"Yes," said Jeff, "because——"

"Because it has been so pleasant to-day-for me, I mean."

She looked down, blushing. Jeff seized her hand. Sadie tried, not very hard, to pull it away. Jeff felt the muscles relaxing, the slight form swayed towards him. Suddenly he released her.

"O, my God!" he exclaimed. "You are right, I feel in all my bones you're dead right. I ought to do my duty. I'm feeling and behaving like a madman."

Sadie stared at him in troubled silence. She believed that in losing his heart the poor fellow had lost his wits also. Yet she was sensible that love for her lay at the root of his distress. And his pain, for his suffering was pitiful to behold, puckered her brows, twisted her lips. With a soft cry she touched timidly his shoulder.

"If you think," she smiled faintly, "that because we've only known each other a few hours, I——"

Jeff laughed. The laugh hurt the girl, so that she shrank from him. So engrossed were the pair that neither marked Sillett as he opened the door of the hut. He advanced a couple of steps, smoking a pipe, and then paused, astonished, as Jeff's next words reached him.

"Look at here," he burst out. "That story——It's my own story. I left San Lorenzo yesterday afternoon to arrest your father. The sheriff an' me knew he was somewhere in these foothills."

"You have come to arrest—Dad?"

"That's it."

She stared at him confusedly, trying to recall his story. Jeff waited.

"You called him a thief. Dad—a thief! How dare you? How dare you? It's a lie, or—or," she faltered, "or a mistake."

"No mistake," said Jeff wretchedly.

He had risen. Man and maid stared fiercely into each other's faces. Behind them, Sillett stood quietly observant, but his right hand stole down to his pocket.

"Hold up your hands!" he said sharply.

Jeff and the girl sprang apart. Sillett had levelled a pistol at the deputy-sheriff, repeating his words with one addition: "Quick!" Jeff raised his hands.

"He carries a 'gun,'" said Sillett to his daughter. "Take it from him."

She obeyed. Her face was white as milk, but not with fear. The man who held the pistol had ceased for the moment to bear any resemblance to her father, but assuredly he was the defaulter whom Jeff Wells and the sheriff sought. The expression upon his face revealed that, if nothing else. Sadie removed the pistol and brought it to Sillett.

"In the hut, on a nail behind the door, is a piece of cord. Fetch it!"

She fetched it.

"Tie his hands behind his back. Tie 'em good and firm. Take your time. Make a job of it. That's it. Now, then, hitch the loose ends round that scrub-oak. That's right. Now go into the house, and slip into your overalls. We'll be shifting camp in less than half-an-hour."

"Dad!"

"Well?"

"It's true, then?"

He smiled grimly.

"Yes—it's true. Get a move on you. Mr. Wells and I are going to have a little talk."

She walked slowly towards the hut; then suddenly she turned, flying back on nimble feet.

"Dad," she said quickly. "Mr. Wells will help us, if you ask him, if— if I ask him." She approached Jeff. "I told you that your duty was to the State," she continued, "but I take that back. Do you hear? Save Dad! I don't care what he has done to others, he's always been so good to me. And if you will help us, I—I——"

"Sadie!"

Sillett's voice was very harsh.

"Yes, Dad."

"Leave us. Not a word, child. Go!"

She moved away, the tears trickling from her eyes. Nothing was said till the door had closed behind her; then Jeff broke the silence, in a voice with a strange rasp to it.

"I will help you, Mr. Sillett."

Sillett thrust his weapon into his pocket, and came close to the speaker, eyeing him attentively. An impartial observer might have pronounced the younger man to be the defaulter.

"You'll help me—eh? How?"

"I can get you safe into Mexico."

"Can you?"

"At a word from me the sheriff'll be huntin' somewheres else. See?"

"I see."

"Don't think you'll squeeze through without me. I reckon you've a springboard and a buckskin in the barn over there?"

"Maybe."

"The officers are looking for that buckskin in every little burg between Santa Cruz and San Diego. You can't pack your grub and blankets a-foot. I can supply everything. Nobody'll suspect me."

