?" Carter inquired, grinning.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nope!"  The giant laughed.  "'Tain't for myself
-I'm asking.  I'm a lumberman born an' bred; the
-camps draw me like salt-licks pull the deer.  I'd never
-have time to look after them.  Farming's play with me.
-On'y I was thinking as it wouldn't be so bad if that little
-gal had a head or two of her own growing inter money.
-You kin let 'em run with your band summers, an' I'll
-put up winter hay for them an' the increase.  How are
-you, miss?"  He nodded as Helen came to the door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was her first experience in such free giving, and she
-was astonished to see how devoid his manner was of
-philanthropic consciousness.  Plainly he regarded the
-whole affair as very ordinary business.  Carter's answer
-accentuated the novel impression—"What's the matter
-with me contributing them heifers?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Da—beg pardon, miss."  Bender blushed.  "No you
-don't.  This is my funeral.  But I'm no hawg.  Now if
-you wanter throw in a couple of calves—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Thus, without deed, oath, or mortgage, but with a
-certainty that none of these forms could afford, did little
-Jenny Hines become a young lady of property.  The
-matter disposed of, Bender called Carter off to the
-stable, where, after many mysterious fumblings, he
-produced from a package a gorgeous silk kerchief of
-rainbow hues.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll give Miss Morrill this?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Carter balked, grinning.  "Lordy, man; do your
-own courting."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Say!" the giant ejaculated, shocked.  "You don't
-reckon she'd take it that way?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter judiciously considered the question, and after
-mature deliberation replied: "I've seen breach-of-promise
-suits swing on less.  But I reckon you're safe
-enough—if you explain your motive."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The giant sighed his relief.  "Did you ever give a gal
-anything, Carter?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Did I?  Enough to stock a farm if 'twas collected."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"How'd you go about it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, jes' give it to her.  You're bigger'n she is;
-kain't hurt you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Lordy, I don't know."  Bender sighed again.
-"It's surprising what them small things kin do to you.
-Say, there's a good feller.  You take it in?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Carter sternly refused, and five minutes later
-Bender might have been seen, stern and rigid from the
-desperate nature of his enterprise, sitting on one of
-Helen's soap-boxes.  In the hour he talked with Morrill,
-he never once relaxed a death-grip on his hat.  His eye
-never once strayed towards Helen, and it was late that
-evening when she found the kerchief under his box.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It speaks well for her that she did not laugh at its
-gorgeous colors; and her smile as she scribbled a little
-note of thanks that was delivered by Carter was far too
-tender for ridicule.  Truly she was learning.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-shadow"><span class="bold large">VI</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE SHADOW</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Down a half-mile furrow that gleamed wetly black
-against the dull brown of "broken" prairie, Carter
-followed his oxen.  He was "back-setting," deep-ploughing
-the sod that had lain rotting through the summer.
-For October, it was hot; an acrid odor, ammoniacal
-from his sweating beasts, mingled with the tang of the
-soil and the strong hay scent of scorching prairies.
-Summer was making a desperate spurt from winter's
-chill advance, and, as though realizing it, bird, beast,
-insects, as well as men, went busily about their business.
-The warm air was freighted with the boom of bees,
-vibrated to the whir of darting prairie-chicken, the
-yells of distant ploughmen; for, stimulated by an
-answer from the railroad gods, the settlers were striving
-to add to their wheat acreage.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"In certain contingencies," the general manager
-answered the petition, "we will build through Silver Creek
-next summer."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Judging by a remark dropped to his third assistant,
-"uncertain" would have expressed his meaning more
-correctly.  "A little hope won't hurt them, and ought
-to go a long way in settling up the country.  By-the-way,
-who signed these statistics?  Cummings?  That
-wasn't the tall Yankee who spoke so well.  He never
-would have sent in such a jumble."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Blissfully ignorant, however, of railroad methods, the
-settlers interpreted the guarded answer as an iron
-promise.  Forgetting Carter's part in getting them a
-hearing, Cummings and his fellows plumed themselves
-upon their diplomacy, took to themselves the credit—in
-which they evidenced the secret malevolence that a
-rural community holds against the man who rises above
-its intellectual level.  Human imperfection is invariable
-through the ages.  Plebeian Athens ostracised the just
-Aristides.  Similarly, Silver Creek evidenced its petty
-jealousy against its best brains.  "Oh, he's too damned
-smart!" it exclaimed, whenever Carter was mentioned
-for the council, school trustee, or other public office, nor
-paused to consider its logic.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Slowly, with heavy gaspings, the oxen stopped at the
-end of the furrow, and as he sat down on the plough while
-they rested, Carter blessed the happy chance that had
-caused him to "break" clear down to Morrill's boundary.
-Helen sat in the shade of her cabin, thus affording him
-delicious glimpses of a scarlet mouth, slightly pursed
-over her sewing, a loose curl that glowed like a golden
-bar amid the creamy shadows of her neck, the palpitant
-life of the feminine figure.  Small wonder that he
-lingered on that turn.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's that warm," he hypocritically remarked, fanning
-himself, "those poor critters' tongues are hanging to
-their knees."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The girl bowed to hide her smile.  "They always seem
-to tire at this end of the field."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Discerning brutes," he answered, nowise nonplussed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She broke a silence.  "It is considered bad manners
-to stare."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?" he cheerfully inquired.  "I'll make a note of that."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A few moments later she remarked, "You have a
-poor memory."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Thank you for telling.  In what way?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You were staring."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"N-o."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You were."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Beg your pardon.  It takes two to make a stare.
-If I keep on looking you in the eye—that's staring.  If
-I'm looking when you ain't supposed to know
-it—that's—that's—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well?" she prompted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mighty pleasant," he finished, rising.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As he moved off she looked curiously after.  While
-he was talking, some fleeting expression, trick of speech
-had recalled him as she first saw him at Lone Tree—a
-young man, tall, sunburned, soft of speech, ungrammatical,
-and the picture had awakened her to a change in herself.
-In this her fourth month in the settlement she felt she
-had lost the keen freshness of the stranger's point of
-view.  She now scarcely noticed his idiom, accent,
-grammatical lapses.  Oddities of speech and manner that at
-first would have provoked surprise or laughter no longer
-challenged her attention.  If the land's vast rawness still
-impressed, she was losing the clarity of first perceptions.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She was being absorbed; her individuality was slowly
-undergoing the inevitable process of addition and
-cancellation.  How dim, indefinite the past already seemed.
-Some other girl might have lived it, gone through the
-round of parties, balls, associated with the well-groomed
-men, refined girls of her acquaintance.  How vivid,
-concrete was the present!  She contemplated her hands,
-roughened by dish-washing.  Did it foretell her future?
-Would this equilibration with environment end by
-leaving her peer of the gaunt, labor-stricken women of the
-settlements?  She shuddered.  The thought stamped
-her mood so that, returning on the other round, Carter
-passed on, thinking her offended.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why so grave, sis?"  Her brother smiled down upon
-her from the doorway.  Since her arrival he had had
-many ups and downs, alternating between bed-fast and
-apparent convalescence.  To-day the fires of life would
-flare high, to flicker down to-morrow like a guttering
-candle that wastes the quicker to its end.  Not for the
-world would she increase his anxiety with her foreboding.
-Hiding the dejection with a quick smile, she turned
-his question with another.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Bert, why does Mr. Carter dislike Captain Molyneux,
-the Leslies, and—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The English crowd in general?" he finished for her.
-"Does he?  I never heard him say much against them."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, he's one of your silent men.  But actions count
-more than words.  When he drives me to or from
-Leslies' he invariably refuses the invitation to come in,
-pleading hurry."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, he has been pretty busy."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill stated a fact.  Carter had spent the haying
-months in the forest sloughs, where they cut the bulk
-of their fodder.  There, with the deep woods smothering
-every errant breeze, mercury at a hundred, the fat
-marsh sweating underfoot, he had moved, raked, or
-pitched while sand-flies took toll of his flesh by day and
-mosquitoes converted his homeward journey into a feast
-of blood.  Eighty head of cattle, his and Merrill's, had
-to be provided for, and he alone to do it.  And it was
-from these heavy labors that he had stolen time to drive
-Helen back and forth.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But he repels their every attempt at friendliness!"
-she protested.  "Positively snubbed Captain Molyneux
-the other day."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill laughed.  "Why do they persist in their overtures?
-Carter is flesh and blood of the frontier, which
-makes no bones over its likes and dislikes.  With him a
-friend is a friend.  He has no use for civilization which
-calls upon its votaries to spread their friendship in a
-thin veneer over a vast acquaintance.  Having,
-courteously enough, intimated that he doesn't desire closer
-acquaintance, he expects them to heed the hint.  Failing,
-they may expect to have it stated in stronger terms.
-Molyneux has lived long enough in the north to know
-that."  His answer, however, simply completed the
-circle and brought them back to the starting-point.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She restated the issue.  "But why doesn't he like them?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill answered her question with another.  "Why
-do you like them?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"They are nice."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mrs. Leslie?" he catechised.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A trifle frivolous, perhaps, but—I like her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Leslie, Danvers, Poole, and the rest of them?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Impractical," she admitted, "thoroughly impractical,
-all but Captain Molyneux.  His farm is a model.
-Yet—I like them."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She spoke musingly, as though examining her feelings
-for cause, analysis of which would have shown that the
-wide differences between herself and her new acquaintances
-had added to the glamour and sparkle which are
-given off by fresh personalities.  She liked their
-refinement, courtesy, subtleties, and grace of conduct which
-shone the brighter in that rough setting.  To her their
-very speech was charming, with its broad vowels,
-leisurely drawled, so much softer than the clipped
-American idiom.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>They were, indeed, over-refined.  Five centuries ago
-the welding of Celt, Saxon, Roman, Norman into one
-homogeneous whole was full and complete; since then
-that potent mixture of blood had undergone slow stagnation.
-Noble privilege and laws of entail had checked
-in the motherland those selective processes which sweep
-the foolish, wicked, and vicious from the face of the
-earth.  Protected by the aristocratic system, the fool,
-the idler, the roué had handed their undesirableness
-down the generations, a heavy mortgage on posterity.
-Ripe fruit of a vicious system, decay had touched them
-at the core; last links of a chain once strong, they had
-lacked the hot hammering from grim circumstance that
-alone could make them fit to hold and bind.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill laid his thin finger on the spot.  "All right,
-Nell, they are harmless."  He laughed as he used the
-scornful term which the Canadian settlers applied to
-their English neighbors.  "You must have some company.
-I don't dislike them myself, and would probably
-like them better if it was not for their insufferable
-national conceit and blind caste feeling.  They look
-with huge contempt on all persons and things which
-cannot claim origin in the narrow bit of English society
-from which they sprang.  I'm not denying their
-country's greatness.  But, like the Buddhist, lost in
-contemplation of his own navel, they have turned their
-eyes inward till they're blind to all else.  On we
-Americans they are particularly hard, regarding us with the
-easy tolerance that one may extend to the imperfections
-of an anthropoid ape.  Now don't fire up!  They have
-always been nice to me.  Still I can feel the superiority
-beneath the surface.  With Carter it is different.  Him
-they classify with the Canadian settlers, and you may
-fancy the effect on a man who, in skill of hands and
-brain, character, all the things that count in life, stands
-waist-high above them.  He sees them cheated, cozened
-by every shyster.  Men in years, they are children in
-experience, and if help from home were withdrawn not
-one could stand on his own legs.  They are the
-trimmings of their generation, encumbrances on the family
-estate or fortune, useless timber lopped off from the
-genealogical tree.  Do you wonder that he despises them?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I think," she said, after a thoughtful pause, "that
-he is too stern in his judgments.  Impracticability isn't
-a crime, Bert, and people ought not to be blamed for
-the conditions that made them."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"True, little wisehead."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He ought," she went on, "to be more friendly.  I'm
-sure Mrs. Leslie likes him."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill smothered a laugh.  "Carter's a mighty
-handsome man, young lady, and Mrs. Leslie is—a shade
-impressionable.  But in social affairs women decide on
-women, men on men."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She nodded, puckering her brow.  "Yes, but he
-behaved dreadfully to Captain Molyneux."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her genuine distress prevented the laugh from
-escaping.  "Tell me about it," he sympathized.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It was the other evening when he came to drive me
-home.  Despite his reserve, the younger boys all like
-him, and when Captain Molyneux brought me out he
-was telling Mr. Poole and Mr. Rhodes about a horse
-that Danvers had bought from Cummings.  'The critter,'
-Carter said, 'is blind, spavined, sweenied, and old
-enough to homestead.'</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Well,' the captain added, 'Danvers has always
-needed a guardian, Mr. Carter.'"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"In his patronizing way?" Morrill commented.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A little, perhaps," she admitted.  "Then, looking
-straight at us, Carter answered, 'He could have picked
-a worse.'  What did he mean, Bert?  The captain
-reddened and the boys looked silly."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Morrill grinned.  "Well—you see, Nell, Molyneux's
-income is mostly derived from the farming of pupils
-who are apprenticed to him by a firm of London lawyers
-while under the impression that colonial farming is a
-complex business that requires years of study.  Having
-whacked up from five hundred to five thousand dollars
-premium, they find, on arrival, that they have simply
-paid for the privilege of doing ordinary farm work.
-You said Molyneux's place was a model.  No wonder,
-when he draws pay where other men have to hire.  No,
-the business isn't exactly dishonorable!"  He anticipated
-her question.  "He does teach them something, and
-prevents them from falling into the hands of Canuck
-shysters who would bleed them for hundreds when he
-takes fifties.  But—well, it isn't a business I'd care to
-be in.  But there!  I've talked myself tired, and
-Molyneux is coming at three to drive you up to Leslie's.
-You have just half an hour to dress."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But I won't go," she protested, "if you're not feeling
-well."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Bosh!" he laughed.  "I'm dying to be rid of you.
-Expect to get quiet sleep this afternoon."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But as, half an hour later, he watched her drive away,
-his face darkened, and he muttered: "This will never
-do.  She can't settle down to this life.  Just as soon—"  A
-fit of coughing left him gasping; but, under the
-merciful hallucination that attends consumption, he finished,
-"I'll sell out as soon as I'm rid of this cough and go
-back to the law."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter also watched her go.  As, dank with sweat,
-grimed with dust and labor, he "geed" his oxen around
-the "land," she went by, a flutter of billowy white,
-deliciously dainty, cool, and clean.  The contrast
-emphasized the difference between them so strongly that a
-sudden feeling of bitter hopelessness caused him to
-return only a stern nod to her bow and smile.  Surprised,
-she looked back, and gleaning, perhaps, an intuition of
-his feeling from the dogged set of his face and figure,
-she was swept with sudden pity.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For a mile she was quiet; but while the sun shines
-youth may not hobnob with care, and that was a
-perfect day.  Autumn's crimsons mottled the tawny
-prairies; waves of sunshine chased one another over the
-brown grasses to the distant forest line; and as, with
-cheerful clatter of pole and harness, the buggy dipped,
-swallow-like, over the long earth rolls, her spirits rose.
-She laughed, chatted, within five miles was involved in
-a mild flirtation.  That was wicked!  Of course!
-Afterwards, in private, she mortified the strain of coquetry
-that made such shame possible.  Yet it was very
-natural.  Given a handsome man, a pretty maid, and
-isolation, what else should follow?  Molyneux had travelled
-in far countries and talked well of them and their savage
-peoples.  He knew London, the Mecca of womankind,
-like a book; abounded in anecdotes of people and places
-that had been awesome names to her.  Also he was
-skilled in subtle flattery, never exceeding by a
-hair's-breadth the amount which her vanity—of which she
-had a pretty woman's rightful share—could easily
-assimilate.  Small wonder if she forgot the grim figure at the
-ploughtail.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Forgetfulness, however, was not for Carter.  As he
-followed the steady rhythm of his furrows in heat and
-dust, heavy thought now loosened, now tightened the
-corners of his mouth.  But bitterness did not hold him
-long.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Baby!  You are going to get her.  But that ain't
-the way to play the game," he said, as the buggy
-disappeared.  And she saw only friendliness in his smile on
-her return that evening and the score of other occasions
-on which he watched her goings and comings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He "played his game" like a man, and with a masterly
-hand.  Never obtrusive, he was always kind, cheerful,
-hopefully sympathetic during Merrill's bad spells.  At
-other times his dry humor kept her laughing.  He was
-always helpful.  When the snows blanketed the prairies
-he instructed her in the shifts of winter housekeeping—how
-to keep the cabin snug when the blizzard walled it
-in fleecy cloud; how to keep the frost out of the cellar
-and from the small stock of fruits in the pantry.
-Together they "froze down" a supply of milk against the
-time when it would be cruel to keep cows milking.  A
-night's frost transmuted her pans of milk into oval
-cakes, which he piled out-doors like cordwood.  A milk
-pile!  The snows soon covered it, and how she laughed
-when, drawing home wood from the forest, he mistook
-the pile for a drift and so upset his load.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Indeed, he wrought well!  Kindliness, good temper,
-consideration, these are splendid bases for love.  Not
-that he ever hinted his hope.  He was far too shrewdly
-circumspect.  It speaks for the quality of his wit that
-he recognized that, given differences in rank and station,
-love must steal upon her from ambush.  Startled, she
-would fly behind ramparts that would be proof against
-the small god's sharpest arrows.  So he was very careful,
-masking his feeling under a gentle imperturbability;
-sure that, if not alarmed, she must turn to him in the
-coming time of trouble.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For Morrill had steadily failed since winter set in.
-During the Christmas week he rallied, recovered voice
-and color, improved so much that Helen yielded to his
-wish for her to attend a New Year's party at Mrs. Leslie's;
-and as she kissed him good-bye there was nothing
-to indicate that this was but the last flash, the leaping
-flame which precedes the darkness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A genuine frontier party, it was to be an all-day affair,
-and Carter drove her up in the morning.  New Year had
-broken beautifully: clear, bright, almost warm; for the
-first time in a month the mercury had thawed long
-enough to register twenty-eight below.  There had been
-no wind or drift for a week, so the trail was packed hard,
-and as the ponies swept its curves, balancing the cutter
-on one or the other runner, rapid motion joined with
-pleasurable anticipation to raise the girl's spirits to the
-point of repentance.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Here I'm laughing and chatting," she said, soberly,
-"when I ought to be home with Bert."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nonsense!"  Carter glanced approvingly upon the
-glow which the keen air had brought to her cheeks.
-"You haven't been out for a month, and you were
-getting that pale and peaked.  I shall be with him.  Now
-you just go in for a good time."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His generous solicitude for her happiness, for she was
-going among people he did not like, touched her.  "I
-wish you were coming," she said.  Then she added,
-"Won't you come in—just for a little while—if
-Mrs. Leslie asks you?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He returned her coaxing smile.  "I'll see."  And as
-the men were all away, clearing a slough for skating,
-he stayed long enough to drink a toast with Mrs. Leslie.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That lady's eyes shone with soft approval as, standing
-by the table that was already spread with glass,
-silver, and white napery, he bowed.  "To your continued
-health and beauty."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now wasn't that pretty?" she exclaimed, after he
-was gone.  "Do you know, standing there in his furs,
-so tall and strong, he reminded me of one of those old
-Norsemen who sometimes strayed into degenerate
-southern courts.  You are happy in your cavalier, my dear.
-If he asked me, I believe I'd run away with him."  And
-there was a sigh in her laugh.  For though a good fellow,
-Leslie was prodigiously chuckle-headed, and she had
-moods when his simple foolishness was as unbearable as
-her own frivolity—dangerous moods for a woman of her
-light timber.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I wish," she added, a little later, "that we could
-have persuaded him to stay."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He knew better.  Striding, a conqueror, into southern
-halls, the Norseman cut a mighty figure where he would
-have made but a poor appearance as an invited guest.
-A thought that was expressed in Carter's meditation on
-the homeward drive.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She meant it, shorely!  But, bless her! you ain't to
-be drawn into such a brace game.  You'd look nice
-among those dudes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He had left no fire in his cabin, but he was not
-surprised when, afar off, he saw his stove-pipe flinging a
-banner of smoke to the crystal air.  As yet the northland
-had not achieved refinements in the shape of locks
-and bolts, and, coming in from a forty-mile drive from
-a Cree village, Father Francis, the priest of the
-Assiniboin mission, had put in and brewed a jug of tea.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Easy, courteous in bearing, upright despite his silvered
-years, the priest came to the door and welcomed Carter
-home.  "Not much travel beyond the settlements," he
-said.  "It was pretty heavy going and my ponies are
-tired.  So I'll just accept the old invitation, son, and
-stay the night—that is"—his mellow laugh rang
-out—"if my presence won't make you anathema maranatha
-unto your neighbors."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter knew them, their rigid dogmatism, the bigotry
-which made them look askance at this man who, for
-thirty years, had fought the devil over the face of a
-parish as big as an Eastern State.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't allow that they'll more than excommunicate
-me," he grinned, "and if they do I reckon that you'd
-drop the bars of your fold."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Gladly!" the priest laughed.  "They are always
-down, son."  So, seated by the humming stove with the
-jug steaming between them, the two settled down to
-exchange the news of the neighborhood—an elastic term
-that stretched over territory enough to set an Old-World
-kingdom up in business.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was strange gossip.  To the north of them—and
-not very far at that; old Fort Pelly lay within twenty
-miles—the Hudson Bay Company, the oldest of chartered
-traders, still lorded it over the tribes.  In dark woods,
-on open prairies stood the forts with their storehouses,
-fur lofts waiting groups of Indians.  There Factor,
-Clerk, the Bois Brulés still lived and loved in the
-primitive fashion, careless of the settlement, first wave of
-civilization that was lipping around their borders.  So
-the talk ran on fur packs, mishaps by trail or river,
-sinister doings in the far north, where the aftermath
-of the Metis rebellion was still simmering.  A wild
-budget!  What between it and Carter's choring, dark was
-settling as he and the priest entered Morrill's cabin.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Both started at what they saw.  Despite Carter's
-optimism in Helen's presence, he had been fully alive
-to Morrill's condition, yet—he now stood, shocked,
-grieved in the presence of the expected.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The sick man was wellnigh spent, yet the stroke of
-death brought only a spark from his iron courage.
-"Another hemorrhage!" he whispered.  "Shortly after
-you left.  No, don't go for Helen.  She gets so little
-pleasure.  It is all over.  I'll be all right to-morrow."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But it was </span><em class="italics">not</em><span> all over—though it would be "right"
-on the morrow.  The rising moon saw Carter's ponies
-scouring the ghostly snows.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It had been a jolly party, skating in the afternoon,
-music and dancing in the evening; then, as reserve
-thawed under the prolonged association, they had fallen
-to playing Christmas games.  Forfeits were being
-"declared" as Carter reined in at the door, and Mrs. Leslie's
-merry tones fell like blasphemy upon his ear.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Fine or superfine?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Superfine?  Then that must be Helen!  Captain
-Molyneux will—"  The penalty was drowned in uproar,
-which also smothered his knock.  Followed loud laughter,
-and the door quivered under the impact of struggling
-bodies.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't—please!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now, under Christmas license no girl is particularly
-averse to being kissed, and had Molyneux gone a little
-more gently about it, Helen had probably offered no
-more than the conventional resistance.  But when he
-forced her head back so that her lips would come up to
-his with all the abandon of lovers, she broke his grip,
-and when pinned again against the door, struggled madly.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There was no mistaking her accent.  A flame of
-anger, leaping, confusing, blinded Carter.  His every
-muscle contorted.  From his unconscious pressure, hasp and
-handle flew from the door; as Mrs. Leslie shrieked her
-surprise, his hand dropped on Helen's shoulder, and
-from that small leverage his elbow sent Molyneux
-staggering back to the wall.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The action cleared his brain, calmed the great muscles
-that quivered under his furs with primordial impulse to
-break and tear.  The flush faded from his tan, the flash
-from his eye.  The hasp lay on the floor with the
-handle he had forgotten to turn.  He saw neither them nor
-the guests in their postures of uneasy astonishment.
-Before his mental vision rose the scene he had just left,
-the priest kneeling in prayer beside a dying man.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The reaction of his shove had thrown Helen in against
-him, and her touch recalled his mission.  "Your
-brother—" he began, then paused.  He had meant to break
-it gently, but the confusion of conflicting emotions left
-him nothing but the fact.  "Is—" he went on, then,
-appalled by a sudden sense of the ruthlessness of it, he
-stopped.  But, reading the truth in his eyes, she
-collapsed on his arm.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>To Carter, waiting outside in the moonlight for Helen,
-came Molyneux, and the door closing behind him shut
-in the hum of wonder and the sobbing that came from
-the bedroom where the women were putting on their wraps.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Molyneux was smoking, though, to give him his due,
-he did not require that invaluable aid to a cool bearing.
-Regarding the spirals, curling sharply blue in the
-moonlight, he remarked, "I don't quite understand your
-methods, my friend."  The insolence of the "my friend"
-is indescribable.  "It may be fashionable in Stump town
-to announce bad news by breaking down a gentleman's
-door, but with us—it savors of roughness."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Roughness?</em><span>"  Carter scrutinized the dim horizon.
-"It wasn't all on one side of the door—</span><em class="italics">my friend</em><span>."  His
-mimicry was perfect.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The captain hummed, cleared his throat.  "A little
-Christmas foolery—perfectly allowable."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter's gaze shifted to the nimbus about the moon,
-a clear storm warning.  "Foolery becomes roughness
-when it ain't agreeable to both parties."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Who told you it wasn't?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"My ear.  If yours didn't—it needs training."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Molyneux smoked out a pause that perhaps covered a
-slight confusion.  "Well, I don't care to accept you for
-a music-master.  Under the distressing circumstances,
-I shall have to let it pass—for the present.  But I shall
-not forget."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter smiled at the moon.  "Looks like storm?"</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="mr-flynn-steps-into-the-breach"><span class="bold large">VII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">MR. FLYNN STEPS INTO THE BREACH</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>After putting forth a feeble straggle on the morning
-of the funeral, the pale winter sun retired for
-good as the north wind began to herd the drift over
-vast white steppes.  Though fire had been kept up all
-night in Merrill's cabin by Mrs. Flynn, who had come
-in to perform the last offices, a pail of water had frozen
-solid close to the stove.  After a quarter of an hour in
-the oven, a loaf of bread yet showed frost crystals in its
-centre at breakfast; a drop of coffee congealed as it fell
-in the saucer.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was, indeed, the hardest of weather.  By noon a
-half-inch of ice levelled the window-panes with the sash;
-pouring through the key-hole a spume of fine drift laid
-a white finger across the floor.  Outside, the spirit
-thermometer registered forty-five below.  The very air was
-frozen, blanketing the snow with lurid frost clouds.
-Yet, though a pair of iridescent "sun-dogs" gave storm
-warnings, a score of Canadian settlers, men and women,
-assembled for the service in the cabin.  Severe, silent,
-they sat around on boards and boxes, eying Mrs. Leslie
-and other English neighbors with great disfavor,
-inwardly critical of the funeral arrangements.  For
-ceremony and service had been stripped of the lugubrious
-attributes which gave mournful satisfaction to the
-primitive mind.  Helen herself, in her quiet grief, was
-a disappointment; and she wore no black or other
-grievous emblem.  Worse!  The casket-lid was screwed
-down, and, filched of their prerogative of "viewing the
-corpse," they turned gloomy faces to the theological
-student who had come out from Lone Tree.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Here was an additional disappointment.  Afterwards,
-in the stable, it was held that he had not improved the
-occasion.  Of Morrill, who had been so lax in his
-attendance at occasional preachings as to justify a suspicion
-of atheism, he could have made an edifying text, thrilling
-his hearers with doubts as to whether the man was
-altogether fallen short of grace.  But there was none of
-this.  Just a word on the brother's sunny nature and
-brave fight against wasting sickness, and he was passed
-without doubt of title to mansions in the skies.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't call that no sermon," Hines growled, as he
-thrust a frosty bit into his pony's mouth.  "Missed all
-the good points, he did."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Never heerd the like," said Shinn, his neighbor,
-nearest in disposition as well as location.  "Not a bit
-of crape for the pall-bearers.  I know a person that
-ain't going to be missed much."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I've heerd," another man said, "as he doubted the
-Scriptures.  If that is so—Is it true as the Roman
-priest was with him at the last?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines despondently nodded.  "We'll hope for the
-best," he said, with an accent that murdered the hope.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shinn, however, who never could compass the art of
-suggestion, gave plainer terms to his thought.  "There
-ain't a doubt in my mind.  It's a warning to turn from
-the paths he trod."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You needn't be scairt."  From the gloom of the far
-corner, where he was harnessing the team that was to
-draw the burial sleigh, Bender's voice issued.  "You
-needn't be scairt.  There ain't a damn one of you
-travelling his trail."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Ensued a silence, then Hines snarled, "No, an' I ain't
-agoing to follow him on this.  If you fellows want to
-tag after priests' leavings, you kin.  I'm pulling my
-freight for home."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You're what?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines quailed as Bender's huge body and blue-scarred
-face materialized from the gloom.  "I said as 'twas too
-cold to go to the grave."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You did, eh?  Well, you're going.  Not that your
-presence is necessary, but just because you ain't to be
-allowed to show disrespect to a better man than
-yourself.  Tie up that hoss.  You're agoing to ride with
-me.  An' if there's any other man as thinks his team
-ain't fit to buck the drifts"—his fierce eyes searched
-for opposition—"he'll find room in my sleigh."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So with Hines—albeit much against his will—heading
-the procession, a long line of sleighs sped through the
-mirk drift to the lonely acre which had been set apart
-for the </span><em class="italics">long</em><span> sleep.  A few posts and a single wire
-marked it off from white wastes, and through these the drift
-flew with sibilant hiss, piling against the mounded grave
-which Flynn and Carter had thawed out and dug, inch
-by inch, with many fires, these last two days.  And there
-was small ceremony.  King Frost is no respecter of
-persons, freezes alike the quick and the dead.  Removing
-his cap to offer a short prayer, the student's ears turned
-deathly white; while he rubbed them with snow, the
-mourners spelled one another with the shovels, working
-furiously in vain efforts to warm chilled blood.  Roughly
-filled, the grave was left to be smoothed in warmer
-season; the living fled, leaving the dead with the drift, the
-frost, the wind, stern ministers of the illimitable.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>No woman had dared the weather.  Lying in the
-bottom of a sled, under hides and blankets, with hot
-stones at hands and feet, Helen had gone home with
-Mrs. Leslie.  Coming back from the grave she formed
-the subject of conversation between Flynn and Carter,
-who rode together.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To Flynn's inquiry Carter replied that, as far as he
-was aware, she had no private means.  Her father, a
-physician in good practice in a New England town, had
-lived up to every cent of his income, and the insurance
-he carried had been mortgaged to start the brother out
-West.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Not having any special training," Carter finished,
-"she had to choose between a place in a store or
-keeping house for him."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's no snap in them sthores," Flynn sighed.  "Shmall
-pay an' big temptations, they're telling me."  Then,
-giving Carter the tail of his eye, he added, "But there'll
-be nothing else for it—now?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I don't know," Carter mused.  "Flynn, are you
-and the other married folks around here going to let
-your families grow up in ignorance?  Ain't it pretty
-nigh time you was forming a school district?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In the slit between his cap and scarf the Irishman's
-eyes twinkled like blue jewels.  Affecting ignorance,
-however, he answered, "An' phwere would we be after
-getting a teacher in this frozen country?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Miss Morrill."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Flynn subdued his laugh out of respect to the
-occasion.  "Jest what's in me own mind.  An' there'll be
-no lack av children for the same school, me boy, when
-you—There, don't be looking mad!  'Tis after the
-order of nature; an' I'm not blaming ye, she's sweet
-as she's pretty.  Putting you an' me out av the
-question, I'd do it for her.  An' it shouldn't be so
-hard—if we can corral the bachelors.  But lave thim to me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And Flynn went about it with all the political sagacity
-inherent in his race.  "We'll not be spreading the
-news much," he told the married men to whom he broached
-the subject.  "Not a word till we get 'em in meeting,
-or they'll organize an' vote us down."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Accordingly the summons to gather in public meeting
-was issued without statement of purpose, a mystery
-that brought out every settler for twenty miles around.
-An hour before time, some fifty men, rough-looking
-fellows in furs, arctic socks, moose-skins, and
-moccasins, crowded into the post-office, which, as most
-centrally located, was chosen for the meeting.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The expected opposition developed as soon as the
-postmaster, who presided, mentioned "eddycation."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"More taxation!" a bachelor roared.  "You're to
-marry the girls an' we're to eddycate the kids!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Right you are, Pete!" others chorused.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Flynn was ready.  "Is that you, Pete Ross?"  He
-transfixed the speaker with his blue twinkle.  "An'
-yerself coorting the Brown girl so desprit that she don't
-get time to comb her hair anny more?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"An' you, Bill MacCloud," he went on, as Peter,
-growling that he "wasn't married yet," carried his
-blushing face behind the stove, "you that's galloping
-your ponies so hard after the Baker girl.  Twins it was,
-twice running, in her mother's family, an' well ye know
-it.  A public school ain't good enough for you, Bill?
-Which is to be—a governess, or a young ladies'
-siminery?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So, one after another, Flynn smote the bachelors.
-Had a man so much as winked at a girl, it made a text
-for a sermon that was witty as </span><em class="italics">risque</em><span>.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Yet he was so good-tempered about it that by the
-time he had finished grilling the last victim the
-first-cooked were joining their laughter to that of the
-married men.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Then Flynn turned his eloquence upon a common
-evil.  Everywhere the best of the land had passed into
-the hands of non-resident speculators, who hindered
-settlement and development by holding for high prices.
-"Was it a question of increased taxation?" Flynn asked.
-Then let the non-residents pay.  Under the law they
-could expend eight hundred dollars on a building.  Well,
-they would distribute the contracts among themselves—one
-man cut logs, another hew them, a third draw them,
-and so on!  Every man should have a contract, an' who
-the divil would care if taxes were raised on the
-speculators.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was his closing argument, however, that finished
-the bachelors.  "Now me an' Jimmy have spotted a
-teacher, a right smart young woman—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A howl of applause cut him short—the bachelors
-would call it settled!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Thus it came to pass that as, a week or so after the
-funeral, Carter was driving Helen from Leslie's back to
-her cabin, a deputation consisting of Mr. Flynn and
-Mr. Glaves was heading in the same direction.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>All that week the cabin had stood, fireless, a mournful
-blot on the snowscape, but though she was only to be
-there for the hour required to pack her belongings,
-Carter had swept out the drift that morning and put on
-the fires.  So the place was cosey and warm.  Yet, with
-all its cheer, on entering, she relapsed into the first
-passionate grief.  For nothing is so vividly alive as the
-things of a dead person, and everywhere her glance fell
-on objects her brother had used.  Divining the cause,
-Carter left her to have her cry out on pretence of stable
-chores, and when he returned she was busily packing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So while she worked he talked, explaining her affairs
-as related to himself through his partnership with
-Morrill.  Their cattle were worth so much, but as it
-would require a summer's grazing to fit them for
-market, he would advance the money on her share.  He
-did not mention the fact that he would have to borrow
-it himself at usurer's interest.  As to the homestead:
-Land was unsalable since the bottom fell out of the
-boom, but in any case it was advisable to hold for the
-values that would accrue with the coming of the railroad.
-He would rent it, on settler's terms, paying roadwork
-and taxes for use of the broken land.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As, kindly thoughtful for her interests, he ran on,
-she rose from her packing, grasped his hand impulsively,
-squeezed his arm to her bosom.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You have been so good!"  The sunsets in her cheeks,
-the softness of her glance, her touch, almost upset his
-reason.  But he resisted a mad impulse.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nonsense!" he said, when he could trust himself to
-speak.  "I'm going to make money off you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Really?" she asked, smiling.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Really," he smiled back.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I—wish you could," she sighed.  "But I am afraid
-you are saying that to please me.  Well, you know best.
-Do as you please."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Had he done as he pleased, the question of their mutual
-interests would have been simply solved.  But the time
-was not ripe.  He was too shrewd to mistake gratitude
-for love.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now," he said, resolutely thrusting away temptation,
-"if it's any of my darn business—what are your plans?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"My plans?"  Leaning on the table beside him, she
-gazed dreamily upon the frosted panes.  The question
-forced in upon her the imminence of impending change
-and brought a feeling of strong revulsion.  The ties that
-death forges are stronger than those of life.  It was
-inexpressibly painful, just then, to think of leaving the
-land which held her recent dead.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"My plans!" she mused, knitting her brows.  "I
-haven't any—yet.  Of course I have relatives, back
-East.  But as father did not like them, I hardly know
-more than their names.  I shall have to do something,
-but Mrs. Leslie is so good.  She won't hear of me leaving
-until spring.  I have heaps of time to plan."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But having bucked trail all morning, the solution of
-her immediate future just then heralded its arrival by
-the groan of frosty runners.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Me an' Jimmy," Mr. Flynn explained, after he had
-introduced his co-trustee, "is a depytation.  Being as
-it's the only crop the frost won't nip, Silver Creek is
-going to raise a few legislators.  We want the young
-lady to teach our school."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But," Helen objected, when she had assimilated the
-startling news, "I never taught school."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll nivir begin younger," Flynn comforted; to
-which he added, "An' it's the foinest training agin the
-time ye'll have a few av your own."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mr. Glaves solemnly contemplated the blushing
-candidate.  "You kin sum, ma'am—an' spell?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh yes," she assured him.  "I graduated from high-school."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't say!"  Both trustees regarded her with
-intense admiration, and Glaves said, "We didn't expect
-to get that much for our money, so we'll jest have you
-go a bit easy at first, lest there'll be some sprained
-intellec's among the kiddies."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="when-april-smiled-again"><span class="bold large">VIII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">WHEN APRIL SMILED AGAIN</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>"We'll begin right soon on the building," Mr. Glaves
-had said at parting.  So when the mercury
-began to take occasional flights above zero in the last
-days of February, a gang turned loose in the bush.
-For two weeks thereafter falling trees and the bell-like
-tinkle of a broadaxe disturbed the forest silence.  Then
-spring rode in on the back of a Chinook wind and caught
-them hauling.  Ensued profanity.  Thawing quickly,
-the loose snows slid away from the packed trails, causing
-the sleds to "cut off"; the bush road was mottled with
-overturned loads.  Also the brilliant sun turned the
-snowscape into one huge reflector.  Faces frizzled.
-Dark men took the colors of raw beefsteak, fair men
-peeled and cracked like over-ripe tomatoes.  Yet they
-persisted, and one day in early April stood off to look
-on their finished work.  "Chinked," sod-roofed,
-plastered, the log school-house gleamed yellow under the
-rays of the dying sun—education, the forerunner of
-civilization, had settled in the land.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As his cabin was nearest the school, the honor of
-boarding the teacher fell to the postmaster; and though
-her choice caused heart-burnings among others who
-had coveted the distinction, it was conceded wise.  For
-not only did the Glaves's establishment boast the only
-partitioned room in the Canadian settlement, but his
-wife, a tall, gaunt woman, excelled in the concoction of
-carrot-jams, turnip-pies, choke-cherry jellies, and other
-devices by which skilled housewives eke out the
-resources of an inhospitable land.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In the middle of April school opened; a dozen small
-thirsters after knowledge arranged themselves in demure
-quiethood before authority that was possessed of its
-own misgivings.  Teacher and scholars regarded one
-another with secret awe.  But this soon wore off and they
-toiled amicably along the road which winds among
-arithmetical pitfalls and grammatical bogs to academic
-glories.  It was milestoned by deputations, that road,
-said visitations generally consisting of one
-person—mostly unmarried and very red in the face—who
-inquired if the "kids was minding their book," then went
-off chuckling at his own hardihood.  Also it seemed as
-though all the stray cattle for fifty miles around headed
-for the school.  Helen grew quite expert in ringing
-variations on the fact that she "had not seen a
-strawberry steer with a white patch on the left flank."  Her
-smile always accompanied the answer, and the owners
-of the hypothetical estrays would carry away a vision of
-a golden and glorified school-ma'am.  What of these
-pleasant interests, and an unexpected liking which she
-had developed for the work itself, she became very
-happy in a quiet way as time dulled the edge of her sorrow.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But during the three months that preceded school
-opening the fates had not been idle.  Attending strictly
-to their knitting, they had run a tangled woof in and
-out the warp of several lives.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She's so good!" Helen had exclaimed, in her gratitude
-of Mrs. Leslie; but analysis of that lady's motives
-would have shown them not altogether disinterested.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Excluding a certain absence of principle that was
-organic, and therefore hardly chargeable against her
-till philosophers answer the question, "Can the leopard
-change his spots or the Ethiop his skin?" Mrs. Leslie
-was not fundamentally vicious.  Like the average of
-men and women, she would have preferred to have been
-good, and, given a husband whom she feared and loved,
-she might have developed into a small Puritan mightily
-jealous for their mutual prestige.  Lacking this,
-however, she was as a straw in a corner, ready to rise at
-the first wind puff.  If, so far, she had lived in the fear
-of Mrs. Grundy, her conformity inhered in two causes—no
-man in her own set had stirred her nature, and, till
-Helen came, the winds of Opportunity had blown away
-from Carter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>What drew her to him she herself could hardly have
-said; and if the cause is to be found outside of the
-peculiar texture of her own nature, it must be in the
-natural law which makes opposites attract.  Nature
-wars incessantly against the stratification which
-precedes social decay.  Whether of blood or water, she
-abhors stagnation.  Her torrential floods cleanse the
-backwaters of languid streams; passionate impulses, such
-as Mrs. Leslie's, provide for the injection into worn-out
-strains of the rich corpuscles that bubble from the soil.
-Carter's virile masculinity, contrasting so strongly with
-the amiable effeminacy of her own set, therefore attracted
-Mrs. Leslie, and, having now lassoed Opportunity—in
-the shape of Helen—she hitched the willing beast and
-drove him tandem with inclination.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Either by intuition or knowledge subtly wormed from
-himself or others, she learned Carter's habits, and no
-matter the direction of the drives which she and Helen
-took together, it was pure accident if they did not come
-in touch with him.  Also at intervals they called at his
-cabin, after one of which visits Mrs. Leslie put the
-house-cleaning idea into Helen's head, insinuating it so
-cleverly that the girl actually thought that it originated
-with herself.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Did you </span><em class="italics">ever</em><span> see anything </span><em class="italics">so</em><span> untidy?" she exclaimed,
-as on that occasion they drove homeward.  "Harness,
-cooking-pots, provisions, all in a tangle.  Bachelors are
-such grubby creatures!  But really, my dear, he deserves
-to be comfortable.  Couldn't we do something?—hire
-some one to—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If she had counted on the girl's grateful enthusiasm,
-it did not fail her.  "Let's do it ourselves!" she
-exclaimed.  "I'd love to!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So, in Carter's absence, the two descended upon the
-cabin with soap, pails, and hot water.  Mrs. Leslie, the
-delicate, white-armed woman who kept a girl to do her
-own work, rolled up her sleeves and fell to work like a
-charwoman; and it is doubtful if she were ever happier
-than while thus expending, in service, her reserve of
-illegal feeling.  There was, indeed, something pitiful in
-her tender energy.  When, the cleaning done, she sat
-demurely mending a rent in Carter's coat, she might
-have been the young wife of her imaginings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her sentimental expression moved Helen to laughter.
-"You look </span><em class="italics">so</em><span> domestic!" she tittered.  "So soft and
-contemplative.  One would think—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie was too clever for transparent denial.
-"I don't care," she answered.  "I like him.  He's
-awfully dear."  And her expressed preference affected
-Helen—helped to break down the last barriers of caste
-feeling between herself and Carter.  Till then she had
-always maintained a slight reserve towards him, but
-when, coming in unexpectedly, he caught them at their
-labors, she was as free and frank with him as she had
-ever been with a man of her old set.  The change
-expressed itself in her hand-shake at parting, though it fell
-far short of Mrs. Leslie's lingering pressure.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In his surprise at the quantity and quality of the
-latter, Carter may have returned it, or Mrs. Leslie may
-have mistaken the reaction of her own grip for answer.
-Anyway, she thought he did, and on the way home plead
-weariness as an excuse to indulge luxurious contemplations.
-She fed on his every look, tone, accent, coloring
-them all with her own feeling, an indulgence for which
-she would pay later; indeed, she was even then paying,
-in that it was eating away her weak moral fibre as acid
-eats a metal, preparing her for greater licenses.  At first,
-however, she was timorous—content with small touches,
-accidental contacts, the physical sense of nearness when,
-as often happened, they coaxed him to take them for a
-drive behind his famous ponies.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But such slight fare could not long suffice for her
-growing passion.  Having observed, outwardly, the laws
-of social morality only because, so far, they had
-consorted with inclination; knowing, inwardly, no law but
-that of her own pleasure, it was only a question of time
-until she would become desperate enough to balance
-reputation against indulgence.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This came to pass a couple of months after Helen had
-opened up school, and would have happened sooner but
-that even a reputation cannot be given away without a
-bidder.  Not that Carter was ignorant or indifferent to
-her feeling.  Two thousand years have failed to make
-man completely monogamous and he is never displeased
-at a pretty woman's preference.  A condition had
-interposed between the fire and the tow.  In every man's
-life there comes a time when, for the moment, he is
-impervious to the call of illicit passion.  A first pure
-love bucklers him like a shining ægis, and while certain
-pure eyes looked out upon Carter from earth, air, and
-sky, wherever his fancy strayed, he would not barter a
-sigh for the perishable commodity Elinor Leslie offered.
-Having, however, formed her judgments of men from
-the weak masculinity about her, she could not realize
-this.  Imagining that he would come at the crook of
-her finger, she tried to recapture Opportunity.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Carter was so kind and considerate of Helen
-that I think we ought to take him up," she said to her
-husband one day; and Leslie, whose good-natured
-stupidity lent itself to every suggestion, readily agreed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Unfortunately for her scheme, Carter proved unfelicitously
-blind to his interest—as she saw it.  Negatively,
-he refused to be "taken up," offering good-natured
-excuses to all of Leslie's invitations.  So nothing was
-left but the occasional opportunities afforded by Helen's
-week-end visits.  And these did not always lend
-themselves to Mrs. Leslie's purpose.  When Molyneux brought
-her up—as happened half the time—he made full use of
-his monopoly; while Carter, in his turn, often drove her
-down to see Jenny in Lone Tree.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To do the young lady justice, she held a fairly even
-balance between those, her two cavaliers.  According
-to the canons of romance she ought to have fallen so
-deeply in love with one as to hate the other.  Instead
-she found herself liking them both.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There was, of course, a difference in the quality of her
-feeling.  Strange feminine paradox! she was drawn to
-Molyneux by the opposite of the qualities on which she
-based her feeling for Carter.  At heart woman is a
-reformer, and once convinced of his sincerity towards
-herself, the fact that Molyneux was reputed something
-of a sinner increased rather than lessened her interest.
-She experienced the joys of driving the lion in
-leading-strings, ignoring the danger of the beast turning upon
-her with rending fangs.  Feeling her power, she tried
-to exercise it for his good, and felt as virtuous over the
-business as if it were not a form of vanity, and a
-dangerous one at that.  Anyway, she rode and drove with
-him so much that spring and summer that she practically
-annihilated Mrs. Leslie's chances of seeing Carter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That lady could, however, and did observe him in
-secret.  Riding from home while Leslie was busy
-seeding, she would make a wide détour, keeping the
-lowlands, and so bring up, unobserved, in a poplar clump
-that afforded a near view of Carter's fields.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>One day will example a score of others.  It was, as
-aforesaid, seeding-time.  Stripped of her snowy bodice,
-the earth lay as some brown virgin, her bosom bared to
-man's wooing and the kisses of the sun and rain.  From
-her covert Mrs. Leslie could see his ox-team slowly
-crawling upon the brown fields which, as yet, had known
-no bearing yoke.  Those days love was suggested by
-everything in nature.  The air quivered in passionate
-lines down the horizon.  Warmth, light, love were
-omnipresent.  By every slough the mallard brooded.
-Overhead the wild goose winged northward to bring forth her
-kind on the rim of polar seas.  Prairie cocks primped
-and ruffled on every knoll before their admiring hens.
-To her it seemed that birds and beasts, flesh and fowl
-were happier than she in their matings.  Passionately,
-with bursting sighs, she strained at her chains, wildly
-challenging the marriage institution which has slowly
-evolved from the travail of a thousand generations.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hers was the old struggle between the flesh and the
-spirit, the struggle that gave the sexless desert its
-hermit population.  With this difference: Ancestry had
-bequeathed to her no spirit.  She had nothing to pit
-against the flesh but her own unruly inclination.  For
-her the battle offered no meed of victory in the form of
-chastity triumphant.  The "dice of God were loaded";
-she was striving against the record of foolish or vicious
-fathers.  And she played so hard!  At times, little
-heathen in spite of her culture, her eyes looked out upon
-him from the spring greenery with the tender longing
-of a mother deer; again they blazed with baffled fires;
-often she threw herself down in a passion of tears.  So,
-feeding upon its very privations, her distemper waxed
-until, one June evening, it burst all bounds.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Returning through late gloaming with his weekly
-mail, Carter came on her holding her horse by the trail.
-Her voice, low yet vibrant, issued from the gloom.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm afraid I shall have to trouble you for a ride,
-Mr. Carter; my saddle-girth has burst."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Your hand is wet.  It's blood!" he exclaimed, as he
-handed her in.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I fell on a sharp stone.  Will you please tie this
-handkerchief."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bending to comply, he saw that the wound was clean-cut,
-and this may have caused him to examine the girth
-before he threw the saddle on behind.  Then he knew—was
-certain as though he had seen her slash it with the
-penknife that lay in the scrub near by.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Picking up a stone, he pounded the severed edges on
-the wheel-tire; pounded them to a frazzle while she
-looked on, her pupils dilated in the half light, large, soft,
-black as velvet, intensifying a curious mixture of
-expectation and content.  But if she read consent in the
-pains he was at with her excuse, alarmed surprise
-displaced expectation when, climbing in, he drove on
-without a word.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She glanced up, tentatively, once, twice, a dozen
-times at the erect figure, but always he stared ahead.
-Again and again her scarlet lips trembled, but she
-choked; sound halted on its bitten thresholds.  Once
-she touched his arm, but he drew sharply away and his
-hand rose and flung beaded sweat from his brow.  So,
-for a tumultuous age it seemed to her, they whirled through
-the gathering night, rattled on until a slab of light burst
-through the darkness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Followed Leslie's voice.  "Hullo, Elinor!  What's the
-matter?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She stiffened—Carter felt her stiffen as in a mortal
-rigor—but she answered, in level tones: "Oh, nothing
-much.  My saddle-girth burst and Mr. Carter kindly
-drove me home.  Won't you come in?  Well—I'm ever
-so much obliged.  Good-night."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Whirling homeward through the soft dusk, the tumult
-which had confused Carter resolved into its elements,
-shame, chagrin, wonder, and disgust.  Each swayed
-him in turn, then faded, leaving pity.  Flaring up in
-his cabin, his match revealed only concern on his
-sunburned face.  Taking a packet from under the pillow
-of his bunk, he unfolded it upon the table, exposing a
-glove, a ribbon, and some half-dozen hairs that gleamed,
-threads of gold, under the lamplight.  One by one he
-had gleaned them, picking the first from the back of
-Helen's coat one day coming out of Lone Tree.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As he leaned over the trove there was no mawkish
-sentimentality in his look, rather it expressed wonder,
-wonder at himself.  For his life had not always jibed
-with the canons.  To him in their appointed seasons
-had come the heats of youth; and if now they had
-merged in the deeper instinct which centres on a single
-mate, the change had been sub-conscious.  The house
-he had built, the land he tilled, the herds he had gathered
-about him were all products of this instinct, provision
-against mating, for the one—when he should find her.
-Yet, though found, he wondered; wondered at the
-powerful grip which that small hand had wound into his
-heart-strings, that those golden threads should be able
-to bind with the strength of cables.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He did not puzzle long.  Presently concern again
-darkened his countenance, and he murmured, "Poor
-little woman! poor little thing!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Could he have seen her just then!  Leslie was out
-talking horse with Molyneux at the stables, so no eye
-saw her when, in the privacy of her bedroom, she
-snatched the mask from her soul.  At first stupefied,
-she stared dully at familiar objects until her glance
-touched a portrait of Helen on the dresser.  That fired
-her passion, started the wheels of torture.  Dashing
-it to the floor, she ground her heel into the smiling
-face, raving in passionate whispers; then flinging at
-length on the bed she writhed like a hurt snake, struck
-her clinched fists into the pillows, bit them, her own
-hands, soft arms.  She agonized under the scorn that
-belittles hell's fury.  Truly, out of her indulgences, her
-pleasant mental vices, the gods had twisted whips for
-her scourging!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But if whips, as claimed, are deterrents of physical
-crimes, they stimulate moral diseases; and whereas,
-previously, Mrs. Leslie had been merely good-naturedly
-frivolous, she came from under the lashes a dangerous
-woman—the more dangerous because there was no
-outward indication of the inward change.  With Helen,
-whom Molyneux brought up at the next week-end,
-she was, if anything, kinder in manner, loving her with
-gentle pats that gave no suggestion of steel claws
-beneath the velvet.  These, however, protruded, when the
-girl borrowed her horse to pay a visit to Carter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie and Molyneux watched her away from
-the door.  The lady had plead a headache in excuse
-for staying at home, but her eyes were devoid of weary
-languor.  They had flashed as she averted them from
-the mended saddle-girth.  They glittered as she now
-turned them on Molyneux.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Calvert, you amuse me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" he asked, flushing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Such devotion in that last lingering glance.  It was
-worthy of a boy in a spasm of calf-love rather than the
-dashing cavalryman who has tried to add my reputation
-to the dozen that hang at his belt."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Molyneux shrugged denial.  "That's not true, Elinor.
-I'm too good a hunter to stalk the unattainable."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She laughed, bowing.  "Do I sit on such high peaks
-of virtue?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Or of indifference.  It amounts to the same.  Anyway,
-I saw that there was no chance for </span><em class="italics">me</em><span>."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Again she laughed.  "What </span><em class="italics">significance</em><span>!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well—I'm not blind, as—Leslie, for instance.  I
-only wonder."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"At what?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Your taste."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She made a face at Helen's distant figure.  "I might
-return your thought.  After all, Calvert, from our
-viewpoint, you know, she's only a higher type of
-native—dreadfully anthropomorphic."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Exactly," he answered.  "And that's why I"—pausing,
-he substituted an adverb more in accordance
-with Mrs. Leslie's ironical mood—"like her.  She's
-fresh, sound, and clean of body and mind.  Clings to
-the ideals we chucked overboard a hundred years ago—lives
-up to them with all the vim and push of her race.
-She stirs me—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"As a cocktail does a jaded palate," Mrs. Leslie
-interposed.  "And a good enough reason; it will serve for
-us both, since you are so frank, Calvert.  It is not your
-fancy I am laughing at, but your diffidence, the morbid
-respectability with which you wait till it pleases her to
-give that which you have been accustomed to command
-from others.  It is quite touching....  But why this
-timidity?  Why do you linger?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Because—"  He paused, feeling it impossible to
-yield the real reason up to her mockery; to tell that the
-girl had touched a deeper chord of feeling than had ever
-been reached by a woman's hand; that she had broken
-the cynical crust which had been formed by years of
-association with the sophisticated women of the army
-set.  He threw the onus back on her.  "That's rich,
-Elinor.  Here, for months, you have fenced her about;
-given her steady chaperonage; warned me to tone
-down to avoid giving offence.  Now you ask why?
-Have you forgotten how you rated me for my violence
-in pressing her under the mistletoe?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Pish!"  She contemplated him scornfully.  "I only
-advised caution.  And then—"  She also paused; then,
-thrusting reserve to the winds, went on: "And then
-she hadn't come between me and—my wish.  Now she
-has.  And let me tell you, my friend"—she returned to
-her "cocktail" simile—"that while you linger, inhaling
-virginal aromas, a strong hand will slip in and drain the
-glass.  Will you stand by and see her sweetness sipped
-by another?  Now, don't strike me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He looked angry enough to do it, but contented himself
-with throwing back her question, "Why do you linger?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Because I cannot drain my cup"—her lips quivered
-thirstily—"till yours is out of the way.  He has the
-bad taste to prefer her spotlessness to my—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Sophistication?" he supplied.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She nodded.  "Thanks.  And he will continue to do
-so until you take her out of the way.  So—it is up to
-you, as the boys say.  I think, too, that she suspects
-that my interest is not altogether platonic, and as a
-commodity enhances in value as it is desired by others,
-her liking may be spurred into love.  At present she's
-balanced.  Likes you, I know.  Better strike while the
-iron is hot."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I would if I thought—" he began, then went on,
-musingly: "But I've sized it up as slow-going.  Didn't
-think she was the kind that can be rushed."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie snorted her disdain.  "You?  With all
-your experience!  To set her on a pinnacle!  How long
-before you men will learn that we would rather be taken
-down and be hugged.  While the saint worships at the
-shrine the sinner steals the image.  I warrant you my
-big American won't waste any time on his knees.
-However, I've warned—here comes Fred from the stables."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That was not the end of their talk.  It recurred at
-every opportunity; and by the time Helen returned
-Molyneux was persuaded against his better judgment
-that he had gone too easily about his wooing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What thou doest, do quickly," she whispered, as he
-went out to hitch to take Helen home.  And as they
-drove away she gazed long after them from the door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>What was she thinking?  Given a woman of firmer
-texture, one whose acts flowed from steady impulses, in
-turn the effects of settled character, thought may be
-guessed.  But Mrs. Leslie's light nature veered to every
-wind of passion.  She could not even hate consistently.
-Was she swayed altogether by revenge, or, as hinted by
-her talk with Molyneux, was hope beginning to rise from
-the ashes of despair?</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-devil"><span class="bold large">IX</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE DEVIL</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>If, as said, the devil can quote Scripture for his own
-purposes, it does not follow that said purposes are
-always fulfilled.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Molyneux had better have followed his intuition and
-"gone slowly."  But if, in brains and capacity, he
-towered above the average of his remittance-fellows, the
-taint of his ancient blood yet showed in a pliability to
-suggestion, a childish eagerness to snatch unripe fruit.
-Whereas, by a quiet apology, he had long ago repaired
-his error in the Christmas games, he must now commit
-greater foolishness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Consciously and unconsciously, in varying degrees,
-Helen aided his blundering.  She could not help looking
-her prettiest.  But her delicacies of cream and rose,
-the tender mouth, the bosom heaving under its lace,
-did not require the accentuation of coquetry.  It was
-the healthy coquetry of the young animal, to be sure,
-unconscious, as much as can be.  She need not,
-however, have authorized his gallantries with laugh and
-smile—would not, had she realized his limitations, his
-confused morality, subordinance to passion, emotional
-irresponsibility.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Afterwards she had but a confused notion how the
-thing came to pass.  They laughed, chatted, jested,
-while the tenderness in his manner bordered more and
-more on the familiar.  He had been telling her of the
-strange marriage custom of an Afghan tribe and had
-asked how she would like such a forceful wooing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I think," she answered, "that a strain of the primitive
-inheres in our most cultured women.  I'm sure I
-could never love a man who was not my master."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She spoke thoughtfully, considering the proposition
-in the abstract; but he, in his blind folly, interpreted
-concretely.  In the sudden lighting of his face she read
-her mistake.  But before she could put out a hand in
-protest, his arms were about her, his searching lips
-smothered her cry.  She fought wildly, spent her
-strength in a desperate effort, then capitulated—lay,
-panting, while he fed on her face, neck, hair, her lips.
-And it was well she did.  Prolonged resistance would
-only have provoked him to freer license.  As it was,
-mistaking quiescence for acquiescence, he presently held
-her off that his hot eyes might share the spoil.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She now fully realized her danger.  His expression,
-the glassy look of his eyes filled her with repulsion, but
-she summoned to her aid all the craft that centuries of
-dire need have bred in her race.  She smiled up in his
-face, rather a pallid smile, but sufficient for his fooling.
-A playful hand held him back from another kiss.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You are very rough," she whispered.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Consider the provocation," he answered, dodging the hand.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She tried not to shrink.  "You upset me," she murmured.
-"I am quite faint.  Is there any water near by?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She had noticed a slough ahead.  Driving into it, he
-bent over and wet her handkerchief.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now if I could only drink."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He stepped ankle-deep into the water.  "Out of my
-hands."  But as he stooped, with concave palms, there
-came a rattle behind him.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Uttering an oath, he sprang—too late.  As he waded
-to dry land she swung the ponies in a wide circle and
-reined in about fifty yards away.  While he looked
-sheepishly on, she wiped her face with the kerchief,
-rubbed and scrubbed till the skin shone red where his
-lips had touched, then tossed the kerchief towards him
-and drove on.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A prey to remorse, shame, he stood gazing after.
-All said, a man's ideals are formed by the people about
-him.  A virtuous woman, a leal friend, raise his
-standard for the race; and just then Molyneux would have
-given his life to place himself in the friendly relation
-that obtained between them a half-hour ago.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But he could not.  Nor could all of Helen's vigorous
-rubbing remove the memory of those shameful kisses.
-Her bitten lips were scarlet when, a quarter-hour later,
-she rattled up to Carter's shanty; her eyes were heavy
-with unshed tears.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now here was a first-class opportunity for him to play
-the fool.  An untimely question, a little idiotic
-sympathy would have put him in a worse case with her than
-Molyneux.  But though inwardly perturbed, shaking
-with anxiety, he kept a grip on himself.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Such reckless driving!" he exclaimed, harking back
-to her own words on that first drive from Lone Tree.
