[Illustration: She, too, had seen Monohan seated on the after deck. FRONTISPIECE. ]

 BIG TIMBER

 A Story of the Northwest

 By BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR

 With Frontispiece By DOUGLAS DUER

 1916

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. GREEN FIELDS AND PASTURES NEWII. MR. ABBEY ARRIVESIII. HALFWAY POINTIV. A FORETASTE OF THINGS TO COMEV. THE TOLL OF BIG TIMBERVI. THE DIGNITY (?) OF TOILVII. SOME NEIGHBORLY ASSISTANCEVIII. DURANCE VILEIX. JACK FYFE'S CAMPX. ONE WAY OUTXI. THE PLUNGEXII. AND SO THEY WERE MARRIEDXIII. IN WHICH EVENTS MARK TIMEXIV. A CLOSE CALL AND A NEW ACQUAINTANCEXV. A RESURRECTIONXVI. THE CRISISXVII. IN WHICH THERE IS A FURTHER CLASHXVIII. THE OPENING GUNXIX. FREE AS THE WINDXX. ECHOESXXI. AN UNEXPECTED MEETINGXXII. THE FIRE BEHIND THE SMOKEXXIII. A RIDE BY NIGHTXXIV. "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME"

CHAPTER I

GREEN FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW

The Imperial Limited lurched with a swing around the last hairpin curveof the Yale canyon. Ahead opened out a timbered valley, --narrow on itsfloor, flanked with bold mountains, but nevertheless a valley, --downwhich the rails lay straight and shining on an easy grade. The riverthat for a hundred miles had boiled and snarled parallel to the tracks, roaring through the granite sluice that cuts the Cascade Range, took awider channel and a leisurely flow. The mad haste had fallen from it ashaste falls from one who, with time to spare, sees his destination nearat hand; and the turgid Fraser had time to spare, for now it was butthreescore miles to tidewater. So the great river moved placidly--as anold man moves when all the headlong urge of youth is spent and his racenear run. 

On the river side of the first coach behind the diner, Estella Bentonnursed her round chin in the palm of one hand, leaning her elbow on thewindow sill. It was a relief to look over a widening valley instead of abare-walled gorge all scarred with slides, to see wooded heights liftgreen in place of barren cliffs, to watch banks of fern massed againstthe right of way where for a day and a night parched sagebrush, browntumble-weed, and such scant growth as flourished in the arid uplands ofinterior British Columbia had streamed in barren monotony, hot and dryand still. 

She was near the finish of her journey. Pensively she considered the endof the road. How would it be there? What manner of folk and country?Between her past mode of life and the new that she was hurrying towardlay the vast gulf of distance, of custom, of class even. It was bound tobe crude, to be full of inconveniences and uncouthness. Her brother'sletters had partly prepared her for that. Involuntarily she shrank fromit, had been shrinking from it by fits and starts all the way, asflowers that thrive best in shady nooks shrink from hot sun and rudewinds. Not that Estella Benton was particularly flower-like. On thecontrary she was a healthy, vigorous-bodied young woman, scarcely to bedescribed as beautiful, yet undeniably attractive. Obviously a daughterof the well-to-do, one of that American type which flourishes infamilies to which American politicians unctuously refer as the backboneof the nation. Outwardly, gazing riverward through the dusty pane, shebore herself with utmost serenity. Inwardly she was full of misgivings. 

Four days of lonely travel across a continent, hearing the drummingclack of car wheels and rail joint ninety-six hours on end, acutelyconscious that every hour of the ninety-six put its due quota of milesbetween the known and the unknown, may be either an adventure, a bore, or a calamity, depending altogether upon the individual point of view, upon conditioning circumstances and previous experience. 

Estella Benton's experience along such lines was chiefly a blank and theconditioning circumstances of her present journey were somber enough tobreed thought that verged upon the melancholy. Save for a naturalbuoyancy of spirit she might have wept her way across North America. Shehad no tried standard by which to measure life's values for she hadlived her twenty-two years wholly shielded from the human maelstrom, fed, clothed, taught, an untried product of home and schools. Her headwas full of university lore, things she had read, a smattering of thearts and philosophy, liberal portions of academic knowledge, all taggedand sorted like parcels on a shelf to be reached when called for. Buriedunder these externalities the ego of her lay unaroused, an incalculablequantity. 

All of which is merely by way of stating that Miss Estella Benton was ayoung woman who had grown up quite complacently in that station of lifein which--to quote the Philistines--it had pleased God to place her, andthat Chance had somehow, to her astonished dismay, contrived to thrust aspoke in the smooth-rolling wheels of destiny. Or was it Destiny? Shehad begun to think about that, to wonder if a lot that she had taken forgranted as an ordered state of things was not, after all, whollydependent upon Chance. She had danced and sung and playedlightheartedly accepting a certain standard of living, a certainposition in a certain set, a pleasantly ordered home life, as herbirthright, a natural heritage. She had dwelt upon her ultimate destinyin her secret thoughts as foreshadowed by that of other girls she knew. The Prince would come, to put it in a nutshell. He would woo gracefully. They would wed. They would be delightfully happy. Except for the matterof being married, things would move along the same pleasant channels. 

Just so. But a broken steering knuckle on a heavy touring car set thingsin a different light--many things. She learned then that death is norespecter of persons, that a big income may be lived to its limit withnothing left when the brain force which commanded it ceases to function. Her father produced perhaps fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a year inhis brokerage business, and he had saved nothing. Thus at one stroke shewas put on an equal footing with the stenographer in her father'soffice. Scarcely equal either, for the stenographer earned her bread andwas technically equipped for the task, whereas Estella Benton had notraining whatsoever, except in social usage. She did not yet fullyrealize just what had overtaken her. Things had happened so swiftly, toruthlessly, that she still verged upon the incredulous. Habit clungfast. But she had begun to think, to try and establish some workingrelation between herself and things as she found them. She haddiscovered already that certain theories of human relations are notsoundly established in fact. 

She turned at last in her seat. The Limited's whistle had shrilled fora stop. At the next stop--she wondered what lay in store for her justbeyond the next stop. While she dwelt mentally upon this, her hands weregathering up some few odds and ends of her belongings on the berth. 

Across the aisle a large, smooth-faced young man watched her with covertadmiration. When she had settled back with bag and suitcase locked andstrapped on the opposite seat and was hatted and gloved, he leaned overand addressed her genially. 

"Getting off at Hopyard? Happen to be going out to Roaring Springs?"

Miss Benton's gray eyes rested impersonally on the top of his head, traveled slowly down over the trim front of his blue serge to thepolished tan Oxfords on his feet, and there was not in eyes or oncountenance the slightest sign that she saw or heard him. The largeyoung man flushed a vivid red. 

Miss Benton was partly amused, partly provoked. The large young man hadbeen her vis-à-vis at dinner the day before and at breakfast thatmorning. He had evinced a yearning for conversation each time, but ithad been diplomatically confined to salt and other condiments, theweather and the scenery. Miss Benton had no objection to young men ingeneral, quite the contrary. But she did not consider it quite the thingto countenance every amiable stranger. 

Within a few minutes the porter came for her things, and the blast ofthe Limited's whistle warned her that it was time to leave the train. Ten minutes later the Limited was a vanishing object down an aisleslashed through a forest of great trees, and Miss Estella Benton stoodon the plank platform of Hopyard station. Northward stretched a flat, unlovely vista of fire-blackened stumps. Southward, along track andsiding, ranged a single row of buildings, a grocery store, a shanty witha huge sign proclaiming that it was a bank, dwelling, hotel andblacksmith shop whence arose the clang of hammered iron. A dirt road ranbetween town and station, with hitching posts at which farmers' nagsstood dispiritedly in harness. 

To the Westerner such spots are common enough; he sees them not asfixtures, but as places in a stage of transformation. By every sidetrack and telegraph station on every transcontinental line they springup, centers of productive activity, growing into orderly towns andfinally attaining the dignity of cities. To her, fresh from trimfarmsteads and rural communities that began setting their houses inorder when Washington wintered at Valley Forge, Hopyard stood forthsordid and unkempt. And as happens to many a one in like case, a wave ofsickening loneliness engulfed her, and she eyed the speeding Limited asone eyes a departing friend. 

"How could one live in a place like this?" she asked herself. 

But she had neither Slave of the Lamp at her beck, nor any Magic Carpetto transport her elsewhere. At any rate, she reflected, Hopyard was nother abiding-place. She hoped that her destination would prove moreinviting. 

Beside the platform were ranged two touring cars. Three or four ofthose who had alighted entered these. Their baggage was piled over thehoods, buckled on the running boards. The driver of one car approachedher. "Hot Springs?" he inquired tersely. 

She affirmed this, and he took her baggage, likewise her trunk checkwhen she asked how that article would be transported to the lake. Shehad some idea of route and means, from her brother's writteninstruction, but she thought he might have been there to meet her. Atleast he would be at the Springs. 

So she was whirled along a country road, jolted in the tonneau between afat man from Calgary and a rheumatic dame on her way to take hot sulphurbaths at St. Allwoods. She passed seedy farmhouses, primitive inconstruction, and big barns with moss plentifully clinging on roof andgable. The stretch of charred stumps was left far behind, but in everyfield of grain and vegetable and root great butts of fir and cedar roseamid the crops. Her first definitely agreeable impression of this land, which so far as she knew must be her home, was of those huge andnumerous stumps contending with crops for possession of the fields. Agreeable, because it came to her forcibly that it must be a sturdybreed of men and women, possessed of brawn and fortitude and highcourage, who made their homes here. Back in her country, once beyondsuburban areas, the farms lay like the squares of a chess board, trimand orderly, tamely subdued to agriculture. Here, at first hand, she sawhow man attacked the forest and conquered it. But the conquest wasincomplete, for everywhere stood those stubborn roots, six and eight andten feet across, contending with man for its primal heritage, the soil, perishing slowly as perish the proud remnants of a conquered race. 

Then the cleared land came to a stop against heavy timber. The carwhipped a curve and drove into what the fat man from Calgary facetiouslyremarked upon as the tall uncut. Miss Benton sighted up these noblecolumns to where a breeze droned in the tops, two hundred feet above. Through a gap in the timber she saw mountains, peaks that stood bold asthe Rockies, capped with snow. For two days she had been groping for aword to define, to sum up the feeling which had grown upon her, had beengrowing upon her steadily, as the amazing scroll of that four-dayjourney unrolled. She found it now, a simple word, one of the simplestin our mother tongue--bigness. Bigness in its most ample sense, --thatwas the dominant note. Immensities of distance, vastness of rollingplain, sheer bulk of mountain, rivers that one crossed, and after aday's journey crossed again, still far from source or confluence. Andnow this unending sweep of colossal trees!

At first she had been overpowered with a sense of insignificance utterlyforeign to her previous experience. But now she discovered with anagreeable sensation of surprise she could vibrate to such a keynote. Andwhile she communed with this pleasant discovery the car sped down astraight stretch and around a corner and stopped short to unload sacksof mail at a weather-beaten yellow edifice, its windows displayingindiscriminately Indian baskets, groceries, and hardware. Northwardopened a broad scope of lake level, girt about with tremendous peakswhose lower slopes were banked with thick forest. 

Somewhere distant along that lake shore was to be her home. As the carrolled over the four hundred yards between store and white-and-green St. Allwoods, she wondered if Charlie would be there to meet her. She wasweary of seeing strange faces, of being directed, of being hustledabout. 

But he was not there, and she recalled that he never had been notablefor punctuality. Five years is a long time. She expected to find himchanged--for the better, in certain directions. He had promised to bethere; but, in this respect, time evidently had wrought no appreciabletransformation. 

She registered, was assigned a room, and ate luncheon to the melancholyaccompaniment of a three-man orchestra struggling vainly with Bach in analcove off the dining room. After that she began to make inquiries. Neither clerk nor manager knew aught of Charlie Benton. They were bothin their first season there. They advised her to ask the storekeeper. 

"MacDougal will know, " they were agreed. "He knows everybody aroundhere, and everything that goes on. "

The storekeeper, a genial, round-bodied Scotchman, had the informationshe desired. 

"Charlie Benton?" said he. "No, he'll be at his camp up the lake. He wasin three or four days back. I mind now, he said he'd be down Thursday;that's to-day. But he isn't here yet, or his boat'd be by the wharfyonder. "

"Are there any passenger boats that call there?" she asked. 

MacDougal shook his head. 

"Not reg'lar. There's a gas boat goes t' the head of the lake now an'then. She's away now. Ye might hire a launch. Jack Fyfe's camp tender'sabout to get under way. But ye wouldna care to go on her, I'm thinkin'. She'll be loaded wi' lumberjacks--every man drunk as a lord, most like. Maybe Benton'll be in before night. "

She went back to the hotel. But St. Allwoods, in its dual capacity ofhealth-and-pleasure resort, was a gilded shell, making a brave outwardshow, but capitalizing chiefly lake, mountains, and hot, mineralsprings. Her room was a bare, cheerless place. She did not want to sitand ponder. Too much real grief hovered in the immediate background ofher life. It is not always sufficient to be young and alive. To sitstill and think--that way lay tears and despondency. So she went out andwalked down the road and out upon the wharf which jutted two hundredyards into the lake. 

It stood deserted save for a lone fisherman on the outer end, and anelderly couple that preceded her. Halfway out she passed a slip besidewhich lay moored a heavily built, fifty-foot boat, scarred with usage, asquat and powerful craft. Lakeward stretched a smooth, unrippledsurface. Overhead patches of white cloud drifted lazily. Where theshadows from these lay, the lake spread gray and lifeless. Where theafternoon sun rested, it touched the water with gleams of gold and pale, delicate green. A white-winged yacht lay offshore, her sails in slackfolds. A lump of an island lifted two miles beyond, all cliffs andlittle, wooded hills. And the mountains surrounding in a giant ringseemed to shut the place away from all the world. For sheer wild, ruggedbeauty, Roaring Lake surpassed any spot she had ever seen. Its quietmajesty, its air of unbroken peace soothed and comforted her, sick withhurry and swift-footed events. 

She stood for a time at the outer wharf end, mildly interested when thefisherman drew up a two-pound trout, wondering a little at her ownsubtle changes of mood. Her surrounding played upon her like a virtuosoon his violin. And this was something that she did not recall as a traitin her own character. She had never inclined to the volatile--perhapsbecause until the motor accident snuffed out her father's life she hadnever dealt in anything but superficial emotions. 

After a time she retraced her steps. Nearing the halfway slip, she sawthat a wagon from which goods were being unloaded blocked the way. Adozen men were stringing in from the road, bearing bundles and bags androlls of blankets. They were big, burly men, carrying themselves with areckless swing, with trousers cut off midway between knee and ankle sothat they reached just below the upper of their high-topped, heavy, laced boots. Two or three were singing. All appeared unduly happy, talking loudly, with deep laughter. One threw down his burden andexecuted a brief clog. Splinters flew where the sharp calks bit into thewharf planking, and his companions applauded. 

It dawned upon Stella Benton that these might be Jack Fyfe's drunkenloggers, and she withdrew until the way should be clear, vitallyinterested because her brother was a logging man, and wondering if thesewere the human tools he used in his business, if these were the sort ofmen with whom he associated. They were a rough lot--and some were verydrunk. With the manifestations of liquor she had but the most shadowyacquaintance. But she would have been little less than a fool not tocomprehend this. 

Then they began filing down the gangway to the boat's deck. One slipped, and came near falling into the water, whereat his fellows howledgleefully. Precariously they negotiated the slanting passage. All butone: he sat him down at the slip-head on his bundle and began aquavering chant. The teamster imperturbably finished his unloading, twomen meanwhile piling the goods aboard. 

The wagon backed out, and the way was clear, save for the logger sittingon his blankets, wailing his lugubrious song. From below his fellowsurged him to come along. A bell clanged in the pilot house. The exhaustof a gas engine began to sputter through the boat's side. From her afterdeck a man hailed the logger sharply, and when his call was unheeded, heran lightly up the slip. A short, squarely-built man he was, light onhis feet as a dancing master. 