"Why not?"

"Because—because o' my record."

"Oh. It's a clean one, is it?"

"It is that."

"Sadie cottoned to you right away. Because she sized you up as straight, I surmise."

The speaker smoked silently for a moment; Jeff held his tongue, but his cheeks were red and hot.

"Sadie may sour on me now," said the father heavily.

"Sour on you, Mr. Sillett! Not she."

Sillett frowned. Then he opened a knife and slashed the cord which bound Jeff. The fingers which held his pipe were trembling.

"You'll let me fix things?" said Jeff, in a low voice.

"And then—suppose—suppose Sadie soured on you?"

"I'll risk that," Jeff answered slowly. "She's more'n likely to."

"Um."

"You're going to give me a free hand?"

"No."

The monosyllable burst from his lips with a violence that indicated the rending asunder of strong barriers.

"No," he repeated. "One of us, Jefferson Wells, must be an honest man. I ain't going to whine about the luck, but I stole—I stole—for her. I wanted to give her what she'd always had from me: a pretty home, nice clothes, a good time. And what's the result?" He laughed hoarsely. "This,—this hut, those overalls, beans and bacon to eat, and now—now—the knowledge that her dad is a thief. Well, she's cottoned to you. I read it in her face. Quick work, they'd say back East, but in this new country folks have to think quick and act quick. I can think quick and act quick. You want her?"

"Worse than I ever wanted anything in my life."

"You can take care of her?"

"I am well fixed. A nest-egg in the bank, a good salary, and a pair of arms that can carry a heavier load than she'll ever be."

Sillett nodded; then he spoke very deliberately: "I'm going back to Santa Barbara to face the music. I shall give myself up. Hold on—let me finish! I know something of women, and Sadie is the daughter of a good mother. It's lucky she's dead, poor soul! Don't you ever dare to tell Sadie that you weakened. When she lies awake nights—and she will—it may comfort her some to think that her husband is an honest man. I'm going to hit the trail now. When Sadie comes out o' there, tell her with my love, that I've left her in your charge."



XX

DENNIS

The odd thing was that his name was really Dennis. In the West, Dennis stands genetically for the under dog, for the man who is left. His name is—Dennis! Why? The man in this story was christened Dennis, and, being a native son of the Golden West, he took particular pains to keep the fact a secret from the "boys." When he punched cattle on our range he was known as "Kingdom Come" Brown, because, even in those days, it was plain to tenderfeet that physically and intellectually D. Brown, cowboy, was not likely to inherit the kingdoms of the earth.

Ever since he had been breeched ill-fortune had marked him for her own. Nevertheless, he was rich in the possession of a temperament which soared like a lark above suffering and disappointment. He believed steadfastly that his "turn" would come. "It ain't goin' to be like this yere—always," was a phrase familiar to us. To this we replied, "Not much!"

In our hearts we, too, believed that the turn would come, but that, humanly speaking, it would occur in the sweet by-and-by. Hence the nickname. The hardest nuts admitted that Brown was travelling upon the rough road which leads upwards. His golden slippers were waiting for him—sure! He set an example which none followed, but which all, in sober moments, commended. He neither drank nor swore. He remained faithful to the memory of a woman who had married somebody else. For her sake he sold his horse and saddle, and became a lumber-man. The losing of his Mamie was, of course, the heaviest of his many bludgeonings. She was a simple soul, like D. Brown, inured to hard work, and at the mercy of a drunken father, who had perilously escaped by the very skin of his teeth from the clutches of Judge Lynch. To give to Mamie a home had been the consuming desire of poor Dennis. For this he pinched and saved till, at last, the needful sum lay snug in a San Lorenzo bank. Then the bank "bust"!

