Strength came to him rapidly as the big man had said, and soon he was restlessly searching the short paths all about for a way by which he might find the plain below. He did not forget the promise which had been exacted from him to remain, no matter how long, until the big man's return, but he wished to discover whence he might arrive, and perhaps journey to meet him on the way.

The first trail he followed led him to the fall that ever roared in his ears. He stood amazed at its height and volume, and its wonderful beauty. It lured him and drew him again and again to the spot from which he first viewed it. Midway of its height he stood where every now and then a little stronger breeze carried the fine mist of the fall in his face. Behind him lay the garden, ever watered thus by the wind-blown spray. Smoothly the water fell over a notch worn by its never ceasing motion in what seemed the very crest of the mountain far above him. Smoothly it fell into the rainbow mists that lost its base in a wonderful iridescence of shadows and quivering, never resting lights as far below him.

He caught his breath, and remembered the big man's words. "You missed the trail to Higgins' Camp a long way back. It's easily done. I did it myself once, and never undid it." He could not choose but return over and over to that spot. A wonderful ending to a lost trail for a lost soul.

The next path he followed took him to a living spring, where the big man was wont to lead his own horse to water, and from whence he led the water to his cabin in a small flume to always drip and trickle past his door. It was at the end of this flume that Harry King had filled the large dipper for his horse. Now he went back and washed that utensil carefully, and hung it beside the door.

The next trail he followed led by a bare and more forbidding route to the place where the big man had rescued him, and he knew it must be the one by which he had come. A sense of what had happened came over him terrifyingly, and he shrank from the abyss, his body quivering and his head reeling. He would not look down into the blue depth, knowing that if he did so, by that way his sanity would leave him, but he crawled cautiously around the projecting cliff and wandered down the stony trail. Now and again he called, "Whoopee! Whoopee!" but only his own voice came back to him many times repeated.

Again and again he called and listened, "Whoopee! Whoopee!" and was regretful at the thought that he did not even know the name of the man who had saved him. Could he also save the others? The wild trail drew him and fascinated him. Each day he followed a little farther, and morning and evening he called his lonely cry, "Whoopee! Whoopee!" and still was answered by the echo in diminuendo of his own voice. He tried to resist the lure of that narrow, sun-baked, and stony descent, which he felt led to the nethermost hell of hunger and burning thirst, but always it seemed to him as if a cry came up for help, and if it were not that he knew himself bound by a promise, he would have taken his horse and returned to the horror below.

Each evening he reasoned with himself, and repeated the big man's words for reassurance: "I'll fetch them, do you hear? I'll fetch them," and again: "I'm the mountain. Any one I don't want here I pack off down the trail." Perhaps he had taken them off to Higgins' Camp instead of bringing them back with him—what then? Harry King bowed his head at the thought. Then he understood the lure of the trail. What then? Why, then—he would follow—follow—follow—until he found again the woman for whom he had dared the unknown and to whom he had given all but a few drops of water that were needed to keep him alive long enough to find more for her. He would follow her back into that hell below the heights. But how long should he wait? How long should he trust the man to whom he had given his promise?

He decided to wait a reasonable time, long enough to allow for the big man's going, and slow returning—long enough indeed for them to use up all the provisions he had packed down to them, and then he would break his promise and go. In the meantime he tried to keep himself sane by doing what he found to do. He gathered the ripe corn in the big man's garden patch and husked it and stored it in the shed which was built against the cabin. Then he stored the fodder in a sort of stable built of logs, one side of which was formed by a huge bowlder, or projecting part of the mountain itself, not far from the spring, where evidently it had been stored in the past, and where he supposed the man kept his horse in winter. He judged the winters must be very severe for the care with which this shed was covered and the wind holes stopped. And all the time he worked each day seemed a month of days, instead of a day of hours.

At last he felt he was justified in trying to learn the cause of the delay at least, and he baked many cakes of yellow corn meal and browned them well on the hearth, and roasted a side of bacon whole as it was, and packed strips of dried venison, and filled his water flask at the spring. After a long hunt he found empty bottles which he wrapped round with husks and filled also with water. These he purposed to hang at the sides of his saddle. He had carefully washed and mended his clothing, and searching among the big man's effects, he found a razor, dull and long unused. He sharpened and polished and stropped it, and removed a vigorous growth of beard from his face, before a little framed mirror. To-morrow he would take the trail down into the horror from which he had come.

Now it only remained for him to look well to the good yellow horse and sleep one more night in the friendly big man's bunk, then up before the sun and go.

The nights were cold, and he thought he would replenish the fire on his hearth, for he always had the feeling that at any moment they might come wearily climbing up the trail, famished and cold. Any night he might hear the "Halloo" of the big man's voice. In the shed where he had piled the husked corn lay wood cut in lengths for the fireplace, and taking a pine torch he stooped to collect a few sticks, when, by the glare of the light he held, he saw what he had never seen in the dim daylight of the windowless place. A heavy iron ring lay at his feet, and as he kicked at it he discovered that it was attached to something covered with earth beneath.

Impelled by curiosity he thrust the torch between the logs and removed the earth, and found a huge bin of hewn logs carefully fitted and smoothed on the inside. The cover was not fastened, but only held in place by the weight of stones and earth piled above it. This bin was half filled with finely broken ore, and as he lifted it in his hands yellow dust sifted through his fingers.

Quivering with a strange excitement he delved deeper, lifting the precious particles by handfuls, feeling of it, sifting it between his fingers, and holding the torch close to the mass to catch the dull glow of it. For a long time he knelt there, wondering at it, dreaming over it, and feeling of it. Then he covered it all as he had found it, and taking the wood for which he had come, he replenished the fire and laid himself down to sleep.

What was gold to him? What were all the riches of the earth and of the caves of the earth? Only one thought absorbed him,—the woman whom he had left waiting for him on the burning plain, and a haunting memory that would never leave him—never be stilled.



CHAPTER XV

THE BIG MAN'S RETURN

The night was bitter cold after a day of fierce heat. Three people climbed the long winding trail from the plains beneath, slowly, carefully, and silently. A huge mountaineer walked ahead, leading a lean brown horse. Seated on the horse was a woman with long, pale face, and deeply sunken dark eyes that looked out from under arched, dark brows with a steady gaze that never wandered from some point just ahead of her, not as if they perceived anything beyond, but more as if they looked backward upon some terror.

Behind them on a sorrel horse—a horse slenderer and evidently of better stock than the brown—rode another woman, also with dark eyes, now heavy lidded from weariness, and pale skin, but younger and stronger and more alert to the way they were taking. Her face was built on different lines: a smooth, delicately modeled oval, wide at the temples and level of brow, with heavy dark hair growing low over the sides of the forehead, leaving the center high, and the arch of the head perfect. Trailing along in the rear a small mule followed, bearing a pack.

Sometimes the big man walking in front looked back and spoke a word of encouragement, to which the younger of the two women replied in low tones, as if the words were spoken under her breath.

"We'll stop and rest awhile now," he said at last, and led the horse to one side, where a level space made it possible for them to dismount and stretch themselves on the ground to give their weary limbs the needed relaxation.

The younger woman slipped to the ground and led her horse forward to where the elder sat rigidly stiff, declining to move.

"It is better we rest, mother. The kind man asks us."

"Non, Amalia, non. We go on. It is best that we not wait."

Then the daughter spoke rapidly in their own tongue, and the mother bowed her head and allowed herself to be lifted from the saddle. Her daughter then unrolled her blanket and, speaking still in her own tongue, with difficulty persuaded her mother to lie down on the mountain side, as they were directed, and the girl lay beside her, covering her tenderly and pillowing her mother's head on her arm. The big man led the animals farther on and sat down with his back against a great rock, and waited.

They lay thus until the mother slept the sleep of exhaustion; then Amalia rose cautiously, not to awaken her, and went over to him. Her teeth chattered with the cold, and she drew a little shawl closer across her chest.

"This is a very hard way—so warm in the day and so cold in the night. It is not possible that I sleep. The cold drives me to move."

"You ought to have put part of that blanket over yourself. It's going to be a long pull up the mountain, and you ought to sleep a little. Walk about a bit to warm yourself and then try again to sleep."

"Yes. I try."

She turned docilely and walked back and forth, then very quietly crept under the blanket beside her mother. He watched them a while, and when he deemed she also must be sleeping, he removed his coat and gently laid it over the girl. By that time darkness had settled heavily over the mountain. The horses ceased browsing among the chaparral and lay down, and the big man stretched himself for warmth close beside his sorrel horse, on the stony ground. Thus in the stillness they all slept; at last, over the mountain top the moon rose.

Higher and higher it crept up in the sky, and the stars waned before its brilliant whiteness. The big man roused himself then, and looked at the blanket under which the two women slept, and with a muttered word of pity began gathering weeds and brush with which to build a fire. It should be a very small fire, hidden by chaparral from the plains below, and would be well stamped out and the charred place covered with stones and brush when they left it. Soon he had steeped a pot of coffee and fried some bacon, then he quickly put out his fire and woke the two women. The younger sprang up, and, finding his coat over her, took it to him and thanked him with rapid utterance.

"Oh, you are too kind. I am sorry you have deprive yourself of your coat to put it over me. That is why I have been so warm."