-Then solemnly surveying Molyneux's hat, which was
-perched funnily on the seat beside her, he went on,
-"Looks like you've lost a passenger."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His twinkle removed the tension.  Looking down on
-the hat, she laughed; and if, a minute later, she cried,
-the tears that wet his shoulder were not cast against him.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If you will return the ponies," she said, when her
-cry was out—she had already told him enough to
-explain the situation—"I'll stay here till you come back
-and then you may drive me home—if you will?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And I'll find him?"  She laughed at his comical
-accent as he intended she should.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"About three miles back."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Any message?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She sensed the menace.  "Oh no!  If you quarrel,
-I'll never, never forgive you.  Now, please!"  She placed
-her hand on his arm.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"All right," he agreed, and, five minutes later drove
-off with the Devil pony in leash behind.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>From afar Molyneux saw him coming and braced
-for the encounter, but Carter had gotten himself well
-in hand.  "Miss Morrill," he said, "is real sorry she
-couldn't hold the ponies.  But, Lordy, man, you oughtn't
-to have gone picking flowers."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He's lying!" Molyneux thought, but followed the
-lead.  "Yes, it was careless.  But, you know, it is
-always the unexpected that happens."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You're dead right there."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The significance caused Molyneux to redden; but he
-tried to carry it off easily.  "And I'm much obliged to
-you, Mr. Carter.  Can't I drive you home?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Turning from cinching his saddle, Carter regarded
-him steadily.  "Obliged to you, sir.  I'm a bit
-particular in my choice of company."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The contempt stung Molyneux to retort: "You are
-plain-spoken, but I'm told the trait is common in
-Americans.  Fortunately for us outsiders, your women are
-more complaisant."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It only led him deeper.  Giving a last vicious tug at
-the cinch, Carter vaulted into the saddle.  "Yes," he
-shot back, as he arranged his bridle, "they make a
-mistake now and then, but it don't take 'em long to
-find it out."  And he galloped away with easy honors.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Reining in at his own door half an hour later, he
-regarded with astonishment a transformation which had
-occurred in his absence.  Instead of the woman,
-beautiful in her angry tears, a demure girl came out to meet
-him.  While he was gone she had bathed her red eyes,
-then, to relieve a headache, had let down her hair and
-braided it into a plait of solid gold.  Thick as Carter's
-wrist, it hung so low that, obedient to his admiring
-suggestion, she easily knitted it about her waist.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You look," he said, "more like school-girl than
-school-marm."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>With that simple coiffure displaying the girlish line
-of her head and neck, she might, indeed, have easily
-passed for eighteen.  It accentuated a wee tip-tilt of
-her pretty nose, a leaning to the </span><em class="italics">retroussé</em><span> that had been
-the greatest trial of her youth and still caused her
-occasional qualms.  Could she have realized the piquancy
-it lent to features that, otherwise, had been too regular
-or have known the sensation it caused her companion
-as he looked down on it and her eyelashes fluttering up
-from eyes that were wide and grave with question.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>One glance reassured her.  His unruffled calm, the
-ironic humor of his mouth, all expressed his mastership
-of the late situation.  Satisfied, she mounted beside him
-when he had hitched the ponies and settled in against
-him with a sigh of relief.  Not that she had so easily
-forgotten her late trouble.  The injured droop of her
-mouth, the serious face moved him to vast sympathy
-and anger.  He longed to smooth the knit brow with
-kisses, to take her in his arms and soothe her as a little
-child.  For a second time that day her mouth stood in
-hazard, but, bracing himself against temptation, he tried
-to wean her from her brooding by ways that were safer
-if less sweet.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Any one," he said, twinkling down upon her, "would
-think you'd lost your best friend—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Instead of my worst," she anticipated.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Glad you put it that way."  He nodded his satisfaction.
-"And since you do, why waste regrets?  Jest
-wipe him clean off your books."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It is bitter to learn that you have been deceived,"
-she answered.  "More bitter to feel yourself misread.
-Most bitter"—her voice dropped to a whisper—"to
-learn it in such a shameful way."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He did not say, "I warned you."  Only his big brown
-hand closed on hers with a sympathetic squeeze that
-almost expelled the pain in her heart.  She did not
-withdraw it; rather she drew in closer, and thus, hand
-in hand, they rattled south over the vast green
-prairies which now were all shotten with the iridescence
-of myriad flowers.  The trail wound through seas of
-daisies, bluebells, white tuft.  Slender golden-rod
-trembled in the breeze; dandelions and tiger-lilies flaunted
-their golden beauty under turquoise skies.  It was,
-indeed, difficult to remain sad with such company in
-such surroundings; for not content with mute
-sympathy, he strove to divert her thought by talk of the
-animals or plants which they saw or passed, astonished
-her with his wide knowledge of curious traits in their
-nature or history.  So, gliding from subject to subject,
-he weaned her from her trouble, and so, by easy stages,
-came to speaking of himself, modestly introducing the
-subject with a letter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was from the office of the traffic manager of the
-trunk line acknowledging a bid for tie and trestle
-contracts for the projected branch through Silver Creek.
-While Cummings, Hines, and their confrères were
-fulminating against the railroad pantheon, Carter had
-ridden over the spruce ranges of the Riding Mountains,
-had secured options on cutting permits from the
-provincial government, had driven down the old survey, and
-then submitted an estimate which caused the construction
-department of the railway to gasp its astonishment.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The chief engineer even carried the estimate to the
-traffic manager.  "Ties and timbers, this fellow Carter
-comes within a few thousand feet of old Sawyer's
-estimate," he said.  "Moreover, he is ready to deliver the
-goods.  Gives references to the Bank of America, which
-is to finance his enterprise.  Who is he?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>One would hardly expect the traffic manager to have
-remembered, but he had; and thus it came about that
-the postscript of the letter was in his own big sprawl.
-He regretted the fact that construction had been put
-off for another year, "but," he added, "I have placed
-your bid on my own files and shall see that it receives the
-earliest consideration when we are ready for construction."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen exclaimed her satisfaction.  "I'm so glad.  I
-never knew that—you could do this kind of work.
-Why didn't you tell me?  I'm so interested.  Will it
-be a large contract?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her eyes testified to her words, and as, obedient to
-her wish, he ran on giving details, they grew larger and
-more luminous.  A touch of awe dwelt in their hazel
-depths.  Feeling always the attraction of his fine
-physique, respecting his strength of will, clean character,
-he now commanded her admiration on another score.
-Was he not proving himself "fit" in the iron struggle of
-an economic age?  And she, delicate bloom, crowning
-bud of the tree of evolution, being yet subject to the
-law that, of old, governed the cave maiden in her choice
-of a mate, felt the full force of this last expression of
-his power.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As never before, she responded to his thought and
-feeling.  When, after a sudden lurch, he left his
-supporting arm on the rail across her waist, she did not
-draw away; nay, she yielded to a luxurious sense of
-protection and power, leaning in against his shoulder.
-That day all things had conspired in his favor—even
-her pique at Molyneux—and now the rapid movement,
-caressing sweep of the wind, riot of color and sunlight,
-all helped to influence her judgment in a situation that
-was rapidly approaching.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It lay, the situation, in a deep pool, ten feet below
-the bank of Silver Creek.  As before noted, Death and
-the Devil, those lively ponies, were, as Carter put it,
-"worth watching" any and all the time on the dead
-level, and the fact that he held a loose line on them
-running down trail into the valley proved how very,
-very far he had departed from his usual imperturbable
-mood.  Small wonder, for the hazel glances he had
-sustained this last hour would have upset the coolest
-head.  But if his condition was perfectly natural, so
-also was the innate deviltry that caused the ponies to
-bolt the trail and plunge over the aforesaid bank.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen could never tell just how it happened.  After
-two seconds' furious bumping, she felt herself lifted
-bodily.  Followed a crash as they fell.  That was the
-impact of the buggy wheel with Carter's head.  The
-arms loosened as she took the icy plunge, then came a
-half-minute's suffocating struggle while the current was
-carrying her out to the shallows.  Wet, draggled, she
-stumbled shoreward; then, as the water cleared out of
-her eyes, she turned and plunged wildly back.  Face
-downward, Carter was floating over a two-foot shallow
-and another second would have carried him into a longer
-and deeper pool.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As for him, returning consciousness brought him
-sensations of something soft under his splitting
-head—that was Helen's bosom; of arms about his neck;
-lips that wildly kissed his and which opened with a
-glad cry when he moved.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I thought you were dead!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For one blissful moment she allowed him to gaze in
-at the clear windows of her soul; then remembering the
-unusual but effective restorative she had used in the
-case, she flamed out in sudden colors, the banners of
-discovered love.  Never was maid in such a predicament!
-Was it fair to expect that she would let fall a
-head that had been damaged in her cause?  She could
-only wait until, having fed his eyes full on her sweet
-distress, he reached up and pulled her blushing face
-down upon his own.  The sun, the wind, the rippling
-water alone witnessed her surrender.  After a while a
-grizzled badger peered at them from his hole, pronounced
-them harmless, and so came forth upon his errands.  A
-colony of gophers laid aside serious business to note,
-heads askew, loves that differed so little from their own.
-A robin cried shame upon them from a willow near by.
-But they were not ashamed.  An hour slid by without
-either thinking of such sub-lunary matters as damaged
-heads or wet clothing; at the end of which Death and
-the Devil, having accomplished the complete destruction
-of the buck-board, came back to look for their
-master—probably associating him with the evening feed
-of oats—and fell to cropping the grass along the creek.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Then she spoke, softly, blushing again.  "You must
-think me shameless, but—I did—I really thought you
-were dead."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Ain't you glad I'm not?"  She never noticed the
-"ain't," this young lady who had originally sized him
-as an underbred person.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She did not answer, but he mightily appreciated the
-sudden tightening of her arms.  "But what must you
-think of me?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He told all—of his resolution the moment he saw
-her on the Lone Tree platform; of his hope, fears, dark
-despair, the hell he had suffered on Molyneux's account.
-A soft hand cut short this last revelation, and immediately
-they fell again into one of love's deep silences, an
-eloquent pause that endured until the westering sun
-threw long shadows across the creek.  Then, rising, he
-caught the ponies and arranged saddles with blankets
-and straps from the broken harness, while she looked
-on with soft attention.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mounted, they paused and looked back at the stream,
-ruby red under the dying sun, the clay bank, the
-bordering willows, then they kissed each other soberly and
-rode on.  Dusk was blanketing the prairies when they
-drew up at Flynn's cabin, yet it was not too dark for
-Mrs. Flynn's sharp eyes to pick their secret.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's the new school-ma'am ye'll need to be looking
-for," she told Flynn.  "Why?  Man, didn't ye see him
-look at her, an' her that lovely red, her eyes pretty as a
-mother deer's, an' her voice soft an' cooing as a dove's.
-Flynn, Flynn! ye've forgotten your own courting."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>One fine morning, two months later, Molyneux's drivers
-spun out of his stable enclosure and rattled south
-at a pace that did not keep up with their driver's impatience.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>These two months had certainly been the unhappiest
-of his life.  A man's opinions, philosophy, must, if they
-have vitality at all, be formed upon the actions of those
-about him, upon the phenomena which life presents to
-his reason.  This, however, does not altogether annul
-the force of those ideals of conduct for himself and
-others which were learned at his mother's knee.
-Always they persist.  Granted that loose life may smother
-the plant so that it produces neither fruit nor leafage,
-yet the germ is there—the assurety that beyond the
-rotten pale of fast society lies a fair land where purity,
-chastity, goodness, the virtues one firmly incarnates in
-the person of mother, sister, or girl friend, do grow and
-flourish.  Under the foulness of the most determined
-roué lies the ineradicable belief that had Lot sought
-righteousness among the women of Sodom that wicked
-city had never been destroyed.  One clean, wholesome
-girl will shake a man's faith in baseness, torture him
-with a vivid sense of his own backslidings, and now
-that passion's scales were fallen from his eyes, Molyneux
-appreciated at their full worth the naïve mixture of
-innocence and womanly wisdom, the health, strength,
-and wholesomeness of character that set Helen apart
-from his light acquaintance.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Fool! fool!" he had told himself again and again.
-"She is worthy of a king—if one could be found worthy
-of her.  And you had a fair chance!  Oh, you fool!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nor had he failed to write her a letter of apology.  He
-had done that in the first agonies of repentance, six weeks
-ago, and, receiving no answer, had taken the ensuing
-weeks to screw his courage to the point of asking pardon
-in person.  But now that it was there he was possessed
-of a wild exhilaration that took no thought of refusal.
-She could hardly fail to pardon a suppliant for crimes
-that were instigated by her own beauty, and one so
-becomingly repentant!  Full of the consciousness of his
-own virtuous intention, it was quite easy for him to
-credit Helen with the magnanimity that would be its
-reciprocal feeling; and this once established, himself
-pardoned in thought, he passed to day-dreams.  Her
-smile, the sweet tilt of her pretty nose, her glory of
-golden hair, her every physical and mental charm, passed
-in mental review, beguiling the tedium of the trail till
-the school-house thrust up over the horizon.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Then his mood changed.  Its squat, obtrusive materiality
-thrust into his consciousness, shattering the filmy
-substance of his dreams, and as he noticed the closed
-windows, shut door, doubt replaced elation, depression,
-the black antithesis of his late mood, settled down upon
-him.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As he sat staring a voice hailed him.  "Been riding
-ahint of you this half-hour, but you never looked back.
-Fine haying weather, ain't it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Startled, Molyneux turned to find Jed Hines surveying
-him with an irritating smile.  His expression plainly
-revealed that not only did he know Molyneux's errand, but
-that he was viewing it under the light of humorous secret
-knowledge.  Restraining an impulse to remodel the
-expression, he said, nonchalantly as he could: "What is the
-matter here?  School closed?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines nodded.  He had all the Canadian's traditional
-hate of the remittance-man; Molyneux, in especial, he
-detested, because, perhaps by his superior shrewdness,
-he gave less cause for contempt than the race in general.
-That he had paused to speak was proof sufficient that he
-had unpleasant news.  He would, however, take his own
-time in delivering it—prolong the torture to the limit.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Midsummer holidays," he laconically answered.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Molyneux ignored his curtness.  "Miss Morrill at
-Glaves's place, do you know?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Jed's grin widened.  "You hain't heard, then?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Heard what?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Jed gazed off and away over the prairies.  "No, you
-won't find her at Glaves's."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>How Molyneux longed to spoil the grin.  But a deadly
-anxiety constrained him.  "Where is she, then?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nowheres around here."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you know?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You bet!"  The grin gave place to malignant satisfaction.
-"Yes, I know—that is, I kin guess, though I
-wouldn't if I thought it would do you any good.  As it
-won't—Let me see—she was married a week ago by
-the Roman priest.  Jedging by averages, I reckon as
-you orter find her in Carter's arms."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If he had expected his news to produce a disagreeable
-impression he was not disappointed, for its visible
-manifestation landed full in his face, and he dropped flat on
-his shoulders.  Not lacking a certain wolf courage, primitive
-ferocity of the cornered rat, he sprang up, lunged at
-Molyneux, and went down a second time.  Then he stayed,
-watching until the other had jumped into his buggy
-and driven away.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I never saw the devil!" he muttered, shaking his fist,
-"but your face, jes' then, came mighty near the preacher's
-description."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="friction"><span class="bold large">X</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">FRICTION</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Once upon a time a man wrote a book that proved
-how easily a cultured Eastern girl might fall in
-love with and marry a Western cow-boy.  It was a
-beautiful story, about people who were beautiful or
-picturesque according as they were good or bad, but it
-ended just where, in real life, stories begin.  After the
-manner of fairy tales, the author assured us that the
-girl and the cow-boy lived happily ever after.  Now I
-wonder if they did?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A year later a big bull-fly thudded at the screen door
-of Carter's cabin in vain efforts to enter and take toll of
-Helen's white flesh.  By the gentlemen who ordain the
-calendar, a year is given as a space of time between
-points that are fixed, immutable as the stars.  Sensible
-folk know better.  Years vary—are long or short according
-to the number, breadth, and depth of the experiences
-their space covers.  This year had marked Helen.  She
-was fuller lipped, rounder, enveloped by the sensuous
-softness of young wifehood.  Sitting at table with her
-white blouse tucked in at the neck for coolness, she had
-never looked prettier.  But granting these attributes of
-her changed condition, a keen observer would have
-missed that gentle brooding, ripe fruit of content which
-exhales from the perfectly mated woman.  As, time and
-again, her glance touched Carter, sitting opposite, she
-would sigh, ever so gently, yet sigh; the direction of her
-glance told also that her discontent was associated in
-some way with his shirt-sleeves, rolled to the elbow, and
-his original methods in the use of his knife and fork.
-Grasping these implements within an inch of their
-points, he certainly secured a mighty leverage, yet
-undoubtedly lost in grace what he secured in power, besides
-pre-empting more elbow-room than could be accorded to
-one person at a dinner-party.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Tut! tut!" she observed, timidly, after tentative
-observation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, shore!  There I go again!"  His quick answer
-and the celerity with which his hands crawfished back
-to the handles told of many corrections; yet five
-minutes later they had stolen out once more to the old
-familiar grip.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She sighed again.  It was not that she had wished
-to hobble her frontiersman, to harness him to the
-conventions.  Her feeling flowed from a larger source.
-Believing him big of brain and soul as of body, she
-would have had him perfect in small things as he was
-great in large, that her ideal should be so filled and
-rounded out as to leave no room for sighs.  To this end
-she had, from the first, attempted small polishments,
-which he had received with whimsical good-humor that
-took no thought of how vital the matter was with her.
-Had he realized this he might have made a determined
-effort instead of a slack practice which flows from easy
-complaisance; but, not realizing it, he made no
-headway.  In these last months she had gained insight into
-that philosophical axiom: It is easier to make over a
-dozen lovers than one husband.  Unlike the girl in the
-aforesaid beautiful story, she had begun reconstruction
-at the wrong side of the knot.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Not that this unwelcome truth would or could, of
-itself, have affected her love in quality or quantity.
-At times she agonized remorsefully over her tendency
-to criticism, tutoring herself to look only for the large
-things of character.  Again, when, of nights, she would
-slip to his arms for a delightful hour before retiring, she
-would wonder at herself: every last vestige of
-discontent evaporated with her murmured sigh of perfect
-happiness.  These were great moments for both.  Lying
-so, she would look up in his bronzed face and listen
-while, in his big way, he talked and planned, unrolling
-the scroll of their future—listen patiently until he
-became too absorbed, when she would interrupt with some
-kittenish trick to draw him back into the delightful
-present.  Pretty little tricks, loving little tricks, that
-one would never have dreamed lay hidden under the
-exterior of the staid young school-ma'am.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But these, after all, were moods, and there had been
-other and real cause of discontent.  First, the railway
-gods had again broken faith with the settlers; and every
-cent that Carter could raise or borrow had been required
-to meet rents on his timber concessions.  Though not in
-actual want, they had had to trim expenses, reduce their
-living to the settler scale.  Having all of a pretty
-woman's natural love of finery, Helen could see no way
-of restoring her depleted wardrobe.  Moreover, there was
-the choring, washing, milking of cows, feeding of calves,
-inseparable from pioneer settler life—a burden that was
-not a whit the less toilsome because self-assumed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter would have spared her all that—was, indeed,
-angry when, coming in late one night, he caught her
-toiling at the milking.  "I didn't know it was so hard,"
-she pleaded, holding up her swollen wrists.  "But I
-couldn't bear to see you come in, tired, at dark, then go
-on with the chores while I sat in the house."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He had made her promise not to do it again.  But
-she did, and his protests, vigorous at first, slackened,
-until, finally, the choring had come to be regarded as
-hers as a matter of course.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Even the climate was against her, conspiring against
-her peace of body if not of mind.  The previous winter
-had been the bitterest in a score of years, temperatures
-ranging from forty below zero, with a yard of snow on
-the level, fifty-foot drifts in the bluffs, and hundred-mile
-winds to drive cold and snow through the thickest of
-log walls.  For days she had sat in her furs by the
-red-hot stove, while the blizzard roared about the cabin,
-walling it in fleecy snows—sat listening to the agonized
-shout of wind-blown trees, the squeal of poplar brake,
-the smash of rent branches, the thunderous storm voice
-that was spaced only by distant crashes as the lords of
-the forest went down to stiff ends.  North, south, east,
-west had veered these terrible winds, freighting always
-their inexhaustible snows.  The trails were blown from
-earth's face; solitary blotch, their cabin rose like a reef
-from an ocean of whiteness; and they, castaways, were
-practically divorced for days, and sometimes weeks, from
-all communication with their kind.  Hardly less terrible
-had been the calms, the vast frozen silences as of
-interplanetary space that followed the blizzard, ruling the
-snowy steppes.  They filled her with a terrifying sense
-of the illimitable, those silences, vivid as though she, a
-lonely soul, were travelling through vast voids of time
-and space.  She shrank under them, afraid.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Followed a mosquito year in a mosquito country.
-Fattened by the heavy snows, stagnant sloughs held
-water till late in the summer and so bred the pests by
-myriads of myriads.  Of nights the tortured air whined
-of them.  By day their cattle hung about the corrals,
-cropping the grass down to the dust, or if they did
-wander farther afield, came galloping madly back to the
-smudges.  For two months any kind of travel had been
-impossible; clouds of the pests would settle on hands,
-face, neck quicker than one could wipe them off.
-Milking and choring had to be done under cover of a
-thick reek to an accompaniment of lashing tails, with
-frequent and irritating catastrophes in the way of
-overturned pails.  The acrid odor of smoke clung to
-everything—hair, clothing, flesh; the cabin was little better
-than a smoke-house until the heat had mitigated the
-pests while adding its own discomforts.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a dull life enough for men whose tasks were
-broken by periodical trips to market; it was
-martyrdom for housefast women.  Always around the shanty
-mourned the eternal winds of the plains.  Wind!  Wind!
-Wind in varying quantity, from a breeze to a blizzard,
-but always wind.  Its melancholy dirge left a haunting
-in the eyes of men.  Its ceaseless moan prepared many
-a plainswoman for the madhouse.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>With bright hope at heart to gild the future, she
-might have endured both discomfort and drudgery, but
-the postponement of construction work on the branch
-line had killed immediate hope.  With dismay she
-realized a certain coarsening of body and mind, a thickening
-of finger-joints, roughness of skin, an attenuation
-where milking had turned the plump flesh of her arms
-into gaunt muscle.  And to her the thought of that
-far-off summer day recurred with increasing frequency—would
-this equilibration with environment end by leaving
-her peer to the scrawny, flat-chested women of the
-settlements?  She who had excelled in the small
-arts—music, painting, modelling in wax and clay?  Her past,
-in such seasons of depression, seemed now as that of
-some other girl—a girl who had worn pretty dresses and
-been admired and petted by father, brother, and friends.
-Of all her gifts, her voice, a sweet contralto, was only
-left her; and of late it had naturally attuned itself to
-her sadder moods.  So she had felt her life shrink and
-grow narrow, until looking down the vista of frozen
-winters, baking summers, they seemed, those weary
-years, to draw to a dull, hard point, the wind-swept acre
-with its solitary grave.  Conditions had certainly
-combined to produce in her a subconscious discontent that
-might develop into open revolt against her lot at the
-touch of obscure and apparently insignificant cause; they
-reinforced and made dangerous the irritation caused by
-his little gaucheries.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As aforesaid, her dark moods alternated with spasms
-of remorse—fits of melting tenderness in which she
-condemned herself for her secret criticism of him.  Peeping
-through their bedroom window only the preceding night,
-the moon had caught her bending over his sleep.  The
-tender light absorbed his tan, softened the strong
-features without taking from their mobility; deeply shading
-the hollows, it gave his whole face an air of clear-cut
-refinement.  Its wonderful alchemy foreshadowed the
-possibilities of this life, lying so quiescent beneath her
-eyes.  For a long hour she held the vigil, while thought
-threw flitting shadows athwart her face; then, stooping,
-she softly kissed him under cover of her clouding hair.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a momentous caress, registering as it did her
-acceptance of a lowered ideal, marking her realization
-of the friction which follows all marriages and is
-inevitable to such as hers.  Yet it had not removed the cause;
-that remained.  It is easier far to overlook a great
-sin than a daily gaucherie, to rise to vast calamity than
-to brook the petty irritations which mar and make life
-ugly.  The cause remained, surely!  To see her quiet
-and pensive at table this day, who would have dreamed
-that the morrow would see the thin edge of the wedge
-driven in between them?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There's to be a picnic in the grove by Flynn's lake
-to-morrow, Nell," he said, as he rose from dinner.
-"Let's take a day off?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"All right!" she agreed; and the kiss with which she
-rewarded the prospect of even such a slight break in the
-dulness of life may easily be regarded as the first tap
-on the wedge.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>How quickly personality responds to atmosphere!
-When, next morning, Helen climbed into the buck-board
-beside Carter, she was frankly happy as a woman can be
-in the knowledge that she is looking fit for the occasion.
-Cool, clean, and fresh in a billowy white dress of her own
-laundering, excitement and Carter's admiring glances
-intensified her naturally delicate color.  As they rattled
-over the yellow miles, doubt and misgiving vanished
-under the spell of present happiness.  She returned him
-eyes that were lovingly shy as those of their honeymoon;
-was subdued, sedate, sober, or burst out in small trills
-of song as the mood seized her.  Not until she was
-actually upon the picnic-ground did she realize the real
-nature of this, her first appearance at a public function
-since her marriage.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A clear sky and a breeze that set yellow waves chasing
-one another over the far horizon had brought out the
-settlers in a fifty-mile circle—even the remittance-men,
-who had been wont to spell amusement in the red letters
-of the London alphabet, were there.  Like most country
-picnics, it was pseudo-religious in character, with a
-humorous speech from the minister figuring as the greatest
-attraction.  Amusements ran from baseball and
-children's games for youth to love-making in corners by
-shamefaced couples.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Leaving Carter to put up his team, Helen carried
-their basket over to where a crowd of officious matrons
-were arranging tables under the trees, and so gained
-first knowledge of what was in store for her.  The latest
-bride, she was the centre of attraction, target for glances.
-Approaching a group of loutish youths, she felt their
-stares, flushed under the smothered laugh which greeted
-her sudden change of direction.  Girls were just as
-unmannerly.  Ceasing their own rough flirtations, they
-gathered in giggling groups to observe and comment on one
-who had already achieved that which they contemplated.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nor was she more comfortable among the matrons.
-While she was teaching school, the halo of education
-had set her apart and above them, but now they wished
-her to understand that her marriage had brought her
-down to their level.  They plied her with coarse
-congratulations, embarrassed her with jokes and prophecies
-that were broader than suggestive.  Time and again she
-looked, for rescue, at Carter, but he was talking railroad
-politics in an interested group, did not join her till
-lunch was served, and afterwards was hauled away to
-play in a baseball game—married men </span><em class="italics">versus</em><span> single.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So she had but a small respite.  With his departure
-the women renewed their onslaughts, as though
-determined to beat down her personal reserve and reave her
-nature of its inmost secrets.  No subject was too sacred
-for their joking—herself, her husband, the intimacies of
-their lives.  There was no satiating their burning
-curiosity; her timid cheeks, monosyllabic answers, served
-only to whet their sharp tongues.  Shocked, weary,
-cheeks burning with shame, she sat on, not daring to go
-in search of Carter and so brave again the fire of eyes,
-until, midway of the afternoon, she looked up to see
-Molyneux and Mrs. Leslie approaching.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was the crowning of her humiliation.  With the
-exception of a duty-call on her return to Silver Creek,
-and which she had not returned, it was the first time
-that Helen had seen Mrs. Leslie for more than a year.
-"As you think best," Carter had said, when she had
-debated the advisability of renewing the friendship.
-"You wouldn't care to meet Molyneux again, would
-you?  He's sure to be there."  And, departing from his
-usual sane judgment, he made no further explanations,
-said nothing of his drive in the dusk with the love-sick
-woman, knowledge of which would surely have killed
-Helen's friendly feeling.  Lacking that knowledge, she
-had pined for the one woman who could give her the
-social and intellectual companionship her nature craved,
-pined with an intensity of feeling that was only equalled
-by her present desire to avoid a meeting.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If they would </span><em class="italics">only</em><span> pass without seeing her, she
-prayed, bowing her head in shame.  But Mrs. Leslie
-had been watching from afar.  "Poor little thing!" she
-had exclaimed to Molyneux.  "Alone among those
-harpies!  Come, let's rescue her!"  And whatever her
-motive, the kiss she bestowed on the blushing girl was
-warm and natural.  "Why, Helen," she said,
-"whatever are you doing here?  Come along with us."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We are going to organize a race for three-year-old
-tots, Mrs. Carter," Molyneux explained.  "We really
-need your assistance."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His deferential air as he stood bareheaded before her,
-the languid correctness of his manner, even the
-aristocratic English drawl, pierced that atmosphere of
-vulgarity like a breath of clean air.  The easy insolence
-with which he ignored the settler women was as balm
-to her wounded pride.  She recovered her poise; her
-drooping personality revived.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I should like to—very much," she answered, adding,
-a little timidly, "But I was waiting for my husband."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Dutiful child," Mrs. Leslie laughed.  "Well, he is so
-busy running up the batting average for the Benedicts
-that he has forgotten you.  Come along!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We might go round—" Helen began, tentatively,</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She would have finished "his way," but, glancing over at
-the game, she saw that in his interest he really had
-forgotten her.  "Very well!" she substituted; and, rising, she
-strolled off between the two, passing within a few yards of
-Carter.  Busy with his game, he did not see her, nor would
-have known what company she was keeping but for Shinn,
-a near neighbor of Jed Hines and fellow of his kidney.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Your wife," he remarked, "seems to be enjy-ing
-herself."  His sneer caused a titter among both players
-and spectators, but before it subsided Carter came quickly
-back.  Throwing a careless glance after Helen, "That's
-more'n I can say for yourn."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The titter swelled to a roar that caused Helen to look
-back.  Mrs. Shinn, poor drudge, had not strayed twenty
-feet from her cook-stove in as many squalid years, as
-every one knew well.  Grinning evilly, Shinn subsided,
-while, after carelessly waving his hand at Helen, Carter
-returned to his batting.  If he disapproved of her escort,
-not a lift of a line betrayed the fact to curious eyes—not
-even when he drove around and found her still with
-Molyneux and Mrs. Leslie.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>They were both silent on the homeward drive.  In
-Helen's mind Carter was associated with the coarse and
-sickening humiliations of the day.  As never before, she
-felt the enormous suction from below; she battled against
-the feeling with the desperation of the swimmer who feels
-the whirlpool clutching at his heels.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her mood was defiant, and if, just then, he had taken
-her to task for her truancy, she would have flamed up in
-open revolt.  But he did not.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You are tired," he said, very gently, when the ponies
-had run them far out from the press of teams and rigs.
-She appreciated that; yet when he slipped an arm about
-her waist she moved restlessly within its circle.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The wedge was well entered.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-frost"><span class="bold large">XI</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE FROST</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>One noon, a week after the picnic, Carter stood and
-looked out over his hundred-acre field of wheat
-from his doorway.  A golden carpet, sprigged with the
-dark green of willow bluffs, it ran back into a black,
-environing circle of distant woodland.  As a vagrant
-zephyr touched it into life, Helen remarked, looking
-over his shoulder:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The serrated ears in restless movement give it the
-exact appearance of woven gold.  Isn't it beautiful!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The dramatist loves to make great events follow in
-rapid sequence.  It is the need of his art.  But in life
-the tragic mixes with the commonplace.  Even Lady
-Macbeth must have, on occasion, joked or talked scandal
-with her handmaidens.  And as these two looked out
-over the wheat, there was naught to indicate the shadow
-which lay between them.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Finest stand I ever saw," Carter answered.  "Five-foot
-straw, well headed, plump in the grain; ought to
-grade Number One Extra Hard.  We'll make on that
-wheat, little girl."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you really think so?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He turned quickly.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Those women at the picnic—-"  She explained her
-dubious tone.  "They said you were foolish to put in
-so much wheat.  'What kind of a darn fool is your
-husband, anyway?' that Mrs. MacCloud asked me.  'He
-kain't never draw all that wheat to Lone Tree.  Take
-him a month to make two trips.  'Tain't no use to raise
-grain without a railroad.  We folks hain't put in more'n
-enough for bread an' seed.'"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He laughed, as much at her clever mimicry as at
-Mrs. MacCloud's frankness.  "If they had put in more I
-wouldn't have sown any.  Could have bought it cheaper
-from them.  But as they didn't—  Do you know that
-every man in this settlement makes at least one trip a
-month to Lone Tree during the winter?  Well, they do,
-and they'll be glad to make expenses freighting in my
-wheat.  With grain at seventy a bushel, a load will
-bring thirty dollars at the cars, and I can hire all the
-teams I want at three a trip."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why"—his foresight caused her a little gasp—"how
-clever!  I should never have thought of that."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His eyes twinkled his appreciation of her wifely
-admiration, and, taking her chin between his hands, he
-looked down into her eyes.  "What's more, when that
-wheat money comes in, you an' me 'll jest run down to
-Winnipeg an' turn loose on the dry-goods stores."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was the first hint of his knowledge of the turning,
-dyeing, the shifts she had made with her wardrobe, and
-he made a winning.  The knowledge that he had seen
-and understood caused the wedge to tremble and almost
-fall out.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Can we—afford it?" she asked, willing now to go
-without a thing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't have to afford necessities.  Breaks me up to
-see you going shy of things."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For the last three days he had bestowed the parting
-kiss.  This morning he received it—a warm one at
-that—and as he strode off stableward, her burst of singing
-echoed his cheerful whistle.  She was quite happy the
-next few days planning for their descent on the shops.
-She sang at her work—warbling that was natural as that
-of the little bird which prinks and plumes for its mate in
-the morning sunlight.  Reflecting her happy mood,
-Carter was humorously cheerful—so pleased and satisfied
-that she stared when, one evening, he came in, gloomy
-and depressed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His black mood had come out of the east with a
-moaning wind that now herded leaden clouds over dun
-prairies.  For one day rain pelted down, then, veering
-north, the bitter wind blew hard for a second day.
-That evening it died, and a pale sun swung down a
-cloudless sky to a colorless horizon.  Under its cold
-light the wheat stood erect, motionless, devoid of its
-usual sighing life.  A hush, portentous of change,
-brooded over all.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>From their doorway Helen heard Hines, three miles
-away, rating his dog.  "Hain't no more gumption than
-an Englishman, durn you!  Sick 'em, now!" followed
-the maligned animal's bark and the thunder of scurrying
-hoofs.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"How clear and calm it is!" she commented, as Carter
-came up from the stables.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He glanced at the thermometer beside the door.  "Too
-clear.  I'm afraid it is all off with the wheat."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?  What do you mean?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He turned from her astonished eyes.  "Frost."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Frost?  You are surely mistaken?  See how sunny
-it is!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shaking his head, he laid a forefinger on the thermometer.
-"Six o'clock, and the silver is down to thirty-five."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>At dusk it had lowered another degree, and
-throughout the northland a hundred thousand farmers were
-watching, with Carter, its slow recession.  On the fertile
-wheat plains of southern Manitoba, through the vast
-gloom of the Dakotas, to the uttermost limits of
-Minnesota, the mercury focussed the interest of half a million
-trembling souls whose fire-fly lanterns dusted the
-continental gloom.  Prayers, women's tears, men's agonized
-curses marked its decline, that, like an etching tool,
-graved deep lines on haggard faces in Chicago, Liverpool,
-and London far away.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>At thirty-two Carter lit the smudges of wet straw, and
-simultaneously the vast spread of night flamed out in
-smoke and fire.  "I don't go much on it," he told Helen.
-"But some believe in it, and I ain't agoing to miss a
-chance."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He was right.  Pale thief, the frost stole in under the
-reek and breathed his cold breath on the wheat.  Holding
-his instrument, at ten o'clock, in the thickest smoke,
-Carter saw that it registered twenty-seven.  Five degrees
-of frost and the cold of dawn still to come!  Raising the
-glass, he dashed it to pieces at his feet.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was done.  Reverberating through the land, the
-smash of his glass typified the shattering of innumerable
-fortunes, the crash of business houses.  The pistol-shot
-that wound up the affairs of some desperate gambler
-was but one echo.  Surging wildly, the calamity would
-affect far more than the growers of wheat.  Iron-workers,
-miners, operatives in a hundred branches of industry
-would shiver under the cold breath of the frost.
-For now the farmer would buy less cotton, the operative
-pay more for his flour, the miner earn a scantier wage.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>True, the balance swings ever even.  This year ryots
-of India, Argentine peons, Egyptian fellaheen would
-reap where they had not sown, gather where they had
-not strawed.  Another year a Russian blight, Nile
-drouth, hot wind of Argentine would swing prices in
-favor of the northland.  But in this was small comfort
-for the stricken people.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"All gone!" Carter exclaimed at midnight.  "The
-feathers are frozen offen them bonnets."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen sensed the bitterness under his lightness.
-"Never mind, dear," she comforted.  "I really don't
-care.  You did your best."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">He had done his best</em><span>!  To a strong man the phrase
-stabs, signifying the victory of conditions.  He winced,
-as from an offered blow.  It was the last drop in his
-cup, the signal of his defeat.  It marked the destruction
-of this his last plan for her.  He had not, in the
-beginning, intended that she should ever set her hand to
-drudgery.  His love was to come between her and all
-that was sordid, squalid.  If the railroad contract had
-materialized, she should have had a little home in
-Winnipeg where she might enjoy the advantages of her early
-life.  He had planned for a servant—two, if she could
-use them—and all that he asked in return was that she
-should bring beauty into his life, adorn his home, sweeten
-his days with the aroma of her delicate presence.  In this
-small castle of Spain he had installed his beauty of the
-sweet mouth, golden hair, pretty profile; and now, out of
-his own disappointment, he read reproach in the hazel
-eyes that looked out from the ruins.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Long after her sleep-breathing freighted the dusk of
-their bedroom, he lay gazing wide-eyed into the black
-future.  A sudden light would have shown his eyes
-blank, expressionless, for his spirit was afar, questing
-for other material with which to rebuild his castle.  In
-thought he was travelling Silver Creek, from its
-headwaters in the timber limits to its source where it flowed
-into the mighty Assiniboin.  It was a small stream—too
-small to drive logs except for a month on the snow
-waters.  But with a dam here—another there—a third
-on the flats—rough structures of logs with a stone and
-gravel filling, yet sufficient to conserve the falling
-waters!  The drive could then be sent down from dam
-to dam!  During the night he travelled every yard of
-the stream, placing his dams, and at dawn rose, content
-in his eyes.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Slipping quietly from the house, he saddled the Devil
-and led him quietly by while Helen still slept, and an
-hour later rode up to Bender's cabin.  The Cougar was
-also there, and from dubious head-waggings the two
-relapsed into thoughtful acquiescence as Carter unfolded
-his plans.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She'll go down like an eel on ice!" Bender enthusiastically
-agreed.  "All you want now is backing.  Funny,
-ain't it, that nobody ever thought o' that before?  Say"—he
-regarded Carter with open admiration—"you're
-particular hell when it comes to thinking.  If I'd a
-headpiece like yourn—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You hain't," the Cougar coldly interrupted, "so
-don't waste no time telling us what you might ha' done.
-Get down to business.  I know a man"—he thoughtfully
-surveyed Carter—"that financed half a dozen big
-lumbering contrac's on the Superior construction work.
-He'll sire anything that looks like ten per cent. an' this
-of yourn will sure turn fifty.  Come inside an' I'll write
-you a letter."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>What of the Cougar's inexperience with the pen, the
-morning was well on when Carter rode back to his cabin.
-If Helen had looked closely she might have seen the
-new resolution that inhered in his smile, but she had been
-concerned with her own reflections.  Somehow, things
-had not appeared this morning as they did last night.
-Crude daylight shows events, like tired faces, in all their
-haggardness, and their complexion was not improved
-by the steam from her wash-tub.  Time and again she
-had paused to survey her hands, creased and wrinkled
-by cooking in hot water.  Her bare arms recalled her
-first party-dress, and set her again in the sweet past.
-Beside it the present seemed infinitely hopeless, squalid,
-dreary.  As she rubbed and scrubbed on her wash-board,
-life resolved itself into an endless procession of wash-days,
-and tears had mingled with the sweat that fell from her
-face to her bosom.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Noting her red eyes, Carter was tempted to disclose
-his new hope, but remembered the failure of previous
-plans and refrained.  As yet nothing was certain.  He
-would not expose her to the risk of another disappointment.
-He rightly interpreted her sigh when he told her
-that he would have to go down to Winnipeg on business
-about the timber limits, and his heart smote him when,
-looking back, he saw her standing in the door.  Dejection
-resided in the parting wave of her hand, utter hopelessness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That lonely figure in the log doorway stuck in his
-consciousness throughout his negotiations, causing him
-to hustle matters in a way that simply scandalized the
-Cougar's man, a banker of the old school.  Yet his
-hurry served rather than hurt his cause.  While the
-very novelty of it made him gasp, the banker was
-impressed.  In private he informed his moneyed partners
-that such a chance and such a man rarely came together.
-"He's a hustler, and the profit is there," he said, in
-consultation.  "A big profit.  We can cut lumber ten per
-cent under the railroad price and yet clear twenty-five
-cents on the dollar."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That settled it.  Half a day later Carter was on his
-homeward way, bearing with him the power to draw on
-Winnipeg or Montreal for moneys necessary for supplies,
-men, and teams.  Running home from Lone Tree, he
-whiled away the miles with thoughts of Helen's joy.
-He pictured her, radiant, flushed, listening to his news,
-and, quickening to the thought, he raced, full gallop,
-the last mile up to his door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His face burst into sunshine as, in response to his call,
-he heard her cross the floor.  Then his smile died, and
-he stared at Mrs. Leslie.  With the exception of an
-occasional glimpse as they met and passed on trail, it
-was the first he had seen of her since the soft summer
-evening when she laid illicit love at his feet.  But no
-hint of that bitter memory inhered in her greeting.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"How are you, Mr. Carter?" she cried, in her old, gay
-way.  "I think you are the meanest man in Silver Creek.
-Married a year, and neither you nor Helen have set foot
-in our house.  You are a regular Blue beard.  But you
-needn't think that you can hide from us forever.  I
-just pocketed my pride, ignored your snub, and made
-my third call.  Yes"—she emphatically nodded her
-pretty head—"the </span><em class="italics">third</em><span>, sir.  But I forgive you; come
-in and have some tea.  Helen is down at the stables
-hunting eggs to beat up a cake."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Covering his vexation with some light answer, he drove
-on to the stables, the life and light gone out of him, his
-face the heaviest that Helen had ever seen.  "She
-called," she answered his abrupt question, "and I have
-to entertain her."  Then, piqued by his coldness, she
-went on: "For matter of that, I do not see why you
-should try to cut me off from her companionship!  She
-is the only woman I care for in the settlements!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If he had only told her!  But causes light as the falling
-of a leaf are sufficient to deflect the entire current of a
-life, and it was perfectly natural that, in his bitter
-disappointment, he also should give way to a feeling of pique.
-The reason trembled to his lips, and there paused, stayed
-by the resentment in her eyes.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"As you see fit," he answered.  "Now I have to drive
-over to see Bender, on business."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Won't you wait for some tea?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No.  And don't wait supper.  I may be late."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hurt, she watched him drive away; then, as he
-suddenly reined in, she dashed the tears from her eyes.
-"Here's a letter for you," he called.  "Got it from the
-office as I came by."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He nodded in answer to Mrs. Leslie's cheery wave as
-he rolled by the cabin.  It was more than cold, yet,
-sitting chin on hands, that lady smiled cheerfully when
-Helen came up from the stable.  "Don't apologize, my
-dear," she laughed.  "Men are </span><em class="italics">such</em><span> fools.  Always
-doing something to hurt their own happiness.  Just banish
-that rueful expression and read your letter."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the matter?"  The question was called forth
-by Helen's sudden cry of dismay.  She glanced at the
-wedding-cards that Helen offered.  "Hum!  Old flame
-of yours, eh?  These regrets will assail one."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>However, she knit her straight brows over the enclosure.
-In part, it ran: "We were so pleased to hear of
-your wonderful marriage from your auntie Crandall.  It
-was just like you to announce the bare fact, but she told
-us all about it.  A railroad king!  Just fancy!  He must
-be nice or our delicate Helen would never consent to bury
-herself in the wilderness.  Do you know I have been just
-</span><em class="italics">dying</em><span> to see him, and now I shall, for we are passing
-through your country on our way to the Orient.  Which
-is your station?"  Followed sixteen pages of questions,
-description of trousseau, and other feminine matters
-which Helen reserved for future consumption.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Could she have laid tongue, just then, on Auntie Crandall,
-that lady had surely regretted her enlargements on
-Helen's modest statement of her husband's prospects.
-Lacking that easement of feeling, she cried.  This visit
-capped her misery, brought the long record of misfortune,
-discomfort, disaster to a fitting climax.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Poor child!"  Mrs. Leslie patted her shoulder.  "But
-why did you tell her such crammers?  It was the good
-auntie?"  She tilted her nose.  "For the honor of the
-family, we lie, eh?  Heaven help us!  Your friend—what's
-her name?—Mrs. Ravell—she's rich, of
-course?  Thought so—couldn't be otherwise—trust
-the malignant fates for that.  Well—"  She glanced
-meditatively about the cabin.  Instead of lime-washing
-the logs, settler fashion, Helen had left them to
-darken with age, ornamenting them with a pair of
-magnificent moose horns and other woodland trophies.
-Tanned bear-skins covered a big lounge that ran across
-one end; buffalo robes and other skins took the place of
-mats on the floor.  Mrs. Leslie nodded approval.  "Not
-bad.  Quite wild-westy, in fact.  You will simply have
-to live up to it.  You have given up your town-house
-for the present and are rusticating while your hubby
-directs some of his splendid schemes for the regeneration
-of this section—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!" Helen burst in.  "I couldn't say that.  It
-would be—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Lying?  Nonsense, child!  Have you a town-house?
-No!  Well, what are you kicking about?"  Mrs. Leslie's
-descent to the vernacular was as forcible as confusing.
-Before Helen had time to differentiate between the
-status involved by "not having a town-house" and
-giving one up her temptress ran on.  "That is it.  You
-are rusticating.  Now, I can lend you some of my
-things—glass, china, and so on.  When do they arrive?"  She
-consulted the letter.  "Hooray!  Your husband will be
-gone all next week, and they come—let me see: one, two,
-three—next Friday.  Couldn't be better."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen blushed under her meaning glance.  "No, no!
-It would be wicked."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why not?"  Mrs. Leslie laughed merrily.  "They
-just dropped in and there's no time to send for him.
-Quite simple."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Do you think I'm ashamed of him?" Helen asked, flushing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie trimmed her sails to the squall.  "Certainly
-not.  He's a dear.  You know I always liked him.
-But—if your friends were to make a long stay it would
-be different.  You couldn't hide his light under a bushel.
-But a two days' visit?  What could they learn of him
-in that time?  The real him?  They would no more
-than gather his departures from the conventional.  I
-wouldn't expose him to unfriendly criticism.  Frankly,
-I wouldn't, dear, at the cost of a little fib!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The flush faded, yet Helen shook her head.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"As you will."  Rising, the little cynic shrugged as
-she drew on her riding-gloves.  "But at least take a day
-to think it over."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No!"  Helen shook vigorous denial.  "I shall tell
-him to-night."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She was perfectly sincere in her intention, and if
-Carter had returned his usual good-natured self she
-would certainly have told him.  But Mrs. Leslie's
-presence had angered him and destroyed his native
-judgment.  He remembered that this was the outcome of
-Helen's invitation to Mrs. Leslie at the picnic, and his
-heart swelled at the thought that she should, of her
-own volition, go back to friends whom she knew that
-he despised.  He felt the folly of his brooding, even
-applied strong language to himself for being many kinds
-of a fool.  But his reasonable intention to open his
-budget of good news on his return was never carried
-out because of the coldness of her reception.  Nervous
-from her own news, piqued by his curt leave-taking, she
-served his supper in silence or answered his few remarks
-in monosyllables.  Nothing was said that night, and he
-retired without offering the usual kiss.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There he offended greatly.  Her woman's unreason
-would, for that, accept no excuse.  So when, after
-working off his own mood next morning, he came in to
-breakfast, he found her still the same.  Really offended,
-she served him, as at the previous meal, in silence, and
-as, afterwards, she went about her work, her lashes
-veiled her eyes, her lips pouting.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was their first real quarrel, and the very
-strangeness, novelty of her mood made it charming.  But
-when, under urge of sudden tenderness, he tried to
-encircle her waist, she drew away, and, afflicted with a
-sense of injustice, he did not try again.  There again he
-made a mistake.  Justice has no concern with love.
-It is empirical, knows no law but its own.  She wanted
-to be taken and kissed in spite of herself, as have all
-women on similar occasions, from the cave maidens down.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It so happened that she was in the bedroom when he
-left the house, and she did not see that he had taken
-with him the bundle she had packed the preceding night.
-She still intended to mention the letter.  Indeed, as she
-heard his step on the threshold, she thought, "He'll stop
-at the door for his clothes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But he did not; and hurrying out at the sound of
-scurrying hoofs, she was just in time to see him vanish
-behind a poplar bluff.  She called, called, and called,
-then sat down and wept, the more miserable because of
-a secret, guilty feeling of relief.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-break"><span class="bold large">XII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE BREAK</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>For three days a brown smoke had hovered over
-the black line of distant spruce.  It was far away,
-fifty miles at least.  Yet anxious eyes turned
-constantly its way until, the evening of the fourth day,
-the omen faded.  Then a sigh of relief passed over the
-settlements.  "Back-fired itself out among the lakes,"
-the settlers told one another.  Then, being recovered
-from their scare, they invidiously reflected on the
-Indian agent who permitted his wards to start fires to
-scare out the deer.  Nor did the fact that the agent
-was blameless in the matter take from the satisfaction
-accruing from their grumblings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That evening five persons sat with Helen at supper,
-for she had invited the Leslies and Danvers, Molyneux's
-farm pupil, to meet her guests.  For her this meal was
-the culmination of days of anxious planning.  To set
-out the table she and Mrs. Leslie had ransacked their
-respective establishments, and she blushed when Kate
-Ravell enthused over the result.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What beautiful china!" she exclaimed, picking up
-one of Mrs. Leslie's Wedgwood cups.  "We have
-nothing like this."  Then, glancing at the white napery,
-crystal, and silver, she said, "Who would think that we
-were two thousand miles from civilization?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was, indeed, hard to realize.  Obedient to Mrs. Leslie's
-orders, her husband and Danvers had fished—albeit
-with reluctance—forgotten dress-suits from bottom
-deeps of leather portmanteaus.  She herself looked
-her prettiest in a gown of rich black lace superimposed
-on some white material, and, carrying her imperative
-generosity to the limit, she had forced one of her own
-dinner-dresses upon Helen.  Of a filmy, delicate blue, it
-brought out the young wife's golden beauty.  From the
-low corsage her slender throat and delicate face rose
-like a pink lily from a violet calyx.  Usually she wore
-her redundant hair coiled in a thick braid around the
-crown of her head for comfort; but to-night it was done
-upon her neck in a loose figure of eight that revealed its
-mass and sheen.  Looking from Mrs. Leslie to Helen,
-Kate Ravell had secretly congratulated herself upon
-having, despite her husband's protest, slipped one of
-her own pretty dresses into his valise.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His laugh, a wholesome peal that accorded with his
-good-humored face, followed her remark.  "She didn't
-think that at Lone Tree," he said.  "A lumber-wagon
-was the best the liveryman could do for us in the way
-of conveyance, and when Kate asked if he hadn't a
-carriage he looked astonished and scratched his head.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Ain't but one in town,' he answered, 'an' it belongs
-to Doc Ellis.  'Tain't been used sence he druv the
-small-pox case down to the Brandon pest-house.  I 'low
-he'd let you have it.'"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His wife echoed his laugh.  "It was a little rough,
-but this—it's great!"  She pointed out through the
-open door over the wheat, golden under the setting sun,
-to the dark green and yellow of woods and prairies.
-"You are to be envied, Nell.  Your house is so artistic.
-The life must be ideal—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Inwardly, Mrs. Leslie snorted: "Humph!  If she
-could see her milking, up to ankles in mud on rainy
-days—or feeding those filthy calves?"  Aloud, she said,
-"Unfortunately, Helen isn't here very often—spends
-most of her time in Winnipeg."  Ignoring Helen's
-pleading look, she ran on, "Did you store your things, my
-dear, or let the house furnished?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Thus entrapped, Helen could only answer that her
-goods were stored, and her embarrassment deepened
-when Mrs. Leslie continued: "It is such a pity,
-Mrs. Ravell, that you could not have met Mr. Carter!  He
-is such a dear fellow, so quiet and refined.  Fred"—Leslie's
-grin faded under her frown—"what is the matter?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A crumb, my dear," he apologized.  "Excuse me, please."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We shall have to return you to the nursery."  Her
-glance returned to Kate Ravell, and, oblivious of the
-entreaty in Helen's eyes, she ran on in praise of Carter.
-He was so reserved!  The reserve of strength that goes
-with good-nature!  Resourceful—and so she flowed on
-with her panegyrics.  She was not altogether insincere.
-Helen caught herself blushing with pleasure whenever,
-leaving her fictions, Mrs. Leslie touched on some sterling
-quality.  Twice she was startled to hear put into words
-subtilties that she herself had only felt, and on each
-occasion she narrowly watched Mrs. Leslie, an adumbration
-of suspicion forming in her mind.  But each time
-it was removed by absurd praise of hypothetical qualities
-or virtues Carter did not possess.  So Mrs. Leslie praised
-and teased.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>What influenced her?  It is hard to answer a question
-that inheres in the complexities of such a frivolous
-yet passionate nature.  Naturally good-natured, she
-would help Helen out in all things that did not cross her
-own purposes.  The sequel proves that she had not yet
-got Carter out of her hot blood.  Given which two things,
-her action, teasings, and panegyrics are at least
-understandable.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We are very sorry," Kate Ravell said when Mrs. Leslie
-gave pause.  "We did wish to see him.  Do you
-suppose, Helen, that we might if we stayed another day?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was more than possible, but Ravell relieved Helen
-of a sudden deadly fear.  "Can't do it, my dear.  We
-are tied down by schedule.  Should miss the Japan
-steamer and have to lay over in Vancouver two weeks."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Kate sighed.  Newly married, she had all of a young
-wife's desire to see her girl friend happy as herself; nor
-would aught but ocular demonstration satisfy the
-longing.  She was expressing the hope that Carter and
-Helen should some day visit them in their Eastern home,
-when she suddenly paused, staring out-doors.  Following
-her glance, Mrs. Leslie saw a man, a big fellow in
-lumberman's shirt and overalls.  The garments were
-burned in several places, so that blackened skin showed
-through.  His eyes were bloodshot, his face sooty, which
-accounted for Mrs. Leslie's not recognizing him at once.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Carter!" she exclaimed, after a second look.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen was pouring tea, but she sprang up at the name,
-spilling a cup of boiling tea over her wrist.  She did not
-feel the scald.  Breathless, she stood, a hand pressed
-against her bosom, until Mrs. Leslie, the always ready,
-burst into merry laughter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What a blackamoor!  How you frightened us!
-Where </span><em class="italics">have</em><span> you been?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Coming up from the stables, Carter had heard voices,
-laughter, the tinkle of teacups, and the sound had
-afflicted him with something of the feeling that assails
-the wanderer whose returning ears give him sounds of
-revelry in the old homestead.  He had suffered, during
-his absence, remorse for his own obstinacy mingling in
-equal proportions with the pain of Helen's coldness.
-Absence had been rendered endurable by the thought
-that it would make reconciliation the easier; but now
-that he was returned, ready to give and ask forgiveness,
-to pour his good news into her sympathetic ear, he found
-her merrymaking.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His was a hard position.  Between himself, rough,
-ragged, dirty, and these well-groomed men in evening
-dress, there could be no more startling contrast.  He
-felt it.  The table, with its snowy napery, gleaming
-appointments, was foreign to his sight as the </span><em class="italics">décolleté</em><span>
-dresses, the white arms and necks.  Yet his natural
-imperturbability stood him bravely in place of
-sophistication.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Been fighting fire," he answered, with his usual
-deliberation.  "Suppose I do look pretty fierce."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His glance moved inquiringly from the Ravells to
-his wife.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But she still stood, eyes wide, breath issuing in light
-gasps from her parted lips.  For her also the moment
-was full of bitterness.  There was no time for thought.
-She only felt—a composite feeling compounded of the
-misgiving, discontent, humiliation, disappointment,
-disillusionment of the last few months.  It all culminated
-in that moment, and with it mixed deep shame, remorse
-for her conduct.  Also she had regret on another score.
-If she </span><em class="italics">had</em><span> told him, he would at least have been prepared,
-have achieved a presentable appearance.  Now she was
-taken in her sin!  Foul with smoke, soot, the dirt and
-grime of labor, he was facing her guests.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Starting, she realized that they were waiting, puzzled,
-for introductions—that is, Kate was puzzled.  Ravell
-was busily employed taking admiring note of Carter's
-splendid inches.  Poor Helen!  She might have been
-easier in her mind could she have sensed the friendly
-feeling that inhered in Ravell's cordial grip.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We were just deploring the fact that we were not to
-meet you, Mr. Carter," he said.  "We felt sure of
-finding you home after the notice we gave Mrs. Carter.  We
-were really quite jealous of your affairs, but now we
-shall go away satisfied."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Given a duller man, the word "notice" supplied the
-possibilities of an unpleasant situation.  But though he
-instantly remembered the letter, Carter gave no sign
-till he and Helen had passed into their bedroom.  Even
-then he abstained from direct allusions.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Friends of yourn?" he questioned, as she set out
-clean clothing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Kate is an old school-fellow.  Wait; I'll get you
-clean towels."  She bustled about, hiding her
-nervousness from his gray inquisition.  "They are on their
-honey-moon.  Going to the Orient—Japan, China, and
-the island countries.  They stayed off a couple of days
-to see us."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"To see you," he corrected.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She colored.  Her glance fluttered away from his
-grave eyes.  She hurried again into speech.  "Wait,
-dear!  I'll get you some warm water."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He refused the service, he who had loved to take
-anything from her hands.  "Thanks.  I think the lake fits
-my case.  Give me the towels and I'll change down there
-after my swim."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The meal was finished, and she, with the others, had
-carried her chair outside before he came swinging back
-from the lake.  He was wearing the store clothes of her
-misgivings, but the ugly cut could not hide the magnificent
-sweep of his limbs.  She thrilled despite her misery.
-As she rose to get his dinner, Mrs. Leslie also jumped up.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Poor man, you must be famished!" she exclaimed.
-"No, Helen, you are tired.  Stay here and entertain the
-men.  Mrs. Ravell and I will wait on Mr. Carter.  And
-you, Mr. Danvers, may act as cookee."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Thus saved from an uncomfortable téte-à-téte, Helen
-suffered a greater misery than his accusing presence.
-While chatting with Ned Ravell, her ears were strained
-to catch the conversation going on inside.  She listened
-for Carter's homely locutions, shivering as she pictured
-his primitive table manners.  As a burst of laughter
-followed his murmured bass, she wondered whether they
-were laughing </span><em class="italics">with</em><span> or </span><em class="italics">at</em><span> him.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She might have been easy, for the laugh was on
-Danvers.  As yet that young gentleman was still in the
-throes of the sporting fever which invariably assails
-Englishmen new to the frontier.  Any day he might be
-seen wriggling snakelike on the flat of his belly through
-mud towards some wary duck, and an enthusiastic
-eulogium on the shooting qualities of a new Greener gun
-had drawn from Carter the story of Danvers' first kill.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Prairie chicken's mighty good eating an' easy
-shooting," he remarked, with a sly look at Kate Ravell.
-"But nothing would satisfy his soaring ambitions but
-duck.  Duck for his, sirree! an' he blazed away till the
-firmament hereabouts was powder-marked and riddled.
-Burned up at least three tons of powder before he got
-my duck."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Your duck?</em><span>" Danvers protested.  "Just hear him,
-Mrs. Leslie.  It was a wild duck that I shot down here
-by the lake."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter chuckled and went on with his teasing.  "I
-came near being called as a witness to that cruel murder,
-for I was back-setting the thirty acres down by the lake
-when I heard a shot an' a yell.  I read it that he'd got
-himself, an' was jes' going after the remains, when up he
-comes on a hungry lope, gun in one hand and a mallard
-in the other.  The bird was that mussed up its own
-mother couldn't have told it from a cocoanut door-mat.
-Looked like it had made foolish faces at a Gatling; yet
-he tells me that he gets the unfortunate animal at eighty
-yards on the wing."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You know how close that old gun of mine used to
-shoot," Danvers interrupted.  "It was choke-bored,
-Mrs. Ravell.  At eighty-yards it would put every shot
-inside of a three-foot circle."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The feather marking looked sort of familiar to me,"
-Carter went calmly on.  "An' he admits, on cross-examination,
-that he murders this bird in front of my cabin."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What of it?" Danvers eagerly put in.  "Wild ducks
-light any old place."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But it jes' happens that the confiding critter has
-raised her brood in the sedges there, being encouraged
-an' incited thereto by my wife, who throws it bread an'
-other pickings.  Taking Danvers' gun-barrel for some
-new kind of worm, when he pokes it through the sedge
-she sails right up and is examining the boring thereof,
-when, bang! she's blown into a railroad disaster."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't believe him, Mrs. Ravell," Danvers pleaded.
-"It was a wild duck, and I shot it flying."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"So if the new gun's what you say it is," the tormentor
-finished, "you'd better to practise on prairie chicken an'
-don't be misled by Mrs. Leslie's hens."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"As though I couldn't tell a hen from a prairie chicken!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter joined in the laugh which Danvers' indignant
-remonstrance drew from the women, yet under the
-laugh, beneath his humorous indifference, lay a sad
-heart.  "She knew they were coming!  She didn't tell
-me!"  Down by the lake he had reasoned the situation
-out to its cruel conclusion—"She's ashamed of me!"  How
-it hurt!  Yet the flick on the raw served him well
-in that it set him on his mettle, nerved him to carry off
-the situation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He did not try to transcend his limitations, to clog
-himself with unfamiliar restrictions of speech or
-manners.  But within those limitations he did his best, and
-did it so well that neither woman was conscious of social
-difference.  He showed none of the bashfulness which
-might be expected from a frontiersman sitting for the
-first time at table with fashionable women in dinner-gowns.
-On the contrary, he admired the pretty dresses,
-the white arms, the hands that handled the teacups so
-gracefully; and when he spoke the matter so eclipsed
-the manner that it is doubtful whether Kate Ravell
-noticed a single locution.  His shrewd common-sense,
-quaint humor, the quickness with which he grasped a
-new point of view, and the freshness of his own impressed
-her with his strong personality.  Pleased and amused,
-she had no time to notice grammatical lapses or small
-table gaucheries that had irritated Helen by constant
-repetition.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He's delightful," she told her husband, in a conjugal
-aside.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In the conversation which ensued after they joined
-the others outside, Carter also took no mean part.  Of
-things he knew, and these ranged over subjects that
-were the more interesting because unfamiliar to the
-town-bred folks, he spoke entertainingly; and on those
-foreign to his experience he preserved silence.  On every
-common topic his opinion was sound, wholesome.  His
-keen wit punctured several fallacies.  The quaint respect
-of his manner to the women served him as well with the
-men.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Big brain," Ravell told his wife in that conference
-which all married folk have held since the first pair
-retired to their bedroom under the stars at the forks of
-the Euphrates.  "That fellow will go far."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"So gentle and kind," Kate added.  "I think Helen
-is lucky.  Those English people are nice," she went on,
-musingly; "but if I were Helen I'd keep an eye on
-Mrs. Leslie."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes," she answered his surprised look, nodding
-vigorously.  "She is in love with Mr. Carter.  How do
-I know?"  She sniffed.  "Didn't I see her eyes—the
-opportunities she made to touch him while handing him
-things at supper?  Helen is safe, though, so long as she
-treats him properly.  He doesn't care for Mrs. Leslie."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He shook his head reprovingly.  "You shouldn't
-make snap judgments, Kate."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Had he witnessed a little scene that occurred just
-before the Leslies drove away!  Good-byes had been
-said, and Helen had gone in-doors with her guests.
