"But what did you say?"

"She says to me, 'And where is my 'usband?' I reply, 'Madam, your husband is in a very safe and secret place,'—and that is true enough—'where his enemies will never find him,'—and for all we know that is also true. 'But I cannot understand why he did not come to me. That is not like my 'usband.' 'No, Madam, it is not. But man must do what he must, and the way was too long and arduous for his strength; he could not take the long, weary climb.' And no more could he, true enough. 'No, Madam, you cannot go to him, nor he come to you, for the danger of the way and the wild beasts that are abroad looking for food.' And what more true than that, for did not her daughter see one hunting for food?

"So she covers her face with her hand and rocks herself back and forth, and now, lad, here's where the blarney comes in. It's to tell her of the worth of her husband, and what a loss it would be to the world if he were to die on the trail, and what he would suffer if he thought she were unhappy, and then in the ardor of my speech comes the straight lie. I told her that he was writing the story of his life and that it was to be a great work which would bring about a tremendous revolution of justice and would bring confusion to his enemies, until at last she holds up her head proudly and speaks of his wonderful intellect and goodness. Then she says: 'He cannot come to me, very good. He is not strong enough—no. I go to him to-morrow.' Think of that, man! What I had to meet, and it was all to go over again. I would call it very circumspect lying and in a good cause, too, to comfort the poor soul. I told her of the snow, and how surely she would die by the way and make her husband very sad, he who was now happy in the writing of his book, and that to do so would break his heart and cause his own death,—while to wait until spring in peace would be wiser, because she might then descend the mountain in perfect safety. So now she sits sewing and making things no man understands the use of. She showed me the blouse she has made for you. Now, that is the best medicine for her sick brain. They're great women, these two. If we must have women about, we're in luck to have women of their quality."

"We are, indeed."

"I saw the women who follow the road as it creeps across the plains. They're pitiful to see. If these had been like them, we'd have been obliged to take them in just the same, but Lord be merciful to them, I'm glad they're not on my mountain." Larry shook his ponderous, grizzled head and turned again to his packages. "Since they love to sew, they may be making things for themselves next. Look you! Here is silk for gowns, for women love adornment, the best of them."

Harry paused, his arms full of wood with which he was replenishing the fire, and stared in amazement, as Larry unrolled a mass of changeable satin wherein a deep cerise and green coloring shifted and shimmered in the firelight. He held the rich material up to his own waist and looked gravely down on the long folds that dropped to the floor and coiled about his feet. "I told you we're to live like lords and ladies now. Man! I'd like to see Amalia in a gown of this!"

Harry dropped his wood on the fire and threw back his head and laughed. He even lay down on the floor to laugh, and rolled about until his head lay among the folds of satin. Then he sat up, and taking the material between his fingers felt of it, while the big man looked down on him, gravely discomfited.

"And what did you bring for Madam Manovska?"

"Black, man, black. I'm no fool, I tell you. I know what's discreet for an elderly lady." Then they gravely and laboriously folded together the yards of gorgeous satin. "And I'd have been glad of your measure to get you the suit of clothes you're needing. Lacking it, I got one for myself. But for me they're a bit too small. You'll maybe turn tailor and cut them still smaller for yourself. Take them, and if they're no fit, you'll laugh out of the other corner of your mouth." The two men stood a moment sheepishly eying each other, while Harry held the clothes awkwardly in his hands.

"I—I—did need them." He choked a bit, and then laughed again.

"So did I need them—yours and mine, too." Larry held up another suit, "See here. Mine are darker, to keep you from thinking them yours. And here are the buckskins for hunting. I used to make them for myself, but they had these for sale, and I was by way of spending money, so I bought them. Now, with the blouses the women have made for you, we're decent."

All at once it dawned on Harry what a journey the big man had made, and he fairly shouted, "Larry Kildene, where have you been?"

"I rode like the very devil for three days. When once I was started, I was crazed to go—and see—Then I reached the end of the road from the coast this way. Did you know they're building the road from both ways at once? I didn't, for I never went down to get news of the cities, and they might have put the whole thing through without my even knowing of it, if you hadn't tumbled in on me and told me of it.

"It stirred me up a bit. I left my horse in charge of one I thought I might trust, and then took a train and rode over the new rails clean through to San Francisco, and there I groveled around a day or two, taking in the ways of men. They're doing big things. Now that the two oceans are to be united by iron rails, great changes will come like the wind,—the Lord knows when they will end! Now, the women will be wanting us to eat, I'm thinking, and I'm not ready—but eat we must when the hour comes, and we've done nothing this whole morning but stand here and talk."

Thus Larry grumbled as they tramped down to the cabin through the snow, with the rolls of silk under his arm, and the silver plates in his hand, while Harry carried the sack of coffee and the paper for Amalia. As they neared the cabin the big man paused.

"Take these things in for me, Harry. I—I—left something back in the shed. Drop that coffee and I'll fetch it as I come along."

"Now, what kind of a lie would you call that, sir, since it's your courage you've left?"

"Let be, let be. Can't you see I'm going back after it?"

So Harry carried in the gifts and Larry went back for his "courage" and donned his new suit of clothes to help him carry it, and then came walking in with a jovial swagger, and accepted the mother's thanks and Amalia's embrace with a marvelous ease, especially the embrace, with which he seemed mightily pleased.



CHAPTER XXIV

AMALIA'S FETE

The winter was a cold one, and the snows fell heavily, but a way was always kept open between the cabin and the fodder shed, and also by great labor a space was kept cleared around the cabin and a part of the distance toward the fall so that the women might not be walled in their quarters by the snow. With plenty to occupy them all, the weeks sped swiftly and pleasantly. Larry did a little trapping and hunting, but toward midwinter the sport became dangerous, because of the depth of the snow, and with the exception of stalking a deer now and then, for fresh food, he and Harry spent the most of their time burrowing in the mountain for gold.

Amalia's crutches were gradually laid aside, until she ran about as lightly as before, but even had she not been prevented by the snow she would not have been allowed to go far away from the cabin alone. The men baited and lay in wait for the panther, and at last shot him, but Larry knew from long experience that when the snows were deep, panthers often haunted his place, and their tracks were frequently seen higher up the mountain where he was wont to hunt the mountain sheep.

Sometimes Harry King rode with Amalia where the wind had swept the way bare, toward the bend in the trail, and would bring her back glowing and happy from the exercise. Sometimes when the storms were fierce without, and he suspected Larry longed for his old-time seclusion, he sat in the cabin. At these times Amalia redeemed her promise to teach him French. Few indeed were the books she had for help in giving these lessons. One little unbound book of old sonnets and songs and a small pamphlet of more modern poems that her father had loved, were all, except his Bible, which, although it was in Polish, contained copious annotations in her father's hand in French, and between the leaves of which lay loose pages filled with concise and plainly written meditations of his own.

These Amalia loved and handled with reverence, and for Harry King they had such vital interest that he learned the more rapidly that he might know all they contained. He no longer wondered at her power and breadth of thought. As he progressed he found in them a complete system of ethics and religious faith. Their writer seemed to have drawn from all sources intrinsically vital truths, and separated them from their encumbering theologic verbiage and dogma, and had traced them simply through to the great "Sermon on the Mount." In a few pages this great man had comprised the deepest logic, and the sweetest and widest theology, enough for all the world to live by, and enough to guide nations in safety, if only all men might learn it.

It was sufficient. He knew Amalia better, and more deeply he reverenced and loved her. He no longer quivered when he heard her mention the "Virgin" or when she spoke of the "Sweet Christ." It was not what his old dogmatic ancestry had fled from as "Popery." It was her simple, direct faith in the living Christ, which gave her eyes their clear, far-seeing vision, and her heart its quick, responsive intuition and understanding. She might speak of the convent where she had been protected and loved, and taught many things useful and good, other than legends and doctrines. She had learned how, through her father's understanding and study, to gather out the good, and leave the rest, in all things.

And Harry learned his French. He was an apt scholar, and Larry fell in line, for he had not forgotten the scholastic Latin and French of his college days. He liked, indeed, to air his French occasionally, although his accent was decidedly English, but his grammar was good and a great help to Harry. Madam Manovska also enjoyed his efforts and suggested that when they were all together they should converse in the French alone, not only that they might help Harry, but also that they might have a common language. It was to her and Amalia like their native tongue, and their fluency for a time quite baffled Larry, but he was determined not to be beaten, and when Harry faltered and refused to go on, he pounded him on the back, and stirred him up to try again.

Although Amalia's convent training had greatly restricted her knowledge of literature other than religious, her later years of intimate companionship with her father, and her mother's truly remarkable knowledge of the classics and fearless investigation of the modern thought of her day, had enlarged Amalia's horizon; while her own vivid imagination and her native geniality caused her to lighten always her mother's more somber thought with a delicate and gracious play of fancy that was at once fascinating and delightful. This, and Harry's determination to live to the utmost in these weeks of respite, made him at times almost gay.

Most of all he reveled in Amalia's music. Certain melodies that she said her father had made he loved especially, and sometimes she would accompany them with a plaintive chant, half singing and half recitation, of the sonnet which had inspired them, and which had been woven through them. It was at these times that Larry listened with his elbows on his knees and his eyes fixed on the fire, and Harry with his eyes on Amalia's face, while the cabin became to him glorified with a light, no longer from the flames, but with a radiance like that which surrounded Dante's Beatrice in Paradise.