He spoke now with authority, impatiently. 

"Hurry aboard, Mike; we're waiting. "

The logger rose, waved his hand airily, and turned as if to retreat downthe wharf. The other caught him by the arm and spun him face to theslip. 

"Come on, Slater, " he said evenly. "I have no time to fool around. "

The logger drew back his fist. He was a fairly big man. But if he had inmind to deal a blow, it failed, for the other ducked and caught him withboth arms around the middle. He lifted the logger clear of the wharf, hoisted him to the level of his breast, and heaved him down the slip asone would throw a sack of bran. 

The man's body bounced on the incline, rolled, slid, tumbled, till atlength he brought up against the boat's guard, and all that saved him aducking was the prompt extension of several stout arms, which clutchedand hauled him to the flush after deck. He sat on his haunches, blinking. Then he laughed. So did the man at the top of the slip and thelumberjacks clustered on the boat. Homeric laughter, as at somesurpassing jest. But the roar of him who had taken that ingloriousdescent rose loudest of all, an explosive, "Har--har--har!"

He clambered unsteadily to his feet, his mouth expanded in an amiablegrin. 

"Hey, Jack, " he shouted. "Maybe y' c'n throw m' blankets down too, whiley'r at it. "

The man at the slip-head caught up the roll, poised it high, and cast itfrom him with a quick twist of his body. The woolen missile flew like awell-put shot and caught its owner fair in the breast, tumbling himbackwards on the deck--and the Homeric laughter rose in double strength. Then the boat began to swing, and the man ran down and leaped thewidening space as she drew away from her mooring. 

Stella Benton watched the craft gather way, a trifle shocked, her breathcoming a little faster. The most deadly blows she had ever seen struckwere delivered in a more subtle, less virile mode, a curl of the lip, aninflection of the voice. These were a different order of beings. This, she sensed was man in a more primitive aspect, man with the conventionalbark stripped clean off him. And she scarcely knew whether to be amusedor frightened when she reflected that among such her life wouldpresently lie. Charlie had written that she would find things and peoplea trifle rougher than she was used to. She could well believe that. But--they were picturesque ruffians. 

Her interested gaze followed the camp tender as it swung around thewharf-end, and so her roaming eyes were led to another craft drawingnear. This might be her brother's vessel. She went back to the outerlanding to see. 

Two men manned this boat. As she ranged alongside the piles, one stoodforward, and the other aft with lines to make fast. She cast a look ateach. They were prototypes of the rude crew but now departed, brown-faced, flannel-shirted, shod with calked boots, unshaven for days, typical men of the woods. But as she turned to go, the man forward andalmost directly below her looked her full in the face. 

"Stell!"

She leaned over the rail. 

"Charlie Benton--for Heaven's sake. "

They stared at each other. 

"Well, " he laughed at last. "If it were not for your mouth and eyes, Stell, I wouldn't have known you. Why, you're all grown up. "

He clambered to the wharf level and kissed her. The rough stubble of hisbeard pricked her tender skin and she drew back. 

"My word, Charlie, you certainly ought to shave, " she observed withsisterly frankness. "I didn't know you until you spoke. I'm awfully gladto see you, but you do need _some one_ to look after you. "

Benton laughed tolerantly. 

"Perhaps. But, my dear girl, a fellow doesn't get anywhere on hisappearance in this country. When a fellow's bucking big timber, heshucks off a lot of things he used to think were quite essential. ByJove, you're a picture, Stell. If I hadn't been expecting to see you, Iwouldn't have known you. "

"I doubt if I should have known you either, " she returned drily. 

CHAPTER II

MR. ABBEY ARRIVES

Stella accompanied her brother to the store, where he gave an order forsundry goods. Then they went to the hotel to see if her trunks hadarrived. Within a few yards of the fence which enclosed the grounds ofSt. Allwoods a man hailed Benton, and drew him a few steps aside. Stellawalked slowly on, and presently her brother joined her. 

The baggage wagon had brought the trunks, and when she had paid herbill, they were delivered at the outer wharf-end, where also arrived atabout the same time a miscellaneous assortment of supplies from thestore and a Japanese with her two handbags. So far as Miss EstellaBenton could see, she was about to embark on the last stage of herjourney. 

"How soon will you start?" she inquired, when the last of the stuff wasstowed aboard the little steamer. 

"Twenty minutes or so, " Benton answered. "Say, " he went on casually, "have you got any money, Stell? I owe a fellow thirty dollars, and Ileft the bank roll and my check book at camp. "

Miss Benton drew the purse from her hand bag and gave it to him. Hepocketed it and went off down the wharf, with the brief assurance thathe would be gone only a minute or so. 

The minute, however, lengthened to nearly an hour, and Sam Davis had hisblow-off valve hissing, and Stella Benton was casting impatient glancesshoreward before Charlie strolled leisurely back. 

"You needn't fire up quite so strong, Sam, " he called down. "We won'tstart for a couple of hours yet. "

"Sufferin' Moses!" Davis poked his fiery thatch out from the engineroom. "I might 'a' known better'n to sweat over firin' up. You generallymanage to make about three false starts to one get-away. "

Benton laughed good-naturedly and turned away. 

"Do you usually allow your men to address you in that impertinent way?"Miss Benton desired to know. 

Charlie looked blank for a second. Then he smiled, and linking his armaffectionately in hers, drew her off along the wharf, chuckling tohimself. 

"My dear girl, " said he, "you'd better not let Sam Davis or any of Sam'skind hear you pass remarks like that. Sam would say exactly what hethought about such matters to his boss, or King George, or to the firstlady of the land, regardless. Sabe? We're what you'll call primitive outhere, yet. You want to forget that master and man business, the servantproposition, and proper respect, and all that rot. Outside the Englishcolonies in one or two big towns, that attitude doesn't go in B. C. People in this neck of the woods stand pretty much on the same classfooting, and you'll get in bad and get me in bad if you don't rememberthat. I've got ten loggers working for me in the woods. Whether they'reimpertinent or profane cuts no figure so long as they handle the jobproperly. They're men, you understand, not servants. None of them wouldhesitate to tell me what he thinks about me or anything I do. If I don'tlike it, I can fight him or fire him. They won't stand for the sort ofairs you're accustomed to. They have the utmost respect for a woman, buta man is merely a two-legged male human like themselves, whether hewears mackinaws or broadcloth, has a barrel of money of none at all. This will seem odd to you at first, but you'll get used to it. You'llfind things rather different out here. "

"I suppose so, " she agreed. "But it sounds queer. For instance, if oneof papa's clerks or the chauffeur had spoken like that, he'd have beendischarged on the spot. "

"The logger's a different breed, " Benton observed drily. "Or perhapsonly the same breed manifesting under different conditions. He isn'tservile. He doesn't have to be. "

"Why the delay, though?" she reverted to the point. "I thought you wereall ready to go. "

"I am, " Charlie enlightened. "But while I was at the store just now, Paul Abbey 'phoned from Vancouver to know if there was an up-lake boatin. His people are big lumber guns here, and it will accommodate him andwon't hurt me to wait a couple of hours and drop him off at their camp. I've got more or less business dealings with them, and it doesn't hurtto be neighborly. He'd have to hire a gas-boat otherwise. Besides, Paul's a pretty good head. "

This, of course, being strictly her brother's business, Stella forborecomment. She was weary of travel, tired with the tension of eternallybeing shunted across distances, anxious to experience once more thatsense of restful finality which comes with a journey's end. But, in ameasure her movements were no longer dependent upon her own volition. 

They walked slowly along the broad roadway which bordered the lake untilthey came to a branchy maple, and here they seated themselves on thegrassy turf in the shadow of the tree. 

"Tell me about yourself, " she said. "How do you like it here, and howare you getting on? Your letters home were always chiefly remarkable fortheir brevity. "

"There isn't a great lot to tell, " Benton responded. "I'm just beginningto get on my feet. A raw, untried youngster has a lot to learn andunlearn when he hits this tall timber. I've been out here five years, and I'm just beginning to realize what I'm equal to and what I'm not. I'm crawling over a hump now that would have been a lot easier if thegovernor hadn't come to grief the way he did. He was going to put insome money this fall. But I think I'll make it, anyway, though it willkeep me digging and figuring. I have a contract for delivery of amillion feet in September and another contract that I could take if Icould see my way clear to finance the thing. I could clean up thirtythousand dollars net in two years if I had more cash to work on. As itis, I have to go slow, or I'd go broke. I'm holding two limits by theskin of my teeth. But I've got one good one practically for an annualpittance. If I make delivery on my contract according to schedule it'splain sailing. That about sizes up my prospects, Sis. "

"You speak a language I don't understand, " she smiled. "What does amillion feet mean? And what's a limit?"

"A limit is one square mile--six hundred and forty acres more orless--of merchantable timber land, " he explained. "We speak of timber asscaling so many board feet. A board foot is one inch thick by twelveinches square. Sound fir timber is worth around seven dollars perthousand board feet in the log, got out of the woods, and boomed in thewater ready to tow to the mills. The first limit I got--from thegovernment--will scale around ten million feet. The other two are nearlyas good. But I got them from timber speculators, and it's costing mepretty high. They're a good spec if I can hang on to them, though. "

"It sounds big, " she commented. 

"It _is_ big, " Charlie declared, "if I could go at it right. I've beentrying ever since I got wise to this timber business to make thegovernor see what a chance there is in it. He was just getting properlyimpressed with the possibilities when the speed bug got him. He couldhave trimmed a little here and there at home and put the money to work. Ten thousand dollars would have done the trick, given me a workingoutfit along with what I've got that would have put us both on EasyStreet. However, the poor old chap didn't get around to it. I suppose, like lots of other business men, when he stopped, everything ran down. According to Lander's figures, there won't be a thing left when allaccounts are squared. "

"Don't talk about it, Charlie, " she begged. "It's too near, and I wasthrough it all. "

"I would have been there too, " Benton said. "But, as I told you, I wasout of reach of your wire, and by the time I got it, it was all over. Icouldn't have done any good, anyway. There's no use mourning. One wayand another we've all got to come to it some day. "

Stella looked out over the placid, shimmering surface of Roaring Lakefor a minute. Her grief was dimming with time and distance, and she hadall her own young life before her. She found herself drifting frompainful memories of her father's sudden death to a consideration ofthings present and personal. She found herself wondering critically ifthis strange, rude land would work as many changes in her as were patentin this bronzed and burly brother. 

He had left home a slim, cocksure youngster, who had proved more than ahandful for his family before he was half through college, whicheducational finishing process had come to an abrupt stop before it wascomplete. He had been a problem that her father and mother had discussedin guarded tones. Sending him West had been a hopeful experiment, and inthe West that abounding spirit which manifested itself in one continualround of minor escapades appeared to have found a natural outlet. Sherecalled that latterly their father had taken to speaking of Charlie inaccents of pride. He was developing the one ambition that Benton seniorcould thoroughly understand and properly appreciate, the desire to geton, to grasp opportunities, to achieve material success, to make money. 

Just as her father, on the few occasions when he talked business beforeher, spoke in a big way of big things as the desirable ultimate, so nowCharlie spoke, with plans and outlook to match his speech. In herfather's point of view, and in Charlie's now, a man's personal life didnot seem to matter in comparison with getting on and making money. Andit was with that personal side of existence that Stella Benton was nowchiefly concerned. She had never been required to adjust herself to anexistence that was wholly taken up with getting on to the completeexclusion of everything else. Her work had been to play. She couldscarce conceive of any one entirely excluding pleasure and diversionfrom his or her life. She wondered if Charlie had done so. And if not, what ameliorating circumstances, what social outlet, might be found tooffset, for her, continued existence in this isolated region of toweringwoods. So far as her first impressions went, Roaring Lake appeared to bemostly frequented by lumberjacks addicted to rude speech and strongdrink. 

"Are there many people living around this lake?" she inquired. "It issurely a beautiful spot. If we had this at home, there would be a summercottage on every hundred yards of shore. "

"Be a long time before we get to that stage here, " Benton returned. "Andscenery in B. C. Is a drug on the market; we've got Europe backed off themap for tourist attractions, if they only knew it. No, about the onlysummer home in this locality is the Abbey place at Cottonwood Point. They come up here every summer for two or three months. Otherwise Idon't know of any lilies of the field, barring the hotel people, andthey, being purely transient, don't count. There's the Abbey-Monohanoutfit with two big logging camps, my outfit, Jack Fyfe's, some handloggers on the east shore, and the R. A. T. At the head of the lake. That's the population--and Roaring Lake is forty-two miles long andeight wide. "

"Are there any nice girls around?" she asked. 

Benton grinned widely. 

"Girls?" said he. "Not so you could notice. Outside the Springs and thehatchery over the way, there isn't a white woman on the lake exceptLefty Howe's wife, --Lefty's Jack Fyfe's foreman, --and she's fat and pastforty. I told you it was a God-forsaken hole as far as society isconcerned, Stell. "

"I know, " she said thoughtfully. "But one can scarcely realize sucha--such a social blankness, until one actually experiences it. Anyway, Idon't know but I'll appreciate utter quiet for awhile. But what do youdo with yourself when you're not working?"

"There's seldom any such time, " he answered. "I tell you, Stella, I'vegot a big job on my hands. I've got a definite mark to shoot at, and I'mgoing to make a bull's-eye in spite of hell and high water. I have notime to play, and there's no place to play if I had. I don't intend tomuddle along making a pittance like a hand logger. I want a stake; andthen it'll be time to make a splurge in a country where a man can get arun for his money. "

"If that's the case, " she observed, "I'm likely to be a handicap to you, am I not?"

"Lord, no, " he smiled. "I'll put you to work too, when you get rested upfrom your trip. You stick with me, Sis, and you'll wear diamonds. "

She laughed with him at this, and leaving the shady maple they walked upto the hotel, where Benton proposed that they get a canoe and paddle towhere Roaring River flowed out of the lake half a mile westward, to killthe time that must elapse before the three-thirty train. 

The St. Allwoods' car was rolling out to Hopyard when they came back. Bythe time Benton had turned the canoe over to the boathouse man andreached the wharf, the horn of the returning machine sounded down theroad. They waited. The car came to a stop at the abutting wharf. Thedriver handed two suitcases off the burdened hood of his machine. Fromout the tonneau clambered a large, smooth-faced young man. He wore anexpansive smile in addition to a blue serge suit, white Panama, andpolished tan Oxfords, and he bestowed a hearty greeting upon CharlieBenton. But his smile suffered eclipse, and a faint flush rose in hisround cheeks, when his eyes fell upon Benton's sister. 

CHAPTER III

HALFWAY POINT

Miss Benton's cool, impersonal manner seemed rather to heighten theyoung man's embarrassment. Benton, apparently observing nothing amiss, introduced them in an offhand fashion. 

"Mr. Abbey--my sister. "

Mr. Abbey bowed and murmured something that passed for acknowledgment. The three turned up the wharf toward where Sam Davis had once more gotup steam. As they walked, Mr. Abbey's habitual assurance returned, andhe directed part of his genial flow of conversation to Miss Benton. ToStella's inner amusement, however, he did not make any reference totheir having been fellow travelers for a day and a half. 

Presently they were embarked and under way. Charlie fixed a seat for heron the after deck, and went forward to steer, whither he was straightwayjoined by Paul Abbey. Miss Benton was as well pleased to be alone. Shewas not sure she should approve of young men who made such crude effortsto scrape acquaintance with women on trains. She was accustomed to acertain amount of formality in such matters. It might perhaps be laid tothe "breezy Western manner" of which she had heard, except that PaulAbbey did not impress her as a Westerner. He seemed more like a type ofyoung man she had encountered frequently in her own circle. At any rate, she was relieved when he did not remain beside her to emit politecommonplaces. She was quite satisfied to sit by herself and look overthe panorama of woods and lake--and wonder more than a little whatDestiny had in store for her along those silent shores. 