-Danvers, who was riding, had galloped away.  Then, at
-the last moment, Leslie remembered that he had left
-his halters at the stable.  While he ran back Carter
-stood beside the rig.  Brilliant northern moonlight
-showed him Mrs. Leslie's eyes, dark, dilated, but he
-ignored their knowledge till she spoke.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">I</em><span> wouldn't have done it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Done what?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His stoicism could not hide the sudden flash of pain.
-She saw it writhe over his face like the quivering of
-molten lead ere his features set in stern immobility.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It is very chivalrous of you."  She smiled bitterly.
-"But why wear a mask with me?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You have the advantage of me, ma'am," he stiffly
-answered, and moved round to the ponies' heads.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Leslie was now returning, but she spoke again, quickly,
-eagerly, with the concentration of passion.  "It is
-always the way!  The more we spurn you the hotter
-your love, and—"  She paused, then, hearing her husband's
-foot-fall, whispered: "Vice versa.  Remember!  </span><em class="italics">I</em><span>
-wouldn't have done it!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>After their departing rattle had died, Carter threw
-himself on the grass before the house and lay, head on
-clasped hands, staring up at the moon; and Helen, who
-was using unnecessary time making a temporary bed,
-paused and looked out from the open door.  The dark
-figure loomed stern and still as the marble effigy of some
-crusader.  There was something awful in his silence; the
-soft moonlight quivered around and about him, seemed
-a sorrowful emanation.  Frightened, remorseful, she sat
-locking and unlocking her fingers.  What was he thinking?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Part of his thought was easy to divine.  It would be
-common to any man in his situation—the hurt pride,
-jealous pain, misgiving, unhappiness, but beyond these
-was an unknown quantity, the product of his own
-peculiar individuality.  His keen intellect had already
-analyzed the cause of her shame.  He was rough, crude,
-unpolished!  Any man might also have reached that
-conclusion.  It was in the synthesis, the upbuilding of
-thought from that conclusion, that he branched from the
-common.  He was humble enough in acknowledging his
-defects.  Yet his natural wit showed him that humility
-would not serve in these premises.  Forgiveness for the
-crime against his personality would not remove the cause
-of the offence.  Far-sighted, he saw down the vista of
-years his and her love slowly dying of the same similar
-offences and causes.  That, at least, should never be!
-He had reached a decision before she came creeping out
-in her night-dress.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Aren't you coming to bed, dear?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He sensed the remorse, sorrow, pity in her voice, but
-these were not the feelings to move his resolution.  Pity!
-It is the anodyne, the peaceful end of love.  Rising, he
-stretched his great arms and turned towards the stables.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Where are you going?" she called, sharply, under the
-urge of sudden fear.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"To turn in on the hay."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She ran and caught his arm, and turned her pale face
-up to his.  "Why?  I have made our bed on the couch.
-Won't you come in?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?" she reiterated.  "Oh, why?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Because it is shame to live together when love has
-fled."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She clasped his arm with both hands.  "Oh, don't say
-that!  How </span><em class="italics">can</em><span> you say it?  Who says I do not love you?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yourself."  His weary, hopeless tone brought her
-tears.  "In love there is no shame, an' you was ashamed
-of me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I did mean to tell you."  Desperate, she caught his
-neck.  How valuable this love was becoming, now she
-felt it slipping from her!  "I did!  But you went away
-without saying good-bye."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There was opportunity, plenty.  You could have
-sent for me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His sternness set her trembling.  "Then—I thought—I
-thought—they were only to be here for one day.  Such
-a short visit.  I thought they might misjudge—I didn't
-want to expose you to hostile criticism."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You've said it.  Love knows no fear.  Good-night."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh!—please—</span><em class="italics">don't</em><span>!" she called after him, as he
-strode away.  Pity, woman's weakness, the conservative
-instinct that makes against broken ties, these were all
-behind her cry, and his keen sensibility instantly detected
-them.  He closed the stable door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>According to the canons of romance, it would have
-been very proper for that jarring echo to have unstoppered
-the fountains of her love and all things would have
-come to a proper ending.  But, somehow, it did not.
-After a burst of crying into her lonely pillow, she lay
-and permitted her mind to hark back over her married
-life.  Hardship, squalor, suffering, misfortune passed in
-review till she gained back to the days when Molyneux
-had also paid her court.  What share had anger and
-pique in affecting her decision?  Angry pride was, just
-then, ready to yield them the larger proportion.  Later
-came softer memories.  She was troubled as she thought
-of his generous kindness.  Under the thought affection,
-if not love, revived, and conscience permitted no sleep
-until she promised to beg forgiveness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>However, circumstance robbed her of the opportunity.
-Before the Ravells retired, Carter had said good-bye, as
-he intended to start back for the woods before sunrise.
-"You needn't to get up, either," he had told her.  "I'll
-take breakfast with Bender."  But now she promised
-herself that she would rise, get him a hot meal, and then
-make her peace.  But at dawn she was awakened by his
-wheels, and, running to the door, she was just in time to
-see him go by.  She would have called only, as the cry
-trembled to her lips, his words of the night before
-recurred to memory—"Marriage without love is
-shame!"  Suddenly conscious of her night-gear, she shrank as a
-young girl would from the eye of a stranger, and the
-chance was gone.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll tell him when he returns," she murmured, blushing.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>But he did not return; and two days later Bender
-and Jenny Hines drove up to the door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In the neatly dressed girl, with hair done on top of
-her head, it was difficult, indeed, to recognize the
-forlorn creature whom Bender had picked up on that night
-trail.  Though she was still small—a legacy from her
-drudging years—she had filled and rounded out into
-a becoming plumpness.  Her pale eyes had deepened,
-were full of sparkle and color.  Two years ago she would
-have been deemed incapable of the smile she turned on
-Helen.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm so glad to see you, Mrs. Carter; an' I'm to stay
-with you all winter while your husband's up at the camp.
-The doctor didn't want to let me go," she said, not
-noting Helen's surprise, "an' he wouldn't to any one but
-you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The camp?  What camp?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was Jenny's turn to stare.  As for Bender, he gaped,
-while his colors rivalled those of a cooked beet.  Sweating
-under her questions, he looked off and away to escape
-the spectacle of her white misery as he explained Carter's
-new enterprise and its glorious possibilities.  He finished
-with an attempt at comfort.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I ain't surprised that he didn't tell you.  I allow he
-was going to spring it on you all hatched and full-fledged.
-Me an' Jenny here was real stupid to give it away.  Might
-just as well have said as she'd come on a little visit.  I
-allow he'll be hopping mad at the pair of us.  An' now
-I'll have to be going after the Cougar.  He'll do the
-chores till we kin get you a hired man."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If the fiction eased the situation, it deceived neither
-her nor them.  Having, a week later, delivered the new
-hired man, a strong young Swede, Bender delivered his
-real opinion with dubious head-shakings while carting
-the Cougar away.  "Don't it beat hell, Cougar?  Him
-that straight an' good, her that sweet an' purty, yet they
-don't hitch.  It's discouraging."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," the cynic grunted, "take warning."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender eyed him wrathfully.  "Now what in hell do
-you mean?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But he blushed under the Cougar's meaning glance.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I reckon he'll drop in on his way up," Bender had
-assured Helen.  But he did not.  She yet allowed herself
-to hope—hoped on while the weeks drew into months,
-each of which brought a check for household expenses.
-Soon the snows blanketed the prairies; heavy frost vied
-with the cold at her heart; and he had not come.
-Jenny's reticence kept the truth from leaking out; but
-such things may not be hid, and about Christmas-time
-it was whispered through the settlements that Carter
-had left his wife.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-camp"><span class="bold large">XIII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE CAMP</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>That was a hard winter.  From five feet of snow
-the settlements thrust up, grim, ugly blotches on
-the whiteness.  And it was very cold.  Once the spirit
-dropped down, down, down to seventy-two below zero—one
-hundred and four degrees of frost.  Fifty was normal,
-forty, rather warm.  Also it stormed, and when the
-blizzard cut loose, earth, air, or sky was not merged in
-blanched chaos.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nestling snugly in the heart of the spruce, Carter's
-camp, however, was free of the blizzard.  Let the forest
-heave to upper air-currents, tossing skeleton branches
-with eerie creakings, yet the gangs worked in comfort,
-cutting and hauling logs, while outside a hundred-mile
-wind might be herding the drifts.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>By New Year's his work was well in hand.  Eight
-million feet of logs lay on the ice, filling Silver Creek
-bankful like a black flood for a long half-mile.  Not that
-this had been accomplished without friction.  Such
-jettison of humanity as drifts to a lumber-camp does not
-shake down to work in a day.  From earth's four
-corners a gallows crew of Swedes, French, Russians, Irish,
-Canadians, Yankees drifted in, and for one month
-thereafter internecine war raged in the bunk-houses.  Then,
-having bit, gouged, and kicked itself into some sort of a
-social status, the camp concentrated upon the boss.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The choppers, strangers to him, soon took his measure.
-A swift answer to a mutinous glance, an order quietly
-drawled, and the relation was duly fixed.  But it was
-different with the teamsters.  They, with their teams,
-were all drawn from the settlements and knew him
-personally or by report.  Even Hines had condescended to
-accept three dollars a day and board at the hand of his
-enemy.  But than this no man can greater offend against
-his neighbors—to rise superior in the common struggle
-for existence.  From them he obtained no credit for the
-initiative which had conjured the camp out of nothing.
-Now that it was in full swing, each man felt that he could
-have done the trick himself.  A man may have no honor
-in his own country; so, as always was, always will be,
-they, the weak, snarled at him, the strong carrying their
-envious spite to the length of trying to kill the goose
-which was laying the golden egg.  Though the money
-earned this winter would make an easy summer, they
-struck at the source of supply—wasted his fodder, tipped
-over his sleds, cast logs off to lighten their loads,
-manifested their jealousy in a hundred mean ways.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The matter of the fodder he easily corrected.
-Discovering the teams one evening bedded to their bellies
-with his choicest hay, he sent for Bender, who expressed
-himself profanely over the waste.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If this keeps up we'll be out of hay an' a job in
-another month," Carter said.  "What's got into them?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Search me," the giant foreman answered.  "They
-know a heap better.  Pure malice, I reckon."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Got a good man in your gang?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Big Hans, the loader.  He's licked every man in his
-outfit."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, put him in charge of the stables, with fifty
-cents a day raise."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't need the raise," Bender suggested.  "He'd
-sooner fight than eat."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, give it to him."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Events justified the expenditure.  At the end of a
-week it were, indeed, difficult to locate a feature of Big
-Hans's face—to distinguish nose from cheek or discover
-his mouth.  But beyond this uncertainty of visage there
-was nothing undecided about Hans.  He had worked
-steadily through the teamsters and come out on top.
-The waste stopped.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The derelict logs and loads were not so easily settled.
-Once, sometimes twice, a month business called Carter
-to Winnipeg, and, though Bender ruled the camp with
-an iron fist, one pair of eyes cannot keep tab on fifty
-teamsters.  Driving in one evening, Carter counted
-fifteen cast-off loads between the dumps and the skidways.
-The last lay within three hundred yards of the skids,
-where a halloo would have brought the Cougar—loading
-boss—and a dozen men to the teamster's aid.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That was the last straw.  Through gray obscurity of
-snowy dusk Carter stared at the dark mass as though it
-incarnated the mulish obstinacy which dogged his
-enterprise.  Perhaps it did, to him, for he muttered: "I'm
-real sorry for you.  Must have troubled you some to
-make back to the stables.  Guess you wasn't late for
-supper."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Vexed, indignant, he drove slowly by the  skidways,
-where the sleds stood loaded for the morning trip.
-Enormous affairs, built on his own plans, fourteen feet
-across the bunks, they were loaded squarely with four
-tiers of logs, then ran up to a single log.  In the gloom
-they loomed like hay-stacks, and a stranger to the
-woods would have sworn that no single team could start
-one.  But they ran on rounded runners over iced tracks,
-and Carter knew that they were not overloaded.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No kick there," he muttered.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Farther on a rise in the trail gave him a view of the
-camp across a wide slough: a jumble of log buildings
-that shouldered one another over the inequalities of a
-narrow, open strip between slough and forest.  Under
-the rising moon the sod roofs, flat and snow-clad,
-gleamed faintly.  Patches of yellow, frosted windows blotched
-the mass of the walls.  Beyond, dark spruce towered
-against the sky-line.  It spread, that gloomy mantle of
-spruce, illimitable as night itself, northward to the
-frozen circle, its vast expanse unbroken by other centre
-of warmth and light.  Solitary splash of life, the camp
-emphasized the profundities of environing space,
-accentuated their loneliness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Reining in, Carter gazed thoughtfully at this, the work
-of his hands.  The clear air gave him many voices.  He
-could hear Big Hans swearing quaintly in the stables.
-A teamster sang on his way to the cook-house.  An
-oblong of brighter yellow flashed out of a mass.  That
-was the cook-house door opening to admit the singer.
-Came a murmur and clatter of dishes; then light and
-sound vanished.  Suddenly, far off, a long howl troubled
-the silence.  Wild, mournful, tremulous, it was
-emblematic of his problem.  Here, a hundred miles beyond
-the stretch of the law's longest finger, the law of the
-wolf pack still obtained—only the strong hand could rule.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The howl also signalled his arrival at a conclusion.
-"They're at supper," he muttered.  "I'll tackle them
-there an' now."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>First he went to the office, a rough log-hut which he
-shared with Bender.  The giant lay, smoking, in his
-bunk, but he sprang up at Carter's news.  "An' I busted
-the head of the Russian on'y yesterday for pitching off
-a load!  Who's at the bottom of it?  Now you've got
-me.  Michigan Red's as mean as any.  Jes' this morning
-he busted two whiffle-trees running, an' I happened along
-jes' in time to save the third.  Of course, his runners was
-froze down hard, an' him snapping his heavy team like
-all get out.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'From your looks,' I says to him, 'I'd have allowed
-you'd sense enough to loosen your bobs!'  He on'y
-grinned.  'Clean forgotten, boss.  Kick that hinter
-bunker, will you?'  That man," Bender finished, "has
-gall enough to fix out a right smart tannery."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter frowned.  The man, a red-haired, red-bearded
-fellow, with a greenishly pale face and cold, bleak eyes,
-had come in from the wheat settlements about the
-Prairie Portage, driving a huge team of blacks.  The
-one, a stallion, rose sixteen and a half hands to the crest
-of his swelling shoulder.  Reputed a man-killer, he
-wore an iron muzzle in stable or out.  His mate, a
-rat-tailed mare, equally big, differed only in the insignia
-of wickedness, wearing a kicking-strap in harness,
-a log-chain in the stable.  Man and team were well mated.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If he'd make his pick on me!" Bender growled on,
-"'twould have been pie-easy.  I'd have smashed him
-one, an' you could have handed out his walking-papers.
-But no!  It's you he's laying for.  'Your boss ain't
-big enough to do it,' he says, when I tell him that
-there'll be other things than busted whiffle-trees if
-he don't look out.  'You're a privileged character
-till I'm through with him.'  An' that's just the way
-of it.  He'll swallow all I kin give him while waiting
-for you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter's nod confirmed Bender's reasoning.  No one
-else could play his hand in this game of men.  The giant
-had deferred to that unwritten law of the woods which
-reads that every man must win his own battles.  "Know
-anything of him?" he asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Cougar ran acrost him once in Michigan.  Don't lay
-no stress on his character, but says he's mighty good
-with his hands."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, come along to the cook-house."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As they opened the cook-house door a hundred men
-looked up from the three tables which ran the length
-of the long log-hut.  These bristled with tinware, and
-between them and the stove three cookees ran back
-and forth with smoking platters of potatoes, beans, and
-bacon.  At the upper end a reflector lamp shed a bright
-light over the cook and his pots; but tables were dimly
-lighted by candles stuck upright at intervals in their
-own grease.  Their feeble flicker threw red shirts and
-dark, hairy faces into Rembrandt shadow.  Hot, oily,
-flushed from fast and heavy eating, intensely animal,
-they peered through the reek of steaming food at Carter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>'"I won't keep you a minute," he answered the resentment
-which his interruption had called to all the faces.
-"I jes' want to say that too many logs have been
-dumped by the trail of late.  Now if any teamster
-thinks that the loaders are stacking it on him, he can
-report to the foreman, who'll see him righted.  But if,
-after this—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"More beans!"  A laugh followed the harsh interruption.
-The faces turned to Michigan Red.  When the
-others paused he had continued eating, and now, his
-greenish face aglow with insolence, he was holding an
-empty platter out to the nearest cookee.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a difficult situation.  There was no mistaking
-his intent, yet the interruption was timed so cunningly
-as to leave no actual cause of offence.  Behind Carter,
-Bender bristled with rage, ready to sweep casuistical
-distinctions aside with his fist.  Malignantly curious, the
-faces turned back to Carter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He waited quietly till the red teamster was served;
-paused even then, for, as the latter fell to his eating,
-shovelling beans into his mouth with knife loaded the
-length of the blade, Carter experienced an uncomfortable
-twinge of memory.  The squared elbows, nimble knife,
-bent head grossly caricatured himself in the first days
-of his marriage, and vividly recalled Helen's gentle
-tutelage.  For a second he saw himself with her eyes, then
-pride thrust away the vision.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"After this"—he began where he had left off—"any
-teamster who dumps a load without permission or
-good cause will be docked time and charged for his
-board."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"More pork!"  It was the red teamster again.  Resting
-an elbow on the table while he held out the plate
-behind him, he permitted his bleak glance to wander
-along the grins till it brought up on Carter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Choking with anger, Bender stepped, but Carter laid
-a hand on his arm while he spoke to the cook.  "This
-man has a tape-worm.  Send him the pot."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Blunt and to the point, the answer exactly suited
-lumberman primitive humor.  As the door closed behind
-them Bender's chuckles echoed the men's roaring laugh.
-"Fixed him that time," he commented.  "But he come
-back right smart."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Can't come too soon.  It all helps to fill in."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender sensed the sadness in his tone, and the big
-heart of him was troubled.  These months past he had
-seen Carter pile task on task, seeking an anodyne for
-unhappiness in ceaseless toil.  Every night the office
-lights burned unholy hours.  Waking this particular
-night, long after twelve, Bender saw that Carter was
-still at his desk.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Time you hired a book-keeper," he remonstrated.
-"Trail you are travelling ends in the 'sylum."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Book-keeper couldn't do this work."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No?"  Bender sat up.  "What's the brand?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Figuring—grading contrac's, bridges, trestles, timbering."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"For what?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A railroad."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender snorted.  "Shore!  You ain't surely calculating
-on the C.P.'s building the branch?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The monosyllable discouraged further questioning,
-but Bender stuck to his main objection.  "Well, if you
-keep this gait you'll railroad yourself into the graveyard.
-It is two now; at five you'll be out with the loaders."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Correct."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The giant straightened up in his bunk.  "Good God,
-man!  Don't you never sleep?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll sleep to-morrow night.  Now, shut up!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Growling, Bender subsided, and long after he had slid
-again into the land of dreams, Carter stared at the
-opposite wall with eyes that gave him neither the bales,
-boxes, ranged along its length, nor the shirts, socks,
-overalls, and other lumbermen's supplies on the rough
-shelving.  He saw only Helen's flower face blossoming
-out of the blackness of the far corner.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The replica of himself that he had seen that night in
-Michigan Red was but the climax of similar, if milder,
-experiences.  Naturally enough, his Winnipeg trips had
-brought him in contact with people of more or less
-refinement.  He met them at hotels, or in the parlors of
-his business acquaintances when, as sometimes happened,
-they invited him to dinner.  Such circumstances had
-simply forced him to set a guard on his speech and
-manners—to imitate those about him.  There had been
-nothing slavish in his imitation—no subtraction from the
-force of his personality.  It was rather the grafting of
-the strong, wild plant with the fruit of hot-house culture.
-It inhered in a dawning realization that manners,
-courtesy, social customs were based on consideration for
-others' happiness, besides being pleasant of themselves.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Not that he was ready to admit the fact as sufficient
-excuse for Helen's treatment of himself.  Hurt pride
-forbade.  "She didn't give me a chance," he murmured.
-"I'd have come to it—in time.  She was ashamed."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Yet each concession to social custom became an argument
-for her, and was turned against him in the nightly
-conflict between pride, passion, love, and reason.  Often
-love would nearly win.  While her face smiled from the
-corner, love would whisper: "She is yours.  Six hours'
-ride will take you to her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But pride always answered, "Wait till she sends for
-you."  And he would turn again to his figuring.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For pride had enlisted ambition in its aid.  Long ago
-his clear sight had shown him the need of a competing
-railroad, and gradually a scheme had grown upon him.
-What man had done, man could do.  If a great trunk
-road could develop from the imagination of one man, a
-transverse line that should strike south and find an
-outlet on the American border could hatch from the
-brain of another.  He would build it himself.  Already
-he had broached the matter to his financial backers, and
-they had given it favorable consideration—more, were
-interesting other capitalists in the project.  So, in camp,
-on trail, his every spare moment was given to the
-working out of construction estimates.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Only once was his resolution shaken.  From Lone Tree
-the camp "tote" trail slid due northeast, passing the
-settlements a half-dozen miles to the east.  Save on this
-one occasion, when the need of men and teams caused
-him to take the other, he always used the "tote" trail.
-And even this time he did not dally in the settlements.
-Having advertised his need at the Assiniboin mission,
-Flynn's, and the post-office, he headed up for the camp
-as dusk blanketed the prairies.  Dark brought him to
-his own forks, where, reining in, he gazed long at a
-yellow blotch on the night, his own kitchen light.  A
-five-minute trot would put him with her!  Love urged
-go!  Pride said nay!  And while they battled his ponies
-shivered in the bitter wind.  He waited, waited, waited.
-Which would have won out will never be known, for
-presently a cutter dashed out of the gloom, swung round
-on his trail, and, as he turned out to let it by, he caught
-voices, Helen's and Mrs. Leslie's, in lively chatter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Leaning over, he lashed his ponies, raced them into
-the camp.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>After that he turned with renewed assiduity to his
-figures.  Still, they are dry things, matters of intellect,
-useless for the alleviation of feeling.  One emotion
-requires another for its cure, and the trouble with Michigan
-Red promised more forgetfulness than could be obtained
-from the most intricate calculations.  That is why he
-had said, "He can't come back too soon."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He quickened at the thought of the coming struggle.
-In himself the red teamster embodied the envy, spite,
-disaffection which, from the first, had clogged Carter's
-enterprise.  He materialized the vexatious forces,
-impalpable things that Carter had been fighting, and he
-felt the relief which comes to the man who at last drives
-a mysterious enemy out to the open.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-red-teamster"><span class="bold large">XIV</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE RED TEAMSTER</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>As Bender prophesied, Michigan Red came back
-"right smartly."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The following Sunday was one of those rare winter
-days when the mercury crawls out of its ball sufficiently
-to register a point or two.  At noon the silver column
-indicated only four below zero, and, accustomed to sterner
-temperatures, the men lolled about the camp bare-headed
-and shirt-sleeved.  One hardy group was running
-a poker game on a blanket under the sunny lea of a
-bunkhouse; the younger men, choppers and teamsters,
-skylarked about the camp essaying feats of strength: some
-tossed the caber, others put the shot, a third squad startled
-the forest with the platoon fire of a whip-cracking
-contest.  Standing in his doorway, the cook, autocrat of the
-camp, remarked patronizingly on the latter performance.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Pretty fair," he judicially observed, as one young
-fellow raised the echoes—"pretty fair, Carrots, but
-Sliver there has you beat.  Needn't to look so cocky,
-though, Sliver," he qualified his praise, "or I'll call up
-Michigan to teach you how to crack a whip."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, shucks!  I ain't scared o' him," Sliver grinned.
-Then, rising to his slim height, he writhed body and arm
-and let forth a veritable </span><em class="italics">feu de joie</em><span>.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You would, would you?" the cook warned.  "Here,
-Red!" he called to the gamblers.  "Get up an' give this
-kid a lesson."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You go plumb to—"  The location was drowned by
-Sliver's second volley.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, come, Red!" the cook urged.  "This kid makes
-me tired."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The red teamster went on playing, and would, no
-doubt, have indefinitely continued the game but that,
-looking up to curse the importunate cook, he saw the
-stable roustabout interestedly watching the whip-crackers.
-A man in years, the latter was a child in intellect,
-simple to the point of half-wittedness.  Picking him up,
-starving, in Winnipeg, Carter had brought him up to the
-camp early in the winter, and ever since he had served
-as a butt for the camp's jokes.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Michigan rose.  "Lend me your whip, Carrots!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now you'll see!" the cook confidently affirmed, as
-the long lash writhed about Michigan's head.  Exploding,
-it sent a trail of echoes coursing through the forest.
-As is the pop of a pistol to the roar of a cannon, so was
-his volley compared to that of Sliver.  Then, to prove
-himself in accuracy, Michigan snapped a fly from the
-cook's bare arm.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A trifle close," he exclaimed, rubbing the spot.  "Do
-it ag'in, Red, an' I cut out your Sunday pudding."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Grinning, Michigan swung again, turned, as the lash
-writhed in mid-air, and cracked it explosively within an
-inch of the roustabout's ear.  "Stan' still, you son of a
-gun!" he swore, as the poor simpleton flinched.  "Keep
-him in, boys.  Stan' still, or I'll take it clean off nex'
-crack....  Now we'll play you've a fly on the tip of
-your nose."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The play was too realistic, drawing a spot of blood.
-Yelling with pain, the roustabout swore, begged, pleaded
-piteously to be let alone.  But a circle of grinning
-teamsters hedged him in on all sides save where the red
-teamster stood with his whip.  Man, in the aggregate, is
-always cruel.  Let a few hundred blameless citizens,
-fathers of families, husbands, brothers, be gathered
-together and flicked with passion's whip, and you have a
-mob equal to the barbarities of Caligula.  And these
-men were raw, wild as the woods.  Shoving the
-simpleton back whenever he tried to break, they stood
-grinning while Michigan cut cracking circles about his head.
-Sometimes his hair moved under the wind of the lash;
-sometimes it grazed his nose.  There was no telling
-where it would explode.  He could not dodge it.
-Trying, the whip drew blood from his neck.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Stan' still, then!" the red teamster answered his yell
-of pain.  "I ain't responsible for your cavortings."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Spoiling Red's aim!" the cook admonished, severely.
-"I never seed your like!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now open your mouth wide," the tormentor went on.
-"I'm agoin' to put the tip in your mouth without
-techin' your lips—if you don't move.  Open wide!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But the man's small wits were now completely gone.
-He opened his mouth obediently, then, uttering a scream,
-a raucous, animal cry, he sprang at his tormentor.  But
-a dozen hands seized and dragged him back.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hold him, boys!  I'll skin the tip of his nose for
-that."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As Michigan swung his whip the roustabout sent forth
-scream on scream.  Foam gathered on his lips.  Terror
-had driven him insane.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no!" the cook remonstrated.  "That's enough,
-Red—that's enough!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Unheeding, the teamster took aim, swung, then—another
-lash tangled in his.  Yelling with the sudden
-pain of a twisted wrist, he swung round on Carter.
-Unobserved, he had run across from his office, snatched
-up Sliver's whip, tangled Michigan's lash, and jerked it
-over his shoulder.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Boys"—he now faced the flushed crowd—"I don't
-allow to mix up with your fun, but what do you call this?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>One glance at the bloody weal on the roustabout's
-neck and the brutal mob resolved into its individual
-components, each a unit of sorrow for its share in the
-torture.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Jest a poor fool at that."  Carter laid his hand on
-the simpleton's shoulder.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Shore, shore!  Yes!" the cook agreed.  "It's too bad.
-We didn't go to do that.  No.  We jest calculated to
-have a little fun, an' carried it a leetle too far."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That's so!  That's so!"  Carrots, Smith, and Sliver
-all seconded the cook, all voicing repentant public
-opinion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, Red didn't go to do that," the cook continued.
-"He moved.  Red didn't mean it; did you, Red?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>After that one yell of pain the red teamster's eyes
-had glued to a handspike which lay near by.  But the
-useless wrist checked the impulse, and he stood, sullenly
-noting changed opinion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Is this a Sunday-school?" he answered, sneering.
-"Or mebbe a Young Folks' Christian Endeavor?  Sliver,
-what's the golden text?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, shore, Red!" Sliver remonstrated.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's this."  Carter looked round the group.  "Any
-man who lays a hand on this poor lad again gets his
-time."  His glance fixed on Michigan Red.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The red teamster shrugged.  His chance had gone by,
-and he was acute enough to recognize the fact.  Not
-that he lacked courage or strength to try it out, man
-for man—bite, gouge, kick, in the brutal fashion of the
-lumber woods.  Taken by surprise, he had lost his
-vantage, and now saw that his adversary had cleverly
-ranged against him an adverse opinion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's not him I'm laying for," he growled.  "Some
-other day!"</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>The "other day" came a week later.  Entering the
-stables at noon in search of Brady, the water-hauler,
-Carter saw the red teamster perched on the top rail of
-the black stallion's stall, in his hand the iron muzzle
-which he had unstrapped that the brute might feed with
-ease.  As the beast snapped, rather than ate, his oats,
-he cast vicious, uneasy glances from the tail of his eye
-at Red; but, indifferent to the brute's mood and the
-anxious glances of his fellows, the teamster calmly
-chewed his tobacco.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was by just such tricks that he had gained
-ascendency over his fellows.  Whereas it was worth another
-man's life to step into their stall, the blacks would stand
-and sweat in rage and fear while Michigan slapped and
-poked their ribs.  The devil in the beasts seemed to
-recognize a superior in the pale-green fiend in the man.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Brady here?" Carter asked.  "Oh, there you are!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He stood immediately behind the stallion, and as he
-spoke Michigan brought the iron muzzle down with a
-thwack an the brute's ribs.  Snorting, it lashed out,
-just missing Carter.  One huge, steel-shod heel, indeed,
-passed on either side of his head.  Under such circumstances
-a start was a little more than justifiable; yet
-after that tribute to surprise Carter stepped quietly
-beyond range and went on talking to Brady.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"This afternoon you can hitch to the water-cart an'
-ice the track in to them new skidways."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Then, turning, he eyed Michigan Red.  "That's a
-techy beast of yourn, friend."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Techy?" Michigan sneered.  "There ain't another
-man in this camp as kin put the leathers on him!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No!"  Swinging his heels against the stall, Michigan
-added, "Not a damned man."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Picking up a spear of hay, Carter chewed it while he
-looked over the beast, now foaming with rage.  It was
-a dare.  He knew it—saw also the amused interest in
-the on-lookers.  They felt Michigan had him in the door.
-"The leathers," he remarked, "are on him."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a skilful move, throwing the initiative back to
-the teamster.  Not one whit fazed, however, he
-exclaimed, in mock surprise, "Why, damme, so they
-are!"  Sliding down, he laid a hand on the stallion's crest.
-Instantly the brute ceased his plunging, uneasy stepping,
-and while the man stripped off the harness only long,
-slow shivers told of smothered fury.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There you are!"  He threw collar and harness at
-Carter's feet.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Look here, boss!" Brady remonstrated, as Carter
-picked them up.  "I wouldn't go to do it.  Shure I
-wouldn't.  The baste is a man-killer be Red's own
-word.  Luk at him for the proof."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Ears laid flat to his neck, glossy hide shivering, the
-whites of his eyes showing viciously, chisel teeth
-protruding through grinning lips, the stallion's appearance
-bore out his reputation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I wouldn't!" a dozen teamsters chorused.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Unheeding, Carter entered the stall.  As he ranged
-alongside, the stallion tried to rear, but was snapped
-back by his halter-chain.  So foiled, he humped his
-shoulders, dropping his head between his knees; then,
-just when the teamsters expected to see the sixteen
-hundred pounds of him grind Carter against the stall,
-he suddenly straightened and stood still as before, save
-for the slow shivers.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother of God!" Brady exclaimed.  "What 'll that mane?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter's hand rested on the beast's crest.  What did
-it mean?  Only the red teamster knew.  But whether
-the animal shook to the memory of some torture, or
-merely mistook the firm hand for that of his master, he
-moved but once while Carter adjusted and buckled the
-harness.  That was at the cinching of the bellyband;
-but he quickly quieted.  The click of the breeching-snaps
-sounded like breaking sticks through the stable,
-and as he stepped out from the stall a score of breaths
-issued in one huge sigh.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now hurry, Brady," he said.  "The job will keep
-you humping till sundown."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Respectful glances followed him away from the stable.
-He had touched his men in a vulnerable spot, and though,
-hereafter, they might growl and grumble—the lumberman's
-sole relaxation—he could count on a fair amount
-of obedience from all but such malingerers as Shinn and
-Hines, or a natural anarchist like Michigan Red.  The
-latter took on the yoke of authority only to defy it;
-and though even his bleak face lit up as sunlight
-struggles through frost of a winter's morning, he soon found
-cause for further trouble.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Dropping into the smith's shop a few days later,
-Carter found Seebach, the German smith, ruefully
-contemplating a half-dozen disabled sleds.  "Herr Gott!"
-he exclaimed.  "In one half-day these haf come in.
-Alretty yet I works like t'ree tefils, an' this iss the
-leedle games they play on me.  It is that you gifs me a
-helper or I quit—eh?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Too surprised to laugh over the other's ludicrous
-anger, Carter puzzled over the breakage.  As aforesaid,
-the sleds had been built on his own plans to carry
-enormous loads.  To four-by-six runners, shod with an
-inch of steel, hardwood bunkers a foot square were
-fastened with solid iron knees braced with inch
-iron.  Every bolt and pin was on the same massive plan.
-The best of a dozen patterns of as many logging-camps
-had gone into the making of those sleds.  Yet, though
-they ought to have been good for twenty tons oh the
-roughest kind of a road, they were racked, split, or
-twisted, bunkers torn off, ironwork on all badly sprung.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter whistled.  "How did they do it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Brady, he says it vas the new roat into the pridge
-timbers.  In one place it goes like hell over a pank down
-to a lake, with a quick turn at the pottom.  'The Pig
-Glide,' Brady calls it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll go out an' look at it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A half-hour's walk brought him to the hill.  Debouching
-from heavy timber, the trail inclined for two hundred
-yards, then sheered down at an angle of forty-five
-degrees to a lake below.  As the smith had said, an abrupt
-turn at the bottom added to the trail's difficulties.  Too
-steep for ice-sledding, hay had been spread over the face
-of the hill, and with this to ease the descent Carter
-could see no reason for the broken sleds.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A man had been told off to respread the hay after
-each passage, and he grinned at Carter's question.
-"Bust 'em here?  You bet!  How?  Well, they come
-down on a gallop.  Teams is coming now, so if you set
-down in the scrub there you'll see 'em do it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was as he said.  One after the other the teams
-emerged from the forest, gathered speed on the incline,
-and came flying down the hill, the great sleds cracking
-and groaning under the strain of enormous loads as they
-skidded around the bottom turn.  Michigan Red came
-last, and Carter's anger could not altogether drown a
-thrill as he watched the red teamster take the hill.
-Whooping, whip-cracking, blacks stretched on the gallop,
-he tore down that plumb hill-side and skidded round the
-turn, load balanced on one runner.  It split, with a
-pistol report, but the steel shoe held and he passed
-safely on and down the lake.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He was the first to cut loose," the trackman
-explained.  "T'others followed his dare."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, they'll have to quit it.  Warn each man, Joe,
-an' report all to me that disobey."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>When, that evening, Joe reported that all but Michigan
-Red had obeyed the order, he sensed hot anger under the
-boss's calm.  Expecting an explosion, he was the more
-surprised when, after a thoughtful pause, Carter
-dismissed him with an order to take a couple of
-hand-rakes out on the job the following morning.  To the
-Cougar he gave orders that the red teamster was to load
-last.  Obedient, the Cougar sent Michigan Red to break
-track into a new skidway; thus all of his fellows had
-passed on down the glide while Michigan was still
-loading.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Load him light—dry logs, an' not too many," Carter
-had ordered.  But, incensed at the delay, the teamster
-indulged in such sarcastic allusions to the frailty of the
-loaders' female ancestors that the ribald crew piled the
-logs on till his load bulked like a hay-stack.  None other
-than the blacks could have started the sled out from the
-skids; and while, with jerks and sudden snatches, the
-fierce brutes worked it out of deep snow to the iced
-tracks, the loaders looked admiringly on.  It was a
-triumph in driving.  Man and team worked like a clock,
-and, returning blasphemous answers to the loaders'
-compliments, Michigan slid off down the trail.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To make up for his lost time, he urged the blacks to a
-trot, and so came swinging down the incline at twice his
-usual speed.  Not till he reached the very edge did he
-see that the hay had been raked off the face of the hill.
-A mask of ice, it glittered in the sun.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Half-way down Carter stood with Joe.  Looking up,
-they saw Michigan poised on the top log, a red, sinister
-figure against the sky.  He seemed to pause, throw back
-on his lines—a quick, involuntary movement.  Then,
-craning forward, he glanced down that glittering stretch—a
-comprehensive look that took in Carter, Joe, and
-their plan.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Give him a forkful under the runners as he goes by,"
-Carter whispered.  "Otherwise we'll kill his team."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A second, as aforesaid, the red teamster paused; then,
-loosing his lines, he leaned over and lashed the stallion
-under the soft of the belly.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"My God!" Joe cried.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He saw the black brute rear, snorting—saw the
-blacksnake bite the mare's flank—saw the pair plunge over
-the grade; then water bathed his eyes.  He heard,
-however—heard the rush and roar, a thunder of hoofs as the
-long, steel calkings cut through the ice and struck fire
-from the face of the hill.  He felt the wind as the sled
-passed, and waited for the crash—which did not come.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A voice, cold, deliberate, restored his vision.  "I
-didn't think it was in horse-flesh."  Carter was gazing
-after team and sled, now a black patch on the snow of
-the lake.  "Beat us this time, Joe," he continued; "but
-we'll fix him to-morrow."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That evening, however, the red teamster enjoyed the
-fruits of his exploit.  It seasoned the beans at supper,
-sweetened the stable choring.  Opinion agreed that it
-was now "up" to the boss, but split on his probable
-action, one-half the stable agreeing with Hines that
-Michigan surely earned his discharge, the other half
-holding that settlement by battle would be the certain
-ending.  Neither event, however, had come to pass by
-bedtime, and the mystery was intensified by the
-chucklings of the road gang, which came in from work long
-after the teamsters retired.  Next morning, too, the
-loaders—evidently in the secret—added to the suspense
-by asking the teamsters if they intended to toboggan
-down the glide that trip.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Bet you don't!" they yelled after Michigan Red.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though not exactly nervous, the mystery yet affected
-the red teamster.  As his load slid through the forest
-uneasiness manifested itself in thoughtful whistlings,
-broken song snatches, unnecessary talk to his horses.
-Not that he was a whit afraid.  The half-dozen or so
-men whom he expected would try to enforce the new
-order could not have prevented him from at least sending
-his team at the grade.  The fierce soul of him thrilled
-at the thought of opposition, and, coming out of the
-forest, he set a pace that would have ridden down
-opposition.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But he reined in at the hill.  Instead of the force of
-his imaginings, only Joe Legault stood at the foot of the
-glide.  The hay had been respread on its face, but—the
-road gang had built a rough bridge over a deep gully,
-and now the glide led, straight as an arrow, out to the
-lake.  The racking curve was utterly abolished.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Grinning, Joe said: "The boss allows that it's your
-privilege to kill your own horses.  So go it if you
-wanter.  Hain't going to hurt his sleds none."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Michigan walked his horses.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter had won out.  Moreover, he had done it without
-the loss of prestige that would have ensued by the
-usual brutal methods in vogue in lumber-camps.  Law,
-of a man or people, cannot endure, of course, without
-force behind it.  Yet behind his imperturbability, quiet
-taciturnity, the men felt the power to enforce his
-commands.  So his authority was no more called in question.
-Not that envious spite ceased to dog him.  Hines, Shinn,
-and their coterie stood always ready to stir up discontent,
-foment trouble.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was their sympathy that caused the cook to
-maintain one can of poor baking-powder to be valid excuse
-for leaving.  But Carter disposed of minor troubles with
-the same easy good-humor that he had given to big ones.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I reckon you've been scandalously mistreated," he
-told the cook.  "I'm right sorry to lose you.  Must you
-go?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mollified, the cook stayed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Then Baldy, chief of the "tote"-trail teamsters, rose
-to the point that "thirty hun'red was load enough for
-drifted trails."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Thirty it is, Baldy," Carter cheerfully answered, and
-Baldy yanked forty and forty-five hundred all winter
-over the worst of trails.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He had proved himself in the mastership of men just
-at the time that opportunity was holding out her hand,
-and proof and fruit of his winning came the very day
-that saw the last load delivered at the dumps.  "It is a
-go!"  The wire which announced, with this bit of slang,
-the successful financing of his railroad projects was
-brought in by Baldy from Lone Tree, and with it
-buttoned against his heart Carter made his way to the
-stables where the teamsters were, as they thought,
-bedding up for the last time.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We have feed for three months left," he said, "and
-I can promise work through the summer.  At what?"  He
-turned, smiling, on Brady.  "Never mind; all those that
-want it kin have it till freeze-up.  In the mean time I'll
-feed an' care for your teams till the log-drive is down."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Grumblers from the cradle, kickers born, teamsters
-and choppers had looked forward to this last day in
-camp, swearing all that ten dollars a day would not hire
-them for an hour longer.  No, sirree—not an hour!  Now
-they looked their doubt.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the pay?" Brady asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Half a dollar a day more'n you're getting."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That beats farming in these parts.  You kin sign me, boss."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And me—me—me!  The answers floated in from all
-over the stable.  Only a few of the older men elected to
-return to their farms, and after all had spoken Carter
-turned to Michigan Red, who occupied his old perch on
-the stallion's stall.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, Red?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Didn't s'pose you'd need me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter went on writing.  He could afford to be
-generous.  He had beaten the man at every point; to retain
-him where another would have discharged him was,
-indeed, the crowning of his victory, and Michigan knew it.
-Had he doubted, he had but to read it in the countenances
-of his fellows.  A good gambler, however, he hid
-resentment, and where a poor loser would have taken
-his discharge he accepted re-employment.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His red beard split in a sneering grin.  "Oh, guess I'll
-trouble you for a little longer."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The day was eventful for another reason.  Coming up
-from a short visit to the settlements, Bender handed
-Carter a letter that evening, the superscription of which
-sent the dark blood flooding over his neck, for it was
-the first he had seen of Helen's writing these months.
-Was this the answer of his longing?  Had she sent—at
-last?  His fingers trembled as he tore the wrapping,
-then he paused, staring.  It was his last check, returned
-without an explanatory scrap.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She's hired to teach her old school again."  Bender
-answered his blank look.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="travail"><span class="bold large">XV</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">TRAVAIL</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>If the white months seemed to lag with Carter up
-at the camp, they dragged wearily with Helen down
-in the settlements.  Christmas had been particularly
-dreary, for it did not require a woman's marvellous
-memory for anniversaries for her to live over again every
-incident and experience of last Yuletide.  In their
-living-room Carter had built a chimney and fireplace of mud,
-Cree style, and on Christmas Eve she had cuddled in
-against his broad breast and talked of a sweet possibility.
-They had the usual pretty quarrel over sex and names—has
-the tongue one good enough for the first-born?
-Then he had hung her stocking, and none other would
-suit him, forsooth, but the one she was wearing.  He had
-laughed away her blushing protestations, and had kissed
-the white foot and toes that squirmed in his big hand.
-Sitting alone this Christmas, she had blushed at the
-memory; then a gush of tears had cooled her hot cheeks,
-tears of mingled sorrow and thankfulness that their
-pretty dream had not taken form in flesh.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>One January morning she sat, chin in hands, and
-stared across the humming stove at the white drift
-outside.  Nels, the Swedish hired man, had killed three pigs
-for winter meat the day before, and with a touch of
-humor that was foreign to his bleached complacency had
-set them on all-fours in the snow.  Stiff, frozen—so
-hard, indeed, that the house-dog retired disconsolately
-after a fruitless tug at an iron ear—they poked marble
-shoulders out of a drift.  The eye of one was closed in
-a cunning wink.  His neighbor achieved a grin.  The
-mouth of the third was open and thrown back, as though
-defying death with derisive laughter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Steeped in thought, Helen did not see the grim grotesques.
-These months she had undergone three distinct
-changes of feeling.  First she was becomingly repentant.
-Viewed under the softening perspectives of time and
-distance, Carter's crudities waned, while his strength and
-virtues waxed.  The insignificant sloughed away from
-his personality, leaving only the strong, the virile.
-During this stage she formed small plans towards reconciliation,
-and bided patiently at home, ceasing her visits to
-Mrs. Leslie.  Not that she felt them wrong, but, besides
-the shame natural to her position, she liked to feel that
-she was gratifying what she deemed her husband's
-prejudice; she experienced the satisfaction which accrues
-from a penance self-imposed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>When, however, he did not return, she relapsed into
-hurt silence—would not speak of him to Jenny, nor
-listen when Bender dropped in on one of his periodical
-visits with news from the camp.  Lastly came cold
-resentment, anger at the grass-widowhood that was being
-thrust upon her, a feeling that was the more unbearable
-because she secretly admired his boldness in cutting the
-knot of their difficulties.  She recognized the wisdom of
-the act.  Had he not taken the initiative, the process of
-disenchantment would have continued till she herself
-might have taken the first step to end their misery.  But
-the knowledge did not mitigate the sting.  He had forced
-the separation!  The thought rankled and grew more
-bitter day by day.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This morning she was in a particularly dangerous mood.
-Conscious of her original good intention, knowing that
-her fault had been the product of conditions as much as
-her own weakness, she was ripe for revolt against the
-entire scheme of things that had forced the lot of crabbed
-age upon her flushed youth, compelling her to sit by a
-lonely fire.  And as she sat and brooded a clash of bells
-broke up her meditations; the door opened, letting in a
-bitter blast that froze the warm interior air into chilly
-fog, from the centre of which Mrs. Leslie emerged,
-heavily furred and voluble as ever.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Anchorite!" she screamed.  "Or is it anchoress?
-Three, four—no, six visits you owe me.  Explain!  Bad
-weather?  Hum!"  She tilted her pretty nose.  "If I
-couldn't fib more artistically, Helen, I'd adhere to the
-painful truth.  You were afraid—of hubby."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I—I wasn't!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie surveyed the girl's flushed anger with
-sarcastic pity.  "Tut! tut!  More fibs.  Huddled over
-that stove, you make the loveliest study of despair.  You
-have been crying, too."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I—I haven't!"  The lines of Huddled Despair flowed
-into Radiant Anger.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Your eyes are red?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, if they are—if I did—it was through anger."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie accepted the modified admission.  "That's
-right, my dear.  He—no man is worth the compliment
-of regretful tears.  They are all foolish, selfish, fickle as
-children.  They cry for love like a child for the moon,
-throw it away when the toy wearies, howl if another
-tries to pick it up.  They only value the unattainable.  Bah!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The ejaculation was comical in its feigned disgust, but
-just then Helen had ears only for the serious or
-sympathetic—preferably the latter.  "Tell me, Elinor," she
-asked, "do you really think I have deserved this at his
-hands?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No."  For once in her life Mrs. Leslie dealt in
-undiluted truth—because, perhaps, lying would not serve
-her purpose.  "One could understand his pique—"  With
-incredible hardihood, considering the part she herself
-had played, she commented: "Really, my dear, you
-ought not to have done it.  But he has been altogether
-too severe—unforgiving.  I don't see how you stand it.
-I should freeze these cold nights without some one to
-warm my feet on."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"To think"—speech was such a relief after months of
-bitter silence, and Helen never even noticed the other's
-funny climax—"to think that this should be dealt to me
-by a man of whose very existence I was unconscious a
-short two years ago!  Is he a god to exercise such
-power—to command me to eat the bread-and-water of
-affliction during his pleasure?  Why, I was twenty-two
-before I ever saw him!  Doesn't it seem ridiculous—silly
-as though one pebble on a beach were to establish limits
-for another?  They roll and rub where and with whom
-they list, and why shouldn't I?"  Ignoring the fact that
-monogamy was her sex's greatest achievement, and that
-the first woman who bartered love for protection, cookery
-for maintenance, had not driven such a bad bargain, she
-finished: "Wouldn't it be funny if pebbles were
-condemned to rub and roll in definite pairs till winds and
-waves had buried one or other affinity deep in the sands.  Why—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"In other words," Mrs. Leslie interrupted, "why
-should vertical distances count for more than horizontal—death
-for more than distance—seven feet under the sod
-carry advantages and opportunities that do not go with
-seventy miles above?  There isn't any reason.  It is
-just so."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I won't stand it!"  Rebellion inhered in Helen's
-stamp.  "I won't!  I won't!  I won't!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie shrugged her hopelessness.  "Thousands of
-women have to.  What </span><em class="italics">can</em><span> you do, my dear?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Do?" the girl answered, hotly.  "I have already done
-it—applied for and secured my old school.  Unfortunately,
-I must remain here till the spring term opens."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now to accuse Mrs. Leslie of trailing a definite purpose
-were to reveal lamentable ignorance of her ruling traits.
-She was no fell adventuress of romance, stealthy of plot,
-remorseless in pursuit.  Persistence was foreign to her
-light character.  Unstable as water, she veered like a
-shuttlecock under the breath of emotion, yet, withal,
-grasped speedily at such straws as the winds of opportunity
-brought within reach.  If she lacked force to plot
-Carter's capture, or to revenge herself for his slight
-through Helen, she was willing enough now that the
-wind served.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"In the mean time," she said, "you will stay with me?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I couldn't do that!"  Oh, complex feminine
-nature!  Helen balked at the freedom of her agonizings.
-The quick earnestness of her answer told of the hope
-that still glowed in the ashes of despair.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Mrs. Leslie turned hope against her.  "Oh yes,"
-she mocked.  "You were not afraid of him; certainly
-not.  But that is not the way to get him back, my dear.
-If you would regain your recreant, give him a rival."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now, though this piece of worldly wisdom was strictly
-in line with Helen's crooked parable of the pebbles, the
-idea sounded grossly common in plain words.  Hastily
-she said, "You don't suppose that I would—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No! no!"  Mrs. Leslie skilfully retrieved her error.
-"I only meant that it would be as well to keep him on the
-anxious seat.  Never let a man feel too sure of you—it
-isn't healthy, for him or you.  I wouldn't wait here till
-it pleased him to extend magnificent forgiveness for so
-small a fault.  Go out—visit—let him see that you can
-be happy without him—that you have still attractions
-for others."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But I don't care.  Why do you persist, Elinor, in
-hinting that I still love him?  I don't."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then you'll come with me?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd like to, but I can't leave Jenny alone with Nels."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie might have replied that this was exactly
-what she would have to do when school opened;
-instead, she contemplated the love which masqueraded
-behind this unparalleled obstinacy from sphinxlike eyes.
-"Jenny must be dying to see her friends in Lone Tree,"
-she suggested.  "Let her take a vacation.  As for
-Nels—he can bach it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen looked troubled.  It was really astonishing to
-see how she ran from liberty.  But she had, perforce,
-to make some show of living up to her professions, so
-she called Jenny and anxiously inquired if she </span><em class="italics">didn't</em><span>
-want to visit her friends.  Unfortunately, Jennie had
-been oppressed these many days with a longing to see
-the good doctor, and the expression of her wish carried
-the day for Mrs. Leslie.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, well," she sighed; and Mrs. Leslie prudently
-confined her laugh within her own hollow sepultures.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Accepting the invitation with misgivings, she was
-astonished, on her return home, to find how thoroughly
-she had enjoyed her two weeks' visit.  Yet it was only
-natural.  Besides the change, Mrs. Leslie had been at
-pains to amuse and entertain her.  There were cosey
-chats over the teacups on matters dear to the feminine
-heart, and daily sleigh-rides—mad dashes over hard-packed
-trails to music of jingling bells.  Once the drive
-was extended as far as Regis barracks, twenty miles to
-the west, and Helen was introduced to captains of the
-mounted police in scarlet splashed with gold, their
-ladies, the agents and clerks of the government land
-office—pleasant people at first sight, of whom she was
-to learn more.  Of nights, Molyneux and other
-remittance-bachelors would drop in, and, with drawn curtains
-excluding the vast arctic night, there would be music,
-songs, games.  Small wonder that she enjoyed herself,
-or that, the ice thus broken, she gravitated between
-home and the Leslies' during the remainder of that
-winter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Speaking of Molyneux, a greater surprise inhered in
-the fact that she had been able to meet him without
-embarrassment, a condition that was due to the tact and
-real consideration which he displayed.  At their first
-meeting he paused only for a pleasant greeting; next,
-he ventured a chat; and these lengthened until he felt
-safe in staying out an evening.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He marked his greatest gain the day that—Leslie
-being under the weather with a cold—she allowed him
-to drive her home.  By those gentlemen, the romanticists,
-this fact would not have been accorded a tender
-implication.  They paint love in colors fast as patent
-dyes: good girls love once; or, if a second passion be
-grudgingly allowed, it is only after the first is safely
-bestowed in cold storage underground.  In face of the
-fact that the little god occasionally shoots a double
-arrow, that the sigh of many a wife would be unwelcome
-if intelligible to her husband, that many a maid has
-slipped into spinsterhood between two passions, they
-lay down as the basic principle of ethical romance the
-canon that neither wife nor maid can entertain two loves
-other than in sequence.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now Helen may not have been in this case, and if she
-had it goes without saying that she would never have
-admitted the preference even to herself.  For she had
-been raised in the very shadow of the aforesaid canon.
-Yet he had certainly won on her—for good reason.  In
-person he was above the average of good looks; his
-manners touched standard.  In that he, alone of the
-English set, had been able to wring a living from the
-stern northland without the aid of a fat allowance, he
-commanded her respect.  Also she thought that he was
-trying to sink his past—he entertained the same
-illusion—and as every good girl loves to imagine herself as an
-"influence," the thought gave her satisfaction.  Molyneux
-had no cause of complaint.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To do him justice, he tried, in a slovenly fashion, yet
-still tried, to live up to this, the one pure love of his
-life—purity must be interpreted as applying to his intention
-rather than motive.  Of all the remittance-men who
-frequented Mrs. Leslie's house, he, at this time, showed the
-least moral taint.  Often he thrust in between Helen and
-things offensive.  Though, during Helen's visits,
-Mrs. Leslie made some attempt to put her house in order,
-she could not always bridle her male guests, who smoked
-Leslie's imported tobacco and offered herself veiled love.
-But Molyneux sterilized most of their blackguardism,
-nipping entendre with a chilly stare, destroying double
-meanings by instant and literal interpretation—did it so
-effectually that she never noticed the pervading
-sensualism.  Indeed, he did it so much as to draw Mrs. Leslie's
-fire.  "Virtuous boy," she said, teasing him one day.
-"You almost convert me to the true-love theory."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His grimace gauged the depth of his reformation.  To
-him as to Mrs. Leslie the text could be fitted: "Can the
-leopard change his spots or the Ethiop his skin?"  Really
-he had not changed in quality or purpose; it
-was the same Molyneux in pursuit of the same end.
-His tactics were merely altered to suit his game.  He
-would, of course, have denied this—probably with the
-warmth of honest conviction.  At times his reflections
-on the subject attained highly moral altitudes.  He had
-known from the first that Helen could never live with
-Carter!  Duty certainly called him to end her bondage!
-Yes, he believed himself honest, and would continue to
-so believe until some unexpected check loosed the Old
-Adam again.  This was proved by the flashes of passion
-at the very thought of failure.  It would have been
-much more natural for him to have attempted a raid on
-Carter's Eden.  But, warned by previous experience, he
-waited, waited, waited, and watched as the snake may
-have watched the maiden Eve over the threshold of
-Adam's garden.  Now that time seemed to have verified
-his prediction, that, albeit with hesitant steps, Helen was
-approaching the gate of her own accord, he held back
-the hot hand that fain would have plucked her forth
-lest he should startle her into flight.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There were many watchers of the girl's progression
-during the winter months: Mrs. Leslie, who might be
-said to await the moment when a shove might throw the
-girl off her balance headlong into Molyneux's arms; the
-settlers, who anticipated such a denouement with
-scandalous tongues; the remittance-men, who betted on the
-result, basing odds on her lonely condition.  To these there
-could be but one end.  Always the human soul reaches
-for happiness, and the fact that she had once mistaken
-Dead Sea fruit for love's golden apples would not prevent
-her from tiptoeing to pluck again.  Would she pluck?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Molyneux, for one, was sure that she would, and,
-having the courage of his conviction, put his hope into
-speech, choosing an opportune time.  Nels always drove
-her over to Leslie's, and at first brought her home.  But
-by the middle of February the latter part of the task
-fell by consent of all to Molyneux, and he spoke while
-driving her home one afternoon.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Read this," he said, handing her a telegram that
-called him to his father's death-bed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, impulsively.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"For what," he questioned, "his sickness or my absence?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Both," she frankly answered.  "You have been—very
-nice to me.  I shall miss you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now this was all very proper, but when he stated that
-he should be gone at least seven weeks she ought to
-have veiled her concern.  But she did not, and the
-regret that swam in the hazel eyes strengthened his
-purpose.  "Before I go I must say something.  How long
-is our present relation to last?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The raise of her eyebrows might have meant anything.
-He took it as encouragement, and ran on, "You know
-that I love—have always loved you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Here, according to the canons, she ought to have
-withered him.  Instead she gave him the truth.  "I am
-not blind."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Thanks for your candor.  Now, a step further—do
-you intend to remain his bondwoman?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This was harder, yet her answer correctly interpreted
-her feeling.  "I—I—really don't know."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The doubt spurred him.  "You do not love him.  You
-could not—after the way he has treated you.  You must
-have love.  A glance at your face would tell a dullard
-that it is as necessary to your existence as air or water.
-You cannot be happy without it.  It is life to you; more
-than sustenance.  You must be wrapped in it, touch it
-at every point, feel it everywhere around you.  Your
-being cries out for a passion all-absorbing; you will
-take nothing less.  I would—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Give me such love?"  She had thrilled under his
-truthful analysis of her nature, and now she cried out
-the passion of her sex, the eternal desire for a love
-everlasting as that of a mother.  "Is such possible?—a love
-that never stales, that endures after the hot blood cools
-and beauty fades?  Could you love me through old age?
-No, no!  A woman can, but never a man!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I can!  By God!  I can!" he cried, blazing in response
-to her passion.  "I'll prove it, for sooner or later
-you are going to love me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She laughed a little wearily.  "There spake the bold
-man.  Well—you have my good wishes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Your—good—wishes?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't flatter yourself."  Her staying hand checked
-his enthusiasm.  "You said just now that I didn't
-love—my husband.  Perhaps you are right.  I don't know.
-I have no standard by which to judge, and only love
-could supply one.  So far—you have failed to do so.
-I like you—very much; but—if I ever love again, the
-man must lift me out of myself, make me forget—him,
-myself, the whole world."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll do it!" he confidently exclaimed; then, sobering,
-added: "I want you to promise one thing.  It isn't
-much—simply to give serious thought to your position
-while I am away—to remember what I have just told
-you and to forget that first foolish mistake that cost
-me so much.  Now will you?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Surely," she honestly answered.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And—if possible—give me an answer?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She nodded, and he was content to leave it there.
-They were now on the last mile, and they made it in
-silence, he plunged in delicious reverie, she very
-thoughtful.  Looking up as the cutter rolled and bumped over
-the frozen stable-yard, he caught her looking at him with
-soft compassion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She smiled.  "Did you really—suffer?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hell!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Grasping her hand, he had almost kissed it when she
-jerked it suddenly away.  "There's Karl—and
-Jenny—standing in the door."  Noting his sudden
-discomposure, she added: "Never mind, she didn't see you.
-Won't you come in?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Can't—put me late for the choring."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This was only one of a dozen times that he had refused
-the invitation.  A little surprised, she watched him turn
-and drive away, then she saw Nels coming up from the
-stable, and the thought was lost in wonder as to whether
-or no he had seen Molyneux take her hand.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now, as a matter of fact, Nels had; moreover, he
-mentioned it to Jenny as he helped her wipe the supper
-dishes, and thereby earned much trouble.  "I tank," he
-observed, "something is doings.  Cappan he taken the
-mistress hand.  Pratty soon the boss no have womans."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His chuckle died under her wrathful stare.  "Mention
-that to any one, Nels, an' Mr. Bender 'll break every bone
-in your body."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was not so easy to dispose of her own misgivings.
-As, that evening, she arranged the dishes in the
-homemade plate-rack, she turned sombre eyes on Helen,
-musing by the stove.  Often her lips opened, but sound
-trembled on its thresholds.  She kept her own counsel
-till Bender dropped in on his next visit.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was perfectly natural for her to turn to him for
-counsel.  Coming to her as he did, in the moment of
-her sore trouble, her girl's heart had opened and vented
-on him the love that had been prisoned since the death
-of her mother; and ever since a perfect understanding
-of kindred natures had obtained between them.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"They're talking about her in the settlements something
-scan'lous," she told him.  "Tongues is clacking
-from here to Lone Tree.  Why </span><em class="italics">don't</em><span> Mr. Carter come
-home?  Kain't you persuade him?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Bender shook his head.  "No, he's stiffer'n all
-he—  Beg your pardon!  I mean he's dreadful sot in
-his mind.  I wouldn't envy the one that went to advise him."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Before going away Bender touched on a matter that
-was now old history in their intercourse.  "Changed
-your mind yet, little girl?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was now Jenny's turn to sorrowfully shake her head.