Amalia loved to please Larry Kildene. For this reason, knowing the joy he would take in it, and also because she loved color and light and joy, and the giving of joy, she took the gorgeous silk he had brought her, and made it up in a fashion of her own. Down in the cities, she knew, women were wearing their gowns spread out over wide hoops, but she made the dress as she knew they were worn at the time Larry had lived among women and had seen them most.

The bodice she fitted closely and shaped into a long point in front, and the skirt she gathered and allowed to fall in long folds to her feet. The sleeves she fitted only to her elbows, and gathered in them deep lace of her own making—lace to dream about, and the creation of which was one of those choice things she had learned of the good sisters at the convent. About her neck she put a bertha, kerchiefwise, and pinned it with a brooch of curiously wrought gold. Larry, "the discreet and circumspect liar," thought of the emerald brooch she had brought him to sell for her, and knowing how it would glow and blend among the changing tints of the silk, he fetched it to her, explaining that he could not sell it, and that the bracelet had covered all she had asked him to purchase for her, and some to spare.

She thanked him, and fastened it in her bodice, and handed the other to her mother. "There, mamma, when we have make you the dress Sir Kildene have brought you, you must wear this, for it is beautiful with the black. Then we will have a fete. And for the fete, Sir Kildene, you must wear the very fine new clothes you have buy, and Mr. 'Arry will carry on him the fine new clothing, and so will we be all attire most splendid. I will make for you all the music you like the best, and mamma will speak then the great poems she have learned by head, and Sir Kildene will tell the story he can relate so well of strange happenings. Oh, it will be a fine, good concert we will make here—and you, Mr. 'Arry, what will you do?"

"I'll do the refreshments. I'll roast corn and make coffee. I'll be audience and call for more."

"Ah, yes! Encore! Encore! The artists must always be very much praised—very much—so have I heard, to make them content. It is Sir Kildene who will be the great artist, and you must cry 'Encore,' and honor him greatly with such calls. Then will we have the pleasure to hear many stories from him. Ah, I like to hear them."

It was a strange life for Harry King, this odd mixture of finest culture and high-bred delicacy of manner, with what appeared to be a total absence of self-seeking and a simple enjoyment of everyday work. He found Amalia one morning on her knees scrubbing the cabin floor, and for the moment it shocked him. When they were out on the plains camping and living as best they could, he felt it to be the natural consequence of their necessities when he saw her washing their clothes and making the best of their difficulties by doing hard things with her own hands, but now that they were living in a civilized way, he could not bear to see her, or her mother, doing the rough work. Amalia only laughed at him. "See how fine we make all things. If I will not serve for making clean the house, why am I? Is not?"

"It doesn't make any difference what you do, you are always beautiful."

"Ah, Mr. 'Arry, you must say those compliments only in the French. It is no language, the English, for those fine eloquences."

"No, I don't seem to be able to say anything I mean, in French. It's always a sort of make-believe talk with me. Our whole life here seems a sort of dream,—as if we were living in some wonderful bubble that will suddenly burst one day, and leave us floating alone in space, with nothing anywhere to rest on."

"No, no, you are mistake. Here is this floor, very real, and dirt on it to be washed away,—from your boots, also very real, is not? Go away, Mr. 'Arry, but come to-night in your fine clothing, for we have our fete. Mamma has finish her beautiful new dress, and we will be gay. Is good to be sometimes joyful, is not? We have here no care, only to make happy together, and if we cannot do that, all is somber."

And that evening indeed, Amalia had her "fete." Larry told his best stories, and Harry was persuaded to tell them a little of his life as a soldier, and to sing a camp song. More than this he would not do, but he brought out something he had been reserving with pride, a few little nuggets of gold. During the weeks he had worked he had found little, until the last few days, but happening to strike a vein of ore, richer than any Larry had ever found, the two men were greatly elated, and had determined to interest the women by melting some of it out of the quartz in which it was bedded, and turning out for each a golden bullet in Larry's mold.

They heaped hard wood in the fireplace and the cabin was lighted most gloriously. While they waited for the red coals to melt the gold, Amalia took her violin and played and sang. It was nearly time for the rigor of the winter to abate, but still a high wind was blowing, and the fine snow was piling and drifting about the cabin, and even sifting through the chinks around the window and door, but the storm only made the brightness and warmth within more delightful.

When Larry drew his crucible from the coals and poured the tiny glowing stream into his molds, Amalia cried out with joy. "How that is beautiful! How wonderful to dig such beauty from the dark ground down in the black earth! Ah, mamma, look!"

Then Larry pounded each one flat like a coin, and drilled through a small hole, making thus, for each, a souvenir of the shining metal. "This is from Harry's first mining," he said, "and it represents good, hard labor. He's picked out a lot of worthless dirt and stone to find this."

Amalia held the little disk in her hand and smiled upon it. "I love so this little precious thing. Now, Mr. 'Arry, what shall I play for you? It is yours to ask—for me, to play; it is all I have."

"That sonnet you played me yesterday. The last line is, '"Quelle est donc cette femme?" et ne comprenda pas.'"

"The music of that is not my father's best—but you ask it, yes." Then she began, first playing after her own heart little dancing airs, gay and fantastic, and at last slid into a plaintive strain, and recited the accompaniment of rhythmic words.

"Mon ame a son secret, ma vie a son mystere: Un amour eternel en un moment concu. Le mal est sans espoir, aussi j'ai du le taire Et celle qui l'a fait n'en a jamais rien su."

One minor note came and went and came again, through the melody, until the last tones fell on that note and were held suspended in a tremulous plaint.

"Elle dira, lisant ces vers tout remplis d'elle: 'Quelle est donc cette femme?' et ne comprendra pas."

Without pause she passed into a quick staccato and then descended to long-drawn tones, deep and full. "This is better, but I have never played it for you because that it is Polish, and to make it in English and so sing it is hard. You have heard of our great and good general Kosciuszko, yes? My father loved well to speak of him and also of one very high officer under him,—I speak his name for you, Julian Niemcewicz. This high officer, I do not know how to say in English his rank, but that is no matter. He was writer, and poet, and soldier—all. At last he was exiled and sorrowful, like my father,—sorrowful most of all because he might no more serve his country. It is to this poet's own words which he wrote for his grave that my father have put in music the cry of his sorrow. In Polish is it more beautiful, but I sing it for you in English for your comprehending."

"O, ye exiles, who so long wander over the world, Where will ye find a resting place for your weary steps? The wild dove has its nest, and the worm a clod of earth, Each man a country, but the Pole a grave!"

It was indeed a cry of sorrow, the wail of a dying nation, and as Amalia played and sang she became oblivious of all else a being inspired by lofty emotion, while the two men sat in silence, wondering and fascinated. The mother's eyes glowed upon her out of the obscurity of her corner, and her voice alone broke the silence.

"I have heard my Paul in the night of the desert where he made that music, I have heard him so play and sing it, that it would seem the stars must fall down out of the heavens with sorrow for it."

Amalia smiled and caught up her violin again. "We will have no more of this sad music this night. I will sing the wild song of the Ukraine, most beautiful of all our country, alas, ours no more—Like that other, the music is my father's, but the poem is written by a son of the Ukraine—Zaliski."

A melody clear and sweet dominated, mounting to a note of triumph. Slender and tall she stood in the middle of the room. The firelight played on the folds of her gown, bringing out its color in brilliant flashes. She seemed to Harry, with her rich complexion and glowing eyes, absorbed thus in her music, a type of human splendor, vigorous, vivid, adorable. Mostly in Polish, but sometimes in English, she again half sang, half chanted, now playing with the voice, and again dropping to accompaniment only, while they listened, the mother in the shadows, Larry gazing in the fire, and Harry upon her.

"Me also has my mother, the Ukraine, Me her son Cradled on her bosom, The enchantress."

She ceased, and with a sigh dropped at her mother's feet and rested her head on her mother's knee.

"Tell us now, mamma, a poem. It is time we finish now our fete with one good, long poem from you."

"You will understand me?" Madam Manovska turned to Harry. "You do well understand what once you have heard—" She always spoke slowly and with difficulty when she undertook English, and now she continued speaking rapidly to Amalia in her own tongue, and her daughter explained.

"Mamma says she will tell you a poem composed by a great poet, French, who is now, for patriotism to his country, in exile. His name is Victor Hugo. You have surely heard of him? Yes. She says she will repeat this which she have by head, and because that it is not familiar to you she asks will I tell it in English—if you so desire?"

Again Madam Manovska addressed her daughter, and Amalia said: "She thinks this high mountain and the plain below, and that we are exile from our own land, makes her think of this; only that the conscience has never for her brought terror, like for Cain, but only to those who have so long persecuted my father with imprisonment, and drive him so far to terrible places. She thinks they must always, with never stopping, see the 'Eye' that regards forever. This also must Victor Hugo know well, since for his country he also is driven in exile—and can see the terrible 'Eye' go to punish his enemies."

Then Madam Manovska began repeating in her strong, deep tones the lines:—

"Lorsque avec ses enfants vetus de peaux de betes, Echevele, livide au milieu des tempetes, Cain se fut enfui de devant Jehovah,

"Comme le soir tombait, l'homme sombre arriva Au bas d'une montagne en une grande plaine; Sa femme fatiguee et ses fils hors d'haleine; Lui dire: 'Couchons-nous sur la terre et dormons.'"

"Oh, mamma, that is so sad, that poem,—but continue—I will make it in English so well as I can, and for the mistakes—errors—of my telling you will forgive?