The Springs fell far behind, became a few white spots against thebackground of dusky green. Except for the ripples spread by their wake, the water laid oily smooth. Now, a little past four in the afternoon, she began to sense by comparison the great bulk of the westernmountains, --locally, the Chehalis Range, --for the sun was dipping behindthe ragged peaks already, and deep shadows stole out from the shore toport. Beneath her feet the screw throbbed, pulsing like an overdrivenheart, and Sam Davis poked his sweaty face now and then through a windowto catch a breath of cool air denied him in the small inferno where hestoked the fire box. 

The _Chickamin_ cleared Echo Island, and a greater sweep of lake openedout. Here the afternoon wind sprang up, shooting gustily through a gapbetween the Springs and Hopyard and ruffling the lake out of its noondaysiesta. Ripples, chop, and a growing swell followed each other with thatmarvellous rapidity common to large bodies of fresh water. It broke themonotony of steady cleaving through dead calm. Stella was a good sailor, and she rather enjoyed it when the _Chickamin_ began to lift and yaw offbefore the following seas that ran up under her fantail stern. 

After about an hour's run, with the south wind beginning to whip thecrests of the short seas into white foam, the boat bore in to a landingbehind a low point. Here Abbey disembarked, after taking the trouble tocome aft and shake hands with polite farewell. Standing on the float, hat in hand, he bowed his sleek blond head to Stella. 

"I hope you'll like Roaring Lake, Miss Benton, " he said, as Bentonjingled the go-ahead bell. "I tried to persuade Charlie to stop overawhile, so you could meet my mother and sister, but he's in too big ahurry. Hope to have the pleasure of meeting you again soon. "

Miss Benton parried courteously, a little at a loss to fathom this blandfriendliness, and presently the widening space cut off their talk. Asthe boat drew offshore, she saw two women in white come down toward thefloat, meet Abbey, and turn back. And a little farther out through anopening in the woods, she saw a white and green bungalow, low andrambling, wide-verandahed, set on a hillock three hundred yards backfrom shore. There was an encircling area of smooth lawn, a placerestfully inviting. 

Watching that, seeing a figure or two moving about, she was smitten witha recurrence of that poignant loneliness which had assailed her fitfullyin the last four days. And while the _Chickamin_ was still plowing theinshore waters on an even keel, she walked the guard rail alongside andjoined her brother in the pilot house. 

"Isn't that a pretty place back there in the woods?" she remarked. 

"Abbey's summer camp; spells money to me, that's all, " Charliegrumbled. "It's a toy for their women, --up-to-date cottage, gardeners, tennis courts, afternoon tea on the lawn for the guests, and all that. But the Abbey-Monohan bunch has the money to do what they want to do. They've made it in timber, as I expect to make mine. You didn'tparticularly want to stay over and get acquainted, did you?"

"I? Of course not, " she responded. 

"Personally, I don't want to mix into their social game, " Charliedrawled. "Or at least, I don't propose to make any tentative advances. The women put on lots of side, they say. If they want to hunt us up andcultivate you, all right. But I've got too much to do to butt intosociety. Anyway, I didn't want to run up against any critical femaleslooking like I do right now. "

Stella smiled. 

"Under certain circumstances, appearances do count then, in thiscountry, " she remarked. "Has your Mr. Abbey got a young and be-yutifulsister?"

"He has, but that's got nothing to do with it, " Charlie retorted. "Paul's all right himself. But their gait isn't mine--not yet. Here, youtake the wheel a minute. I want to smoke. I don't suppose you everhelmed a forty-footer, but you'll never learn younger. "

She took the wheel and Charlie stood by, directing her. In twentyminutes they were out where the run of the sea from the south had a fairsweep. The wind was whistling now. All the roughened surface was spottedwith whitecaps. The _Chickamin_ would hang on the crest of a wave andshoot forward like a racer, her wheel humming, and again the rollerwould run out from under her, and she would labor heavily in the trough. 

It began to grow insufferably hot in the pilot house. The wind drovewith them, pressing the heat from the boiler and fire box into theforward portion of the boat, where Stella stood at the wheel. There werepuffs of smoke when Davis opened the fire box to ply it with fuel. Allthe sour smells that rose from an unclean bilge eddied about them. Theheat and the smell and the surging motion began to nauseate Stella. 

"I must get outside where I can breathe, " she gasped, at length. "It'ssuffocating. I don't see how you stand it. "

"It does get stuffy in here when we run with the wind, " Benton admitted. "Cuts off our ventilation. I'm used to it. Crawl out the window and siton the forward deck. Don't try to get aft. You might slip off, the wayshe's lurching. "

Curled in the hollow of a faked-down hawser with the clean air fanningher, Stella recovered herself. The giddiness left her. She pitied SamDavis back in that stinking hole beside the fire box. But she supposedhe, like her brother, was "used to it. " Apparently one could get used toanything, if she could judge by the amazing change in Charlie. 

Far ahead loomed a ridge running down to the lake shore and cutting offin a bold promontory. That was Halfway Point, Charlie had told her, andunder its shadow lay his camp. Without any previous knowledge of camps, she was approaching this one with less eager anticipation than when shebegan her long journey. She began to fear that it might be totallyunlike anything she had been able to imagine, disagreeably so. Charlie, she decided, had grown hard and coarsened in the evolution of hisambition to get on, to make his pile. She was but four years youngerthan he, and she had always thought of herself as being older and wiserand steadier. She had conceived the idea that her presence would have agood influence on him, that they would pull together--now that therewere but the two of them. But four hours in his company had dispelledthat illusion. She had the wit to perceive that Charlie Benton hademerged from the chrysalis stage, that he had the will and the abilityto mold his life after his elected fashion, and that her coming was arelatively unimportant incident. 

In due course the _Chickamin_ bore in under Halfway Point, opened out asheltered bight where the watery commotion outside raised but a faintripple, and drew in alongside a float. 

The girl swept lake shore, bay, and sloping forest with a quickeningeye. Here was no trim-painted cottage and velvet lawn. In the watersbeside and lining the beach floated innumerable logs, confined byboomsticks, hundreds of trunks of fir, forty and sixty feet long, fourand six feet across the butt, timber enough, when it had passed throughthe sawmills, to build four such towns as Hopyard. Just back from theshore, amid stumps and littered branches, rose the roofs of diversbuildings. One was long and low. Hard by it stood another of like typebut of lesser dimension. Two or three mere shanties lifted level withgreat stumps, --crude, unpainted buildings. Smoke issued from the pipe ofthe larger, and a white-aproned man stood in the doorway. 

Somewhere in the screen of woods a whistle shrilled. Benton looked athis watch. 

"We made good time, in spite of the little roll, " said he. "That's thedonkey blowing quitting time--six o'clock. Well, come on up to theshack, Sis. Sam, you get a wheelbarrow and run those trunks up aftersupper, will you?"

Away in the banked timber beyond the maples and alder which Stella nowsaw masked the bank of a small stream flowing by the cabins, a faintcall rose, long-drawn:

"Tim-ber-r-r-r!"

They moved along a path beaten through fern and clawing blackberry vinetoward the camp, Benton carrying the two grips. A loud, sharp cracksplit the stillness; then a mild swishing sound arose. Hard on the heelsof that followed a rending, tearing crash, a thud that sent tremorsthrough the solid earth under their feet. The girl started. 

"Falling gang dropped a big fir, " Charlie laughed. "You'll get used tothat. You'll hear it a good many times a day here. "

"Good Heavens, it sounded like the end of the world, " she said. 

"Well, you can't fell a stick of timber two hundred feet high and six oreight feet through without making a pretty considerable noise, " herbrother remarked complacently. "I like that sound myself. Every big treethat goes down means a bunch of money. "

He led the way past the mess-house, from the doorway of which theaproned cook eyed her with frank curiosity, hailing his employer withnonchalant air, a cigarette resting in one corner of his mouth. Bentonopened the door of the second building. Stella followed him in. 

It had the saving grace of cleanliness--according to logging-campstandards. But the bareness of it appalled her. There was a rusty boxheater, littered with cigar and cigarette stubs, a desk fabricated ofundressed boards, a homemade chair or two, sundry boxes standing about. The sole concession to comfort was a rug of cheap Axminster coveringhalf the floor. The walls were decorated chiefly with miscellaneousclothing suspended from nails, a few maps and blue prints tacked upaskew. Straight across from the entering door another stood ajar, andshe could see further vistas of bare board wall, small, dustywindow-panes, and a bed whereon gray blankets were tumbled as they fellwhen a waking sleeper cast them aside. 

Benton crossed the room and threw open another door. 

"Here's a nook I fixed up for you, Stella, " he said briskly. "It isn'tvery fancy, but it's the best I could do just now. "

She followed him in silently. He set her two bags on the floor andturned to go. Then some impulse moved him to turn back, and he put bothhands on her shoulders and kissed her gently. 

"You're home, anyway, " he said. "That's something, if it isn't whatyou're used to. Try to overlook the crudities. We'll have supper as soonas you feel like it. "

He went out, closing the door behind him. 

Miss Estella Benton stood in the middle of the room fighting against aswift heart-sinking, a terrible depression that strove to master her. 

"Good Lord in Heaven, " she muttered at last. "What a place to bemarooned in. It's--it's simply impossible. "

Her gaze roved about the room. A square box, neither more nor less, fourteen by fourteen feet of bare board wall, unpainted and unpapered. There was an iron bed, a willow rocker, and a rude closet for clothes inone corner. A duplicate of the department-store bargain rug in the otherroom lay on the floor. On an upturned box stood an enamel pitcher and atin washbasin. That was all. 

She sat down on the bed and viewed it forlornly. A wave of sickeningrebellion against everything swept over her. To herself she seemed asirrevocably alone as if she had been lost in the depths of the darktimber that rose on every hand. And sitting there she heard at lengththe voices of men. Looking out through a window curtained withcheesecloth she saw her brother's logging gang swing past, stoutwoodsmen all, big men, tall men, short-bodied men with thick necks andshoulders, sunburned, all grimy with the sweat of their labors, carrying themselves with a free and reckless swing, the doubles in typeof that roistering crew she had seen embark on Jack Fyfe's boat. 

In so far as she had taken note of those who labored with their hands inthe region of her birth, she had seen few like these. The chauffeur, thefootman, the street cleaner, the factory workers--they were alldifferent. They lacked something, --perhaps nothing in the way ofphysical excellence; but these men betrayed in every movement a subtledifference that she could not define. Her nearest approximation and thefirst attempt she made at analysis was that they looked like pirates. They were bold men and strong; that was written in their faces and theswing of them as they walked. And they served the very excellent purposeof taking her mind off herself for the time being. 

She watched them cluster by a bench before the cookhouse, dabble theirfaces and hands in washbasins, scrub themselves promiscuously on towels, sometimes one at each end of a single piece of cloth, hauling it backand forth in rude play. 

All about that cookhouse dooryard spread a confusion of empty tin cans, gaudily labeled, containers of corn and peas and tomatoes. Dishwater andrefuse, chips, scraps, all the refuse of the camp was scattered there inunlovely array. 

But that made no more than a passing impression upon her. She wasthinking, as she removed her hat and gloves, of what queer angles comenow and then to the human mind. She wondered why she should besufficiently interested in her brother's hired men to drive off acompelling attack of the blues in consideration of them as men. Nevertheless, she found herself unable to view them as she had viewed, say, the clerks in her father's office. 

She began to brush her hair and to wonder what sort of food would beserved for supper. 

CHAPTER IV

A FORETASTE OF THINGS TO COME

Half an hour later she sat down with her brother at one end of a tablethat was but a long bench covered with oilcloth. Chairs there were none. A narrow movable bench on each side of the fixed table furnished seatingcapacity for twenty men, provided none objected to an occasional nudgingfrom his neighbor's elbow. The dishes, different from any she had evereaten from, were of enormously thick porcelain, dead white, variouslychipped and cracked with fine seams. But the food, if plain, was ofexcellent quality, tastily cooked. She discovered herself with anappetite wholly independent of silver and cut glass and linen. The tinspoons and steel knives and forks harrowed her aesthetic sense withoutimpairing her ability to satisfy hunger. 

They had the dining room to themselves. Through a single shiplappartition rose a rumble of masculine talk, where the logging crew loafedin their bunkhouse. The cook served them without any ceremony, puttingeverything on the table at once, --soup, meat, vegetables, a breadpudding for dessert, coffee in a tall tin pot. Benton introduced him tohis sister. He withdrew hastily to the kitchen, and they saw no more ofhim. 

"Charlie, " the girl said plaintively, when the man had closed the doorbehind him, "I don't quite fathom your social customs out here. Is onesupposed to know everybody that one encounters?"

"Just about, " he grinned. "Loggers, Siwashes, and the natives ingeneral. Can't very well help it, Sis. There's so few people in thisneck of the woods that nobody can afford to be exclusive, --at least, nobody who lives here any length of time. You can't tell when you mayhave to call on your neighbor or the fellow working for you in a matterof life and death almost. A man couldn't possibly maintain the sameattitude toward a bunch of loggers working under him that would beconsidered proper back where we came from. Take me, for instance, and mycase is no different from any man operating on a moderate scale outhere. I'd get the reputation of being swell-headed, and they'd put me inthe hole at every turn. They wouldn't care what they did or how it wasdone. Ten to one I couldn't keep a capable working crew three weeks onend. On the other hand, take a bunch of loggers on a pay roll workingfor a man that meets them on an equal footing--why, they'll go to helland back again for him. They're as loyal as soldiers to the flag. They're a mighty self-sufficient, independent lot, these lumberjacks, and that goes for most everybody knocking about in thiscountry, --loggers, prospectors, miners, settlers, and all. If you'rewhat they term 'all right, ' you can do anything, and they'll back youup. If you go to putting on airs and trying to assert yourself as asuperior being, they'll go out of their way to hand you packages oftrouble. "

"I see, " she observed thoughtfully. "One's compelled by circumstances topractice democracy. "

"Something like that, " he responded carelessly and went on eating hissupper. 

"Don't you think we could make this place a lot more homelike, Charlie?"she ventured, when they were back in their own quarters. "I suppose itsuits a man who only uses it as a place to sleep, but it's bare as abarn. "

"It takes money to make a place cosy, " Benton returned. "And I haven'thad it to spend on knickknacks. "

"Fiddlesticks!" she laughed. "A comfortable chair or two and curtainsand pictures aren't knickknacks, as you call them. The cost wouldn'tamount to anything. "

Benton stuffed the bowl of a pipe and lighted it before he essayedreply. 

"Look here, Stella, " he said earnestly. "This joint probably strikes youas about the limit, seeing that you've been used to pretty softsurroundings and getting pretty nearly anything you wanted whenever youexpressed a wish for it. Things that you've grown into the way ofconsidering necessities _are_ luxuries. And they're out of the questionfor us at present. I got a pretty hard seasoning the first two years Iwas in this country, and when I set up this camp it was merely a placeto live. I never thought anything about it as being comfortable orotherwise until you elected to come. I'm not in a position to go in fortrimmings. Rough as this camp is, it will have to go as it stands thissummer. I'm up against it for ready money. I've got none due until Imake delivery of those logs in September, and I have to have thatmillion feet in the water in order to make delivery. Every one of thesemen but the cook and the donkey engineer are working for me with theirwages deferred until then. There are certain expenses that must be metwith cash--and I've got all my funds figured down to nickels. If I getby on this contract, I'll have a few hundred to squander on housethings. Until then, it's the simple life for us. You can camp for threeor four months, can't you, without finding it completely unbearable?"

"Why, of course, " she protested. "I wasn't complaining about the waythings are. I merely voiced the idea that it would be nice to fix up alittle cosier, make these rooms look a little homelike. I didn't knowyou were practically compelled to live like this as a matter ofeconomy. "

"Well, in a sense, I am, " he replied. "And then again, making a placeaway out here homelike never struck me as being anything but aninconsequential detail. I'm not trying to make a home here. I'm after abundle of money. A while ago, if you had been here and suggested it, youcould have spent five or six hundred, and I wouldn't have missed it. Butthis contract came my way, and gave me a chance to clean up threethousand dollars clear profit in four months. I grabbed it, and I findit's some undertaking. I'm dealing with a hard business outfit, hard asnails. I might get the banks or some capitalist to finance me, becausemy timber holdings are worth money. But I'm shy of that. I've noticedthat when a logger starts working on borrowed capital, he generally goesbroke. The financiers generally devise some way to hook him. I prefer tosail as close to the wind as I can on what little I've got. I can getthis timber out--but it wouldn't look nice, now, would it, for me to bebuying furniture when I'm standing these boys off for their wages tillSeptember?"