Without a word to Mamie, Dennis drifted away to some distant range, and before he was seen again Tom Barker had appeared. Why Tom, a big, brutal lumberman, desired to marry Mamie, no longer young, never pretty, penniless, and admittedly fond of Dennis, must remain a mystery. Why Mamie married Tom is a question easily answered. Tom was "boss" of a logging-camp, and none had ever denied his Caesarean attributes. He had the qualities and vices conspicuously absent in Dennis. He was Barker, of Barker's Inlet. The mere mention of his name in certain saloons was enough to put the fear of God into men even bigger than himself. A sort of malefic magnetism exuded from every pore of his skin. When he held up his finger Mamie crawled to him. She believed, probably, that she was escaping from a drunken father, and she knew that Tom could and would supply many things for which she had yearned—a parlour, for instance, possibly a piano, and a silk dress. She would have taken Dennis without these amenities, but Dennis had fled to the back of Nowhere without even saying good-bye.

Months after the marriage Dennis came back. Ajax described the wedding and the subsequent flitting to Barker's Inlet. Dennis listened, stroking his too thin, straggling moustache. Next day he sold his horse and saddle.

When he appeared at Barker's Inlet and asked for a job, Tom Barker smiled. He had heard of Dennis, and he knew that Mamie had given to Dennis what never would be given to him—the love and confidence of a simple woman. Into his savage bull-head crept the determination to torment these two unsophisticated creatures delivered by Fate to be his slaves, and as such at his mercy.

Accordingly, Dennis was engaged.

Tom's position at the inlet must be defined. Some years before he had been known as a timber-cruiser—that is to say, a man who "locates," during his wanderings through forests primeval, belts of timber which will be likely to allure the speculative lumberman. Barker, therefore, had discovered the inlet which bore his name, and in consideration of his services, and with a due sense of his physical and mental qualifications, he had been appointed boss of the camp by the real owners—a syndicate of rich men, who knew that logs were worth ten dollars a thousand feet, and that the man to make them so was Tom Barker. The syndicate wisely gave Tom a free hand, knowing that, in everything which concerned the working of men and machinery to the limit, Tom would begin at the point where their less elastic consciences might leave off. The syndicate, therefore, remained in Victoria, or Vancouver, or San Francisco, and said of Tom that he was a rustler from "Way back, and as lively as they make 'em."

It will be guessed that Tom's principal difficulty was engaging men. Having engaged them, he was certain to get plenty of work out of them, and they couldn't leave till they had earned sufficient money to take themselves elsewhere. All the boys came to Tom stoney-broke; otherwise they would never have "signed on." To be treated like a hog, to root assiduously for Tom, or to starve, stared several able-bodied men in the face. One genial Californian remarked, "It's a choice between Death and Damnation."

You will now understand why Tom smiled when Dennis Brown asked for a job.

He knew that Dennis was a cow-puncher, and not a star performer on his own pitch, and he had only to look at the man to realise how unfitted he was for the rough work of a logging-camp. A derisive chuckle gurgled from his huge, hairy throat as he growled out—

"Say! This ain't like teachin' Sunday-school."

"I know it ain't," said Dennis cheerfully. But his heart sank at the mention of the Sunday-school. Long ago he had taught in a Sunday- school. It was simply awful to think that the piety of a too ardent youth was now to be held up to the ridicule of the boys.

"I believe your name is—Dennis?" continued the boss of Barker's Inlet.

"It is," our unhappy friend admitted.

"Go up to the bunk-house," commanded Tom, "and tell Jimmy Doolan, with my regards, to take particler care of yer. I'll speak to him later." Then, as Dennis was moving off, he added, in a rasping voice: "You an' my wife is acquainted, eh? Wal, when you've dropped your blankets, come up to the house and say howdy."

Dennis went up to the house. There was one house at the inlet: a four- roomed frame building with three coats of paint on it and a red roof. It stood some distance from the collection of shacks and cabins at the mouth of the Coho River, and it overlooked some of the most glorious scenery in the world. In front stretched the Sound, a silver sea just dimpled by the soft spring breeze. To right and left, and behind, lay the forest—that silent land of the North, illimitable as space, everlastingly green when the snows had melted, shadowy, mysterious, terrible!