The mother rose and shook out her skirt and glanced furtively about her. "It is not the morning? It is the moon. That is well we go early." She drank the coffee hurriedly and scarcely tasted the bacon and hard biscuit. "It is no toilet we have here to make. So we go more quickly. So is good."

"But you must eat the food, mother. You will be stronger for the long, hard ride. You have not here to hurry. No one follows us here."

"Your father may be already by the camp, Amalia—to bring us help—yes. But of those men 'rouge'—if they follow and rob us—"

The two women spoke English out of deference to the big man, and only dropped into their own language or into fluent French when necessity compelled them, or they thought themselves alone.

"Ah, but those red men, mother, they do not come here, so the kind man told us, for now they are also kind. Sit here and eat the biscuit. I will ask him."

She went over to where he stood by the animals, pouring a very little water from the cans carried by the pack mule for each one. "They'll have to hold out on this for the day, but they may only have half of it now," he said.

"What shall I do?" Amalia looked with wide, distressed eyes in his face. "She believes it yet, that my father lives and has gone to the camp for help. She thinks we go to him,—to the camp. How can I tell her? I cannot—I dare not."

"Let her think what satisfies her most. We can tell her as much as is best for her to know, a little at a time, and there will be plenty of time to do it in. We'll be snowed up on this mountain all winter." The young woman did not reply, but stood perfectly still, gazing off into the moonlit wilderness. "When people get locoed this way, the only thing is to humor them and give them a chance to rest satisfied in something—no matter what, much,—only so they are not hectored. No mind can get well when it is being hectored."

"Hectored? That is to mean—tortured? Yes, I understand. It is that we not suffer the mind to be tortured?"

"About that, yes."

"Thank you. I try to comfort her. But it is to lie to her? It is not a sin, when it is for the healing?"

"I'm not authority on that, Miss, but I know lying's a blessing sometimes."

"If I could make her see the marvelous beauty of this way we go, but she will not look. Me, I can hardly breathe for the wonder—yet—I do not forget my father is dead."

"I'm starting you off now, because it will not be so hard on either you or the horses to travel by night, as long as it is light enough to see the way. Then when the sun comes out hot, we can lie by a bit, as we did yesterday."

"Then is no fear of the red men we met on the plains?"

"They're not likely to follow us up here—not at this season, and now the railroad's going through, they're attracted by that."

"Do they never come to you, at your home?"

"Not often. They think I'm a sort of white 'medicine man'—kind of a hoodoo, and leave me alone."

She looked at him with mystification in her eyes, but did not ask what he meant, and returned to her mother.

"I have eaten. Now we go, is not?"

"Yes, mother. The kind man says we go on, and the red men will not follow us."

"Good. I have afraid of the men 'rouge.' Your father knows not fear; only I know it."

Soon they were mounted and traveling up the trail as before, the little pack mule following in the rear. No breeze stirred to make the frosty air bite more keenly, and the women rode in comparative comfort, with their hands wrapped in their shawls to keep them warm. They did not try to converse, or only uttered a word now and then in their own tongue. Amalia's spirit was enrapt in the beauty around and above and below her, so that she could not have spoken more than the merest word for a reply had she tried.

The moonlight brought all the immediate surroundings into sharp relief, and the distant hills in receding gradations seemed to be created out of molten silver touched with palest gold. Above, the vault of the heavens was almost black, and the stars were few, but clear. Even the stones that impeded the horses' feet seemed to be made of silver. The depths below them seemed as vast and black as the vault above, except for the silver bath of light that touched the tops of the gigantic trees at the bottom of the canyon around which they were climbing.

The silence of this vastness was as fraught with mystery as the scene, and was broken only by the scrambling of the horses over the stones and their heavy breathing. Thus throughout the rest of the night they wended steadily upward, only pausing now and then to allow the animals to breathe, and then on. At last a thing occurred to break the stillness and strike terror to Amalia's heart. It had occurred once the day before when the silence was most profound. A piercing cry rent the air, that began in a scream of terror and ended in a long-drawn wail of despair.

Amalia slipped from her horse and stumbled over the rough ground to her mother's side and poured forth a stream of words in her own tongue, and clasped her arms about the rigid form that did not bend toward her, but only sat staring into the white night as if her eye perceived a sight from which she could not turn away.

"Look at me, mother. Oh, try to make her look at me!" The big man lifted her from the horse, and she relaxed into trembling. "There, it is gone now. Walk with me, mother;" and the two walked for a while, holding hands, and Amalia talked unceasingly in low, soothing tones.

After a little time longer the moon paled and the stars disappeared, and soon the sky became overspread with the changing coloring and the splendor of dawn. Then the sun rose out of the glory, but still they kept on their way until the heat began to overcome them. Then they halted where some pines and high rocks made a shelter, but this time the big man did not build a fire. He gave them a little coffee which he had saved for them from what he had steeped during the night, and they ate and rested, and the mother fell quickly into the sleep of exhaustion, as before.

Thus during the middle of the day they rested, Amalia and the big man sometimes sleeping and sometimes conversing quietly.

"I don't know why mother does this. I never knew her to until yesterday. Father never used to let her look straight ahead of her as she does now. She has always been very brave and strong. She has done wonderful things—but I was not there. When troubles came on my father, I was put in a convent—I know now it was to keep me from harm. I did not know then why I was sent away from them, for my father was not of the religion of the good sisters at the convent,—but now I know—it was to save me."

"Why did troubles come on your father?"

"What he did I do not know, but I am very sure it was nothing wrong. In my country sometimes men have to break the law to do right; my mother has told me so. He was in prison a long time when I was living in the convent, sheltered and cared for,—and mother—mother was working all alone to get him out—all alone suffering."

"How could they keep you there if she had to work so hard?"

"My father had a friend. He was not of our country, and he was most kind and good. I think he was of Scotland—or maybe of Ireland; I was so little I do not know. He saved for my mother some of her money so the government did not get it. I think my mother gave it to him, once—before the trouble came. Maybe she knew it would come,—anyway, so it was. I do not know if he was Irish, or of Scotland—but he must have been a good man."

"Been? Is he dead?"

"Yes. It was of a fever he died. My mother told me. He gave us his name, and to my father his papers to leave our country, for he knew he would die, or my father never could have got out of the country. I never saw him but once. When I saw you, I thought of him. He was grand and good, as are you. My mother came for me at the convent in Paris, and in the night we went to my father, and in the morning we went to the great ship. We said McBride, and all was well. If we had said Manovska when we took the ship, we would have been sent back and my father would have been killed. In the prison we would have died. It was hard to get on the ship, but when we got to this country, nobody cared who got off."

"How long ago was that?"

"It was at the time of your great war we came. My mother wore the dress of our peasant women, and I did the same."

"And were you quite safe in this country?"

"For a long time we lived very quietly, and we thought we were. But after a time some one came, and father took him in, and then others came, and went away again, and came again—I don't know why—they did not tell me,—but this I know. Some one had a great enmity against my father, and at last mother took me in the night to a strange place where we knew no one, and then we went to another place—and to still another. It was very wearisome."

"What was your father's business?"

"My father had no business. He was what you call a nobleman. He had very much land, but he was generous and gave it nearly all away to his poor people. My father was very learned and studied much. He made much music—very beautiful—not for money—never for that. Only after we came to this country did he so, to live. Once he played in a great orchestra. It was then those men found him and came so often that he had again to go away and hide. I think they brought him papers—very important—to be sacredly guarded until a right time should come to reveal them."

"And you have no knowledge why he was followed and persecuted?"

"I was so little at the beginning I do not know. If it was that in his religion he was different,—or if he was trying to change in the government the laws,—for we are not of Russia,—I know that when he gave away his land, the other noblemen were very angry with him, and at the court—where my father was sent by his people for reasons—there was a prince,—I think it was about my mother he hated my father so,—but for what—that I never heard. But he had my father imprisoned, and there in the prison they—What was that word,—hectored? Yes. In the prison they hectored him greatly—so greatly that never more was he straight. It was very sad."

"I don't think we would say hectored, for that. I think we would say tortured."

"Oh, yes. I see. To hector is of the mind, but torture is of the body. It is that I mean—for they were very terrible to him. My mother was there, and they made her look at it to bring him the more quickly to tell for her sake what he would not for his own. I think when she looks long before her at nothing, she is seeing again the tortures of my father, and so she cries out in that terrible way. I think so."

"What were they trying to get out of him?"

Amalia looked up in his face with a puzzled expression for a moment. "Get—out—of—him?" she asked.

"I mean, what did they want him to tell?"

"Ah, that I know not. It was never told. If they could find him, I think they would try again to learn of him something which he only can tell. I think if they could find my mother, they would now try to learn from her what my father knew, but her lips are like the grave. At that time he had told her nothing, but since then—when we were far out in the wilderness—I do not know. I hope my mother will never be found. Is it a very secret place to which we go?"

"I might call it that—yes. I've lived there for twenty years and no white man has found me yet, until the young man, Harry King, was pitched over the edge of eternity and only saved by a—well—a chance—likely."

The young woman gazed at him wide-eyed, and drew in her breath. "You saved him."

"If he obeyed me—I did."

"And all the twenty years were you alone?"

"I always had a horse."

"But for a companion—had you never one?"

"Never."

"Are you, too, a good man who has done a deed against the law of your land?"

The big man looked off a moment, then down at her with a little smile playing about his lips. "I never did a deed against the law of any land that I know of, but as for the good part—that's another thing. I may be fairly good as goodness goes."