"I should have been a man, " Miss Estella Benton pensively remarked. "Then I could put on overalls and make myself useful, instead of being adrone. There doesn't seem to be anything here I can do. I could keephouse--only you haven't any house to keep, therefore no need of ahousekeeper. Why, who's that?"

Her ear had caught a low, throaty laugh, a woman's laugh, outside. Shelooked inquiringly at her brother. His expression remained absent, as ofone concentrated upon his own problems. She repeated the question. 

"That? Oh, Katy John, I suppose, or her mother, " he answered. "Siwashbunch camping around the point. The girl does some washing for us nowand then. I suppose she's after Matt for some bread or something. "

Stella looked out. At the cookhouse door stood a short, plump-bodiedgirl, dark-skinned and black-haired. Otherwise she conformed to none ofMiss Benton's preconceived ideas of the aboriginal inhabitant. If shehad been pinned down, she would probably have admitted that sheexpected to behold an Indian maiden garbed in beaded buckskin and brassornaments. Instead, Katy John wore a white sailor blouse, a brownpleated skirt, tan shoes, and a bow of baby blue ribbon in her hair. 

"Why, she talks good English, " Miss Benton exclaimed, as fragments ofthe girl's speech floated over to her. 

"Sure. As good as anybody, " Charlie drawled. "Why not?"

"Well--er--I suppose my notion of Indians is rather vague, " Stellaadmitted. "Are they all civilized and educated?"

"Most of 'em, " Benton replied. "The younger generation anyhow. Say, Stell, can you cook?"

"A little, " Stella rejoined guardedly. "That Indian girl's reallypretty, isn't she?"

"They nearly all are when they're young, " he observed. "But they are oldand tubby by the time they're thirty. "

Katy John's teeth shone white between her parted lips at some sally fromthe cook. She stood by the door, swinging a straw hat in one hand. Presently Matt handed her a parcel done up in newspaper, and she walkedaway with a nod to some of the loggers sitting with their backs againstthe bunkhouse wall. 

"Why were you asking if I could cook?" Stella inquired, when the girlvanished in the brush. 

"Why, your wail about being a man and putting on overalls and digging inreminded me that if you liked you may have a chance to get on your apronand show us what you can do, " he laughed. "Matt's about due to go on atear. He's been on the water-wagon now about his limit. The first manthat comes along with a bottle of whisky, Matt will get it and quit andhead for town. I was wondering if you and Katy John could keep the gangfrom starving to death if that happened. The last time I had to get inand cook for two weeks myself. And I can't run a logging crew from thecook shanty very well. "

"I daresay I could manage, " Stella returned dubiously. "This seems to bea terrible place for drinking. Is it the accepted thing to get drunk atall times and in public?"

"It's about the only excitement there is, " Benton smiled tolerantly. "Iguess there is no more drinking out here than any other part of thisNorth American continent. Only a man here gets drunk openly andriotously without any effort to hide it, and without it being consideredanything but a natural lapse. That's one thing you'll have to get usedto out here, Stell--I mean, that what vices men have are all on thesurface. We don't get drunk secretly at the club and sneak home in ataxi. Oh, well, we'll cross the bridge when we come to it. Matt may notbreak out for weeks. "

He yawned openly. 

"Sleepy?" Stella inquired. 

"I get up every morning between four and five, " he replied. "And I cango to sleep any time after supper. "

"I think I'll take a walk along the beach, " she said abruptly. 

"All right. Don't hike into the woods and get lost, though. "

She circled the segment of bay, climbed a low, rocky point, and foundherself a seat on a fallen tree. Outside the lake heaved uneasily, stilldotted with whitecaps whipped up by the southerly gale. At her feetsurge after surge hammered the gravelly shore. Far through the woodsbehind her the wind whistled and hummed among swaying tops of giant firand cedar. There was a heady freshness in that rollicking wind, an odorresinous and pungent mingled with that elusive smell of green growingstuff along the shore. Beginning where she sat, tree trunks rose inimmense brown pillars, running back in great forest naves, shadowyalways, floored with green moss laid in a rich, soft carpet for thewood-sprites' feet. Far beyond the long gradual lower slope lifted arange of saw-backed mountains, the sanctuary of wild goat and bear, andacross the rolling lake lifted other mountains sheer from the water'sedge, peaks rising above timber-line in majestic contour, their pinnaclecrests grazing the clouds that scudded before the south wind. 

Beauty? Yes. A wild, imposing grandeur that stirred some responsivechord in her. If only one could live amid such surrounding with acontented mind, she thought, the wilderness would have compensations ofits own. She had an uneasy feeling that isolation from everything thathad played an important part in her life might be the least depressingfactor in this new existence. She could not view the rough and readystandards of the woods with much equanimity--not as she had that dayseen them set forth. These things were bound to be a part of her dailylife, and all the brief span of her years had gone to forming habits ofspeech and thought and manner diametrically opposed to what she had sofar encountered. 

She nursed her chin in her hand and pondered this. She could not see howit was to be avoided. She was there, and perforce she must stay there. She had no friends to go elsewhere, or training in the harsh business ofgaining a livelihood if she did go. For the first time she began dullyto resent the manner of her upbringing. Once she had desired to enterhospital training, had been properly enthusiastic for a period of monthsover a career in this field of mercy. Then, as now, marriage, whileaccepted as the ultimate state, was only to be considered through a hazeof idealism and romanticism. She cherished certain ideals of a possiblelover and husband, but always with a false sense of shame. The reallyserious business of a woman's life was the one thing to which she madeno attempt to apply practical consideration. But her parents had hadpositive ideas on that subject, even if they were not openly expressed. Her yearnings after a useful "career" were skilfully discouraged, --byher mother because that worthy lady thought it was "scarcely the thing, Stella dear, and so unnecessary"; by her father because, as he bluntlyput it, it would only be a waste of time and money, since the chanceswere she would get married before she was half through training, andanyway a girl's place was at home till she did get married. That was hisonly reference to the subject of her ultimate disposition that shecould recall, but it was plain enough as far as it went. 

It was too late to mourn over lost opportunities now, but she did wishthere was some one thing she could do and do well, some service of valuethat would guarantee self-support. If she could only pound a typewriteror keep a set of books, or even make a passable attempt at sewing, shewould have felt vastly more at ease in this rude logging camp, knowingthat she could leave it if she desired. 

So far as she could see things, she looked at them with measurableclearness, without any vain illusions concerning her ability to marchtriumphant over unknown fields of endeavor. Along practical lines shehad everything to learn. Culture furnishes an excellent pair of wingswherewith to soar in skies of abstraction, but is a poor vehicle tocarry one over rough roads. She might have remained in Philadelphia, aguest among friends. Pride forbade that. Incidentally, such anarrangement would have enabled her to stalk a husband, a moneyedhusband, which did not occur to her at all. There remained only to joinCharlie. If his fortunes mended, well and good. Perhaps she could evenhelp in minor ways. 

But it was all so radically different--brother and all--from what shehad pictured that she was filled with dismay and not a little forebodingof the future. Sufficient, however, unto the day was the evil thereof, she told herself at last, and tried to make that assurance work a changeof heart. She was very lonely and depressed and full of a futile wishthat she were a man. 

Over across the bay some one was playing an accordeon, and to itsstrains a stout-lunged lumberjack was roaring out a song, with all hisfellows joining strong in the chorus:

 "Oh, the Saginaw Kid was a cook in a camp, way up on the Ocon-to-o-o. And the cook in a camp in them old days had a damn hard row to hoe-i-oh! Had a damn hard row to hoe. "

There was a fine, rollicking air to it. The careless note in theirvoices, the jovial lilt of their song, made her envious. They at leasthad their destiny, limited as it might be and cast along rude ways, largely under their own control. 

Her wandering gaze at length came to rest on a tent top showing in thebrush northward from the camp. She saw two canoes drawn up on the beachabove the lash of the waves, two small figures playing on the gravel, and sundry dogs prowling alongshore. Smoke went eddying away in thewind. The Siwash camp where Katy John hailed from, Miss Benton supposed. 

She had an impulse to skirt the bay and view the Indian camp at closerrange, a notion born of curiosity. She debated this casually, and justas she was about to rise, her movement was arrested by a faint cracklein the woods behind. She looked away through the deepening shadow amongthe trees and saw nothing at first. But the sound was repeated at oddintervals. She sat still. Thoughts of forest animals slipped into hermind, without making her afraid. At last she caught sight of a manstriding through the timber, soundlessly on the thick moss, comingalmost straight toward her. 

He was scarcely fifty yards away. Across his shoulders he bore areddish-gray burden, and in his right hand was a gun. She did not move. Bowed slightly under the weight, the man passed within twenty feet ofher, so close that she could see the sweat-beads glisten on that side ofhis face, and saw also that the load he carried was the carcass of adeer. 

Gaining the beach and laying the animal across a boulder, hestraightened himself up and drew a long breath. Then he wiped the sweatoff his face. She recognized him as the man who had thrown the loggerdown the slip that day at noon, --presumably Jack Fyfe. A sturdily builtman about thirty, of Saxon fairness, with a tinge of red in his hair anda liberal display of freckles across nose and cheek bones. He was nobeauty, she decided, albeit he displayed a frank and pleasingcountenance. That he was a remarkably strong and active man she had seenfor herself, and if the firm round of his jaw counted for anything, anindividual of considerable determination besides. Miss Benton conceivedherself to be possessed of considerable skill at character analysis. 

He put away his handkerchief, took up his rifle, settled his hat, andstrode off toward the camp. Her attention now diverted from theSiwashes, she watched him, saw him go to her brother's quarters, standin the door a minute, then go back to the beach accompanied by Charlie. 

In a minute or so he came rowing across in a skiff, threw his deeraboard, and pulled away north along the shore. 

She watched him lift and fall among the waves until he turned a point, rowing with strong, even strokes. Then she walked home. Benton wasporing over some figures, but he pushed aside his pencil and paper whenshe entered. 

"You had a visitor, I see, " she remarked. 

"Yes, Jack Fyfe. He picked up a deer on the ridge behind here andborrowed a boat to get home. "

"I saw him come out of the woods, " she said. "His camp can't be far fromhere, is it? He only left the Springs as you came in. Does he hunt deerfor sport?"

"Hardly. Oh, well, I suppose it's sport for Jack, in a way. He's alwayspiking around in the woods with a gun or a fishing rod, " Bentonreturned. "But we kill 'em to eat mostly. It's good meat and cheap. Iget one myself now and then. However, you want to keep that under yourhat--about us fellows hunting--or we'll have game wardens nosing aroundhere. "

"Are you not allowed to hunt them?" she asked. 

"Not in close season. Hunting season's from September to December. "

"If it's unlawful, why break the law?" she ventured hesitatingly. "Isn'tthat rather--er--"

"Oh, bosh, " Charlie derided. "A man in the woods is entitled to venison, if he's hunter enough to get it. The woods are full of deer, and a fewmore or less don't matter. We can't run forty miles to town and back andpay famine prices for beef every two or three days, when we can get itat home in the woods. "

Stella digested this in silence, but it occurred to her that this mildsample of lawlessness was quite in keeping with the men and theenvironment. There was no policeman on the corner, no mechanism of lawand order visible anywhere. The characteristic attitude of thesewoodsmen was of intolerance for restraint, of complete self-sufficiency. It had colored her brother's point of view. She perceived that whereasall her instinct was to know the rules of the game and abide by them, he, taking his cue from his environment, inclined to break rules thatproved inconvenient, even to formulate new ones to apply. 

"And suppose, " said she, "that a game warden should catch you or Mr. Jack Fyfe killing deer out of season?"

"We'd be hauled up and fined a hundred dollars or so, " he told her. "Butthey don't catch us. "

He shrugged his shoulders, and smiling tolerantly upon her, proceeded tosmoke. 

Dusk was falling now, the long twilight of the northern seasonsgradually deepening, as they sat in silence. Along the creek bank arosethe evening chorus of the frogs. The air, now hushed and still, wasriven every few minutes by the whir of wings as ducks in evening flightswept by above. All the boisterous laughter and talk in the bunkhousehad died. The woods ranged gloomy and impenetrable, save only in thenorthwest, where a patch of sky lighted by diffused pink and grayrevealed one mountain higher than its fellows standing bald against thehorizon. 

"Well, I guess it's time to turn in. " Benton muffled a yawn. "Pleasantdreams, Sis. Oh, here's your purse. I used part of the bank roll. Youwon't have much use for money up here, anyway. "

He flipped the purse across to her and sauntered into his bedroom. Stella sat gazing thoughtfully at the vast bulk of Mount Douglas a fewminutes longer. Then she too went into the box-like room, the barediscomfort of which chilled her merely to behold. 

With a curious uncertainty, a feeling of reluctance for the proceedingalmost, she examined the contents of her purse. For a little time shestood gazing into it, a queer curl to her full red lips. Then she flungit contemptuously on the bed and began to take down her hair. 

"'A rich, rough, tough country, where it doesn't do to be finicky aboutanything, '" she murmured, quoting a line from one of Charlie Benton'sletters. "It would appear to be rather unpleasantly true. Particularlythe last clause. "

In her purse, which had contained one hundred and ten dollars, there nowreposed in solitary state a twenty-dollar bill. 

CHAPTER V

THE TOLL OF BIG TIMBER

Day came again, in the natural sequence of events. Matt, the cook, roused all the camp at six o'clock with a tremendous banging on a pieceof boiler plate hung by a wire. Long before that Stella heard herbrother astir. She wondered sleepily at his sprightliness, for as sheremembered him at home he had been a confirmed lie-abed. She herselfresponded none too quickly to the breakfast gong, as a result of whichslowness the crew had filed away to the day's work, her brother stridingin the lead, when she entered the mess-house. 

She killed time with partial success till noon. Several times she wasstartled to momentary attention by the prolonged series of sharp crackswhich heralded the thunderous crash of a falling tree. There were othersounds which betokened the loggers' activity in the near-by forest, --theringing whine of saw blades, the dull stroke of the axe, voices callingdistantly. 

She tried to interest herself in the camp and the beach and ended up bysitting on a log in a shady spot, staring dreamily over the lake. Shethought impatiently of that homely saw concerning Satan and idle hands, but she reflected also that in this isolation even mischief wascomparatively impossible. There was not a soul to hold speech withexcept the cook, and he was too busy to talk, even if he had not beenafflicted with a painful degree of diffidence when she addressed him. She could make no effort at settling down, at arranging things in whatwas to be her home. There was nothing to arrange, no odds and endswherewith almost any woman can conjure up a homelike effect in thebarest sort of place. She beheld the noon return of the crew much as ashipwrecked castaway on a desert shore might behold a rescuing sail, andshe told Charlie that she intended to go into the woods that afternoonand watch them work. 

"All right, " said he. "Just so you don't get in the way of a fallingtree. "

A narrow fringe of brush and scrubby timber separated the camp from theactual work. From the water's edge to the donkey engine was barely fourhundred yards. From donkey to a ten-foot jump-off on the lake shore in astraight line on a five per cent. Gradient ran a curious roadway, madeby placing two logs in the hollow scooped by tearing great timbers overthe soft earth, and a bigger log on each side. Butt to butt and side toside, the outer sticks half their thickness above the inner, they formeda continuous trough the bottom and sides worn smooth with friction ofsliding timbers. Stella had crossed it the previous evening and wonderedwhat it was. Now, watching them at work, she saw. Also she saw why thegreat stumps that rose in every clearing in this land of massive treeswere sawed six and eight feet above the ground. Always at the base thefirs swelled sharply. Wherefore the falling gangs lifted themselvesabove the enlargement to make their cut. 