"This is the story of the terrible man, Cain, how he go with his children all in the skins of animals dressed. His hairs so wild, his face pale,—he runs in the midst of the storms to hide himself from God,—and, at last, in the night to the foot of a mountain on a great plain he arrive, and his wife and sons, with no breath and very tired, say to him, let us here on the earth lie down and sleep." Thus, as Madam Manovska recited, Amalia told the story in her own words, and Harry King listened rapt and tense to the very end, while the fire burned low and the shadows closed around them.

"But Cain did not sleep, lying there by the mountain, for he saw always in the far shadows the fearful Eye of the condemning power fixed with great sorrow upon him. Then he cried, 'I am too near!' and with trembling he awoke his children and his wife, and began to run furiously into space. So for thirty days and thirty nights he walked, always pale and silent, trembling, and never to see behind him, without rest or sleeping, until they came to the shore of a far country, named Assur.

"'Now rest we here, for we are come to the end of the world and are safe,' but, as he seated himself and looked, there in the same place on the far horizon he saw, in the sorrowful heavens, the Eye. Then Cain called on the darkness to hide him, and Jabal, his son, parent of those who live in tents, extended about him on that side the cloth of his tent, and Tsilla, the little daughter of his son, asked him, 'You see now nothing?' and Cain replied, 'I see the Eye, encore!'

"Then Jubal, his son, father of those who live in towns and blow upon clarions and strike upon tambours, cried, 'I will make one barrier, I will make one wall of bronze and put Cain behind it.' But even still, Cain said, 'The Eye regards me always!'

"Then Henoch said: 'I will make a place of towers so terrible that no one dare approach to him. Build we a city of citadels. Build we a city and there fasten—shut—close.'

"Then Tubal Cain, father of men who make of iron, constructed one city—enormous—superhuman; and while that he labored, his brothers in the plain drove far away the sons of Enos and the children of Seth, and put out the eyes of all who passed that way, and the night came when the walls of covering of tents were not, and in their place were walls of granite, every block immense, fastened with great nails of iron, and the city seemed a city of iron, and the shadow of its towers made night upon the plain, and about the city were walls more high than mountains, and when all was done, they graved upon the door, 'Defense a Dieu d'entrer,' and they put the old father Cain in a tower of stone in the midst of this city, and he sat there somber and haggard.

"'Oh, my father, the Eye has now disappeared?' asked the child, Tsilla, and Cain replied: 'No, it is always there! I will go and live under the earth, as in his sepulcher, a man alone. There nothing can see me more, and I no more can see anything.'

"Then made they for him one—cavern. And Cain said, 'This is well,' and he descended alone under this somber vault and sat upon a seat in the shadows, and when they had shut down the door of the cave, the Eye was there in the tombs regarding him."

Thus, seated at her mother's feet, Amalia rendered the poem as her mother recited, while the firelight played over her face and flashed in the silken folds of her dress. When she had finished, the fire was low and the cabin almost in darkness. No one spoke. Larry still gazed in the dying embers, and Harry still sat with his eyes fixed on Amalia's face.

"Victor Hugo, he is a very great man, as my 'usband have say," said the mother at last.

"Ah, mamma. For Cain,—maybe,—yes, the Eye never closed, but now have man hope or why was the Christ and the Holy Virgin? It is the forgiving of God they bring—for—for love of the poor human,—and who is sorrowful for his wrong—he is forgive with peace in his heart, is not?"



CHAPTER XXV

HARRY KING LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN

When the two men bade Amalia and her mother good night and took their way to the fodder shed, the snow was whirling and drifting around the cabin, and the pathway was obliterated.

"This'll be the last storm of the year, I'm thinking," said Larry. But the younger man strode on without making a reply. He bent forward, leaning against the wind, and in silence trod a path for his friend through the drifted heaps. At the door of the shed he stood back to let Larry pass.

"I'll not go in yet. I'll tramp about in the snow a bit until—Don't sit up for me—" He turned swiftly away into the night, but Larry caught him by the arm and brought him back.

"Come in with me, lad; I'm lonely. We'll smoke together, then we'll sleep well enough."

Then Harry went in and built up the fire, throwing on logs until the shed was flooded with light and the bare rock wall seemed to leap forward in the brilliance, but he did not smoke; he paced restlessly about and at last crept into his bunk and lay with his face to the wall. Larry sat long before the fire. "It's the music that's got in my blood," he said. "Katherine could sing and lilt the Scotch airs like a bird. She had a touch for the instrument, too."

But Harry could not respond to his friend's attempted confidence in the rare mention of his wife's name. He lay staring at the rough stone wall close to his face, and it seemed to him that his future was bounded by a barrier as implacable and terrible as that. All through the night he heard the deep tones of Madam Manovska's voice, and the visions of the poem passed through his mind. He saw the strange old man, the murderer, Cain, seated in the tomb, bowed and remorseful, and in the darkness still the Eye. But side by side with this somber vision he saw the interior of the cabin, and Amalia, glowing and warm and splendid in her rich gown, with the red firelight playing over her, leaning toward him, her wonderful eyes fixed on his with a regard at once inscrutable and sympathetic. It was as if she were looking into his heart, but did not wish him to know that she saw so deeply.

Towards morning the snow clouds were swept from the sky, and a late moon shone out clear and cold upon a world carved crisply out of molten silver. Unable longer to bear that waking torture, Harry King rose and went out into the night, leaving his friend quietly sleeping. He stood a moment listening to Larry's long, calm breathing; then buttoning his coat warmly across his chest, he closed the shed door softly behind him and floundered off into the drifts, without heeding the direction he was taking, until he found himself on the brink of the chasm where the river, sliding smoothly over the rocks high above his head, was forever tumbling.

There he stood, trembling, but not with cold, nor with cowardice, nor with fatigue. Sanity had come upon him. He would do no untoward act to hurt the three people who would grieve for him. He would bear the hurt of forever loving in silence, and continue to wait for the open road that would lead him to prison and disgrace, or maybe a death of shame. He considered, as often before, all the arguments that continually fretted him and tore his spirit; and, as before, he knew the only course to follow was the hard one which took him back to Amalia, until spring and the melting of the snows released him—to live near her, to see her and hear her voice, even touch her hand, and feel his body grow tense and hard, suffering restraint. If only for one moment he might let himself go! If but once again he might touch her lips with his! Ah, God! If he might say one word of love—only once before leaving her forever!

Standing there looking out upon the world beneath him and above him bathed in the immaculate whiteness of the snow, and the moonlight over all, he perceived how small an atom in the universe is one lone man, yet how overwhelmingly great in his power to love. It seemed to him that his love overtopped the hills and swept to the very throne of God. He was exalted by it, and in this exaltation it was that he trembled. Would it lift him up to triumph over remorse and death?

He turned and plodded back the inevitable way. It was still night—cold and silver-white. He was filled with energy born of great renunciation and despair, and could only calm himself by work. If he could only work until he dropped, or fight with the elements, it would help him. He began clearing the snow from the ground around the cabin and cut the path through to the shed; then he quietly entered and found Larry still calmly sleeping as if but a moment had passed. Finally, he secured one of the torches and made his way through the tunnel to the place where Larry and he had found the quartz which they had smelted in the evening.

There he fastened the torch securely in a crevice, and began to swing his pick and batter recklessly at the overhanging ledge. Never had he worked so furiously, and the earth and stone lay all about him and heaped at his feet. Deeper and deeper he fought and cut into the solid wall, until, grimed with sweat and dirt, he sank exhausted upon the pile of quartz he had loosened. Then he shoveled it to one side and began again dealing erratic blows with his spent strength, until the ledge hung dangerously over him. As it was, he reeled and swayed and struck again, and staggered back to gather strength for another blow, leaning on his pick, and this saved him from death; for, during the instant's pause, the whole mass fell crashing in front of him, and he went down with it, stunned and bleeding, but not crushed.

Larry Kildene breakfasted and worked about the cabin and the shed half the day before he began to wonder at the young man's absence. He fell to grumbling that Harry had not fed and groomed his horse, and did the work himself. Noon came, and Amalia looked in his face anxiously as he entered and Harry not with him.

"How is it that Mr. 'Arry have not arrive all this day?"

"Oh, he's mooning somewhere. Off on a tramp I suppose."

"Has he then his gun? No?"

"No, but he's been about. He cleared away all the snow, and I saw he had been over to the fall." Amalia turned pale as the shrewd old man's eyes rested on her. "He came back early, though, for I saw footprints both ways."

"I hope he comes soon, for we have the good soup to-day, of the kind Mr. 'Arry so well likes."

But he did not come soon, and it was with much misgiving that Larry set out to search for him. Finding no trails leading anywhere except the twice trodden one to the fall, he naturally turned into the mine and followed along the path, torch in hand, hallooing jovially as he went, but his voice only returned to him, reverberating hollowly. Then, remembering the ledge where they had last worked, and how he had meant to put in props before cutting away any more, he ran forward, certain of calamity, and found his young friend lying where he had fallen, the blood still oozing from a cut above the temple, where it had clotted.

For a moment Larry stood aghast, thinking him dead, but quickly seeing the fresh blood, he lifted the limp body and bound up the wound, and then Harry opened his eyes and smiled in Larry's face. The big man in his joy could do nothing but storm and scold.

"Didn't I tell ye to do no more here until we'd the props in? I'm thinking you're a fool, and that's what you are. If I didn't tell ye we needed them here, you could have seen it for yourself—and here you've cut away all underneath. What did you do it for? I say!" Tenderly he gathered Harry in his arms and lifted him from the debris and loosened rock. "Now! Are you hurt anywhere else? Don't try to stand. Bear on me. I say, bear on me."

"Oh, put me down and let me walk. I'm not hurt. Just a cut. How long have you been here?"