As Dennis approached the house he heard a terrific sound—the crash of a felled and falling tree—some giant who had held his own in the struggle for existence when William the Norman ruled in England. And then, from all points of the compass, the echoes, in varying cadence, repeated that tremendous, awe-inspiring sound—the last sobbing cry of a Titan.

A moment later Mamie received him and ushered him into the parlour, where a small piano, a table of shellwork, and crimson plush curtains challenged the interest and curiosity of all who were privileged to behold them. "Let me take yer hat," said Mamie.

The hand she held out trembled slightly. Dennis perceived that she was thinner and paler.

"Yer well fixed," he murmured. "An' happy as a clam, I reckon?"

"I'd oughter be happy," said Mamie dubiously. Then she added hastily, "Never expected to see you in a logging-camp."

"No? Wal, I kinder wondered how you was makin' it. You don't look extry peart, Mis' Barker. Lonesome for ye, ain't it?"

Already he knew that except for a few squaws she was the only woman in the camp.

"I don't mind that," said Mrs. Barker.

Something in her tone arrested his attention. Stupid and slow though he was, he divined that Mamie's thin, white cheeks and trembling hands were not caused by lonesomeness. He stared at her intently, till the blood gushed into her face. And then and there he knew almost everything.

"Got a baby?" he asked thickly.

She answered savagely, "No, I haven't, thank God!"

Above the chimneypiece hung an enlarged photograph of her husband, taken a couple of days after his wedding. Mr. Barker had faced the camera with the same brutal complacency which distinguished all his actions. He smiled grimly, thrusting forward his heavy lower jaw, inviting inspection, obviously pleased to exhibit himself as a ferocious and untamed animal. Through the sleeves of his ill-cut black coat the muscles of his arms and shoulders showed bulgingly. The ordinary observer, looking at the photograph for the first time, would be likely to reflect: "Here is a ruffian who needs a licking, but he has not got it yet."

"How's paw?" said Mamie.

"Las' time I seen the old man he was paralysed drunk, as usual."

"Yes, he would be that," assented Mamie indifferently.

After this, conversation languished, and very soon the visitor took his leave. When Mamie handed to him his hat she said awkwardly, "You never told me good-bye"; and to this indictment Dennis replied laconically, "Holy Mackinaw! I couldn't."

Those who know the wilder portions of this planet will understand that all was said between these two weaklings who had loved each other dearly. Dennis returned to the bunk-house. Mamie ran to her bed-room and cried her eyes out.

Within a week the camp knew two facts concerning the newcomer. His name was—Dennis! And he had loved Tom Barker's dough-faced wife!

Tom's selection of his first instrument of torture indicated subtlety. He bought from a Siwash Indian the most contemptible-looking cur ever beheld at the inlet, and he christened the unfortunate beast—Dennis. There was a resemblance between dog and man. Each, in the struggle for existence, had received more than his due share of kicks, and the sense of this in any animal manifests itself unmistakably. And each, moreover, exhibited the same amazing optimism, which is, perhaps, a sure sign of a mind not quite balanced.

Dennis, the dog, followed his new master wherever he went. Tom would introduce him with the remark, "His name is Dennis, too." And if Dennis, the man, happened to be present, Tom would swear at the dog, calling him every evil name which came to the tip of the foulest tongue in British Columbia. Always, at the end of these commination services, Tom would say to Dennis, the man, "I an't a-speakin' to you, old socks, so keep yer hair on."

That the cow-puncher (who, in his day, must have carried a "gun") did keep on his hair became a topic of talk amongst the boys, confirming a conviction that Dennis had been aptly named. Certainly he lacked backbone and jawbone. Moreover, change of skies brought to him no change of luck. Within a fortnight he was badly hurt, and obliged to remain in bed for nearly a week.

"I got mixed up with a log," he explained to Mamie. "It bruk loose, an' I didn't quite get outer the way. See?"