Two sawyers attacked a tree. First, with their double-bitted axes, eachdrove a deep notch into the sapwood just wide enough to take the end ofa two-by-six plank four or five feet long with a single grab-nail in theend, --the springboard of the Pacific coast logger, whose daily businesslies among the biggest timber on God's footstool. Each then clambered upon his precarious perch, took hold of his end of the long, limber saw, and cut in to a depth of a foot or more, according to the size of thetree. Then jointly they chopped down to this sawed line, and there wasthe undercut complete, a deep notch on the side to which the tree wouldfall. That done, they swung the ends of their springboards, or if itwere a thick trunk, made new holding notches on the other side, and thelong saw would eat steadily through the heart of the tree toward thatyellow, gashed undercut, stroke upon stroke, ringing with a thin, metallic twang. Presently there would arise an ominous cracking. High inthe air the tall crest would dip slowly, as if it bowed with manifestreluctance to the inevitable. The sawyers would drop lightly from theirspringboards, crying:

"Tim-ber-r-r-r!"

The earthward swoop of the upper boughs would hasten till the air wasfull of a whistling, whishing sound. Then came the rending crash as thegreat tree smashed prone, crushing what small timber stood in its path, followed by the earth-quivering shock of its impact with the soil. Thetree once down, the fallers went on to another. Immediately theswampers fell upon the prone trunk with axes, denuding it of limbs; thebuckers followed them to saw it into lengths decreed by the boss logger. When the job was done, the brown fir was no longer a stately tree butsaw-logs, each with the square butt that lay donkeyward, trimmed atrifle rounding with the axe. 

Benton worked one falling gang. The falling gang raced to keep ahead ofthe buckers and swampers, and they in turn raced to keep ahead of thehook tender, rigging slinger, and donkey, which last trio moved the logsfrom woods to water, once they were down and trimmed. Terrible, devastating forces of destruction they seemed to Stella Benton, whollyunused as she was to any woodland save the well-kept parks and littleareas of groomed forest in her native State. All about in the ravagedwoods lay the big logs, scores of them. They had only begun to pull withthe donkey a week earlier, Benton explained to her. With his size ganghe could not keep a donkey engine working steadily. So they had felledand trimmed to a good start, and now the falling crew and the swampersand buckers were in a dingdong contest to see how long they could keepahead of the puffing Seattle yarder. 

Stella sat on a stump, watching. Over an area of many acres the groundwas a litter of broken limbs, ragged tops, crushed and bent and brokenyounger growth, twisted awry by the big trees in their fall. Huge stumpsupthrust like beacons in a ruffled harbor, grim, massive butts. From allthe ravaged wood rose a pungent smell of pitch and sap, a resinous, pleasant smell. Radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the head ofthe chute ran deep, raw gashes in the earth, where the donkey had hauledup the Brobdingnagian logs on the end of an inch cable. 

"This is no small boy's play, is it, Stell?" Charlie said to her once inpassing. 

And she agreed that it was not. Agreed more emphatically and withhalf-awed wonder when she saw the donkey puff and quiver on its anchorcable, as the hauling line spooled up on the drum. On the outer end ofthat line snaked a sixty-foot stick, five feet across the butt, but itcame down to the chute head, brushing earth and brush and small treesaside as if they were naught. Once the big log caromed against a stump. The rearward end flipped ten feet in the air and thirty feet sidewise. But it came clear and slid with incredible swiftness to the head of thechute, flinging aside showers of dirt and small stones, and leaving onemore deep furrow in the forest floor. Benton trotted behind it. Once itcame to rest well in the chute, he unhooked the line, freed the choker(the short noosed loop of cable that slips over the log's end), and thehaul-back cable hurried the main line back to another log. Bentonfollowed, and again the donkey shuddered on its foundation skids tillanother log laid in the chute, with its end butted against that whichlay before. One log after another was hauled down till half a dozenrested there, elongated peas in a wooden pod. 

Then a last big stick came with a rush, bunted these others powerfullyso that they began to slide with the momentum thus imparted, slowly atfirst then, gathering way and speed, they shot down to the lake andplunged to the water over the ten-foot jump-off like a school ofbreaching whales. 

All this took time, vastly more time than it takes in the telling. Thelogs were ponderous masses. They had to be maneuvered sometimes betweenstumps and standing timber, jerked this way and that to bring them intothe clear. By four o'clock Benton and his rigging-slinger had justfinished bunting their second batch of logs down the chute. Stellawatched these Titanic labors with a growing interest and a dawningvision of why these men walked the earth with that reckless swing oftheir shoulders. For they were palpably masters in their environment. They strove with woodsy giants and laid them low. Amid constant dangersthey sweated at a task that shamed the seven labors of Hercules. Gladiators they were in a contest from which they did not always emergevictorious. 

When Benton and his helper followed the haul-back line away to thedomain of the falling gang the last time, Stella had so far unbent as tostrike up conversation with the donkey engineer. That greasy individualfinished stoking his fire box and replied to her first comment. 

"Work? You bet, " said he. "It's real graft, this is. I got the easy endof it, and mine's no snap. I miss a signal, big stick butts againstsomething solid; biff! goes the line and maybe cuts a man plumb in two. You got to be wide awake when you run a loggin' donkey. These woods isno place for a man, anyway, if he ain't spry both in his head and feet. "

"Do many men get hurt logging?" Stella asked. "It looks awfullydangerous, with these big trees falling and smashing everything. Look atthat. Goodness!"

From the donkey they could see a shower of ragged splinters and brokenlimbs fly when a two-hundred-foot fir smashed a dead cedar that stood inthe way of its downward swoop. They could hear the pieces strike againstbrush and trees like the patter of shot on a tin wall. 

The donkey engineer gazed calmly enough. 

"Them flyin' chunks raise the dickens sometimes, " he observed. "Oh, yes, now an' then a man gets laid out. There's some things you got to take achance on. Maybe you get cut with an axe, or a limb drops on you, or youget in the way of a breakin' line, --though a man ain't got any businessin the bight of a line. A man don't stand much show when the end of ainch 'n' a quarter cable snaps at him like a whiplash. I seen a felleron Howe Sound cut square in two with a cable-end once. A broken block'sthe worst, though. That generally gets the riggin' slinger, but a pieceof it's liable to hit anybody. You see them big iron pulley blocks thehaul-back cable works in? Well, sometimes they have to anchor a snatchblock to a stump an' run the main line through it at an angle to get alog out the way you want. Suppose the block breaks when I'm givin' it toher? Chunks uh that broken cast iron'll fly like bullets. Yes, sir, broken blocks is bad business. Maybe you noticed the boys used thesnatch block two or three times this afternoon? We've been lucky in thiscamp all spring. Nobody so much as nicked himself with an axe. Breaksin the gear don't come very often, anyway, with an outfit in first-classshape. We got good gear an' a good crew--about as _skookum_ a bunch as Iever saw in the woods. "

Two hundred yards distant Charlie Benton rose on a stump and semaphoredwith his arms. The engineer whistled answer and stood to his levers; themain line began to spool slowly in on the drum. Another signal, and heshut off. Another signal, after a brief wait, and the drum rolledfaster, the line tautened like a fiddle-string, and the ponderousmachine vibrated with the strain of its effort. 

Suddenly the line came slack. Stella, watching for the log to appear, saw her brother leap backward off the stump, saw the cable whipsidewise, mowing down a clump of saplings that stood in the bight of theline, before the engineer could cut off the power. In that return ofcomparative silence there rose above the sibilant hiss of the blow-offvalve a sudden commotion of voices. 

"Damn!" the donkey engineer peered over the brush. "That don't soundgood. I guess somebody got it in the neck. "

Almost immediately Sam Davis and two other men came running. 

"What's up?" the engineer called as they passed on a dog trot. 

"Block broke, " Davis answered over his shoulder. "Piece of it near tooka leg off Jim Renfrew. "

Stella stood a moment, hesitating. 

"I may be able to do something. I'll go and see, " she said. 

"Better not, " the engineer warned. "Liable to run into somethingthat'll about turn your stomach. What was I tellin' about a brokenblock? Them ragged pieces of flyin' iron sure mess a man up. They'llbring a bed spring, an' pack him down to the boat, an' get him to adoctor quick as they can. That's all. You couldn't do nothin'. "

Nevertheless she went. Renfrew was the rigging slinger working withCharlie, a big, blond man who blushed like a schoolboy when Bentonintroduced him to her. Twenty minutes before he had gone trotting afterthe haul-back, sound and hearty, laughing at some sally of herbrother's. It seemed a trifle incredible that he should lie mangled andbleeding among the green forest growth, while his fellows hurried for astretcher. 

Two hundred yards at right angles from where Charlie had stood givingsignals she found a little group under a branchy cedar. Renfrew lay onhis back, mercifully unconscious. Benton squatted beside him, twisting asilk handkerchief with a stick tightly above the wound. His hands andRenfrew's clothing and the mossy ground was smeared with blood. Stellalooked over his shoulder. The overalls were cut away. In the thick ofthe man's thigh stood a ragged gash she could have laid both hands in. She drew back. 

Benton looked up. 

"Better keep away, " he advised shortly. "We've done all that can bedone. "

She retreated a little and sat down on a root, half-sickened. The othertwo men stood up. Benton sat back, his first-aid work done, and rolled acigarette with fingers that shook a little. Off to one side she saw thefallers climb up on their springboards. Presently arose the ringingwhine of the thin steel blade, the chuck of axes where the swampersattacked a fallen tree. No matter, she thought, that injury came to one, that death might hover near, the work went on apace, like action on abattlefield. 

A few minutes thereafter the two men who had gone with Sam Davisreturned with the spring from Benton's bed and a light mattress. Theylaid the injured logger on this and covered him with a blanket. Thenfour of them picked it up. As they started, Stella heard one say to herbrother:

"Matt's jagged. "

"What?" Benton exploded. "Where'd it come from?"

"One uh them Hungry Bay shingle-bolt cutters's in camp, " the loggeranswered. "Maybe he brought a bottle. I didn't stop to see. But Matt'ssure got a tank full. "

Benton ripped out an angry oath, passed his men, and strode away downthe path. Stella fell in behind him, wakened to a sudden uneasiness atthe wrathful set of his features. She barely kept in sight, so rapidlydid he move. 

Sam Davis had smoke pouring from the _Chickamin's_ stack, but thekitchen pipe lifted no blue column, though it was close to five o'clock. Benton made straight for the cookhouse. Stella followed, a trifleuncertainly. A glimpse past Charlie as he came out showed her Mattstaggering aimlessly about the kitchen, red-eyed, scowling, mutteringto himself. Benton hurried to the bunkhouse door, much as a hound mightfollow a scent, peered in, and went on to the corner. 

On the side facing the lake he found the source of the cook'sintoxication. A tall and swarthy lumberjack squatted on his haunches, gabbling in the Chinook jargon to a _klootchman_ and a wizen-featuredold Siwash. The Indian woman was drunk beyond any mistaking, affablydrunk. She looked up at Benton out of vacuous eyes, grinned, andextended to him a square-faced bottle of Old Tim gin. The logger rose tohis feet. 

"H'lo, Benton, " he greeted thickly. "How's every-thin'?"

Benton's answer was a quick lurch of his body and a smashing jab of hisclenched fist. The blow stretched the logger on his back, with bloodstreaming from both nostrils. But he was a hardy customer, for hebounced up like a rubber ball, only to be floored even more viciouslybefore he was well set on his feet. This time Benton snarled a curse andkicked him as he lay. 

"Charlie, Charlie!" Stella screamed. 

If he heard her, he gave no heed. 

"Hit the trail, you, " he shouted at the logger. "Hit it quick before Itramp your damned face into the ground. I told you once not to comearound here feeding booze to my cook. I do all the whisky-drinkingthat's done in this camp, and don't you forget it. Damn your eyes, I'vegot troubles enough without whisky. "

The man gathered himself up, badly shaken, and holding his hand to hisbleeding nose, made off to his rowboat at the float. 

"G'wan home, " Benton curtly ordered the Siwashes. "Get drunk at your owncamp, not in mine. _Sabe?_ Beat it. "

They scuttled off, the wizened little old man steadying his fat_klootch_ along her uncertain way. Down on the lake the chastised loggerstood out in his boat, resting once on his oars to shake a fist atBenton. Then Charlie faced about on his shocked and outraged sister. 

"Good Heavens!" she burst out. "Is it necessary to be so downrightbrutal in actions as well as speech?"

"I'm running a logging camp, not a kindergarten, " he snapped angrily. "Iknow what I'm doing. If you don't like it, go in the house where yourhyper-sensitive tastes won't be offended. "

"Thank you, " she responded cuttingly and swung about, angry andhurt--only to have a fresh scare from the drunken cook, who came reelingforward. 

"I'm gonna quit, " he loudly declared. "I ain't goin' to stick 'roundhere no more. The job's no good. I want m' time. Yuh hear me, Benton. I'm through. Com-pletely, ab-sho-lutely through. You bet I am. Gimme m'time. I'm a gone goose. "

"Quit, then, hang you, " Benton growled. "You'll get your check in aminute. You're a fine excuse for a cook, all right--get drunk right onthe job. You don't need to show up here again, when you've had your jagout. "

"'S all right, " Matt declared largely. "'S other jobs. You ain't thewhole Pacific coast. Oh, way down 'pon the Swa-a-nee ribber--"

He broke into dolorous song and turned back into the cookhouse. Benton'shard-set face relaxed. He laughed shortly. 

"Takes all kinds to make a world, " he commented. "Don't look sohorrified, Sis. This isn't the regular order of events. It's just anaccumulation--and it sort of got me going. Here's the boys. "

The four stretcher men set down their burden in the shade of thebunkhouse. Renfrew was conscious now. 

"Tough luck, Jim, " Benton sympathized. "Does it pain much?"

Renfrew shook his head. White and weakened from shock and loss of blood, nevertheless he bravely disclaimed pain. 

"We'll get you fixed up at the Springs, " Benton went on. "It's a nastyslash in the meat, but I don't think the bone was touched. You'll be ondeck before long. I'll see you through, anyway. "

They gave him a drink of water and filled his pipe, joking him abouteasy days in the hospital while they sweated in the woods. The drunkencook came out, carrying his rolled blankets, began maudlin sympathy, andwas promptly squelched, whereupon he retreated to the float, emittingconversation to the world at large. Then they carried Renfrew down tothe float, and Davis began to haul up the anchor to lay the _Chickamin_alongside. 

While the chain was still chattering in the hawse pipe, the squat blackhull of Jack Fyfe's tender rounded the nearest point. 

"Whistle him up, Sam, " Benton ordered. "Jack can beat our time, and thisbleeding must be stopped quick. "

The tender veered in from her course at the signal. Fyfe himself was atthe wheel. Five minutes effected a complete arrangement, and the_Panther_ drew off with the drunken cook singing atop of the pilothouse, and Renfrew comfortable in her cabin, and Jack Fyfe's promise tosee him properly installed and attended in the local hospital at RoaringSprings. 

Benton heaved a sigh of relief and turned to his sister. 

"Still mad, Stell?" he asked placatingly and put his arm over hershoulders. 

"Of course not, " she responded instantly to this kindlier phase. "Ugh!Your hands are all bloody, Charlie. "

"That's so, but it'll wash off, " he replied. "Well, we're shy a goodwoodsman and a cook, and I'll miss 'em both. But it might be worse. Here's where you go to bat, Stella. Get on your apron and lend me a handin the kitchen, like a good girl. We have to eat, no matter whathappens. "

CHAPTER VI

THE DIGNITY (?) OF TOIL

By such imperceptible degrees that she was scarce aware of it, Stellatook her place as a cog in her brother's logging machine, a unit in thehuman mechanism which he operated skilfully and relentlessly at topspeed to achieve his desired end--one million feet of timber inboomsticks by September the first. 