-"It would be my an' pleasure to be wife to a big, good
-man like you.  But I just kain't bring myself to put
-you where any man could cast my shame in your face."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, shore!" he protested.  "You was that little—a
-teeny bit of a thing, jes' seventeen—on'y a baby.  Who'd
-be holding it agin you?  Besides—he's in England."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes—he's in England," Jenny slowly repeated.  "But—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He did not see the queer look she sent after him as he
-rode away.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="a-house-party"><span class="bold large">XVI</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">A HOUSE-PARTY</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>One morning, some three weeks after Molyneux's
-departure, Helen sat in her doorway reading, as
-certain an indication of coming spring as the honk of
-the wild geese speeding northward on the back of the
-amorous south wind.  As yet the prairie sloughs wore
-mail of ice, but from dizzy heights those keen-eyed
-voyagers discerned tricklings and wee pools under sheltered
-forest banks, sufficient till the laggard sun should smite
-the snows and fill the air with tinklings and gurglings,
-loose the strange sound of running waters on the frozen
-silence.  Another month would do it.  Already the
-drifts were packing, and the hard trails traversed the
-sinking snows like mountain chains on a relief map.
-In Helen's door-yard stratas of yellow chips, debris of
-the winter's furious firing, were beginning to appear;
-with them, lost articles; indeed, Nels was gobbling joyously
-over the retrieval of an axe, when Leslie's team and
-cutter came swinging into the yard.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Leslie was driving, and, seeing Helen, she screamed
-from a hundred yards: "They are coming!  All of 'em!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Who?" Helen asked, when the ponies stopped at the door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, Edith Newton, Mrs. Jack Charters, Sinclair
-Rhodes—you remember?  I told you that I should give
-a house-party for the Regis folks when the frosts let up.
-Hurry and pack up your war-paint!  They'll be here
-to-morrow, and I need your help.  No refusal!  Fred
-is going in to Lone Tree to-morrow and Jenny can go
-down with him.  Nels will cook for himself, won't you, Nels?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I tank I can cook, yes."  Nels ceased his jubilations
-over the axe long enough to season his assent with a
-bleached grin.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There!  It's all fixed."  Bustling inside, she talked
-volubly while assisting in Helen's selections.  "Yes,
-take that; you look your sweetest in it; and I imported
-Captain Chapman especially for you.  That also; you'll
-need it evenings.  No, Captain Charters isn't coming.
-Some Indian trouble called him west.  Oh, Mrs. Jack
-won't care—I'm the loser, for he was always my cavalier."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Driving home, she rattled steadily, entertaining Helen
-with descriptions of her expected guests, giving their
-pedigrees, aristocratic connections, while she spiced her
-discourse with malicious fact.  Sinclair Rhodes had
-secured his appointment as land agent at Regis through
-distant cousinship to the governor-general.  And why
-not?  The offices ought to go to well-bred people!  He
-had money, must have, for his salary and expenses were
-out of all proportion—so much so as to cause comment
-by malicious people, envious souls!  What if he did make
-a little, as they said, on the side?  The government
-could afford it; and every one knew what Canadians
-were in office!  People who live in glass houses, and so
-forth!  It was simply racial envy!  She was also
-becomingly indignant over the action of certain Canadians who
-had made trouble for Captain Chapman in the matter of
-mounted-police supplies.  What figure did a few tons of
-provisions cut in a gentleman's accounts?  These
-commercial intellects, with their mathematical exactness,
-were horrid.  Newton?  He was an appointee of Rhodes.
-No, no relation.  She waived further description of the
-Newtons, omitted the pregnant fact that Charles
-Newton's presence cut as little figure in his wife's social
-calculations as Captain Charters' absence did in those
-of Mrs. Jack.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Caution, doubtless, counselled the omission.  The quail
-is not flushed till the net be spread.  Yet the
-reservation was hardly necessary in the light of Helen's
-condition.  Judgment of another's action is colored by one's
-own mental state, and she was not so likely to be
-shocked by one who had defied the conventions against
-which she herself was in open mutiny.  Anyway, she
-liked Mrs. Jack at first sight, despite the scandalous
-manner in which she flirted with Charles Newton the
-first night at table.  Big, tall, and fair, large eyes
-expressed her saving grace, an unparalleled frankness that
-seemed to sterilize her flirtations and rob them of
-impropriety.  Twice during the meal she retailed Newton's
-tender asides to his wife, asking, laughingly, if she
-recognized the vintage.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>However, being as yet in happy ignorance of many
-things that would soon cause her serious disquiet, Helen
-thoroughly enjoyed that first evening.  The well-appointed
-table, with its sparkling glass, silver, snowy napery;
-the well-groomed people and their correct speech alike
-fed her starved æsthetic senses while they aroused
-dormant social qualities.  She laughed, chattered, capped
-Mrs. Jack's sallies, displaying animation and wit that
-simply astonished Mrs. Leslie.  Her wonder, indeed,
-caused Edith Newton to whisper in Mrs. Jack's ear:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Elinor looks as though she had imported a swan in
-mistake for a duckling.  Look at Sinclair—positively
-smitten.  Giving her all his attention, though he took
-Elinor in.  The girl seems to like him, too."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Jack's big eyes turned to the laughing face that
-was raised up to Rhodes.  "Don't believe a word he
-says, my dear," she suddenly called across the table.
-"And look out for him.  He's dangerous."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though she laughed, Rhodes must have sensed a serious
-motive, for he glanced up in quick annoyance.  "Do
-I look it?" he asked, turning again to Helen.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nature does not lie.  His narrowly spaced eyes,
-salient facial angles, dull skin, heavy lips carried her
-certificate of degeneracy.  A physiognomist would have
-pronounced him dangerous to innocence as a wild beast on
-less evidence, but to Helen's inexperience he appeared
-as a man unusually handsome, profile or front face.
-The significant angles did not alter the good modelling
-of his nose and chin or affect the regularity of his
-features.  Tall, slim, irreproachable in manner and dress,
-there was no scratch to reveal the base metal beneath
-his electroplate refinement.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You certainly don't," she answered, laughing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then," he said, with mock gravity, "I can patiently
-suffer the sting of calumny."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Calumny?" Mrs. Jack echoed, teasingly.  "</span><em class="italics">Calumny</em><span>?
-What's that?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Synonyme for conscience," Edith Newton put in, with
-a spice of malice.  For though the conquest of Rhodes—to
-which Regis gossip wickedly laid Newton's presence
-in the land office—was now stale with age and tiresome
-to herself, she was selfish enough to resent his defection.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Sinclair found it while rummaging Fred's coat for
-matches," her husband added.  Leslie's simplicity was
-as much of a joke to them as it was with the Canadian
-settlers, and, under cover of the laugh, Chapman—a big
-blond of that cavalry, mustached type which wins
-England's cricket matches while losing all her wars—leaned
-over and whispered in Newton's ear: "Leslie will lose
-more than his conscience if he doesn't look out.  La belle
-Elinor is madly smitten."  Aloud, he said, "Sinclair
-would hardly know what to do with it, Mrs. Newton."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hearken not to the tongue of envy, Mrs. Carter,"
-Rhodes retaliated upon his tormentors.  "I'm a very
-responsible person, I assure you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She laughed at his mock seriousness, and, believing it
-all fooling, gave him so much of her attention that
-evening as to cause more than one comment.  "Rhodes is
-making heavy running," Newton remarked once to
-Chapman, who replied, conceitedly stroking his mustache,
-"Wait till I get in my innings."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"After me," Newton answered.  "I come next at the bat."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Ignorant of this and other by-play, however, Helen
-thoroughly enjoyed the first days of the party.  On the
-frontier, amusement is a home-made product, and shares
-the superiority of domestic jams, jellies, and pickles over
-the article of commerce.  They caught the fickle damsel
-Pleasure coming and going, reaping the satisfaction of
-both spectator and entertainer.  By day they skated,
-drove, or curled on a rink which the male guests laid out;
-nights, they sang, danced, played games, and romped
-like children.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Apart from a certain freedom in their intercourse,
-which she attributed to long acquaintance, Helen found
-nothing objectionable in the demeanor of her new friends
-during those first few days.  On the contrary, she
-thought them a trifle dull.  Their preglacial and
-ponderous humor excited her risibility; she laughed as often
-at as with them.  At other times she could not but feel
-that they regarded her as alien, a pretty pagan without
-their social pale, and she would revolt against their
-enormous egotism, insolent national conceit.  She broke
-many a lance on that impregnable shield.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You English," she flashed back when, one evening,
-Newton reflected on American pronunciation of certain
-English family names—"you English remind me of the
-Jews, with their sibboleth and shibboleth.  Is your
-aristocracy so doubtful of its own identity that it is
-compelled to hedge itself against intrusion by the use of
-passwords.  You may call 'Cholmondeley' 'Chumley,'
-if you choose, but we commit no crime in pronouncing
-it as spelled."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Again, when Edith Newton rallied her on some crude
-custom which she maintained was peculiarly American,
-Helen delivered a sharp </span><em class="italics">riposte</em><span>.  "No, I never saw it
-done at home; but I have heard that it is quite common
-among English emigrants on transatlantic liners."  Such
-tiffs were, however, rare; and, to do them justice, men
-and women hastened to sacrifice national conceit on the
-altars of her wounded susceptibilities.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Offence came later, and on quite another score.  At
-first she liked the attentions paid her; the gallantry of
-the men put her on better terms with herself, renewed
-the confidence which had diminished to the vanishing-point
-during her months of loneliness.  But when constant
-association thawed the reserve natural to first
-acquaintance, and freedom evolved into familiarity, her
-instincts took alarm.  Distressed, she observed the other
-women to see if she had been singled out.  But no, they
-seemed quite comfortable under similar attentions, and
-they rallied her when she unfolded her misgivings at
-afternoon tea.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You shouldn't be so pretty, my dear," Mrs. Jack
-said, laughing.  "What can the poor men do?"  Then
-they made fun of her scruples, satirizing conventions and
-institutions which she had always regarded as necessary,
-if not God-ordained.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Marriage," Edith Newton once cynically exclaimed,
-"is merely a badge of respectability, useful as a shield
-from the slings and arrows."  Then, from the depths of
-her own degeneracy, she evolved the utterance: "Men
-are all beasts beneath the skin.  Wise women use them
-for pleasure or profit."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen revolted at that; it transcended her mutiny.
-But few people are made of martyr stuff—perhaps
-fortunately so; martyrs are uncomfortable folk, and, wise
-in her eternal generation, nature sprinkles them lightly
-over the mass of common clay.  The average person
-easily takes the color of environment, so why not Helen?
-Thinking that perhaps she was a little prudish, she
-stifled her fears, tried to imitate the nonchalance of the
-others.  She even made a few tentative attempts at
-daring.  Alas! as well expect a rabbit to ruffle it with
-wolves.  Such immediate and unwelcome results followed
-that she retired precipitously behind ramparts of
-blushing reserve.  But the damage was done.
-Thereafter Chapman, Newton, Rhodes, one or another, was
-constantly at her elbow; she was unpleasantly conscious
-that, having let down her fences, they looked upon her
-as free game.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The thought stirred her to fight.  Chapman she
-disposed of with a single rebuff that sent him back to
-Mrs. Jack's side.  But Newton proved unmanageable.
-Impervious to snubs, his manner conveyed his idea that her
-modesty was simply a blind for the others.  His
-familiarities bordered on license.  A good singer, he always
-asked her to play his accompaniments of evenings, and
-she would sicken as he used the pretence of turning a
-leaf to lean heavily upon her shoulder.  At other times
-he made occasion to touch her—would pick threads from
-her jacket; lean across her to speak to her neighbor at
-table.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>By such tactics he brought her, one morning, to great
-confusion.  A Cree Indian had driven in from the
-Assiniboin reserve with bead-work, moccasins, and
-badger-skin mittens which he wished to trade for flour
-or bacon.  With the other women Helen was bending
-over to examine his wares, when Newton entered the
-kitchen.  Stepping quietly up from behind, he laid a
-hand on Helen's hair.  Taking him for one of the other
-women, she suffered his fondling till Mrs. Leslie, who
-knew he was there, asked his opinion on a tobacco-pouch.
-Then, before she could move, speak, cast off
-his hand, he pressed her head against his wife's dark
-curls.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Just look at the contrast!" he admiringly exclaimed,
-and so robbed her anger.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Yet so evident was the intent behind the excuse that
-even the Cree detected the sham.  From Helen his dark
-glance travelled to Newton and back again.  "He your
-man?" he asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Vexed to the point of tears, she shook her head and
-bent over the bead-work to hide her embarrassment.
-But the Cree's rude notions of etiquette had been jarred.
-"He touch your hair!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So simple, his comment yet pierced to the heart of the
-matter.  Newton had fondled her hair, crown and
-symbol of her womanhood, a privilege of marriage.  In an
-Indian tribe the offence would have loosed the slipping
-knife; a settler would have resented it with knarled fist.
-But here the women tittered, while Chapman, who just
-then sauntered in, laughed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Emboldened, perhaps, by immunity, the man's offensiveness
-developed into actual insult the evening of that
-same day.  They had all been pulling taffy in the
-kitchen, and, passing through a dark passage to the
-living-room, Helen felt an arm slip about her waist.
-Newton's face was still tingling from a vigorous slap
-when she confronted him before them all in the living-room.
-Even his hardihood quailed before her flushed
-and contemptuous anger; he was not quite so ready
-with his excuse.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I </span><em class="italics">beg</em><span> your </span><em class="italics">pardon</em><span>, Mrs. Carter!  Really, I mistook
-you for my wife."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a lie on the face of it, and, barbed with stinging
-truth, her retort drew a peal of laughter from the others.
-"Indeed?  Your excuse is more remarkable than your
-mistake."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Offended as much by the laugh as the insult, she
-seated herself on a lounge by Leslie, the one man with
-whom she always felt safe.  In him the stigma of
-degeneracy took another form; the tired blood expressed
-itself in a prodigious simplicity.  He lacked even the
-elements of vice.  As his wife put it, "Fred is too
-stupid to be wicked."  Yet, withal, he was very much
-of a man as far as his chuckleheadedness permitted, and
-now he offered real sympathy.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It was a caddish trick, Mrs. Carter, and I mean to
-tell him so."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh no!" she pleaded.  "It wouldn't improve matters
-to make a scene, and he's not likely to offend again.
-Please don't?  Stay here—with me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But I'm your host.  Really, he deserves a thrashing."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no!  Stay here!  I don't feel equal to the others."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I never do."  Sitting again, he turned on her a look
-of beaming fellowship.  "The girls all yawn and look
-terribly bored when I try to amuse them—except you.
-They don't seem to care for horses and dogs, the things
-that interest me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If, as a conversationalist, he did not shine, he at least
-brought her the first easy moments she had known that
-day, and she turned a sympathetic ear to some of his
-prattle.  Indicating Rhodes, who was leaning over
-Mrs. Leslie, he said: "You know I don't like that sort of
-thing.  Elinor says I'm old-fashioned, and I suppose
-she knows.  Of course she wouldn't do anything that
-wasn't proper, but a fellow has his feelings, and it
-doesn't take a crime to hurt them, does it?  She's up
-on the conventions; but it does seem to me that if a
-fellow has anything to say to another fellow's wife he
-ought to say it aloud."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Astonished that his dulness should have sensed the
-pervading sensualism, she studied him while he watched
-his wife, in his eyes something of that pitiful pleading
-one sees in those of a beaten dog.  His words banished
-her doubts as to whether her own misgivings did not
-root in hypercritical standards—restored her viewpoint.
-All week the atmosphere had thickened, as constant
-association banished reserve, and to-day freedom had
-attained its meridian.  It was not the matter but the
-manner of conversation that filled her with a great
-uneasiness—the whispers, asides, smiling stares, conscious
-laughter.  The vitiated atmosphere caused her a feeling
-of suffocation, and in the midst of her sick revulsion
-Leslie dropped a remark that came to her like a breath
-of ozone.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I was awfully sorry to hear of the trouble between
-you and Carter.  I always thought him </span><em class="italics">such</em><span> a fine
-fellow.  He hadn't much use for me—any of us—still I
-liked him.  He was a bit on the rough, of course; but, I
-tell you, character counts more than culture, strength
-than refinement."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Character counts more than culture, strength than
-refinement?  To his simplicity had been vouched
-wisdom worthy of a philosopher.  The phrase stabbed her.
-Before her rose a vision of her husband as she had seen
-him that last miserable night, cold, stern, inexorable, in
-the loom of the moonlight.  In view of that colossal
-memory, the Englishmen about her dwarfed to effeminate
-insignificance.  Vividly her own doubting recurred.
-And she had traded him—for this!  The thought brought
-wretchedness too great for concealment.  Her uneasiness
-was so manifest as to form the theme of a bedroom
-conversation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though comfortable—the one frame house in the
-settlements, a palace to Canadian eyes—Leslie's house
-boasted only two bedrooms; so while the men made
-shift on shake-downs, Helen shared Mrs. Leslie's rooms,
-Edith Newton and Mrs. Jack the other.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As she braided her hair for the night, the latter lady
-opened the conversation.  "Did you notice how uncomfortable
-little Carter was this evening?  She is a nice
-little thing, but she doesn't mix.  I don't see why
-Elinor invited her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't, eh?"  Edith Newton mumbled a mouthful
-of pins.  "You are slow, Maud."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No—only lazy.  Why should I puzzle over things
-when you are here?  I'll bet you have pumped
-everybody dry long ago.  Now—dispense!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't go round with my eyes shut," the other
-calmly answered.  "To begin: Calvert Molyneux is
-completely gone on little Carter, whose husband, it seems,
-left her because of some slight."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hum!"  Mrs. Jack elevated her straight brows.
-"Foolish man to leave her to Calvert.  So that is why
-he went home!  Exits till the tarnished pearl be
-regulped by the conjugal oyster?  Clever!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"On the contrary"—she curled a full red lip—"he
-contemplates </span><em class="italics">honorable</em><span> marriage—dalliance, Dakota,
-divorce, everything that begins with D, down to eventual
-desertion, if I know anything of Calvert.  But fancy—HE!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'The devil in love, the devil a husband would be,'"
-Mrs. Jack misquoted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'The devil married, the devil a husband was he,'"
-Edith Newton finished.  "But he is not married yet.
-She holds him off—foolishly.  For you know Calvert,
-good in streaks, but ruled by his emotions and ruthless
-when they command.  If she turns him down—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She'll need to keep him at longer distance than this
-house affords.  But Elinor?—this doesn't explain her.
-She's beastly selfish under her jolly little skin.  Why is
-she posing as aid and advocate of love?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"In love with Carter hubby—or was would be more
-correct, in view of her carryings-on with Sinclair.  But the
-Carter attack, I understand, was very severe while it lasted.
-Think of it, Maud, Elinor to fall in love with a settler!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Jack elevated naked shoulders.  "Not at all
-surprising.  Just the itch of her rotten blood for a few
-sound corpuscles.  I've felt it myself at times.  Don't
-look so shocked—you know we are rotten."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Maud!  Maud!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Humming a bar of "La Boheme," Mrs. Jack regarded
-her companion through narrowed lids.  "I believe, Edith,
-you keep up appearances with yourself.  Why not be
-natural for a change?  But, as you say, Elinor seems to
-have made a complete convalescence.  Did you </span><em class="italics">ever</em><span> see
-a woman make </span><em class="italics">such</em><span> a projectile of herself?  Positively
-hurls herself at Sinclair.  But tell me more about the
-Carter man.  How did he treat her rabies?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Cold-water cure.  Turned her down—flat."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"So in revenge she's trying to besmirch the wife?
-The little devil!  I call that pretty raw, Edith."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The other shrugged.  "Oh, well, it is her pie, and if
-she prefers it uncooked it is none of our business.
-Better keep your fingers out of it, Maud.  Struggle with
-your good intentions."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Jack smiled sweetly.  "My dear, am I in the
-habit of messing alien pies?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Not unless you covet the meat."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, I'm not hankering after either Calvert or Carter
-hubby, though I must say that I like his specifications.
-Showed awfully good taste both in selecting his wife and
-rejecting Elinor.  Fancy! a virtuous man—in this day!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>By this time Edith Newton was disposed in bed.  A
-sleepy answer came from under the clothing.  "Proves
-he hadn't the honor of your acquaintance."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nor yours," Mrs. Jack retorted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her flippancy masked a disquiet so grave as to drive
-away the desire for sleep.  Clad only in her bed-gown,
-she drew a chair up to the stove, which returned her
-thoughtful gaze through two red monocles of isinglass.
-In her fair-play was associated with its companion
-virtue frankness, and in no wise could she read a mite
-of the former quality into Elinor Leslie's intent towards
-Helen.  After many uneasy shruggings, she rose, took
-the lamp, and walked into the other bedroom.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Misplaced my comb," she answered Mrs. Leslie's
-sleepy inquiry.  "Lend me yours."  Then she paused
-at the foot of the bed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen had coiled her hair for the night, but its unruly
-masses had loosened and ran, a perfect cataract of gold,
-over her pillow.  Against that auriferous background
-lay her head and face, with its delicate creams and pinks
-sinking into the plumpness of one white arm.  The other
-was folded over the softness of her bosom.  Mrs. Jack
-thought her asleep till her eyes opened, then, returning
-the girl's smile, she tiptoed back to her fire.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's a damned shame," she told herself, profanely,
-but truly, and with such vigor that Edith Newton sleepily
-asked: "What's the matter?  Aren't you ever coming
-to bed, Maud?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Saying my prayers.  Go to sleep."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Put in a word for me," the other murmured.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The Lord knows that you need it."  Mrs. Jack
-glanced at the bed, then returned to her musings.  "Of
-course she's a little fool.  If she goes back to her
-husband she will have to settle down to the humdrum of
-settler life—raise calves, chickens, pigs, and children in
-the fear of the Lord, with only a church picnic or some
-such wild dissipation to break the deadly monotony.  A
-pleasing prospect, I must say.  But if it suits her—well,
-I'm not going to see her delivered, bound and bleating,
-into the hands of the devil, </span><em class="italics">alias</em><span> Calvert Molyneux.
-It seems a shame, either way, but she undoubtedly
-loves her settler hubby, and she's just the kind to eat
-her heart out through remorse and shame.  And here
-is Elinor blackening her reputation with the pig settlers
-to whom she must look for a living, making reconciliation
-impossible!  Well, I'm going to speak to the little
-fool to-morrow."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This she did, making her opportunity by carrying
-Helen off to her bedroom, where, having disposed her
-victim in a comfortable chair, she herself snuggled down
-upon the bed and went with customary frankness
-straight to the heart of her subject.  "I want to know,
-Helen Carter, why you are here?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Puzzled, Helen stared; then, interpreting by the smile,
-she answered, "I—really, I—don't know."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A—pretty—poor—reason!"  She shook her finger in
-affected anger.  "Don't you </span><em class="italics">know</em><span> that you don't belong?
-Now don't flare up!  If I were Edith Newton, or Elinor,
-the cat, you might suspect a reflection.  It isn't that
-you are below grade—just the opposite.  Frankly,
-my dear, we are a rotten lot.  A sweet girl, with
-conscience and morality has no business among us.  We
-couldn't scrape up enough of either article to outfit a
-respectable cat.  Don't blush.  I'm not envying you
-your conscience.  It is a most uncomfortable asset, and,
-given choice of two evils, I'd take a harelip.  But, as
-you have one—well, you'd better mizzle—go home, you know."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Having eased herself by this delivery, Mrs. Jack sighed,
-sat up, rolled herself a cigarette, and went on, after a
-contented puff: "Don't tell on me, my dear.  Not that
-I care a whoop—that's American, isn't it?  I love your
-slang; it is so expressive and comfortable to the feelings.
-But, you see, rakishness has no attractions for the fool
-male of our species.  He resents any infringement of his
-monopoly.  Even such a degenerate ass as Charles
-Newton prefers school-girl simplicity.  So one must needs
-simulate virgin innocence, however painful.  That's more
-of your delightful slang.  Now—when are you going?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The question anticipated the conclusion of Helen's
-midnight tossings; but, if unchanged in substance, this
-had nevertheless been modified by cooler morning
-reflections.  She stated the qualifications—Jenny was
-visiting in Lone Tree, and would not return till Saturday.
-Only two more days!  Her visit would then come to a
-natural end, so why offend by abrupt departure?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Jack laughed.  "I don't think Elinor would be
-so very dreadfully offended.  Why?  Well, it is ungracious
-to criticise one's hostess, but—you have trapped
-her rabbit."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Her—rabbit?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes—Sinclair Rhodes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, he paid me less attention than any of the
-others; was less—you'll pardon me—offensive.  I even
-thought he tried to keep them away."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"As the lion drives the jackals.  Avoid him, my dear.
-Well, I suppose that a couple more days won't hurt.
-We are to stay a week longer, and if Elinor asks
-you—which she won't—you </span><em class="italics">must</em><span> refuse.  Now let us go out
-before they begin to suspect a conspiracy."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But first let me thank you.  I have been so miserable,
-and you have done me </span><em class="italics">so</em><span> much good."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Mrs. Jack gently patted the hand that caught her arm,
-an action totally at variance with her answer.
-"Self-interest, I assure you.  Elinor is not the only sufferer.
-You have depleted the entire preserve.  Not a man has
-looked at me the last three days.  There, there!  You
-needn't believe it if you don't want to."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Could Mrs. Jack's frank eyes have pierced the
-immediate future, she would have made her warning against
-Rhodes more specific.  On Thursday of that week Leslie
-drove his heavy team and bobs into Lone Tree for
-supplies, and, what of the thawing trails, could not possibly
-be back till all hours Saturday night.  Not knowing this,
-Mrs. Jack made no objection when, Saturday morning,
-Danvers drove over with Molyneux's double cutter and
-carried off herself and the Newtons to visit a friend west
-of the Assiniboin.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll be here till after supper," she said to Helen,
-leaving.  "So I won't say good-bye."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But she miscalculated both the warmth of the friend's
-welcome and the heavy sledding.  When she returned,
-long after dark, she found Mrs. Leslie reading a novel
-by her bedroom stove.  In a loose wrapper, crossed feet
-comfortably propped on the plated stove-rail, a plate of
-red apples at her elbow, and the light comfortably
-adjusted on the table behind her, she was the picture of
-comfort.  "Having a jolly good time all by myself," she
-explained.  "Fred's not home yet, and Captain Chapman
-went over to win a little from Ernest Poole at poker.
-Helen?  Just gone.  She waited and waited and waited,
-but you were so late that we both thought you had
-concluded to stay the night.  Didn't you pass her at the
-Forks—or hear the bells?  That double string of Fred's
-can be heard to heaven on a still night."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, was that she?  Hired man came for her, I
-suppose?" Mrs. Jack indifferently inquired, as she laid
-off her furs.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No.  Sinclair drove her with our ponies.  What's
-the matter?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Eyes dark and dilated with fear, Mrs. Jack faced her.
-"Do you mean to tell me—"  Breaking hastily off, she
-ran through bed and living rooms, almost upsetting
-Newton on her way to the outer door.  "Mr. Danvers!
-Oh, Mr. Danvers!  Mr. Danvers!  Mr.—Danvers!" she
-called.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But the night returned only the clash of his bells.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Sweeping back in, she faced Mrs. Leslie, flushed with
-the one righteous emotion of her fast life.  "You let
-her go out—alone—with that—"  Choking, she ran into
-her own room and slammed the door, leaving the other
-two women staring.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Edith Newton answered the lift of the other's
-eyebrows.  "Another of Maud's raves."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="and-its-finale"><span class="bold large">XVII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">—AND ITS FINALE</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>But for the bells and groan of runners, which drowned
-sound for them even as it did for Danvers, Helen
-and Rhodes were near enough to have heard Mrs. Jack's
-call.  Interpreting the latter's warning morally, Helen
-had accepted Rhodes's escort as the lesser of two evils,
-or, if she had speculated on tentative attempts at
-flirtation, had not doubted her own ability to snub them.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A sudden frost, winter's last desperate clutch at the
-throat of spring, had hardened the sun-rotted trails; and
-as the cutter sped swiftly over the first mile, she chatted
-freely, without thought of danger.  Of the three male
-guests, Rhodes had, as aforeseen, pestered her least, so,
-ignorant of the pitiless brutality masked by his reserve,
-she was paralyzed—almost fainted—when his arm
-suddenly dropped from the cutter-rail to her waist.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Recovering, she spoke sharply, "Take it away!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Instead, he drew her tighter.  She could not see his
-face; but as she struck, madly, blindly, at its dim whiteness,
-his laugh, heartless, cynical, came out of the dusk,
-"Kick, bite, scratch all you want, my little beauty," he
-said, forcing his face against hers, "your struggles are
-sweet as caresses."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Yet, withal his boast, he found it difficult to hold her.
-Twice she broke his grip and almost leaped from the
-sleigh; and as she fought his face away, her hand
-suddenly touched the reins that were looped over his arm.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In the black confusion he was unable to specify just
-what happened thereafter.  He knew that, alarmed by
-the scuffling, the ponies had burst into a gallop; but,
-though he felt her relax, he could not see her throw all
-of her weight into a sudden jerk on the left rein.  Ensued
-a heaving, tumultuous moment.  Pulled from the trail,
-the ponies plunged into deep drift.  The cutter bucked
-like a live thing, and as it dropped from the high trail
-a runner cracked with a pistol report.  Simultaneously
-they were thrown out into deep, cold snow.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>They fell clear of each other, and Helen heard Rhodes
-swearing as he ran to the ponies' heads.  The sound
-spurred her to action.  She could only count on a
-minute, and, rising, she ran, stumbling, falling headlong
-into drifts to rise and plunge on, in her heart the terror
-of the hunted thing.  Each second she expected to hear
-his pursuing foot.  But he had to tie the ponies to a
-prairie poplar, and by that time she had gained a bluff
-two hundred yards away, and was crouched like a chased
-hare in its heart.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That poor covert would not have sufficed against a
-frontiersman.  Tracking by the fainter whiteness of
-broken snow, he would soon have flushed the trembling
-game, but it was ample protection from Rhodes's
-inefficiency.  Alarmed when he saw that she was gone, he
-ran back and forth, shouting, coupling her name with
-promises of good behavior.  As her line of flight had
-angled but slightly from the trail, she heard him plainly.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"My God!  You'll freeze!  Mrs. Carter!  Oh, Mrs. Carter!
-Do come out!  I was only joking!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She did not require his assurance as to the freezing.
-Already her limbs were numb, her teeth chattered so
-loudly she was afraid he would hear.  But she preferred
-the frost's mercy to his, and so lay, shivering, until, in
-despair, he got the ponies back to the trail and drove
-rapidly away.  Then she came out and headed homeward
-like a bolting rabbit.  Twice she was scared back
-into the snow: once when Rhodes turned about and
-dashed down and back the trail; again just before she
-picked Leslie's voice from passing bells.  He was merely
-talking to his horses, but never before had his voice
-fallen so sweetly on pretty ears.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As at some wan ghost, he stared at the dim, draggled
-figure that came up to him out of the snows; indeed,
-half frozen and wholly frightened, she was little more
-than the ghost of herself.  "The cad!" he stormed,
-hearing her story.  "I'll punch his head to-morrow!"  And
-he maintained that rude intention up to the moment
-that he dropped her at her own door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't!" she called after him.  "Elinor won't like
-it."  But the caution was for his own good, and she was
-not so very much cast down when he persisted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then she can lump it!" he shouted back.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The proverb gives the trampled worm rather more
-than due credit when one remembers that a barrel-hoop
-can outturn the very fiercest worm, but it should be
-remembered in Leslie's favor that he mutinied in the
-cause of another.  Having all of the obstinacy of his
-dulness, he went straighter to his end because it was
-allied with that narrow, bull-dog vision which excludes
-all but one object from the field of sight.  Meeting
-Rhodes, Chapman, and Newton, with lanterns, at the
-point where the sleigh had capsized, he rushed the
-former and was living in the strict letter of his intention
-when the others pulled him away.  They could not,
-however, dam his indignant speech.  On that vast, dark
-stage, with the lanterns shedding a golden aureole about
-Rhodes and his bleeding mouth, he gave them the
-undiluted truth, as it is said to flow from the mouths of
-babes and sucklings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Arrived home, moreover, he staggered his wife by his
-stubborn opposition.  "It is no use talking, Elinor," he
-said, closing a bitter argument.  "To-morrow I go to
-the bush for a load of wood, and if that cad is here when
-I return I'll break a whip on his back."  Then, ignoring
-her bitten lips, clinched hands, the bitter fury that was
-to produce such woful consequences, he went quietly
-off to bed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Of all this, however, Helen remained in ignorance until
-after the denouement that came a few days later along
-with a scattering of new snow.  Those were days of
-misery for her—of remorseful brooding, self-reproach,
-hot shame that set her at bitter introspection that she
-might find and root out the germs of wickedness that
-had brought these successive insults.  As hundreds of
-good girls before her, as thousands will after her, she
-wondered if she were really the possessor of some
-unsuspected sensuousness.  Comparisons, too, were forced
-upon her.  Revolting from the rough settler life, she
-had turned to the English set only to find that their
-polished ease was but the veneer of their degeneracy,
-analogous to the phosphorescence given off in the dark
-by a poisoned fish, and equally indicative of decay.
-She could not fail to contrast her husband's sterling
-worth with their moral and intellectual leprosy.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The nights were still more trying.  She would sit,
-evenings, and stare at the lamp as though it were the
-veritable flame of life, while her spirit quested after the
-cause of things and the root of many enigmas.  Why, for
-instance, is it that pitilessness, ferocity, ruth, which
-were good in the youth of the world, should cause such
-evil in its old age?  For what reason the cause of the
-lily willed also its blight?  Why conditions make fish
-of one woman, flesh of another, and fowl of a third, and
-wherefore any one of them should be damned for doing
-what she couldn't help in following the dictates of her
-nature?  In fact, from the duration of her reveries, she
-may have entertained all of the hundred and odd
-questions with which the atom pelts the infinite, and,
-judging from her dissatisfaction, she received the usual
-answer—Why?  It is nature's wont to deliver her lessons
-in parables, from which each must extract his or her own
-meanings; and a momentous page was turned in Helen's
-lesson the day that she rode over to Leslie's to verify a
-rumor which Nels had brought from the post-office.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As sleighing was practically over and wheeling not
-yet begun, she went horseback.  As aforesaid, a scattering
-of new snow covered the prairies, and she rode
-through a bitter prospect.  Everywhere yellow grass
-tussocks or tall brown weeds thrust through the scant
-whiteness to wave in the chill wind.  Under the sky's
-enormous gray, scrub and bluff and blackened drifts
-stood out, harsh studies in black and white.  Nature
-was in the blues, and all sentient things shared her dull
-humor.  Winging north, in V or harrow formations, the
-wild ducks quacked their discontent.  Peevish snipe
-cursed the weather as they dipped from slough to slough.
-A lone coyote complained that the season transcended
-his experience, then broke off his plaint to chase a
-rabbit, of whose red death Helen was shuddering witness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The settlement was even less cheerful.  Such houses
-as she passed rose like dirty smudges from the frozen
-mud of their dooryards.  Moreover, the looks of the few
-settlers she met were not conducive of better spirits.
-MacCloud, a bigoted Presbyterian of the old Scotch-Canadian
-school, gave her a malignant grin in exchange
-for her nod.  Three Shinn boys, big louts, burst into a
-loud guffaw as their wagon rattled by her at the forks
-of Leslie's trail.  Their comment, "Guess she hain't
-heard!" increased her apprehension.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She could now see the house, smokeless, apparently
-lifeless, frowning down from a snow-clad ridge.  But
-when, a minute later, she knocked, Leslie answered, and
-she entered.  The living-room, with its associations of
-gayety, was dank, cold, cheerless.  Ash littered the
-fireless stove; the floor was unswept; the air gave back her
-breath in a steamy cloud.  Through the bedroom door
-she saw drawers and boxes wide open, their contents
-tossed and tumbled as though some one had rummaged
-them for valuable contents.  And amid these ruins of a
-home Leslie sat, head bowed in his hands.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You poor man!" she cried.  "You poor, poor man!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He turned up his face, and its sick misery reminded
-her of a worm raising its mangled head from under a
-passing wheel as though questing a reason for its
-sudden taking off.  His words strengthened the impression:
-"I couldn't seem to satisfy her, and she was angry
-because I took your part against him.  Of course she
-isn't so much to blame.  I did as well as I could, but
-I'm neither clever nor ornamental, like Rhodes.  But I
-tried to treat her well, didn't I?  You shall judge."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You did—of course you did, poor man!" she sobbed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then why did she leave me?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Somehow his blind questioning raised the prairie
-tragedy in her mind.  The rabbit's death-scream was equally
-sincere in its protest against inscrutable fate in the
-coyote's green eyes.  Its innocence was blameless as this.
-Yet—how could she answer problems as unsolvable as
-her own?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I have been a fool," he went on; and his next words
-helped to lessen the astonishment, though not the pain,
-which his calamity had brought her.  "A blind fool!
-When we used to drive out to Regis last summer it
-was going on—I can see it now.  They did their billing
-and cooing under my very eyes.  Yet they were not so
-clever, after all, were they?  I trusted her—with my
-honor, expecting her to protect it as I would have
-defended her virtue.  Was I at fault?  If a man can't
-trust his wife, what can he do?  Surely not lock her up.
-What could I do?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Puzzled, she stood and looked down upon him.  But
-under its delicate complexities the feminine mind is ever
-practical, and her attention quickly turned to his physical
-welfare.  He must be taken away—weaned from
-his sick brooding, blind questioning.  "Have you eaten
-to-day?" she asked.  "Not for </span><em class="italics">three</em><span> days!  Go out and
-harness your ponies at once, and come home with me to
-supper."  Anticipating objection, she added, "Really,
-you must, for I am too tired to ride back again."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her little fiction was hardly necessary, he found it so
-easy to let her do his thinking.  He obeyed as one in a
-trance; and not till they drove away, leading her pony
-behind, did action dissipate his lethargy.  Then he began
-to display some signs of animation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a silent and uncomfortable drive.  Instead of
-the usual lively jingle, pole and harness rattled dully,
-the light snow hushed the merry song of the wheels to a
-slushy dirge.  The raw air, bleak sky, slaty grays of the
-dull prospect were eminently oppressive.  Nature had
-shed her illusions and, fronting her cold materialism,
-there was no dodging issues.  Facts thrust themselves
-too rudely upon consciousness.  Leslie spoke but once,
-and the remark proved that the chill realities had set
-him again at the riddle of life.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I shall sell out," he said, as the ponies swung in on
-Carter's trail.  "Go to South Africa.  My brother is a
-mining superintendent on the Rand."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She sighed.  "I can't go to South Africa."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Rousing from his own trouble, he looked at her.
-"You don't need to.  You'll see.  Carter will come
-home one of these days."  And during the few days
-that he stayed with her he extended such brotherly
-sympathy that she felt sincerely sorry when, having
-placed the sale of his farm and effects in the hands of
-Danvers, he followed his faithless wife out of her life
-and this story.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-persistence-of-the-established"><span class="bold large">XVIII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE PERSISTENCE OF THE ESTABLISHED</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Save for a few dirty drifts in the shadows of the
-bluffs, the snow was all gone when, one morning a
-week or so after Leslie's departure, Helen went south
-under convoy of Jimmy Glaves to open school.  The day
-was beautiful.  Once more the prairies wore the burned
-browns of autumn, but to eyes that had grown to the
-vast snowscape during a half-year of winter the huge
-monochrome rioted in color.  In fact it had its values.
-There a passing cloud threw a patch of black.  Bowing
-to the soft breeze, last year's grass sent sunlit waves
-chasing one another down to the far horizon.  Here and
-there a green stain on the edge of cropped hay-sloughs
-bespoke the miracle of resurrection, eternal wonder of
-spring, the young life bubbling forth from the decay and
-death of parent plants.  Also the prospect was
-checkered with the chocolate of ploughed fields.  On these
-slow ox-teams crawled, and the shouts of the drivers,
-the snapping crack of long whips, alternated as they
-drove along with the cheep of running gophers, the
-"pee-wee" of snipe, song of small birds.  Noise was luxury
-after the months of frozen silence.  The warm, damp
-air, the feel of balmy spring, the sunlight on the grasses
-were delightfully relaxing.  Helen gave herself up to
-it—permitted sensation to rule and banish for the moment
-her tire and trouble.  She chatted quite happily with the
-trustee, who, however, seemed gloomy and preoccupied.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A philosopher coined a phrase—"the persistence of the
-established"—to explain the survival of phenomena after
-the original cause lies dead in the past.  It admirably
-defines the trustee's mental condition, which was a
-product of causes set up by Helen in these last months.
-Ignorant of the change in her feeling towards her
-English friends, he was vividly aware of the prejudice which
-her dealings with them had aroused in the settlers.  In
-the beginning he and Flynn had earned severe criticism
-by giving her the school.  Since the Leslie scandal he
-doubted their ability to keep her in it.  At meeting,
-"bees," on trail, her name was being coupled with grins
-or gloomy reprobation according to the years and
-character of the critics.  The women had plucked her
-character clean as a chicken, and were scattering their
-findings to the four winds.  Just now, of course, the heavy
-work of seeding sadly interfered with these activities
-and diversions, but Jimmy looked for trouble in the
-slack season.  If, in the mean time, she could be weaned
-from her liking for the English Ishmael, they might be
-able to weather the prejudice.  To which end he steered
-the conversation to the greenness, credulity, and
-execrable agriculture of the remittance-people.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I kain't see," he said, among other things, "what a
-fine gal like you kin see in 'em.  They're dying stock,
-an' one o' these days the fool-killer will come along an'
-brain the hull biling.  Brain, did I say?  The Lord
-forgive me!  Kedn't scratch up the makings of one outen
-the hull bunch."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Had she known his mind she might easily have laid
-his misgivings.  Instead, she tried to modify his bitter
-opinion.  "They are certainly inefficient as farmers.
-But as regards their credulity, don't you think it is
-largely due to a higher standard of business honor?
-Now when a Canadian trades horses he expects to be
-cheated, while they are only looking for a fair
-exchange."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Jimmy's face wrinkled in contemptuous disparagement.
-"Hain't that jes' what I said?  A man that expects
-to get his own outen a hoss-trade kain't be killed
-too quick.  It's tempting Providence to leave him loose.
-As well expect a nigger to leave a fat rooster as a
-Canadian to keep his hands off sech easy meat.  'Tain't
-human natur'.  As for their honor—"  He sniffed.  "Pity
-it didn't extend to their morals."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It is, indeed."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Afterwards they had many a tilt on this same subject.
-Smoking in his doorway of evenings, Jimmy would emit
-sarcasms from the midst of furious clouds, while she, as
-much for fun as from natural feminine perversity, took
-the opposite side.  And neither knew the other's
-mind—until too late.  But placated by her low answer, he now
-let the subject rest.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Three feet of green water was slipping over the river
-ice when they forded Silver Creek, and they had to
-dodge odd logs, the vanguard of Carter's drive.
-"Another week," the trustee remarked, "an' we couldn't
-have crossed."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He was right.  That week a warm rain ran the last
-of the snows off several thousand square miles of watershed,
-feeding the stream till it waxed fat and kicked like
-the scriptural ox against the load Carter had saddled
-upon it.  Snarling viciously, it would whirl a timber
-across a bend, then rush on with mad roar, leaving a
-mile of logs backed up behind.  But such triumph never
-endured.  With axe, pevees, cant-hooks, Bender and
-his men broke the jams; whereupon, as though peevish at
-its failure, the river swept out over the level bottoms
-and stranded timbers in backwaters among dense scrub.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To see this, the first log-drive on Silver Creek, the
-children who lived near the valley scuttled every day
-from school, and they would gaze, wide-eyed, at
-Michigan Red riding a log that spun like a top under his
-nimble feet, or watch the Cougar, shoulder-deep in
-snow-water, shoving logs at some ticklish point.  Then they
-would hang about the cook's tent, while that functionary
-juggled with beans and bacon or made lumberman's
-cake by the cubic yard.  Also there were peeps into the
-sleeping-tents, where men lay and snored in boots and
-wet red shirts, just as they had come out of the river.
-Of all of which they would prattle to Helen next day
-at school, reciting many tales, chief among them the
-Homeric narrative of the cutting of a jam—in which she
-had a special interest, and which proved, among other
-things, that Michigan Red was again at his old tricks.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was Susie Flynn who brought this tale.  Dipping
-down, one end of a bridge timber had stuck at an acute
-angle into the river-bed.  A second timber swung
-broadside on against its end, then, in a trice, the logs had
-backed up, grinding bark to pulp under their enormous
-pressure.  "Mr. Bender," Susie said, "he was for
-throwing a rope across from bank to bank so's they ked cut
-it from above.  But one wasn't handy, an' while they
-was waiting a big red man comes up an' hands Mr. Carter
-the dare.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'If you're scairt, gimme the axe an' I'll show you
-how we trim a jam in Michigan.'</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But Mr. Carter wouldn't give it.  'No,' he says,
-awful quiet, yet sorter funny, for all the men laughed—'no.
-They'll need you to show 'em again.'  Then he
-walks out on the jam an' goes to chopping, with
-Mr. Bender calling for him to come back an' not make a
-damn fool of himself."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The scene had so impressed the child that she reproduced
-every detail for her pale audience of one—Carter
-astride of the key-log; his men, bating their breath with
-the "huh" of his stroke; Bender's distress; the cynical
-grin of Michigan Red.  Once, she said, a floating chip
-deflected the axe, and he swore, easily, naturally, turning
-a smile of annoyance up to the bank.  It drew no
-response from eyes that were glued to the log, now
-quivering under tons of pressure.  A huge baulk, it broke with
-a thunderous report when cut a quarter through, and
-loosed a mile of grinding death upon the chopper.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Then came his progress through the welter.  As the
-jam bore down-stream, timbers would dip, somersault,
-and thrash down on a log that still quivered under the
-spurn of his leap.  Young trees raised on end and swept
-like battering-rams along the log he rode.  Yet, jumping
-from log to log, he came up from death out of the turmoil
-in safety to the bank.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Brought his axe erlong, too!" Susan triumphantly
-finished.  "An' you should have jes' seen that red
-man—he looked that sick an' green through his wishy-washy
-smiling.  But Mr. Carter!  Ain't he a brave one?  You
-must be awful proud of him, ain't you, Miss Helen?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>What could she answer but "Yes," though the
-trembling admission covered only a small portion of her
-psychology?  Misery, fear, regret made up the rest.
-The remainder of that day dragged wearily by to a
-distant drone of lessons.  She, who had tried to eject
-her husband from her life, shuddered as she thought
-how nearly her wish had come to accomplishment.
-Death's cold breath chilled resentment, expunged the
-memory of her months of weary waiting.  It would
-return, but in the mean time she could think of nothing
-but his danger.  Hurrying home, she asked Glaves to
-saddle her a horse, saying that she would try to gallop
-off a headache.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Heartache would have been more correct; but she
-certainly galloped, rode westward, then swung around
-north on a wide circle that brought her, at dusk of the
-short spring day, out on a bald headland that sheered
-down to the river.  Beneath her lay the camp, with its
-cooking-fires flickering like wind-blown roses athwart
-the velvet pall of dusk, and in either direction from that
-effulgent bouquet a crimson garland of sentinel fires laid
-its miles of length along the valley.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Men moved about the nearer fires, appearing to her
-distant eyes as dim, dark shapes.  But what sight
-refused hearing supplied.  She heard the cook cursing his
-kettles with a volubility that would have brought shame
-on the witches in Macbeth—the imprecations of some
-lumber-jack at war with a threatened jam.  Above all
-rose the voice of a violin, quivering its infinite travail,
-expressing the throbbing pain of the world; then, from
-far up the valley, a lonely tenor floated down the night.</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<div>
-<div class="line-block outermost">
-<div class="line"><span>"He went to cut a key-log an' the jam he went below,</span></div>
-<div class="line"><span>He was the damnedest man that ever I did know."</span></div>
-<div class="line"> </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Some lumberman was relieving his watch by chanting
-the deeds of a hero of the camps, and as, like a dove of
-night, the voice floated high over the river's growl
-through a score of verses, it helped to drive home upon
-Helen a sense of the imminent jeopardy Carter had
-passed through that day.  While her beast pawed its
-impatience, she sat for an hour trying to pick his voice
-from the hum of the camp.  It was easy to distinguish
-Bender's.  His bass growl formed the substratum of
-sound.  She caught, once, the Cougar's strident tones.
-Then, just as she was beginning to despair, a command,
-stern and clear, rose from the void.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Lay on there with that pevee!  Quick! or you'll
-have 'em piled to heaven!  Here!—Bender, Cougar!—lend
-a hand! this fellow's letting them jam on him!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She started as under a lash.  All that day she had
-lived in a whirl of feeling, and, just as a resolvent
-precipitates a chemical mixture, the stern voice reduced
-her feeling to thought.  Unfortunately, the tone was not
-in harmony with her soft misery.  If it had been—well,
-it was not.  Rather it recalled his contempt under
-the moonlight, her own solitary shame.  Whirling her
-bronco, she cut him over the flank and galloped, at
-imminent risk of her neck, over the dark prairies in vain
-attempt to escape the galling recurrence of injured pride,
-the stings of disappointment.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He doesn't care for me!  He doesn't care for me!"  It
-rang in her brain.  Then, when she was able to think,
-she added, in obedience to the sex instinct which will not
-admit Love's mortality, "He never did, otherwise he
-couldn't have left me!"  Her conclusion, delivered that
-night into a wet pillow, revealed the secret hope at the root
-of her disappointment.  "I won't ride that way again."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But she did, and her changed purpose is best explained
-by a conversation between Carter and Bender as they
-stood drying themselves at the cook's fire after
-averting the threatened jam.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter began: "I reckon you can get along well
-enough without me.  Of course I'd have liked to seen
-the drive down to the Assiniboin, but in another week
-the frost will be out enough to start prairie grading.
-I'll have to go.  Let me see....  One week more on the
-creek, two on the Assiniboin—three weeks will put the
-last timber into Brandon.  In less than a month you'll
-join me at the Prairie Portage."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Turning to bring another area of soaked clothing next
-to the fire, his face came under strong light.  These
-seven months of thought and calculation had left their
-mark upon it—thinned and refined its lines, tooled the
-features into an almost intellectual cast.  His mouth,
-perhaps, evidenced the greatest change, showing less
-humor, because, perhaps, self-repression and the habit of
-command had drawn the lips in tighter lines.  Deeper
-set, his eyes seemed darker, while a straight look into
-their depths revealed an underlying sadness.  Sternness
-and sadness, indeed, governed the face, without,
-however, banishing a certain grave courtesy that found
-expression in pleasant thanks when, presently, the cook
-brought them a steaming jug of coffee.  Lastly,
-determination stamped it so positively that only its lively
-intelligence saved it from obstinacy.  One glance
-explained Bender's answer to Jenny: "He's stiffer'n all
-hell!"—his attitude to Helen.  In him will dominated the
-emotions.  Summed, the face, with its power, dogged
-resolution, imperturbable confidence, mirrored his past
-struggles, gave earnest for his future battles.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A hint of these last inhered in a remark that Bender
-slid in between two gulps of coffee.  "They're saying
-as the C.P. will never let you cross their tracks?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter smiled.  "Yes?  Who's saying it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, everybody.  An' the Winnipeg paper said
-yesterday as 'Old Brass-Bowels'"—he gave the traffic
-manager his sobriquet—"will enjoin you an' carry the
-case through the Dominion courts to the British privy
-council.  The newspaper sharp allows that would take
-about two years, during which the monopoly would
-either buy out or bust your crowd by building a
-competing line."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This time Carter laughed heartily, the confident laugh
-of one sure of himself.  "So that's what the paper
-said?  Well, well, well!  That scribe person must be
-something of a psychic.  What's that?  Oh, a fellow
-who tells you a whole lot of things he don't know
-himself.  Now, listen."  (In view of what occurred six
-months later, his words are worth remembering.)</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Courts or no courts, privy council to the contrary,
-we'll run trains across 'Brass-Bowel's' tracks before
-next freeze-up."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hope you do," Bender grinned.  "But the old man
-ain't so very slow."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>They talked more of construction—tools, supplies,
-engineering difficulties, the hundred problems inherent
-in railroad-building.  Midnight still found them by the
-fire, that twinkled, a lone red star, under the enormous
-vault of night.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But, though interesting and important, in that the
-success of the enterprise involved the economic freedom
-of a province, the conversation—with one exception—is
-not germane to this story, which goes on from the
-moment that, two days later, a Pengelly boy carried the
-news of Carter's departure to Helen at school.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The exception was delivered by the mouth of Bender,
-as he rose, stretching with a mighty yawn, to go to his
-tent.  "Of course it's none of my damn business, but
-do you allow to call at the school as you go down to-morrow?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter's brows drew into swift lines, but resentment
-faded before the big fellow's concern.  "I didn't reckon
-to," he said, gently; yet added the hint, "—since you're
-so pressing."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Bender would not down.  "Oh, shore!" he pleaded.
-"Shore! shore!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter looked his impatience, yet yielded another point
-to the other's distress.  "If Mrs. Carter wished to see me,
-I allow she'd send."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then she never will! she never will!" Bender cried,
-hitting the crux of their problem.  "For she's jes' as
-proud as you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>With that he plunged into the environing darkness,
-leaving Carter still at the fire.  From its glow his face
-presently raised to the valley's rim, dim and ghostly
-under a new moon, ridged with shadowy trees.  It was
-only six miles to Glaves's place, a hop, skip, and jump in
-that country of distances.  For some minutes he stood
-like a stag on gaze; then, with a slow shake of the head,
-he followed Bender.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>"An' he ain't coming back till winter," the small boy
-informed Helen.  "He'll be that busy with his railroading."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>After two days of embittered brooding, Helen had
-come to consider herself as being in the self-same mood
-that had ruled her the January morning when Mrs. Leslie
-broke in on her months of loneliness.  But this
-startling news explained certain contradictions in her
-psychology—for instance, her startings and flushings
-whenever her north window had shown a moving dot
-on the valley trail these last two days.  Moreover, her
-pallor was hardly consistent with the assertion, thrice
-repeated within the hour, that even if he did come she
-would never, never, </span><em class="italics">never</em><span> forgive him </span><em class="italics">now</em><span>!  Not that
-she conceded said contradictions.  On the contrary, she
-put up a gorgeous bluff with herself, affected indifference,
-and—borrowed Jimmy's pony that evening and rode
-down to the ford.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender had built a rough bridge to serve traffic till
-the drive should clear the ford.  Reining in at the
-nearer end, Helen looked down on the pool, the famous
-pool wherein her betrothal had received baptism by
-total immersion—at least she looked on the place where
-the pool had been, for shallows and sand-bar were
-merged in one swirl of yellow water.  But the clay bank
-with its bordering willows was still there, and shone
-ruddily under the westering sun just as on that memorable
-evening.  Here, on the straight reach, the logs floated
-under care of an occasional patrol.  A rough fellow in
-blue jeans and red jerkin gave her a curious stare as he
-passed, whereafter there was no witness to her wet eyes,
-her rain of tears, convulsive sobbing, the break-up of
-her indifference—that is, none but her pony.  Reaching
-curiously around, the beast investigated the grief
-huddled upon his neck with soft muzzle, rubbing and sniffing
-"cheer up," and she had just straightened to return his
-mute sympathy when a voice broke in on the bitter and
-sweet of her reverie.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well met, fair lady!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Turning, startled, she came face to face with
-Molyneux.  The heavy mud of the bottoms had silenced his
-wheels, and now he sat smiling at the sudden fires that
-dried up and hid her tears.  "Not there yet," he answered
-her question as to his return home.  "Do you imagine
-I could go by without calling?  The school was closed,
-but a kid—a Flynn, by his upper lip—told me that you
-had ridden this way; and as it was Friday evening I
-judged you were going north to Leslie's, and so drove
-like Jehu on the trail of Ahab.  Better turn your horse
-loose and get in with me.  He'll go home all right.
-Why not?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Again she shook her head.  "Didn't Mr. Danvers
-write you—?"  Remembering that a letter would have
-crossed him on the Atlantic, she stopped.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the matter?  No one dead?  Worse?"  He
-laughed in her serious face when she had told.  "Oh,
-well, that's not so bad.  After all, Leslie was an awful
-chump.  If a man isn't strong enough to hold a woman's
-love he shouldn't expect to keep her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He was yet, of course, in ignorance of all that had
-transpired in his absence—the house-party and the
-complete revulsion it had wrought in Helen's feelings.
-He knew nothing of her shame, vivid remorse, passion of
-thankfulness for her escape.  To him she was still the
-woman, desperate in her loneliness, who had challenged
-his love two short months ago.  Withal, what possessed
-him to afford that glimpse of his old nature?  It coupled
-him instantly in her mind with her late unpleasant
-experience.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Not understanding her silence, he ran gayly on: "I
-can now testify to the truth of the saying, 'Absence
-makes the heart grow fonder.'  How is it with you?
-Have I lost or gained?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Laughing nervously, she answered: "Neither.  We
-are still the same good friends."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He shook his head, frowning.  "Not enough.  I want
-love—must, </span><em class="italics">will</em><span> have it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Any lingering misapprehension of the state of her
-feelings which she may have entertained now instantly
-vanished.  How she regretted the weakness which
-entitled him to speak thus!  She knew now.  Never, under
-any conditions, could she have married him, but, warned
-by dearly boughten experience, she dared not so inform
-him.  Frightened, she fenced and parried, calling to her
-aid those shifts for men's fooling that centuries of
-helplessness have bred in woman's bone.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, well!" she laughed.  "I thought you more
-gallant.  I on horseback, you in a buggy.  Love at such
-long distance!  I wouldn't have believed it of you!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a bad lead, drawing him on instead of away.
-"That is easily remedied.  Get in with me—or, I'll tie
-up to that poplar."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She checked his eagerness with a quick invention.
-"No, no!  I was only joking.  No, I say!  There's a
-man, a river-driver, just behind that bluff."  How she
-wished there were!  Praying that some one might come
-and so afford her safe escape, she switched the
-conversation to his journey, and when that subject wore out
-enthused over the sunset.  How beautiful was the sky—the
-shadows that fell like a pall over the bottoms—the
-lights slow crawling up the headlands!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Preferring her delicate coloring to the blushes of the
-west, he feasted on her profile, delicately outlined against
-a golden cloud, until she turned.  Then he brought her
-back to the point.  "Well—have you forgotten?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What?"  She knew too well, but the question killed
-a moment.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The answer you promised me?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She would dearly have loved to give it, to cry aloud:
-"I love!  I love!  I love—him, not you!"  Ay, she
-would have flaunted it in all the proud cruelty of
-love—had she dared.  Instead, she answered: "You forget!
-I am a married woman."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I don't," he urged.  "That is easily settled.
-Three months' residence across the line, in Dakota, and
-you are free of him."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But not of myself."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you mean?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Alarmed by the sudden suffusion of venous blood on
-his face and neck, the reddish glow of his eye, she forged
-hasty excuses.  "You see, I never thought of it—in that
-way.  I must have time to get used to the idea.  Won't
-you give me a week?"  Her winning smile conquered.
-He had stepped his ponies alongside, and, snatching her
-hand, he covered it with kisses.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"By God, Helen, you must say yes!  I'm mad—mad
-with love of you.  If you refuse—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hush!"  She snatched away her hand as a man
-came in sight from behind a bluff, coming up-stream.
-"It is Mr. Bender!" she exclaimed—so thankfully.  Then,
-mindful of her part, she added: "What a nuisance!  I
-wonder if he—saw you?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, he'll go by."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no!  Leave me the shreds of my character.  You
-must go.  </span><em class="italics">Must!</em><span> I said, sir."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Very well.  But remember—one week."  Nodding
-significantly, he drove off, leaving her struggling with
-mixed feelings of relief and apprehension.  She
-wondered if Bender had seen Molyneux kiss her hand.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though in a few minutes of shy conversation Bender
-showed no knowledge of the cause that had set her to
-rubbing the back of her hand against her skirt, it
-nevertheless formed the subject of a rough scrawl that Baldy,
-the tote-trail teamster, delivered to Jenny in Lone Tree
-two days later.  "You said I was to tell if I saw or
-heard anything more.  Well, he is back, and—"  Followed
-the kisses, and the scrawl ended, "If you kin
-do anything like you thought you ked, do it quick, else I
-shall have to tell the boss and give him a chance to look
-after his own."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Jenny did "do it quick," and thereby initiated a
-sequence of cause and event that was to entirely change
-the complexion of a dozen lives.  An extract from her
-letter to Helen explains itself: "'Twas on the tip of my
-tongue to tell it to you every time he druv you home last
-winter, but 'twas so much easier for me to have you all
-believing as it was the man that went back to England.
-But 'twasn't, Miss Helen; 'twas him—Capen Molyneux."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Poor Jenny!  She alone knew the magnitude of the
-man's offence against her weak innocence, but, small
-stoic, she had hugged the knowledge to her soul while
-waiting in dull patience for the punishment she never
-doubted.  Immunity would have challenged the
-existence of the God on whom, despite small heresies of
-speech, she devoutly leaned.  She read his sentence in
-that most tremendous curse of the oppressor, the One
-Hundredth and Ninth Psalm, the bitter cry of David:
-"For he hath rewarded me evil ... hatred for my love.
-When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and
-his prayer become sin....  Let his children be continually
-vagabonds, seek their bread in desolate places.  Let the
-extortioner catch all that he hath; the stranger despoil
-his labor.  Let there be none to extend mercy to him....
-Let his posterity be cut off and his generation blotted
-out ... that He may cut off the memory of them from
-the earth."  Ay, she had believed that it would come
-to pass in some way—by lightning-flash, sudden sickness,
-a weary death.  But she had never imagined herself as
-the instrument which this letter was to make her.  What
-the confession cost her!  Tears, shameful agonizings!
-Small wonder that, in her trembling confusion, she
-mis-shuffled notes and slid Helen's into Bender's envelope.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-wages-of-sin"><span class="bold large">XIX</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE WAGES OF SIN</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>On the afternoon following Baldy's delivery of the
-shuffled notes, the May sun diffused a tempered
-warmth upon Molyneux's veranda, thereby intensifying
-certain comfortable reflections which accompanied his
-after-dinner pipe.  He had material cause of satisfaction.
-To begin, his father's death placed him in possession
-of a sum which—a mere pittance in England—loomed
-large as a fortune in the thrifty settlements.
-Next, Messrs. Coxhead &amp; Boxhead, exploiters of the
-Younger Son, and his London solicitors, had forwarded
-through that morning's mail indentures of apprenticeship
-to colonial farming of three more innocents at one
-thousand dollars a head per annum.  This more than
-made up for the defection of Danvers, who, having
-learned how little there was to be learned in the
-business, was adventuring farming for himself.  It also
-permitted the retention of the bucolic Englishman and wife,
-who respectively managed Molyneux's farm and house.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>With their service assured, the life was more than
-tolerable, infinitely superior to that which he would have
-led at home.  There he would have been condemned to
-the celibate lot of the younger son—to be a "filler" at
-dinners and dances, useful as the waiters, ineligible and
-innocuous to the plainest of his girl partners as an
-Eastern eunuch; or, accepting the alternative, trade,
-vulgar trade, his pampered wits would have come into
-competition with abilities that had been whetted to a
-fine edge through centuries on time's hard stone.  Like
-a leaden plummet, he would have plunged through the
-social strata to his natural place in the scheme of things.