"Me, too," whispered Mamie. "Same trouble here—'zactly."

Twice while he lay upon his back she brought to the bunk-house a chocolate layer cake and some broth. Upon the occasion of her third visit she came empty-handed, with her too pale eyes full of tears, and her heart full of indignation.

"I ain't got nothing," she muttered. "Tom says it's his grub."

"That's all right," replied Dennis, noting that she walked stiffly. "But, look ye here; he ain't been wallopin' ye, has he?"

"Yes, he has. When he was through I tole him I'd sooner have his blows than his kisses any day."

"I hadn't oughter hev come here," said Dennis.

"Never saw the sun shine till you did," murmured Mamie.

At this he tried to take her hand, but she evaded his grasp. Then, with an extraordinary dignity, looking deep into the man's eyes, she said slowly: "I tole you that because it's God's truth, and sorter justifies your comin'; but I aim ter be an honest woman, and you must help me to remain so."

With that she flitted away.

Next day Dennis went back to work. And what work, for a man never at best strong, and now enfeebled by severe pain and illness! Some magnificent timber had been found a couple of miles inland, situated not too far from the Coho. The experts had already felled, stripped, and sawed into logs the huge trees. To Dennis and others remained the arduous labour of guiding, with the help of windlasses, these immense logs to the river, whence they would descend in due time to the inlet, there to be joined together into vast rafts, later on again to be towed to their destination. Of all labour, this steering of logs through dense forest to their appointed waterway is the hardest and roughest. Dennis, of course, wore thick gloves, but in spite of these his hands were mutilated horribly, because he lacked the experience to handle the logs with discretion. Even the best men are badly knocked about at this particular job, and the duffers are very likely to be killed outright.

At the end of ten lamentable days Dennis came to the conclusion that Tom Barker wanted to kill him by the Chinese torture of Ling, or death by a thousand cuts. More than one of the boys said: "Why don't you get what dough is comin' to ye and skip?" Dennis shook his head. Not being able to explain to himself why he stayed, he held his tongue, and thus gained a reputation for grit which lightened other burdens. Jim Doolan, the big Irishman, was of opinion that Dennis Brown was little better than a denied baby with a soft spot in his head, but he admitted that the cow-puncher was "white," and obviously bent upon self-destruction. By this time the camp knew that the boss was taking an unholy interest in Dennis, although he continued to treat him with derisive civility. The rage he couldn't suppress was vented upon the dog. And Dennis never saw the poor beast kicked or beaten without reflecting: "He does that to Mamie when nobody ain't lookin'." In his feeble fashion he tried to interfere. Dollars to Tom Barker were dearer than cardinal virtues, and he had never been known to refuse an opportunity to make a bit on any deal. Dennis offered to buy the dog.

"What's he worth?" said Tom, thrusting out his jaw.

"I'll give five for him."

"Five? For a dog that I've learned to love? Not much!"

"Ten?"

"Nope!"

"Fifteen?"

Tom laughed.

"You ain't got money enough to buy him," he said. "I'm going to have more fun than a barrel o' monkeys out o' this yere dog, and don't you forget it!"

After this Dennis, the Sunday-school teacher, the man whose golden slippers were awaiting him in the sweet by-and-by, began to lie awake at night and wrestle with the problem: "Is a man ever justified in breaking the sixth commandment?" The camp held that Tom bore a charmed life. Men had tried to kill him more than once, and had perished ingloriously in the attempt. His coolness and courage were indisputable. There are moments in a lumberman's business when nothing will save an almost impossible situation but the instant exercise of the most daring and devil-may-care pluck, determination, and skill. Tom was never found wanting at such moments. To see him "ride a log" was a sight to inspire admiration and respect in a Texas broncho- buster. To kill such a superb animal might well rack a simple and guileless cowboy whose name was—Dennis.