From the evening that she stepped into the breach created by a drunkencook, the kitchen burden settled steadily upon her shoulders. For a weekBenton daily expected and spoke of the arrival of a new cook. Fyfe hadwired a Vancouver employment agency to send one, the day he took JimRenfrew down. But either cooks were scarce, or the order went astray, for no rough and ready kitchen mechanic arrived. Benton in the meantimeceased to look for one. He worked like a horse, unsparing of himself, unsparing of others. He rose at half-past four, lighted the kitchenfire, roused Stella, and helped her prepare breakfast, preliminary tohis day in the woods. Later he impressed Katy John into service to waiton the table and wash dishes. He labored patiently to teach Stellacertain simple tricks of cooking that she did not know. 

Quick of perception, as thorough as her brother in whatsoever she sether hand to do, Stella was soon equal to the job. And as the dayspassed and no camp cook came to their relief, Benton left the job to heras a matter of course. 

"You can handle that kitchen with Katy as well as a man, " he said to herat last. "And it will give you something to occupy your time. I'd haveto pay a cook seventy dollars a month. Katy draws twenty-five. You cancredit yourself with the balance, and I'll pay off when the contractmoney comes in. We might as well keep the coin in the family. I'll feeleasier, because you won't get drunk and jump the job in a pinch. What doyou say?"

She said the only possible thing to say under the circumstances. But shedid not say it with pleasure, nor with any feeling of gratitude. It washard work, and she and hard work were utter strangers. Her feet achedfrom continual standing on them. The heat and the smell of stewing meatand vegetables sickened her. Her hands were growing rough and red fromdabbling in water, punching bread dough, handling the varied articles offood that go to make up a meal. Upon hands and forearms there stungcontinually certain small cuts and burns that lack of experience over ahot range inevitably inflicted upon her. Whereas time had promised tohang heavy on her hands, now an hour of idleness in the day became aprecious boon. 

Yet in her own way she was as full of determination as her brother. Shesaw plainly enough that she must leave the drone stage behind. Sheperceived that to be fed and clothed and housed and to have her wishesreadily gratified was not an inherent right--that some one must footthe bill--that now for all she received she must return equitable value. At home she had never thought of it in that light; in fact, she hadnever thought of it at all. Now that she was beginning to get aglimmering of her true economic relation to the world at large, she hadno wish to emulate the clinging vine, even if thereby she could havesecured a continuance of that silk-lined existence which had been herfortunate lot. Her pride revolted against parasitism. It was therefore acertain personal satisfaction to have achieved self-support at a stroke, insofar as that in the sweat of her brow, --all too literally, --sheearned her bread and a compensation besides. But there were times whenthat solace seemed scarcely to weigh against her growing detest for theendless routine of her task, the exasperating physical weariness andirritations it brought upon her. 

For to prepare three times daily food for a dozen hungry men is no meanundertaking. One cannot have in a logging camp the conveniences of ahotel kitchen. The water must be carried in buckets from the creek nearby, and wood brought in armfuls from the pile of sawn blocks outside. The low-roofed kitchen shanty was always like an oven. The flies swarmedin their tens of thousands. As the men sweated with axe and saw in thewoods, so she sweated in the kitchen. And her work began two hoursbefore their day's labor, and continued two hours after they were done. She slept, like one exhausted and rose full of sleep-heaviness, full ofbodily soreness and spiritual protest when the alarm clock raised itsdin in the cool morning. 

"You don't like thees work, do you, Mees Benton?" Katy John said to herone day, in the soft, slurring accent that colored her English. "Youwasn't cut out for a cook. "

"This isn't work, " Stella retorted irritably. "It's simple drudgery. Idon't wonder that men cooks take to drink. "

Katy laughed. 

"Why don't you be nice to Mr. Abbey, " she suggested archly. "He'd liketo give you a better job than thees--for life. My, but it must be niceto have lots of money like that man's got, and never have to work. "

"You'll get those potatoes peeled sooner if you don't talk quite somuch, Katy, " Miss Benton made reply. 

There was that way out, as the Siwash girl broadly indicated. Paul Abbeyhad grown into the habit of coming there rather more often than mereneighborliness called for, and it was palpable that he did not come tohold converse with Benton or Benton's gang, although he was "hailfellow" with all woodsmen. At first his coming might have been laid toany whim. Latterly Stella herself was unmistakably the attraction. Hebrought his sister once, a fair-haired girl about Stella's age. Sheproved an exceedingly self-contained young person, whose speech duringthe hour of her stay amounted to a dozen or so drawling sentences. Withno hint of condescension or superciliousness, she still managed toarouse in Stella a mild degree of resentment. She wore an impeccablepongee silk, simple and costly, and _her_ hands had evidently neverknown the roughening of work. In one way and another Miss Bentonstraightway conceived an active dislike for Linda Abbey. As herreception of Paul's sister was not conducive to chumminess, Paul did notbring Linda again. 

But he came oftener than Stella desired to be bothered with him. Charliewas beginning to indulge in some rather broad joking, which offended andirritated her. She was not in the least attracted to Paul Abbey. He wasa nice enough young man; for all she knew, he might be a concentrationof all the manly virtues, but he gave no fillip to either herimagination or her emotions. He was too much like a certain type ofyoung fellow she had known in other embodiments. Her instinct warned herthat stripped of his worldly goods he would be wholly commonplace. Shecould be friends with the Paul Abbey kind of man, but when she tried toconsider him as a possible lover, she found herself unresponsive, evenamused. She was forced to consider it, because Abbey was fastapproaching that stage. It was heralded in the look of dumb appeal thatshe frequently surprised in his gaze, by various signs and tokens, thatStella Benton was too sophisticated to mistake. One of these days hewould lay his heart, and hand at her feet. 

Sometimes she considered what her life might be if she should marry him. Abbey was wealthy in his own right and heir to more wealth. But--shecould not forbear a wry grimace at the idea. Some fateful hour lovewould flash across her horizon, a living flame. She could visualize thetragedy if it should be too late, if it found her already bound--soldfor a mess of pottage at her ease. She did not mince words to herselfwhen she reflected on this matter. She knew herself as a creature ofpassionate impulses, consciously resenting all restraint. She knew thatmen and women did mad things under the spur of emotion. She wanted noshackles, she wanted to be free to face the great adventure when itcame. 

Yet there were times during the weeks that flitted past when it seemedto her that no bondage could be meaner, more repugnant, than that dailyslavery in her brother's kitchen; that transcendent conceptions of loveand marriage were vain details by comparison with aching feet andsleep-heavy eyes, with the sting of burns, the smart of sweat on herface, all the never-ending trifles that so irritated her. She had beenspoiled in the making for so sordid an existence. Sometimes she wouldsit amid the array of dishes and pans and cooking food and wonder if shereally were the same being whose life had been made up of books andmusic, of teas and dinners and plays, of light, inconsequential chatterwith genial, well-dressed folk. There was no one to talk to here andless time to talk. There was nothing to read except a batch ofnewspapers filtering into camp once a week or ten days. There was notmuch in this monster stretch of giant timber but heat and dirt and fliesand hungry men who must be fed. 

If Paul Abbey had chanced to ask her to marry him during a period ofsuch bodily and spiritual rebellion, she would probably have committedherself to that means of escape in sheer desperation. For she did notharden to the work; it steadily sapped both her strength and patience. But he chose an ill time for his declaration. Stella had overtaken herwork and snared a fleeting hour of idleness in mid-afternoon of a hotday in early August. Under a branchy alder at the cook-house-end shepiled all the pillows she could commandeer in their quarters and curledherself upon them at grateful ease. Like a tired animal, she gaveherself up to the pleasure of physical relaxation, staring at a perfectturquoise sky through the whispering leaves above. She was not eventhinking. She was too tired to think, and for the time being too much atpeace to permit thought that would, in the very nature of things, bedisturbing. 

Abbey maintained for his own pleasure a fast motorboat. He slid now intothe bay unheard, tied up beside the float, walked to the kitchen, glanced in, then around the corner, and smilingly took a seat on thegrass near her. 

"It's too perfect a day to loaf in the shade, " he observed, after abrief exchange of commonplaces. "Won't you come out for a little spin onthe lake? A ride in the _Wolf_ will put some color in your cheeks. "

"If I had time, " she said, "I would. But loggers must eat though theheavens fall. In about twenty minutes I'll have to start supper. I'llhave color enough, goodness knows once I get over that stove. "

Abbey picked nervously at a blade of grass for a minute. 

"This is a regular dog's life for you, " he broke out suddenly. 

"Oh, hardly that, " she protested. "It's a little hard on me because Ihaven't been used to it, that's all. "

"It's Chinaman's work, " he said hotly. "Charlie oughtn't to let you stewin that kitchen. "

Stella said nothing; she was not moved to the defence of her brother. She was loyal enough to her blood, but not so intensely loyal that shecould defend him against criticism that struck a responsive chord in herown mind. She was beginning to see that, being useful, Charlie wasmaking use of her. His horizon had narrowed to logs that might betransmuted into money. Enslaved himself by his engrossing purposes, hethought nothing of enslaving others to serve his end. She had come to adefinite conclusion about that, and she meant to collect her wages whenhe sold his logs, collect also the ninety dollars of her money he hadcoolly appropriated, and try a different outlet. If one must work, onemight at least seek work a little to one's taste. She thereforedismissed Abbey's comment carelessly:

"Some one has to do it. "

A faint flush crept slowly up into his round, boyish face. He looked ather with disconcerting steadiness. Perhaps something in his expressiongave her the key to his thought, or it may have been that peculiarpsychical receptiveness which in a woman we are pleased to callintuition; but at any rate Stella divined what was coming and would haveforestalled it by rising. He prevented that move by catching her hands. 

"Look here, Stella, " he blurted out, "it just grinds me to death to seeyou slaving away in this camp, feeding a lot of roughnecks. Won't youmarry me and cut this sort of thing out? We'd be no end good chums. "

She gently disengaged her hands, her chief sensation one of amusement, Abbey was in such an agony of blushing diffidence, all flustered at hisown temerity. Also, she thought, a trifle precipitate. That was not thesort of wooing to carry her off her feet. For that matter she was quitesure nothing Paul Abbey could do or say would ever stir her pulses. Shehad to put an end to the situation, however. She took refuge in aflippant manner. 

"Thanks for the compliment, Mr. Abbey, " she smiled. "But really Icouldn't think of inflicting repentance at leisure on you in thatoffhand way. You wouldn't want me to marry you just so I could resignthe job of chef, would you?"

"Don't you like me?" he asked plaintively. 

"Not that way, " she answered positively. 

"You might try, " he suggested hopefully. "Honest, I'm crazy about you. I've liked you ever since I saw you first. I wouldn't want any greaterprivilege than to marry you and take you away from this sort of thing. You're too good for it. Maybe I'm kind of sudden, but I know my ownmind. Can't you take a chance with me?"

"I'm sorry, " she said gently, seeing him so sadly in earnest. "It isn'ta question of taking a chance. I don't care for you. I haven't got anyfeeling but the mildest sort of friendliness. If I married you, it wouldonly be for a home, as the saying is. And I'm not made that way. Can'tyou see how impossible it would be?"

"You'd get to like me, " he declared. "I'm just as good as the next man. "

His smooth pink-and-white skin reddened again. 

"That sounds a lot like tooting my own horn mighty strong, " said he. "But I'm in dead earnest. If there isn't anybody else yet, you couldlike me just as well as the next fellow. I'd be awfully good to you. "

"I daresay you would, " she said quietly. "But I couldn't be good to you. I don't want to marry you, Mr. Abbey. That's final. All the feeling Ihave for you isn't enough for any woman to marry on. "

"Maybe not, " he said dolefully. "I suppose that's the way it goes. Hangit, I guess I was a little too sudden. But I'm a stayer. Maybe you'llchange your mind some time. "

He was standing very near her, and they were both so intent upon themomentous business that occupied them that neither noticed CharlieBenton until his hail startled them to attention. 

"Hello, folks, " he greeted and passed on into the cook shanty, bestowingupon Stella, over Abbey's shoulder, a comprehensive grin which nettledher exceedingly. Her peaceful hour had been disturbed to no purpose. Shedid not want to love or be loved. For the moment she felt old beyond heryears, mature beyond the comprehension of any man. If she had voiced herreal attitude toward Paul Abbey, she would have counseled him to run andplay, "like a good little boy. "

Instead she remarked: "I must get to work, " and left her downcastsuitor without further ceremony. 

As she went about her work in the kitchen, she saw Abbey seat himselfupon a log in the yard, his countenance wreathed in gloom. He waspresently joined by her brother. Glancing out, now and then, she made aguess at the meat of their talk, and her lip curled slightly. She sawthem walk down to Abbey's launch, and Charlie delivered an encouragingslap on Paul's shoulder as he embarked. Then the speedy craft tore outof the bay at a headlong gait, her motor roaring in unmuffled exhaust, wide wings of white spray arching off her flaring bows. 

"The desperate recklessness of thwarted affection--fiddlesticks!" MissBenton observed in sardonic mood. Her hands were deep in pie dough. Shethumped it viciously. The kitchen and the flies and all the rest of itrasped at her nerves again. 

Charlie came into the kitchen, hunted a cookie out of the tin box wheresuch things were kept, and sat swinging one leg over a corner of thetable, eying her critically while he munched. 

"So you turned Paul down, eh?" he said at last. "You're the prize chump. You've missed the best chance you'll ever have to put yourself on EasyStreet. "

CHAPTER VII

SOME NEIGHBORLY ASSISTANCE

For a week thereafter Benton developed moods of sourness, periods ofscowling thought. He tried to speed up his gang, and having all springdriven them at top speed, the added straw broke the back of theirpatience, and Stella heard some sharp interchanges of words. He quelledone incipient mutiny through sheer dominance, but it left him more shortof temper, more crabbedly moody than ever. Eventually his ill-naturebroke out against Stella over some trifle, and she--being herself anaggrieved party to his transactions--surprised her own sense of thefitness of things by retaliating in kind. 

"I'm slaving away in your old camp from daylight till dark at work Idespise, and you can't even speak decently to me, " she flared up. "Youact like a perfect brute lately. What's the matter with you?"

Benton gnawed at a finger nail in silence. 

"Hang it, I guess you're right, " he admitted at last. "But I can't helphaving a grouch. I'm going to fall behind on this contract, the best Ican do. "

"Well, " she replied tartly. "I'm not to blame for that. I'm notresponsible for your failure. Why take it out on me?"

"I don't, particularly, " he answered. "Only--can't you _sabe_? A mangets on edge when he works and sweats for months and sees it all aboutto come to nothing. "

"So does a woman, " she made pointed retort. 

Benton chose to ignore the inference. 

"If I fall down on this, it'll just about finish me, " he continuedglumly. "These people are not going to allow me an inch leeway. I'llhave to deliver on that contract to the last stipulated splinter beforethey'll pay over a dollar. If I don't have a million feet for 'em threeweeks from to-day, it's all off, and maybe a suit for breach of contractbesides. That's the sort they are. If they can wiggle out of taking mylogs, they'll be to the good, because they've made other contracts downthe coast at fifty cents a thousand less. And the aggravating thingabout it is that if I could get by with this deal, I can close afive-million-foot contract with the Abbey-Monohan outfit, for deliverynext spring. I must have the money for this before I can undertake thebigger contract. "

"Can't you sell your logs if these other people won't take them?" sheasked, somewhat alive now to his position--and, incidentally, her owninterest therein. 

"In time, yes, " he said. "But when you go into the open market withlogs, you don't always find a buyer right off the reel. I'd have to hire'em towed from here to Vancouver, and there's some bad water to getover. Time is money to me right now, Stell. If the thing dragged overtwo or three months, by the time they were sold and all expenses paid, Imight not have anything left. I'm in debt for supplies, behind inwages. When it looks like a man's losing, everybody jumps him. That'sbusiness. I may have my outfit seized and sold up if I fall down on thisdelivery and fail to square up accounts right away. Damn it, if youhadn't given Paul Abbey the cold turn-down, I might have got a boostover this hill. You were certainly a chump. "

"I'm not a mere pawn in your game yet, " she flared hotly. "I supposeyou'd trade me for logs enough to complete your contract and consider ita good bargain. "

"Oh, piffle, " he answered coolly. "What's the use talking like that. It's your game as much as mine. Where do you get off, if I go broke? Youmight have done a heap worse. Paul's a good head. A girl that hasn'tanything but her looks to get through the world on hasn't any businessoverlooking a bet like that. Nine girls out of ten marry for what thereis in it, anyhow. "

"Thank you, " she replied angrily. "I'm not in the market on that basis. "

"All this stuff about ideal love and soul communion and perfect matingis pure bunk, it seems to me, " Charlie tacked off on a new course ofthought. "A man and a woman somewhere near of an age generally hit itoff all right, if they've got common horse sense--and income enough sothey don't have to squabble eternally about where the next new hat andsuit's coming from. It's the coin that counts most of all. It sure is, Sis. It's me that knows it, right now. "

He sat a minute or two longer, again preoccupied with his problems. 