"Goodnessgoes!" She repeated after him as if it were one word from which she was trying to extract a meaning. "Was it then to flee from the wicked world that you lived all the twenty years thus alone?"

"Hardly that, either. To tell the truth, it may be only a habit with me."

"Will you forgive me that I asked? It was only that to me it has been terrible to live always in hiding and fear. I love people, and desire greatly to have kind people near me,—but of the world where my father and mother lived, and at the court—and of the nobles, of all these I am afraid."

"Yes, yes. I fancy you were." A grim look settled about his mouth, although his eyes twinkled kindly. He marveled to think how trustingly they accompanied him into this wilderness—but then—poor babes! What else could they do? "You'll be safe from all the courts and nobles in the world where I'm taking you."

"That is why my eyes do not weep for my father. He is now gone where none can find him but God. It is very terrible that a good man should always hide—hide and live in fear—always—even from his own kinsmen. I understand some of the sorrows of the world."

"You'll forget it all up there."

"I will try if my mother recovers." She drew in her breath with a little quivering catch.

"We'll wake her now, and start on. It won't do to waste daylight any longer." Secretly he was afraid that they might be followed by Indians, and was sorry he had made the fire in the night, but he reasoned that he could never have brought them on without such refreshment. Women are different from men. He could eat raw bacon and hard-tack and go without coffee, when necessary, but to ask women to do so was quite another thing.

For long hours now they traveled on, even after the moon had set, in the darkness. It was just before the dawn, where the trail wound and doubled on itself, that the sorrel horse was startled by a small rolling stone that had been loosened on the trail above them. Instantly the big man halted where they were.

"Are you brave enough to wait here a bit by your mother's horse while I go on? That stone did not loosen itself. It may be nothing but some little beast,—if it were a bear, the horses would have made a fuss."

He mounted the sorrel and went forward, leaving her standing on the trail, holding the leading strap of her mother's horse, which tossed its head and stepped about restlessly, trying to follow. She petted and soothed the animal and talked in low tones to her mother. Then with beating heart she listened. Two men's voices came down to her—one, the big man's—and the other—yes, she had heard it before.

"It is 'Arry King, mother. Surely he has come down to meet us," she said joyfully. She would have hurried on, but bethought herself she would better wait as she had been directed. Soon the big man returned, looking displeased and grim.

"Young chap couldn't wait. He gave me his promise, but he didn't keep it."

"It was 'Arry King?" He made no reply, and they resumed their way as before. "It was long to wait, and nothing to do," she pleaded, divining his mood.

"I had good reasons, Miss. No matter. I sent him back. No need of him here. We'll make it before morning now, and he will have the cabin warm and hot coffee for us, if you can stand to go on for a goodish long pull."

A goodish long pull it surely was, in the darkness, but the women bore up with courage, and their guide led them safely. The horse Amalia rode, being his own horse, knew the way well.

"Don't try to guide him; he'll take you quite safely," he called back to her. "Let the reins hang." And in the dusk of early morning they safely turned the curve where Harry King had fallen, never knowing the danger.

Harry King, standing in the doorway of the cabin, with the firelight bright behind him, saw them winding down the trail and hurried forward. They were almost stupefied with fatigue. He lifted the mother in his arms without a word and carried her into the cabin and laid her in the bunk, which he had prepared to receive her. He greeted Amalia with a quiet word as the big man led her in, and went out to the horses, relieved them of their burdens, and led them away to the shed by the spring. Soon the big man joined him, and began rubbing down the animals.

"I will do this. You must rest," said Harry.

"I need none of your help," he said, not surlily, as the words might sound, but colorlessly.

"I needed yours when I came here—or you saved me and brought me here, and now whatever you wish I'll do, but for to-night you must take my help. I'm not apologizing for what I did, because I thought it right, but—"

"Peace, man, peace. I've lived a long time with no man to gainsay me. I'll take what comes now and thank the Lord it's no worse. We'll leave the cabin to the women, after I see that they have no fright about it, and we'll sleep in the fodder. There have been worse beds."

"I have coffee on the hearth, hot, and corn dodgers—such as we used to make in the army. I've made them often before."

"Turn the beasts free; there isn't room for them all in the shed, and I'll go get a bite and join you soon."

So Harry King did not return to the cabin that night, much as he desired to see Amalia again, but lay down on the fodder and tried to sleep. His heart throbbed gladly at the thought of her safety. He had not dared to inquire after her father. Although he had seen so little of the big man he understood his mood, and having received such great kindness at his hands, he was truly sorry at the invasion of his peace. Undoubtedly he did not like to have a family, gathered from the Lord only knew where, suddenly quartered on him for none knew how long.

The cabin was only meant for a hermit of a man, and little suited to women and their needs. A mixed household required more rooms. He tried to think the matter through and to plan, but the effort brought drowsiness, and before the big man returned he was asleep.



CHAPTER XVI

A PECULIAR POSITION

"Well, young man, we find ourselves in what I call a peculiar position."

A smile that would have been sardonic, were it not for a few lines around the corners of his eyes which belied any sinister suspicion, spread grimly across the big man's face as he stood looking down on Harry King in the dusk of the unlighted shed. The younger man rose quickly from the fodder where he had slept heavily after the fatigues of the past day and night, and stood respectfully looking into the big man's face.

"I—I—realize the situation. I thought about it after I turned in here—before you came down—or up—to this—ahem—bedroom. I can take myself off, sir. And if there were any way—of relieving you of—the—whole—embarrassment,—I—I—would do so."

"Everything's quiet down at the cabin. I've been there and looked about a bit. They had need of sleep. You go back to your bunk, and I'll take mine, and we'll talk the thing over before we see them again. As for your taking yourself off, that remains to be seen. I'm not crabbed, that's not the secret of my life alone,—though you might think it. I—ahem—ahem." The big man cleared his throat and stretched his spare frame full length on the fodder where he had slept. With his elbow on the bed of corn stalks he lifted his head on his hand and gazed at Harry King, not dreamily as when he first saw him, but with covert keenness.

"Lie down in your place—a bit—lie down. We'll talk until we've arrived at a conclusion, and it may be a long talk, so we may as well be comfortable."

Harry King went back to his own bunk and lay prone, his forehead resting on his folded arms and his face hidden. "Very well, sir; I'll do my best. We have to accept each other for the best there is in us, I take it. You've saved my life and the life of those two women, and we all owe you our grat—"

"Go to, go to. It's not of that I'm wishing to speak. Let's begin at the beginning, or, as near the beginning as we can. I've been standing here looking at you while you were sleeping,—and last night—I mean early this morning when I came up here, I—with a torch I studied your face well and long. A man betrays his true nature when he is sleeping. The lines of what he has been thinking and feeling show then when he cannot disguise them by smiles or words. I'm old enough to be your father—yes—so it might have been—and with your permission I'll talk to you straight."

Harry King lifted his head and looked at the other, then resumed his former position. "Thank you," was all he said.

"You've been well bred. You're in trouble. I ask you what is your true name and what you have done?"

The young man did not speak. He lay still as if he had heard nothing, but the other saw his hands clinch into knotted fists and the muscles of his arms grow rigid. His heart beat heavily and the blood roared in his ears. At last he lifted his head and looked back at the big man and spoke monotonously.

"I gave you my name—all the name I have." His face was white in the dim light and the lids drew close over his gray eyes.

"You prefer to lie to me? I ask in good faith."

"All the name I have is the one I gave you, Harry King."

"And you will hold to the lie?" They looked steadily into each other's eyes. The young man nodded. "And there was more I asked of you."

Then the young man turned away from the keen eyes that had held him and sat up in the fodder and clasped his knees with his hands and looked straight out before him, regarding nothing—nothing but his own thoughts. A strange expression crept over his face,—was it fear—or was it an inward terror? Suddenly he put out his hand with a frantic gesture toward the darkest corner of the place, "It's there," he cried in a voice scarcely above a whisper, then hid his eyes and moaned. At the sight, the big man's face softened.

"Lad, lad, ye're in trouble. I saved your body as it hung over the cliff—and the Lord only knows how ye were saved. I took ye home and laid ye in my own bunk,—and looked on your face—and there my heart cried on the Lord for the first time in many years. I had forsworn the company of men, and of all women,—and the faith of my fathers had died in me,—but there, as I looked on your face—the lost years came back. And now—ye're only Harry King. Only Harry King."

"That's all." The young man's lips set tightly and the cords of his neck stood out. Nothing was lost to the eyes that watched him so intently.

"I had a son—once. I held him in my arms—for an hour—and then left him forever. You have a face that reminds me of one—one I hated—and it minds me of one I—I—loved,—of one I loved better than I loved life."

Then Harry King turned and gazed in the big man's eyes, and as he gazed, the withdrawn, inward look left his own. He still sat clasping his knees. "I can more easily tell you what I have done than I can tell you my name. I have sworn never to utter it again." He was weeping, but he hid his tears for very shame of them.

The older man shook his head. "I've known sorrow, boy, but the lesson of it, never. Men say there is a thing to be learned from sorrow, but to me it has brought only rebellion and bitterness. So I've missed the good of it because it came upon me through arrogance and injustice—not my own. So now I say to you—if it was at the expense of your soul I saved your life, it were better I had let you go down. Lad,—you've brought me a softness,—it's like what a man feels for a woman. I'm glad it's come back to me. It is good to feel. I'd make a son of you,—but—for the truth's sake tell me a bit more."