"Walk! I say! Yes, walk! Put your arm here, across my shoulder, so. You can walk as well as a week-old baby. You've lost blood enough to kill a man." So Larry carried him in spite of himself, and laid him in his bunk. There he stood, panting, and looking down on him. "You're heavier by a few pounds than when I toted you down that trail last fall."

"This is all foolishness. I could have made it myself—on foot," said Harry, ungratefully, but he smiled up in the older man's face a compensating smile.

"Oh, yes. You can lie there and grin now. And you'll continue to lie there until I let you up. It's no more lessons with Amalia and no more violin and poetry for you, for one while, young man."

"Thank God. It will help me over the time until the trail is open." Larry stood staring foolishly on the drawn face and quivering, sensitive lips.

"You're hungry, that's what you are," he said conclusively.

"Guess I am. I'm wretchedly sorry to make you all this trouble, but—she mustn't come in here—you'll bring me a bite to eat—yes, I'm hungry. That's what ails me." He drew a grimy hand across his eyes and felt the bandage. "Why—you've done me up! I must have had quite a cut."

"I'll wash your face and get your coat off, and your boots, and make you fit to look at, and then—"

"I don't want to see her—or her mother—either. I'm just—I'm a bit faint—I'll eat if—you'll fetch me a bite."

Quickly Larry removed his outer clothing and mended the fire and then left him carefully wrapped in blankets and settled in his bunk. When he returned, he found him light-headed and moaning and talking incoherently. Only a few words could he understand, and these remained in his memory.

"When I'm dead—when I'm dead, I say." And then, "Not yet. I can't tell him yet.—I can't tell him the truth. It's too cruel." And again the refrain: "When I'm dead—when I'm dead." But when Larry bent over him and spoke, Harry looked sanely in his eyes and smiled again.

"Ah, that's good," he said, sipping the soup. "I'll be myself again to-morrow, and save you all this trouble. You know I must have accomplished a good deal, to break off that ledge, and the gold fairly leaped out on me as I worked."

"Did you see it?"

"No, but I knew it—I felt it. Shake my clothes and see if they aren't full of it."

"Was that what put you in such a frenzy and made a fool of you?"

"Yes—no—no. It—it—wasn't that."

"You know you were a fool, don't you?"

"If telling me of it makes me know it—yes."

"Eat a little more. Here are beans and venison. You must eat to make up the loss. Why, man, I found you in a pool of blood."

"Oh, I'll make it up. I'll make it up all too soon. I'm not to die so easily."

"You'll not make it up as soon as you think, young man. You may lose a quart of blood in a minute, but it takes weeks to get it again," and Harry King found his friend was right.

That was the last snow of winter, as Larry had predicted, and when Harry crawled out in the sun, the earth smelled of spring, and the waterfall thundered in its downward plunge, augmented by the melting snows of the still higher mountains. The noise of it was ever in their ears, and the sound seemed fraught with a buoyant impulse and inspiration—the whirl and rush of a tremendous force, giving a sense of superhuman power. Even after he was really able to walk about and help himself, Harry would not allow himself to see Amalia. He forbade Larry to tell them how much he was improved, and still taxed his friend to bring him up his meals, and sit by him, telling him the tales of his life.

"I'll wait on you here no longer, boy," said Larry, at last. "What in life are you hiding in this shed for? The women think it strange of you—the mother does, anyway,—you may never quite know what her daughter thinks unless she wishes you to know, but I'm sure she thinks strange of you. She ought to."

"I know. I'm perfectly well and strong. The trail's open now, and I'll go—I'll go back—where I came from. You've been good to me—I can't say any more—now."

"Smoke a pipe, lad, smoke a pipe."

Harry took a pipe and laughed. "You're better than any pipe, but I'll smoke it, and I'll go down, yes, I must, and bid them good-by."

"And will you have nothing to tell me, lad, before you go?"

"Not yet. After I've made my peace with the world—with the law—I'll have a letter sent you—telling all I know. You'll forgive me. You see, when I look back—I wish to see your face—as I see it now—not—not changed towards me."

"My face is not one to change toward you—you who have repented whatever you've done that's wrong."

That evening Harry King went down to the cabin and sat with his three friends and ate with them, and told them he was to depart on the morrow. They chatted and laughed and put restraint away from them, and all walked together to watch the sunset from a crag above the cabin. As they returned Madam Manovska walked at Harry's side, and as she bade him good night she said in her broken English:—

"You think not to return—no? But I say to you—in my soul I know it—yet will you return—we no more to be here—perhaps—but you—yes. You will return."

They stood a moment before the cabin, and the firelight streamed through the open door and fell on Amalia's face. Harry took the mother's hand as he parted from them, but he looked in Amalia's eyes.

In the morning he appeared with his kit strapped on his back equipped for walking. The women protested that he should not go thus, but he said he could not take Goldbug and leave him below. "He is yours, Amalia. Don't beat him. He's a good horse—he saved my life—or tried to."

"You know well it is my custom to beat animals. It is better you take him, or I beat him severely."

"I know it. But you see, I can't take him. Ride him for me, and—don't let him forget me. Good-by!"

He waved his hand and walked lightly away, and all stood in the doorway watching him. At the top of a slight rise he turned again and waved his hand, and was lost to their sight. Then Larry went back to the shed and sat by the fire and smoked a lonely pipe, and the mother began busily to weave at her lace in the cabin, closing the door, for the morning air was chilly, and Amalia—for a moment she stood at the cabin door, her hand pressed to her heart, her head bowed as if in despair. Then she entered the cabin, caught up her silken shawl, and went out.

Throwing the shawl over her head she ran along the trail Harry had taken, until she was out of breath, then she paused, and looked back, hesitating, quivering. Should she go on? Should she return?

"I will go but a little—little way. Maybe he stops a moment, if only to—to—think a little," and she went on, hurrying, then moving more slowly. She thought she might at least catch one more fleeting glimpse of him as he turned the bend in the trail, but she did not. "Ah, he is so quickly gone!" she sighed, but still walked on.

Yes, so quickly gone, but he had stopped as she thought, to think a little, beyond the bend, there where he had waited the long night in the snow for Larry Kildene, there where he had sat like Elijah of old, despairing, under the juniper tree. He felt weary and old and worn. He thought his youth had gone from him forever, but what matter? What was youth without hope? Youth, love, life, all were to be relinquished. He closed his eyes to the wonder of the hills and the beauty before him, yet he knew they were there with their marvelous appeal, and he sat with bowed head.

"'Arry! 'Arry King!" He raised his head, and there before him were all that he had relinquished—youth, love, life.

He ran and caught her to him, as one who is drowning catches at life.

"You have leave me so coldly, 'Arry King." He pressed her cheek to his. "You did not even speak to me a little." He kissed her lips. "You have break my heart." He held her closer to his own. "Why have you been so cold—like—like the ice—to leave me so hard—like—like—"

"To save you from just this, Amalia. To save you from the touch of my hand—this is the crime I have fought against."

"No. To love is not crime."

"To dare to love—with the curse on my head that I feel as Cain felt it—is crime. In the Eye he saw it always—as I—I—see it. To touch you—it is like bringing the crime and curse on you, and through your beautiful love making you suffer for it. See, Amalia? It was all I could do to go out of your life and say nothing." His voice trembled and his hand quivered as it rested on her hair. "I sat here to fight it. My heart—my heart that I have not yet learned to conquer—was pulling me back to you. I was faint and old. I could walk no farther until the fight was won. Oh, Amalia—Amalia! Leave me alone, with the curse on my head! It is not yours."

"No, and it is not yours. You have repent. I do not believe that poem my mother is thinking so great. It is the terror of the ancient ones, but to-day, no more. Take this. It is for you I bring it. I have wear it always on my bosom, wear it now on yours."

She quickly unclasped from her neck a threadlike chain of gold, and drew from her bosom a small ivory crucifix, to which it was attached. Reaching up, she clasped it around his neck, and thrust the cross in his bosom. Then, thinking he meant to protest, she seized his hands and held them, and her words came with the impetuous rush of her thoughts.

"No charm will help, Amalia. I killed my friend."

"Ah, no, 'Arry King! Take this of me. It is not as you think for one charm I give it. No. It is for the love of Christ—that you remember and think of it. For that I wear it. For that I give it to you. If you have repent, and have the Christ in your heart, so are you high—lifted above the sin, and if they take you—if they put the iron on your hands—Ah, I know, it is there you go to give yourself up,—if they keep you forever in the prison, still forever are you free. If they put you to the death to be satisfied of the law, then quickly are you alive in Paradise with Christ. Listen, it is for the love that you give yourself up—for the sorrowfulness in your heart that you have killed your friend? Is not? Yes. So is good. See. Look to the hills, the high mountains, all far around us? They are beautiful. They are yours. God gives you. And the sky—so clear—and the bright sun and the spring life and the singing of the birds? All are yours—God gives. And the love in your heart—for me? God gives, yes, and for the one you have hurt? Yes. God gives it. And for the Christ who so loves you? Yes. So is the love the great life of God in you. It is yours. Listen. Go with the love in your heart—for me,—it will not hurt. It will be sweet to me. I carry no curse for you, as you say. It is gone. If I see you again in this world—as may be—is joy—great joy. If I see you no more here, yet in Paradise I will see you, and there also it will be joy, for it is the love that is all of life, and all of eternity, and lives—lives!"

Again he held her to his heart in a long embrace, and, when at last he walked down the trail into the desert, he still felt her tears on his cheek, her kisses on his lips, and her heart against his own.