It is relevant to mention that Dennis, the dog, licked the hand that beat him, fawned upon the foot that kicked him, and rendered unto his lord and master implicit and invariable obedience. The Siwash, his former owner, had trained him to retrieve, and of this Tom took shameless advantage. He would throw his hat or a glove or a stick into the middle of a rapid, and the gallant Dennis would dash into the swirling waters, regardless of colliding logs, fanged rocks, or spiky stumps. One day the dog got caught. Tom, with an oath, leapt on to the nearest log, from that to another and another till he reached the poor beast, whom he released with incredible skill and audacity, returning as he had come, followed by the dog. The boys yelled their appreciation of this astounding feat. Jimmy Doolan asked—

"What in thunder made ye do that, Tom?"

Tom scowled.

"I dunno," he answered. "Dennis Brown knows that I think the world of that cur."

Within a fortnight, by an admittedly amazing coincidence, Dennis, the man, was caught in a precisely similar fashion. As a "river-driver" Dennis was beginning to "catch on." But he had not yet learned what he could or could not do. River-drivers wear immense boots, heavily spiked. Dennis upon this occasion had been sent with a crew to what is technically called "sweep the river" after a regular drive. Such logs as have wandered ashore, or been hung up in back eddies, are collected and sent on to join the others. This is hard work, but exciting, and not without its humours. Certain obstinate logs have to be coaxed down the river. It would almost seem as if they knew the fate that awaited them in the saw-pits, and in every fibre of their being exercised an instinct for self-preservation. For instance, a log may refuse to pass a certain rock in the river which has offered no obstruction whatever to other logs. Then the lumberman, armed with his long pole, with its spike to push and its sharp hook to pull, must reach that rock and pull and prod the recalcitrant traveller on his appointed way.

Dennis, in attempting this, had slipped upon the rock, and his heavy boot had been caught and held between the log and the rock. Below was a boiling rapid; above the river swirled in a heavy, oily mass. Dennis, to save his life, held tight on to the rock. He was in the position of the drunken Scot who dared not abandon his grip of the rail of the refreshment bar, because if he let go he would fall down, and if he did not let go he must miss his train. Dennis held on with both hands. If he endeavoured to unfasten his boot, he would be swept into the rapid; if he did not let go, and none came to his rescue, the log would grind his leg to powder.

Tom happened to see him and plunged into the river. Dennis had crawled on to the rock from the other side, a feat easily achievable. Tom might have gone round; any other man in the camp would have done so. The odds were slightly against his reaching the rock, for the river was running like a mill-race.

Five minutes later both men, dripping wet, were safely ashore, and the log was careering down stream!

"Ye've saved my life," gasped Dennis.

"Never seen such a blamed fool as you in all my days," replied Tom, as he stared savagely into Dennis's mild blue eyes. "You'd hurt yerself rockin' a baby's cradle, you would. 'Bout time you quit men's work, ain't it?"

"Not yet," said Dennis.

During these weeks upon the river Dennis had not seen anything of Mamie. Tom Barker, as supreme boss, visited all crews, and then returned to his wife, with either a leer or a frown upon his face. She had come to loathe the leer more than the frown. In the different camps the boys told the same story—

"He knocks the stuffin' out of her!"

The stay-at-home Briton, warm with roast beef and indigestion, will wonder that one man amongst a hundred should be suffered to ill-treat a thin, dough-faced little woman. Why did they not arise and slaughter him? Had Tom stolen a colt in the cattle-country he would have been lynched. Let publicists resolve the problem!

Finally, one Sunday morning, Dennis and Mamie met again.

"Holy Mackinaw!" exclaimed Dennis.

"Anything wrong?"

"Everything."

"I don't understand." But, of course, she did.

"It's God's truth, then, what the boys say?"

She hung her head.

"I thought he'd quit when I went up the river," said Dennis. "Say, let's you an' me skin out o' this. I'll get my dough to-night."

"Oh, Dennis!" she murmured, in piteous protestation, "we'd burn in eternal torment."

"We'd burn together," said Dennis. "Anyways, if this ain't torment, and if Barker ain't Beelzebub himself, I'm a liar."