"I had a friend and I killed him. I was angry and killed him. I have left my name in his grave." Harry King rose and walked away and stood shivering in the entrance of the shed. Then he came back and spoke humbly. "Do with me what you will, but call me Harry King. I have nothing on earth but the clothes on my body, and they are in rags. If you have work for me to do, let me do it, in mercy. If not, let me go back to the plains and die there."

"How long ago was this?"

"More—more than two years ago—yes, three—perhaps."

"And where have you been?"

"Knocking about—hiding. For a while I had work on the road they are building—"

"Road? What road?"

"The new railroad across the continent."

"Where, young man, where?"

"From Chicago on. They got it as far as Cheyenne, but that was the very place of all others where they would be apt to hunt for me. I got news of a detective hanging about the camp, and I was sure he had come there to track me. I had my wages and my clothes, and when I found they had traced me there, I spent all I had for my horse and took my pack and struck out over the plains." He paused and wiped the cold drops from his forehead, then lifted his head with gathered courage. "One day,—I found these people, nigh starving for both water and food, and without strength to go where they could be provided for. They, too, were refugees, I learned, and so I cast my lot with theirs, and served them as best I could."

"And now they have fallen to the two of us to provide for. You say, give you work? I've lived here these twenty years and found work for no man but myself. I've found plenty of that—just to keep alive, part of the time. It's bad here in the winter—if the stores give out. Tell me what you know of these women."

"Where is the man?"

"Dead. I found him dead before I reached them. I left him lying where I found him, and pushed on—got there just in time. He wasn't three hours away from them as a man walks. I made them as comfortable as I could and saw that no Indians were about, nor had been, they said; so I ventured back and made a grave for him as best I could, and told the daughter only, for the old lady seemed out of her head. I don't know what we can do with her if she gets worse. I don't know." As the big man talked he noticed the younger one growing calmer and listening intently.

"Before I buried him I searched him and found a few papers—just letters in a strange language, and from the feeling of his coat I judged others were hid—sewed in it, so I fetched it back to her—the young one. You thought I was long gone, and there was where you made the blunder. How did you suppose I came by the pack mule and the other horse?"

"When I saw them, I knew you must have gone to Higgins' Camp and back, but how could I know it before? You might have been in need of me, and of food."

"We'll say no more of it. Those men at the camp are beasts. I bought those animals and paid gold for them. They wanted to know where I got the gold. I told them where they'd never get it. They asked me ten prices for those beasts, and then tried to keep me there until they could clean me out and get hold of my knowledge. But I skipped away in the night when they were all drunk and asleep. Then I had to make a long detour to put them off the track if they should try to follow me, and all that took time."

The big man paused to fill and light his pipe. "And what next?" asked Harry King.

"Except for enough food and water to last us up the trail you came, I packed nothing back to the wagon, and so had room to bring a few of their things up here, and there may be some of your own among them—they said something about it. We hauled the wagon as far as a good place to hide it, in a wash, could be found, and we covered it—and our tracks. But there was nothing left in it but a few of their utensils, unless the box they did not open contained something. It was left in the wagon. That was the best I could do with only the help of the young woman, and she was too weak to do much. It may lie there untouched for ten years unless a rain scoops it out, and that's not likely.

"I showed the young woman as we came along where her father lay, and as we came to a halt a bit farther on, she went back, while her mother slept, and knelt there praying for an hour. I doubt any good it did him, but it comforted her heart. It's a good religion for a woman, where she does not have to think things out for herself, but takes a priest's word for it all. And now they're here, and you're here, and my home is invaded, and my peace is gone, and may the Lord help me—I can't."

Harry King looked at him a moment in silence. "Nor can I—help—but to take myself off."

"Take yourself off! And leave me alone with two women? I who have foresworn them forever! How do you know but that they may each be possessed by seven devils? But there! It isn't so bad. As long as they stay you'll stay. It was through you they are here, and close on to winter,—and if it was summer, it would be as bad to send them away where they would have no place to stay and no way to live. Lad, the world's hard on women. I've seen much."

Harry King went again and stood in the open entrance of the shed and waited. The big man saw that he had succeeded in taking the other's mind off himself, and had led him to think of others, and now he followed up the advantage toward confidence that he had thus gained. He also came to the entrance and laid his kindly hand on the younger man's shoulder, and there in the pale light of that cloudy fall morning, standing in the cool, invigorating air, with the sound of falling water in their ears, the two men made a compact, and the end was this.

"Harry King, if you'll be my son, I'll be your father. My boy would be about your age—if he lives,—but if he does, he has been taught to look down on me—on the very thought of me." He cast a wistful glance at the young man's face as he spoke. "From the time I held him in my arms, a day-old baby, I've never seen him, and it may be he has never heard of me. He was in good hands and was given over for good reasons, to one who hated my name and my race—and me. For love of his mother I did this. It was all I could do for her; I would have gone down into the grave for her.

"I, too, have been a wanderer over the face of the earth. At first I lived in India—in China—anywhere to be as far on the other side of the earth from her grave and my boy, as I vowed I would, but I've kept the memory of her sweet in my heart. You need not fear I'll ask again for your name. Until you choose to give it I will respect your wish,—and for the rest—speak of it when you must—but not before. I have no more to ask. You've been well bred, as I said, and that's enough for me. You're more than of age—I can see that—but it's my opinion you need a father. Will you take me?"

The young man drew in his breath sharply through quivering lips, and made answer with averted head: "Cain! Cain and the curse of Cain! Can I allow another to share it?"

"Another shares it and you have no choice."

"I will be more than a son. Sons hurt their fathers and accept all from them and give little. You lifted me out of the abyss and brought me back to life. You took on yourself the burden laid on me, to save those who trusted me, knowing nothing of my crime,—and now you drag my very soul from hell. I will do more than be your son—I will give you the life you saved. Who are you?"

Then the big man gave his name, making no reciprocal demand. What mattered a name? It was the man, by whatever name, he wanted.

"I am an Irishman by birth, and my name is Larry Kildene. If you'll go to a little county not so far from Dublin, but to the north, you'll find my people."

He was looking away toward the top of the mountain as he spoke, and was seeing his grandfather's house as he had seen it when a boy, and so he did not see the countenance of the young man at his side. Had he done so, he would not have missed knowing what the young man from that moment knew, and from that moment, out of the love now awakened in his heart for the big man, carefully concealed, giving thanks that he had not told his name.

For a long minute they stood thus looking away from each other, while Harry King, by a mighty effort, gained control of his features, and his voice. Then although white to the lips, he spoke quietly: "Harry King—the murderer—be the son of Larry Kildene—Larry Kildene—I—to slink away in the hills—forever to hide—"

"No more of that. I'll show you a new life. Give me your hand, Harry King." And the young man extended both hands in a silence through which no words could have been heard.



CHAPTER XVII

ADOPTING A FAMILY

As the two men walked down toward the cabin they saw Amalia standing beside the door in the sunlight which now streamed through a rift in the clouds, gazing up at the towering mountain and listening to the falling water. She spied them and came swiftly to them, extending both hands in a sweet, gracious impulsiveness, and began speaking rapidly even before she reached them.

"Ah! So beautiful is your home! It is so much that I would say to you of gratitude in my heart—it is like a river flowing swiftly to tell you—Ah! I cannot say it all—and we come and intrude ourselves upon you thus that you have no place where to go for your own sleeping—Is not? Yes, I know it. So must we think quickly how we may unburden you of us—my mother and myself—only that she yet is sleeping that strange sleep that seems still not like sleep. Let me that I serve you, sir?"

Larry Kildene looked on her glowing, upturned face, gathering his slower wits for some response to her swift speech, while she turned to the younger man, grasping his hands in the same manner and not ceasing the flow of her utterance.

"And you, at such severe labor and great danger, have found this noble man, and have sent him to us—to you do we owe what never can we pay—it is thus while we live must we always thank you in our hearts. And to this place—so won-n-der-ful—Ah! Beautiful like heaven—Is not? Yes, and the sweet sound always in the air—like heaven and the sound of wings—to stop here even for this night is to make those sorrowful thoughts lie still and for a while speak nothing."

As she turned from one to the other, addressing each in turn, warm lights flashed in her eyes through tears, like stars in a deep pool. Her dark hair rolled back from her smooth oval forehead in heavy coils, and over her head and knotted under her perfect chin, outlining its curve, was a silken peasant handkerchief with a crimson border of the richest hue, while about the neck of her colorless, closely fitted gown was a piece of exquisite hand-wrought lace. She stood before them, a vision from the old world, full of innate ladyhood, simple as a peasant, at once appealing and dominating, impulsive, yet shy. Her beautiful enunciation, her inverted and quaintly turned English, alive with poetry, was typical of her whole personality, a sweet and strange mixture of the high-bred aristocrat and the simple directness and strength of the peasant.

The two men made stumbling and embarrassed replies. That tender and beautiful quality of chivalry toward women, belonging by nature to undefiled manhood, was awakened in them, and as one being, not two, they would have laid their all at her feet. This, indeed, they literally did. The small, one-room cabin, which had so long served for Larry Kildene's palace, was given over entirely to the two women, and the men made their own abode in the shed where they had slept.