BOOK THREE



CHAPTER XXVI

THE LITTLE SCHOOL-TEACHER

On a warm day in May, a day which opens the crab-apple blossoms and sets the bees humming, and the children longing for a chance to pull off shoes and stockings and go wading in the brook; on such a day the door of the little schoolhouse stood open and the sunlight lay in a long patch across the floor toward the "teacher's desk," and the breeze came in and tossed a stray curl about her forehead, and the children turned their heads often to look at the round clock on the wall, watching for the slowly moving hands to point to the hour of four.

It was a mixed school. Children of all ages were there, from naughty little Johnnie Cole of five to Mary Burt and Hilton Le Moyne of seventeen and nineteen, who were in algebra and the sixth reader. It was well known by the rest of the children why Hilton Le Moyne lingered in the school this year all through May and June, instead of leaving in April, as usual, to help his uncle on the farm. It was "Teacher." He was in love with her, and always waited after school, hoping for a chance to walk home with her.

Poor boy! Black haired, red cheeked, and big hearted, he knew his love was hopeless, for he was younger than she—not so much; but there was Tom Howard who was also in love with her, and he had a span of sorrel horses which he had raised and broken himself, and they were his own, and he could come at any time—when she would let him—and take her out riding.

Ah, that was something to aspire to! Such a team as that, and "Teacher" to sit by his side and drive out with him, all in her pretty flat hat with a pink rose on it and green ribbons flying, and her green parasol over her head—sitting so easily—just leaning forward a bit and turning and laughing at what he was saying, and all the town seeing her with him, and his harness shining and new, making the team look as splendid as the best livery in town, and his buggy all painted so bright and new—well! The time would come when he too would have such an outfit. It would. And Teacher would see that Tom Howard was not the only one who could drive up after her in such style.

Little Teacher was tired to-day. The children had been restless and noisy, and her heart had been heavy with a great disappointment. She had been carefully saving her small salary that she might go when school closed and take a course at the "Art Institute" in "Technique." For a long time she had clung to the idea that she would become an illustrator, and a great man had told her father that "with a little instruction in technique" his daughter had "a fortune at the tips of her fingers." Only technique! Yes, if she could get it!

Father could help her, of course, only father was a painter in oils and not an illustrator—and then—he was so driven, always, and father and mother both thought it would be best for her to take the course of study recommended by the great man. So it was decided, for there was Martha married and settled in her home not far away from the Institute, and Teacher could live with her and study. Ah, the long-coveted chance almost within her reach! Then—one difficulty after another intervened, beginning with a great fire in the fall which swept away Martha's home and all they had accumulated, together with her husband's school, rendering it necessary for the young couple to go back to Leauvite for the winter.

"Never mind, Betty, dear," Martha had encouraged her. "We'll return in the spring and start again, and you can take the course just the same."

But now a general financial stringency prevailed all over the country. "It always seems, when there's a 'financial stringency,' that portraits and paintings are the things people economize on first of all," said Betty.

"Naturally," said Mary Ballard. "When people need food and clothing—they want them, and not pictures. We'll just have to wait, dear."

"Yes, we'll have to wait, Mary." Saucy Betty had a way of calling her mother "Mary." "Your dress is shabby, and you need a new bonnet; I noticed it in church,—you'd never speak of that, though. You'd wear your winter's bonnet all summer."

Yes, Betty must see to it, even if it took every bit of the fund, that mother and Janey were suitably dressed. "Never mind, Mary, I'll catch up some day. You needn't look sorry. I'm all right about my own clothes, for Martha gave me a rose for my hat, and the new ribbons make it so pretty,—and my green parasol is as good as new for all I've had it three years, and—"

Betty stopped abruptly. Three years!—was it so long since that parasol was new—and she was so happy—and Richard came home—? The family were seated on the piazza as they were wont to be in the evening, and Betty walked quietly into the house, and up to her room.

Bertrand Ballard sighed, and his wife reached out and took his hand in hers. "She's never been the same since," he said.

"Her character has deepened and she's fine and sweet—"

"Yes, yes. I have three hundred dollars owing me for the Delong portrait. If I had it, she should have her course. I'll make another effort to collect it."

"I would, Bertrand."

Julien Thurbyfil and his wife walked down the flower-bordered path side by side to the gate and stood leaning over it in silence. Practical Martha was the first to break it.

"There will be just as much need for preparatory schools now as there was before the fire, Julien."

"Yes, dear, yes."

"And, meanwhile, we are glad of this sweet haven to come to, aren't we? And it won't be long before things are so you can begin again."

"Yes, dear, and then we'll make it up to Betty, won't we?"

But Julien was distraught and somber, in spite of brave words. He had not inherited Mary Ballard's way of looking at things, nor his father-in-law's buoyancy.

All that night Betty lay wakeful and thinking—thinking as she had many, many a time during the last three years, trying to make plans whereby she might adjust her thoughts to a life of loneliness, as she had decided in her romantic heart was all she would take. How could there be anything else for her since that terrible night when Richard had come to her and confessed his guilt—his love and his renunciation! Was she not sharing it all with him wherever he might be, and whatever he was doing? Oh, where was he? Did he ever think of her and know she was always thinking of him? Did he know she prayed for him, and was the thought a comfort to him? Surely Peter was the happier of the two, for he was not a sorrowing criminal, wandering the earth, hiding and repenting. So all her thoughts went out to Richard, and no wonder she was a weary little wight at the end of the school day.

Four o'clock, and the children went hurrying away, all but Hilton Le Moyne, who lingered awhile at his desk, and then reluctantly departed, seeing Teacher did not look up from her papers except to give him a nod and a fugitive little smile of absent-minded courtesy. Left thus alone, Betty lifted the lid of her desk and put away the school register and the carefully marked papers to be given out the next day, and took from a small portfolio a packet of closely written sheets. These she untied and looked over, tossing them rapidly aside one after another until she found the one for which she searched.

It was a short poem, hastily written with lead pencil, and much crumpled and worn, as if it had been carried about. Now she straightened the torn edges and smoothed it out and began scanning the lines, counting off on her fingers the rhythmic beats; she copied the verses carefully on a fresh white sheet of paper and laid them aside; then, shoving the whole heap of written papers from her, she selected another fresh sheet and began anew, writing and scanning and writing again.

Steadily she worked while an hour slipped by. A great bumblebee flew in at one window and boomed past her head and out at the other window, and a bluebird perched for an instant on the window ledge and was off again. She saw the bee and the bird and paused awhile, gazing with dreamy eyes through the high, uncurtained window at drifting clouds already taking on the tint of the declining sun; then she stretched her arms across her wide desk, and putting her head down on them, was soon fast asleep. Tired little Teacher!

The breeze freshened and tumbled her hair and fanned her flushed cheek, and it did more than that; for, as the drifting clouds betokened, the weather was changing, and now a gust of wind caught at her papers and took some of them out of the window, tossing and whirling them hither and thither. Some were carried along the wayside and lost utterly. One fluttered high over the tree tops and out across the meadow, and then suddenly ceased its flight and drifted slowly down like a dried leaf, past the face of a young man who sat on a stone, moodily gazing in the meadow brook. He reached out a long arm and caught it as it fluttered by, just in time to save it from annihilation in the water.

For a moment he held the scrap of paper absently between his fingers, then glancing down at it he spied faintly written, half-obliterated verses and read them; then, with awakened interest, he read them again, smoothing the torn bit of paper out on his knee. The place where he sat was well screened from the road by a huge basswood tree, which spread great limbs quite across the stream, and swept both its banks with drooping branches and broad leaves. Now he held the scrap on his open palm and studied it closely and thoughtfully. It was the worn piece from which Betty had copied the verses.

"Oh, send me a thought on the winds that blow. On the wing of a bird send a thought to me; For the way is so long that I may not know, And there are no paths on the troubled sea.

"Out of the darkness I saw you go,— Into the shadows where sorrows be,— Wounded and bleeding, and sad and slow,— Into the darkness away from me.

"Out of my life and into the night, But never out of my heart, my own. Into the darkness out of the light, Bleeding and wounded, and walking alone."

Here the words were quite erased and scratched over, and the pathetic bit of paper looked as if it had been tear-stained. Carefully and smoothly he laid it in his long bill book. The book was large and plethoric with bank notes, and there beside them lay the little scrap of paper, worn and soiled, yet tear washed, and as the young man touched it tenderly he smiled and thought that in it was a wealth of something no bank note could buy. With a touch of sentiment unsuspected by himself, he felt it too sacred a thing to be touched by them, and he smoothed it again and laid it in a compartment by itself.

Then he rose, and sauntered across the meadow to the country road, and down it past the schoolhouse standing on its own small rise of ground with the door still wide open, and its shadow, cast by the rays of the now setting sun stretched long across the playground. The young man passed it, paused, turned back, and entered. There at her desk Betty still slept, and as he stepped softly forward and looked down on her she stirred slightly and drew a long breath, but slept on.

For a moment his heart ceased to beat, then it throbbed suffocatingly and his hand went to his breast and clutched the bill book where lay the tender little poem. There at her elbow lay the copy she had so carefully made. The air of the room was warm and drowsy, and the stillness was only broken by the low buzzing of two great bluebottle flies that struggled futilely against the high window panes. Dear little tired Betty! Dreaming,—of whom? The breath came through her parted lips, softly and evenly, and the last ray of the sun fell on her flushed cheek and brought out the touch of gold in her hair.