She shook her head, with the tears streaming down her thin, white cheeks.

"Gee!" said Dennis, reduced to silence.

"I tuk him for better and worse," sobbed Mamie.

"You might ha' guessed that it would be worse," growled Dennis. Then, desperately, he blurted out, "Because you're dead-set on keepin' the seventh commandment, you're jest naterally drivin' me to break the sixth."

"What?"

"I've said it. And he saved my life, too. But when I look at yer, I get to thinking." His voice sank to a hoarse whisper. "I think lots, nights. He comes back to ye alone, through them trees, and there's one place where the pine needles is thick as moss. And I mind me what a Dago told me onst. He'd killed his man, he had, stabbed him from behind with a knife he showed me: jest an ordinary knife, only sharp. An' he told me how he done it, whar to strike—savvy? It goes in slick!"

He stopped, seeing that Mamie was regarding him with wide-eyed horror and consternation.

"Dennis!"

"Yes, my name's Dennis, right enough. That's the trouble. I hav'n't the nerve to kill Barker, and you hav'n't the nerve to skip off with me. Were two of a kind, Mamie, scairt to death of what comes after death. And you know it. So long!"

She caught at his arm.

"You ain't a-goin' to leave the inlet?"

"It's a mighty big country, this," Dennis replied austerely; "but I've a notion it ain't quite big enough for Barker an' me. So long!"

"I'm comin' up to-morrer, Dennis, to see 'em run the last rapid. Mebbe you was fullish to leave the range?"

He marked the interrogation in her tone, and answered, for him, almost roughly—

"Mebbe I was, but not so fullish as you by a long sight!"

With that he returned to the bunk-house.

* * * * *

Not half a mile from the inlet the Coho gathers itself together for its last wild rush to salt water. And here there is a huge pool where logs lie peacefully as alligators in the sun. At the end of the pool the river flows gently in a channel free from rocks and snags. Then the channel narrows, and a little farther on you behold the head of the rapid, and half-way down the Coho Falls thunder everlastingly. When the logs reach the falls they are meat for the mills. Nothing can stop them then. One after another they rise on end to take the final plunge. Some twist and writhe as if in agony, as if conscious that the river and forest shall know them no more. Thousands have travelled the self-same way; not one has ever returned. The lower rapid of the Coho hardly deserves its name. Half a mile farther on it is an estuary across which stretches the boom.

The crews assembled on each side of the pool. The logs were pricked into slow movement. This being duffers' work was assigned to the less experienced. The picked river-drivers stood upon the rocks of the upper rapid, pole in hand. And here, watching them with a lack-lustre eye, stood Mamie in the shade of a dogwood tree in full blossom. Now and again a soft white petal would fall upon the water and be swept away. Above the hemlocks soughed softly. At her feet the giant maidenhair raised its delicate fronds till they touched her cheek.

She watched the logs go by in a never-ending procession. The scene fascinated her, although, in a sense, she was singularly devoid of either imagination or perception. Movement beguiled a woman whose own life had been stagnant for five-and-twenty years. Deep down in her heart was the unformulated but inevitable conviction that the logs were moving and that she was standing still. Tom loomed large in the immediate foreground. He, too, moved so swiftly that his huge form lacked definition. She saw him snatch a pole from one of the men and stab viciously at a log which refused to budge; and every time that his arm rose and fell a little shudder trickled down her spinal column. The log seemed to receive the blows apathetically. A bad jam was imminent. She could hear Tom swearing, and the other logs floating on and on seemed to hear him also, and tremble. His bull's voice rose loud above the roar of the falls. Mamie looked down. At her feet crouched Dennis, the dog, and he also was trembling at those raucous sounds, and Mamie could feel his thin ribs pressing against her own thin legs.

At that moment light came to her obscure mind. She was like the log. She refused to budge, funked the plunge, submitting to unending blows, and words which were almost worse than blows. And by her obstinacy and apathy she was driving the best man on God's earth to premeditated murder.