This they accomplished by creating a new room, by extending the roof-covered space Larry had used for his stable and the storing of fodder, far enough along under the great overhanging rock to allow of comfortable bunks, a place to walk about, and a fireplace also. The labor involved in the making of this room was a boon to Harry King.

Upon the old stone boat which Larry had used for a similar purpose he hauled stones gathered from the rock ledge and built therewith a chimney, and with the few tools in the big man's store he made seats out of hewn logs, and a rude table. This work was left to him by the older man purposely, while he occupied himself with the gathering in of the garden stuff for themselves and for the animals. A matter that troubled his good heart not a little was that of providing for the coming winter enough food supply for his suddenly acquired family. Of grain and fodder he thought he had enough for animals kept in idleness, as he still had stores gathered in previous years for his own horse. But for these women, he must not allow them to suffer the least privation.

It was not the question of food alone that disturbed him. At last he laid his troubles before Harry King.

"You know, lad, it won't be so long before the snow will be down on us, and I'm thinking what shall we do with them when the long winter days set in." He nodded his head toward the cabin. "It's already getting too cold for them to sit out of doors as they do. I should have windows in my cabin—if I could get the glass up here. They can't live there in the darkness, with the snow banked around them, with nothing to use their fingers on as women like to do. Now, if they had cloth or thread—but what use had I for such things? They're not among my stores. I did not lay out to make it a home for women. The mother will get farther and farther astray with her dreams if she has nothing to do such as women like."

"I think we should ask them—or ask Amalia, she is wise. Have you enough to keep them on—of food?"

"Of food, yes. Such as it is. No flour, but plenty of good wheat and corn. I always pound it up and bake it, but it is coarse fare for women. There's plenty of game for the hunting, and easy got, but it's something to think about we'll need, else we'll all go loony."

"You have lived long here alone and seem sound of mind,—except for—" Harry King smiled, "except for a certain unworldliness that would pass for lunacy in the world below these heights."

"Let alone, son. I've usually had my own way for these years and have formed the habit, but I've had my times. At the best it's a sort of lunacy that takes a man away from his fellows, especially an Irishman. Maybe you'll discover for yourself before we part—but it's not to the point now. I'm asking you how we can keep the mother from brooding and the daughter happy? She's asking to be sent away to earn money for her mother. She thinks she can take her mother with her to the nearest place on that new railroad you tell me of, and so on to some town. I tell her, no. And if she goes, and leaves her mother here—bless you—what would we do with her? Why, the woman would go yonder and jump over the cliff."

"Oh, it would never do to listen to her. It would never do for her to try living in a city earning her bread—not while—" Harry King paused and turned a white, drawn face toward the mountain. Larry watched him. "I can do nothing." He threw out his hands with a sudden downward movement. "I, a criminal in hiding! My manhood is of no avail! My God!"

"Remember, lad, the women have need of you right here. I'm keeping you on this mountain at my valuation, not yours. I have need of you, and your past is not to intrude in this place, and when you go out in the world again, as you will, when the right time comes, you'll know how to meet—and face—your life—or death, as a man should.

"Hold yourself with a firm hand, and do the work of the days as they come. It's all the Lord gives us to do at any time. If I only had books—now,—they would help us,—but where to get them—or how? We'll even go and ask the women, as you advise."

They all ate together in the little cabin, as was their habit, a meal prepared by Amalia, and carefully set out with all the dishes the cabin afforded: so few that there were not enough to serve all at once, but eked out by wooden blocks, and small lace serviettes taken from Amalia's store of linen. At noon one day Larry Kildene spoke his anxieties for their welfare, and cleverly managed to make the theme a gay one.

"Where's the use in adopting a family if you don't get society out of them? The question I ask is, when the winter shuts us in, what are we going to do for sport—work—what you will? It's indoor sport I'm meaning, for Harry and I have the hunting and providing in the daytime. No, never you ask me what I was doing before you came. I was my own master then—"

"And now you are ours? That is good, Sir Kildene. You have to say what to do, and me, I accept to do what you advise. Is not?"

Amalia turned to Larry and smiled, and whenever Amalia smiled, her mother would smile also, and nod her head as if to approve, although she usually sat in silence.

"Yours to command," said Larry, bowing.

"He's master of us all, but it's yours to direct, Lady Amalia."

"Oh, me, Mr. 'Arry. It is better for me I make for you both sufficient to eat, so all goes well. I think I have heard men are always pleased of much that is excellent to eat and drink."

"Now, listen. We have only a short time before the heavy snows will come down on us, and then there will be no chance whatever to get supplies of any sort before spring. How far is the road completed now, Harry?"

"It should be well past Cheyenne by now. They must be working toward Laramie rapidly. If—if—you think best, I will go down and get supplies—whatever can be found there."

"No. I have a plan. There's enough for one man to do here finishing the jobs I have laid out, but one of us can very well be spared, and as you have wakened me from my long sleep, and stirred my old bones to life, and as I know best how to travel in this region, I'll take the mule along, and go myself. I have a fancy for traveling by rail again. You ladies make out a list of all you need, and I'll fill the order, in so far as the stations have the articles. If I can't find the right things at one station, I may at another, even if I go back East for them."

"Ah, but, Sir Kildene, it is that we have no money. If but we could get from the wagon the great box, there have we enough of things to give us labor for all the winter. It is the lovely lace I make. A little of the thread I have here, but not sufficient for long. So, too, there is my father's violin. It made me much heart pain to leave it—for me, I play a little,—and there is also of cloth such as men wear—not of great quantity—but enough that I can make for you—something—a little—maybe, Mr. 'Arry he like well some good shirt of wool—as we make for our peasant—Is not?" Harry looked down on his worn gray shirt sleeves, then into her eyes, and on the instant his own fell. She took it for simple embarrassment, and spoke on.

"Yes. To go with us and help us so long and terrible a way, it has made very torn your apparel."

"It makes that we improve him, could we obtain the box," said the mother, speaking for the first time that day. Her voice was so deep and full that it was almost masculine, but her modulations were refined and most agreeable.

Amalia laughed for very gladness that her mother at last showed enough interest in what was being said to speak.

"Ah, mamma, to improve—it is to make better the mind—the heart—but of this has Mr. 'Arry no need. Is not, Sir Kildene? I call you always Sir as title to nobleness of character. We have, in our country, to inherit title, but here to make it of such character. It is well, I think so."

Poor Larry Kildene had his own moment of embarrassment, but with her swift appreciation of their moods she talked rapidly on, leaving the compliment to fall as it would, and turning their thoughts to the subject in hand. "But the box, mamma, it is heavy, and it is far down on the terrible plain. If that you should try to obtain it, Sir Kildene: Ah, I cannot!—Even to think of the peril is a hurt in my heart. It must even lie there."

"And the men 'rouge'—"

"Yes. Of the red men—those Indian—of them I have great fear."

"The danger from them is past, now. If the road is beyond Cheyenne, it must have reached Laramie or nearly so, and they would hang around the stations, picking up what they can, but the government has them in hand as never before. They would not dare interfere with white men anywhere near the road. I've dreamed of a railroad to connect the two oceans, but never expected to see it in my lifetime. I've taken a notion to go and see it—just to look at it,—to try to be reconciled to it."

"Reconciled? It is to like it, you mean—Sir Kildene? Is it not won-n-derful—the achievement?"

"Oh, yes, the achievement, as you say. But other things will follow, and the plains will no longer keep men at bay. The money grabbers will pour in, and all the scum of creation will flock toward the setting sun. Then, too, I shall hate to see the wild animals that have their own rights killed in unsportsmanlike manner, and annihilated, as they are wherever men can easily reach them. Men are wasteful and bad. I've seen things in the wild places of the earth—and in the places where men flock together in hoards—and where they think they are most civilized, and the result has been what you see here,—a man living alone with a horse for companionship, and the voice of the winds and the falling water to fill his soul. Go to. Go to."

Larry Kildene rose and stood a moment in the cabin door, then sauntered out in the sun, and off toward the fall. He had need to think a while alone. His companions knew this necessity was on him, and said nothing—only looked at each other, and took up the question of their needs for the winter.

"Mr. 'Arry, is it possible to reach with safety a station? I mean is time yet to go and return before the snows? Here are no deadly wolves as in my own country—but is much else to make dangerous the way."

"There must be time or he would not propose it. I don't know about the snows here."

"I have seen that Sir Kildene drinks with most pleasure the coffee, but is little left—or not enough for all—to drink it. My mother and I we drink with more pleasure the tea, and of tea we ourselves have a little. It is possible also I make of things more palatable if I have the sugar, but is very little here. I have searched well, the foods placed here. Is it that Sir Kildene has other places where are such articles?"

"All he has is in the bins against the wall yonder."

"Here is the key he gave me, and I have look well, but is not enough to last but for one through all the months of winter. Ah, poor man! We have come and eat his food like the wolves of the wild country at home, is not? I have make each day of the coffee for him, yes, a good drink, and for you not so good—forgive,—but for me and my mother, only to pretend, that it might last for him. It is right so. We have gone without more than to have no coffee, and this is not privation. To have too much is bad for the soul."

Amalia's mother seemed to have withdrawn herself from them and sat gazing into the smoking logs, apparently not hearing their conversation. Harry King for the second time that day looked in Amalia's eyes. It was a moment of forgetfulness. He had forbidden himself this privilege except when courtesy demanded.

"You forgive—that I put—little coffee in your drink?"