-Here, however, he was of some importance, a magnate
-on means that would hardly have kept up his clothes
-and clubs at home.  A landed proprietor, moreover, he
-escaped the stigma of trade, and the resultant prejudice,
-should he ever return to live in England.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Then the life glowed with the colors of romance.  His
-farm occurred on the extreme western edge of that vast
-forest which blackens the Atlantic seaboard, and so
-marches west and north over a thousand rugged miles
-to the limit of trees on the verge of the Barren Lands.
-Within gunshot the old ferocious struggle for life
-continued as of yore.  Through timbered glades the wolf
-pursued and made his kill; echo answered the clash of
-horns as big elk fought for a doe; over lonely woodland
-lakes, black with water-fowl, the hoo-haugh crane spread
-ten feet of snowy pinion; across dark waters the loon's
-weird lament replied to the owl's midnight questioning.
-In winter the moose came down from their yards to feed
-at his prairie hay-stacks; any night he could come out
-on the veranda and thrill to a long howl or the scream
-of a lynx.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Opening before him now, the view was pleasantly
-beautiful.  His house, a comfortable frame building,
-and big barn and corrals, all sat within the embrace of
-a half-moon that prairie-fires had bitten out from the
-heart of a poplar bluff.  Southward his tilled fields ran
-like strips of brown carpet over the green earth rolls.
-Beyond them spread the Park Lands, with his cattle
-feeding knee-deep in the rank pasture between clump
-poplar.  Further still, his horses scented the wind from
-the crest of a knoll, forming a dull blotch against the
-soft blue sky.  These were growing into money while
-he smoked, and what of free grazing, free hay, and labor
-that reversed the natural order of things and paid for the
-privilege of working, he could see himself comfortably
-wealthy in not too many seasons.  He would still be
-young enough for a run through Maiden Lane, London's
-Mecca for the stage and </span><em class="italics">demi-mondaine</em><span>.  However, he
-put that thought behind him as being inconsistent with
-contemplation of the last thing necessary for perfect
-happiness—a pretty wife.  Through the haze of sunlit
-tobacco reek, he saw himself in possession of even that
-golden asset, and thereafter his reflections took the
-exact color of those of the rich man before death came
-in the night: "Soul, soul!  Thou hast much goods laid
-up in store!  Eat, drink, take thine ease, and be merry!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It is really time that I settled," he murmured.
-"Thirty-four, my next birthday.  By Jove! six more
-years and I shall be forty!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The thought deflected his meditation into channels
-highly becoming to a person of the age he was contemplating,
-and from virtuous altitudes he looked back with
-something of the reproving tolerance that kindly age
-accords to youthful indiscretion.  He maintained the
-"you-were-a-sad-dog" point of view till a sudden
-thought stung his virtuous complacency through to the
-quick.  "Oh, well"—he ousted reproach with exculpatory
-murmur—"if the girl had only let me, I would
-have got her away from here and have done something
-handsome for her afterwards.  But it was just as
-well—seeing that it passed off so quietly.  I wonder how she
-managed it?  Nobody seems to know."  Then, ignoring
-the fact that every seeding brings its harvest, not
-knowing that the measure of that cruel sowing was even then
-coming home to him on a fast trot, he smothered
-conviction under the trite reflection, "A fellow must sow his
-wild oats."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Still the thought had marred his reverie, and, tapping
-his pipe on the chair-rung, he rose.  He intended a visit
-to the barn, where his man was dipping seed wheat in
-bluestone solution to kill the smut; but just then a
-wagon, which had been rattling along the Lone Tree
-trail, turned into his private lane.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It is Glaves," he muttered.  "And his wife.  What
-can they want?  Must have a message—from her;
-otherwise they would never come here."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His thought did not malign the trustee, who had
-positively refused the commission till assured that its
-performance would sever Helen's relations with his natural
-foes.  Yet he did not like it, and though retribution
-might have presented herself in more tragic guise, she
-could not have assumed a more forbidding face than
-that which he now turned down to Molyneux.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Than they two there have been no more violent
-contrast.  Beak-nosed, hollow-eyed, the hoar of fifty
-winters environed the trustee's face, which wind and
-weather had warped, seamed, and wrinkled into the
-semblance of a scorched hide.  He was true to the
-frontier type; and beside his bronzed ruggedness, the
-Englishman, though much the larger man, seemed, with
-his soft hands, smooth skin, and polished manner, to be
-small and effeminate.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As might be expected, the trustee refused Molyneux's
-invitation to put in and feed.  "No; me an' the wife is
-going up to see her brother, north of Assissippii, an' we
-have thirty miles to make afore sundown."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He did, however, return curt answers to a few questions,
-though it would be a mistake to set his scant
-conversational efforts to the account of politeness.  Rather
-they were the meed of malignance, for, while talking, he
-secretly exulted over the thought of Molyneux's coming
-disappointment.  They would be gone a week, he said.
-The mails?  Mrs. Carter would attend to sech letters as
-straggled in.  She'd be there alone?  Yes.  Lonesome?
-Mebbe, but she was that well-plucked she'd laughed at
-the idea of spending her nights at Flynn's.  A fine girl,
-sirree!  Having accorded five minutes to Helen's perfections,
-the trustee drove off, but turned, as he rattled out
-of the yard, and nudged his wife, grinning, to look at
-Molyneux.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Stark and still as one of his own veranda-posts, the
-man stood and stared down at Jenny's pitiful letter.
-Across the top Helen had written, "This explains itself,"
-and that scrap of writing represented three letters now
-torn up and consigned to the flames.  The first
-antedated her receipt of Jenny's letter, and had run: "I
-want you to believe me innocent of coquetry, and you
-must pardon me if I have, by speech or action, seemed
-to sanction the hope you expressed the other day.  I
-now perceive that it was my desperate loneliness that
-caused me to lean so heavily upon your friendship.  I
-might have told you this personally but for certain
-experiences which have made me timid."  There was
-more—regret, pleasant hope that the future might bring
-with it friendly relations, wishes for his happiness.  This
-letter she had withdrawn from the mail to burn, along
-with one that was full of reproach, and a third that
-sizzled with indignation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Suffused with dark, venous blood, Molyneux faced
-discovered sin.  If ever, this was the accepted time for his
-attempts at reconstruction to bring forth fruit.  He had
-pictured himself remorseful, but now that the wage of
-sin was demanded, he flinched like a selfish child,
-reneged in the game he had played with the gods.  It
-was not in him to play a losing hand to the logical end.
-Instead of remorse, anger possessed him, for, tearing the
-letter, he cried in a gust of passion:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She sha'n't throw me a second time!  By God, she sha'n't!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Needs not to follow his turbulent thought as he
-hurried out to the barn—his flushes, the paroxysms that
-set his face in the colors of apoplexy.  Sufficient that
-flooding passion swept clean the superstructure of false
-morality, sophistical idealism, that he had erected on
-the rotten foundation of his vicious heredity.  A minute
-of action explains a volume of psychology.  Hitching his
-ponies, he drove madly southward, one idea standing
-clearly out in his whirl of thought—she would be alone
-that night.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Just about the time that Molyneux swung out on the
-Lone Tree trail, Helen arrived home from school with
-the eldest Flynn boy, who had volunteered to help her
-with the chores, her undertaking of which had made
-possible Mrs. Glaves's rare holiday.  Under distress of
-their bursting udders, the cows had come in of their own
-accord from the fat, rank pastures, and now called for
-easement, with low, persistent "mooing," while she
-changed her dress.  When she finally came out, with
-sleeves rolled above elbows that had regained their
-plump whiteness, they even fought for precedence,
-horning each other aside until the bell-cow made good
-her prerogative as leader; then frothing streams soon
-drew tinkling music from her pail.  For his part, the
-boy fed pigs and calves, carried in the milk, then
-departed, leaving her to skim and strain, and wash pans
-and pails, itself no light task in view of Mrs. Glaves's
-difficult standards of cleanliness.  That done and her
-supper eaten, she placed a lamp on the table and sat
-down to think over the events of the day.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A little fatigued, she leaned a smooth cheek on her
-hand, staring at the lamp, whose golden light toned
-while it revealed the changes these distressful months
-had wrought in her appearance.  Her eyes were weary,
-her face tired; but if she was paler than of yore, the
-pallor was becoming, in that it was altogether a mental
-product and accorded well with her plump, well-nourished
-body.  Her mouth, if wofully pouted in agreement
-with her sad thought, was scarlet and pretty as ever.
-In every way she was good as new.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>At first she had found it extremely difficult to realize
-the full meaning of the letter which the Cougar had
-brought in from the camp early that morning.  For
-Bender would trust it in no other hand; whereby he
-discovered not only his wisdom, but also an unexpected
-fund of tact in his rough messenger.  Anticipating some
-display of emotion, the Cougar discharged his office in
-the privacy of Helen's own room; and if her red eyes
-afterwards excited Jimmy Glaves's insatiable curiosity,
-only the Cougar witnessed her breakdown—sorrowful
-tremblings, blushes, tearful anger.  Not that she had
-doubted the girl's word.  Only it had seemed monstrous,
-incredible, impossible, until, through the day, jots and
-tittles of evidence had filtered out of the past.  She had
-connected Jenny's gloomings on the occasions that
-Molyneux drove her (Helen) home with his refusals to enter
-and warm himself after their cold drives.  Even from
-the far days of the child's trouble, small significances had
-come to piece out the solid proof.  So now nothing was
-left for her but bitter self-communion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>These days it did seem as though the fates were bent
-on squeezing the last acrid drop into her cup; for to the
-consciousness of error was now added knowledge of the
-utter worthlessness of her tempter.  She burned as she
-recalled their solitary rides; writhed slim fingers in a
-passion of thankfulness as she thought of her several
-escapes; was taxing herself for her folly when a sudden
-furious baying outside brought her, startled, to her feet.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was merely the house-dog exchanging defiances
-with a lone coyote; but—after she had satisfied herself
-of the fact—it yet brought home upon her a vivid sense
-of her lonely position.  Sorry now that she had not gone
-home with the Flynn boy, she glanced nervously about
-the room, which, if small, was yet large enough to own
-shadowy corners.  On top of the pigeon-holed mailing-desk,
-moreover, a few books were piled in such a way
-as to cast a shadow, the silhouette of a man's profile,
-upon the wall.  Lean, hard, indescribably cruel, its thin
-lips split in a merciless grin as she moved the lamp, then
-suddenly lengthened into the semblance of a hand
-and pointing finger.  Then she laughed, nervously, yet
-laughed because it indicated one of the hundred
-summonses, writs of execution, and findings in judgment
-that were pasted up on the walls.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"By these summons," Victoria Regina called upon
-her subject, James Glaves, to pay the moneys and taxed
-costs herein set forth under pain of confiscation of his
-goods and chattels.  Usually recording debt and disaster,
-the instruments certified, in Jimmy's case, to numerous
-victories over implement trusts, cordage monopolies,
-local or foreign Shylocks.  "Execution proof," in that
-his wife owned their real property in her own right, he
-could sit and smoke at home, the cynosure of the
-country-side, in seasons when the sheriff travelled with the
-thresher and took in all the grain.  To each document
-he could append a story, the memory of such a one
-having caused Helen's laugh.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Indicating this particular specimen with his pipe-stem
-one evening, he had remarked: "Yon jest tickled the
-jedge to death.  'Mr. Glaves,' he says, when he handed
-it down, 'they've beat you on the jedgment, now it's up
-to you to fool 'em on the execution.'  An' you bet I
-did."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Reassured, Helen returned to her musings, only to
-start up, a minute later, with a nervous glance over her
-shoulder at the window.  Is there anything in thought
-transference?  At that moment Molyneux was rattling
-down into the dark valley, and is it possible that his
-heated imaginings bridged the miles and impressed
-themselves upon her nervous mental surfaces?  Or was it
-merely a coincidence of thought that caused her to see
-his face pressed against the black pane.  Be this as it
-may, she could not regain her composure.  Taking the
-lamp, she locked herself in her bedroom; then she sought
-that last refuge of frightened femininity, the invulnerable
-shield of the bedclothes.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="is-death"><span class="bold large">XX</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">—IS DEATH</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Though Silver Creek still ran fat and full, its
-sources were now nearly drained of flood-waters;
-any day might see it suddenly shrink to its usual
-summer trickle.  Anticipating the event, Bender went miles
-down-stream that morning to superintend the building
-of the first dam, and so did not see the Cougar till that
-worthy came into camp at night from his own place at
-the tail of the drive.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This, the hour for changing shifts, was the liveliest of
-camp life—the social hour, one might term it, replete
-with a certain rough comfort.  With them, from up
-and down river, the reliefs poured in, a stream of red
-shirts, drowning with oaths, song, and laughter the
-rattle of tin-ware in the cook-tent.  Spread over fifteen
-miles of river, the arrival was equally irregular, and
-those who had already eaten were grouped about a
-huge camp-fire, the red glow of which enriched weathered
-skins and softened the corrugations of iron faces.
-After the cold and wet of the day, its warmth spelled
-luxury in capitals—luxury such as no millionaire may
-command from his palatial clubs, for pleasure may only
-be measured in degrees of health with accompanying
-intensity of sensation.  As they moved and turned like
-huge red capons on an old-style spit, bringing fresh
-areas of soaked clothing under the blaze, they smoked
-and revamped the day's haps, its dips, jams, duckings,
-while the river—the river that yielded their hard bread
-in exchange for annual toll of a life or two—rebuked
-with angry growl their jokes and jestings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A candle in Bender's tent showed the giant squatted
-upon his blankets, chin on hands, big torso hunched
-between knees and elbows.  A night and day of heavy
-brooding had sunk his eyes; despair had cross-ploughed
-and deepened the furrows across his blue, scarred face.
-The attitude bespoke deepest dejection, and his look,
-when the Cougar entered, caused the latter's weird
-fierceness to flux in vast sympathy.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well?" Bender inquired.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The Cougar pulled a paper out of his shirt-bosom.
-"Here's your letter that she got by mistake."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was only a scrap to say that she would do her best—she
-had done it, too, poor girl!—that and an admonition
-to be careful in drying his clothes at nights.  Usually
-the warning would have dissolved Bender's grimness,
-but it caused no relaxation of his gravity.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"How did she take it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hard.  Cried an' said as 'twas more'n she deserved
-at the little gal's hands.  Blamed herself—dreadful cut
-up.  Seems, too, as 'twasn't necessary, as she'd already
-mailed Mr. Man his walking-papers."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Too late—now.  It's done."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The Cougar looked awkwardly down upon him.  Pity
-had been foreign to their rough comradeship; it was,
-indeed, nearest of kin to shame; the words of sympathy
-choked in his throat.  "Come, come!" he presently
-growled.  "Chipper up!  'Tain't any worse than it was."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A convulsion seized and shook the big body.  "You
-don't know, Cougar.  You don't know what it is—"  He
-stopped, aghast at the sudden appalling change in
-the other.  He had straightened from his crouch, and
-his eyes flared like blue, alcohol flames in his livid face.
-As at the touch of a secret spring, the man's fierce
-taciturnity raised, exposing the tortured soul behind.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I—don't?"  The whisper issued like a dry wind
-from drawn lips.  "Me?—that saw my wife an' baby—"  Though
-frontiersmen tell, shivering, of the horror he
-mentioned, no pen has been found callous enough to set
-it forth on paper.  "God, man!"  His arms snapped
-outward and his head fell forward in the attitude of
-the crucifixion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Cougar!" Bender grasped his shoulder.  "Cougar!
-Cougar, man!  I'd forgotten."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But as one in a trance the man went on: "It's always
-with me—through these years—day an' night.  I'd have
-killed myself—long ago—on'y whenever I'd think of
-that, she'd come—sweet an' smiling—with a shake of
-her pretty head.  She wouldn't let me do it."  The
-thought of her smile seemed to calm him, and he
-continued, more quietly: "I never could make out why
-'twas done to her.  A sky-pilot tol' me onct as 'twas
-the will o' God, but I shocked him clean out of his
-boots.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'I'll know on the Jedgment Day, will I?' I asks
-him.  'Shorely,' he answers, pat.  'An' I'll be close in
-to the great white throne you was talking about?'  He
-nods.  'Then do you know what I'll do?' I asks him
-again.  'If I find out as how that God o' yourn ordered
-that done to my little gal, I'll stick a knife into Him an'
-turn it round.'</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"At that he turned green an' tried to saddle the dirty
-business onto the devil.  But, Lordy, he didn't know.
-She does, though, else she wouldn't come smiling.  She
-knows; so I've allus reckoned as if she could bear her
-pain I can worry through to the end.  There! there!
-I'm all right again.  You didn't go to do it.  An', after
-all, I don't know but that you are right.  For while my
-gal's at peace, yourn has to live out her pain.  It's
-puzzling—all of it.  Now there's </span><em class="italics">him</em><span>.  Where does he come
-in?  What about him?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What about him?"  Bender's bulk seemed to swell in
-the dim light to huge, amorphous proportions.  "That's
-simple.  He's got to marry her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>What the conclusion had cost him!—the suffering,
-self-sacrifice.  To the sophisticated, both sacrifice and
-conclusion may seem absurd, provoking the question as to
-just how wrong may be righted by the marriage of a
-clean girl with an impure man; yet it was strictly in
-accord with backwoods philosophy.  As yet the scepticism
-of modernity had not infected the plains, nor had
-the leprosy of free thought rotted their creeds and
-institutions.  To Bender's simplicity, marriage appealed
-as the one cure for such ills as Jenny's, while both he
-and the Cougar had seen the dose administered with aid
-of a Colt's forty-five.  So, absurd or not, the conclusion
-earned the latter's instant approval.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There was something pathetic, too, in the serious
-way in which, after discussing ways and means, they
-spoke of Jenny's future.  "She'll be a lady," the Cougar
-commented.  "Too big to look at you an' me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender's nod incarnated self-effacement, but he
-bristled when the Cougar suggested that Molyneux might
-not treat her rightly, and his scowl augured a quick
-widowhood in such premises.  "We'll go up for him
-to-morrow."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"An' after it's all over?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oregon for you an' me—the camps an' the big timber."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The big timber!  The Cougar's bleak face lit up with
-sudden warmth.  Giant pines of Oregon woods; rose-brown
-shade of cathedral redwoods; the roaring unrest
-of lacy cataracts; peace of great rivers that float the
-rafts and drives from snow-capped Rockies down to
-the blue Pacific; these, and the screaming saw-mills
-that spew their product over the meridians, the pomp
-of that great piracy; the sights, sounds, resinous odors
-that the Cougar would never experience again were
-vividly projected into his consciousness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Man!"  He drew a deep breath.  "It can't come
-too quick for me.  I'm sick of these plains, where a man
-throws a shadow clean to the horizon.  I'm hungry for
-the loom of the mountains."  After a pause, he added,
-"Coming back to yourself—have you eaten to-day?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The language he accorded to Bender's negative would
-shake the type from a respectable printer's fingers, yet,
-in essence, was exactly equivalent to the "You poor
-dear!" of an anxious wife or mother.  Striding off, he
-quickly returned with coffee and food, which Bender
-was ordered to eat under pain of instant loss of his liver,
-lights, and sundry other useful organs.  Then, being
-besotted in his belief in action as a remedy for mental
-disorders, he suggested a visit to the turn above the
-bridge where the logs had jammed twice that afternoon.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Another day would put the last log under the bridge
-and see the temporary structure dismantled and afloat;
-but though only the tail of the drive remained above,
-the jams had backed it up for a couple of miles, so that
-the logs now filled the river from bank to bank.  They
-floated silently, or nearly so, for the soft thud of
-collisions, mutter of grinding bark, merged with the low roar
-of the stream.  But a brilliant northern moon lit the
-serried array; when the men crossed they could pick the
-yellow sawed ends from the black of the mass.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Under urge of the same thought, they paused on the
-other side and looked back along the northern trail.
-With the exception of the cook, whose pots proclaimed his
-labors with shrill tintinnabulation, the camp now slept,
-its big watch-fire burning red and low.  Beneath that
-bright moon scrub, bluff, scour, ravine, and headland
-stood out, lacking only the colors of day, and they could
-see the trail's twin ruts writhing like black snakes across
-the ashen bottoms into the gorge by which it gained the
-prairies.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The Cougar's quick eye first discerned a moving blot,
-but Bender gave it identity.  "That's shore Molyneux's
-rig.  He'd a loose spoke when he went by t'other day.
-Hear it rattle."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was clear and sharp as the clatter of a boy's stick
-along a wooden paling, and the Cougar whispered: "It's
-sure him.  Where kin he be going?  Do you reckon—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The same thought was in Bender's mind.  "An' she
-there alone.  No one ever starts out for Lone Tree this
-time o' night."  After a grim pause, he added, "But
-that's where he's going."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A strident chuckle told that the Cougar had caught
-his meaning.  "That's right.  Saved us trouble, hain't
-he?  Kind of him.  Jes' step into the shadow till he's
-fairly on the bridge."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If they had remained in the moonlight he would never
-have seen them.  Dusk had brought no surcease of his
-mad thought; rather its peace stimulated his excitement
-by shutting him out from the visible world.  What were
-his thoughts?  It takes a strong man to face his
-contemplated villanies.  From immemorial time your
-scoundrel has been able to justify his acts by some sort of
-crooked reasoning, and Molyneux was no exception to
-the rule.  "Why do you muddy the water when I am
-drinking?" the wolf asked of the lamb.  "How could I,
-sir, seeing that the stream flows from you to me?" the
-lamb filed in exception.  "None of your insolence!" the
-wolf roared as he made his kill.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In the same way Molyneux excluded from thought
-everything that conflicted with his intention—the first
-rudeness that lost him Helen's maiden confidence, his
-insidious attempts to wean her from her husband, her
-undoubted right to reject his advances.  He twisted his
-own crime to her demerit.  "She didn't know about
-that when she was drawing me on!" he exclaimed,
-whenever Jenny's letter thrust into his meditation.  "Why
-should it cut any ice now?  It is just an excuse to
-throw me a second time.  But she sha'n't do it, by God! no,
-she sha'n't, she sha'n't!  She's a coquette!—a damned
-coquette!  I'll—"  Then a red rage, a heaving, tumultuous
-passion, would drown articulate thought so that his
-intention never took form in words.  But one thing is
-certain—he was thoroughly dangerous.  In that mood
-Helen would have fared as illy at his hands as the lamb
-at the paws of the wolf.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The sudden stoppage of his ponies, midway of the
-bridge, broke up his reverie.  As the moon struck full
-in his own face, he saw the two men only as shadows;
-but there was no mistaking Bender's bulk, and, after a
-single startled glance, Molyneux hailed him.  "Is that
-you, Mr. Bender?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's me, all right.  Where might </span><em class="italics">you</em><span> be heading for?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was the usual trail greeting, preliminary to
-conversation, but Molyneux sensed a difference of tone, savor
-of command, menace of authority, that galled his
-haughty spirit.  Vexed by the impossibility of explanation,
-his disdain of the settler tribe in general would not
-permit him to lie; from which conflict of feeling his stiff
-answer was born.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I don't see that it is any of your business."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't?"  Equally stiff, the reply issued from
-the huge, dim shape.  "Well, I'll make it mine.  You're
-going to Lone Tree."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Puzzled, Molyneux glanced from Bender's indefiniteness
-to the Cougar's dim crouch.  He was not afraid.
-In him the courage of his vices was reinforced by
-enormous racial and family pride—the combination that
-made the British fool the finest of officers until
-mathematics and quick-firing artillery replaced the sword and
-mêlée.  Mistaking the situation, he attempted to carry
-it off with a laugh.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What have you chaps been drinking?  Here; pass
-the bottle."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Not till we wet your wedding," the Cougar
-interjected, dryly.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Astonished now, as well as puzzled, Molyneux yet
-rejected a sudden suspicion as impossible.  Out of
-patience, galled by this mysterious opposition, he said,
-testily: "Are you crazy?  I do not intend—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"—To go to Lone Tree," Bender interrupted.  "Yes,
-we know.  You was heading up for Glaves's place."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Seriously disconcerted, Molyneux hid it under an
-ironical laugh.  "I must say that I marvel at your
-intimate knowledge of my affairs.  And since you are
-so well posted, perhaps you can tell me why I am going
-to Lone Tree?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I kin that."  The huge, dim figure, with its crouched,
-attendant shadow, moved a pace nearer, then the man's
-stern bass launched on the quivering moonlight, reciting
-to an accompaniment of rushing waters this oldest of
-woodland sagas.  Beginning at the night he picked
-Jenny up on the trail, he told all—Jed Hines's cruel fury;
-birth and burial of his, Molyneux's child; the outcast
-girl's subsequent illness; Helen's kindness; the doctor's
-philanthropy; the kindly conspiracy that protected her
-from social infamy.  "An' us that saw her through her
-trouble," he finished, "are bound to see her righted."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If the lime-lights of history and fiction were thrown
-more often upon motives and psychology, and less on
-deeds and action, characters would not appear in such
-hard colors of black and white.  It were false to paint
-Molyneux irredeemably black.  "</span><em class="italics">Your child!</em><span>"  He
-winced at the phrase, and, perhaps for the first time,
-an inkling of the enormity of his offence was borne in
-upon him.  </span><em class="italics">His</em><span> child?  It was the flesh of his own
-loins that had suffered midnight burial at the hands of
-Carter and the kindly priest!  The thought struck with
-enormous force—then faded.  For back of him was that
-vicious generation whose most cultured exponent wrote
-to his own son that a seduction or two was necessary
-to the education of a gentleman.  Through pride of
-family, the dead hands of haughty and licentious
-forebears reached to throttle remorse.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Was he to be called to account by common settlers,
-the </span><em class="italics">savages</em><span> of the scornful English phrase?  Anger
-colored his next remark: "Waited till you were good and
-ready, didn't you?  Your diligence falls short of your
-zeal, my friends, or—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't flatter yourself," Bender sternly interrupted.
-"You kin thank her for the delay.  If we'd known,
-you'd long ago have been either dead or married.  But
-she kep' her own counsel till she thought as some one
-else's welfare called her to speak.  'Twasn't needed.
-T'other'd already found you out for herself."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Molyneux blinked under the savage contempt, but
-answered, stiffly enough: "Now listen.  I deny nothing,
-though she received attentions from one of my pupils,
-and it might very well have been—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You lie!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The lie never comes so unpleasantly as when asserting
-a truth; so, though he knew that he had lied, Molyneux's
-eyes glinted wickedly, his hand tightened on his whip.
-A glance right and left showed him the river, only a
-light hand-rail between him and dark waters.  There
-was not room to turn; the giant blocked the way.
-Under constraint, he spoke quietly: "Neither do I
-profess sorrow.  What is done is done.  If the girl had
-taken me into her confidence—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Likely, wasn't it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A line of Jenny's letter, a damnable fact, flashed into
-Molyneux's mind, but he went on: "—I'd have taken
-care of her—am willing to do so yet, in a certain way.
-Marriage, of course, is out of the question.  We are
-unfitted for each other—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No one's denying that."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He ignored the sarcasm.  "—could not be happy together."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Who said anything about your living together?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The interruptions were most disconcerting, but he
-continued: "Now if you, as her representatives,
-self-appointed or otherwise"—he could not refrain from the
-sarcasm—"if you will name a sum—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">What?</em><span>"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Twenty rods away the camp now slept, steeped in the
-drug of labor—all but the cook, who came running out
-of his tent and was thus witness of the event.  Looking
-up-stream, he saw them blackly silhouetted against the
-moonlit sky, a shadow show, play of marionettes upon
-the bridge.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Out of my way!  Let go!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Followed the swish and crack of Molyneux's whip, as
-he lashed Bender over the face, then fell to flogging his
-horses.  But stinging pain freed in the giant those
-bulldog passions that had made him king of the camps in
-other years.  He hung on, while the plunging beasts
-drowned the river's roar in thunder of iron hoofs.
-Unable to break his grip, they reared—their smooth,
-elongated bodies conveying to the cook an odd
-impression of slugs reaching upward through moonlit
-dew—then, stooping quickly under the nigh beast, the mad
-giant took its full weight on his shoulder and with a
-mighty heave sent team and rig crashing sideways off
-the bridge.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A quick leap saved Molyneux—for the moment.  All
-through the action had moved with kinetoscopic quickness,
-and it accelerated so that the cook could scarcely
-establish its sequence.  Like an angry bull, Bender shook
-the hair from his eyes; then, as he rushed, came a
-report; a puff of smoke curled bluely up from Molyneux's
-hand; the giant thudded at length on the bridge.
-Followed a yell, a piercing cry suitable to the animal after
-which the Cougar was named.  As Bender fell, he rushed.
-The pistol spoke again.  While the cook was running
-twenty yards, a black, furious tangle writhed over the
-bridge, and as he came darting out from behind a bunch
-of willow scrub he saw that it was gone.  Bender lay
-alone under the moonlight.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Now this was the cook of a lumber-camp, equivalent
-to saying that he was a man of parts.  He had cooked
-on B Contract, Superior Construction Division of the
-Trunk Line, and so had seen a liberal sprinkling of his
-grumblers go into the dump—a grisly foundation for
-track, surely yet what better could the builders of the
-road desire than to be cradled under the ties and sleep,
-sleep, sleep, to the thundering lullaby of the fast
-express?  Which intimacy with the pale terror is
-responsible for his prompt action in these unusual premises.
-Molyneux's bullet had merely grazed Bender's temple.
-He rose, staggering, as the cook made the bridge, and,
-seeing that he was too sick and dizzy to handle the
-situation, the latter took it into his own able hands.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As before mentioned, a drive camp sleeps in its boots,
-and the shots had brought a score out from their sleep
-on a hunt for causes.  "Man drove offen the bridge!"
-he yelled.  "An' Cougar went after him!  They're both
-under the drive!  Scatter down-stream an' skin your
-eyes for bubbles!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Thus, on the spur of the moment, the cook wrote
-history—as accurately, perhaps, as the run of historians;
-for after the drive once closed serried ranks over the
-struggling men, they were never seen again, so none
-could rise with an opposing theory.  When, a few days
-later, the water was drawn off at the first dam, the horses
-floated out on the shallows.  But the men—?  The river
-carried them to its secret places; buried them in some
-scour or pothole, free at last, one of his passions—the
-incubus of his generations—the other from his pain.
-That night, if such things be, the Cougar was joined,
-after his years of suffering, in perfect knowledge with
-his "little girl."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="persecution"><span class="bold large">XXI</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">PERSECUTION</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Yes, the cook made history, for though the event
-furnished gossip for the ninety days which, on the
-lonely frontier, corresponds with the world's nine days'
-wonder, his story was never questioned.  The truth lay
-buried between him and Bender, and if either visited
-her grave, it was never in company with the other.
-Up to the time that delirium tremens removed the
-cook from the snows of a Rocky Mountain camp to
-a sphere where pots are said to boil with or without
-watching, Bender never knew just how much or little
-he really knew.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To others the event appeared under varying complexions.
-Helen and Jenny were shocked at Molyneux's
-death, the latter without astonishment, though her firm
-belief that sin had at last received its full wage was
-without trace of malignance; both were sorrier than
-they had any right to be; and both mourned the
-Cougar.  As for the settlers, they regarded the affair
-rather in the light of a special dispensation of
-Providence.  Flocking to the auction of Molyneux's effects a
-month later, they caballed against high bidding, paid
-for chattels they bought at ridiculous prices in
-long-time notes, for that was the "Black Year," and
-throughout Manitoba nothing could be sold for cash.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Poverty, sociologists tell us, is the mother of crime,
-and as those hard times subsequently influenced the
-settlers in their attitude towards Helen, they are surely
-worthy of mention.  To begin, the country was practically
-bankrupt.  The frost of the preceding fall had
-left the wheat useless, and but for the fact that the
-provincial government had imported and distributed
-free seed, not an acre of grain would have been sown
-that year.  The seriousness of the crisis may be gauged
-by the legislature's further action in enacting an
-exemption law that practically excluded all of a farmer's
-goods and chattels from legal execution.  This was good,
-but in that it was not, nor could be made retroactive,
-it benefited only the new-comers and left the pioneers,
-who had spent their little all opening up the country,
-still liable to foreclosure and execution.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>On the northern settlers times had borne particularly
-hard.  During boom years all had assumed loan
-indebtedness, and whereas creditors had bided patiently
-successive lean seasons on the chance of a branch
-railroad and bumper crop, now that the country's credit,
-its very future was trembling in the balance; implement-men
-and store-keepers raced with twenty-per-cent. Shylocks
-to grab what they could from the wreck.  That
-spring the sheriff of Brandon was the busiest man in
-the country-side.  He and his deputies sowed summonses,
-executions, foreclosures broadcast over the land.  Wolves
-of the law, they harried the farmers till the optimism
-of the brilliant emigration pamphlets was swamped,
-submerged beneath inky pessimism.  Small wonder
-that—coupled with idleness, breeder of mischief, in the slack
-season that Glaves feared between seeding and haying—small
-wonder that some of the rancor bred by hard
-conditions should be vented upon Helen.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She may be said to have stood in an uncomfortable
-position as lightning conductor between this cloud of
-spleen and the earth, upon which it should have
-properly been discharged.  And looking back, one may see
-the storm gathering over her fair head, observing in
-its approach all of the natural phenomena: first the cold
-wind, social disfavor, the whispers; next, heavy drops
-thudding in the dust, the snubs and slights; lastly,
-thunder, lightning, rain, downright persecution.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The whispers, of course, she did not hear, but she could
-not overlook the difference in trail greetings, which
-were either far too warm or much too cool, according
-to the years and disposition of the greeter.  Coldness
-was endurable, but the rude stares, conscious laughter
-of the younger boors often caused her to fly the hot
-colors of angry shame.  Yet even this hurt less than
-the sudden, shy suspicion of her pupils.  Whereas they
-were wont to hang upon her skirts, they now held aloof
-in play hours, and ran straight home from school.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mother says I'm not to walk with you any more,"
-one tot explained her haste.  How that stung!  Having
-only the faintest of ideas, little more than a suspicion
-of the strength and nature of this uncomfortable
-prejudice, she resented it as bitter injustice, and held a
-proud head until a thing happened that almost broke
-her spirit.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Of all the settler women, Ruth Murchison was the one
-girl with whom Helen had been, or could be, on
-anything like terms of intimacy.  Quiet and thoughtful,
-Ruth had gone through the English common schools,
-and had taken the Junior Oxford Examination, to which
-passable education a taste for good reading had formed
-a further bond.  Wherefore Helen was delighted when,
-one day, news drifted into the post-office that Ruth was
-to be married to the Probationer, the young minister
-who preached Merrill's funeral sermon.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Borrowing a beast from Glaves, she rode north one
-evening to offer congratulations, and as the Murchisons
-lived several miles north of Silver Creek Valley, night
-fell while she still lacked half a mile of the homestead.
-From that distance the windows' yellow blaze advised
-of fuss and busy preparation.  Drawing nearer, voices,
-laughter, the whir of an egg-beater, clatter of cooking-gear
-came down the trail merrily freighting the dusk.
-Infected by the cheer, she gave a shrill halloa, spurred
-to a gallop, and drew in at the door with a clatter of
-hoofs.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Ruth!  Oh, Ruth!" she called.  "Ruth-y!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Instantly the voices hushed, then, after an uncomfortable
-pause, she heard Mrs. Murchison say, in thin,
-constrained tones, "Mrs. Carter is out there, father."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Followed a shuffling, and the door opened revealing
-Murchison framed in yellow light.  Stout, robust, ruddy,
-with that mottled-beef English complexion, he came of
-that stout yeoman stock whose twanging long-bows
-sounded France's knell at Crecy and Poitiers, of that rich
-blood the slow drainage of which to her colonies has left
-England flabby, ensemic, flaccid.  He had not wished to
-leave, but the motherland had become industrial
-without further place for her yeoman.  Over fields that
-were enriched by the tilth of thirty Murchison
-generations, a thousand factories were depositing soot and
-blighting acids.  American wheat and beeves had wiped
-out profits, while enormous rents ate up the farmer's
-substance.  So Murchison, England's best, had become
-partner in exile with the remittance-men, her worst.
-Undoubtedly, there was no symptom of remittance
-weakness in the scowl he turned on Helen.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Behind him Helen could see Ruth, red and embarrassed,
-hanging her head over the egg-beater.  A half-dozen
-girls and neighboring women, who had come in
-to help in the baking and brewing, were exchanging
-meaning glances across the table.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Ruth?  She's well," Murchison answered her question.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She knew what to expect now, but nerved herself to
-face the situation.  "Can't I see her?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Because she don't run with your kind."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, Mr. Murchison!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He felt the heart sickness, yet glowered relentlessly,
-for it had been the habit of his forebears to thrash their
-women into good behavior.  He itched to do it now for
-the good of her soul, but, lacking the power, he growled:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If you don't like it—keep better company."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If he had been alone, she would undoubtedly have
-challenged his reproach and, while clearing herself in
-his eyes, have turned away future trouble.  But a
-titter from within fired her pride.  "Very well, please
-give her my congratulations."  And turning she rode
-away.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Good-hearted as rough, Murchison stared after,
-stricken with sudden compunction.  He knew that she must
-have intended to stay the night, and here she was a
-timorous woman riding out into the darkness.  "Here!"
-he shouted.  "Come back!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But she held on, eyes snapping, cheeks aflame, throat
-convulsed under the strain of suppressing imminent
-hysteria.  Beyond earshot she broke down, venting her
-injured loneliness in broken speech between bursts of
-sobbing.  "They hate—me.  Condemn me—because—my
-husband left me.  It wasn't my—fault—that is,
-altogether."  She hastily corrected herself.  "Of
-course—I failed him.  But I was—sorry—would have done
-better—if he had—given me a chance.  He's so stern—and
-stiff—"  She would not even let this undoubted
-truth pass unmodified.  "But then—he thought I
-didn't—love him.  Perhaps I didn't—then.  I was a
-little fool.  But I do!  I do!"  She stretched wild arms
-to the darkness.  "I do!  I do!  I do!"  But the
-velvet night returned nothing to her embrace and she
-collapsed, sobbing, upon the pony's neck.  Still the cry
-did her good, tided over hysteria, composed and quieted
-her so that she was able to meet the trustee's glance of
-spectacled inquiry as she entered the cabin.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Kindliness as well as curiosity inhered in his glance,
-for, besides the cash and educational prestige which she
-had brought to his cabin, Jimmy had come to like her
-for herself.  The frost and grizzle of fifty winters thawed
-under his smile as he threw a Winnipeg paper across the
-table.  "Catch!  Just kem in.  Yes, there's a story
-'bout him.  Now, don't eat it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Metaphorically, she did, indeed, devour the article,
-and while she read the trustee watched with something
-of puzzled astonishment the lovely tide that flowed
-out from the lace at her neck, and drowned her pale
-creams to the roots of her hair.  He had ample
-opportunity for study as the article was long.  Just then
-Carter's line, with its promise of competition, focussed
-the interest of the entire province, and some enterprising
-scribe had risen to the opportunity afforded by a visit
-west of the general manager of the trunk line, to
-interview him upon the probable action of his road in
-proceedings to condemn a crossing of its right of way.
-Time, however, had not abated one iota of the manager's
-sphinx like quality.  While affable, he had declined
-to discuss railroad politics, remarking that his company
-did not "cross bridges before they were built."  Interviewed
-in his turn upon the significance of the aforesaid
-remark, Carter had ventured the opinion that the trunk-line
-people would not oppose the crossing, and thereby
-had provoked a flaming editorial upon his artlessness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If the people behind Mr. Carter imagine that the
-greediest monopoly in history will loose its grip on this
-province till the law's crowbar pries off its fingers one
-by one, they are mightily mistaken," the editor hotly
-declared.  "Forewarned is forearmed, and we hereby
-present them, gratis, with this piece of information—while
-they are running their grades in peaceful confidence
-that will be most appropriate in the innocent
-age when lion and lamb lie down together, the monopoly
-is gathering men and means, preparing to crush their
-enterprise by force should the crooked enginery of the
-law fail its purpose.  Why else have five hundred extra
-men been distributed among the sections on either side
-of the proposed crossing?  Why does a gravel-train
-stand there permanently across the proposed right of
-way?  Soon Mr. Carter will receive unmistakable answer
-to these questions."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He's dead right there, that editor man," the trustee
-said when, all rosy red, Helen looked up from her
-reading.  "Old Brass-Bowels was born with a nateral
-insight into the nater of a dead cinch."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But won't the law support my"—she paused, then
-proudly finished—"my husband?  Can't he compel a
-crossing?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The law?"  Sniffing, Jimmy indicated the legal
-patchwork on the wall with a comprehensive sweep of
-his pipe.  "The law said as I was to pay them, but did
-I?  Humph!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But they'll hardly dare to fly in the face of the
-province?  Public opinion is a great moral force."  She
-quoted a sentence from the editorial with gusto.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, but 'tain't much of a club.  Did you ever see
-one of my hawgs stan' aside, even when he was full, to
-let another have a go at the trough?  Not till I hit him
-on the snout.  Well, they ain't agoin' to cross the
-trunk line these two years, an' for my part I don't care
-if they never cross."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?"  Her eyes dilated widely.  "Wouldn't a
-competing line benefit you—all of the province?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nodding, he regarded her from half-shut eyes.  "Oh,
-I ain't expecting to walk on gold this side o' the pearly
-gates.  As for my reasons, they ain't a mile away from
-here.  I'm not wishing too much success for a man
-that deserts his wife."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Touched and very much flushed as to the face by
-his genuine, if crabbed sympathy, the Reasons yet
-shook her head and spoke up for the recreant
-husband stoutly as she had defended him against herself.
-She made, however, small headway against his obduracy.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, that's the way I see it.  By-the-way," he added,
-heading off a disposition for further argument, "did
-you see the evangelist?  Pitched his tent over by
-Flynn's.  You want to go.  Beats a three-ring circus
-when old man Cummings hits up to his gait."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Jimmy!  Jimmy!"  His wife looked up from her
-ironing; then daunted, perhaps, by his twinkle, she
-addressed Helen.  "He hadn't orter talk that away, my
-dear.  If Mr. Cummings does go on the rampage a bit
-when he gets het up, at least he's sincere.  As for
-him—"  She turned a severe eye on her husband.  "We'll get
-him yet."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, I see myself.  Her idea of heaven"—he shrugged
-at the ironing-board—"is an eternal class-meeting
-with everybody giving their experience—love-feast she
-calls it.  I like something solider.  Give me plenty to
-eat, a pipe by a warm fire, an' something to read, an'
-I'll sign away my harp an' crown."  Ignoring his
-better-half's remark that he would not lack the fire, he
-finished: "She's going.  Wouldn't miss a meeting.
-Kedn't keep her away with a club.  So if you'd alike to
-see some fun—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If 'twas jes' out of curiosity I'd ask her to stay at
-home," his wife interrupted.  "But she's not that kind,
-an' I'll be glad to take her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If you will?" Helen assented, and so, returning to
-the analogy, placed herself directly beneath the leaden
-belly of the lowering storm.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="denunciation"><span class="bold large">XXII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">DENUNCIATION</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>A molten sun was smouldering in the ashes of
-day when, the following evening, Helen with Mrs. Glaves,
-drove up to the gospel-tent.  It still lacked half
-an hour of meeting-time, so, while her companion joined
-the early arrivals who were passing time by holding a
-service of song inside, Helen remained in the buckboard
-and watched the sunset, observed herself by a group of
-remittance-men and a scattering of settler youths who
-sprawled near by on the grass.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Enthralled, she scarcely saw them; had eyes only for
-the ruby sun that stained the prairies with amber
-incandescences, the ribbed glories of the fiery cloud
-pillars that seemed to uphold the darkling vault above.  As
-the orb slid into his blankets of rose and gold, shy stars
-peeped down at the violet shadows that crawled slowly
-up the slopes and knolls; over all fell the hush of evening.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was one of the moments when the Riddle of
-Infinity, Puzzles of Time, Space, Eternity appear as
-concrete though unthinkable realities; weigh down and
-oppress the soul with a sense of its insignificance.
-Against the black-blue vault the stars loomed as worlds;
-she could see beyond, around them.  Through vast
-voids planets were rushing on their courses; suns with
-attendant systems swung on measured arcs obedient
-to—what? ... A thin minor, querulous plaint stole out
-on the hush:</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<div>
-<div class="line-block outermost">
-<div class="line"><span>"Poor crawling Worm of Earth,</span></div>
-<div class="line"><span>A Child of Sin am I—"</span></div>
-<div class="line"> </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>It was an honest attempt at the riddle, but its
-incongruity, futile insufficiency caused her to shrug with
-sudden annoyance.  She wondered if, somewhere in
-planetary space, other "pinches of sentient dust" were
-equally afflicted with a sense of their central importance
-in the scheme of things.  The apologetic whine spoiled
-the sunset; she impatiently turned to watch the arrivals—the
-wagons, buck-boards, horsemen—that were streaming
-in on every trail.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"How are you, Mrs. Carter?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was Danvers, Molyneux's old pupil.  An honest
-lad and merry, she always liked him, and now made him
-welcome to the seat beside her, and laughed at his fire
-of chaff.  Indicating Cummings, whose ovine expression
-had sustained no diminution since the day he bearded
-the general manager, he remarked: "He's great, Mrs. Carter;
-puts it all over Henry Irving.  And there's the
-sky pilot!  What a Jovelike port!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There was, of course, little wit and less humor in his
-chaff, but his intentions were honorable, so, ignoring the
-sour looks of the arriving settlers, she gave him smiling
-attention up to the moment they entered the tent
-together, and so prepared the way for what followed.  For
-though, going in, she left levity without, her modest and
-devout bearing could not mitigate her offence in allying
-herself with the English Ishmael.  It was aggravated,
-moreover, by her remaining with him in close proximity
-to the remittance crowd on the back benches.  Thereafter
-nothing could save her; she remained a target for
-sour glances throughout the service.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This was on the usual pattern—rousing hymns, prayer,
-testimony, and exhortation—then when groans and
-ejaculations testified to the spiritual temperature, the
-evangelist, a stout man of bull-like build, proceeded to
-cut off yards of the "undying worm," and to measure
-bushels of the "fire that quencheth not" for the portion
-of such as refused to view the problems of Infinity
-through aught but his own wildly gleaming spectacles.
-His discourse, indeed, bristled with those cant terms
-which, while entirely devoid of meaning, are still
-eminently conducive of religious hysteria, and his efforts
-were the more successful because of the absence of the
-Probationer, a thoughtful young fellow whose rare
-common-sense could be depended upon to prevent religious
-emotion from degenerating into epilepsy.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Lacking his wholesome presence, the evangelist paced
-the platform under the yellow lantern-light, stretching
-long, black arms, hovering over the people like some
-huge, dark bird as he pleaded, threatened, thundered,
-launching his fiery periods on a groaning wave of
-"amens" and "hallelujahs."  As he went on, painting
-heaven and hell into his lurid scheme of things, sighs
-and exclamations grew in volume, flooding feeling pulsed
-through the audience, wild settler youths, who had come
-to scoff, exchanged uneasy glances on the back benches,
-sure sign of a coming stampede.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This was the psychological moment, and, skilled in
-his trade, the revivalist pounced upon it.  Stilling the
-groaning chorus with upheld hand, he solemnly invited
-all who were not </span><em class="italics">against</em><span> the Lord Jesus to stand, an
-old revival trick and one which now, as always, turned.
-For, as before said, the plains were not yet infected
-with the leprosy of agnosticism, and, Episcopalians to
-a man, even the Englishmen were not willing to pose
-as the open enemies of God.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Once standing and pilloried in the public eye, it was
-but a question of minutes until the back benches began
-to yield up penitents.  One by one the settler youths
-were gathered into the mourning bench, until at last
-Helen stood alone with the Englishmen.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Come ye!  Come ye to the Lord!"  The preacher
-pleaded, but, haughty and coldly constrained, the
-remittance-men ignored the invitation; and so, for the
-space of a thunderous hymn of praise, gnostic civilization
-and the fervid frontier faced each other across
-the middle benches.  From that dramatic setting
-anything might come.  Moment, feeling, atmosphere, all
-pointed to the event that came to pass as the hymn died.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Leaping upon a bench, and so adding its height to
-unusual tallness, a woman pointed a warning hand at
-the unbelievers.  Thin, family-worn, and naturally
-cadaverously yellow, she was now flushed with the fever
-of delirium.  "In that day," she screeched, "the Tares
-shall be separated from the Wheat and cast with the
-grass into the oven!"  Then, while her finger indicated
-man after man, she raised the grewsome hymn:</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<div>
-<div class="line-block outermost">
-<div class="line"><span>"'I heard the Sinners Wailing, Wailing, Wailing,</span></div>
-<div class="line"><span>I heard the Sinners Wailing on that Great Day!'"</span></div>
-<div class="line"> </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Travelling around the benches, her skinny finger
-finally fastened on Helen, and, as the lugubrious refrain
-came to an end, she burst forth in tremendous paraphrase:
-"Beware ye of the Scarlet Woman!  Avoid ye,
-for her portals lead down to Death; her feet take hold of
-Hell!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The silence of paralysis followed.  So still it was that
-a mosquito's thin whine sounded through the tent, the
-tinkle of a cow-bell came in from far pastures, a dog
-could be heard barking a long way off.  Swinging from
-the tent-pole, a circle of lanterns lit dark, flushed faces,
-and thus, for the space of a long breath, Helen faced
-the virago, the one glowering, malignant, the other pale
-with astonishment, mutely indignant.  She was not
-confused.  On the contrary, thought and vision were
-surprisingly clear; she noted Mrs. Glaves's shocked look,
-the vindictive settler faces, the Englishmen's blank
-expressions.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We had better go.  May I drive home, Mrs. Carter?"  Danvers,
-the witless, the foolish, rose to the situation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Low-pitched, his voice yet carried to every ear, as did
-her clear reply:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"After the service is over."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was defiance as well as answer, and as she threw
-it in the lowering face of the congregation, her glance
-fixed on the evangelist who, till then, had stood, mouth
-open, hand arrested midway of a gesture, a bearded,
-spectacled effigy of ridiculous surprise.  Starting under
-her pale scorn, he flushed, looked for a second through
-shining, bewildered glasses, then strode forward and
-seized the virago's arm.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Sister, sister!  Judge not that ye be not judged!"  Then,
-himself again, he swept a pudgy hand over the
-benches.  "Sit down, all!  Brother Cummings will lead
-in prayer."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It mercifully happens that sudden calamity carries
-its own anæsthetic in that it blinds, confuses, destroys
-feeling, numbs the faculties that ought to register its
-importance.  Under Helen's unnatural calmness she
-was dimly conscious of a sick excitement, but this was
-unrelated with her thought.  She saw and sensed as
-usual; was aware of curious backward glances, the
-sympathy of the Englishmen at her side; heard every
-word of Cummings's sputtering prayer, the following
-hymn and benediction; only her mind refused commerce
-with these things.  Divorced from the present, it
-juggled the terms of an equation in that day's lesson up
-to the moment that the remittance-men came crowding
-about Danvers' rig after the meeting.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Aside from their looseness and general inefficiency, the
-lads were brave enough, and though some of them
-had won or lost bets on her reputation, winners were
-no more eager than losers to avenge the insult that
-had been provoked by her association with themselves.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Just say the word, Mrs. Carter," Danvers pleaded,
-"and we'll lick the crowd."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And put a head on the preacher," young Poole
-added, sinfully licking his chops.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>From the darkness that enveloped the press of rigs
-and wagons rose jeering voices, sneers, laughter, the
-conscious cackle of scandal.  Several times she heard
-her own name.  There was provocation and to spare,
-but though a word would have started a racial riot,
-she desired only solitude, to flutter home like a
-wounded bird to its nest.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, no!" she answered them.  "Take me home!
-Only take me home!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Arrived there, she flew to her own room leaving
-Danvers to enlighten the trustee.  Lying face down on
-her bed, she heard the rumble of their conversation,
-Jimmy's violent reflections upon revivals particular and
-general, his wife's whimpering protests when she
-returned.  His growl extended far into the night, and
-when it was finally extinguished by a robust snoring,
-the girl was afflicted with a sense of lost companionship;
-thereafter she had to suffer it out by herself.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There would be more pain than profit in describing
-her reflections, agonizings.  Sufficient to know that a
-knife in the breast hurts a woman less than a stab at
-her reputation, and her thought was none the sweeter
-for the knowledge that she had drawn the blow by
-giving way to her pique.  Her resolve as expressed next
-morning to Jimmy Glaves is of more concern.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She had turned impatiently from Mrs. Glaves's tearful
-apologies, but when the old trustee laid a kindly
-hand on her shoulder, as she passed him in the garden
-on her way to school, she gave him honest eyes.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, you ain't to bother.  'Twas on'y Betsy Rodd,
-the old harridan.  Nobody minds her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But she shook her head in accordance with her
-resolution to face truth.  "She was expressing what was
-in everybody's minds.  I know it, and though I didn't
-intend it, I'm partly to blame, for their suspicion."  Her
-mouth drew thin and firm as she finished.  "I shall
-live it down."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Course you will!" he heartily agreed.  "That's my
-brave girl!"  But his face darkened after she had passed
-on, and he slowly wagged a grave head as he plied his
-hoe in the garden.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For he knew the difficulty, impossibility of the task
-she had marked out for herself.  Of Scotch descent,
-dogmatic, wedded to convention, intense clannishness
-reinforced in the settlers bitter morality, racial hatred,
-the condemnation of sin.  With them the offence of the
-fathers was visited upon the children to the fourth
-generation.  It was remembered, for instance, against
-Donald Ross that his great-grandfather had died a drunkard,
-and the fact had limited his choice of a wife; the
-daughters of Hector MacCloud took inferior husbands because
-their grandmother had been born on the easy side of the
-knot.  Handing such cold charity around among themselves,
-what mercy were they likely to extend to the
-suspected stranger within their gates?  Jimmy was still
-wagging his head when, half an hour later, the Probationer
-reined in at the end of the garden.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hearing of the scandal on the Lone Tree trail, the
-young man had turned aside to express his sorrow, and
-now listened patiently while the trustee drew invidious
-parallels between the religious movement then proceeding
-and his own misfit horticulture.  "You see them?"  Removing
-his pipe from between his teeth, he waved it
-at some half-dozen straggling apple-shoots.  "Hardiest
-variety of Siberian crabs.  Professor at the gove'nment
-experimental station warranted 'em to grow at the north
-pole.  Remind me of your revival, they do."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?  Don't they grow?"  The Probationer smiled.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Grow?  I should swan! four feet every summer, an'
-freeze off to the roots every winter—jes' like your
-converts.  Get all het up at meetings, blossom with grace,
-then comes the backsliding, the frost, an' nips the
-leafage.  Where's the sense of it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now the Probationer had his own doubts.  Having
-turned a prentice hand at revival work, he was painfully
-familiar with its characteristic phenomena—first,
-hot enthusiasm, slow cooling, obstinate adherence to
-the form after the spirit has fled, finally the reaction
-which would leave his people less charitable, not quite
-so kindly, a little poorer in the things which make for
-the kingdom of Christ on earth.  He had tried to be a
-real shepherd to his flock—to upraise by precept,
-example, counsel, and admonition.  Avoiding dogma, he had
-brought them together irrespective of cult and creed
-on the broad basis of love and a common humanity,
-and just when he was beginning to expect fruit from
-that liberal sowing, this bitter theologian, the revivalist,
-had been loosed upon him.  And this was first fruit of
-his work!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Jimmy's illustration coincided exactly with his own
-experience, yet fealty to his Church demanded some
-sort of defence.  "Isn't an annual growth better than
-none?" he asked.  "The green shoots certainly improve
-the appearance of your garden."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Jimmy blew a derisive cloud over the few cabbages,
-two sickly cauliflowers, a bed of onions, salvage from
-worms and spring frost of half an acre's planting.  "But
-you don't get results.  One sound cabbage is worth an
-acre of sick saplings; a cheerful sinner discounts a
-hundred puckered saints.  I'm scairt as the black knot has
-got inter that orchard o' yourn, sir?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm afraid so," the young fellow sadly agreed.
-"Well, I must try and prune it out."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd advise the axe," Jimmy grimly commented.
-"An' begin with Betsy Rodd."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Sorrowing, the Probationer drove on to the school,
-where a very cold young lady answered his call at the
-door.  A slant of sunshine struck in under the porch
-twining an aureole about her golden head, creating an
-auriferous nimbus for her shapely figure.  Standing
-there, so cold and pale, she might have passed for a
-statue of purity, and the Probationer, being young and
-still impressionable albeit engaged, wondered that any
-should have dared to doubt her.  Thawing when he
-mentioned Ruth, she froze again as soon as he touched,
-apologetically, upon the event of the night before.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If religion strips them of common charity, they
-would be better without it," she answered his apology,
-and turned but a cold ear to his plea for his people.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"They were altogether subject to emotion, incapable
-of a reasoned rule of life," he said.  "With the fear
-of God removed from their hearts, they would drop
-to unmentionable levels, to say nothing of the hope
-and consolation religion brought to sweeten their hard
-lives."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But he made little headway.  "I don't doubt they
-are not quite so bad as they would like to be.  But
-there, let us drop the subject.  Won't you come in and
-examine the children?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>From this conversation it will be seen that her
-resolve to "live it down" was not exactly founded upon
-grounds that would appeal to a professor of ethics; yet
-her attitude was very natural, and not so deplorable as
-would at first appear.  Was she so much to blame?
-Hardness breeds hardness, opposition its like.  Fire
-flies from the impact of rock and iron.  Always like
-begets like, heredity applies to mental forces.
-Moreover, injured pride has stiffened more weak spines and
-given better results than the command to turn the
-other cheek; the desire to "show people" lies at the
-root of many a bravery.  Lastly, once rehabilitated
-socially, softness comes later to the injured member,
-increasing in ratio to the respect of his or her
-community.  And so it would have been with Helen—with
-a different people.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-charivari"><span class="bold large">XXIII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE CHARIVARI</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Straddling a log in his dooryard, the trustee
-whistled softly while he whittled and shaped a
-pair of birch crooks into the ox-collars that, with
-trace-chains, are preferred in the northland to the
-old-fashioned bows and yoke.  The revival was over.  After
-passing from house to house like measles, mumps, or
-other dark disease, infecting men on trail, by fireside,
-at the plough-tail with the prejudice he styled religion,
-the evangelist had reported so many head of "saved" to
-his superiors, and so had swooped like a plague upon
-other settlements, leaving the Probationer to repair, as
-best he might, his ravages in this.  Now, two weeks
-later, symptoms in Silver Creek indicated a quick
-recovery; extra meetings had altogether ceased, bi-weekly
-prayer-meetings languished, remarks at the plough-tail
-showed signs of former vigor; the sweat and labor of
-haying would undoubtedly bring complete convalescence
-and, with it, danger for Helen.  For while the religious
-excitement had served her by excluding all else from
-the settler mind, tongues would be the sharper, prejudice
-the keener for the rest.  It was but a lull in the
-storm, the hush that follows the first flash and crash of
-thunder.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was knowledge of this fact that inspired the trustee's
-thoughtful whistling.  Already he smelled trouble
-on the wind, the impression being formed on many
-small significances—looks, nods, winks, and whispered
-asides at "bees" and "raisings."  More important: his
-cabin, which, as post-office, had been a social focus, centre
-of news and gossip, a place to linger and chat, had of
-late been almost deserted.  Calling for their mail, his
-neighbors departed with the shortest of salutations.
-So, having had a gray eye on trouble through all, he
-was not surprised when she presently appeared between
-Shinn and Hines in the latter's buck-board.  Indeed, his
-comment while they were still a hundred yards away
-signified profound distrust.  "Gummed if the coyotes
-ain't running in packs this weather."  His beetling
-brows, moreover, drew a grizzled line across his hawk
-nose when the two reined in opposite; he glared
-suspiciously while Hines glibly discoursed on crops, weather,
-the ox-collars; nor hesitated to interrupt and reach for
-trouble's forelock.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Crops is fair to middling, nothing wrong with the
-hay, the crooks is for Flynn—now, what is it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines blinked and looked silly, but the check worked
-oppositely on Shinn.  Of that gaunt, raw-boned,
-backwoods type produced by generations of ineffable
-hardship and slavish labor, he stood over six feet, and
-combined great strength with mean ferocity and
-uncontrollable passion.  His huge mouth twitched feverishly
-as he answered, "Sence you're so pressing—it's the
-talk through the settlement that we orter have a new
-teacher."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Umph!"  Grunt could not convey greater contempt.
-"Hain't you got a teacher?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, but it's agreed that she ain't quite the sort to
-put over innercent children."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This time the trustee snorted, "Might infect them
-brats o' yourn with her sweet manners, eh?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shinn flushed dully under his yellow skin.  "That or
-something else.  Anyway, every one's agreed that she's
-gotter go."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Who's everybody?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Meeting, held at my place."  Recovering, Hines
-backed up his partner.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?  First I heard of it.  Was Flynn there?
-Thought not; he ain't much of a mixer.  Didn't ask me,
-did you?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hines shuffled uneasily.  "'Twas held after a
-prayer-meeting—you might ha' been there."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Prayer-meeting, eh?  Real Christian, wasn't it, to
-try and take the bread out of a good girl's mouth?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Good?</em><span>"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>At Hines's sneer the trustee rose, hand gripping hard
-on a heavy crook, eyes one gray glare under ragged brows,
-temple veins ridged and swollen.  "I said 'good.'"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>On the frontier a man must usually furnish material
-proof of courage, but there are exceptions from whom
-imminent fearlessness distils as an exhalation affecting
-all who come within its atmosphere.  Carter was such
-a one; Glaves another.  Though neither had found it
-necessary to "make good" physically during the settlement's
-short history, their ability to do so was never at
-question.  Behind the reserve of one, crabbed sarcasm
-of the other, danger lay so close to the surface that it was
-always felt, could never be quite forgotten.  Indeed, as
-regards Glaves, the feeling took form in the opinion
-often delivered when the qualities of men were under
-discussion—"If the old man ever gets started, some one
-will earn a quick funeral."  Now Hines quailed, and
-even the truculent Shinn observed silence.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Glaring on the shrinking Hines, the trustee went on:
-"Never forgot how Carter bluffed you out on that hay
-business, did you?  An' as you wasn't man enough to
-get back at him, you 'lowed to take it out of his wife?