The young man turned away and crossed the bare floor with light steps and drew the door softly shut after him as he went out. No one might look upon her as she slept, with less reverent eyes. Some distance away, where the road began to ascend toward the river bluff, he seated himself on a stone overlooking the little schoolhouse and the road beyond. There he took up his lonely watch, until he saw Betty come out and walk hurriedly toward the village, carrying a book and swinging her hat by the long ribbon ties; then he went on climbing the winding path to the top of the bluff overlooking the river.

Moodily he paced up and down along the edge of the bluff, and finally followed a zigzag path to the great rocks below, that at this point seemed to have hurled themselves down there to do battle with the eager, dominating flood. For a while he stood gazing into the rushing water, not as though he were fascinated by it, but rather as if he were held to the spot by some inward vision. Presently he seemed to wake with a start and looked back along the narrow, steep path, and up to the overhanging edge of the bluff, scanning it closely.

"Yes, yes. There is the notch where it lay, and this may be the very stone on which I am standing. What an easy thing to fall over there and meet death halfway!" He muttered the words under his breath and began slowly to climb the difficult ascent.

The sun was gone, and down by the water a cold, damp current of air seemed to sweep around the curve of the bluff along with the rush of the river. As he climbed he came to a warmer wave of air, and the dusk closed softly around him, as if nature were casting a friendly curtain over the drowsing earth; and the roar of the river came up to him, no longer angrily, but in a ceaseless, subdued complaint.

Again he paced the top of the bluff, and at last seated himself with his feet hanging over the edge, at the spot from which the stone had fallen. The trees on this wind-swept place were mostly gnarled oaks, old and strong and rugged, standing like a band of weather-beaten life guardsmen overlooking the miles of country around. Not twenty paces from where the young man sat, half reclining on his elbow, stood one of these oaks, and close to its great trunk on its shadowed side a man bent forward intently watching him. Whenever the young man shifted his position restlessly, the figure made a darting movement forward as if to snatch him from the dangerous brink, then recoiled and continued to watch.

Soon the young man seemed to be aware of the presence and watchful eye, and looked behind him, peering into the dusk. Then the man left his place and came toward him, with slow, sauntering step.

"Hullo!" he said, with an insinuating, rising inflection and in the soft voice of the Scandinavian.

"Hallo!" replied the young man.

"Seek?"

"Sick? No." The young man laughed slightly. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I yust make it leetle valk up here."

"Same with me, and now I'll make it a little walk back to town." The young man rose and stretched himself and turned his steps slowly back along the winding path.

"Vell, I tank I make it leetle valk down town, too," and the figure came sauntering along at the young man's side.

"Oh, you're going my way, are you? All right."

"Yas, I tank I going yust de sam your way."

The young man set the pace more rapidly, and for a time they walked on in silence. At last, "Live here?" he asked.

"Yas, I lif here."

"Been here long?"

"In America? Yes. I guess five—sax—year. Oh, I lak it goot."

"I mean here, in this place."

"Oh, here? Yas, two, t'ree year. I lak it goot too."

"Know any one here?"

"Oh, yas. I know people I vork by yet."

"Who are they?"

"Oh, I vork by many place—make garten—und vork wit' horses, und so. Meesus Craikmile, I vork by her on garten. She iss dere no more."

The young man paused suddenly in his stride. "Gone? Where is she gone?"

"Oh, she iss by ol' country gone. Her man iss gone mit." They walked on.

"What! Is the Elder gone, too?"

"Yas. You know heem, yas?"

"Oh, yes. I know everybody here. I've been away for a good while."

"So? Yas, yust lak me. I was gone too goot wile, bot I coom back too, yust lak you."

Here they came to a turn in the road, and the village lights began to wink out through the darkness, and their ways parted.

"I'm going this way," said the young man. "You turn off here? Well, good night."

"Vell, goot night." The Swede sauntered away down a by-path, and the young man kept on the main road to the village and entered its one hotel where he had engaged a room a few hours before.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE SWEDE'S TELEGRAM

As soon as the shadows hid the young man's retreating form from the Swede's watchful eye, that individual quickened his pace and presently broke into a run. Circling round a few blocks and regaining the main street a little below the hotel, he entered the telegraph office. There his haste seemed to leave him. He stood watching the clerk a few minutes, but the latter paid no attention to him.

"Hullo!" he said at last.

"Hallo, yourself!" said the boy, without looking up or taking his hand from the steadily clicking instrument.

"Say, I lak it you send me somet'ing by telegraph."

"All right. Hold on a minute," and the instrument clicked on.

After a little the Swede grew impatient. He scratched his pale gold head and shuffled his feet.

"Say, I lak it you send me a little somet'ing yet." He reached out and touched the boy on the shoulder.

"Keep out of here. I'll send your message when I'm through with this," and the instrument clicked on. Then the Swede resigned himself, watching sullenly.

"Everybody has to take his turn," said the boy at last. "You can't cut in like that." The boy was newly promoted and felt his importance. He took the soiled scrap of paper held out to him. It was written over in a clear, bold hand. "This isn't signed. Who sends this?"

"You make it yust lak it iss. I send dot."

"Well, sign it." He pushed a pen toward him, and the Swede took it in clumsy fingers and wrote laboriously, "Nels Nelson."

"You didn't write this message?"

"No. I vork by de hotel, und I get a man write it."

"It isn't dated. Been carrying it around in your pocket a good while I guess. Better date it."

"Date it?"

"Yes. Put down the time you send, you know."

"Oh, dat's not'ing. He know putty goot when he get it."

"Very well. 'To Mr. John Thomas,—State Street, Chicago. Job's ready. Come along.' Who's job is it? Yours?"

"No. It's hees yob yet. You mak it go to-night, all right. Goot night. I pay it now, yas. Vell, goot night."

He paid the boy and slipped out into the shadows of the street, and again making the detour so that he came to the hotel from the rear, he passed the stables, and before climbing to his cupboard of a room at the top of the building, he stepped round to the side and looked in at the dining room windows, and there he saw the young man seated at supper.

"All right," he said softly.

The omnibus sent regularly by the hotel management brought only one passenger from the early train next day. Times had been dull of late and travel had greatly fallen off, as the proprietor complained. There was nothing unusual about this passenger,—the ordinary traveling man, representing a well-known New York dry-goods house.

Nels Nelson drove the omnibus. He had done so ever since Elder Craigmile went to Scotland with his wife. The young man he had found on the river bluff was pacing the hotel veranda as he drove up, and Nels Nelson glanced at him, and into the eyes of the traveling man, as he handed down the latter's heavy valise.

Standing at the desk, the newcomer chatted with the clerk as he wrote his name under that of the last arrival the day before.

"Harry King," he read. "Came yesterday. Many stopping here now? Times hard! I guess so! Nothing doing in my line. Nobody wants a thing. Guess I'll leave the road and 'go west, young man,' as old Greeley advises. What line is King in? Do' know? Is that him going into the dining room? Guess I'll follow and fill up. Anything good to eat here?"

In the dining room he indicated to the waiter by a nod of his head the seat opposite Harry King, and immediately entered into a free and easy conversation, giving him a history of his disappointments in the way of trade, and reiterating his determination to "go west, young man."

He hardly glanced at Harry, but ate rapidly, stowing away all within reach, until the meal was half through, then he looked up and asked abruptly, "What line are you in, may I ask?"

"Certainly you may ask, but I can't tell you. I would be glad to do so if I knew myself."

"Ever think of going west?"

"I've just come from there—or almost there—whereever it is."

"Stiles is my name—G. B. Stiles. Good name for a dry-goods salesman, don't you think so? I know the styles all right, for men, and women too. Like it out west?"

"Yes. Very well."

"Been there long?"

"Oh, two or three years."

"Had enough of it, likely?"

"Well, I can scarcely say that."

"Mean to stay east now?"

"I may. I'm not settled yet."

"Better take up my line. If I drop out, there'll be an opening with my firm—good firm, too. Ward, Williams & Co., New York. Been in New York, I suppose?"

"No, never."

"Well, better try it. I mean to 'go west, young man.' Know anybody here? Ever live here?"

"Yes, when I was a boy."

"Come back to the boyhood home. We all do that, you know. There's poetry in it—all do it. 'Old oaken bucket' and all that sort of thing. I mean to do it myself yet,—back to old York state." G. B. Stiles wiped his mouth vigorously and shoved back his chair. "Well, see you again, I hope," he said, and walked off, picking his teeth with a quill pick which he took from his vest pocket.

He walked slowly and meditatively through the office and out on the sidewalk. Here he paused and glanced about, and seeing his companion of the breakfast table was not in sight, he took his way around to the stables. Nels Nelson was stooping in the stable yard, washing a horse's legs. G. B. Stiles came and stood near, looking down on him, and Nels straightened up and stood waiting, with the dripping rags in his hand.

"Vell, I tol' you he coomin' back sometime. I vaiting long time all ready, but yust lak I tol' you, he coom."

"I thought I told you not to sign that telegram. But it's no matter,—didn't do any harm, I guess."

"Dot vas a fool, dot boy dere. He ask all tam, 'Vot for? Who write dis? You not? Eh? Who sen' dis?' He make me put my name dere; den I get out putty quvick or he ask yet vat iss it for a yob you got somebody, eh?"

"Oh, well, we've got him now, and he don't seem to care to keep under cover, either." G. B. Stiles seemed to address himself. "Too smart to show a sign. See here, Nelson, are you ready to swear that he's the man? Are you ready to swear to all you told me?"

"It is better you gif me a paper once, vit your name, dot you gif me half dot money."