"Forgive? Forgive?"

He murmured questioningly as if he hardly comprehended her meaning, as indeed he did not. His mind was going over the days since first he saw her, toiling to gather enough sagebrush to cook a drop of tea for her father, and striving to conceal from him that she, herself, was taking none, and barely tasting her hard biscuit that there might be enough to keep life in her parents. As she sat before him now, in her worn, mended, dark dress with the wonderful lace at the throat, and her thin hands lying on the crimson-bordered kerchief in her lap,—her fingers playing with the fringe, he still looked in her eyes and murmured, "Forgive?"

"Ah, Mr. 'Arry, your mind is sleeping and has gone to dream. Listen to me. If one goes to the plain, quickly he must go. I make with haste this naming of things to eat. It is sad we must always eat—eat. In heaven maybe is not so." She wandered a moment about the cabin, then laughed for the second time. "Is no paper on which to write."

"There is no need of paper; he'll remember. Just mention them over. Coffee,—is there any tea beside that you have?"

"No, but no need. I name it not."

"Tea is light and easily brought. What else?"

"And paper. I ask for that but for me to write my little romance of all this—forgive—it is for occupation in the long winter. You also must write of your experiences—perhaps—of your history of—of—You like it not? Why, Mr. 'Arry! It is to make work for the mind. The mind must work—work—or die. The hands—well. I make lace with the hands—but for the mind is music—or the books—but here are no books—good—we make them. So, paper I ask, and of crayon—Alas! It is in the box! What to do?"

"Listen. We'll have that box, and bring it here on the mountain. I'll get it."

"Ah, no! No. Will you break my heart?" She seized his arm and looked in his eyes, her own brimming with tears. Then she flung up her arms in her dramatic way, and covered her eyes. "I can see it all so terrible. If you should go there and the Indian strike you dead—or the snow come too soon and kill you with the cold—in the great drift lying white—all the terrible hours never to see you again—Ah, no!"

In that instant his heart leaped toward her and the blood roared in his ears. He would have clasped her to him, but he only stood rigidly still. "Hands off, murderer!" The words seemed shouted at him by his own conscience. "I would rather die—than that you should not have your box," was all he said, and left the cabin. He, too, had need to think things out alone.



CHAPTER XVIII

LARRY KILDENE'S STORY

"Man, but this is none so bad—none so bad."

Larry Kildene sat on a bench before a roaring fire in the room added on to the fodder shed. The chimney which Harry King had built, although not quite completed to its full height, was being tried for the first time, as the night was too cold for comfort in the long, low shed without fire, and the men had come down early this evening to talk over their plans before Larry should start down the mountain in the morning. They had heaped logs on the women's fire and seen that all was right for them, and with cheerful good-nights had left them to themselves.

Now, as they sat by their own fire, Harry could see Amalia by hers, seated on a low bench of stone, close to the blazing torch of pine, so placed that its smoke would be drawn up the large chimney. It was all the light they had for their work in the evenings, other than the firelight. He could see her fingers moving rapidly and mechanically at some pretty open-work pattern, and now and then grasping deftly at the ball of fine white thread that seemed to be ever taking little leaps, and trying to roll into the fire, or out over the cabin floor. She used a fine, slender needle and seemed to be performing some delicate magic with her fingers. Was she one of the three fates continually drawing out the thread of his life and weaving therewith a charmed web? And if so—when would she cease?

"It's a good job and draws well."

"The chimney? Yes, it seems to." Harry roused himself and tried to close his mind against the warm, glowing picture. "Yes—yes. It draws well. I'm inclined to be a bit proud, although I never could have done it if you had not given me the lessons."

"It's art, my boy. To build a good fireplace is just that. Did you ever think that the whole world—and the welfare of it—centers just around that;—the fireplace and the hearth—or what stands for it in these days—maybe a little hole in the wall with a smudge of coal in it, as they have in the towns—but it's the hearth and the cradle beside it—and—the mother."

Larry's voice died almost to a whisper, and his chin dropped on his breast, and his eyes gazed on the burning logs; and Harry, sitting beside him, gazed also at the same logs, but the pictures wrought in the alchemy of their souls were very different.

To Harry it was a sweet, oval face—a flush from the heat of the fire more on the smooth cheek that was toward it than on the other, and warm flame flashes in the large eyes that looked up at him from time to time, while the slender figure bent a little forward to see the better, as the wonderful hands kept up the never ceasing motion. A white linen cloth spread over her lap cast a clearer, more rosy light under her chin and brought out the strength of it and the delicate curves of it, which Harry longed even to dare to look upon in the rarest stolen intervals, without the clamor and outcry in his heart. It was always the same—the cry of Cain in the wilderness. Would God it might some day cease! What to him might be the hearth fire and the cradle, and the mother, that the big man should dwell on them thus? What had they meant in Larry Kildene's life, he who had lived for twenty years the life of a hermit, and had forsworn women forever, as he said?

"I tell ye, lad, there's a thing I would say to you—before I leave, but it's sore to touch upon." Harry made a deprecating gesture. "No, it's best I tell you. I—I'll come back—never fear—it's my plan to come back, but in this life you may count on nothing for a surety. I've learned that, and to prove it, look at me. I made sure, never would I open my heart again to think on my fellow beings, but as aliens to my life, and I've lived it out for twenty years, and thought to hold out to the end. I held the Indians at bay through their superstitions, and they would no more dare to cross my path with hostile intent than they would dare take their chances over that fall above there. Where did I put my pipe? I can't seem to find things as I did in the cabin."

"Here it is, sir. I placed that stone further out at the end of the chimney on purpose for it, and in this side I've left a hole for your tobacco. I thought I was very clever doing that."

"And we'd be fine and cozy here in the winter—if it wer'n't for the women—a—a—now I'm blundering. I'd never turn them out if they lived there the rest of their days. But to have a lad beside me as I might have had—if you'd said, 'Here it is, father,' but now, it would have have been music to me. You see, Harry, I forswore the women harder than I did the men, and it's the longing for the son I held in my arms an hour and then gave up, that has lived in me all these years. The mother—gone—The son I might have had."

"I can't say that—to you. I have a curse on me, and it will stay until I have paid for my crime. But I'll be more to you than sons are to their fathers. I'll be faithful to you as a dog to his master, and love you more. I'll live for you even with the curse on me, and if need be, I'll die for you."

"It's enough. I'll ask you no more. Have you no curiosity to hear what I have to tell you?"

"I have, indeed I have. But it seems I can't ask it—unless I'm able to return your confidence. To talk of my sorrow only deepens it. It drives me wild."

"You'll have it yet to learn, that nothing helps a sorrow that can't be helped like bearing it. I don't mean to lie down under it like a dumb beast—but just take it up and bear it. That's what you're doing now, and sometime you'll be able to carry it, and still laugh now and again, when it's right to laugh—and even jest, on occasion. It's been done and done well. It's good for a man to do it. The lass down there at the cabin is doing it—and the mother is not. She's living in the past. Maybe she can't help it."

"When I first came on them out there in the desert, she seemed brave and strong. He was a poor, crippled man, with enormous vitality and a leonine head. The two women adored him and lived only for him, and he never knew it. He lived for an ideal and would have died for it. He did not speak English as well as they. I used to wish I could understand him, for he had a poet's soul, and eyes like his daughter's. He seemed to carry some secret with him, and no doubt was followed about the world as he thought he was. Fleeing myself, I could not know, but from things the mother has dropped, they must have seen terrible times together, she and her husband."

"A wonderful deal of poetry and romance always clung to the names of Poland and Hungary for me. When I was young, our part of the world thrilled at the name of Kosciuszko and Kossuth. I'd give a good deal to know what this man's secret was. All those old tales of mystery, like 'The Man with the Iron Mask,' and stories of noblemen spirited away to Siberia, of men locked for many years in dungeons, like the 'Prisoner of Chillon,' which fired the fancy and genius of Byron and sent him to fight for the oppressed, used to fill my dreams." Larry talked on as if to himself. It seemed as if it were a habit formed when he had only himself with whom to visit, and Harry was interested.

"Now, to almost come upon a man of real ideals and a secret,—and just miss it. I ought to have been out in the world doing some work worth while—with my miserable, broken life—Boy! I knew that man McBride! I knew him for sure. We were in college together. He left Oxford to go to Russia, wild with the spirit of adventure and something more. He was a dreamer—with a practical turn, too. There, no doubt, he met these people. I judge this Manovska must have been in the diplomatic service of Poland, from what Amalia told us. Have you any idea whether that woman sitting there all day long rapt in her own thoughts knows her husband's secret? Is it a thing any one now living would care to know?"

"Indeed, yes. They lived in terror of the prince who hounded him over the world. The mother trusted no one, but Amalia told me—enough—all she knows herself. I don't know if the mother has the secret or not, but at least she guesses it. The poor man was trying to live until he could impart his knowledge to the right ones to bring about an upheaval that would astonish the world. It meant revolution, whatever it was. Amalia imagines it was to place a Polish king on the throne of Russia, but she does not know. She told me of stolen records of a Polish descendant of Catherine II of Russia. She thinks they were brought to her father after he came to this country."

"If he had such knowledge or even thought he had, it was enough to set them on his track all his life; the wonder is that he was let to live at all."