-Well, you ain't going to.  You kin go back an' tell them
-that sent you that so long as Flynn an' me sit on the
-board she'll teach this school."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That," Shinn retorted, "would be till nex' election,
-but she won't stay that long.  Sence you're so stiff
-about it, Glaves, let me tell you that you kain't fly in
-the face of this settlement.  You may be big wolf, but
-there's others in the pack.  If she's here at the end of
-the month—there'll be something doing."  Nodding
-evilly, he drove on, leaving the trustee to puzzle over his
-meaning as he shaped and polished the crooks.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Bluffing, I reckon," he concluded, and that, also,
-was the opinion of Flynn, to whom he carried his doubts
-that evening.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"There'll be no way for thim spalpeens to fire us av
-the boord?" Flynn queried.  "No?  Phwat about an
-opposhition school?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Agin the law to build one in this township."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Thin 'tis all out av the big mouth av Shinn.  Thalk,
-an' nothing more."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Both were confirmed in their opinion when the month
-drew to a peaceful, if hot, end.  Tricked out in various
-green, woods and prairies slumbered or sighed restlessly
-under torrid heat that extracted their essential essences,
-weighting the heavy air with intense odors of curing
-grasses.  There was nothing to indicate that the virulent
-tide of spleen was ready to burst its banks.  Knowing
-that another week would bring on haying, with its attendant
-wars to provide an outlet for feeling, neither trustee
-anticipated the event which occurred at the full of the
-moon.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though the storm broke around Glaves's cabin, Flynn
-received immediate notice.  In pleasant weather he and
-his wife would sit on their doorstep after the children
-were in bed, to enjoy the quiet hour while the peace and
-cool charmed away the cares of the day; and this night
-was particularly beautiful.  Over dewlit plains the moon
-emptied a flood of silver and polished the slough beyond
-the dooryard till it shone like burnished steel.  Rolling
-off and away under that tender light, the huge earth
-waves seemed to heave, swell, sigh as a lover's bosom
-under the sweet eyes of his mistress, while from the
-corrals near by issued the heavy breathing of contented
-kine.  Always music in the ears of a farmer, it stimulated
-Flynn, set him planning for the future; but he had hardly
-touched on next year's increase before Mrs. Flynn seized
-his arm.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Phwat's that?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>At first Flynn thought that Glaves was "dogging"
-stray cattle away from his grain-fields, but when the
-iron note of beaten pans, gunshots, metallic thundering
-were added to the first clash of cow-bells, he sprang up.
-"A charivari!  At Glaves's!  A spite charivari!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, my God, Flynn!" his wife exclaimed.  "That
-poor girl!"  She knew what that orgy of sound portended.
-A jest at weddings, the charivari was sometimes
-used as a sinister weapon to express communal dislike or
-punish suspicion of sin.  The most terrible memory of
-her girlhood was associated with a party of fiercely moral
-backwoodsmen that flogged a man at her father's wagon-tail
-and dragged a woman, who had offended public
-morals, naked and screaming through a field of thistles.
-In Silver Creek were men who had participated in that
-cruelty, forced to emigrate to escape the law.  Small
-wonder that she agonized under the thought.  "Flynn!
-Flynn, man!  Hurry, get your horse!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Holding the light for him to saddle, she called after
-as he rode away: "Go round be Misther Danvers'!  'Tis
-on'y a mile out av your way!  Going by here at noon,
-himself told me that he was to have a sthag-party the
-night!  They'll jump at the chance, an' fight none the
-worse for a smhell av the whiskey!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A cold, with complications in the shape of rheumatic
-pains, sent the trustee early to bed that evening, and
-Helen was sewing by the fire with Mrs. Glaves when the
-charivari turned loose outside.  As, jumping up, they
-stood staring at one another, he shouted for them to bolt
-the door; and as, after complying, Helen returned to the
-fire he came limping out, bent, warped, and twisted by
-sciatica, half dressed, but grimly resolute.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Danger?" he rasped, swinging round on his wife as
-the house trembled under sudden thunder of scurrying
-hoofs outside.  "Listen!"  And when pained bellows
-followed dropping shots, he added: "Peppering the cattle.
-Scairt?  Then go an' stick your fool head under a pillow.
-How is it with you?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As a matter of fact, Helen's face was as white as the
-fluffy shawl from which her golden head rose like a yellow
-crocus above soft spring snows; but, noting the thin,
-scarlet line of her mouth, the trustee nodded his satisfaction.
-"You'll do.  Swing round that lounge—here, where I
-can train a gun on the door.  Good!"  He eased his
-length along it with a groan of relief.  "Now hand me
-the gun—no, the other."  Rehanging his own long
-duck-gun upon its wooden pegs, she brought him the famous
-double-barrelled Greener which, having disarranged the
-lock action in trying to clean it, Danvers had left with
-the trustee for repairs.  "There, put out the light an'
-take a look out at the window."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Pulling the curtain aside, she got full benefit of the
-brazen clamor while learning something of its genesis,
-for, while easily recognizable, the din of beaten pans,
-cow-bells, gunshots, and yells formed only a minor
-accompaniment to a barbarous metallic roll, louder than
-a corps of beaten drums, and a discordant screech that
-discounted the torment of a thousand tortured fiddles.
-Now she saw two men rapidly vibrating long cross-cut
-saws back and forth against the house, while others drew
-a rosined plank to and fro across a log, concentrating the
-discords of the world into a single excruciating note.
-Closing her ears, she took further note of the score of dark
-figures that came and went in the moonlight, leaping,
-shouting, gesticulating strangely, as though crazed by
-the frenzy of noise.  Weird, sinister shapes, they moved,
-massed, and melted to units again as in some mad
-carnival or distorted madman's dream.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The trustee pulled her skirt.  "Come away!  They
-might shoot at the window."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Obeying, she knelt beside him—fortunately with her
-back to the pane that, a few minutes later, shivered and
-flew in fine rain.  "Drunk!" Glaves commented; and
-as a piercing cry, clever imitation of a cougar, rang high
-over a slight lull, he said, "That's sure Bill MacCloud."  He
-grimly added—for, besides being dissolute, the man
-was a scoffer and leader against religion: "Gosh! but the
-saints are keeping queer company.  Bill ain't more'n a
-mile 'way from his bottle."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>After that one lull the tumult increased in loudness
-and volume, and for a long half-hour Helen listened as
-some soft maid of Rome may have hearkened to the din
-of Goth or ravaging Hun in the sacred streets of the
-imperial city.  To her, brought up under the shadow of
-law, with its material manifestation—a policeman—always
-within call, the brutal elemental passion behind that
-huge, amorphous voice was very terrible.  Almost equally
-fearful was the sudden cessation that set the silence
-singing in her ears, the voiceless darkness, thick night
-of that black room.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Touching the trustee, more for the comfort of his
-presence than to draw his attention, she whispered,
-"What now?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Just then the door rattled under a heavy kick; a
-strident voice answered her question: "Open, Glaves,
-an' send out that —— baggage" (it was a viler word)
-"or we'll burn the house over your ears!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You will—" the trustee began, but was interrupted
-by a wail from his wife in the bedroom.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Jimmy!  Oh, Jimmy, don't let 'em have her.  They'll
-duck her in the slough—mebbe drown her like they did
-Jenny Ross back in Huron."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you shet up!" he roared, but the man outside
-had heard.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You bet we will.  She needs a little cooling."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That's surely Mr. Shinn that's talking so fierce!"
-the trustee taunted.  "Man, but you're gaining a heap
-wolfish, though it did take you some time to work up
-to the p'int of speech.  Why didn't you take the
-shortcut through Bill's bottle?"  His tone suddenly altered
-from banter to such stern command that they distinctly
-heard Shinn shuffle back a step from the door.  "Burn
-this house?  Get, or I'll blow the black heart out of you!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A derisive yell rose outside, then silence fell again, a
-hush so complete that Helen distinctly heard the tick
-of the clock, her own breathing, the chirrup of a hearth
-cricket.  Pulling the trustee's sleeve, she whispered,
-"I've brought </span><em class="italics">such</em><span> trouble upon you!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Rubbish!" he snapped.  "Say that ag'in an' I'll
-spank you!"  But he gently patted her hand.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A minute slid by without further speech; a second,
-third, fourth, then she whispered, "Surely they must
-have gone."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Before he could reply came a rapid beat of running
-feet, a splintering crash, an oblong of moonlight flashed
-out of the darkness at the end of the room, and quiet
-reigned again.  Only the battering ram, a long log,
-poked its blunt nose over the doorsill.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Stand clear there!" the trustee sharply warned.
-Then, as a dim, crouched figure appeared between the
-jambs, he shouted, "Fair warning!" and fired; but as
-the figure fell back and out, a chuckling laugh drifted
-through the smoke, Shinn's coarse voice yelled: "His
-gun's single barrel!  In, afore he kin reload!" and a black,
-surging mass trampled over the dummy and filled the
-doorway.  As aforeseen, the conclusion was justified—the
-trustee's long gun was familiar as his face in the
-settlement—and the click of Danvers' left trigger was
-drowned by a second harsh command—"Fair warning!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The report, thunderous, ear-splitting in the confined
-space, certified to Shinn's mistake.  His writhing mouth,
-Hines's wintry visage, the press of men in the door showed
-redly under the flash, then sulphurous darkness wiped out
-all.  To Helen, its smothering pall seemed to pulse with
-thick life, to extend clutching fingers, horrors that were
-intensified by Mrs. Glaves's sudden burst of hysterical
-screaming.  Crouched behind Glaves, she listened in
-agony to the swearing, sharp oaths, as men tripped and
-stumbled over the furniture and one another.  There
-was no escape.  They were feeling for her all over the
-room, and through a sick horror she heard Shinn's
-triumphant yell—</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I've got her!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A choked gurgle, snarl of rage, as Glaves fastened onto
-his throat, explained his mistake.  "Hell! has no one
-a match?"  His strangled voice issued from a dark
-whorl, crash of splintering furniture, as they swung and
-staggered in that pit of gloom.  The struggle could have
-but one ending.  Healthy, Glaves would have been no
-match for Shinn, and, as a match scratched, came the
-soft thud of his body as he was thrown with brutal force
-against the wall.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Flaring up, the flame revealed Helen, white, trembling,
-sick with that paralysis of fear that a mouse must feel
-in the claws of a cat.  From the bedroom came the
-hysterical whooping, terrible in its sameness.  Wide-eyed,
-she stared, fascinated, at Shinn, but he also was
-staring at a body spread-eagled before the door, its
-face turned down in a black, viscid, spreading pool.  The
-match went out.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"My God!" a man cried.  "It's Hines!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Helen did not hear that or a cry from outside
-warning of approaching hoofs.  Throughout the frenzy
-of noise, horror of darkness, suspense, the attack, she
-had carried herself bravely; but this swift death,
-following on all, broke her shaken nerves, deprived her of
-consciousness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The trustee, however, heard and saw the house vomit
-its black life, the dark figures streaming under the
-moonlight out to the bluff where the horses were tied,
-panic-stricken by sudden death and uneasy memories of
-outraged law.  Leaning in his doorway, bent and bruised,
-he saw also Flynn and Danvers thunder by with a
-score of remittance-men, a wild cavalcade hard on their
-heels.  In the Irishman's hand a neck-yoke swung with
-ominous rattle of iron rings; Danvers carried a cavalry
-sabre he had snatched from his wall; the others brandished
-clubs.  Looming an instant in the steam of their
-sweating beasts, they shot on with a glad hurrah.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yoicks!  Tally-ho!" young Poole shrilled as he
-passed.  "Sic 'em, Flynn!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A Flynn!  A Flynn!" Danvers squeaked as Shinn
-crumpled under the neck-yoke.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Wild lads, under wilder leadership, they fought—as
-Mrs. Flynn had predicted—none the worse for a smell
-at the whiskey.  Those of the enemy who made a slow
-mounting were ridden down, fell under the clubs, or
-achieved uncomfortable leaps into briers and scrub, to
-be afterwards caught and drubbed, while such as
-escaped were run down and brought to bay by twos and
-threes.  In a running fight over miles of moonlit prairie
-the grudges of years were settled; jeers, gibes, many a
-cheating received payment in full, with arrears of
-interest.  Thus Cummings received from Danvers the
-"boot" due on the mare that Carter once described as
-being "blind, spavined, sweenied, an' old enough to
-homestead," payment being slapped down upon the
-spot where most pain may be inflicted with least
-structural damage.  In like manner Poole settled with Peter
-Rodd for a cannibalistic sow; Perceval with MacCloud,
-arrears </span><em class="italics">not</em><span> due on a quarter-section of scrub; Gray with
-Seebach for forty bushels of heated seed wheat.  Leaving
-them to their rough auditing, the story returns with
-Flynn to the cabin after the dropping of Shinn.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>After relighting the lamp, Glaves had carried his sore
-bones back to the lounge, and when Flynn entered he
-found the terrible old fellow glowering upon the dead.
-His wife's hysteria had slackened to a strained sobbing,
-and, answering Flynn's question, he tartly replied: "No,
-'tain't Mrs. Carter.  Had her fainting-spell an' kem
-to without any fuss, like a sensible girl.  She's in there
-tending to that old fool."  Then, beetling again on the
-dead, he forecast the verdict of the sheriff's jury.  "Ye'll
-bear witness, Flynn, that this man kem to his death
-through running into a charge of buckshot after my
-winder 'd been shot in an' door battered down."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="without-the-pale"><span class="bold large">XXIV</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">WITHOUT THE PALE</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>"I really believe that I </span><em class="italics">ought</em><span> to resign!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>When, one morning a week later, Helen delivered
-herself of certain secret misgivings at breakfast, the
-trustee looked up, startled, from his eggs and mush, then
-proceeded to fish for motives.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Scairt?  You needn't to be.  We've got this settlement
-by the short hairs at last."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His rude metaphor roughly set forth the truth.  Without
-ties, the bachelors of the charivari party had scattered
-west through the territories, while Shinn, MacCloud,
-and other married men had gone into such close hiding
-that the sheriff had been unable to subpoena one for the
-inquest.  But though she neither feared nor anticipated
-further violence, Helen now knew that she never would
-be able to live down the settlers' prejudice; and without
-the children's love, parents' confidence, her day of
-usefulness was past.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Glaves snorted at this altruistic reason.  "Love?
-Confidence?  What's their market value?  You kedn't
-hope to compete with a dollar note for the first; as for
-the second—  Danvers hit it off exactly when he stuck
-that sign on his stable door—'No more trading here!'  Now,
-from my p'int of view, it isn't a question of love
-or confidence, but one of faith."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Faith?" she echoed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nodding, he went on.  "Me and Flynn backed you
-up—stood by you through all, didn't we?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Indeed you did!"  She grew rosily red under warmth
-of feeling.  "I shall never—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"An' now you allow to throw us down?  For Shinn
-and MacCloud will shorely tell how that they scared you
-an' beat us out."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was bad argument, poor ethics—a bald statement of
-his grim intention of bending the stubborn settlers to his
-inflexible purpose.  She felt, however, that it would be
-still poorer ethics for her to desert and disappoint these,
-her champions, defenders.  It was one of these peculiar
-situations where any course seems wrong, and if
-she chose that which seemed most human, she did it
-with a mental reservation.  She would resign just as
-soon as she could persuade him to look at things her way.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course I'll stay—to please you.  But—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No 'buts,'" he interrupted.  "Haying begins
-Monday, an' by fall it'll all be ol' hist'ry."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Monday brought justification of her doubt,
-proving that, if cowed, the settlers were by no means
-conquered.  Only the young Flynns attended school, and
-the array of empty benches loomed in her troubled
-vision like a huge face, vacant, mulishly obstinate as a
-blank wall, vividly eloquent of the invincible determination
-that would have none of her.  Her heart sank, and
-when the week passed without further attendance she
-gave up, handed her resignation to Flynn and Glaves in
-council at the latter's cabin.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Both, as might be expected, registered strenuous
-objections.  "'Tain't your fault if they cut off their nose
-to spite their face," Glaves argued.  And when she
-replied that the children would suffer, he rasped: "What
-of it?  'The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the
-children to the fourth generation.'  Ye have Scripter
-for that."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But not the sin of the stranger," she gently objected.
-"I have myself to blame for the prejudice."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now, though neither trustee would admit her confession,
-both were afflicted with a sneaking consciousness of
-its truth.  For not only had she offended by consorting
-with that public enemy, the remittance-man, but the
-cause of Carter's desertion had escaped from Elinor
-Leslie's indiscreet tongue.  Every man, woman, and
-child in the country-side was informed as to the events
-which led up to and followed the Ravells' visit.  Their
-denials, therefore, were negated by that profuseness of
-expression which accentuates the truth it seeks to
-conceal.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You know it," she answered them, and opposed further
-argument with that soft feminine obstinacy which
-wears out masculine strength.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But what else kin you do?" Glaves cried at last, in
-despair.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Go to Winnipeg and take a place in an office or
-store."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though she affected brightness, she could not altogether
-hide the dejection, homesickness that inhered in
-the thought.  Now that she was to leave it, that rude
-cabin, with its log walls, legal patchwork, home-made
-furniture, glowed with the glamours of home.  Even
-Mrs. Glaves's gaunt ugliness became suddenly dear in
-the light of an indefinite future among strangers.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Detecting her underlying sadness, Flynn exclaimed:
-"Phwat?  Wurrk in a sthore?  Sell pins, naydles, an'
-such truck while I've a roof over me head?  Ye'd die in
-thim lonesome hotels.  Ye 'll just come right home wid me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Likely, ain't it?" Glaves broke in, jealous for his
-prerogative.  "In the first place, if she goes, she ain't
-agoing to stop at no hotel, but with my own sister that
-keeps a boarding-house on Main Street.  An' if she stays,
-it'll be right here, with me—eh, old woman?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His wife's warm assent brought Helen to tears without,
-however, affecting her resolution.  For the settlement
-would be by the ears, she said, just as long as she
-stayed in it.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Humph!" Glaves growled.  "It'll have itself be the
-throat afore long.  Yesterday Poole an' Danvers ran
-their mowers into Shinn's five-acre swamp, an' if that
-don't bring that big Injin a-kiting from the tall timber,
-I'm Dutch."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She was not, however, to be moved, and after an
-embarrassed pause Flynn said, hesitatingly: "Thim
-cities, now, is mighty ixpinsive.  A lone girl without
-money—ye'll let me—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Digging a shabby bill-book from the bottom depths of
-his overalls, he precipitated a second kindly quarrel.
-Glaring at it, Glaves snorted, "When she knows she kin
-draw on me for the vally of my last head of stock down
-to the dog!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Having means for some months, this storm was more
-easily laid than that which burst when Flynn offered to
-drive her in to Lone Tree.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"An' her living with me?" Glaves stormed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Tis meself that knowed her longest," Flynn argued.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Humph!" Glaves sneered—"three days.  Thursday
-she stopped at your house coming out from Lone Tree.
-Sunday I saw her at meeting—went a-purpose an' never
-tended sence.  No, she goes with me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Anyway, I knowed her longest," Flynn persisted.
-"But 'tis herself shall say.  Which shall it be, ma'am?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Both," she laughed; and so, with a grizzled champion
-on either hand, she rattled southward the following day.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>By one of those strange coincidences of ironical fate,
-this, the day of her departure, occurred on the third
-anniversary of her first drive out with Carter, and all
-things, season, sight, sound, conspired to vividly recall
-that memorable occasion.  Rank growths in uncut
-sloughs bowed under warm winds that freighted a
-distant metallic rattle of many mowers; beyond the
-settlements the Park Lands stretched to the Assiniboin
-with only the chimneys of the burned Cree village to
-break their spangled undulations.  As before, they came
-suddenly upon the valley, rugged, riven, with its bald,
-buttressing headlands, timbered ravines; the river,
-writhing in giant convolutions along the level bottoms.
-As before, they dropped with jolts, jerks, skidding of
-wheels to the ford that now tuned its hoarse voice to
-a melancholy dirge in harmony with her mood; and
-from the door of the log mission Father Francis bowed
-his silver head in courtly farewell.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>After the valley came the "Dry Lands," the tawny
-plains, barren of trees, cabin, or farmstead; finally Lone
-Tree impinged in that huge monochrome, its grain-sheds
-reminding her, as before, of red Noah's arks on a yellow
-carpet.  To her the hour of departure restored the fresh,
-clear vision of the stranger.  The town appeared as on
-that first occasion—its one scanty street of clapboard
-hotels and stores with false fronts fencing the railway
-tracks that came spinning out of the western horizon to
-flash on over the east; the wise ox-teams rolling along
-the street; the squaws with ragged ponies hitched in
-big-wheeled Red River carts; the cows pasturing amid
-tomato-cans that strewed vacant lots; the loafers,
-omni-present riffraff of the small frontier, holding down
-nail-kegs and cracker-boxes under store verandas.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a trying drive.  Every turn of the trail brought
-its reminiscences; mud chimneys, the Indian graveyard,
-a lone coyote, recalled the beginnings of her love, and
-now that she was leaving she vividly realized how she
-had grown to this land of white silences, grave winds,
-vast, sunwashed spaces.  But if she had need of the heavy
-veil that she pinned on that morning, that marvellous
-feminine restraint enabled her to turn a composed face
-to the doctor and Jenny, who came to the station to see
-her off.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As she passed up street, the riffraff exchanged nods
-and winks, but Lone Tree furnished still other
-champions.  The store-keeper, he who had loaded Carter's
-buck-board with jams and jellies, came hurrying across
-the tracks with good wishes and protestations.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Shinn, MacCloud, Cummings—the hull gang—go off
-my books," he swore to Glaves.  "Not another cent's
-credit to keep 'em from starving."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"They can rot in their beds for me," the doctor added.
-"I strike Silver Creek from my practice."  And though
-the train was even then whistling for the station, Hooper,
-the agent, stole time for friendly greetings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If roughly expressed, their sympathy was at least
-genuine; it eased the parting so that she was able to lean
-out and give them a last smile as the train rolled by the
-water-tank with long, easy clickings, carrying her away
-beyond their tough pale.  Good enough as a farewell,
-it was not, however, a success as a smile, and the woe
-behind its wanness formed the subject of an indignant
-caucus that convened as soon as Jenny left the platform.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I can't figure out jes' what Carter means," the
-storekeeper fretfully exclaimed.  "Granted that she throwed
-him that onct—the charivari?—that business at the
-revival?  If it had been my wife, I'd been smelling round
-for—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Blood!" the agent interjected; and though he had
-intended "trouble," the store-keeper accepted the amendment.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the man looking for?" the doctor roared.
-"She has beauty, amiability, intelligence, almost every
-quality that a man can desire in a wife, yet he goes off
-in a pout because she falls short of the angels.  He's a
-damned fool.  He ought to be—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Aisy, aisy wid ye."  Flynn stemmed the tide of
-wrath.  "'Tis no throuble at all to condimn whin a
-purty girl's at t'other ind of the argymint.  She's sweet,
-an' I'll break the face av the man as says she isn't good.
-But—give the man toime.  Let be till we know that he's
-heard av the rhuctions.  Thin, if he does nothing—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well," the doctor interrupted, "he'll hear, all
-right—from me, this very night."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Me, too," the store-keeper added.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"An' don't forget to give him partickler h—l!" the
-agent called after as they strolled away.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nor did they.  Dipping his pen in scorn, the doctor
-opened his epistle with a timely question as to the exact
-number and kinds of fool that Carter considered himself,
-and finished with a spirit that transcended even
-Glaves's difficult requirements.  Equally thorough in his
-beginnings, a rush of business prevented the store-keeper
-from making an end that evening; but his default had
-its advantages in that he was thus enabled to deliver the
-remainder, </span><em class="italics">viva voce</em><span>, to Carter himself, when he stepped
-off the train next morning.  Served hot, with good
-frontier adjectives sizzling among the nouns and articles, his
-opinion gained the admiring attention of Hooper, the
-agent, who stood ready to offer advice and assistance.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For his part, Carter listened quietly until the
-storekeeper paused for breath.  Then he turned to the agent.
-"If you'd like five minutes with my character and attainments,
-don't be bashful!  I've got it coming.  After that
-please oblige with a little information on this charivari?
-I only heard yesterday morning of that revival through
-Bender's coming into camp."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As he listened, his natural sternness deepened to dark
-austerity, then fluxed in sad pity as the store-keeper told
-of Helen's departure.  Murmuring "Poor thing!—poor
-little thing!" he asked for her address.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His face fell when the store-keeper answered: "You'll
-have to go to Glaves for that.  The doc' might have it,
-but him an' Miss Jenny went north this morning to settle
-up her father's affairs."  Noting Carter's disappointment,
-he kindly added: "You kin drive my sorrels.  They're a
-third faster than the livery teams.  On'y, remember
-they're fresh off the grass."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'll </span><em class="italics">try</em><span> not to misuse them," Carter answered, brightening,
-a remark that plentifully illustrates his impatient
-feeling.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Agent and store-keeper helped him hitch; and as he
-headed the sorrels out on the Silver Creek trail—the trail
-that for him, as for Helen, was one long heartache—the
-agent drew a deduction from his sombre sternness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I heard that MacCloud an' Cummings were back.
-Je-hosh-a-phat!  There'll be something doing if they
-cross his track."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Stepping out of his stable, after feeding the noon oats
-next day, Glaves "lifted up his eyes," in biblical phrase,
-and saw Carter "a long way off."  A hot morning at the
-hay, and the loss of two sections of his mower-sickle by
-impact with a willow snag, did not tend to alleviate his
-natural crustiness.  As he recognized the tall figure
-behind the sorrels, the hoar of his fifty winters seemed to
-settle in the lines of his weathered visage; his eye took
-the steely sparkle of river ice; his nod, when Carter
-reined in opposite, was curt as his answer.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Your wife's address?  Yes, I know it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Forewarned by the store-keeper of the old man's
-bitterness, Carter was not surprised.  "Meaning that you
-won't give it to me?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Not till I know as she wants you to have it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Tone and manner were superlatively irritating, but the
-man had taken blood on his soul in Helen's defence, and
-Carter spoke quietly.  "Don't you allow that she's a
-right to decide for herself?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now, ain't that exac'ly what I said?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was not, but contradiction would merely inflame
-his obstinacy.  At a loss how to proceed, Carter switched
-the heads, one by one, from a patch of tall brown pig-weeds,
-using his left hand, for the right was roughly tied
-up in his handkerchief.  On his part Glaves looked
-steadily past him.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a beautiful day—sensuous, soft, one of the
-golden days when warm winds flirt among rustling
-grasses breathing the incense of smiling flowers.  Heat
-hung in quivering waves along the horizon like an emanation
-from the hot, prolific earth over whose bosom birds,
-bumblebees, the little beasts of the prairies, came and
-went on errands of love and business with songs and
-twitterings.  And there, in the midst of this joy of life,
-the grim old man bent frowning brows on Carter, who
-was lost in bitter meditation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He was laboring under an unhappy sense of error, for
-his contumacy, determined absence, was not altogether
-a product of hurt pride.  As he himself had dissolved
-their relations, it was Helen's privilege to renew them,
-and he had waited, yearning for her word.  But now
-that he was dragged under the harrows of remorse, in an
-agony of pity for her, he stood before Glaves as in the
-presence of Nemesis, convicted of a huge mistake.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The initiative, after all, had lain with him.  If he had
-owned to his fault, had apologized for his summary
-desertion, she could have been trusted to do the rest.
-Now he doubted that he was too late, for it was but
-reasonable to suppose that the trustee's determined
-opposition had origin with her.  He squared his big
-shoulders to this burden of his own packing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you forward a letter?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Frowning, Glaves answered without looking at him,
-"You kin leave your address."'</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But you will forward it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If she wants it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter flushed, but checked a sharp answer.  "You
-ain't extending too much grace to a sinner."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Any less than you extended her?  What d' you
-expect of me that saw her name dragged in the mud,
-herself insulted—that took a life to save her body from
-violence?  G—d d— you!"  His pent-up feelings
-exploded, and for three minutes thereafter hot speech
-bubbled like vitriol through his clinched teeth in
-scathing denunciation of Carter's remissness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Part of what you say being true, we'll pass the rest,"
-the latter said, when the trustee had drained his phials of
-wrath.  "Now—without conceding your right to withhold
-her address—will you forward some money?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Glaves stared.  He had expected a blow, a violent
-quarrel, at least; nay, had lusted for it.  But he was too
-much of a man himself to mistake a just imperturbability
-for fear, while the mention of money checked his anger
-by switching his ideas.  Jealous for her honor, he looked
-his suspicion.  "Whose money?"  But if accent and
-tone declared against the acceptance of favors, he took
-the proffered greenbacks after Carter explained that
-they covered her share of the cattle he and Morrill had
-owned in common—took them, that is, with a proviso.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Let me see," he mused, counting five of ten bills of
-one-hundred-dollar denomination.  "You'd forty head
-of stock when Morrill died.  Five hundred covers her
-share.  Take these back."  And to further argument
-he sternly answered, "I don't allow that she's looking
-for any presents from you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, I don't allow that she is."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Sadness of look and tone caused Glaves to glance up
-quickly, but he did not relax in his grimness up to the
-moment that, having left his address, Carter drove away.
-Then a shade of doubt crept into his steel eyes.  "If it
-had been myself—" he muttered; then as Helen's parting
-smile recurred in memory, he added: "No, damn him!
-Let him suffer!"  But this was not the end.  Pausing
-in his doorway as he went in to dinner, he saw the
-buckboard, small as a fly, crawl over a distant knoll, and by
-some association of ideas remembered Carter's hand and
-wondered why it was bandaged.  And when he learned
-from Poole and Danvers, who called round for their mail
-that evening, his first small doubt was raised almost to
-the dimension of regret.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Since the charivari, Glaves's opinion of the
-remittance-man—as a fighting animal, at least—had risen above
-zero, and he lent first an indulgent, then a rapt ear to the
-boys' story.  As he himself had prophesied, the piracy
-of the five-acre swamp brought Shinn out from his
-hiding, but the latter's evil fate arranged matters so that as
-he descended upon the remittance buccaneers from one
-end of the swamp, Carter appeared on the Lone Tree trail
-which cat-a-cornered the other.  The result bubbled
-forth from the mouth of first one boy, then the other, in
-eager interruptions.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Shade of my granny!" Danvers swore.  "You never
-saw such a fight!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No preliminaries," Poole declared.  "Carter just leaped
-from his buggy and went for him like a cat after a mouse."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And little good it did him.  He might have been a
-gopher in the paws of a grizzly."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Lay like a dead man for a long half-hour—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And looked like a snake that had mixed with a streak
-of lightning."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Blind, battered, bruised, we carried him home on his
-shield—that is, on our hay-rake—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And that poor squalid wife of his looked rather
-disgusted when she found that he wasn't dead."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>While they thus poured the tale of Shinn's discomfiture
-into Glaves's thirsty ears, Carter rattled steadily on
-towards Lone Tree.  Passing Flynn's, he had been
-tempted to put in, but remembered that the Irishman would
-be out at the hay, and so ran on and by the one person
-who could have furnished an approximation of Helen's
-address.  For she had merely promised to write Jenny
-as soon as she was settled, as he had learned when he met
-the doctor, back-trailing alone, early that morning.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But you'll surely find her at one of the hotels!" the
-agent called to him, on the platform of the freight-train
-that carried him away at midnight.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Helen had gone straight to the trustee's sister.
-And having wasted two days scanning hotel registers,
-wandering the streets, he concluded that perhaps she had
-changed her mind and gone straight through to her
-friends back East.  Charging his friends and financial
-backers to keep on with the search, however, he returned
-to his labors in that unenviable condition of mind which
-romanticist writers describe as "broken-hearted."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In a city of twenty thousand it ought not to be so very
-difficult to locate a young lady whose style and beauty
-drew the eyes of the street.  But if the search failed, the
-cause inhered in other reasons than lack of diligence—in
-a reason that largely accounted for Glaves's reluctance
-to give her address.  Sick at heart, hopeless for the
-future, she had sunk her surname with the bitter past;
-resumed her maiden name while keeping the married
-title.  Even with Glaves's sister, a big, good-natured
-woman, she passed as a widow.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-sunken-grade"><span class="bold large">XXV</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE SUNKEN GRADE</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>The "Ragged Lands!"  Seamed, rugged, broken,
-gloomy with dark spruce, sterile as a barren woman,
-they cumber the earth from Lake Nipissing a thousand
-miles westward to the edge of the prairies, and in all
-their weary length no stretch of meadow-land occurs.
-Pock-marked with sloughs, muskegs, black morasses,
-peppered with sand-hills that rise suddenly like eruptive
-boils in the sparse beard of its dwarf-growths, it is a
-wicked country, and was held accursed by trappers and
-Jesuit fathers who, of old, </span><em class="italics">portaged</em><span> or paddled upon its
-borders.  Yet in construction days men poured into its
-dark environs; one may still see Carter's camps, moss-grown,
-roofless, rotting by the right of way, for his line
-split a fifty-mile breadth from the western verge of that
-mighty forest.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>On the day after Carter's return from Winnipeg the
-westering sun gilded a long scar, brown with the sere of
-felled trees, that shore thirty miles of forest.  Ten more
-miles and this, his right of way, would debouch on the
-Park Lands, a day's drive southward from Silver Creek;
-at its other end fifty miles of prairie grading would carry
-it down to the American border.  Northerly, the cut was
-masked in rolling smoke of burning brush; but where,
-farther south, the spruce mantle had been torn from the
-bosom of mother earth, it gaped yellow as a gangrened
-wound.  Over this earth-sore men and teams swarmed
-with the buzz and movement of flies, coming and going
-about a steam-digger that bit hungry mouthfuls from the
-bowels of a sand-hill and spat them, with hoarse coughing,
-upon a train of flat-cars.  Beyond them a pile-driver
-sputtered nervously upon a lean trestle; and still farther
-south a track gang laid and spiked rails with furious
-energy, adding their quota of noise to the roar that
-combined with heat and dust to produce a miniature inferno.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Dipping still lower, the sun poked a golden finger
-down a thin survey-line that slit the forest at the head
-of the right of way, and touched into flame the yellow
-head of a young man who sat on a log near Carter.
-There slim poplar-brake enclosed a mossy dell, into
-which the frenzy of work and noise came faintly as the
-hum of a passing bee.  It was, indeed, so cool and
-pleasant that the surveyor shrugged unwillingly when the
-advancing shadows emphasized Carter's remark that it
-was "time to be moving."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What a demon of unrest!" he laughed.  "Can't keep
-still for five minutes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His mock disgust drew Carter's smile.  "That's all
-very well—for you.  When your transit is cased, you're
-done.  I have a few hundred men to look after."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, confound them!" the other said.  "I'll never
-make a philosopher of you."  And as, shouldering his
-transit, he followed, he commented humorously on
-Carter's tiresome energy, affirming that he was reminded
-of a steam-engine that had slipped its governors.
-"Couldn't be more grovellingly industrious if you were
-qualifying for a headline on a child's copy-book.  Early
-to bed, early to rise, makes your boss healthy, wealthy,
-and wise," he misquoted.  And as, a few minutes later,
-they came out upon wood-choppers who were driving
-the right of way into the forest, he grimaced, "More
-misguided zeal."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For all his sarcasm, his eyes betrayed his appreciation,
-and as, pausing, they looked on, his face lit up with
-professional pride.  Following the choppers, sawyers were
-cutting sizable timber into logs, piling small trees with
-the brush; behind them a stumping outfit practised
-rough dentistry upon the road-bed.  All were putting
-in the last "licks" of a good day's work; the air whistled
-of falling trees, hummed to the ringing saws; the woods
-echoed laughter, shouts, cheery curses.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Good boys," Carter murmured.  "Regular whales.
-Jest eat it up, don't they?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Peculiar idiosyncrasy."  The surveyor resumed his
-chaffing.  "They ought to have eased up while you were
-away.  Can't account for it, unless—yes, it's beans!
-Beans, sir!  You feed them beans and they work or—die.
-Query: What effect would a bean diet have on a
-philosopher?  Ugh!  I must avoid them."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No"—Carter indicated a figure, gigantic in the loom
-of the smoke, "it's not beans; it's Bender.  Without
-him we'd have plenty converts to your theory."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And now tired nature pities them."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In their coincidence, the last red ray might have
-signalled Bender's shrill whistle, or </span><em class="italics">vice versa</em><span>.  Anyway,
-sudden silence fell like a mantle over the clearing.
-While choppers and sawyers cached tools under brush
-away from rusting dews, teamsters dropped bows and
-yokes, and all followed the patient ox-teams down the
-right of way.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Joking aside," the surveyor said, as they fell in
-behind, "what has life for these fellows?  Ill-fed, worse
-clothed, only an occasional spree breaks the monotony
-of grinding toil."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter's nod was non-committal.  "They work hard—yes,
-but then work is only terrible to the young and
-shiftless; your grown man loves it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If congenial."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Generally is.  You see, there's always something that
-a fellow thinks he can do a bit better than any one
-else—Bill, there, planes his stumps; Ole, that big Swede, is
-chain lightning on a cant-hook; Michigan Red rides a
-log down a rapid like a ballet-dancer, and has Jehu beat
-out on the reins; Big Hans lifts more'n any other man
-in camp.  Summing it, from whip-cracking to stable-cleaning
-every job has its professor, who gets a heap of
-fun out of proving his title.  Looking a bit closer, these
-chaps get more sunshine, fresh air, and sleep than your
-city workers, and if the grub is rough they ain't bothered
-none with indigestion.  Hans finds a flavor in his beans
-that your big financial gun doesn't get out of his
-canvas-back.  As for amusement, the regular lumber-jack does
-blow a year's salary on a week's bust, as you say; but
-most of these are farmers, some of 'em neighbors of mine.
-If they're rushed in summer they have time to burn in
-winter, and what of socials, dances, picnics, they strike a
-fair balance with pleasure."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But what is ahead of them?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter shrugged.  "Death, of course; in the mean
-time, hard work, harder living, a family, and a mortgage
-to keep 'em from oversleep.  But they'll breathe clean
-and live clean, work in the sun and outlive two generations
-of city people.  Barring accidents, they'll average
-fourscore years, and so, when the last word is said, I
-don't know but that happiness lies down instead of up
-the ladder."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The surveyor curiously studied his thoughtful face.
-"You are climbing?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Carter was equal to the contradiction.  "We was
-talking of averages—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Were</em><span>," the other interrupted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Grimacing, Carter repeated: "</span><em class="italics">Were</em><span> talking of averages.
-The exception gets his fun climbing, and don't find out
-how much of a fool he is till he looks down from the
-top."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Doesn't</em><span>," the other put in, and Carter resaid the word.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The corrections sprang from a compact that was now
-as old as their acquaintance.  A graduate in engineering,
-the young fellow was widely read and cultured far beyond
-the needs of his profession, and as they talked, smoking,
-in their office-tent of evenings, his allusions to and
-illustrations from the realms of science, literature, art had
-given Carter glimpses of Helen's world, a universe in
-which touch, taste, smell, sight, and other things gave
-place to feeling, memory, perception.  And so he had
-been stimulated to conscious attempts at improvement.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I feel like a two-year-old!" he had exclaimed one
-evening early in their acquaintance.  "I 'd like to know
-more of that.  D' you suppose I could get that book in
-town?  An' say, if you catch me straddling the traces—manners,
-speech, an' so forth—I wish you'd lam me one.
-Of course I'm pretty set, but if I could just tone down a
-bit on a few of the big things, the little ones might slip
-by unnoticed."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In the nature of things a construction-camp is bound
-to suffer a chronic drouth of news, and in default of other
-subjects Carter's marital troubles had received exhaustive
-and analytical treatment at the hands of the Silver
-Creek men and others.  Filtering through many strata,
-enough of the gossip had reached the surveyor to inform
-him of the motive under this rough appeal, and he readily
-consented.  So, in their talks thereafter, he had trimmed
-out the wilder growths of Carter's speech, giving rule and
-reason, for, as he laughingly assured him, his big pupil
-had an uncanny appetite for underlying law.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Now 'tain't reasonable to suppose that you have to
-learn all the individual cases," he would say, when the
-surveyor tripped him on some expression; "what's the
-law of it?"  And he would offer humorous opinions on the
-eccentricities of the tongue.  "The darn language seems
-to have grown from wild seed, an' though Lindley
-Murray—ain't that his name?—lopped a bit here an' pruned
-a bit there, he couldn't straighten the knarls and twists
-in the trunks.  An' I don't know but that it's as well
-that way Leave them grammarians alone, an' they'd
-clip an' trim the language till it was tame as the cypress
-hedges that my old aunt uster shape into crowing roosters,
-gillypots, an' pilaster pillars at home back East."  In
-saying which he touched a profound etymological truth
-that is altogether ignored by the scientific inventors of
-universal languages.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>One who had not seen him for some months—Helen,
-for instance—could not have failed, this evening, to
-notice how his faithful delving in that wild orchard had
-begun to bring forth fruit in his speech.  Evincing fewer
-"aint's," it had more "ings," and even attained, on
-occasion, to correct usage in "number" of verbs.  Equally
-forcible, as full of curt figures, its epigrammatic quality
-had gained rather than lost by better expression.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The silence which had fallen between them endured
-till they came in sight of the camp, a string of tents and
-log-cabins under the eaves of the forest.  Then the
-surveyor pointed out a girl who was watching the tired
-stream from the door of the nearest tent.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why, there's Dorothy!  She threatened to make the
-chief bring her down, but I didn't think she'd make it.
-Come along and I'll introduce you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As, however, he mended his pace, Carter fell behind,
-and the sadness which had become habitual to his face
-deepened.  He had heard the young fellow speak of this
-girl, his </span><em class="italics">fiancée</em><span>; and though in color and appearance she
-was the opposite of Helen, the swish of her skirts as she
-came to meet them, suggestion of perfume, the hundred
-elusive delicacies that make up a well-bred girl's
-personality, recalled his wife and oppressed him with a
-vivid sense of loss.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her voice, rich and low in its tones as Helen's, strengthened
-the impression.  "Dad said 'No,'" she laughed,
-after the introduction.  "But—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Wilful woman will have her way," a voice declared
-from the interior of the tent; then the chief engineer, a
-hale man of fifty, appeared in the doorway.  "Mosquitoes,
-alkali water, nothing would scare her."  He was
-going on with inquiries of the health of a bridge that had
-developed rheumatic tendencies in its feet, when she
-laughingly interrupted:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Come, dad, no business till after supper.  I have
-already scraped acquaintance with the cook, and he says
-we are to come at once.  So run along, little boys, and
-get ready."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Wash our dirty faces, to put it plainly," the surveyor
-echoed her happy laugh.  "Be it known unto you, fair
-lady, that ablutions are held to be effeminate,
-unnecessary, if not immoral, in construction work.  However,
-in view of your hypersensitiveness, we will do violence
-to our inclinations.  Come on, Carter—we for the tub."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But from a dozen yards she called him back.  "This
-is the man you wrote me of?  I knew him at once.
-What a splendid fellow!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Gorgeous!" he returned her whisper.  "His wife
-must be a queer sort."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Not necessarily."  She added, with thoughtful
-intuition: "The possibilities are so many.  Your friend is
-handsome and has a good face, but we girls are more
-complex than our mothers.  While they were satisfied
-with good temper and good provision, we demand
-sympathy of taste and habit; that we touch without friction
-at a hundred points of contact.  Tall as Mr. Carter is,
-he may fall short of such a standard."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bending, her lover gazed admiringly into her earnest
-eyes.  "Such a little wisehead!  And did I pass in this
-difficult examination?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter's back was turned, the cook-house door had
-just closed on the last teamster, her father had gone back
-to his calculations, so her answer was sweet as satisfactory.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>When, half an hour later, the four entered the cook-house,
-two cookees were laying the table under one eagle
-eye of the cook, the other being on a roast that he was
-liberally basting.  "Hain't you got no nose?" he
-answered Carter's question; but he smiled as, sniffing its
-rich odor, Dorothy said: "It's venison!  And I'm so
-hungry!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Sure!" he corroborated.  "Cree hunter brought in a
-quarter of moose this afternoon."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Pleased with her discernment, he seated her at the
-head of a table which he himself had scoured with sand
-to a snowy whiteness while the cookees were grinding a
-summer's tarnish from iron knives and spoons.  Her tin
-plate reflected a smile that he would willingly have paid
-for in turkey and truffles, but lacking these, he served
-baked potatoes with the venison, hot biscuit, cake a
-hand's-breadth thick, and with a flourish set the
-crowning delicacy of camp life, a can of condensed cream,
-beside her tin coffee-cup.  Then he packed the cookees
-outside to peel the morrow's potatoes that her appetite
-might not suffer from their admiring glances, an act
-which they classified as tyranny and ascribed to evil
-motives.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"She's a right smart gal," he added, after imparting a
-few privacies anent their birth and breeding from the
-door-step.  "None a' your picking sort.  Knows good
-cooking when she sees it, she does."  Then he left them
-to digest a last piece of information that the evolution
-of their ancestors had been arrested in a low and bestial
-stage.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That supper figured as an epoch in Carter's life,
-because it marked a definite conscious change in his feeling
-towards his wife.  With all men thought is more or less
-chaotic.  Filtering slowly from feeling under pressure of
-experience, it remains fluid, turgid, until some specific
-act—it may be of a very ordinary nature—clears and
-precipitates it into the moulds of fixed opinion.  So, though
-material of a sounder, more reasonable judgment of
-Helen had been gathering in his mind these months,
-injured pride had held it in abeyance—in suspension, as
-it were—until now that recent disappointment had left
-him peculiarly susceptible to impression, a resolvent was
-added; that occurred which precipitated his thought.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It took form in Michigan Red, who entered with
-another teamster and sat down at the opposite table.
-The task that delayed them had sharpened appetite, and
-their attack on the food the cook set before them was
-positively wolfish.  Using fingers as much or more than
-forks, they shovelled greasy beans into their mouths with
-knives, as stokers feed a furnace; and as they bolted
-masses of pork, washed whole biscuits down with gulps
-of coffee, Carter's glance wandered between them and
-the delicate girl at his side.  Here, indeed, was one of
-the "points of contact" of her intuitive wisdom.  Once
-before he had seen, realized it.  But whereas he had
-thrust the thought away the night that he watched
-Michigan Red eat in the lumber-camp, he now gave it
-free admittance, mentally writhed as he realized how this
-and other gaucheries must have ground on Helen's sensitive
-mental surfaces.  Fascinated by their gluttony, he
-watched until dulled eyes and heavy, stertorous breathing
-signalled repletion and the close of their meal.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>On her part, Dorothy was quietly observing him.
-Given such knowledge as the Silver Creek teamsters had
-sown through the camp, it would have been easy for her
-to guess the rest—if his conduct had borne out her
-surmise.  But he had learned so much and so quickly
-under the stings of injured pride that observation failed
-to reveal any wide departures from the conventional.
-She had to give it up—for the present.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What a strange man!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her whisper dissipated his painful reflections, and,
-looking up, he saw that, after lighting his pipe with a coal
-from the stove, Michigan Red was surveying them with
-cool effrontery through the tobacco smoke.  His fiery
-beard split in a sneer as Carter asked if he had finished
-supper.  But he did not take the hint nor move when
-ordered to call Bender.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Mister</em><span> Bender"—he spat at the title—"is down at
-the grading-camp."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I said for you to call him."  Carter's tone, in its very
-gentleness, caused the girl to look quickly so she caught
-his queer expression.  Compounded of curiosity,
-interest, expectation, his glance seemed to flicker above,
-below, around the red teamster, to enfold, wrap him
-with its subtle questioning.  Impressed more than she
-could have been by threat or command, she waited—she
-knew not for what—oppressed by the loom of imminent
-danger.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But it was not in the teamster's book to disobey—just
-then.  Lingering to pick another coal, he sauntered down
-the room under flow of that curious, flickering glance,
-and closed the door behind him with a bang.  Sharp as
-the crack of a gun, Dorothy half expected to see smoke
-curling up to the massive roof-logs.  But though her
-father and lover looked their surprise, Carter resumed
-his eating, and there was no comment until he excused
-himself a few minutes later.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Tugging his gray beard, the chief engineer then
-turned to the surveyor.  "Why doesn't he fire that
-fellow?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shrugging, the young fellow passed the question up to
-the cook.  "You've known them longest."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Thus tapped, the cook turned on a flow of information,
-appending his own theory of Carter's patience to a short
-and unflattering history of Michigan Red.  "You see,
-Red thought he was the better man from the beginning,
-an' it was just up to the boss to give him fair chance to
-prove it.  As for him, he likes the excitement.  You've
-seen a cat play with a mouse?  Well—an' when the cat
-does jump—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Good-bye mouse," the surveyor finished.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The cook's significant nod filled Dorothy with
-astonishment.  From the social heights upon which the
-accident of birth had placed her, she had looked down upon
-the laboring-classes, deeming them rude, simple,
-unsophisticated.  Yet here she found complex moods, a
-vendetta conducted with Machiavellian subtlety, a drastic
-code that compelled a man to cherish his enemy till he
-had had opportunity to strike.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The knowledge helped her to a conclusion which she
-stated as they walked back to her father's tent.  "Such
-pride!  I understand now why he left </span><em class="italics">her</em><span>.  Just fancy
-his keeping on that man?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Damned nonsense, I call it," her father growled.
-"That fellow will make trouble for him yet."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The prediction amounted to prophecy in view of a
-conversation then proceeding in the bunk-house.  As
-Michigan's table-mate had fully reported the scene at
-supper, the teamsters were ready with a fire of chaff
-when he stumbled over the dark threshold after delivering
-Carter's message.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Been dinin' in fash'n'ble sassiety, Red?" a man questioned.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nope!" another laughed.  "Voylent colors ain't
-considered tasty any more, so the boss fired him out 'cause
-his hair turned the chief's gal sick."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Hoarse chuckling accompanied the teamster's answering
-profanity, but when, after roundly cursing themselves,
-Carter, the surveyor, chief engineer, he began
-on Dorothy, laughter ceased and Big Hans called a
-stop.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That's right."  A voice seconded Hans's objection.
-"We ain't stuck on the boss any more'n you are, Red;
-but this gal isn't no kin of his'n.  Leave her alone."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Sure!" the first man chimed in.  "An' if he's feeling
-his oats jes' now, he'll be hit the harder when we spring
-our deadfall.  Did you sound the graders to-day?  Will
-they—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Shet up!" Michigan hissed.  "That big mouth o'
-yourn spits clean across the camp to the office."  And
-thereafter the conversation continued in sinister whispers
-that soon merged in heavy snoring.  Silence and
-darkness wrapped the camp.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Awaking while it was still dark, the camp rubbed
-sleepy eyes and looked out, shivering, on smouldering
-smudges.  Outside, the air whined of mosquitoes.  At
-the long hay-racks horses snorted and pawed frantically
-under the winged torture; patient oxen uttered mained
-lowings.  Growling and grumbling, the camp distributed
-itself—teamsters to feed and rebuild smudges, choppers
-and sawyers to the grindstone and filing-benches.  It
-was a cold, dank world.  Pessimism prevailed to the
-extent that a man needed to walk straitly, minding his
-own business, if he would avoid quarrel.  But optimism
-came with dawn—teamsters hissed cheerfully over their
-currying, saw-filers and grinders indulged in snatches of
-song—reaching a climax with the breakfast-call.  When,
-half an hour later, Dorothy appeared in the cook-house
-doorway, the camp had spilled its freight of men and
-teams into the forest.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Warned by the shadow, the cook looked up and saw
-her in Stetson hat, short skirt, high-laced shoes, a sunlit
-vision with the freshness of the morning upon its cheeks.
-"God bless you!  Come right in," he exclaimed.  "Your
-daddy an' Mr. Hart hev' gone down line.  Devil's
-Muskeg got hungry las' night an' swallered ten thousand
-yards of gradin'."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As yet she knew nothing of those treacherous sinks
-that gulp grades, trestles, and the reputations of their
-builders as a frog swallows flies, and he went on,
-answering her puzzled look: "Morass, you know, swamp with
-quicksand foundation that goes clean down to China.
-Nope, 'tain't Mr. Carter's loss.  He ain't such a fool as
-to go an' load a muskeg down with clay and rock.  An
-Easterner had it on a sub-contract, an' though Mr. Carter
-warned him, he reckoned he could make it bear a grade
-on brush hurdles.  Crowed like a Shanghai rooster
-because it carried trains for a week.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I don't know," he commented upon her pity for
-the luckless contractor.  "You kain't do nothin' with
-them Easterners.  He was warned.  Besides," he
-vengefully added, "he shedn't ha' come crowing over us.
-More coffee, miss?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Leaving the cook-house, a shadow fell between her and
-the sun, and Carter gave her good-morning.  "Breaks
-the poor devil," he supplemented the cook's information,
-"and bothers us.  Cuts off our communications.  We
-shall have to move the outfits back to prairie grading
-till they are re-established.  I'm going down there—now,
-if you'd like a hand-car ride?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Would she?  In five minutes she was speeding along
-under urge of ten strong arms, over high trestles which
-gave her sudden livid gleams of water far below, through
-yellow cuts, across hollow-sounding bridges, always
-between serried ranks of sombre spruce.  Sometimes the
-car rolled in between long lines of men who were
-tamping gravel under the ties.  Rough fellows at the best,
-they had herded for months in straw and dirt, seeing
-nothing daintier than their unlovely selves, and as they
-were not the kind that mortifies the flesh, the girl was
-much embarrassed by the fire of eyes.  Apart from that,
-she hugely enjoyed the ride.  With feet almost touching
-the road-bed, she got all there was of the motion, besides
-most of the wind that blew her hair into a dark cloud
-and set wild roses blooming in her cheeks.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She gained, too, a new view-point of Carter, who
-chatted gayly, pointing, explaining, as though they were
-merely out for pleasure and another had not been just
-added to the heavy cares that burdened his broad
-shoulders.  She learned more of the life, its hardship,
-comedy, tragedy, in half an hour's conversation, than she
-could have obtained for herself in a year's experience.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>These different elements sometimes mixed—as when
-he indicated a blackened excavation.  "See that?  A
-man was sitting on the stump that was blasted out there.
-Reckon he got sort of tired of the world," he replied to
-her horrified question, "and wanted a good start for the
-next."  Then, easily philosophical, quietly discursive, he
-wandered along, touching the suicide's motives.  There
-had been different theories—drink, religion, a girl—but
-he himself inclined to aggravated unsociability.  The
-sombre forest, with its immensity of sad, environing space,
-had translated mere moroseness into confirmed hypochondria.
-He had so bored the stumping outfit, to which
-he belonged, with pessimistic remarks on things in
-general that, in self-defence, they threw something at him
-whenever he opened his mouth; and so, bottled up, his
-gloom accumulated until, in an unusually dismal
-moment, he placed a full box of dynamite under a stump
-and sat down to await results.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why didn't some one pull him off?" she cried.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His answer was pregnant.  "Short fuse.  Anyway, the
-boys didn't feel any call to mix in his
-experiments—especially as he swore a blue streak at them till the
-stump lifted."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Horrible!" she breathed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Just what they said."  He solemnly misunderstood
-her.  "They never heard such language.  'Twas dreadfully
-out of place at a funeral."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh—I didn't mean that!"  Then, considering his
-serious gravity, "Was—was there—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Pretty clean."  He relieved her of the remainder of
-the question.  "Mostly translated."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Incredulous, she glanced from him to his men and
-received grisly confirmation, for one thrust out a grimy
-finger to show a horseshoe ring.  "I picked it up on the
-track, miss, forty rod from the—obseq'ses.  Didn't allow
-he'd want it again."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shuddering, she turned back to Carter, but before she
-could make further comment the car rolled from a cut
-out on the edge of the Devil's Muskeg.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She thought him cold-blooded until, that evening, she
-learned from her friend, the cook, that he had been
-caught on the edge of the blast as he rushed to save the
-man and had been thrown a hundred feet.  A little
-disappointed by his apparent callousness, she joined her
-father and lover, who, with the contractor, stood looking
-out over the muskeg.  Sterile, flat, white with alkali
-save where black slime oozed from the sunken grade, it
-stretched a long mile on either side of the right of way.
-Around its edges skeleton trees thrust blanched limbs
-upward through the mud, and beyond this charnel
-forest loomed the omnipresent spruce.  In spring-time
-its quaking depths would have opened under a fox's
-light padding, but the summer's sun had dried the
-surface until it carried a team—which fact had lured the
-contractor to his financial doom.  A fat, gross man, he
-stood mopping his brow and wildly gesticulating towards
-the half-mile of rails that, with their ties, lay like the
-backbone of some primeval lizard along the mud, calling
-heaven and the chief engineer to witness that this
-calamity was beyond the prevision of man.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Jedgment of God,' it's termed in government
-contrac's," he exclaimed to the chief, who, however,
-shrugged at such blackening of Providence.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, Mr. Buckle," he answered, as Carter came up,
-"the judgment was delivered against you, not us."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, yes!" the man grovellingly assented.  "I know—mine's
-the loss.  But you gentlemen orter give me a
-chance to make it up building round this cursed mud-hole?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Round what?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He turned scowlingly upon Carter.  "This mud-hole,
-I said."  With a greasy sneer, he added: "But mebbe
-you kin build across it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I can."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What?" he screamed his angry surprise.  "Why,
-hell!  Wasn't it you that tol' me it wouldn't carry a
-grade?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I said it wouldn't carry yours."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His quiet assurance gave the contractor pause, while
-engineer and surveyor looked their surprise.  "Going
-to drive piles down to China?"  The contractor grew
-hysterically sarcastic.  "You'll need a permit from Li
-Hung Chang.  What do you know about grades,
-anyway?  I was building this railroad while you was
-wearing long clothes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Likely."  Carter's easy drawl set the others a-grin and
-caused Dorothy to hide her smile in her handkerchief.
-"But you ain't out of yours yet.  A yearling baby
-wouldn't try to stack rock on top of mud.  But that
-isn't the question.  D' you allow to finish the contract?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Think I'm a fool?" the man rasped.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Tain't always polite to state one's thoughts.
-But—do you?"  And when the other tendered a surly
-negative, he turned to the engineer.  "You hear, sir?  And
-now I file my bid."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The chief, however, looked his doubt.  As yet
-engineering science offered no solution for the muskeg
-problem, and this was not the first grade he had seen
-sacrificed to a theory.  "Are you serious?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"As a Methodist sermon," Carter answered his grave
-question.  Then, drawing him aside, he pulled a paper
-from his pocket—an estimate for the work.  It was dated
-two weeks back, prevision that caused the chief to
-grimly remark: "Pretty much like measuring a living
-man for his coffin, wasn't it?  But look here, Carter!
-I'd hate to see you go broke on this hole.  I doubt—and
-your figure is far too low.  What's your plan?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm going to make a sawdust fill with waste from
-the Portage Mills."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Whistling, the chief looked his admiration, then grinned,
-the idea was so ludicrous in its simplicity.  For, all
-said, the problem resolved itself into terms of specific
-gravity—iron sinks and wood floats in water; and the
-muskeg which swallowed clay would easily carry a
-sawdust bank.  Moreover, the idea was thoroughly
-practicable.  Situated five miles from Winnipeg, the Portage
-Mills were the largest in the province and their owners
-would willingly part with the refuse that cumbered their
-yards.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You've got it!" he cried, slapping his thigh.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That's not all.  If old Brass Bowels—"  Noticing
-that the contractor was looking their way, he finished in
-a whisper, the significance of which caused the chief's
-grizzled brows to rise till lost in the roots of his hair.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You'll break camp—?" he questioned.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"To-morrow.  Build a spur into the mills, then start
-prairie grading at the American line and run north.
-Ought to make a junction about the time the sink is
-filled."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And this he did.  The few miles of spur-track being
-quickly built, a yellow tide of sawdust was soon flowing
-out to the Devil's Muskeg, where Bender's wood gang
-directed its flow.  At first there was great argument
-about this new material, some holding that one might
-as well try to build a road-bed with feathers.  But it
-proved itself.  Tamping hard as clay, it had greater
-resilience, and soon the twisted track rose like a mained
-serpent from the slimy clutch of the devil.  Yes, miles
-of flat-cars, boarded up till they loomed big as houses,
-moved between mill and slough through that summer,
-and no one dreamed of their slow procession having
-other significance up to the moment that Helen heard
-newsboys crying a special in the hot streets—</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Monopoly refuses new line a crossing.  Section gangs
-tear up Carter's diamond."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="winnipeg"><span class="bold large">XXVI</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">WINNIPEG</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>By that time Helen had shaken down to a life that
-was new as strange—though not without travail;
-shaking is always uncomfortable.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Coming in to the city, a natural nervousness—that
-indefinite apprehension which assails the stoutest under
-the frown of new adventures—had been accentuated by
-heart-sickness from her late experiences, and was
-justified by some to come.  She viewed its distant spires
-very much as an outlaw might contemplate far-off
-hostile towers.  Entering from the west, as she did, one
-sees taller buildings poke, one by one, from under the
-flat horizon.  For the city sits by the Red River—smoothest,
-most treacherous of streams—in the midst of
-vast alluvial plains, its back to the "Ragged Lands,"
-facing the setting sun.  North, south, east, and west of
-it they stretch, these great flat plains.  Vividly emerald
-in spring-time, June shoots their velvet with chameleon
-florescences that glow and blaze with the seasons, fix in
-universal gold, then fade to purest white.  Dark, dirty,
-the city stands out on the soft snow-curtain like a sable
-blot on an ermine mantle.  Withal it is a clean city, for
-if the black muck of its unpaved streets cakes laboring
-wagons and Red River carts to the hubs after spring
-thaws, the dirt is all underfoot.  No manufactures foul
-the winds that sweep in from boreal seas with the
-garnered essences of an empire of flowers.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Purely agricultural, then, in its functions, the bulk of
-its burgesses were, as might be expected, store-keepers,
-implement men, bankers, lawyers, land agents, all who
-serve or prey upon the farmer; for there, also, lurked
-the usurers, the twenty-per-cent. Shylocks, fat spiders
-whose strangling webs enmeshed every township from
-the Rockies to the Red.  Spring, fall, or winter, grist
-failed not in their dark mills, which ground finer and
-faster than those of the gods.  Scattering their evil seed on
-the dark days, it was their habit to reap in the sunshine,
-competing for the last straw with their fellows, the
-business men, in their single season of profit—Harvest.