That morning, let us remember, Tom had beaten the dog, and because she had interfered with a pitiful protest her husband had struck her close to the temple. Ever since this blow she had heard the roar of the falls with increasing intensity.

"Why don't it move?" she asked herself.

As she put the question the log did move, borne away by the full current. Mamie, followed by the dog, ran after it, with her eyes aflame with excitement. Dennis barked, divining something uncanny, eager to distract the mind of his mistress from what seemed to be engrossing it. Still she ran on, with her eyes upon the log. The dog knew that she must stop in a moment, that no one could pass the falls unless they went over them. Did he divine also that she meant to go over them—that at last, with her poor, imperfect vision, she had seen that way out of captivity?

She reached the point where farther advance was impossible. To her right rose a solid wall of stone; opposite rose its twin; between the two the river rushed tumultuously, tossing the great logs hither and thither as if they were spilikins.

Mamie watched her own log. After its goadings it kept a truer course than most of its fellows. But she had outstripped it. Standing upon the edge of the precipice, feeling the cold spray upon her face, hearing the maddening roar of the monster below, less to be feared than that other monster from whom she realised that she had escaped, she waited for the final plunge....

What was passing in her mind at this supreme moment? We may well believe that she saw clearly the past through the mists which obscured the future. Always she had been a log at the mercy of a drunken father. Her mother had died in giving birth to her, but she knew vaguely that this mother was a Church member. She did not know—and, knowing, could never have understood—that from her she had inherited a conscience—or shall we call it an ineradicable instinct?—which constrained her to turn aside, shuddering, from certain temptations, to obey, without reasoning, certain ethical laws, solemnly expounded to her by a Calvinistic grandmother. But Nature had been too much for her. Even as she had turned instinctively and with horror from the breaking of a commandment, so also she had selected the mate who possessed in excess the physical qualities so conspicuously lacking in her. She had fallen a victim, and a reluctant victim, to the law of compensation. When Tom Barker held up his finger and whistled, she crawled to him.

The log, slightly rolling, as if intoxicated, neared the brink of the falls. And then it stopped again, where the river was narrowest and the current strongest. No log had stopped in this place before; Mamie saw that it was caught by a small rock, and held fast by the other logs behind it.

"It won't go over," she murmured.

Within a minute a terrific jam impended. Across the river Tom was swearing horribly; and between husband and wife rose a filmy cloud of spray upon which were imprinted the mysterious colours of the rainbow, which, long ago, Mamie had been taught to regard as the most wonderful symbol in the world—God's promise that in the end good should triumph over evil.

Afraid to move, fascinated, she stood still, staring at the rainbow.

Presently Tom disappeared. When he returned Mamie could see him very plainly. He had a stick of dynamite and a fuse. Mamie saw him glance at his watch and measure the fuse. Then, leaping from log to log, he approached the one in midstream which lay passive, blocking the advance of all the others. With splendid skill and daring he adjusted the dynamite upon the small rock which held the log, and lit the fuse. He returned as he had come, and Mamie could hear the cheers of the men upon the opposite bank.

"It'll hev to go now," she reflected.

At this moment Dennis, the dog, must have realised that his master had left something behind on the rock. Mamie saw him spring from log to log, and then, holding the dynamite between his teeth, with the spluttering fuse still attached, follow his master.

"Tom!" she screamed. "Look out!"

Tom turned and saw! And the others—Dennis Brown, Mamie, the river- drivers—saw also and trembled. Tom began to curse the dog, adjuring him to go back, to drop it, drop IT, DROP IT!

But the faithful creature, who had risked life to retrieve sticks thrown into fierce rapids, ran steadily on. Mamie saw the face of her husband crumble into an expression of hideous terror and palsy. His lips mouthed inarticulately, with his huge hands he tried to push back the monstrous fate that was overtaking him.

The dog laid the dynamite at his master's feet at the moment when it exploded.

* * * * *

And the man whose name was Dennis knew that his turn had come at last.

THE END