"Well, " he said at last, "I've got to get action somehow. If I could getabout thirty men and another donkey for three weeks, I'd make it. "

He went outside. Up in the near woods the whine of the saws and thesounds of chopping kept measured beat. It was late in the forenoon, andStella was hard about her dinner preparations. Contract or no contract, money or no money, men must eat. That fact loomed biggest on her dailyschedule, left her no room to think overlong of other things. Her huffover, she felt rather sorry for Charlie, a feeling accentuated by sightof him humped on a log in the sun, too engrossed in his perplexities tobe where he normally was at that hour, in the thick of the logging, working harder than any of his men. 

A little later she saw him put off from the float in the _Chickamin's_dinghy. When the crew came to dinner, he had not returned. Nor was heback when they went out again at one. 

Near mid-afternoon, however, he strode into the kitchen, wearing thelook of a conqueror. 

"I've got it fixed, " he announced. 

Stella looked up from a frothy mass of yellow stuff that she wasstirring in a pan. 

"Got what fixed?" she asked. 

"Why, this log business, " he said. "Jack Fyfe is going to put in a crewand a donkey, and we're going to everlastingly rip the innards out ofthese woods. I'll make delivery after all. "

"That's good, " she remarked, but noticeably without enthusiasm. Theheat of that low-roofed shanty had taken all possible enthusiasm foranything out of her for the time being. Always toward the close of eachday she was gripped by that feeling of deadly fatigue, in the face ofwhich nothing much mattered but to get through the last hours somehowand drag herself wearily to bed. 

Benton playfully tweaked Katy John's ear and went whistling up thetrail. It was plain sailing for him now, and he was correspondinglyelated. 

He tried to talk to Stella that evening when she was through, all aboutbig things in the future, big contracts he could get, big money he couldsee his way to make. It fell mostly on unappreciative ears. She wastired, so tired that his egotistical chatter irritated her beyondmeasure. What she would have welcomed with heartfelt gratitude was notso much a prospect of future affluence in which she might or might notshare as a lightening of her present burden. So far as his conversationran, Benton's sole concern seemed to be more equipment, more men, sothat he might get out more logs. In the midst of this optimistic talk, Stella walked abruptly into her room. 

Noon of the next day brought the _Panther_ coughing into the bay, flanked on the port side by a scow upon which rested a twin to the ironmonster that jerked logs into her brother's chute. To starboard was madefast a like scow. That was housed over, a smoking stovepipe stuckthrough the roof, and a capped and aproned cook rested his arms on thewindow sill as they floated in. Men to the number of twenty or moreclustered about both scows and the _Panther's_ deck, busy with pipe andcigarette and rude jest. The clatter of their voices uprose through thenoon meal. But when the donkey scow thrust its blunt nose against thebeach, the chaff and laughter died into silent, capable action. 

"A Seattle yarder properly handled can do anything but climb a tree, "Charlie had once boasted to her, in reference to his own machine. 

It seemed quite possible to Stella, watching Jack Fyfe's crew at work. Steam was up in the donkey. They carried a line from its drum through asnatch block ashore and jerked half a dozen logs crosswise before thescow in a matter of minutes. Then the same cable was made fast to asturdy fir, the engineer stood by, and the ponderous machine slidforward on its own skids, like an up-ended barrel on a sled, down offthe scow, up the bank, smashing brush, branches, dead roots, all thatstood in its path, drawing steadily up to the anchor tree as the cablespooled up on the drum. 

A dozen men tailed on to the inch and a quarter cable and bore the looseend away up the path. Presently one stood clear, waving a signal. Againthe donkey began to puff and quiver, the line began to roll up on thedrum, and the big yarder walked up the slope under its own power, alocomotive unneedful of rails, making its own right of way. Upon theplatform built over the skids were piled the tools of the crew, sawedblocks for the fire box, axes, saws, grindstones, all that was necessaryin their task. At one o'clock they made their first move. At two thedonkey was vanished into that region where the chute-head lay, and thegreat firs stood waiting the slaughter. 

By mid-afternoon Stella noticed an acceleration of numbers in the logsthat came hurtling lakeward. Now at shorter intervals arose the grindingsound of their arrival, the ponderous splash as each leaped to thewater. It was a good thing, she surmised--for Charlie Benton. She couldnot see where it made much difference to her whether ten logs a day or ahundred came down to the boomsticks. 

Late that afternoon Katy vanished upon one of her periodic visits to thecamp of her kindred around the point. Bred out of doors, of a tribewhose immemorial custom it is that the women do all the work, the Siwashgirl was strong as an ox, and nearly as bovine in temperament andmovements. She could lift with ease a weight that taxed Stella'sstrength, and Stella Benton was no weakling, either. It was therefore apart of Katy's routine to keep water pails filled from the creek and thewood box supplied, in addition to washing dishes and carrying food tothe table. Katy slighted these various tasks occasionally. She neededoversight, continual admonition, to get any job done in time. She wasslow to the point of exasperation. Nevertheless, she lightened the day'slabor, and Stella put up with her slowness since she needs must orassume the entire burden herself. This time Katy thoughtlessly left withboth water pails empty. 

Stella was just picking them up off the bench when a shadow darkened thedoor, and she looked around to see Jack Fyfe. 

"How d' do, " he greeted. 

He had seemed a short man. Now, standing within four feet of her, sheperceived that this was an illusion created by the proportion andthickness of his body. He was, in fact, half a head taller than she, andStella stood five feet five. His gray eyes met hers squarely, with acool, impersonal quality of gaze. There was neither smirk norembarrassment in his straightforward glance. He was, in effect, "sizingher up" just as he would have looked casually over a logger asking himfor a job. Stella sensed that, and resenting it momentarily, failed tomatch his manner. She flushed. Fyfe smiled, a broad, friendly grin, inwhich a wide mouth opened to show strong, even teeth. 

"I'm after a drink, " he said quite impersonally, and coolly taking thepails out of her hands, walked through the kitchen and down to thecreek. He was back in a minute, set the filled buckets in their place, and helped himself with a dipper. 

"Say, " he asked easily, "how do you like life in a logging camp by thistime? This is sure one hot job you've got. "

"Literally or slangily?" she asked in a flippant tone. Fyfe'sreputation, rather vividly colored, had reached her from varioussources. She was not quite sure whether she cared to countenance him ornot. There was a disturbing quality in his glance, a subtle suggestionof force about him that she felt without being able to define inunderstandable terms. In any case she felt more than equal to the taskof squelching any effort at familiarity, even if Jack Fyfe were, in asense, the convenient god in her brother's machine. Fyfe chuckled ather answer. 

"Both, " he replied shortly and went out. 

She saw him a little later out on the bay in the _Panther's_ dink, standing up in the little boat, making long, graceful casts with apliant rod. She perceived that this manner of fishing was highlysuccessful, insomuch as at every fourth or fifth cast a trout struck hisfly, breaking water with a vigorous splash. Then the bamboo would archas the fish struggled, making sundry leaps clear of the water, gleaminglike silver each time he broke the surface, but coming at last tamely toJack Fyfe's landing net. Of outdoor sports she knew most about angling, for her father had been an ardent fly-caster. And she had observed witha true angler's scorn the efforts of her brother's loggers to catch thelake trout with a baited hook, at which they had scant success. Charlienever fished. He had neither time nor inclination for such fooling, ashe termed it. Fyfe stopped fishing when the donkeys whistled six. Ithappened that when he drew in to his cookhouse float, Stella wasstanding in her kitchen door. Fyfe looked up at her and held aloft adozen trout strung by the gills on a stick, gleaming in the sun. 

"Vanity, " she commented inaudibly. "I wonder if he thinks I've beenadmiring his skill as a fisherman?"

Nevertheless she paid tribute to his skill when ten minutes later hesent a logger with the entire catch to her kitchen. They lookedtoothsome, those lakers, and they were. She cooked one for her ownsupper and relished it as a change from the everlasting bacon and ham. In the face of that million feet of timber, Benton hunted no deer. True, the Siwashes had once or twice brought in some venison. That, with aroast or two of beef from town, was all the fresh meat she had tasted intwo months. There were enough trout to make a breakfast for the crew. She ate hers and mentally thanked Jack Fyfe. 

Lying in her bed that night, in the short interval that came betweenundressing and wearied sleep, she found herself wondering with a gooddeal more interest about Jack Fyfe than she had ever bestowedupon--well, Paul Abbey, for instance. 

She was quite positive that she was going to dislike Jack Fyfe if hewere thrown much in her way. There was something about him that sheresented. The difference between him and the rest of the rude crew amongwhich she must perforce live was a question of degree, not of kind. There was certainly some compelling magnetism about the man. But alongwith it went what she considered an almost brutal directness of speechand action. Part of this conclusion came from hearsay, part fromobservation, limited though her opportunities had been for the latter. Miss Stella Benton, for all her poise, was not above jumping atconclusions. There was something about Jack Fyfe that she resented. Sheirritably dismissed it as a foolish impression, but the fact remainedthat the mere physical nearness of him seemed to put her on thedefensive, as if he were in reality a hunter and she the hunted. 

Fyfe joined Charlie Benton about the time she finished work. The threeof them sat on the grass before Benton's quarters, and every time JackFyfe's eyes rested on her she steeled herself to resist--what, she didnot know. Something intangible, something that disturbed her. She hadnever experienced anything like that before; it tantalized her, rousedher curiosity. There was nothing occult about the man. He was nowisefascinating, either in face or manner. He made no bid for her attention. Yet during the half hour he sat there, Stella's mind revolved constantlyabout him. She recalled all that she had heard of him, much of it, fromher point of view, highly discreditable. Inevitably she fell tocomparing him with other men she knew. 

She had, in a way, unconsciously been prepared for just such a measureof concentration upon Jack Fyfe. For he was a power on Roaring Lake, andpower, --physical, intellectual or financial, --exacts its own tribute ofconsideration. He was a fighter, a dominant, hard-bitten woodsman, sothe tale ran. He had gathered about him the toughest crew on the Lake, himself, upon occasion, the most turbulent of all. He controlled manysquare miles of big timber, and he had gotten it all by his own effortin the eight years since he came to Roaring Lake as a hand logger. Hewas slow of speech, chain-lightning in action, respected generally, feared a lot. All these things her brother and Katy John had sketchedfor Stella with much verbal embellishment. 

There was no ignoring such a man. Brought into close contact with theman himself, Stella felt the radiating force of his personality. Thereit was, a thing to be reckoned with. She felt that whenever Jack Fyfe'sgray eyes rested impersonally on her. His pleasant, freckled facehovered before her until she fell asleep, and in her sleep she dreamedagain of him throwing that drunken logger down the Hot Springs slip. 

CHAPTER VIII

DURANCE VILE

By September first a growing uneasiness hardened into distastefulcertainty upon Stella. It had become her firm resolve to get what moneywas due her when Charlie marketed his logs and try another field oflabor. That camp on Roaring Lake was becoming a nightmare to her. Shehad no inherent dislike for work. She was too vibrantly alive to belazy. But she had had an overdose of unaccustomed drudgery, and she wasgrowing desperate. If there had been anything to keep her mind fromcontinual dwelling on the manifold disagreeableness she had to copewith, she might have felt differently, but there was not. She ate, slept, worked, --ate, slept, and worked again, --till every fibre of herbeing cried out in protest against the deadening round. She was like aflower striving to attain its destiny of bloom in soil overrun with rankweeds. Loneliness and hard, mean work, day after day, in which all thathad ever seemed desirable in life had neither place nor consideration, were twin evils of isolation and flesh-wearying labor, from which shefelt that she must get away, or go mad. 

But she did not go. Benton left to make his delivery to the millcompany, the great boom of logs gliding slowly along in the wake of atug, the _Chickamin_ in attendance. Benton's crew accompanied the boom. Fyfe's gang loaded their donkey and gear aboard the scow and went home. The bay lay all deserted, the woods silent. For the first time in threemonths she had all her hours free, only her own wants to satisfy. KatyJohn spent most of her time in the smoky camp of her people. Stellaloafed. For two days she did nothing, gave herself up to a physicaltorpor she had never known before. She did not want to read, to walkabout, or even lift her eyes to the bold mountains that loomed massiveacross the lake. It was enough to lie curled among pillows under thealder and stare drowsily at the blue September sky, half aware of thedrone of a breeze in the firs, the flutter of birds' wings, and the lapof water on the beach. 

Presently, however, the old restless energy revived. The spring cameback to her step and she shed that lethargy like a cast-off garment. Andin so doing her spirit rose in hot rebellion against being a prisoner todeadening drudgery, against being shut away from all the teeming lifethat throve and trafficked beyond the solitude in which she sat immured. When Charlie came back, there was going to be a change. She repeatedthat to herself with determination. Between whiles she rambled about inthe littered clearing, prowled along the beaches, and paddled now andthen far outside the bay in a flat-bottomed skiff, restless, full ofplans. So far as she saw, she would have to face some city alone, butshe viewed that prospect with a total absence of the helpless feelingwhich harassed her so when she first took train for her brother's camp. She had passed through what she termed a culinary inferno. Nothing, sheconsidered, could be beyond her after that unremitting drudgery. 

But Benton failed to come back on the appointed day. The four dayslengthened to a week. Then the _Panther_, bound up-lake, stopped toleave a brief note from Charlie, telling her business had called him toVancouver. 

Altogether it was ten days before the _Chickamin_ whistled up the bay. She slid in beside the float, her decks bristling with men like apassenger craft. Stella, so thoroughly sated with loneliness that shetemporarily forgot her grievances, flew to meet her brother. But onefair glimpse of the disembarking crew turned her back. They were all invarying stages of liquor--from two or three who had to be hauled overthe float and up to the bunkhouse like sacks of bran, to others who wereso happily under the influence of John Barleycorn that every move wassome silly antic. She retreated in disgust. When Charlie reached thecabin, he himself proved to be fairly mellow, in the best ofspirits--speaking truly in the double sense. 

"Hello, lady, " he hailed jovially. "How did you fare all by yourlonesome this long time? I didn't figure to be gone so long, but therewas a lot to attend to. How are you, anyway?"

"All right, " she answered coolly. "You evidently celebrated your logdelivery in the accepted fashion. "

"Don't you believe it, " he grinned amiably. "I had a few drinks with theboys on the way up, that's all. No, sir, it was straight business witha capital B all the time I was gone. I've got a good thing in hand, Sis--big money in sight. Tell you about it later. Think you and Katy canrustle grub for this bunch by six?"

"Oh, I suppose so, " she said shortly. It was on the tip of her tongue totell him then and there that she was through, --like Matt, the cook, thatmemorable afternoon, "completely an' ab-sho-lutely through. " Sherefrained. There was no use in being truculent. But that drunken crowdlooked formidable in numbers. 

"How many extra?" she asked mechanically. 

"Thirty men, all told, " Benton returned briskly. "I tell you I'm suregoing to rip the heart out of this limit before spring. I've signed up asix-million-foot contract for delivery as soon as the logs'll go overRoaring Rapids in the spring. Remember what I told you when you came?You stick with me, and you'll wear diamonds. I stand to clean up twentythousand on the winter's work. "

"In that case, you should be able to hire a real cook, " she suggested, aspice of malice in her tone. 

"I sure will, when it begins to come right, " he promised largely. "AndI'll give you a soft job keeping books then. Well, I'll lend you a handfor to-night. Where's the Siwash maiden?"