Nels Nelson stooped deliberately and went on washing the horse's legs. A look of irritation swept over the placid face of G. B. Stiles, and he slipped the toothpick back in his vest pocket and walked away.

"I say," called the Swede after him. "You gif me dot paper. Eh?"

"I can't stand talking to you here. You'll promise to swear to all you told me when I was here the first time. If you do that, you are sure of the money, and if you change it in the least, or show the least sign of backing down, we neither of us get it. Understand?"

Again the Swede arose, and stood looking at him sullenly. "It iss ten t'ousand tallers, und I get it half, eh?"

"Oh, you go to thunder!" The proprietor of the hotel came around the corner of the stable, and G. B. Stiles addressed himself to him. "I'd like the use of a horse to-day, and your man here, if I can get him. I've got to make a trip to Rigg's Corners to sell some dry goods. Got a good buggy?"

"Yes, and a horse you can drive yourself, if you like. Be gone all day?"

"No, don't want to fool with a horse—may want to stay and send the horse back—if I find a place where the grub is better than it is here. See?"

"You'll be back after one meal at any place within a hundred miles of here." The proprietor laughed.

"Might as well drive yourself. You won't want to send the horse back. I'm short of drivers just now. Times are bad and travel light, so I let one go."

"I'll take the Swede there."

"He's my station hand. Maybe Jake can drive you. Nels, where's Jake?"

"He's dere in the stable. Shake!" he shouted, without glancing up, and Jake slouched out into the yard.

"Jake, here's a gentleman wants you to drive him out into the country,—"

"I'll take the Swede. Jake can drive your station wagon for once."

G. B. Stiles laughed good-humoredly and returned to the piazza and sat tilted back with his feet on the rail not far from Harry King, who was intently reading the New York Tribune. For a while he eyed the young man covertly, then dropped his feet to the floor and turned upon him with a question on the political situation, and deliberately engaged him in conversation, which Harry King entered into courteously yet reluctantly. Evidently he was preoccupied with affairs of his own.

In the stable yard a discussion was going on. "Dot horse no goot in buggy. Better you sell heem any vay. He yoomp by de cars all tam, und he no goot by buggy."

"Well, you've got to take him by the buggy, if he is no good. I won't let Jake drive him around the trains, and he won't let Jake go with him out to Rigg's Corners, so you'll have to take the gray and the buggy and go." The Swede began a sullen protest, but the proprietor shouted back to him, "You'll do this or leave," and walked in.

Nels went then into the stable, smiling quietly. He was well satisfied with the arrangement. "Shake, you put dot big horse by de buggy. No. Tak' d'oder bridle. I don't drive heem mit ol' bridle; he yoomp too quvick yet. All tam yoomping, dot horse."

Presently Nels drove round to the front of the hotel with the gray horse and a high-top buggy. Harry King regarded him closely as he passed, but Nels looked straight ahead. A boy came out carrying Stiles' heavy valise.

"Put that in behind here," said Stiles, as he climbed in and seated himself at Nels Nelson's side. The gray leaped forward on the instant with so sudden a jump that he caught at his hat and missed it. Harry King stepped down and picked it up.

"What ails your horse?" he asked, as he restored it to its owner.

"Oh, not'in'. He lak yoomp a little." And again the horse leaped forward, taking them off at a frantic pace, the high-topped buggy atilt as they turned the corner of the street into the country road. Harry King returned to his seat. Surely it was the Scandinavian who had walked down from the bluff with him the evening before. There was no mistaking that soft, drawling voice.

"See here! You pull your beast down, I want to talk with you. Hi! There goes my hat again. Can't you control him better than that? Let me out." Nels pulled the animal down with a powerful arm, and he stood quietly enough while G. B. Stiles climbed down and walked back for his hat. "Look here! Can you manage the beast, or can't you?" he asked as he stood beside the vehicle and wiped the dust from his soft black felt with his sleeve. "If you can't, I'll walk."

"Oh, yas, I feex heem. I leek heem goot ven ve coom to place nobody see me."

"I guess that's what ails him now. You've done that before."

"Yas, bot if you no lak I leek heem, ust you yoomp in und I lat heem run goot for two, t'ree mile. Dot feex heem all right."

"I don't know about that. Sure you can hold him?"

"Yas, I hol' heem so goot he break hee's yaw off, if he don't stop ven I tol' heem. Now, quvick. Whoa! Yoomp in."

G. B. Stiles scrambled in with unusual agility for him, and again they were off, the gray taking them along with leaps and bounds, but the road was smooth, and the dust laid by frequent showers was like velvet under the horse's feet. Stiles drew himself up, clinging to the side of the buggy and to his hat.

"How long will he keep this up?" he asked.

"Oh, he stop putty quvick. He lak it leetle run. T'ree, four mile he run—das all." And the Swede was right. After a while the horse settled down to a long, swinging trot. "Look at heem now. I make heem go all tam lak dis. Ven I get my money I haf stable of my own und den I buy heem. I know heem. I all tam tol' Meester Decker dot horse no goot—I buy heem sheep. You go'n gif me dot money, eh?"

"I see. You're sharp, but you're asking too much. If it were not for me, you wouldn't get a cent, or me either. See? I've spent a thousand hunting that man up, and you haven't spent a cent. All you've done is to stick here at the hotel and watch. I've been all over the country. Even went to Europe and down in Mexico—everywhere. You haven't really earned a cent of it."

"Vat for you goin' all offer de vorld? Vat you got by dot? Spen' money—dot vot you got. Me, I stay here. I fin' heem; you not got heem all offer de vorld. I tol' you, of a man he keel somebody, he run vay, bot he goin' coom back where he done it. He not know it vot for he do it, bot he do it all right."

"Look here, Nelson; it's outrageous! You can't lay claim to that money. I told you if he was found and you were willing to give in your evidence just as you gave it to me that day, I'd give you your fair share of the reward, as you asked for it, but I never gave you any reason to think you were to take half. I've spent all the money working up this matter, and if I were to go back now and do nothing, as I'm half a mind to do, you'd never get a cent of it. There's no proof that he's the man."

"You no need spen' dot money."

"Can't I get reason into your head? When I set out to get hold of a criminal, do you think I sit down in one place and wait? You didn't find him; he came here, and it's only by an accident you have him, and he may clear out yet, and neither of us be the better off because of your pig-headedness. Here, drive into that grove and tie your horse a minute and we'll come to an understanding. I can't write you out a paper while we're moving along like this."

Then Nels turned into the grove and took the horse from the shafts and tied him some distance away, while G. B. Stiles took writing materials from his valise, and, sitting in the buggy, made a show of drawing up a legal paper.

"I'm going to draw you up a paper as you asked me to. Now how do you know you have the man?"

"It iss ten t'ousand tallers. You make me out dot paper you gif me half yet."

"Damn it! You answer my question. I can't make this out unless I know you're going to come up to the scratch." He made a show of writing, and talked at the same time. "I, G. B. Stiles, detective, in the employ of Peter Craigmile, of the town of Leauvite, for the capture of the murderer of his son, Peter Craigmile, Jr., do hereby promise one Nels Nelson, Swede,—in the employ of Mr Decker, hotel proprietor, as stable man,—for services rendered in the identification of said criminal at such time as he should be found,——Now, what service have you rendered? How much money have you spent in the search?"

"Not'ing. I got heem."

"Nothing. That's just it."

"I got heem."

"No, you haven't got him, and you can't get him without me. Don't you think it. I am the one to get him. You have no warrant and no license. I'm the one to put in the claim and get the reward for you, and you'll have to take what I choose to give, and no more. By rights you would only have your fee as witness, and that's all. That's all the state gives. Whatever else you get is by my kindness in sharing with you. Hear?"

A dangerous light gleamed in the Swede's eyes, and Stiles, by a slight disarrangement of his coat in the search for his handkerchief, displayed a revolver in his hip pocket. Nels' eyes shifted, and he looked away.

"You'd better quit this damned nonsense and say what you'll take and what you'll swear to."

"I'll take half dot money," said Nels, softly and stubbornly.

"I'll take out all I've spent on this case before we divide it in any way, shape, or manner." Stiles figured a moment on the margin of his paper. "Now, what are you going to swear to? You needn't shift round. You'll tell me here just what you're prepared to give in as evidence before I put down a single figure to your name on this paper. See?"

"I done tol' you all dot in Chicago dot time."

"Very well. You'll give that in as evidence, every word of it, and swear to it?"

"Yas."

"I don't more than half believe this is the man. You know it's life imprisonment for him if it's proved on him, and you'd better be sure you have the right one. I'm in for justice, and you're in for the money, that's plain."

"Yas, I tank you lak it money, too."

"I'll not put him in irons to-night unless you give me some better reason for your assertion. Why is he the man?"

"I seen heem dot tam, I know. He got it mark on hees head vere de blud run dot tam, yust de sam, all right. I know heem. He speek lak heem. He move hees arm lak heem. Yas, I know putty good."

"You're sure you remember everything he said—all you told me?"

"Oh, yas. I write it here," and he drew a small book from his pocket, very worn and soiled. "All iss here writed."

"Let's see it." With a smile the Swede put it in Stiles' hand. He regarded it in a puzzled way.

"What's this?" He handed the book back contemptuously. "You'll never be able to make that out,—all dirty and—"

"Yas, I read heem, you not,—dot's Swedish."

"Very well. Perhaps you know what you're about," and the discussion went on, until at last G. B. Stiles, partly by intimidation, partly by assumption of being able to get on without his services, persuaded Nels to modify his demands and accept three thousand for his evidence. Then the gray was put in the shafts again, and they drove to the town quietly, as if they had been to Rigg's Corners and back.