"The mother never mentioned it, but Amalia told me. We talked more freely out in the desert. That remarkable woman walked at her husband's side over all the terrible miles to Siberia, and through her he escaped,—and of the horrors of those years she never would speak, even to her daughter. It's not to be wondered at that her mind is astray. It's only a wonder that she is for the most part so calm."

"Well, the grave holds many a mystery, and what a fascination a mystery has for humanity, savage or civilized! I've kept the Indians at bay all this time by that means. They fear—they know not what, and the mystery holds them. Now, for ourselves, I leave you for a little while in charge of—the women—and of all my possessions." Larry, gazing into the blazing logs, smiled. "You may not think so much of them, but it's not so little now. Talk about lunacy—man, I understand it. I've been a lunatic—for—ever since I made a find here in this mountain."

He paused and mused a while, and Harry's thoughts dwelt for the time on his own find in the wing of the cabin, where the firewood was stored. The ring and the chest—he had not forgotten them, but by no means would he mention them.

"You may wonder why I should tell you this, but when I'm through, you'll know. It all came about because of a woman." Larry Kildene cast a sidelong glance at Harry, and the glance was keen and saw more than the younger man dreamed. "It's more often so than any other way—almost always because of a woman. Her name may be anything—Mary—Elizabeth,—but, a woman. This one's name was Katherine. Not like the Katherine of Shakespeare, but the sweetest—the tenderest mother-woman the Lord ever gave to man. I see her there in the fire. I've seen her there these many years. Well, she was twin sister to the man who hated me. He hated me—for why, I don't know—perhaps because he never could influence me. He would make all who cared for him bow before his will.

"When I first saw her, she lived in his home. He was a banker of means,—not wholly of his own getting, but partly so. His father was a man of thrift and saving—anyway, he came to set too much store by money. Sometimes I think he might have been jealous of me because I had the Oxford training, and wished me to feel that wealth was a greater thing to have. Scotchmen think more of education than we of Ireland. It's a good thing, of course, but I'd never have looked down on him because he went lacking it. But for some indiscretion maybe I would have had money, too. It was spent too lavishly on me in my youth. But no. I had none—only the experience and the knowledge of what it might bring.

"Well, it came about that I came to America to gain the money I lacked, and having learned a bit, in spite of Oxford and the schools, of a practical nature, I took a position in his bank. All was very well until I met her. Now there were the rosy cheeks and the dark hair for you! She looked more like an Irish lass than a Scotch one. But they're not so different, only that the Irish are for the most part comelier.

"Now this banker had a very sweet wife, and she was kind to the Irish lad and welcomed him to her house. I'm thinking she liked me a bit—I liked her at all events. She welcomed me to her house until she was forbid. It was after they forbid me the house that I took to walking with Katherine, when all thought she was at Sunday School or visiting a neighbor, or even—at the last—when no other time could be stolen—when they thought her in bed. We walked there by the river that flows by the town of Leauvite."

Again Larry Kildene paused and shot a swift glance at the young man at his side, and noted the drawn lids and blanched face, but he kept on. "In the moonlight we walked—lad—the ground there is holy now, because she walked upon it. We used to go to a high bluff that made a sheer fall to the river below—and there we used to stand and tell each other—things we dreamed—of the life we should live together—Ah, that life! She has spent it in heaven. I—I—have spent the most of it here." He did not look at Harry King again. His voice shook, but he continued. "After a time her brother got to know about it, and he turned me from the bank, and sent her to live with his father's sisters in Scotland.

"Kind old ladies, but unmarried, and too old for such a lass. How could they know the heart of a girl who loved a man? It was I who knew that. What did her brother know—her own twin brother? Nothing, because he could see only his own thoughts, never hers, and thought his thoughts were enough for wife or girl. I tell you, lad, men err greatly in that, and right there many of the troubles of life step in. The old man, her father, had left all his money to his son, but with the injunction that she was to be provided for, all her days, of his bounty. It's a mean way to treat a woman—because—see? She has no right to her thoughts, and her heart is his to dispose of where he wills—not as she wills—and then comes the trouble.

"I ask you, lad, if you loved a girl as fine as silk and as tender as a flower you could crush in your hand with a touch ungentle, and you saw one holding her with that sort of a touch,—even if it was meant in love,—I'll not be unjust, he loved her as few love their sisters—but he could not grasp her thus; I ask you what would you do?"

"If I were a true man, and had a right to my manhood, I would take her. I'd follow her to the ends of the earth."

"Right, my son—I did that. I took the little money I had from my labor at the bank—all I had saved, and I went bravely to those two old women—her aunts, and they turned me from their door. It was what they had been enjoined to do. They said I was after the money and without conscience or thrift. With the Scotch, often, the confusion is natural between thrift and conscience. Ah, don't I know! If a man is prosperous, he may hold out his hand to a maid and say 'Come,' and all her relatives will cry 'Go,' and the marriage bells will ring. If he is a happy Irishman with a shrunken purse, let his heart be loving and true and open as the day, they will spurn him forth. For food and raiment will they sell a soul, and for household gear will they clip the wings of the little god, and set him out in the cold.

"But the arrow had entered Katherine's heart, and I knew and bided my time. They saw no more of me, but I knew all her goings and comings. I found her one day on the moor, with her collie, and her cheeks had lost their color, and her gray eyes looked in my face with their tears held back, like twin lakes under a cloud before a storm falls. I took her in my arms, and we kissed. The collie looked on and wagged his tail. It was all the approval we ever got from the family, but he was a knowing dog.

"Well, then we walked hand in hand to a village, and it was near nightfall, and we went straight to a magistrate and were married. I had a little coin with me, and we stayed all night at an inn. There was a great hurrying and scurrying all night over the moors for her, but we knew naught of it, for we lay sleeping in each other's arms as care free and happy as birds. If she wept a little, I comforted her. In the morning we went to the great house where the aunts lived in the town, and there, with her hand in mine, I told them, and the storm broke. It was the disgrace of having been married clandestinely by a magistrate that cut them most to the heart; and yet, what did they think a man would do? And they cried upon her: 'We trusted you. We trusted you.' And all the reply she made was: 'You thought I'd never dare, but I love him.' Yes, love makes a woman's heart strong.

"Well, then, nothing would do, but they must have in the minister and see us properly married. After that we stayed never a night in their house, but I took her to Ireland to my grandfather's home. It was a terrible year in Ireland, for the poverty was great, and while my grandfather was well-to-do, as far as that means in Ireland, it was very little they had that year for helping the poor." Larry Kildene glanced no more at Harry King, but looked only in the fire, where the logs had fallen in a glowing heap. His pipe was out, but he still held it in his hand.

"It was little I could do. I had my education, and could repeat poems and read Latin, but that would not feed hungry peasant children. I went out on the land and labored with the men, and gave of my little patrimony to keep the old folks, but it was too small for them all, so at last I yielded to Katherine's importunities, and she wrote to her brother for help—not for her and me, mind you.

"It was for the poor in Ireland she wrote, and she let me read it. It was a sweet letter, asking forgiveness for her willfulness, yet saying she must even do the same thing again if it were to do over again. She pleaded only for the starving in the name of Christ. She asked only if a little of that portion which should be hers might be sent her, and that because he was her only brother and twin, and like part of her very self—she turned it so lovingly—I never could tell you with what skill—but she had the way—yes. But what did it bring?

"He was a canny, canny Scot, although brought up in America. Only for the times when his mother would take him back to Aberdeen with my Katherine for long visits, he never saw Scotland, but what's in the blood holds fast through life. He was a canny Scot. It takes a time for letters to go and come, and in those days longer than now, when in two weeks one may reach the other side. The reply came as speedily as those days would admit, and it was carefully considered. Ah, Peter was a clever man to bring about his own way. Never a word did he say about forgiveness. It was as if no breach had ever been, but one thing I noticed that she thought must be only an omission, because of the more important things that crowded it out. It was that never once did he mention me any more than if I had never existed. He said he would send her a certain sum of money—and it was a generous one, that is but just to admit—if when she received it she would take another sum, which he would also send, and return to them. He said his home was hers forever if she wished, and that he loved her, and had never had other feeling for her than love. Upon this letter came a long time of pleading with me—and I was ever soft—with her. She won her way.

"'We will both go, Larry, dear,' she said. 'I know he forgot to say you might come, too. If he loves me as he says, he would not break my heart by leaving you out.'

"'He sends only enough for one—for you,' I said.

"'Yes, but he thinks you have enough to come by yourself. He thinks you would not accept it—and would not insult you by sending more.'

"'He insults me by sending enough for you, dear. If I have it for me, I have it for you—most of all for you, or I'm no true man. If I have none for you—then we have none.'

"'Larry, for love of me, let me go—for the gulf between my twin brother and me will never be passed until I go to him.' And this was true enough. 'I will make them love you. Hester loves you now. She will help me.' Hester was the sweet wife of her brother. So she clung to me, and her hands touched me and caressed me—lad, I feel them now. I put her on the boat, and the money he sent relieved the suffering around me, and I gave thanks with a sore heart. It was for them, our own peasantry, and for her, I parted with her then, but as soon as I could I sold my little holding near my grandfather's house to an Englishman who had long wanted it, and when it was parted with, I took the money and delayed not a day to follow her.