-For in summer the city drowsed amid green wheat seas
-that curved with the degrees over the western world; it
-slept, nodding, till the wheat, its life-blood, came in huge
-arterial gushes to gorge its deflated veins.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Thus Helen found it—asleep under the midsummer
-sun.  Walking to her destination, she met few people;
-after the hotel 'buses rattled by, the streets were
-deserted save for an occasional buck-board or slow ox-team
-chewing the peaceful cud at the wooden sidewalk.  When,
-later, she walked those hot streets on that most
-wearisome of occupations, the search for an occupation, she
-became familiar with the city's more intimate
-topography—the huge concrete foundations, vacant, gaping as
-though at the folly which planned them and their
-superstructures, the aërial castles that blew up with the boom;
-the occasional brick blocks that raised hot red heads
-proudly above surrounding buildings, the river, with its
-treacherous peace; old Fort Garry, which she repeopled
-with governors, commissioners, factors, and trappers of
-the Hudson Bay Company.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Also she grew sensitive to its varied life, easily
-distinguishing between emigrants, who were injected by daily
-spurts into the streets, the city's veins, from the
-old-timers—remittance-men, in yellow cords and putties;
-trappers from Keewatin, Athabasca, the Great Slave
-Lake, in fringed moose-skins; plethoric English farmers,
-or gaunt Canadian settlers from the rich valley
-round-about; Indians of many tribes—Cree, Sioux, Ojibway;
-the heterogeneous mixture that yet lacked a drop of
-the Yankee or continental blood which would flow, ten
-years later, in a broad river over the American border.
-But this was after she had fallen into her place in the
-household of Glaves's big sister among a scattering of
-teachers, up for the Normal course, a brace of lawyers,
-three store-keepers, and a Scotch surgeon.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Just what or where that place was would be hard to
-say, seeing that it varied with the view-point of each
-lodger, nor remained the same in the opinion of any
-specific one.  Thus did she shine, for one whole week,
-the particular star in the heaven of an English teacher,
-a mercurial lad of twenty; then having rejected his heart
-with a pecuniary attachment of thirty-five dollars per
-mensem, she fell like a shooting-star and became a mere
-receptacle for his succeeding passions, which averaged
-three a month.  His fellow-teachers swung on an
-opposite arc.  Canadians, and mostly recruited from the
-country, the soil still clung to their heavy boots.  The
-profession, its aims and objects, formed their staple of
-conversation.  Deeply imbued with the sense of the
-central importance of pedagogy in the scheme of things,
-they wore an air of owlish wisdom that was incompatible
-with the contemplation of such sublunary things as
-girls.  Having wives, it was not to be expected that the
-store-keepers could notice a young person whose attractions
-so far exceeded her known acquaintance, and
-though the surgeon, a young man prodigiously bony as
-to the leg and neck, really worshipped her from behind
-the far folds of his breakfast newspaper, thought
-transference still lay in the womb of future humbuggery and
-she catalogued him as injuriously cold.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>From this conglomerate of humanity she gained one
-friend, the young wife of a lawyer who had lately come
-West.  Prettily dark as Helen was delicately fair, each
-made a foil for the other, which necessary base for
-feminine friendships being established, their relations
-were further cemented by an equal loneliness, and made
-more interesting by the expectation of an event.  As it
-was not yet fashionable to shoo the stork away from the
-roof-tree, behold the pair fussing and sewing certain
-small garments with much tucking, trimming, insertioning,
-regulating said processes by the needs of some future
-mystery dight "shortening"—all of which brought Helen
-mixed feelings.  The young husband's part in said
-operations was particularly trying.  Supposedly immersed in
-his paper of evenings, he would watch them over the tip
-with a delighted sagacity akin to the knowing look which
-a bull-dog bestows on a crawling kitten.  At times, too,
-he would descend upon the work and lay wee undervests
-out on his big palm, tie ridiculously small caps over his
-shut fist, ask absurd questions, and generally display the
-manly ignorance so sweet to the wifely soul; while Helen
-sat, a silent spectator of their happiness.  It is a
-question which the acquaintance brought her most, pain or
-pleasure.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The tale of the boarders would not be complete
-without mention of Jean Glaves, a buxom woman, fair of
-hair, whose strong, broad face seemed to incarnate the
-very spirit of motherhood.  With her Helen's place was
-never in doubt.  Opening her big heart, she took the
-lonely girl right in, and proved a veritable fount of energy
-in her disheartening search for work.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In this her first experience conformed to that usual
-with a working-girl—she shivered under icy stares, shrank
-from the rude rebuffs of busy men, and blushed under
-smiles of idle ones; sustained the inevitable insult at the
-hands of a rascally commission broker at the end of one
-day's employment.  His quick, appraising glance, following
-a first refusal, would have warned a sophisticated
-business woman, but the innocence which betrayed
-Helen later proved her best protection.  The horror in
-her eyes, childlike look of hurt surprise, set the dull reds
-of shame in the fellow's cheeks, but she was out in the
-street with hat and jacket while he was still muttering
-his apology.  Yet his grossness fell short of the vile
-circumspection of her next employer.  A smug pillar of
-society and something in a church, caution would not
-permit him to stake reputation against possible pleasure
-on a single throw, yet she labored under no illusions as to
-the motive behind her second discharge.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, I can't bear it!  I just can't try again!" she
-cried that night to Jean Glaves.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You won't have to, dearie," the big woman
-comforted, and having tucked her comfortably upon her
-own lounge with a wet cloth upon her aching head, she
-went straight to the Scotch surgeon's room.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her choice of confidant may have been due either to
-intuition or knowledge of what was going on behind the
-ramparts of the young man's breakfast paper.  The
-event proved it wise, for his giraffe neck lengthened
-under his angry gulps, his bony hands and nodding head
-emphasized and attested Jean's scathing deliverence
-upon men in general.  "The scoundrel!" he exclaimed,
-when she paused for lack of breath.  "The scoundrel!
-I'd flog him mysel' but for the scandal.  But see you
-he'll no' go unpunished.  He's a bid in for the hospital
-supplies, and I'll be having a word with the head doctor."  And
-thus, later, was the smug villain hit to the tune of
-some hundreds in his tenderest place, the pocket.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Not content with future revenge, the Scotchman's
-sympathy expressed itself in practical suggestion.  "If
-ye'd think, Mistress Glaves"—he always accorded Jean
-the quaint title, and it fell gracefully from his stiff
-lips—"now if ye'd suppose the young leddy would like to try
-her hand at nursing, there's a vacancy in the hospital."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>While he hesitated, Jean literally grabbed opportunity
-by the collar.  "You come along with me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Introduced a few seconds thereafter to man and
-subject, Helen exclaimed that she would love the work;
-nor were her thanks less sincere for being couched in
-stereotyped form.  How </span><em class="italics">could</em><span> she thank him?  Being
-sincere to the point of pain, after the fashion of his
-nation, the young man had almost answered that the
-obligation lay with him in that his studies behind the
-newspaper would be furthered and facilitated.  He
-replied, instead, that the pay would be small, the work
-hard.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Not to be discouraged, she was thus launched upon
-what, in her condition, was the best of possible careers.
-For the mental suffering which, lacking an outlet, burns
-inwardly till naught is left of feeling but slag and cinders,
-becomes the strongest of motor forces when expended in
-service for others.  Throwing herself body and soul into
-the new work, she forgot the suspicion, scandal that had
-lately embittered her days, and had such surcease of
-loneliness that in one month the lines of pain disappeared
-from around her eyes, her drooping mouth drew again
-into the old firm tenderness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Besides content, the month brought her other satisfactions.
-Owing to lack of accommodation at the hospital,
-she still slept at the boarding-house, and dropping into
-Jean Glaves's room for a chat one evening, she found her
-conversing with a girl of her own age.  She would have
-retired but that Jean called her back.  "Don't go!  We
-were talking of you.  This is Miss Dorothy Chester, who
-used to board with me.  Miss Chester—Mrs. Morrill."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There was, of course, nothing in the names to convey
-the significance of the introduction to either.  After that
-period of secret study which is covered by the feminine
-amenities, each decided that she liked the other.  Helen
-gladly accepted Dorothy's invitation to call, and in this
-ordinary fashion began a momentous acquaintance that
-soon developed through natural affinity into one of those
-rare and softly beautiful friendships which are
-occasionally seen between women.  And as friendship means
-association in a city that has no theatre and few
-amusements, it soon happened that any evening might see
-Dorothy in Helen's room, or Helen on the way to her
-friend's hotel.  Naturally Helen quickly learned that her
-friend's father and lover were head engineers on Carter's
-road, and that she had visited them in camp; and as
-Dorothy was as willing to talk of her novel experience
-as Helen to listen, imagine the pair in the former's cosey
-bedroom, one snugged up on a lounge, the other coiled
-in some mysterious feminine fashion on pillows at her
-side, fair girl hanging on dark girl's lips as she prattled
-of Carter, or joining in speculations as to what kind of a
-woman his wife might be.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She positively jumped when Dorothy declared one
-evening: "I'm sure he still loves her.  Ernest says that
-he scoured the city for her; only gave up when he felt
-sure that she had gone East to her friends.  When the
-road is finished, he is going back to look for her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">He had searched for her</em><span>!  </span><em class="italics">Still loved her</em><span>!  It rhymed
-with her deft fingers rolling bandages; tuned her feet as
-she bore medicine-trays from ward to ward; ousted the
-dry anatomical terms of the daily lecture from their
-proper place in her mind.  The thought illumined her
-face so that maimed men twisted on their cots to watch
-her down the ward.  Meeting her on the main stairs, one
-day, Carruthers, the Scotch surgeon, almost mistook her
-for the Virgin Mother in the stained window above the
-landing.  </span><em class="italics">He searched for me! is going back East to look
-for me</em><span>!  The days spun by to that magical refrain.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Why, in view of all this, did she not confide in Dorothy?
-Though its roots grip deep down in woman nature, the
-strange, contradictory, inconsequential, yet wise woman
-nature, the reason lies close to the surface.  Physically
-akin to the impulse which urges a shy doe to fly from its
-forest mate, her feeling flowed, mentally, from injured
-wifehood.  For all her natural sweetness and joy over
-the thought of reunion, she was not ready to purchase
-happiness with unconditional surrender; to make
-overtures directly, or through Dorothy, that might be
-construed as a bid for executive clemency.  As he had
-deserted her, so he must return; and that prideful resolution
-was strengthened and justified by the suffering which
-had immeasurably exceeded her fault.  Yes, first he must
-return, then—would she instantly forgive him?  Any
-lover can answer the question; if not, let him consult
-his sweetheart.  "I'd make him suffer!" she will cry,
-gritting pretty teeth.  So Helen.  </span><em class="italics">Very</em><span> unchristian,
-wicked, but natural.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>No, she did not confide in Dorothy, went quietly about
-her business, hugging her sweet secret to her own soul,
-until—  But this summary of her thought and feeling
-would not be complete without mention of a last,
-perhaps greatest, satisfaction—her joy in reading newspaper
-accounts of Carter's progress.  Editorials, politics,
-reports, she read all, day by day, glowing over red-hot
-denunciations of the monopoly while she thought what
-good men the editors must be, and how intelligent to so
-clearly discern her husband's merits.  She was mightily
-troubled by the insatiate appetite of the Devil's Muskeg,
-studying its rapacious dietary as though it were a
-diabetes patient.  She triumphed when Carter successfully
-treated its ineffable hunger with vegetarian diet of
-sawdust; shivered when he was refused a crossing of the
-trunk line; thrilled over the battle when Bender and
-the woodmen beat back the monopoly's levies while the
-trackmen laid the "diamond," and grew sick with fear,
-as before mentioned, when she heard the newsboys crying
-out Carter's final repulse as she was walking home to
-her room about eight o'clock one evening.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Though very tired, she immediately turned in her
-agitation, and, undeterred by the continent of blue-print
-uniform that spread below her brown ulster, she hurried
-to Dorothy's hotel, an old caravansary that had survived
-two rebellions and the bursting of the boom.  Once chief
-of the city's hostelries, the old house still attracted
-people who preferred its solid comfort to the gilt, lacquer,
-garish splendors of more modern rivals.  The parlor in
-which she waited while her name was taken up to
-Dorothy, was panelled with sombre woods; her feet
-literally sank in a pile carpet, thick, green, and dark
-as forest moss.  Walls were upholstered in hammered
-leather; chairs, heavy table, massive furnishings, all
-were of black oak.  The portraits of governors, high
-commissioners, and chief factors of the Hudson Bay
-Company, soldiers and traders or both, seemed ready to
-step down from their frames to engage in wise council
-and issue fiats that would set a hundred tribes in motion.
-Time stood still in that solid atmosphere.  Heavy odors
-of leather and wood, the pervading feeling of peaceful
-age combined to soothe her fretted nerves, and she had
-just relaxed her tired body within the embrace of a
-mighty chair when passing footsteps and a voice brought
-her up, tense and rigid.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Returning just then, the bell-boy repeated her
-question: "Gentlemen who just passed, Miss?  Mr. Greer and
-Mr. Smythe, people that are financing the new line, and
-Mr. Carter, their head contractor.  They are dining here
-with the general manager of the trunk line.  If you'd
-like to see them," he added, interpreting her interest as
-curiosity, "just step this way.  They've all gone in, and
-you can peep through the glass doors.  It's that dark
-in the passage no one will see you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As she tiptoed after him down the dark hallway he
-whispered further—"Reminds me of them old Romans,
-the general manager; them fellows that used to invite a
-man to a poisoned dinner.  He's got those chaps shooed
-up into a corner, and now he's going to kill their financial
-goose over the cigars and wine.  Sure, Miss, everybody
-knows that Greer's on his last legs.  Bit off more than
-he could chew when he went to railroading; but old
-Brass Bowels will treat his indigestion.  That's him,
-stout gent with his back this way.  Greer and Smythe's
-either side of him.  That's Mr. Carter opposite.  T'other
-gentleman, Mr. Sparks, is general superintendent of the
-western division."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Slipping by the others her glance glued—the term is
-eschewed by purists, who ironically inquire if the
-adhesive used was of the carpenter variety, but it exactly
-describes her steadfast gaze—her glance glued to Carter's
-face.  From above an arc lamp streamed white light
-down upon him, darkening the hollows under his eyes,
-raising his strong features in bold relief.  This, be it
-remembered, was the first she had seen of him since he
-broke in upon the Ravell dinner-party, black, sooty,
-smelling evilly of sweat and smoke.  And now he sat
-with a waiter behind his chair, at meat with the greatest
-man in the north, at a table that was spread with plate,
-cut-glass, linen, all of a costly elegance that transcended
-her own experience.  The champagne bucket, at his
-elbow, of solid silver, with gold-crusted bottles thrusting
-sloping shoulders out of cracked ice, the last accessory of
-luxurious living, took on wonderful significance in that
-it accentuated to the last degree their changed positions.
-For surely the gods had turned the tables by bringing
-her in print hospital uniform and shabby ulster to
-witness this crowning of his development.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Be sure she felt the contrast.  How could she do
-otherwise?  Yet her feeling lacked the slightest touch of
-humiliation.  Above such snobbishness, she was filled
-by joy and pride in his achievement, joined with
-tremulous fear, for the bell-boy's remarks had quickened her
-apprehension.  That distinguished company, costly
-appointments, perfect service, impressed her as little as it
-did Carter, which is saying a good deal, for the pomp of
-civilization counts more with women than men, and he
-was bearing himself with the easiness of one who has
-conquered social circumstance.  He chose the right fork
-for his salad, knife for his butter; broke his bread
-delicately, trifled with green olives as if born to the
-taste—though this edible presented itself as a new and bitter
-experience—small things and foolish if made an end in
-themselves, yet important in that, with improper usage,
-they become as barbed thorns in the side of self-respect.
-Significant things in Carter's case because they showed
-that he had applied to his social relations the same
-shrewdness, common-sense, keen sight that was making
-him successful in large undertakings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Of course she noted his improvement?  That he no
-longer used knife for spoon, squared elbows over his head,
-sopped bread in gravy?  On the contrary, she saw only
-his face, dark and stern save when a smile brought the
-old humor back to his mouth.  Her hungry eyes traced
-its every line, marking the minutest changes wrought
-by thought, care, sorrow, time's graving tools.  Hands
-pressing her breast, she struggled for his voice with thick
-oak and heavy plate-glass, and so stood, wrapped up in
-him and their past, till the bell-boy spoke.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Miss Chester said you was to go right up, Miss."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She jumped, and her tremulous fear took form in
-words.  "You are sure the general manager will—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"—Do things to 'em?" he finished, as he led her
-upstairs.  "They're dead ones, Miss."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-nature-of-the-cinch"><span class="bold large">XXVII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE NATURE OF THE CINCH</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>The bell-boy was not alone in his opinion.  Through
-that summer twenty thousand settler farmers had
-kept suspicious tab on the monopoly, and now that it felt
-the clutch reclosing on its throat, the entire province had
-flamed up in wrath and fear.  Press, legislature, and
-pulpit denounced the refusal of a crossing that was without
-shadow of a claim in equity, and was plainly intended
-to kill competition by tedious and costly litigation.  In
-town, village, on trail, at meeting, wherever two settlers
-were gathered together, the general manager's action
-was damned in no uncertain terms.  Indignation flowed
-like a tidal-wave over the plains.  Skimming low with
-the north wind, an aeronaut would have heard the hum
-of speech rise from the face of the land, angry and
-continuous as the buzz of swarming bees.  It had pealed
-out in clarion triumph, that huge </span><em class="italics">vox humana</em><span>, when the
-"diamond" was laid after desperate fighting; it swelled
-in furious discordance when, the previous day, Carter's
-men were forced back by sheer weight of the levies that
-the general manager had gathered and brought in from
-the sections along three thousand miles of track.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was one of those situations which require only a
-touch of demagoguery to wreak great harm.  Insurrection
-hung thick in the air.  Secession and coalescence
-with the United States were openly advocated by men
-who later read with astonishment their own words in the
-papers of that stormy time.  Thousands of armed settlers
-waited only for the word to fall upon the monopoly's
-levies, but in face of united public opinion, backed by an
-inflamed press, Carter and his people remained
-quiescent—supinely quiescent, according to certain editorials.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A morning paper recalled its prediction of months ago:
-"We warned Mr. Carter not to be deceived by the
-monopoly's complaisance in bringing his construction
-outfit and supplies out from the East over its tracks.
-The concession was merely bait for the trap, analogous
-to the handing of a rope to a fool wherewith to hang
-himself.  We are loath to quote the old proverb against
-Mr. Carter, yet were it not for the fact that the monopoly
-snaps its fingers in the face of this province through him,
-we should be tempted to show satisfaction at the plight
-to which his fatuous self-confidence has brought him."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The article closed with a vivid word picture of the
-general manager chuckling </span><em class="italics">à la</em><span> Mephistopheles in the
-privacy of his luxurious office; which, perhaps, approximated
-the reality more closely than that in the minds of
-the laity.  For a composite of the popular impression
-would have shown the entire railroad pantheon,
-general manager, department heads, with their clerks,
-sub-heads, assistants, and deputy assistants, all very lofty
-of brow and solemn of face, in session over the crisis.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The reality was much more prosaic.  Indifferent to
-the newsboys, who were crying his crimes on the streets,
-the general manager sat in the office of the division
-superintendent that morning, chair tilted back, feet on
-the table, thumbs comfortably bestowed in the
-arm-holes of his vest.  It has remained for a practical
-business age to clothe itself in the quintessence of ugliness.
-Imagine Julius Cæsar in a tuxedo, Hamlet wearing a
-stove-pipe hat!  His black coat, check trousers would
-have pleased a grocer's fancy in Sunday wear, and it
-were difficult to realize that their commonplace ugliness
-clothed a power greater than Cæsar's—the ability to
-create and people provinces, to annihilate and build up
-towns, to move cities like checkers over the map; harder
-still to listen to his curt speech, issuing from blue tobacco
-smoke, and believe that an empire larger than ancient
-Rome paid him tribute, that the blood and sweat of a
-generation had gone to grease his juggernautal wheels.
-Yet the speech itself certified to the power.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We made a mistake, Sparks; but who could foresee
-this fellow Carter?  Here's the N.P. lusting for a chance
-to cut in over the border.  Give them that crossing and
-old Jim Ball will place their bonds for any amount in
-exchange for reciprocal running arrangements.  So we've
-got to make a quick killing.  Buy 'em out, lock, stock,
-and barrel, while the fear of God's in their hearts.  They
-must sell—look at this Bradstreet report on old Greer's
-assets.  Just about at the end of his string.  So I want
-you to write and invite them to dinner to-night—Greer,
-Smythe, and Carter—though the order ought to be
-reversed; he's the brains of the business.  Draw it
-mild—conference with a view to amicable arrangement of
-points at issue, and so forth.  But when we once get
-them there—"  His nod was brutal in its significance.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Equally wide of popular conception was the scene in the
-banking office of Greer &amp; Smythe when the invitation
-was delivered.  Carter, who swung an easy leg from his
-favorite perch on the table, seemed to have thrived on
-defeat; the most elastic imagination would have failed
-to invest him with the weight of a people's cares.
-Indeed, he laughed when the senior partner handed him the
-general manager's note.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hum!  'Will you walk into my parlor, said the
-spider to the fly!'  What do I make of it?  That's easy.
-Has us going—or thinks he has—and is aching to deliver
-the knock-out.  A million to a minute he wants to buy
-us out."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well, he never will!"  Red and plethoric, the senior
-partner sprang up.  An elderly man, his clear eyes,
-honest face, framed in white side-whiskers of the
-Dundreary style, all stamped him as belonging to the
-old-fashioned school of finance which aimed always to
-advance the civic interest while turning an honest
-penny.  "No, sir!" he reiterated.  "We'll break first; and
-goodness knows that is not so far away.  Yesterday I
-approached Murray, of the North American Bank, but
-he answered me in his broad Scotch: 'Hoots, mon! get
-your crossing first.  Get your crossing an' we'll
-talk.'  And so with Butler, Smith, and others who
-promised support."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Cold feet, eh?" Carter commented.  "They'll warm
-them presently chasing themselves for a chance to
-come in."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The old gentleman ran on in his indignation.  "Yes,
-we are about at the end of our financial string, but we
-would rather dangle there than yield to these pirates.
-Am I right, sir?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Smythe, a younger man, lean, laconic, and dark as
-the other was stout, florid, nodded, and his vigorous
-answer was untainted by a suspicion of compromise.
-"Surely, sir!  But if Mr. Carter's plan fails—"  His
-shrug supplied the hiatus.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter answered the shrug.  "It won't fail."  He held
-up the invitation.  "But, say!  Fancy—to-day, of all
-days?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course we won't go," Smythe frowned.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Of course we* will*," Carter grinned.  "Think what it
-means?  Besides blinding them to the trap, we shall be
-there when it springs, and I wouldn't miss Brass Bowels'
-face for a thousand, cash.  Let me see; the bid is for
-eight-thirty.  Western flyer is due at Portage station
-nine-fifteen.  He'll hardly broach business before the
-coffee, and with any kind of luck we ought to serve him
-up a beautiful case of indigestion."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"With luck?" the senior partner echoed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"With or without.  Everything is planned beyond
-possibility of failure.  Mr. Chester goes with Mr. Hart
-on the construction-train, while Bender keeps things
-humming at the crossing.  By-the-way, he's in the outer
-office now, with Hart, waiting for last orders, and if you
-don't mind I'll have them in.  I wouldn't take a chance
-even on your clerks."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>In view of just such a contingency, Bender had invested
-his bulk with store clothes of that indescribable
-pattern and cut which fulfils lumberman ideals.  From
-his mighty shoulders a quarter-acre of black coat fell
-half-way down worsted pantaloons that were displaying
-an unconquerable desire to use the wrinkles of high
-boots as a step-ladder to his knees.  As collars did not
-come in sizes for his red throat, he had compromised
-on a kerchief of gorgeous silk, and a soft hat, flat and
-black, completed a costume that was at once his pride
-and penance.  In the luxurious office, with its rich fittings
-in mahogany and leather, he loomed larger than ever;
-was foreign as a bear in a lady's boudoir.  Uncomfortably
-aware of the fact, he took the chair which the senior
-partner offered with a sigh of relief, and was fairly comfortable
-till the position discovered its own disadvantages—while
-his coat announced every movement with miniature
-</span><em class="italics">feux de joie</em><span> from bursting seams, his trousers ascended
-his boots as a fireman goes up a hotel escape.  To
-which sources of discomfort was added the knowledge
-that his face mapped in fair characters the fluctuations
-of the recent combat.  But he forgot all—scars, raiment,
-unconventional bulk—as soon as he began to talk.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"All ready," he replied to Carter's question.  "Buckle
-has been round the camp some lately.  Only this morning
-I caught him talking to Michigan Red.  It's a cinch
-that he was spotting for the railroad, but as I knew
-you'd as lief he'd tip us off as not, I didn't bust his head.
-Jes' allowed I didn't see him."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, let him talk," Carter replied, relative to the
-broken contractor.  "But"—he addressed the
-surveyor—"there's no whispering in your outfit?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Couldn't be," the young fellow laughed.  "Mr. Chester
-only told </span><em class="italics">me</em><span> an hour ago.  The men know nothing—will
-</span><em class="italics">know</em><span> nothing up to the moment we pull into
-Prairie."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Good.  Now, you are to leave at dusk, and don't
-forget to grab the operator before he can rattle a key.
-But turn him loose as soon as you are through and let
-him wire in the news.  And you, Bender, start in at
-eight, keep 'em busy as long as you can, then load what's
-left of you in a flat-car and steam round for Mr. Hart."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What's left of me?" Bender growled, as he walked
-with the surveyor down-street a few minutes later.
-"Hum!  Give me the Cougar and an even hundred of
-old-style Michigan men, and I'd drive the last of Brass
-Bowels' tarriers into the Red and beat you out laying
-the diamond.  But, Lordy, what's the use o' talking!
-The old stock petering out an' the new's jes' rotten with
-education.  They'd sooner work than fight, an' loaf than
-either, for they ain't exactly what you'd call perticler
-hell on labor.  What's left of me?  Well, there'll be
-some fragments, I guess.  While I was hanging round I
-picked up an odd score of Oregon choppers that blew in
-here las' week.  Brass Bowels' agent tried for 'em, but
-they'd lumbered with me in British Columbia.  Come
-out an' see 'em.  They're beauties."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Perhaps they were, for standards of beauty, morality,
-of any old thing, are merely relative and depend so much
-on local color.  To Hart, who reviewed the "beauties"
-in Bender's camp, they seemed the most unmitigated
-ruffians in his railroad experience; but as they strut on
-this small section of the world-stage for "Positively one
-appearance only," let them be judged by their record in
-the rough work of that night; by the way in which they
-bore themselves in the roar, surge, and tumble of a losing
-fight, the echoes of which alarmed the dark city and
-came with the soup to the general manager's dinner;
-and let him deliver their valedictory to his guests at table.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Throwing a telegram—which a waiter brought in just
-after Helen went up-stairs—across to Carter, the
-magnate remarked: "That big foreman of yours has been at
-it again.  He has put two of our heaviest engines into
-the ditch and ten men into hospital.  Not bad, but—he
-didn't lay the diamond."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, well," Carter shrugged, "better luck next time."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Ah, yes—the next time?"  Repeating the phrase
-with dubious inflection, he went on with his dinner, and
-for an hour thereafter no one heard the rattle of the
-skeleton behind the feast.  He acted the perfect host,
-easily courteous, pleasant, anxious for the preference of
-his guests.  As he ran on, drawing from the sources of a
-wide and unusual experience for his dinner chat, it was
-curious to note the shadings in his manner.  Addressing
-the partners, he seemed to exhale rather than evidence
-a superiority which, on their part, they countenanced
-by an equally subtle homage.  Integrity and deprecation
-of his policy and methods were dominated by the
-orthodox business sense which forced subconscious recognition
-of his title as king of their business world.  With
-Carter, however, he was frankly free, as though they
-two had been section-men eating their bite together on
-a pile of ties, and doubtless the difference in his
-manner sprang from some such feeling.  For whereas the
-partners were born to their station, he recognized Carter
-as a product—unfinished, but still a product—of the forces
-which had produced himself and a dozen other kings and
-great contractors of the constructive railroad era.  Without
-invidious distinction or neglect of the others, he yet
-made him the focus of attention.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We heard all about your sawdust grades," he complimented,
-with real cordiality.  "A mighty clever idea, sir;
-pity you couldn't patent it—though we are glad you
-cannot, for we intend to apply it on all our Rainy River
-muskegs."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Approaching business at the close of the meal, he was
-equally suave.  "You are to be complimented upon your
-achievement, gentlemen," he said, addressing the
-partners.  "We feel that while supplying a real need of the
-province, you have convicted us of remissness.  But
-now that we do see our duty, it would be equally criminal
-for us to leave you the burden of this heavy responsibility.
-We know how it has taxed your resources"—his gray
-eye stabbed the senior partner—"and we are fully
-prepared to relieve you."  Pausing, he lit a cigar, puffed a
-moment, and finished, "We will take the enterprise off
-your hands, bag and baggage, on terms that will yield
-you a handsome profit."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A pause followed.  No man turns from an easy road
-to a rocky climb without lingering backward glances,
-and the partners looked at one another while the general
-manager leaned back and smoked with the air of one
-who had faithfully performed a magnanimous duty.
-Greer spoke first.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Very kind offer, I am sure."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Most handsome," Smythe, the laconic, added.
-"But—"  He glanced at Carter, who finished, "We are
-not on the market."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The manager raised his brows.  Expecting a first
-refusal, he was slightly staggered and irritated by its
-bluntness, yet masked both emotions.  "Not on your
-own terms?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"On no terms," Greer emphatically answered; then,
-flushing, he added: "Our chief motive in going into this
-enterprise, sir, was to bring sorely needed railroad
-competition into this province.  It would not be subserved
-by our selling to you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The manager flicked the ash from his cigar.  Then,
-while smoking, he regarded the old gentleman from under
-bulging lids very much as a curious collector might note
-the wriggles of an impaled beetle.  "Very laudable
-intention; does you credit, sir.  But you must pardon me
-if I doubt that you will carry it to the length of financial
-hari-kari.  You have heard of that Japanese custom?
-A man commits suicide, empties himself upon a cold and
-unsympathetic world for the benefit of his enemy, who
-is compelled by custom to go and do likewise.  In your
-case the sacrifice would be foolish because we shouldn't
-follow suit.  Now when I spoke of your resources"—during
-an ugly pause his glance flickered between the
-partners—"I did not state our exact knowledge of their
-extent.  You are—practically—broke.  In addition, we
-have bought up all of your paper that we could find
-floating on the market, and three months from now—we
-shall be in a position to demand a receiver in bankruptcy.
-Stop!"  Frowning down Greer's attempted interruption,
-he dropped his suave mask and stood out, the financial
-king, brutal, imperious, predatory.  "I know what you
-would say.  Three months is a long time.  But no one
-will make you a better offer—any offer—till you can cross
-our line.  You can force a crossing?  Yes, but we'll law
-you, badger you, carry the case from court to court up
-to the privy council—two years won't make an end.
-In the meantime—"  He had thrown himself at them,
-bearing down upon them with all the force of his
-powerful will, of the furiously strong personality that had
-crushed financial opposition to plans and projects
-beside which their enterprise was as a grain of sand to the
-ocean.  Now, in a flash, he became again the polished
-host.  "Take your time, gentlemen.  </span><em class="italics">We</em><span> are in no hurry.
-Several days, if you choose.  But—be advised."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But big, strong, and masterful as the manager was,
-every Goliath has his David, and the first stone in the
-forehead came from the sling of Smythe—Smythe, who
-had hardly opened his mouth through the meal save for
-the admittance of food or drink.  Banging the table so
-that the glass rang and a champagne bowl flew from its
-thin stem, he sprang up, his dark face flushed and defiant.
-"We'll take neither your advice nor your time!  God
-knows that we are hard shoved, but damn a man who
-sells his country!  And since you have been so outspoken,
-let me tell you that we'll run trains across your
-line, and that inside—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"This hour."  In its quiet assurance, Carter's
-interpolation came with all the force of an accomplished fact.
-The manager started, and the division superintendent
-upset his wine.  As their backs were to the door, neither
-saw a waiter take a telegram from a messenger-boy, and
-sign for its delivery after a glance at the clock, which
-indicated half-past nine.  Nor could either fact have the
-significance for them that their combination had for
-Carter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The manager recovered his poise even as the waiter
-handed the telegram to his colleague, and, though puzzled,
-hid the feeling behind a show of confident contempt.  "I
-hardly gather your meaning, but presume you mean—war?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Missing the superintendent's sudden consternation, he
-was going on.  "Very well.  I </span><em class="italics">had</em><span> hoped—" when the
-former pulled his sleeve.  "What's this?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He stared blankly at the words: "Construction-train,
-with men and Gatling-guns, across our tracks at Prairie.
-Number ten, Western Mail, held up with three hundred
-passengers."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>During an astonished silence, the partners watched the
-manager, who looked at Carter, who lightly drummed on
-the table.  "Your train?" he went on, slowly, with
-words that evidenced his flashing insight into the
-situation.  "Hum!  Sawdust, eh?  Came down the spur you
-laid to the Portage Mills at Prairie; grabbed our
-operator; then extended the mill-switch across our tracks.
-Know how to kill two birds with one stone, don't you?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>During a second silence he fenced glances, nervously
-fingering the telegram, then suddenly asked: "What's
-the use?  You can't hold it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"With two Gatlings and five hundred men—five thousand,
-if I need them?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The law's against you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"As it is against you at the crossing.  Possession is
-said to be nine of its points, anyway, so we have you
-just nine-tenths to the bad."  Slightly smiling, he quoted:
-"'We'll law you, badger you, carry the case from court
-to court up to the privy council—two years won't make
-an end.'"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The manager raised heavy lids.  "In three months
-we'll break you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter shrugged.  "Who knows?  In the mean time—your
-traffic will be suspended?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Through all the superintendent had fidgeted nervously;
-now he broke in: "Pish, man!  We'll build round
-your old train in six hours."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Will you?"  Without even a glance in his direction,
-Carter ran on, addressing the manager: "You see, land
-is that cheap since the boom that we took options on a
-right of way from Prairie clean up to the north pole and
-down to the American border.  No, you won't go around
-us, but we shall go round you and come into this burg
-south of your tracks."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But you're out of law," the superintendent angrily
-persisted.  "You haven't the shadow of a right—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, shut up, Sparks," the manager impatiently
-interrupted.  "What has right to do with it?  He's got us
-in the door and it's no use squealing.  Now"—the glance
-he turned on Carter was evenly compounded of hostility
-and admiration—"terms?  You'll release our train—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"When you cede our legal crossing, and call off your
-dogs.  We'll hold Prairie till every man Jack of your
-guards is shipped out of the city."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Could you have the papers drawn—"  He had intended
-"to-night," but he paused as Greer drew them
-from an inner pocket and his iron calm dissolved in
-comical disgust.  "Hum!  You're not timid about
-grabbing time by the forelock.  But, let me see!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Once more the arc lights could be heard sputtering.
-In that tense moment their own fortunes swung in the
-balance with the welfare of a province, and while the
-manager read they waited in silence.  Trimming the
-end of a cigar with careful precision, Carter masked all
-feeling, but the partners could not hide their
-nervousness—Smythe fidgeted, Greer locked and unlocked
-clasped fingers.  Both held their breath till the
-manager's pen made a rough scratch on the silence.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A good loser, he said, as Greer rose after buttoning
-his coat over the precious document: "Don't go,
-gentlemen—at least till we have drunk the occasion.  I see
-another bottle there in the ice."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And his toast, "To our next merry meeting," formed
-the premise of the deduction which Carter returned to
-Greer's relieved exclamation when they stood, at last,
-alone in the street.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Thank God!  It is over!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"On the contrary, it is just begun."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Passing under a street lamp, its white light revealed
-the pale disturbance which banished the senior partner's
-flushed content.  Stopping dead, he agitatedly seized
-Carter's arm.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You don't suppose he will go back on his—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Signature?  No, he won't repeat.  He's done with
-the crossing."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then we can weather through," Greer said, and
-Smythe echoed his sigh of relief.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But—" Carter quoted the bucolic proverb which
-recites the many ways in which a pig may be killed other
-than by a surfeit of butter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But what </span><em class="italics">can</em><span> he do?" Greer persisted.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Don't know," Carter slowly answered.  "Only a
-man don't have to look at that bull-dog jaw of his a
-second time to know that he'll do it, and do it quick."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd give a good deal to know," Smythe frowned, then
-smoothed his knotted brow as he laughed at Carter's
-rejoinder.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'd give three cents myself."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Not feeling sleepy, Carter walked on after he had
-dropped the partners at their respective doors,
-aimlessly threading the dark streets that gave back his
-hollow foot-fall; and so passing, by chance, under Helen's
-window, he brought a pause in the anxious meditation
-which had kept her restlessly tossing, and set her to
-momentary speculations as to the owner of that firm
-and heavy tread.  She listened, listened till it grew
-fainter and died as he turned the corner.  Keeping on
-in the cool silence, he presently came to the Red River
-suspension bridge, where he paused and leaned on the
-parapet at the very spot from which she loved to watch
-Indians and chattering squaws float beneath in quaint
-birch canoes.  There was, of course, nothing to warn
-him of the fact any more than she could have guessed
-him as owner of the solitary foot-fall.  He thought of her,
-to be sure.  Always she stood in the background, ready
-to claim him whenever press of affairs permitted
-reflection; and now she thrust in between him and the
-twinkling lights of the sleeping city.  Where was she?  And
-doing—what?  How much longer before he could go in
-search of her?  After long musing he swept the weary
-intervening days away with an impatient gesture, and
-his longing took form in muttered speech:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"How long?  My God! how much longer?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The thought brought him back to his work and the
-events of the evening.  What would be the manager's
-next move?  He gazed down into the dark river intently,
-as though he expected its hoarse voice to give answer.
-But though he canvassed, as he thought, every possibility,
-the reality—which presented itself a week or so
-after he resumed operations in the Silver Creek
-forests—was beyond the range of his thought.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-strike"><span class="bold large">XXVIII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE STRIKE</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>As aforesaid, it was the unexpected that opposed
-Carter with a visage of stony calm when he came
-from Winnipeg out to the "Ragged Lands" a week or so
-later.  For whereas he had left the camp convulsed in
-throes of constructive labor, the whistle of his engine
-raised piercing echoes; no other sounds disturbed the
-sleeping forest.  In the cut south of the camp he passed
-the big digger, at rest from the roar, rattle, and clank
-of chains, hiss of escaping steam.  The pile-driver loomed
-idly on a distant trestle.  When engine and caboose
-stopped opposite the cook-house, he saw that the
-camp—which ought to have been empty—teemed with men.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He shrugged when Hart, who was with him, exclaimed
-in wonder: "Can't prove it by me.  But we'll
-soon know.  There's Bender—coming from the office."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Strike," the giant replied to their questioning.
-"Teamsters, graders, bridge and track men, all went out
-at noon.  What for?  God knows; but I allow that
-Buckle could tell.  He wasn't hanging round the
-Winnipeg camp for nothing.  I'm sorry now—"  His bunched
-fists, big as mauls, fully explained his regret, and
-indicating a group which was arranging its progress so as
-to make the office door with Carter, he finished: "But
-if you're hankering for reasons, consult them gentlemen.
-It's a depytation—by its scowl.  An' it's loaded to the
-muzzle with statistics to fire at you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Following his finger, Carter noted that Michigan Red
-was of the deputation, but when it ranged up at the tent
-door in sheepish yet defiant array, that worthy hung
-modestly in the rear, permitting a big teamster from the
-Silver Creek settlements to act as spokesman.  Blunt,
-honest, tenacious as a bull-dog in holding to an idea,
-the man was an ideal tool for unscrupulous hands; but
-though he instantly divined the reasons behind his
-leadership, Carter listened quietly to his tale—the old
-tale—overwork, poor food, underpay.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His answer was equally quiet.  "You are certainly
-to be pitied, Bill; breaks me all up just to think of your
-wrongs.  I've always admired your thrift, and I sympathize
-with your desire to raise the mortgage off your
-farm.  Took you five years to put it on, didn't it, Bill?
-And you are calculating to pay it off in the next two
-months.  Well, perhaps—but you'll have to screw it out
-of some one else than me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shuffling uneasily, the teamster glanced at his backers,
-who, equally nonplussed, gazed at one another.  For
-where an angry, or even a plain answer would have merely
-incited them to dogged opposition, this quiet ridicule
-sapped conceit in their cause, besides conveying an
-alarming suggestion of strength in reserve.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then you don't allow to fall in with our notions?"  The
-spokesman returned after a whispered conference.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Meaning—an hour less and a dollar more?  You're
-sure a psychic, Bill; plumb wasted on railroading.
-Open an office in town and go to fortune-telling and
-you'd pull that plaster off your homestead inside a
-month."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Assured that there was no hurry, that he could take a
-week to consider the matter, he gravely added: "Obliged
-to you, Bill; but I don't allow to require it.  The world,
-you'll remember, was made in six days, and this isn't
-near such a big job.  No time like the present, and here's
-my answer—same hours, same grub, same pay.  It's
-fortune-telling or present rates for yours, Bill."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Through all he entirely ignored the delegation, and
-now he leaned in the door, idly watching as it made its
-way across the camp and was swallowed in the crowd
-of strikers about the bunk-house.  But his face fell as he
-stepped inside beyond eye and ear shot.  "Serious?"
-he repeated Hart's question.  "Couldn't be worse.  Not
-one of those fellows could make a quarter of the wages
-or live half as well on the farm, but they'd hog it all if
-I died in the ditch.  But there's more behind this than
-their spite and greed.  You see, we have just about pulled
-old Murray in for funds to make a clean finish, and if he
-gets wind of this he'll crawfish like a one-legged crow.
-I must go back at once.  And you, Bender—you, also,
-Hart—see to it that not even a dog crawls out of this
-camp until I return."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"To keep these chaps guessing," he added, after a
-moment's dark reflection, "I'd better slip out after dusk.
-You go over, Hart, and whisper the engineer to back out
-and wait for me at the other side of the cut.  Mystery is
-good as aces up in any old game, and we can't fog them
-too much."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Pulling out at dark, he made the run back to town—fifty
-miles—in an hour and a quarter, reckless running on
-unballasted road.  Murray </span><em class="italics">must</em><span> be fully committed
-before the news leaked out.  </span><em class="italics">We must get him, must get
-him, must, must, must</em><span>!  The wheels clicked it, the steam
-hissed it, the fire roared it, the wind shrieked the
-imperative refrain.  But though Bender lived in the strict
-letter of his instructions so that a mosquito could scarce
-have escaped from the camp; though a man could not
-have made the distance in two days on foot, or a wild
-goose have passed the throbbing engine as it bounded
-along that raw track, newsboys were yet crying the
-strike as he came out on Main Street.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Feeling certain that the office would be closed at that
-hour, he intended to go straight to Greer's house, but
-seeing a light in the partners' room as he came opposite
-the building, he went in and found Smythe there, alone.
-With lean legs thrust out before him, hands deep in
-his pockets, shoulders hunched to his ears, his attitude
-incarnated deep dejection; gloom resided in his nod.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Greer?" he said.  "At home—sick.  You see, we
-were to have closed the deal with Murray this very
-evening, and the disappointment just knocked the old man
-out.  He's been running altogether on his nerve lately;
-something had to give.  Why </span><em class="italics">couldn't</em><span> this have
-happened a day later?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Answering Carter's question, he went on: "We heard
-it at noon.  Papers got out an extra.  Presses must have
-been running it off before you left."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Noon?" Carter whistled.  "Why the men didn't
-quit till two!"  Then as the significance flashed upon
-him, he exclaimed: "Brass Bowels for a million!  It
-was all cut, dried, and laid away for us, and they served
-it hot to the minute.  Don't—it—beat—hell!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>His comical disgust caused Smythe a wintry grin, but,
-sobering, he said: "I wouldn't mind so much for
-myself.  I'm young enough to do it again.  But the old
-gentleman—with that nice family!  You know he was
-just about ready to retire; only took up this business
-from a strong sense of public duty.  And now, in his
-extremity, every rat financier in this city runs to his
-hole in fear of the cat.  The poor old man!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter nodded his sympathy.  On the occasions that
-he visited their house, Greer's wife, a silver-haired old
-lady, had vied with her two daughters in pleasant
-attentions.  But it did not require that thought to stir him
-to action.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, here!" he laughed.  "We are not dead yet.  To-morrow
-I'll go the round of the employment offices and—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Smythe threw up his hands, a gesture eloquent of
-despair.  "Went round myself—this afternoon.  Harvest
-is on and men scarcer than diamonds.  Besides, Brass
-Bowels has left an order with every agency in town to
-ship every man they can get west to the mountains."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Um-m!"  Carter thought a while.  "Then we'll have
-to play the last card."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The last card?"  Smythe raised his eyebrows.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, biggest trump in the pack.  How long before—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, they can't touch us for two months."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Good!  Now listen."  Glancing around as though
-distrustful of the very walls, he whispered in Smythe's
-ear for a minute that saw the latter's dejection dissolve
-in new-born hope.  "You must go with me," he finished,
-aloud.  "While you pack your grip, I'll drop round and
-see Greer.  He must be here to-morrow to carry out the
-bluff.  And hurry—for we must make it down and back
-before we are missed."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-bluff"><span class="bold large">XXIX</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE BLUFF</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>It was the fifth day of the strike, and still no sound of
-labor disturbed the sleeping forest.  Quiet and calm,
-like that of the Sabbath, brooded over the camp, but not
-its peace, for, being well rested, the strikers chafed under
-inaction, moving restlessly among the buildings.  Michigan
-Red, to be sure, was dealing interminable poker on
-a blanket under a tree, while the younger men skylarked
-or tried one another out in games, but neither forms of
-amusement appealed to the older and more thrifty
-Canadians.  Secret disquiet, moreover, underlay even the
-nonchalance of the gamblers, for Bender's mysterious
-looks and Carter's continued absence were rapidly
-disintegrating the strikers' confidence.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He ain't here," the giant had answered, when the
-committee had called for another conference, and to
-further questioning he had returned an irritating grin.
-"When will he be back?  That's for us to know an' you
-to find out."  And so, shorn of its functions, the
-committee had languished like a moulting peacock.  In
-addition, the cook's ominous visage at meal-times bade
-the strikers beware that the curse of labor still clung to
-the fruits of the earth; and the fact that almost a
-month's back pay rested in Carter's hands, served as a
-text and lent force to the unpreached sermon.  What if
-he never came back?  The history of Western construction
-abounded with cases of absconding contractors, and
-the hostility of the monopoly lent substance to the
-doubt.  Most of them would have hailed Carter's
-advent, just then, with real if secret pleasure, and the
-general uneasiness manifested itself in a grumbling
-remark made as Michigan Red raked a fat "jack-pot"
-into his winnings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You're the only one that's making anything these days."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That's right," another grumbler added.  "An' what's
-more, if we're out another five days the raise won't pull
-us even by freeze-up.  Ten days lost at three-fifty is
-thirty-five dollars.  Take the extra dollar seven weeks
-to make it up—if the frost holds off that long."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Apparently indifferent, Michigan went on with his
-deal.  "You're hell at figures, Chalky.  Where'd you
-learn?  Figuring interest on your mortgage?  How
-many cards, Bill?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But Bill, spokesman of the committee, laid down his
-hand.  "Look here, Red!  Chalky's right.  If we hadn't
-struck we'd have had a pay-day yesterday, an' if we're
-standing to lose that much we can't call it off too soon
-for me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nor me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Nor me."  The voices, pitched in altercation, had
-brought the idlers crowding, and the support came in
-from all around.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Michigan's teeth gleamed white through his red beard
-while his bleak eyes took stock of the crowding faces as
-though calculating just how far envy and avarice would
-take them.  "You don't stand to lose a cent, Bill.
-They've got to finish the contrac' before freeze-up to
-reach the tie an' lumber-camps.  Otherwise the road 'll
-be idle all winter, an' what's a few days' pay alongside
-the freight on a hundred million feet of lumber.  He's
-got to finish it.  If he kain't"—pausing, he distributed
-a significant nod around the circle—"there's others as
-kin an' will."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But what if he don't come back?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To the question which expressed the most pregnant
-doubt, he returned a second meaning nod.  "Same
-folks 'll make good."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Back pay?" Bill pressed.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Back pay."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"On whose say so?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Ain't mine good enough?"  Ruffling, he turned a
-stream of fierce profanity upon Carrots Smith, his
-questioner.  "Want Bible and oath for yours, eh?  There's
-some things that kain't be told to idiots—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes, yes, Red!" Bill soothed.  "We know—that's all
-right, Red.  Don't mind him, he's only a suckling kid."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Sure, Red!  You know what you're talking about.
-Go on!" others chorused, and having gained his point by
-the show of anger, real or false, the teamster allowed
-himself to be placated.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"If 'twas necessary," he continued, "we could tie up
-the road with a laborer's lien.  But 'twon't be—I have
-somebody's word for it.  If Carter goes under, we jes'
-go right on."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"With the raise?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"With the raise."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But if he comes back?"  Chalky raised another doubt.
-"What about lost time?  Freeze-up is freeze-up, an' we
-kain't make it up if we're docked for the lay-off."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That's easy.  Who's to blame for it?"  He threw it
-at the circle.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Him!  He wouldn't give the raise."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Then let him pay for his fun.  We've got him coming
-or going, an' we draw time, at the new rates, for every
-idle day before we touch a tool.  Ain't that right?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was not, yet his crooked logic exactly matched their
-envious cupidity.  Confidence once more returned; the
-younger men returned to their sports; Bill picked up his
-hand, and the game proceeded until interrupted, a
-half-hour later, by a sudden shout and shrill neighing from
-the horse lines.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"The stallion's loose!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shouting, the roustabout tore across the clearing and
-just escaped the rush of the vicious brute by nimbly
-climbing the projecting logs at the cook-house corners.
-At his cry, a youth dropped the shot he had poised for a
-throw, the gamblers their cards, and, balking in the
-take-off for a broad jump, Carrots Smith led the rush for
-cover.  A minute saw them all on top of cook or bunk
-houses, and thus defrauded of his preference, the stallion
-ran amuck among the horses which were tied at long
-hay-racks, kicking, rearing, biting.  Though built massively
-of logs, the racks gave way with splintering crashes under
-the combined pull of a hundred frightened beasts; and
-bunching, the string tore round the clearing, squealing
-their fear.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To give the beast ease with his oats, Michigan had
-removed the iron muzzle according to his custom, and
-now, a free, wild thing, he bounded along in hot pursuit,
-curveting, caracoling, satanic in his jet-black beauty.
-Tossing his wild mane, he would call the mares with
-stridulous cachinnations, yet for all his exultant passion
-left them to chase a belated teamster, nose lowered, ears
-wickedly pricked, thrice around the cook-house.  Balked
-again, he reared, kicked, and was plunging once more
-after the string when a whistle outshrilled his neigh, and
-an engine with caboose attached rolled out of the cut
-south of the camp.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But for the pounding hoofs, the collective whisper,
-"It's the boss!" would have carried to Carter, who, with
-Smythe, stood looking out at the door of the caboose;
-and his first remark, "Regular circus, isn't it?" was
-eminently applicable to the situation.  Upholding the
-sky's blue roof, black spruce cones formed bulky pillars
-for the natural amphitheatre in which the horses circled
-and recircled, a kicking, squealing stream, before the
-audience on the roofs.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Where are you going?" Smythe exclaimed, as Carter
-leaped to the ground.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"To rope that beast before he runs a season's flesh off
-the teams.  There's a riata in the office."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Better shoot him," Smythe counselled.  "Here! come
-back!"  But he was already half-way across the clearing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Choosing his time, he passed from the smithy to the
-bunk-house, thence to the cook-house, and so working
-from building to building under the eyes of his men, he
-gained the office at last and shot in, barely escaping the
-mad cavalcade.  As he emerged, coiling the riata, Smythe's
-gaze drew to a second actor in this woodland drama.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>When the poker players broke for cover, Michigan
-Red had paused long enough to pocket the stakes along
-with his winnings, then picking up the blanket he walked
-over to the cook-house, and had watched all from the
-angle formed by the jutting corner logs.  "A bit closer
-would have suited better," he had grumbled, as Carter's
-last rush carried him from under the hoofs.  Now he
-commented: "Going to rope him, are you?  Not if I
-know it."  Knowledge of his fellows' liability to lapses
-of hero-worship inhered in his conclusion.  "If there's
-to be gran'stan' plays I'll make 'em myself."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Fools!" he snarled, as the beat of feet warned him
-that the strikers on the roof were watching Carter, who
-had taken position behind the next corner.  He heard
-also the swish of the circling noose, its quickened whir
-as the horses swooped around on the next lap; then, just
-as the band passed, he sprang out, uttering a sudden
-harsh command, directly in the stallion's path.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A desperate play, it drew gambler's luck.  A frontier
-superstition has it that the equine eye magnifies objects,
-and whether or no the red teamster with his pale-green
-face loomed in the stallion's sight as some huge and
-passionate fiend, he reared back on strung haunches, ploughing
-the sod in a desperate effort to stop; and while he hung
-in mid-air, Michigan stepped and threw his blanket,
-matador-fashion, over the ugly head.  As the brute settled
-on all-fours and stood shivering, Michigan turned,
-grinning, to reap the fruit of his daring.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But his grin quickly faded, for, flashing on to his
-purpose, Carter had swung and roped the rat-tailed mare,
-the stallion's mate, as the band flew by.  Worse!
-Michigan choked.  Almost every man in camp had a grudge
-against the mare, some vicious lunge or graze from her
-snapping teeth, so a dozen strikers had jumped and were
-helping Carter to choke her down, while the others
-cheered them on with approving laughter.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Furious, he yelled: "What's the matter with you chaps
-up there?  Taken to roosting like chickens?  I'd like a
-picture of the bunch, it ud pass anywhere for a Methodist
-convention.  An' you fellows quit yanking that mare.
-'Tain't tug-o'-war you're playing."  But he made small
-headway against the uproarious tide of yells and laughter,
-and, remembering his snub, Carrots Smith shouted back,
-"She's doin' most of the pulling, an' if she wants to hang,
-why let her."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Worst of all, it was Carter who finally interfered on
-behalf of the struggling brute, and Michigan chafed at
-the ready obedience accorded his orders.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Thought you fellows was on strike?" he growled at
-Brady, the Irish teamster, as he retied the stallion in
-the horse lines.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But wrathfully indicating a bloody bruise on his own
-horse, the Irishman hotly retorted, "Faith, thin, an'
-that's no sign that we'll be lettin' them murthering brutes
-av yourn chew the necks av our teams?  If they was
-mine, I'd make wolf-meat av the pair before supper."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Michigan sneered.  "Didn't I ketch him myself?  An'
-then you fellows had to go running your legs off to suit
-him.  Keep it up, an' it's you an' your strike that'll be
-made into hash for his supper."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>While Michigan thus tried to scotch incipient sympathy
-with rough sarcasm, Carter carried with him to the office
-the comfortable assurance that fortune had turned down
-to him this accidental trick in a difficult game.
-Shrugging deprecation of Hart's admiring comments on his skill
-with the riata, he returned a reminiscence of his
-cowpunching days to Smythe's chidings, asserting that the
-stallion was not a circumstance to a long-horn steer on
-an open prairie.  While talking, he helped to arrange
-the contents of Smythe's grip on the rough table, piling
-greenbacks by denominations between flanking columns
-of silver, an imposing array.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No hurry," he said, when Hart asked if he should
-call the men, and, lighting a cigar, he drawled a story
-which at one time explained his reason and illumined
-his plan.  "I remember a kid who won three sizes out
-of his class by a little judicious waiting.  His dad had
-set him a spading stint in the back lot, and when this
-other boy brings-to on the sidewalk and begins to heave
-belligerencies over the fence, he answers, that calm and
-deliberate that you'd never think he was burying his
-heart under every spadeful, 'Jes' you wait till I finish my
-patch.'  And he goes on digging so cheerfully that the
-other kid is a mite staggered.  As I say, he was about
-three sizes to the good, but as you'll remember,
-Napoleon's Old Guard could put it all over a young lady's
-seminary for hysteria if it was kept too long waiting.
-Watching that slow spade, this lad's imagination went
-to working so hard that he fought that fight thirteen
-times in as many minutes, and felt that used up he just
-ran like a March hare when the other kid stuck his spade
-in the trench.  The wise kid?"  He twinkled on Hart.
-"I was that glad, I played hookey from school an' won
-a licking from the old man five sizes larger than I'd have
-got from the boy.  But it was worth it.  I learned that
-it always pays to give it time to soak in."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Outside the strikers furnished a vivid illustration of
-that lesson during the next three hours he kept them
-waiting.  Grouping, they made loud mouths at first,
-over supposititious wrongs or affected indifference that
-was belied by uneasy glances officeward.  Less loquacious
-at the end of the first hour, the second left them
-sullen and silent; the third, eaten by suspense.  They
-started, as at a sudden explosion, when Bender finally
-came out; stared blankly when he announced that the
-boss was waiting to pay off the camp.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Affording no time for recovery, Hart called the first
-name on the pay-roll, and Bender's stentorian bass sent
-it rolling into the woods.  "Anderson!  Anderson!
-Hurry up, Anderson!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The name chanced to be the property of Bill, the
-spokesman, but though used as little as his Sunday
-clothes, there was more than unfamiliarity behind his
-slowness.  More tenacious of idea, as aforesaid, than
-quick of wit, Bill now found himself without plan,
-precedent, or time for counsel in these unexpected premises,
-nor could he draw inspiration from the blank looks of his
-fellows.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Hurry up, Anderson!" Bender crossly repeated; and
-starting as though touched in some secret spring, Bill
-lurched forward and in, and so found himself facing
-Carter, Hart, and Smythe behind an awesome financial array.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Never before had Bill seen so much money at once—even
-in dreams; it totalled more than the hard earnings
-of his forty-odd years; would have paid his mortgage ten
-times over.  The substance of modern power, its glitter
-challenged the loud-mouthed assertions of him and his
-fellows that, given the same luck, they could have done
-as well as Carter.  By the light of its golden glow, Bill
-saw himself very weak and small and foolish.  At home
-he seldom saw a dollar; had trouble in scraping up
-currency enough to pay his taxes, and effected his barterings
-at the store in truck and trade.  With his doubts settled
-as to the solvency of the firm, Bill was suddenly afflicted
-with a suspicion that he had made the biggest kind of a
-fool of himself.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Correctly interpreting his glance at the table, Carter
-gave him a genial smile.  "Yes, Bill; but you don't get
-it by laying off.  Here's your bit.  Touch the pen
-and—  Five dollars short?  Board and feed for five days, Bill.
-Man earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, you know.
-Pass on, and don't forget to remember me to your wife
-when you gain home."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As with Bill, so the others.  Filing in, they testified,
-one by deeper sullenness, others by attempts at a
-swagger, to the influences which had wrought on him.  Few
-attained the easy insolence of Michigan Red, who
-demanded an itemized account of his store bill and insisted
-on signing the roll with his own hand.  Touching the
-pen, railroad fashion, they passed out, while Hart signed
-for them, to add their doubtings to the general mystification.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>What was forward?  Had Carter obtained new crews,
-or would the company close down work?  As the line
-still fell thirty miles short of the northern settlements,
-the latter thought filled the minds of the Silver Creek
-men, who saw themselves left marketless by their own act,
-with sick misery; brought pause to their envious cupidity,
-despite Michigan's assurances that it was all a bluff.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Tain't," Bill Anderson contradicted him.  "I was just
-over to the cook-house for a drink, an' the cook has orders
-to serve no meals after breakfast to-morrow morning."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That so?" a dozen voices questioned.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Ask for yourselves.  He's at the door now calling to
-supper."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And the cook confirmed the report, adding, moreover,
-his mite to their discomfiture by malignantly
-animadverting upon the ménages to which they were about to
-return.  "My cooking don't suit, eh?" demanded the
-offended artist.  "It's pertatoes an' sow-belly for yours
-after this.  In a month you won't be able to tell your
-ribs from a rail corral."  And truth so flavored his
-railings that they saw, in fancy, themselves looking back
-from their prairie farms upon his rude but plentiful
-fleshpots—at which ripe moment the door opened to admit
-Carter, Smythe, and Bender.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Pausing at the end of the centre table, Carter glanced
-over the rows of faces which turned curiously up to him
-as on the occasion that marked the beginnings of his fight
-for mastery in the cook-house at the winter camp.  Very
-fittingly, setting and persona for this last act of a long
-struggle were almost the same as the first.  Hines and
-the Cougar, to be sure, were gone over the Great Divide.
-Strangers sat in place of Shinn and the handful that
-returned to their farms after the log-drive.  But here were
-the tables, a-bristle with tinware; dim lanterns, dependent
-from the low pole-roof; the faces, peering from Rembrandt
-shadows, fiercely animal, pregnant with possibilities such
-as have reddened the snows of many a forest camp.
-Overlooking them now, at the climax of a year-long play, he
-could not but thrill to the thought that whereas they
-had opposed him at every turn, those iron </span><em class="italics">impresarios</em><span>,
-the Fates, had left choice of endings with him, author of
-the drama.  It was his to crush or spare—to crush and
-gain the cringing respect which they accorded to frost,
-drought, pestilence, stern henchmen of the illimitable; to
-spare and attain next place to a fair potato-crop in their
-esteem; to manage them for their and his own good.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To the latter end he bent his words, addressing them,
-half jocularly, in their own argot.  "Well, boys, we've
-played our game to a finish, but before we throw away
-the deck let's count tricks.  I don't blame you for
-striking.  You have a right to sell your labor in the dearest
-market as I have to buy mine in the cheapest.  You
-simply asked more than I felt able to pay, so while you
-rested I took a jaunt down to the States to see how you
-stood on the market.  What did I find?  First let us take
-a look at your hand.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What do you hold?  Harvest is half over and the
-wheat farmers from the Portage to Brandon and down
-to the Pipestone have hired their help at two dollars a
-day.  No betterment there.  You can't break prairie in
-the fall, so there's nothing at home except eating, and
-the lumber-camps don't open up before the snows.  On
-the other hand, your stake in this line is as big as mine.
-Unfinished, you are without the markets you have been
-shouting for these years; finished, it lets in American
-competition and trebles your values in land."  Pausing,
-he shook his head, and smiling, went on: "Looks as if
-some one had dealt you a miserable hand, and I wonder
-if it wouldn't pay you to shuffle, cut, and try another
-deal?  Now before I bring in new crews—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"New crews?  Where kin you get them?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>All through the men had given close attention, and
-after a single impatient glance at Michigan Red the faces
-turned back to Carter, who ignored the interruption.
-Leaning eagerly forward, they took the words from his
-mouth as he ran on roughly outlining his own plans,
-prospecting the coming years.  Few of them, perhaps
-none, were given to looking beyond the present, and the
-vista to which he turned their dull eyes glimmered like
-sunshine on the prairies.  This was to be no casual job!