CHAPTER XXVIII

"A RESEMBLANCE SOMEWHERE"

While G. B. Stiles and the big Swede were taking their drive and bargaining away Harry King's liberty, he had loitered about the town, and visited a few places familiar to him. First he went to the home of Elder Craigmile and found it locked, and the key in the care of one of the bank clerks who slept there during the owner's absence. After sitting a while on the front steps, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, he rose and strolled out along the quiet country road on its grassy footpath, past the Ballards' home.

Mary and Bertrand were out in the little orchard at the back of the house, gazing up at the apple blossoms that hung over their heads in great pale pink clouds. A sweet odor came from the lilacs that hung over the garden fence, and the sunlight streamed down on the peaceful home, and on the opening spring flowers—the borders of dwarf purple iris and big clusters of peonies, just beginning to bud,—and on the beehives scattered about with the bees flying out and in. Ah! It was still the same—tempting and inviting.

He paused at the gate, looking wistfully at the open door, but did not enter. No, he must keep his own counsel and hold to his purpose, without stirring these dear old friends to sorrowful sympathy. So he passed on, unseen by them, feeling the old love for the place and all the tender memories connected with it revived and deepened. On he went, strolling toward the little schoolhouse where he had found dear Betty Ballard sleeping at the big school desk the evening before, and passed it by—only looking in curiously at the tousled heads bent over their lessons, and at Betty herself, where she sat at the desk, a class on the long recitation bench before her, and a great boy standing at the blackboard. He saw her rise and take the chalk from the boy's hand and make a few rapid strokes with it on the board.

Little Betty a school-teacher! She had suffered much! How much did she care now? Was it over and her heart healed? Had other loves come to her? All intent now on her work, she stood with her back toward him, and as he passed the open door she turned half about, and he saw her profile sharply against the blackboard. Older? Yes, she looked older, but prettier for that, and slight and trim and neat, dressed in a soft shade of green. She had worn such a dress once at a picnic. Well he remembered it—could he ever forget? Swiftly she turned again to the board and drew the eraser across the work, and he heard her voice distinctly, with its singing quality—how well he remembered that also—"Now, how many of the class can work this problem?"

Ah, little Betty! little Betty! Life is working problems for us all, and you are working yours to a sweet conclusion, helping the children, and taking up your own burdens and bearing them bravely. This was Harry King's thought as he strolled on and seated himself again under the basswood tree by the meadow brook, and took from his pocket the worn scrap of paper the wind had brought him and read it again.

"Out of my life, and into the night, But never out of my heart, my own. Into the darkness, out of the light, Bleeding and wounded and walking alone."

Such a tender, rhythmic bit of verse—Betty must have written it. It was like her.

After a time he rose and strolled back again past the little schoolhouse, and it was recess. Long before he reached it he heard the voices of the children shouting, "Anty, anty over, anty, anty over." They were divided into two bands, one on either side of the small building, over which they tossed the ball and shouted as they tossed it, "Anty, anty over"; and the band on the other side, warned by the cry, caught the ball on the rebound if they could, and tore around the corner of the building, trying to hit with it any luckless wight on the other side, and so claim him for their own, and thus changing sides, the merry romp went on.

Betty came to the door with the bell in her hand, and stood for a moment looking out in the sunshine. One of the smallest of the boys ran to her and threw his arms around her, and, looking up in her face, screamed in wildest excitement, "I caught it twice, Teacher, I did."

With her hand on his head she looked in his eyes and smiled and tinkled her little bell, and the children, big and little, all came crowding through the door, hustling like a flock of chickens, and every boy snatched off his cap as he rushed by her.

Ah, grave, dignified little Betty! Who was that passing slowly along the road? Like a wild rose by the wayside she seemed to him, with her pink cheeks and in her soft green gown, framed thus by the doorway of the old schoolhouse. Naturally she had no recognition for this bearded man, walking by with stiff, soldierly step, yet something caused her to look again, turning as she entered, and, when he looked back, their eyes met, and hers dropped before his, and she was lost to his sight as she closed the door after her. Of course she could not recognize him disguised thus with the beard on his face, and his dark, tanned skin. She did not recognize him, and he was glad, yet sore at heart.

He had had all he could bear, and for the rest of the morning he wrote letters, sitting in his room at Decker's hotel. Only two letters, but one was a very long one—to Amalia Manovska. Out in the world he dared not use her own name, so he addressed the envelope to Miss McBride, in Larry Kildene's care, at the nearest station to which they had agreed letters should be sent. Before he finished the second letter the gong sounded for dinner. The noon meal was always dinner at the hotel. He thrust his papers and the unfinished letter in his valise and locked it—and went below.

G. B. Stiles was already there, seated in the same place as on the day before, and Harry took his seat opposite him, and they began a conversation in the same facile way, but the manner of the dry-goods salesman towards him seemed to have undergone a change. It had lost its swagger, and was more that of a man who could be a gentleman if he chose, while to the surprise of Stiles the manner of the young man was as disarmingly quiet and unconcerned as before, and as abstracted. He could not believe that any man hovering on the brink of a terrible catastrophe, and one to avert which required concealment of identity, could be so unwary. He half believed the Swede was laboring under an hallucination, and decided to be deliberate, and await developments for the rest of the day.

After dinner they wandered out to the piazza side by side, and there they sat and smoked, and talked over the political situation as they had the evening before, and Stiles was surprised at the young man's ignorance of general public matters. Was it ignorance, or indifference?

"I thought all you army men would stand by Grant to the drop of the hat."

"Yes, I suppose we would."

"You suppose so! Don't you know? I carried a gun under Grant, and I'd swear to any policy he'd go in for, and what I say is, they haven't had quite enough down there. What the South needs is another licking. That's what it needs."

"Oh, no, no, no. I was sick of fighting, long before they laid me up, and I guess a lot of us were."

G. B. Stiles brought his feet to the floor with a stamp of surprise and turned to look full in the young man's face. For a moment he gazed on him thus, then grunted. "Ever feel one of their bullets?"

"Oh, yes."

"That the mark, there over your temple?"

"No, it didn't do any harm to speak of. That's—where something—struck me."

"Oh, you don't say!" Harry King rose. "Leaving?"

"No. I have a few letters to write—and—"

"Sorry to miss you. Staying in town for some time?"

"I hardly know. I may."

"Plans unsettled? Well, times are unsettled and no money stirring. My plans are all upset, too."

The young man returned to his room and continued his writing. One short letter to Betty, inclosing the worn scrap of paper the wind had brought him; he kissed it before he placed it in the envelope. Then he wrote one to her father and mother jointly, and a long one to Hester Craigmile. Sometimes he would pause in his writing and tear up a page, and begin over again, but at last all were done and inclosed in a letter to the Elder and placed in a heavy envelope and sealed. Only the one to Amalia he did not inclose, but carried it out and mailed it himself.

Passing the bank on the way to the post office, he dropped in and made quite a heavy deposit. It was just before closing time and the clerks were all intent on getting their books straight, preparatory to leaving. How well he remembered that moment of restless turning of ledgers and the slight accession of eagerness in the younger clerks, as they followed the long columns of figures down with the forefinger of the left hand—the pen poised in the right. The whole scene smote him poignantly as he stood at the teller's window waiting. And he might have been doing that, he thought! A whole lifetime spent in doing just that and more like it, year in and year out!

How had his life been better? He had sinned—and failed. Ah! But he had lived and loved—lived terribly and loved greatly. God help him, how he loved! Even for life to end here—either in prison or in death—still he had felt the tremendous passions, and understood the meaning of their power in a human soul. This had life brought him, and a love beyond measure to crown all.

The teller peered at him through the little window behind which he had stood so many years peering at people in this sleepy little bank, this sure, safe, little bank, always doing its conservative business in the same way, and heretofore always making good. He reached out a long, well-shaped hand,—a large-veined hand, slightly hairy at the wrist, to take the bank notes. How often had Harry King seen that hand stretched thus through the little window, drawing bank notes toward him! Almost with a shock he saw it now reach for his own—for the first time. In the old days he had had none to deposit. It was always for others it had been extended. Now it seemed as if he must seize the hand and shake it,—the only hand that had been reached out to him yet, in this town where his boyhood had been spent.

A young man who had preceded Harry King at the teller's window paused near by at the cashier's desk and began asking questions which Harry himself would have been glad to ask, but could not.

He was an alert, bright-eyed young chap with a smiling face. "Good afternoon, Mr. Copeland. Any news for me to-day?"

Mr. Copeland was an elderly man of great dignity, and almost as much of a figure there as the Elder himself. It was an act of great temerity to approach him for items of news for the Leauvite Mercury. Of this fact the young reporter seemed to be blithely ignorant. All the clerks were covertly watching the outcome, and thus attention was turned from Harry King; even the teller glanced frequently at the cashier's desk as he counted the bank notes placed in his hand.

"News? No. No news," said Mr. Copeland, without looking up.

"Thank you. It's my business to ask for it, you know. We're making more of a feature of personal items than ever before. We're up to date, you see. 'Find out what people want and then give it to them.' That's our motto." The young man leaned forward over the high railing that corralled the cashier in his pen apart from the public, smilingly oblivious of that dignitary's objections to an interview. "Expecting the return of Elder Craigmile soon?"

At that question, to the surprise of all, the cashier suddenly changed his manner to the suave affability with which he greeted people of consequence. "We are expecting Elder Craigmile shortly. Yes. Indeed he may arrive any day, if the voyage is favorable."