"I wrote to her, telling her when and where to meet me in the little town of Leauvite, and it was on the bluff over the river. I went to a home I knew there—where they thought well of me—I think. In the evening I walked up the long path, and there under the oak trees at the top where we had been used to sit, I waited. She came to me, walking in the golden light. It was spring. The whip-poor-wills called and replied to each other from the woods. A mourning dove spoke to its mate among the thick trees, low and sad, but it is only their way. I was glad, and so were they.

"I held her in my arms, and the river sang to us. She told me all over again the love in her heart for me, as she used to tell it. Lad! There is only one theme in the world that is worth telling. There is only one song in the universe that is worth singing, and when your heart has once sung it aright, you will never sing another. The air was soft and sweet around us, and we stayed until a town clock struck twelve; then I took her back, and, as she was not strong, part of the way I carried her in my arms. I left her at her brother's door, and she went into the shadows there, and I was left outside,—all but my heart. She had been home so short a time—her brother was not yet reconciled, but she said she knew he would be. For me, I vowed I would make money enough to give her a home that would shame him for the poverty of his own—his, which he thought the finest in the town."

For a long time there was silence, and Larry Kildene sat with his head drooped on his breast. At last he took up the thread where he had left it. "Two days later I stood in the heavy parlor of that house,—I stood there with their old portraits looking down on me, and my heart was filled with ice—ice and fire. I took what they placed in my arms, and it was—my—little son, but it might have been a stone. It weighed like lead in my arms, that ached with its weight. Might I see her? No. Was she gone? Yes. I laid the weight on the pillow held out to me for it, and turned away. Then Hester came and laid her hand on my arm, but my flesh was numb. I could not feel her touch.

"'Give him to me, Larry,' she was saying. 'I will love him like my own, and he will be a brother to my little son.' And I gave him into her arms, although I knew even then that he would be brought up to know nothing of his father, as if I had never lived. I gave him into her arms because he had no mother and his father's heart had gone out of him. I gave him into her arms, because I felt it was all I could do to let his mother have the comfort of knowing that he was not adrift with me—if they do know where she is. For her sake most of all and for the lad's sake I left him there.

"Then I knocked about the world a while, and back in Ireland I could not stay, for the haunting thought of her. I could bide nowhere. Then the thought took me that I would get money and take my boy back. A longing for him grew in my heart, and it was all the thought I had, but until I had money I would not return. I went to find a mine of gold. Men were flying West to become rich through the finding of mines of gold, and I joined them. I tried to reach a spot that has since been named Higgins' Camp, for there it was rumored that gold was to be found in plenty, and missed it. I came here, and here I stayed."

Now the big man rose to his feet, and looked down on the younger one. He looked kindly. Then, as if seized and shaken by a torrent of impulses which he was trying to hold in check, he spoke tremulously and in suppressed tones.

"I longed for my son, but I tell you this, because there is a strange thing which grasps a man's soul when he finds gold—as I found it. I came to love it for its own sake. I lived here and stored it up—until I am rich—you may not find many men so rich. I could go back and buy that bank that was Peter Craigmile's pride—" His voice rose, but he again suppressed it. "I could buy that pitiful little bank a hundred times over. And she—is—gone. I tried to keep her and the remembrance of her in my mind above the gold, but it was like a lunacy upon me. At the last—until I found you there on the verge of death—the gold was always first in my mind, and the triumph of having it. I came to glory in it, and I worked day after day, and often in the night by torches, and all I gathered I hid, and when I was too weary to work, I sat and handled it and felt it fall through my fingers.

"A woman in England—Miss Evans, by name, only she writes under the name of a man, George Eliot—has written a tale of a poor weaver who came to love his little horde of gold as if it were alive and human. It's a strong tale, that. A good one. Well, I came to understand what the poor little weaver felt. Summer and winter, day and night, week days and Sundays—and I was brought up to keep the Sunday like a Christian should—all were the same to me, just one long period for the getting together of gold. After a time I even forgot what I wanted the gold for in the first place, and thought only of getting it, more and more and more.

"This is a confession, lad. I tremble to think what would have been on my soul had I done what I first thought of doing when that horse of yours called me. He was calling for you—no doubt, but the call came from heaven itself for me, and the temptation came. It was, to stay where I was and know nothing. I might have done that, too, if it were not for the selfish reasons that flashed through my mind, even as the temptation seized it. It was that there might be those below who were climbing to my home—to find me out and take from me my gold. I knew there were prospectors all over, seeking for what I had found, and how could I dare stay in my cabin and be traced by a stray horse wandering to my door? Three coldblooded, selfish murders would now be resting on my soul. It's no use for a man to shut his eyes and say 'I didn't know.' It's his business to know. When you speak of the 'Curse of Cain,' think what I might be bearing now, and remember, if a man repents of his act, there's mercy for him. So I was taught, and so I believe.

"When I looked in your face, lying there in my bunk, then I knew that mercy had been shown me, and for this, here is the thing I mean to do. It is to show my gold and the mine from which it came to you—"

"No, no! I can't bear it. I must not know." Harry King threw up his hands as if in fright and rose, trembling in every limb.

"Man, what ails you?"

"Don't. Don't put temptation in my way that I may not be strong enough to resist."

"I say, what ails you? It's a good thing, rightly used. It may help you to a way out of your trouble. If I never return—I will, mind you,—but we never know—if not, my life will surely not have been spent for naught. You, now, are all I have on earth besides the gold. It was to have been my son's, and it is yours. It might as well have been left in the heart of the mountain, else."

"Better. The longer I think on it, the more I see that there is no hope for me, no true repentance,—" Again that expression on Harry King's face filled Larry's heart with deep pity. An inward terror seemed to convulse his features and throw a pallor as of age and years of sorrow into his visage. Then he continued, after a moment of self-mastery: "No true repentance for me but to go back and take the punishment. For this winter I will live here in peace, and do for Madam Manovska and her daughter what I can, and anything I can do for you,—then I must return and give myself up. The gold only holds out a worldly hope to me, and makes what I must do seem harder. I am afraid of it."

"I'll make you a promise that if I return I'll not let you have it, but that it shall be turned to some good work. If I do not return, it will rest on your conscience that before you make your confession, you shall see it well placed for a charity. You'll have to find the charity, I can't say what it should be offhand now, but come with me. I must tell some man living my secret, and you're the only one. Besides—I trust you. Surely I do."



CHAPTER XIX

THE MINE—AND THE DEPARTURE

Larry Kildene went around behind the stall where he kept his own horse and returned with a hollow tube of burnt clay about a foot long. Into this he thrust a pine knot heavy with pitch, and, carrying a bunch of matches in his hand, he led the way back of the fodder.

"I made these clay handles for my torches myself. They are my invention, and I am quite proud of them. You can hold this burning knot until it is quite consumed, and that's a convenience." He stooped and crept under the fodder, and then Harry King saw why he kept more there than his horse could eat, and never let the store run low. It was to conceal the opening of a long, low passage that might at first be taken for a natural cave under the projecting mass of rock above them, which formed one side and part of the roof of the shed. Quivering with excitement, although sad at heart, Harry King followed his guide, who went rapidly forward, talking and explaining as he went. Under his feet the way was rough and made frequent turns, and for the most part seemed to climb upward.

"There you see it. I discovered a vein of ore back there at the place we entered, and assayed it and found it rich, and see how I worked it out! Here it seemed to end, and then I was still sane enough to think I had enough gold for my life; I left the digging for a while, and went to find my boy. I learned that he was living and had gone into the army with his cousin, and I knew we would be of little use to each other then, but reasoned that the time was to come when the war would be over, and then he would have to find a place for himself, and his father's gold would help. However it was—I saw I must wait. Sit here a bit on this ledge, I want to tell you, but not in self-justification, mind you, not that.

"I had been in India, and had had my fill of wars and fighting. I had no mind to it. I went off and bought stores and seed, and thought I would make more of my garden and not show myself again in Leauvite until my boy was back. It was in my thought, if the lad survived the army, to send for him and give him gold to hold his head above—well—to start him in life, and let him know his father,—but when I returned, the great madness came on me.

"I had built the shed and stabled my horse there, and purposely located my cabin below. The trail up here from the plain is a blind one, because of the wash from the hills at times, and I didn't fear much from white men,—still I concealed my tracks like this. Gold often turns men into devils."

He was silent for a time, and Harry King wondered much why he had made no further effort to find his son before making to himself the offer he had, but he dared not question him, and preferred to let Larry take his own way of telling what he would. As if divining his thought Larry said quietly: "Something held me back from going down again to find my son. The way is long, and in the old way of traveling over the plains it would take a year or more to make the journey and return here, and somehow a superstition seized me that my boy would set out sometime to find me, and I would make the way easy for him to do it. And here on the mountain the years slip by like a long sleep."

He began moving the torch about to show the walls of the cave in which they sat, and as he did so he threw the light strongly on the young man's face, and scrutinized it sharply. He saw again that terrible look of sadness as if his soul were dying within him. He saw great drops of sweat on his brow, and his eyes narrowed and fixed, and he hurried on with the narrative. He could not bear the sight.

"Now here, look how this hole widens out? Here was where I prospected about to find the vein again, and there is where I took it up. All this overhead is full of gold. Think what it would mean if a man had the right apparatus for getting it out—I mean separating it! I only took what was free; that is, what could be easily freed from the quartz. Sometimes I found it in fine nuggets, and then I would go wild, and work until I was so weak I could hardly crawl back to the entrance. I often lay down here and slept with fatigue before I could get back and cook my supper."