-The province, ay, and the whole Northwest, required
-branch roads; would be gridironed with them before the
-finish!  So what of construction in summer, logging in
-winter, they could look for profitable employment the
-round of the seasons!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"So talk it over among yourselves," he finished, "and
-those who feel that a fresh deal is in order can call round
-at the office after supper."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Long before that, nods and approving murmurs had
-testified to his victory, and as the burr of hot tongues
-followed them out through the open windows, Bender
-exclaimed: "Whipped to a finish!  But what about them
-new crews?"  Then catching Carter's grin, he burst out
-in uproarious laughter.  "What a bluff!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Not a man in Minneapolis," Carter confirmed.  "But
-that wasn't what we went down for.  So it didn't matter."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But will they believe it?" Smythe asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Believe it?"  Bender took it upon himself to answer
-it.  "A frightened man will run from his shadow, an'
-they're that badly scared 'twon't take them five minutes
-to locate them crews."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He gave them, indeed, too much time, for, as he said,
-fear destroys perspective and the strikers were almost
-ready to believe that Carter could conjure men from the
-trackless forest.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carrots Smith led the panic with a theory, even as
-he had headed the run from Michigan's horse.  "Said
-he'd been prospectin' down in the States?  Minneapolis,
-I'll bet you, an' the place jes' rotten with whaleback
-Swedes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Sawyer's gang is through with the N.P.'s Devil's
-Lake extension," another added.  "I read it in the
-paper Sunday.  Old Sawyer ud on'y be too glad for a
-chance to finish out the fall."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Other theories were not wanting, nor could Michigan Red
-stem the rout.  Just twenty minutes thereafter a sheepish
-delegation presented itself at the office door and delivered
-itself through the mouth of Bill of the Anderson ilk.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We've concluded," said Bill, "as 'twouldn't hardly
-be right to leave you ditched."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Albeit Carter's eyes returned Hart's twinkle, he replied
-in kind.  "I'm real tickled to think that you won't
-desert me."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>And so, with this bit of diplomatic comedy, ended not
-only the strike, but also the bitter fight which he, like
-every village Hampden, had had to wage against the
-envious ignorance of his fellows.  For a while, to be sure,
-their stiff necks would balk at the homage secret
-consciousness dictated as his meed.  They would refuse it,
-indeed, till the world outside sealed his success;
-whereafter every man of them would proclaim himself as the
-particular prophet who had discerned greatness in his
-humble beginnings.  But in the mean time they would
-refrain from further hostilities.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What about that Red man?" Smythe said, as the
-delegation made its jubilant way back to its fellows.
-"You'll surely discharge </span><em class="italics">him</em><span>?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Michigan Red?" Carter said.  "Not if he wants to
-stay.  His team is worth any two in camp, and his teeth
-are drawn for good.  But he won't stay."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"That's a cinch," Bender echoed.  "He's due in Winnipeg
-to report his failure sometime in the next three days."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="fire"><span class="bold large">XXX</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">FIRE</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Dawn saw the strikers going about their chores
-with a cheerful alacrity that was as gall to
-Michigan Red, who chewed the bitter cud of unsuccessful
-leadership as he sat drumming his heels on a block by
-the cook-house door.  He had come to the end of his
-rope—rather, dangled there, an object of contemptuous
-pity in the eyes of his fellows.  Had he doubted the fact,
-it was to be easily read in their studied avoidance; but
-he knew that he had failed—in what?  He could hardly
-have answered the question himself; for whether or no
-he had plotted in the monopoly's interest, the strike
-was merely incidental to the persistent war he had waged
-against Carter, to the dogged opposition which had root
-in the turbulent anarchism of his nature.  Sufficient
-that though his weird face held its usual bleak calm, he
-writhed, mentally, under defeat, while the few who
-ventured within range of his tongue sensed the lava beneath
-the crust.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Not with this crowd.  I draw the color line," he
-rasped, when Anderson inquired if he were not going
-to work, while Carrots Smith drew a curse along with the
-information, "It's me for a better job.  I'm tired of
-herding sheep."  So now he was left strictly alone,
-though speculative glances travelled often his way.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He's waiting for the boss," a teamster remarked to
-his neighbor.  "Say, I'd like to see 'em at grips!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Rather him nor me," the other said, expressing
-general opinion.  "The boss is a tough proposition.  They
-say he beat Shinn up so badly that he'll never be more 'n
-half a man again.  Red ain't no slouch, though.  Bet
-you I'd like to see it."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>However, as tools had to be reissued and a hundred
-details despatched, the men were all at work before
-Carter could come to breakfast, so only Smythe and the
-cook witnessed that meeting.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was a beautiful day.  Already the heat fulfilled the
-prediction of a torrid sunrise, and, like an egg in a pan,
-the camp fried within the encircling spruce which, on
-their part, seemed to lift over surrounding birch and
-poplar as though tiptoeing for cooler air.  The same
-errand had brought the cook out from the bowels of his
-own particular inferno, and as certain phases of the
-encounter could not be set forth in choicer terms than
-those in which he delivered himself to an interested
-audience that evening, now let him speak.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I was sitting in the doorway, that close to Red I
-could have pulled his ear, when the boss kem along.
-Stopping opposite, he looked down on Red with eyes
-dark and steady as night.  They're blue, you know, by
-rights, but they seemed to darken to pure black, an' I
-never felt him so tall before.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Well, Red?' he says, quiet, like that; but Red's eyes
-stayed down, though his lip lifted clear of his corner teeth
-like you've seen a trapped coyote, and so the pair of 'em
-remained for a full three minutes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Imagine them—the greenish face of the one reflecting
-murderous passion, troubled as waves on shaken acid;
-the other darkly silent, yet, for all his quiet, oppressing
-both Smythe and the cook with the loom of imminent
-death.  So was fought out the silent duel of personalities—one
-minute, two; at the third, sweat broke profusely
-upon the teamster's face, and the cook breathed once
-more.  Burning with Cain's lust, his glance travelled
-but once above the other's knee, to fall as quickly again.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What's the matter, Red?"  Smythe actually started
-as Carter's voice broke on the quiet of the camp.
-"Quitting?  What for?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, it isn't </span><em class="italics">exactly</em><span> my business," he cheerfully
-answered the teamster's growl.  "If you will, you
-will."  Turning back after entering, he added: "Heading for
-Winnipeg, I suppose?  Then give my compliments to
-Friend Buckle and tell him to please hand them higher up."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>When he came out Michigan was still there, but
-Carter passed without a glance, and led Smythe down the
-right of way into the forest.  Even then Michigan sat on.
-It was, indeed, almost noon before he loafed over to the
-horse lines, after refusing the cook's invitation to wait
-for dinner.  Without returning a word of thanks for the
-grub-sack which the latter sent over by a cookee, he
-hitched to his wagon and drove slowly away.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A week's rest had freshened the blacks so much that,
-if given their heads, they would have covered half the
-distance to Winnipeg that day.  But he took a vicious
-pleasure in balking their inclination.  Jerking the bits,
-which hinged on a cruel curb, he pulled them down to a
-nervous, teetering walk.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For a while the trail paralleled the right of way, then
-swung on a wide arc around a morass, and for an hour
-thereafter ran alternately among sloughs, sand-hills,
-muskegs, through a country indescribably desolate and
-which teemed with savage life.  Myriad frogs set his
-ears singing with dismal, persistent croaking; a pole-cat
-scuttled across the trail, poisoning the dank air.  From
-brazen skies a hawk shrieked a malediction upon his
-head; his horses threw up their heads, snorting, as a lynx
-screamed a long way off.  Here, too, dark woods shut off
-errant breezes and he fell a prey to a curse of sand-flies
-that stung and envenomed his flesh.  There was no
-escape.  They settled, by hundreds, on the hands that
-wiped them off his face; stung his face as he slapped his
-hands.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Coming back, mad with pain and rage, from this détour,
-his eyes drew to a trestle—longest, highest, most
-expensive of Carter's works—and, reining in, he allowed
-his glance to wander lustfully over the stout timbers
-which his fancy wrapped in flame.  A single match—but
-reason urged that the embers would undoubtedly furnish
-red lights for his hanging, and he drove on, hotter,
-madder for the restraint.  He was ripe for any mischief that
-offered a running chance of escape, when, midway of the
-afternoon, he came on wheel-tracks that swung at right
-angles from the trail into a chain of sloughs.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Red River cart," he muttered, noticing the wide
-gauge; then, furiously slapping his thigh, "Carter's Cree,
-by G—!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He meant the Indian who had brought in the venison
-which formed the tidbit at Dorothy Chester's first meal
-in camp.  All through the summer he had come in with
-deer-meat twice or thrice a week, but though Michigan
-and other teamsters had searched for his tepee during
-the idle days of the strike, no one had penetrated to the
-woodland lake where his squaw—a young girl, handsome,
-as Indian women go—was free from rude glances, safe
-from insult or worse.  Now the trail lay, plain as a
-pike-road, under Michigan's nose; and, leaping down, he tied
-his team to a tree and followed it along the sloughs.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Through a gully, patch of woodland, the tracks led
-into a second long slough, and presently debouched on
-the strand of a small lake, one of the thousands that gem
-that black wilderness.  Bird-haunted in spring,
-lonesomeness now lay thick upon it.  Uttering its weird cry,
-a loon rose on swift wing, angling in its flight over the
-tepee, whose bull's hide, raw, smoke-blacked, harmonized
-with that savage setting.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Just then Michigan was in fettle to exact a vicarious
-revenge.  Early in summer Carter had nipped a disposition
-on the part of his men to joke and make free with
-the Indian, giving strict orders that he was to be
-unmolested, coming or going.  This girl who lived in his
-protecting shadow would have fared ill at Michigan's hands.
-But the tepee flaps were thrown wide, and though he
-strained his eyes from a covert of tall reeds, he saw no
-sign of her, without or within.  Save the lipping of
-waters, sough of a rising wind, no sound broke the
-solitude that guarded this, the lair of primitive man.  Only
-those who have experienced its frightful loneliness can
-know how terrible a northern solitude can be; how
-awesome, oppressive.  Some note of it caused the teamster
-to speak aloud, heartening himself with sound of his voice.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"They'll be back to-night, sure, for the ashes is banked
-over the embers."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Gaining back to his team, he drove on a scant quarter-mile,
-then turned into a slough parallel to those he had
-just left, and which had its end in a wooded dell.  Here
-high banks would have effectually screened a fire, yet
-he endured mosquitoes till dusk smothered his smudge.
-Then tying his team in the thick of its reek, he cut across
-the intervening bush and followed, as before, along the
-slough chain till he saw a dim cloud quivering on the
-blackness ahead.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Beneath this, smoke from the Cree's fire, presently
-appeared a rich incandescence, and after worming the
-last yards on the flat of his belly, Michigan peered from
-thick sedge out at the Cree woman, who sat and suckled
-her child by the fire that enriched the bronze of her
-bosom with a blush from its glow.  A free, wild thing,
-her deep eyes now caressed her child, again searched the
-fire's red mystery, giving back its flame as forest pools
-reflect a hunter's flare; sombre and silent, eons of
-savagery flickered in her glance.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>From her the watcher's evil face turned to the Cree,
-who was skinning a deer that hung by the hams from a
-poplar crotch.  The heavy, clammy odor of fresh blood
-hung thick in the air, filled his nostrils as he lay, like
-primitive man by the mouth of his enemy's cave, watching
-the knife slip around the carcass.  Savage could not
-have been more wicked of intent.  Again and again his
-hand gripped his own knife, always to fall again at sight
-of the rifle that leaned against the Red River cart, close
-to the Indian's hand.  And thus he waited, baleful glance
-flickering between man and woman, till the deer was
-dressed and loaded upon the cart.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That modified without changing his purpose.  "Going
-to camp first thing in the morning," he thought, as he
-crawled away.  "Always goes alone."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Back once more with his team, he kicked the wet grass
-from the smudge, and after eating ravenously of the
-cook's provision by its flame, he spread his blankets and
-lay down, head propped on his hand, back to his team.
-He did not sleep; simply stared into the fire, or listened
-to the varied voices of the night.  Now there would
-be a sighing, breathing among the trees, creaking of
-branches, soft rustlings.  Then the night would talk
-loudly on a hush as of death—a loon laughed at the owl's
-solemn questioning, a fox barked among the sand-hills;
-the boom of a bittern came in from some dark lake; he
-heard the lynx scream again, loudly, shrilly, as a
-tortured child.  Then the wind again, or a greater hush in
-which he heard only the crackling of his fire as he
-replenished its dying flame.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>On these occasions a long trail of sparks would fly
-upward, and one, a tiny ember, at last wrought a strange
-thing.  Passing over and behind him, it nested in the
-frazzle of tow at the knot of the stallion's frayed halter;
-where it smoked and glowed, growing larger, brighter.
-Lowering his ugly head, the beast sniffed at the strange
-red flower, then backed away as it burst into a bouquet
-of flame under his coaxing breath.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Stan' still!" Michigan growled, without, however,
-looking around.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The stallion stood—till the end of the burned rope
-dropped to the ground.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Even then some time elapsed before he realized that
-he was free; but when he did—he turned white, wicked
-eyes on the resting man.  Was that short worm the fiend
-that had ruled him?  He stepped.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Stan' still!" Michigan growled again.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The familiar voice gave the stallion pause—a moment.
-For, out of the tail of his eye, Michigan presently saw and
-became cognizant of a most curious thing—of a shadow,
-huge, black, upreared above himself.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Uttering a hoarse cry, he tried to rise—too late.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>So, in the midst of his turbulence, passed Michigan
-Red, but the evil that he had done mightily all the days
-of his life followed him into death, for the pounding hoofs
-spread embers of his fire over a leafy carpet, where the
-night wind found them.  Leaping under its breath, small
-flames writhed tortuously across the glade to the thing
-that had been a man—touched and tasted its clothing
-with delicate lickings, then flashed up and sprang from
-the smouldering cinder into thick scrub, and so ran with
-incredible swiftness through the forest.  Crouched, like
-a runner, at first, close to the ground, it suddenly
-straightened and bounded high over a patch of dry poplar burned
-by a former fire, cowered again, to crawl through thick
-green spruce, and so stole softly on, as though to catch
-the Cree in his sleep.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As well try to singe a weasel.  Already the Cree was
-urging his ragged pony, with squaw and papoose, towards
-Carter's camp, and, balked there, the fire swung with the
-veering wind into poplar woods, and flamed on, a roaring,
-ebullient tide, overtopping the tallest trees.  Under its
-effulgence, black lakes and sullen tarns flashed out of
-thick night with scared deer, belly-deep in the water.
-Huge owls went flapping through the smoke, leading the
-ducks, geese, vagrant flocks of the night, leaving hawks
-and other day birds to circle, shrieking, ere they whizzed
-down to a fiery death.  Gaining strength from its own
-draught and the freshening wind, it flowed, at an angle,
-over the railroad and poured down both sides, licking up
-bridges, trestles, culverts, leaving the hot rails squirming
-like scorched snakes in empty space; and so, about
-midnight, roared on to the great trestle at which Michigan
-had paused that afternoon, and where Carter had lined
-up his men.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Roused by the Cree from a dream of Helen to a nightmare
-of flaming skies, Carter first sent out a gang under
-command of Hart and Smythe to back-fire around the
-camp, then loaded the remaining crews on flat-cars and
-raced the fire down to the trestle.  Bender, who was with
-him in the engine-cab, leaned to his ear as the train pulled
-out of the cut.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Michigan Red?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Looks it."  Nodding, Carter turned to watch the
-rails which gleamed under the sky-glow, running like
-scarlet lines on black ribbon between dark, serried ranks
-of spruce.  "Lucky it is coming at an angle," he said,
-as the engine thundered over the first bridge.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Bender raised his big shoulders.  "If the wind
-don't shift?  But it generally does about this time o'
-night.  If she slips to the east—p-s-st! a puff of steam,
-a crackle, an' we're gone up like flies in a baker's oven."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter returned his shrug.  "As good a way as any."  He
-added, grimly smiling: "And very fit.  Give us a
-chance to get acclimated.  But with luck we ought to
-be able to wet her down and pull out south.  Without
-it we can lie down in the creek."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I like mine wet," Bender grinned.  "Drowning ain't
-exactly comfortable, but if there's to be any preference
-I'll take it."  And in the face of danger and disaster,
-Carter smiled again.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Starting out, it had seemed a toss-up between them
-and the fire, but the train rolled over the trestle and drew
-up in a cut on the southerly side, a quarter-hour to the
-good.  The creek ran under the northerly end, with a
-short approach to the bank, the bulk of the trestle
-leading over a quarter-mile of morass to firm ground; so
-Carter, with Bender, Carrots Smith, and other
-half-dozen, dropped buckets from the bridge to the stream,
-thirty feet below, and passed them to the men who were
-strung along the plates.  Dipping, drawing, dashing,
-they worked furiously under the glare of the conflagration.
-While still half a mile away, its heat set the trestle
-steaming.  At a quarter of a mile, the furious draught
-rained embers large as a man's hand upon the men, who
-turned their faces away from the blistering heat.
-Casting uneasy glances over humped shoulders, they began
-to increase their distances, edging along the south
-approach towards the train; but as they still maintained
-communications, neither Carter nor Bender took notice
-until they suddenly broke and ran.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Here!  Come back!"  Bender's angry roar drowned
-Carter's shout, and was lost, in turn, in a shrill whistling;
-for the engineer had seen that which had been hid from
-them.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"My God!" Carrots Smith cried; and Brady broke out
-in whimpering prayer to the saints.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>They stood, staring.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As aforesaid, the fire was running south and westerly
-at an acute angle to—in fact, almost paralleling the
-railroad, with its extreme point farthest away but already
-beyond the trestle.  And now, veering swiftly southeast,
-as Bender had feared, it swung at right angles and came
-broadside on, a fiery tide high over the forest.  To the
-engineer it seemed that the wind lifted a mass of flame
-and threw it bodily into a tangle of poplar-brake, red
-willow, tall reeds, and sedge at the trestle's south end.
-Dry, explosively inflammable from a summer's heat, it
-touched off like a magazine, whirling skyward, a twisting
-water-spout of flame, and as he jerked wildly on his
-whistle he saw, as under the calcium of lurid melodrama,
-men running like wingless flies along the wet, black
-trestle.  Careening, the column fell across them.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Only the few who were drawing with Carter escaped that
-first explosive flame, and they gained only time to jump
-as the main fire came hurdling over the trees.  Falling,
-Carter saw the stream, blood-red; jagged rocks rising
-swiftly to meet him.  A flash blinded his eyes, then—</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>He rubbed them—that is, he winked, for he was far
-too weak for such robust exercise.  Yes, he winked it.
-Was—could that be Helen's face bending low over him?</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="wherein-the-fates-substitute-a-change-of-bill"><span class="bold large">XXXI</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">WHEREIN THE FATES SUBSTITUTE A CHANGE OF BILL</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Carter winked again.  The face, however, did not
-move.  On the contrary, it lit up with sudden
-delight and said smile helped his limping consciousness
-forward to the idea of a dream.  Yes, he was dreaming,
-undoubtedly dreaming!  No!  Here memory took hold
-and gave him back the flaming forest; wet rocks, rising
-swiftly from red water, carried him back and left him
-at the precise moment that he had struck a projecting
-timber.  He was falling!  Involuntarily he stiffened,
-expecting the shock ... but—ah! a clew!  He was
-dead—of the fall; and this?  Must be heaven, or why
-Helen?  </span><em class="italics">If</em><span> t'other place?  'Twas not so bad as long as
-she was there!  Here his eye, through removal of the face,
-touched the whitewashed ceiling, then wandered to blank
-walls, a stand with medicine, covered glasses and spoons,
-a linen-press, two chairs—he arrived at truth, a hospital!
-Then, tired out by these strenuous mental exercises, his
-eyes closed once more, to the ineffable relief of the
-anxious watcher, and sleep, natural sleep, replaced the coma
-that had held him these two days.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For a while Helen listened to his breathing, then, once
-sure that he was really asleep, she tiptoed out to the
-corridor and, under urge of relief, ran, fairly flew, with
-her good news to the head doctor's office.  For these
-had been days of haggard waiting, as, for the matter of
-that, had the last two weeks—Bender's battles, Carter's
-triumph, the strike and forest fire had all been packed
-into ten short days.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Beginning at the morning after she saw Carter at
-dinner with the general manager, her joyful prayer had
-gone with the jubilant roar of press and people at the
-ceding of the crossing, and for several following days her
-ears drank thirstily of the plaudits which were universal
-in the hospital, on the street, at her boarding-house.
-When, indeed, the topic cropped up at her first
-operation, her fingers trembled so over a bandage that
-Carruthers excused her, thinking the sight of blood had
-turned her sick.  At Jean Glaves's table she had to veil
-the eager exultance of her eyes.  The merchants who
-were discussing competition in freight rates on the street
-would have stared could they have heard the heart-cry
-of the pretty nurse then passing.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He did it!  Yes, he is very clever—all that you say!
-But you cannot have him, for he is mine!  I'll lend him
-to you—for a while!  But I must have him back!  He's
-mine! mine! mine!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>From breathing the rare atmosphere of these exalted
-heights, she had been precipitated by the strike into
-bottom deeps of despair, and while agonizing therein
-over additional rumors of Greer &amp; Smythe's impending
-failure, a morning paper came to her breakfast-table with
-six-inch fire scareheads and a long tale of burns, bruises,
-breakages that would have been longer but for the
-softness of the morass.  Carter, Bender, Brady, Carrots
-Smith, all who were on the trestle, had been more or less
-injured; and six bridges, five trestles, dozens of culverts
-had gone up in smoke, a maleficent memorial to Michigan
-Red, before the conflagration back-fired itself out among
-labyrinthian lakes.  But she paused not at the tale.
-The injured were on the way to the hospital, and with
-that piece of news clutched to her bosom she ran all the
-way and broke, at one time, a rule that was as the law
-of the Medes and Persians and the privacy of the head
-doctor's study.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It will be easily seen that under such circumstances
-her hysterical gaspings were not exactly informing, but a
-man does not attain to headship of a hospital without
-ability to extract truth from obscure premises—what else
-is diagnosis?—and when, indicating the heading that
-told of Carter's injuries, she gasped, "My husband!" the
-Head grasped every detail of the situation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I must nurse him!" she pleaded.  "Must! must!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A man prodigiously dignified and very solemn behind
-imposing glasses, the Head offered a stereotyped
-objection; but it speaks for the feeling beneath his
-dessicated exterior that he eventually set rules and regulations
-at defiance, and outraged the discipline and morale
-maintained by the Scotch head nurse, by appointing her, a
-novitiate, to a capital case.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"But remember," he said.  "Only if you can forget,
-for the present, that he is your husband?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He did not believe she could, and had been astonished
-by her quiet, almost mechanical performance of duty
-during those two harrowing days.  For he did not see her
-leaning over the inanimate form when alone in the ward;
-her strained watching, desperate listenings for the first
-flutter of the returning spirit.  Now he did see her
-flushed delight, and muttered to himself as Carruthers,
-the under surgeon, hastened with her to Carter's
-bedside: "I suppose I ought to tell </span><em class="italics">him</em><span>! ... What's the use;
-he'll hear soon enough."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So her secret was kept, and being uninformed of the
-matrimonial complications in the case, the surgeon set
-her delighted flutterings to professional interest and so
-joined her felicitations.  "'Twas touch and go," he
-whispered.  "Few could stand such a crack on the
-head; must have made an omelet of his brains and his
-fever was hot enough to fry it.  But he'll pull through,
-Mistress Morrill, and it is good that he will, for he's
-a gran' character, fine and useful to the province."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>To indulge a pleasant conceit, that refreshing sleep may
-be regarded as an intimation of the fates that comedy
-was about to be substituted for impending tragedy upon
-the boards; and the opening of Carter's eyes may very
-well be considered as the rise of the curtain on the first,
-and what would also have been the last, act had he been
-in the enjoyment of his usual health and strength.
-Lacking these, he could only take things as he found
-them; chief over all, a demure nurse who administered
-bitter draughts or took his pulse without sign of
-recognition, compunction, or emotion.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As her shapely back always hid the pencil when she
-noted her observations on the chart, he could not see it
-tremble; and how was he to know that the pulse-taking
-was a sham?  That she could feel only her own heart
-thudding five thousand thuds to the minute?  That
-she had to guess the pulse by his temperature, which
-cardinal crime of the nurse's calendar was partly
-condoned, because if she </span><em class="italics">had</em><span> set down its vibrations
-at the moments she held his hand, every doctor in
-the hospital would have come running as to a lost
-cause.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Ignorant of all this, he could only lie and watch her
-moving about the ward, tantalizingly trim and pretty in
-her nurse's dress; wait till some softening of her coldness
-would justify the clean confession he ached to make.
-Always the desire was with him and it waxed with the
-days.  But whether or no she discerned it lurking
-behind his surreptitious glances, she afforded no
-opportunity, and what can a man do against a fate that nips
-every approach to the tender with nasty medicine or
-chill phrase—"You are not to talk."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I believe you like to give me that stuff," he growled
-one day.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Doctor's orders," she severely replied, and her stony
-face effectually repressed him while indicating that she
-was not to be drawn from her vantage-ground by that
-or a sudden remark—"It seems strange to see you in
-that uniform."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Doesn't feel so to me," she coldly answered, adding,
-with a spice of malice, "If it did I should get used to it,
-for I expect to wear it for the next three years."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He winced, and he did not see her smile as he gave her
-his angry back—that or her droopings over his sleep an
-hour thereafter.  Alone in the quiet ward, bent so low
-that her breath moved the hair on his temples, the
-occasion vividly recalled the night, long ago, when she
-had watched the moon etch with line and shadow the
-promise of the future upon his face.  It lay there now,
-under her soft breath, the fulfilment.  For two years
-stress and struggle had tooled away every roughness and
-left the accomplished promise, a man wrought by
-circumstance to a great fineness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She also had changed—from a well-intentioned if
-careless girl to a thoughtful woman.  Contact with life in
-the rough had rubbed the scales from her eyes and now
-she saw clearly—many things, but all centring on one.
-Outside people were declaiming against the vindictive
-fate that had joined with the monopoly against this
-their champion.  That morning's papers had it that
-Greer &amp; Smythe were surely ruined.  Yet she was
-glad, overjoyed.  Wealthy and honored, it would have
-been difficult to the verge of impossibility for her to go
-back to him.  Always she would have felt that he might
-doubt her motives.  But now—</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It's time to take your medicine!"  She sprang up as
-he opened his eyes, wondering if he had felt her light
-kiss.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Had he, it would have been "curtain" there and then,
-but as he did not the play went on, and its sequence
-proves that, however honorable her intentions, she had
-by no means relinquished her sex's unalienable right to
-bring things about in its own illogical, tantalizing,
-perversely charming way.  Drooping over his sleep,
-hoping that he would wake and catch her, she took care that
-he should not—assumed a statuesque coldness at the
-first quiver of his eyelids.  Undoubtedly, and with her
-sex's habitual unfairness, she scandalously abused her
-position, exercising a tyranny that was as sweet to
-herself as mortifying to him.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You must not do that—must do this—now go to
-sleep."  She hugged her power in place of him, and
-when he achieved a successful revolt against her ban of
-silence by appealing to the Head for permission to talk
-with Smythe, she revenged herself by injecting a
-personal interest into her dealings with Carruthers.  It was
-madness for him to see their heads close together over
-his chart; the shining eyes she brought back from
-whispered conferences in the hall.  To be sure, it was all
-about pills and plasters, but how was he to know that?
-And it was in revenge for this shamelessly injurious
-conduct that he arranged the scene which opens the second act.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>On the morning that he was promoted from spoon-feed
-to the dignity of a tray, behold him! head bent, elbows
-square with his ears, knife and fork grabbed at their
-points, proving his indifference to her opinion by the
-worst behavior that recent better practice permitted.
-Alas! he was cast all through for a losing part.  Displaying,
-before his face, the irritating curiosity which a child
-bestows on a feeding lion, she privately peeped from
-behind the door-screen, gloated over the old familiar
-spectacle.  She caught him coming and going.  Also
-she turned a delighted ear when he dropped into the
-homely settler speech; listened for the old locutions; but
-called his bluff when he overdid the part by running
-amuck of the grammar in a manner frightful to behold.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I really don't see why you talk like that," she
-remarked, patronizingly.  "You speak quite well, almost
-correctly, to Dr. Hammand and Mr. Smythe."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Yes?" he retorted.  "I didn't notice.  Mebbe you'll
-correct me if I side-step it again?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But the last case of that man was worse than the
-first.  "Thank you," she coldly answered.  "I have
-given up teaching school."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He sniffed sarcastically.  "Hum!  Shouldn't have
-known it.  I always heard that the spanking habit stuck
-through life.  But don't give up.  Remember the copybook
-line, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'"  But
-she was going out of the door at the time and took
-care that he should think she had not heard.  "You
-were speaking?" she inquired, coming back.  And, of
-course, it would not bear repetition.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He fared just as illy when, next morning, Bender
-hobbled into the ward with the aid of a crutch and cane.
-Having been visited by the lady protagonist, the giant
-was fully informed on the situation and so achieved a
-sly wink behind his chief's sarcastic introductions.
-"Mr. Bender—Mrs. Morrill."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Also her quiet answer was disconcerting.  "We have
-met before.  Have you heard from Jenny lately, Mr. Bender?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Now Bender had.  A letter, small note, simple and
-direct as Jenny herself, was even then burning his pocket,
-and, blushing like a school-boy caught in the theft of
-apples, he produced and read it.  If he insisted—was
-perfectly certain that he couldn't get well without
-her—Jenny would!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"'Fraid I took a mean advantage," he confessed.
-"Reg'lar cold-decked her.  You see, a busted ankle
-ain't much to spread on, so I hinted at complications.
-She sure thinks I'm dyin,' an' when she comes she'll find
-me hopping around."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, well."  Carter glanced stealthily at Helen.  "She
-has oceans of time to pay you.  With any old luck you
-are good for eighty-five, and it doesn't take a loving wife
-that length of time to get even."  For which insolence
-he paid instantly and doubly—first by a nasty dose,
-secondly by loss of Bender, who was summarily ejected
-under pretext of its being the patient's hour for sleep.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>So the war ran, and it did seem as though circumstance
-never tired of impressing allies for Helen's cause.
-Take Dorothy Chester, who called with Hart next day.
-She, like Carruthers, could only take the situation at face
-values, and so enthused over his luck in nurses; to all of
-which—in Helen's absence—Carter subscribed till
-Dorothy reached her climax.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"And Dr. Carruthers thinks so, too.  Wouldn't it be
-nice if they made a match of it?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She was astounded by the heat of his reply.  "No!
-A Scotch dromedary, suckled on predestination and
-damnation of infants?  Pretty husband he'd make!"  But
-she solved his vehemence for Hart's benefit on the
-way home.  "He's in love with her himself."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Between patient and doctor?  What a mix-up!"  Hart
-laughed.  "Odds are on the doctor if he's up to his
-job.  I'd hate to be Carter on the chance of an
-overdose."  For which flippancy his ears were well pulled.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As he said, things were undoubtedly a little tangled,
-and if at first glance it would appear that Dorothy had
-not assisted in the unravelling, closer scrutiny shows
-that her remark helped at least to bring affairs to a head.
-For the remainder of the day Carter was very thoughtful,
-so preoccupied that he forgot to misbehave over his
-supper-tray while, time and again, Helen caught him
-surveying herself with a dark uneasiness.  Puzzled, she
-came back to the ward before leaving and stood at the
-foot of his bed; but as yet his fever was confined to his
-mind, and he replied that he was feeling quite well to her
-question.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The "good-night" she wished him was not, however,
-for him.  Always darkness magnifies trouble, and through
-its black lens he saw suspicions as facts.  Tossing
-restlessly, he heard the city clock chime the quarters, halves,
-hours, until, at twelve, the night nurse's lantern revealed
-him wide-eyed, staring, and knowing the efficacy of a
-change of thought in producing sleep, she stayed for a chat.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Correct enough in theory, the treatment proved about
-as successful as would the application of a blister upon
-a sore; for he bent the conversation to his own uses,
-steering it by a circuitous route through the girl's own
-experience to Helen.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She was liked in the hospital?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Indeed she was!  The night nurse was emphatic on
-that, and went on to say that beauty such as Helen's was
-not generally conducive of popularity.  No, it wasn't
-jealousy!  The nurse tossed her head at his question.
-Simply that pretty girls didn't have to be nice, so usually
-left amiability to be assumed with a double chin; and
-being a frank as well as a merry creature, she confessed
-to an accession of that desirable quality every time she
-saw her own nose in a glass.  But Helen Morrill?  She
-was sweet as she was pretty!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Dr. Carruthers thought so, too?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Well—the nurse would smile!  And everybody in the
-hospital was glad of it.  They would make such a perfect
-couple, an ideal match!</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was as good as settled, then?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Well—not given out yet, but every one knew!  Her
-lantern being on the floor, she could not see his face, and
-he lay so quiet she thought he had fallen asleep, and was
-tiptoeing away when he spoke again.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But—</span><em class="italics">Mrs.</em><span> Morrill?  She had been married before!
-Her husband—dead?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If he wasn't he ought to be—the nurse was sure of that.
-There was only one place for a man who could not live
-with such a nice girl.  And if he were not—divorce was
-about as good in ridding one of the beast!  With which
-she picked up her lantern and left him in darkness and
-despair.  When she came next on her rounds she thought
-him asleep, but he resumed his restless tossings as soon
-as her back was turned.  Dawn, however, betrayed him,
-and sent her flying to the head doctor with his pulse
-and temperature.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"He was all right last night!" the latter exclaimed.
-"Bring his chart down to the office."  Studying it while
-he mixed sedatives a little later, he said: "Awake at
-midnight—hum!  Talked, did he?  What about?
-Mrs. Morrill?"  He snatched truth out of her as though it
-had been an appendix.  "Spoke of her and
-Dr. Carruthers?—ah! ha!  Well, give him this and send
-Mrs. Morrill to me when she comes in."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>If short, the interview did not lack excitement when,
-a couple of hours later, Helen opposed the freshness of
-the morning to the Head's angry glare.  Her delicate
-colors, the eyes cleared by sleep and full of light, were
-enough to have softened the heart of a Gorgon, but
-served only to irritate him, who looked upon them as so
-much material gone to waste.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What have you done?" he roared after her.  "Look
-at that!"  And went on as her distressed eyes came back
-from the chart: "You have done nothing—that's the
-trouble.  Why did I appoint you to this case?  Because
-of your vast experience?  No, because I thought you
-could administer something outside of medical practice.
-And now he's dying—of jealousy.  You have done it;
-you must cure him."  And taking her by the arm as
-though she were a medicine-tray, he marched her to
-Carter's ward, gave her a shake at the door like a
-bottle that is to be "well shaken before taken," and thrust
-her in with the parting admonition, "Now, do your duty."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Here was an embarrassing position!  Surely never
-before had nurse such orders—to administer love, like
-a dose, that, forsooth, to a patient who had already
-turned his broad back on her charms.  Now did she pay
-toll of blushes for the perversity that had checked his
-every overture.  How should—how </span><em class="italics">could</em><span> she begin?</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Pleating and unpleating her apron, she stood at the
-foot of his bed, the prettiest picture of perplexity
-ever vouchsafed to gaunt, unshaven man.  A week's
-stubble did not improve his appearance any more than
-his unnatural color, fixed, glazed eyes.  But soon as a
-timid glance gave her these—she was on her knees
-beside him.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Is that you, Helen?"  Before she could speak he
-burst out in a sudden irruption of speech.  "I'm so glad;
-there's something I want to tell you."  Then it came, in a
-flood that washed away his natural reserve, the
-confession—his remorse for his obstinacy, the sorrow that had
-tamed his anger, his yearning through weary months for
-an overture from her; his ignorance of the settler's
-persecution, scorn of scandalous rumors; his attempts to
-communicate with and find her; all, down to his
-observation of her liking for Carruthers, finishing: "Through
-all, my every thought has been of you.  But now—I see.
-It was a mistake, our marriage.  It was wrong to
-couple roughness with refinement.  So if you wish—"  Her
-face was now buried in her arms, and he gently
-touched the golden hair.  "Last night I made up my
-mind to bring no more misery into your life.  But now
-... that I see you ... it is difficult; ... but ... if you
-wish—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He got no further, for speech is impossible when a soft
-hand stoppers one's mouth.  And while he was thus
-effectually gagged, she took a mean advantage: told him
-just what she thought of him.  Such a stupid!  A big
-man, so very strong, but oh, </span><em class="italics">so</em><span> silly!  Did he really
-think that she—any girl—would have waited upon him
-in such circumstances unless—  Here she had to release
-his mouth to wipe away the streaming tears, and his
-question came out like an explosion:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"What?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She told him, or, rather, conveyed the information
-in the orthodox way with lovers.  This takes time,
-and becoming suddenly alive to the fact that he was
-sitting up in bed, she resumed her authority to make
-him lie down.  In view of his condition she was certainly
-justified in using force to compel obedience; but was it
-right, was it proper for her, a nurse duly accredited
-to the case, to leave her arms about him?  Well, she
-did, and—scandalous predicament!—her golden head
-was lying beside his on the pillow when the door opened
-for the matron, Carruthers, and the Head on their
-morning rounds.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Well—I declare!  </span><em class="italics">Fine</em><span> goings on!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Helen's faint cry of dismay was drowned by the
-matron's horrified exclamation, but Carter rose to the
-situation.  "Miss Craig, doctor—my wife."  He could
-not include Carruthers, who retired precipitously, and
-was then just outside the door, swallowing hugely in
-vain attempts to get what looked like a monstrous pill,
-but was really his heart, back to its proper place.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Your what?"  Having the general objections to
-matrimony which come with prim old maidhood, the
-matron almost screamed: "Good gracious, man!  Couldn't
-you have waited till you were sure you wouldn't need a
-minister to bury you?"  And she tossed a high head at
-his answer.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"No, ma'am.  We were that impatient we got married
-two years ago."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>There she slid one in on him with a sniff of disdain.
-"Two years!  Imph!  One would never have thought
-it.  And just look at this ward!  Doctors' rounds and
-ward unswept, bed unmade; I doubt whether you've
-had your medicine!  I'll send up another nurse at once.
-As for you, Mrs.—Carter"—she paused, flouncing out
-of the door—"you are—"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She intended "discharged," but the head doctor
-interposed twinkling glasses between Helen and destruction.
-"She was merely giving treatment according to orders."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>How the matron stared!  "Treatment?  Orders?
-Whose orders, pray?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mine."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her response as she bustled away, "Has every one
-gone mad!" set them all smiling, and Carter's remark,
-"A bit too long in the oven," eloquently described her
-crustiness.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But if long study of people from interior views had
-left the matron purblind as to outward signs, sympathies,
-and emotions, she was not so short-sighted but
-that she came to a full stop at the sight of Carruthers,
-who stood, hands clinched, like a naughty boy, face to
-the wall.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"You poor man!"  But though her tone was gentle
-as her touch on his shoulder, he threw her hand fiercely
-away and strode off uttering an unmistakable "damn."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Another lunatic!" she tartly commented, and was
-confirmed in that flattering opinion when, instead of
-pining in romantic fashion, he fell in love again and
-married a sweet girl the following summer.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Left thus alone in the case, the head doctor nodded
-his satisfaction at the patient's decided improvement,
-while his further instructions were short as
-pleasant—"Same treatment, continued at intervals."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>These orders, be sure, were faithfully observed.
-Indeed, he had scarcely passed out than—but the next
-hour is their's, intrusion would be impertinent.
-Sufficient that its confidences left each possessed of the
-other's every thought and feeling throughout their
-separation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Her eyes dancing, she broke a happy silence to say:
-"You were dreadfully transparent.  Did you really
-think I couldn't see through your misbehavior?"  Then
-she told of how Dorothy had confided to her his appeal
-to Hart and efforts at self-improvement.  "But," she
-added, with a sigh that was almost plaintive, "I wouldn't
-have cared."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Also she told him of her proud espionage upon him at
-the general manager's dinner; in return for which she
-learned how he had waited at the forks of his own trail
-that winter's night—waited while his ponies shivered in
-the bitter wind until he picked hers and Elinor Leslie's
-voices from the groan of passing runners.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>She remembered.  "Oh, was that you?  Why didn't
-you come in?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I would—at least I think I would have," he
-corrected, "if you'd been alone.  By-the-way, I saw her
-in Minneapolis the other day.  She was taking an order
-from a fat Frenchman in a restaurant where Smythe and
-I had turned in for dinner.  Luckily her back was
-turned, so we got out without her seeing me.  But I
-caught her profile and she looked dreadfully weak and
-thin."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"A waitress?" Helen cried.  "Oh, the poor thing!
-Couldn't you have—"  Pausing, she confirmed his
-wisdom.  "No, it was better she did not see you."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Silence fell between them, he thinking of the
-temptation in the warm gloaming, she busy with her own
-memories.  Helen's watch beat like a pulse in the quiet;
-a house-fly rivalled the full boom of a bee as it battered
-its head against the window-pane, a futile illustration of
-Elinor Leslie's folly.  Just so had she beaten at the
-invisible barriers that held her back from free passion.
-Now she lay, poor soul, bruised and beaten like a dying
-moth, wings singed by a single touch of the unholy flame.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But sadness could not hold them.  Smiling, Helen
-suddenly relieved herself of the astonishing remark:
-"I am so glad you are ruined.  Yes, I am."  She nodded
-firmly, misreading his comical surprise.  "Now we can
-go back to the farm—just you and I—be ever so happy."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Why?"  He listened with huge enjoyment to her
-explanation, then said, with mock concern, "It would
-be fine, and I'm that sorry to disappoint you, but—who
-said I was ruined?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Oh, everybody—the papers said this morning that—what
-is that funny name?  Yes, Mr. Brass Bowels—that
-he had bought up enough of your liabilities to snow
-you under."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"They did, did they?  Well—they have another
-guess coming."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Aren't you ruined?" she asked.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But though he laughed at her naïve distress, he
-refused to say more, laughingly assuring her that she
-would not be long in suspense.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Nor had she long to wait.  For as she was giving him
-his medicine the following afternoon, he bobbed up under
-her hand as though set on wire springs to the detriment
-of the snowy quilt, which absorbed the dose.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Listen!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>A whistle, deep-toned, fully two octaves below the
-shrill hoot of the monopoly's locomotives, thrilled in the
-distance.  Drawing nearer, its vibrant bass gave the
-entire city pause—clerks waited, pens poised for a
-stroke; lawyers dropped their briefs; store-keepers,
-laborers, mechanics, the very Indians in the camps by
-the river, stood on gaze; motion ceased as at the voice
-of the falked siren; a hush fell in the streets, a silence
-complete as that of some enchanted city.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It carried consternation into the offices of the monopoly,
-that whistle.  Sparks, the division superintendent,
-dropped his pen and stared at his chief, who was giving
-last orders for the demolition of Greer &amp; Smythe before
-he went back East.  The latter's iron nerve, however,
-vouchsafed only a breathing space to surprise, then he
-continued in the same dry tones: "Previous instructions
-are hereby cancelled.  That's an American whistle,
-Sparks—Jem Ball for a thousand.  They've won out;
-it's all over but the shouting."  And as eager tumult
-broke loose in the street, he added, "And there it goes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The shouting?  They poured into the streets—doctors,
-lawyers, clerks, laborers; carpenters jumped from new
-buildings, plumbers left their braziers burning while they
-swelled the stream that poured out to see the first train,
-an engine with Pullman and palace-car, pull in over the
-new line.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Shout?  They did—and more.  Your canny Canadian
-is the deil at celebrating when his backslidings carry him
-that way, and next morning many a worthy citizen
-sweated in thinking back to the cause of his headache.
-Ay, good church-members lugged flasks of old Scotch
-from blameless-appearing pockets; the carpenter
-exchanged news and drams with the millionaire.  The
-N.P. had bought the new road!  No, only leased it!
-No! no! they were merely to finance the enterprise,
-market its bonds in return for reciprocal traffic
-arrangements!  There were other theories, all spun round a germ
-of truth, but thence to the source.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>As the siren sounded the second time, Carter looked
-at Bender, who sat opposite Helen, having dropped in
-for a chat, and his remark carries back to the strike.
-"Now you know why we went to Minneapolis.  What
-does it all mean?"  His face lit up as he turned to Helen.
-"It means cars, locomotives, rolling-stock; the use of
-N.P. equipment till we can instal our own.  That we
-can rebuild the burned bridges this fall, and shove a
-temporary line through to Silver Creek and the camps
-in the Riding Mountains.  It means that the Red
-River Valley will send its wheat south to Duluth this
-fall.  It means—victory for us, competition for the
-province."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>That was his hour, but Helen shared it—even when
-Greer and Smythe ushered in the American railway-king.
-Twin to the general manager in massive build
-and strength of feature, he had come from a softer mould.
-His eyes, mouth were gentler, more pleasant.  In him
-the high, sloping forehead—mark of the dreamer—was
-qualified by the strong jaw, wide-spaced eyes of the man
-of practical affairs.  A glance told that here imagination
-and constructive power went hand in hand.  Fun
-rippled and ran over innumerable fine facial lines, and he
-laughed out loud when Helen made to withdraw, assuring
-her that their conversation would not tax her sex's
-supposed weakness in the matter of secrets as they were not
-to talk business.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"We think too much of this man to bother him with
-details," he said.  "These gentlemen have attended to
-everything, and all we require is his signature to a few
-papers.  Celebrations won't be in order till he's well
-enough to run down to St. Paul.  Then—well, you'd
-better not let him come alone."  So, talking and laughing
-for a pleasant half-hour, he gave off his superabundant
-energy until the ward was charged, then went away
-leaving the patient stimulated to the verge of open
-mutiny.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"I'm as well as you."  He defied the Head to his face
-that evening.  "Send up my clothes."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"In two weeks, if you are good!" the Head calmly
-answered.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"</span><em class="italics">Two weeks</em><span>?  I'll be head over heels in work by
-then, and there is something I want to do first.  I'll be
-out of here in one."  And, albeit a trifle chalky as to
-complexion and wobbly of knee, he was.  On the last
-day—</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>But first the record of that week; and as Bender's bulk
-overshadows all else, behold him, mid-week, hobbling into
-the ward with Jenny trailing behind like a kitten in the
-wake of the family house dog.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mrs. Bender, if you please," he corrected Carter,
-chuckling; and for once he permitted some one else to
-do the blushing.  Wherein he showed great taste, as
-she did it right prettily, exhibiting, moreover, a much
-superior article.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Next day, Dorothy, becomingly mortified because
-the good news had come to her through her father out of
-Smythe.  "To hear of it in such a roundabout way!"
-she declared.  "You little traitor! and when I think of
-your speculations about his wife!  Positively I had
-resolved never to forgive you, but—"  Kisses, of course.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Thereafter, Brady, Big Hans, Carrots Smith—all more
-or less singed and nursing various breakages—ostensibly
-to see the boss, really to take a look at his pretty wife,
-whom, they decided, shamed the specifications.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Then, to everybody's astonishment—indeed, the
-Head shadowed the man along the corridor as though
-he were an anarchist with a bomb in his pocket—the
-</span><em class="italics">General Manager</em><span>! brisk, steel-like, yet twinkling.
-"Trounced us, didn't you?" he laughed.  "Well, one
-never can tell when one has made an end.  Competition?
-Perhaps, for a while; but wait till Jem Ball and I get a
-bellyful of fighting.  However, by that time you'll be
-well cured of your desires for the public weal and be
-ready to listen to reason.  Oh yes, you will!  We all
-take 'em like chicken-pox or measles, but they are not
-fatal—unless you get 'em late in life.  I feel so sure of
-your eventual recovery that I just dropped in to bury
-the hatchet.  Fifty years won't see the finish of our
-plans, and whenever you feel a yearning for fresh
-enterprises, just look me up."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Therewith the gray cynic hurried away to plan and
-scheme, upbuild, tear down, without slack or satiety of
-enormous constructive appetite; to live in travail greater
-than the labor of woman, and give birth ceaselessly to
-innumerable works; to inundate the plains with seas of
-wheat and carry bread to Europe's teeming millions; to
-sow towns, villages, cities broadcast over the north,
-make farms for countless thousands; to join Occident
-and Orient with gleaming rails, clipper ships, to do evil
-consciously all his days and work unconscious good,
-crushing the individual for the weal of the race, and
-caring nothing for either; to live feared and die respected,
-leaving the world bigger and better than he found it.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Lastly, the cook, just down from the camp with news
-of Michigan Red.  Flying in front of the fire, the black
-stallion had come in with the rat-tailed mare to be shot
-as a murderer after the Cree had tracked down the Thing
-that had been his master; and so, if there be aught in
-Cree mythology, the soul of the fierce brute would fight
-it out once more with the fiercer man in the place of the
-teamsters.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>While beguiling the tedium, these tales and conversations
-failed to exclude from Carter's ear a distant hammering
-that attended the building of his station and
-freight-sheds.  Also he could hear the hoarse coughing of
-locomotives going up and down his line.  And as the
-</span><em class="italics">materia medica</em><span> contains no tonics like happiness and
-success, small wonder that, as aforesaid, he demanded
-his clothes at the end of the week.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Once you get hold of a fellow you are never satisfied
-till you have gone all through his clock-work," he replied
-to the Head's objections.  "But though I sympathize
-with your industry, you'll have to wait for another go
-at mine.  They are needed in my business."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>First—Helen with him, of course—he directed his
-steps, or rather the wheels of a hack, to the new station
-where the ring of saws, hammering, noise and bustle of
-work, acted upon him like the draught of the elixir of
-life, bringing color to his cheeks, stiffness to his knees,
-sparkle to his eyes.  Thence they drove for a conference
-to Greer &amp; Smythe's; whereafter nothing would suit
-him but a long drive out to the prairies.  It was a
-strenuous beginning, but fresh air and sunshine are ever
-potent.  He gained color and strength under her anxious
-eyes; seemed fresher when he dropped her at Jean Glaves's
-house that evening than in the morning.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Throughout the happy day they had lived in the
-present.  But though he had made no plan for the
-future, she had trusted, and her face lit up with flashing
-intuition when he said good-night.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mistress Morrill, you are to take the morning train
-to Lone Tree."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This was the "something he wanted to do."</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst" id="the-trail-again"><span class="bold large">XXXII</span></p>
-<p class="center pnext"><span class="bold medium">THE TRAIL AGAIN</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Skipping that long if happy night, peep with dawn
-into Helen's bedroom, and see her up and singing
-small snatches of song that presently brought Jean
-Glaves, herself the earliest of birds, from bed to assist
-at the toilet.  Should she wear this, that, or the other?
-There was the usual doubt which beset a young lady who
-wishes to look her best for occasion; but the result
-that went forth from big Jean's hug?  A vision of
-healthy beauty that drew tentative smiles from a brace
-of drummers and attracted the stealthy regard of the
-entire station when she finally broke, like a burst of
-sunlight, on the platform.  Continuing the figure, the smile,
-its crowning asset, faded like the afterglow when her
-anxious eyes refused her the tall familiar figure; and
-when the train pulled out without him, her disconsolate
-expression filled the aforesaid drummers with manly
-longings towards consolation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Unpunctual?  On such an occasion?  And how silly
-she would look at Lone Tree!  Slightly offended at first,
-she then grew alarmed.  Perhaps he had suffered a
-relapse, was ill, dying!  Be sure that her terrors
-compassed the possible and impossible during an hour's
-journey, and not until she saw a man come dashing across
-the tracks to the Lone Tree platform did she realize the
-fulness of his inspiration.  He had taken the freight out
-the night before!  If thinner, paler, he was very like
-the young man who had come to meet her three years ago.
-There, also, was the lone poplar that had christened the
-station; the ramshackle town with its clapboard hotels,
-false-fronted stores, grain-sheds, sitting in the midst of
-the plains that, flat and infinitely yellow, ran with the
-tracks over a boundless horizon.  Lastly, there was Nels
-and his bleached grin, holding Death and the Devil,
-sleek, fat, and sinful as ever.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Carter's whispered greeting helped to keep her in the
-past.  "Is this Miss Morrill?"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Mr. Carter, I believe?" she had just time for the
-roguish answer, then their little comedy had to be laid
-aside till they were alone on trail.  For the doctor came
-running from his office, the store-keeper plunged madly
-across tracks, Hooper, the agent, yelled, "Well, I swan!"
-and jumped to shake hands, while from a grain-shed
-emerged Jimmy Glaves, who had taken a lift in with Nels.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Wasn't she glad to see them?  Yet a deeper happiness
-enveloped her when, looking back, she again saw Lone
-Tree, shrunken in the distance, its grain-sheds looking
-like red Noah's arks on a yellow carpet; when she heard
-only the pole and harness jigging a merry accompaniment
-to the beat of quick feet, whirring song of swift
-wheels.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>It was very like that first occasion.  Though stiff
-night frosts were now giving timely notice of winter's chill
-approach, the clerk of the weather had made special
-arrangements for a south wind; so it was warm as on
-that far day.  Birds, animals, scenery, too, all helped to
-bring the happy past forward to the happy present, while
-Death and the Devil, those wicked ones, fostered the
-illusion by frequent boltings.  Surely she remembered the
-ridge where her first coyote had caused her to cling to
-Carter, and earned a kiss by repetition of that shameful
-performance and faithful mimicry of his accent.  "He
-shore looks hungry."  Immediately thereafter they
-plunged out from among scattered farms into the "Dry
-Lands," but its yellow miles, generally a penance, flowed
-unnoticed under the buck-board.  They were both
-astonished when, suddenly as before, they rattled through
-a bluff and dropped over the edge of the valley upon
-Father Francis at the mission door.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Nothing would suit but that they must dine with him
-while Louis, the half-breed stableman, fed and watered
-the ponies.  But if the good priest's twinkle expressed
-knowledge that another of his day's works was come to
-fruitage, his quiet converse brought no jarring note into
-their communings.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Undisturbed, they began again at the ford and continued
-while the Park Lands rolled in great billows under
-the wheels.  The Cree chimneys, Indian graveyards,
-other well-remembered objects passed in pleasant
-procession ere, coming to Flynn's, he looked at her.  A
-shake of the head confirmed his doubt.  Another time!
-So they swept on through vast, sun-washed spaces where
-cattle wandered freely as the whispering winds under
-flitting cloud-shadows, and so, about sundown, came to
-their own place with but a single interruption.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Passing Danvers at their own forks, he grinned his
-delight as he turned out to let them by and shouted after:
-"Say!  I heard from Leslie!  He's doing well on the
-Rand!  Sends regards to both of you!"</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>While that bit of good news was still ringing in her
-ears, the house flashed out under the eaves of the forest,
-warm and bright under the setting sun.  All was
-unchanged—the lake, stained just now a ruby red, the
-golden stubble fenced in by dark, environing woods.
-Within all was neat and clean as Nels's racial passion for
-soap and water could make it.  So while he stabled the
-tired ponies, she donned one of her old aprons, rolled
-sleeves above dimpled elbows, and cooked supper;
-rather a superfluous performance aside from the grave
-pleasure he took in looking on.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Afterwards they sat on the doorstep, she between his
-knees, head pillowed against his breast, and looked
-at the copper moon that hung in the trees across the
-lake—watched it brighten to silver; listened to the
-harmonies of the night, the loon's weird alto, the
-bittern's bass, cry of a pivoting mallard, owl's solemn
-choral, a wilder, freer movement than was ever chained
-in a stave.  Once a snuffle, soft-lapping, drifted in, and
-he replied to her start, "Bear-drinking."  Otherwise
-they were silent up to the moment she arose, shivering.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"It is getting colder.  I think I'll go in."</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>He stayed a little longer, stretched luxuriously out on
-the grass; was still there when, having made their bed,
-she came to the door.  A vivid memory gave her pause.
-Just so had he looked—that night—dark, still, as the
-marble effigy of some old Crusader, with the moonlight
-quivering about him like an emanation.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>"Are you coming, dear?"  Perhaps the memory
-tinged her tone.  Anyway, he sprang up, arms extended,
-and as she came running, he lifted her clear of the ground;
-carried her in and closed the door.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 2em">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Her shiver had warrant.  Within the hour the north
-wind began to herd luminous clouds across the moon.
-At midnight the cabin loomed darkly through a bridal
-veil of white.</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 4em">
-</div>
-<p class="center pfirst"><span>THE END</span></p>
-<div class="vspace" style="height: 6em">
-</div>
-<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- -->
-<div class="backmatter">
-</div>
-<p class="pfirst" id="pg-end-line"><span>*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK </span><span>THE SETTLER</span><span> ***</span></p>
-<div class="cleardoublepage">
-</div>
-<div class="language-en level-2 pgfooter section" id="a-word-from-project-gutenberg" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
-<span id="pg-footer"></span><h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><span>A Word from Project Gutenberg</span></h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>We will update this book if we find any errors.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>This book can be found under: </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43450"><span>http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43450</span></a></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one
-owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and
-you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set
-forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to
-protect the Project Gutenberg™ concept and trademark. Project
-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge
-for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not
-charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is
-very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as
-creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.
-They may be modified and printed and given away – you may do
-practically </span><em class="italics">anything</em><span> with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
-redistribution.</span></p>
-<div class="level-3 section" id="the-full-project-gutenberg-license">
-<span id="project-gutenberg-license"></span><h3 class="level-3 pfirst section-title title"><span>The Full Project Gutenberg License</span></h3>
-<p class="pfirst"><em class="italics">Please read this before you distribute or use this work.</em></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
-Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
-Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
-</span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a><span>.</span></p>
-<div class="level-4 section" id="section-1-general-terms-of-use-redistributing-project-gutenberg-electronic-works">
-<h4 class="level-4 pfirst section-title title"><span>Section 1. General Terms of Use &amp; Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works</span></h4>
-<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">1.A.</strong><span> By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
-Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by
-the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
-or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.B.</strong><span> “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic
-works. See paragraph 1.E below.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.C.</strong><span> The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
-Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
-of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
-States. If an individual work is in the public domain in the United
-States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a
-right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
-that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free
-access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works
-in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project
-Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with
-the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format
-with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it
-without charge with others.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.D.</strong><span> The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
-govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
-countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
-United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms
-of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
-other Project Gutenberg™ work.  The Foundation makes no
-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
-country outside the United States.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.E.</strong><span> Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.E.1.</strong><span> The following sentence, with active links to, or other
-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
-on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
-phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<div>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>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 </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">1.E.2.</strong><span> If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
-derived from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating
-that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work
-can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without
-paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing
-access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with
-or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements
-of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of
-the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in
-paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.E.3.</strong><span> If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
-posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and
-distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and
-any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of
-this work.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.E.4.</strong><span> Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project
-Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a
-part of this work or any other work associated with Project
-Gutenberg™.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.E.5.</strong><span> Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute
-this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg™ License.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.E.6.</strong><span> You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other
-than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ web site
-(</span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a><span>), you must, at no additional cost, fee or
-expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a
-means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original
-“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include
-the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.E.7.</strong><span> Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.E.8.</strong><span> You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided
-that</span></p>
-<ul class="open">
-<li><p class="first pfirst"><span>You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you
-already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to
-the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to
-donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60
-days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally
-required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments
-should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4,
-“Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation.”</span></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first pfirst"><span>You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
-License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
-copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
-all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
-works.</span></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first pfirst"><span>You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
-any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
-receipt of the work.</span></p>
-</li>
-<li><p class="first pfirst"><span>You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.</span></p>
-</li>
-</ul>
-<p class="pfirst"><strong class="bold">1.E.9.</strong><span> If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
-Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
-from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and
-Michael Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact
-the Foundation as set forth in Section 3. below.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.F.</strong></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.F.1.</strong><span> Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend
-considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe
-and proofread public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg™
-collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic
-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
-“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
-your equipment.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.F.2.</strong><span> LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES – Except for the
-“Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the
-Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the
-Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a
-Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.F.3.</strong><span> LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND – If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
-without further opportunities to fix the problem.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.F.4.</strong><span> Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set
-forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS,’ WITH
-NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.F.5.</strong><span> Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
-remaining provisions.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><strong class="bold">1.F.6.</strong><span> INDEMNITY – You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation,
-the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance
-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
-or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
-Defect you cause.</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="level-4 section" id="section-2-information-about-the-mission-of-project-gutenberg">
-<h4 class="level-4 pfirst section-title title"><span>Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™</span></h4>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
-from people in all walks of life.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™'s
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain
-freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To
-learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and
-how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
-Foundation web page at </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.pglaf.org">http://www.pglaf.org</a><span> .</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="level-4 section" id="section-3-information-about-the-project-gutenberg-literary-archive-foundation">
-<h4 class="level-4 pfirst section-title title"><span>Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation</span></h4>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
-</span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf">http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf</a><span> . Contributions to the
-Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to
-the full extent permitted by U.S.  federal laws and your state's laws.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr.
-S. Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are
-scattered throughout numerous locations. Its business office is
-located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801)
-596-1887, email </span><a class="reference external" href="mailto:business@pglaf.org">business@pglaf.org</a><span>. Email contact links and up to date
-contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
-official page at </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.pglaf.org">http://www.pglaf.org</a></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>For additional contact information:</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<div>
-<div class="line-block outermost">
-<div class="line"><span>Dr. Gregory B. Newby</span></div>
-<div class="line"><span>Chief Executive and Director</span></div>
-<div class="line"><a class="reference external" href="mailto:gbnewby@pglaf.org">gbnewby@pglaf.org</a></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-</div>
-<div class="level-4 section" id="section-4-information-about-donations-to-the-project-gutenberg-literary-archive-foundation">
-<h4 class="level-4 pfirst section-title title"><span>Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation</span></h4>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without wide spread
-public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing
-the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely
-distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest array of
-equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to
-$5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status
-with the IRS.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
-state visit </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate">http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate</a></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
-donate, please visit: </span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate">http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate</a></p>
-</div>
-<div class="level-4 section" id="section-5-general-information-about-project-gutenberg-electronic-works">
-<h4 class="level-4 pfirst section-title title"><span>Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works.</span></h4>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg™
-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
-with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
-Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the
-U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
-edition.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
-eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
-compressed (zipped), HTML and others.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Corrected </span><em class="italics">editions</em><span> of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
-the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is
-renamed. </span><em class="italics">Versions</em><span> based on separate sources are treated as new
-eBooks receiving new filenames and etext numbers.</span></p>
-<p class="pnext"><span>Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
-facility:</span></p>
-<blockquote>
-<div>
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
-</div>
-</blockquote>
-<p class="pfirst"><span>This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including
-how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
-Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe
-to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</body>
-</html>
author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-03-03 08:28:01 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-03-03 08:28:01 -0800
commit	60f0ac23a849ec052e1486748e5dfe95b71f2374 (patch)
tree	b8d90a6d85decf35d10a5e83b0cced10d3ff8b82 /43450-h/43450-h.html
parent	06a4b8893f0bafb88b070e0237d559e0ebce3504 (diff)