"Over at the camp; there she comes now, " Stella replied. "Will you starta fire, Charlie, while I change my dress?"

"You look like a peach in that thing. " He stood off a pace to admire. "You're some dame, Stell, when you get on your glad rags. "

She frowned at her image in the glass behind the closed door of herroom as she set about unfastening the linen dress she had worn thatafternoon. Deep in her trunk, along with much other unused finery, ithad reposed all summer. That ingrained instinct to be admired, to begarbed fittingly and well, came back to her as soon as she was rested. And though there were none but squirrels and bluejays and occasionallyKaty John to cast admiring eyes upon her, it had pleased her for a weekto wear her best, and wander about the beaches and among the duskytrunks of giant fir, a picture of blooming, well-groomed womanhood. Shetook off the dress and threw it on the bed with a resentful rush offeeling. The treadmill gaped for her again. But not for long. She wasthrough with that. She was glad that Charlie's prospects pleased him. Hecould not call on her to help him out of a hole now. She would tell himher decision to-night. And as soon as he could get a cook to fill herplace, then good-by to Roaring Lake, good-by to kitchen smells and fliesand sixteen hours a day over a hot stove. 

She wondered why such a loathing of the work afflicted her; if all whoearned their bread in the sweat of their brow were ridden with thatfeeling, --woodsmen, cooks, chauffeurs, the slaves of personal serviceand the great industrial mills alike? Her heart went out to them if theywere. But she was quite sure that work could be otherwise thanrepellent, enslaving. She recalled that cooks and maids had worked inher father's house with no sign of the revolt that now assailed her. Butit seemed to her that their tasks had been light compared with the jobof cooking in Charlie Benton's camp. 

Curiously enough, while she changed her clothes, her thoughts a jumbleof present things she disliked and the unknown that she would have toface alone in Vancouver, she found her mind turning on Jack Fyfe. Duringhis three weeks' stay, they had progressed less in the direction ofacquaintances than she and Paul Abbey had done in two meetings. Fyfetalked to her now and then briefly, but he looked at her more than hetalked. Where his searching gaze disturbed, his speech soothed, it wasso coolly impersonal. That, she deemed, was merely another of his oddcontradictions. He was contradictory. Stella classified Jack Fyfe as acreature of unrestrained passions. She recognized, or thought sherecognized, certain dominant, primitive characteristics, and they didnot excite her admiration. Men admired him--those who were not afraid ofhim. If he had been of more polished clay, she could readily havegrasped this attitude. But in her eyes he was merely a rude, masterfulman, uncommonly gifted with physical strength, dominating other rude, strong men by sheer brute force. And she herself rather despised sheerbrute force. The iron hand should fitly be concealed beneath the velvetglove. 

Yet in spite of the bold look in his eyes that always confused andirritated her, Fyfe had never singled her out for the slightestattention of the kind any man bestows upon an attractive woman. Stellawas no fool. She knew that she was attractive, and she knew why. She hadbeen prepared to repulse, and there had been nothing to repulse. Onceduring Charlie's absence he had come in a rowboat, hailed her from thebeach, and gone away without disembarking when she told him Benton wasnot back. He was something of an enigma, she confessed to herself, afterall. Perhaps that was why he came so frequently into her mind. Orperhaps, she told herself, there was so little on Roaring Lake to thinkabout that one could not escape the personal element. As if any one evercould. As if life were made up of anything but the impinging of onepersonality upon another. That was something Miss Stella Benton had yetto learn. She was still mired in the rampant egotism of untried youth, as yet the sublime individualist. 

That side of her suffered a distinct shock later in the evening. Whensupper was over, the work done, and the loggers' celebration was slowlysubsiding in the bunkhouse, she told Charlie with blunt directness whatshe wanted to do. With equally blunt directness he declared that hewould not permit it. Stella's teeth came together with an angry littleclick. 

"I'm of age, Charlie, " she said to him. "It isn't for you to say whatyou will or will not _permit_ me to do. I want that money of mine thatyou used--and what I've earned. God knows I _have_ earned it. I can'tstand this work, and I don't intend to. It isn't work; it's slavery. "

"But what can you do in town?" he countered. "You haven't the least ideawhat you'd be going up against, Stell. You've never been away from home, and you've never had the least training at anything useful. You'd be onyour uppers in no time at all. You wouldn't have a ghost of a chance. "

"I have such a splendid chance here, " she retorted ironically. "If Icould get in any position where I'd be more likely to die of sheerstagnation, to say nothing of dirty drudgery, than in this forsakenhole, I'd like to know how. I don't think it's possible. "

"You could be a whole lot worse off, if you only knew it, " Bentonreturned grumpily. "If you haven't got any sense about things, I have. Iknow what a rotten hole Vancouver or any other seaport town is for agirl alone. I won't let you make any foolish break like that. That'sflat. "

From this position she failed to budge him. Once angered, partly by herexpressed intention and partly by the outspoken protest against themountain of work imposed on her, Charlie refused point-blank to give hereither the ninety dollars he had taken out of her purse or the threemonths' wages due. Having made her request, and having met with this--toher--amazing refusal, Stella sat dumb. There was too fine a streak inher to break out in recrimination. She was too proud to cry. 

So that she went to bed in a ferment of helpless rage. Virtually she wasa prisoner, as much so as if Charlie had kidnaped her and held her so bybrute force. The economic restraint was all potent. Without money shecould not even leave the camp. And when she contemplated the dailytreadmill before her, she shuddered. 

At least she could go on strike. Her round cheek flushed with thebitterest anger she had ever known, she sat with eyes burning into thedark of her sordid room, and vowed that the thirty loggers should die ofslow starvation if they did not eat until she cooked another meal forthem. 

CHAPTER IX

JACK FYFE'S CAMP

She was still hot with the spirit of mutiny when morning came, but shecooked breakfast. It was not in her to act like a petulant child. Morning also brought a different aspect to things, for Charlie told herwhile he helped prepare breakfast that he was going to take his crew andrepay in labor the help Jack Fyfe had given him. 

"While we're there, Jack's cook will feed all hands, " said he. "And bythe time we're through there, I'll have things fixed so it won't be suchhard going for you here. Do you want to go along to Jack's camp?"

"No, " she answered shortly. "I don't. I would much prefer to get awayfrom this lake altogether, as I told you last night. "

"You might as well forget that notion, " he said stubbornly. "I've got alittle pride in the matter. I don't want my sister drudging at the onlykind of work she'd be able to earn a living at. "

"You're perfectly willing to have me drudge here, " she flashed back. 

"That's different, " he defended. "And it's only temporary. I'll bemaking real money before long. You'll get your share if you'll have alittle patience and put your shoulder to the wheel. Lord, I'm doing thebest I can. "

"Yes--for yourself, " she returned. "You don't seem to consider that I'mentitled to as much fair play as you'd have to accord one of your men. Idon't want you to hand me an easy living on a silver salver. All I wantof you is what is mine, and the privilege of using my own judgment. I'mquite capable of taking care of myself. "

If there had been opportunity to enlarge on that theme, they might havecome to another verbal clash. But Benton never lost sight of his primaryobject. The getting of breakfast and putting his men about their workpromptly was of more importance to him than Stella's grievance. So theincipient storm dwindled to a sullen mood on her part. Breakfast over, Benton loaded men and tools aboard a scow hitched beside the boat. Herepeated his invitation, and Stella refused, with a sarcastic reflectionon the company she would be compelled to keep there. 

The _Chickamin_ with her tow drew off, and she was alone again. 

"Marooned once more, " Stella said to herself when the little steamboatslipped behind the first jutting point. "Oh, if I could just be a manfor a while. "

Marooned seemed to her the appropriate term. There were the two oldSiwashes and their dark-skinned brood. But they were little more toStella than the insentient boulders that strewed the beach. She couldnot talk to them or they to her. Long since she had been surfeited withKaty John. If there were any primitive virtues in that dusky maiden theywere well buried under the white man's schooling. Katy's demand uponlife was very simple and in marked contrast to Stella Benton's. Plentyof grub, no work, some cheap finery, and a man white or red, no matter, to make eyes at. Her horizon was bounded by Roaring Lake and the missionat Skookumchuck. She was therefore no mitigation of Stella's loneliness. 

Nevertheless Stella resigned herself to make the best of it, and itproved a poor best. She could not detach herself sufficiently from thesordid realities to lose herself in day-dreaming. There was not a bookin the camp save some ten-cent sensations she found in the bunkhouse, and these she had exhausted during Charlie's first absence. The uncommonstillness of the camp oppressed her more than ever. Even the bluejaysand squirrels seemed to sense its abandonment, seemed to take her aspart of the inanimate fixtures, for they frisked and chattered aboutwith uncommon fearlessness. The lake lay dead gray, glassy as some greatirregular window in the crust of the earth. Only at rare intervals didsail or smoke dot its surface, and then far offshore. The woods stoodbreathless in the autumn sun. It was like being entombed. And therewould be a long stretch of it, with only a recurrence of that deadlygrind of kitchen work when the loggers came home again. 

Some time during the next forenoon she went southerly along the lakeshore on foot without object or destination, merely to satisfy in somemeasure the restless craving for action. Colorful turns of life, themore or less engrossing contact of various personalities, some new thingto be done, seen, admired, discussed, had been a part of her existenceever since she could remember. None of this touched her now. A deadweight of monotony rode her hard. There was the furtive wild life of theforest, the light of sun and sky, and the banked green of the forestthat masked the steep granite slopes. She appreciated beauty, craved itindeed, but she could not satisfy her being with scenic effects alone. She craved, without being wholly aware of it, or altogether admitting itto herself, some human distraction in all that majestic solitude. 

It was forthcoming. When she returned to camp at two o'clock, driven inby hunger, Jack Fyfe sat on the doorstep. 

"How-de-do. I've come to bring you over to my place, " he announced quitecasually. 

"Thanks. I've already declined one pressing invitation to that effect, "Stella returned drily. His matter-of-fact assurance rather nettled her. 

"A woman always has the privilege of changing her mind, " Fyfe smiled. "Charlie is going to be at my camp for at least three weeks. It'll rainsoon, and the days'll be pretty gray and dreary and lonesome. You mightas well pack your war-bag and come along. "

She stood uncertainly. Her tongue held ready a blunt refusal, but shedid not utter it; and she did not know why. She did have a glimpse ofthe futility of refusing, only she did not admit that refusal might beof no weight in the matter. With her mind running indignantly againstcompulsion, nevertheless her muscles involuntarily moved to obey. Itirritated her further that she should feel in the least constrained toobey the calmly expressed wish of this quiet-spoken woodsman. Certainpossible phases of a lengthy sojourn in Jack Fyfe's camp shot across hermind. He seemed of uncanny perception, for he answered this thoughtbefore it was clearly formed. 

"Oh, you'll be properly chaperoned, and you won't have to mix with thecrew, " he drawled. "I've got all kinds of room. My boss logger's wife isup from town for a while. She's a fine, motherly old party, and shekeeps us all in order. "

"I haven't had any lunch, " she temporized. "Have you?"

He shook his head. 

"I rowed over here before twelve. Thought I'd get you back to camp intime for dinner. You know, " he said with a twinkle in his blue eyes, "alogger never eats anything but a meal. A lunch to us is a snack that youput in your pocket. I guess we lack tone out here. We haven't got pastthe breakfast-dinner-supper stage yet; too busy making the country fitto live in. "

"You have a tremendous job in hand, " she observed. 

"Oh, maybe, " he laughed. "All in the way you look at it. Suits some ofus. Well, if we get to my camp before three, the cook might feed us. Come on. You'll get to hating yourself if you stay here alone tillCharlie's through. "

Why not? Thus she parleyed with herself, one half of her minded to standupon her dignity, the other part of her urging acquiescence in his wishthat was almost a command. She was tempted to refuse just to see what hewould do, but she reconsidered that. Without any logical foundation forthe feeling, she was shy of pitting her will against Jack Fyfe's. Hitherto quite sure of herself, schooled in self-possession, it was anew and disturbing experience to come in contact with that subtle, analysis-defying quality which carries the possessor thereof straight tohis or her goal over all opposition, which indeed many times stifles allopposition. Force of character, overmastering personality, emanation ofsheer will, she could not say in what terms it should be described. Whatever it was, Jack Fyfe had it. It existed, a factor to be reckonedwith when one dealt with him. For within twenty minutes she had packed asuitcase full of clothes and was embarked in his rowboat. 

He sent the lightly built craft easily through the water with regular, effortless strokes. Stella sat in the stern, facing him. Out past thenorth horn of the bay, she broke the silence that had fallen betweenthem. 

"Why did you make a point of coming for me?" she asked bluntly. 

Fyfe rested on his oars a moment, looking at her in his direct, unembarrassed way. 

"I wintered once on the Stickine, " he said. "My partner pulled outbefore Christmas and never came back. It was the first time I'd everbeen alone in my life. I wasn't a much older hand in the country thanyou are. Four months without hearing the sound of a human voice. Starkalone. I got so I talked to myself out loud before spring. So Ithought--well, I thought I'd come and bring you over to see Mrs. Howe. "

Stella sat gazing at the slow moving panorama of the lake shore, herchin in her hand. 

"Thank you, " she said at last, and very gently. 

Fyfe looked at her a minute or more, a queer, half-amused expressioncreeping into his eyes. 

"Well, " he said finally, "I might as well tell the whole truth. I'vebeen thinking about you quite a lot lately, Miss Stella Benton, or Iwouldn't have thought about you getting lonesome. "

He smiled ever so faintly, a mere movement of the corners of his mouth, at the pink flush which rose quickly in her cheeks, and then resumed hissteady pull at the oars. 

Except for a greater number of board shacks and a larger area of stumpand top-littered waste immediately behind it, Fyfe's headquarters, outwardly, at least, differed little from her brother's camp. Jack ledher to a long, log structure with a shingle roof, which from its moresubstantial appearance she judged to be his personal domicile. A plump, smiling woman of forty greeted her on the threshold. Once within, Stellaperceived that there was in fact considerable difference in Mr. Fyfe'shabitation. There was a great stone fireplace, before which bigeasy-chairs invited restful lounging. The floor was overlaid with thickrugs which deadened her footfalls. With no pretense of ornamentaldecoration, the room held an air of homely comfort. 

"Come in here and lay off your things, " Mrs. Howe beamed on her. "IfI'd 'a' known you were livin' so close, we'd have been acquainted a weekago; though I ain't got rightly settled here myself. My land, these menare such clams. I never knowed till this mornin' there was any whitewoman at this end of the lake besides myself. "

She showed Stella into a bedroom. It boasted an enamel washstand withtaps which yielded hot and cold water, neatly curtained windows, and adeep-seated Morris chair. Certainly Fyfe's household accommodation wasfar superior to Charlie Benton's. Stella expected the man's home to berough and ready like himself, and in a measure it was, but a comfortablesort of rough and readiness. She took off her hat and had a criticalsurvey of herself in a mirror, after which she had just time to brushher hair before answering Mrs. Howe's call to a "cup of tea. "

The cup of tea resolved itself into a well-cooked and well-served meal, with china and linen and other unexpected table accessories whichagreeably surprised, her. Inevitably she made comparisons, somewhattinctured with natural envy. If Charlie would fix his place with a fewsuch household luxuries, life in their camp would be more nearlybearable, despite the long hours of disagreeable work. As it was--well, the unrelieved discomforts were beginning to warp her out-look oneverything. 

Fyfe maintained his habitual sparsity of words while they ate the foodMrs. Howe brought on a tray hot from the cook's outlying domain. Whenthey finished, he rose, took up his hat and helped himself to a handfulof cigars from a box on the fireplace mantel. 

"I guess you'll be able to put in the time, all right, " he remarked. "Make yourself at home. If you take a notion to read, there's a lot ofbooks and magazines in my room. Mrs. Howe'll show you. "

He walked out. Stella was conscious of a distinct relief when he wasgone. She had somehow experienced a recurrence of that peculiar feelingof needing to be on her guard, as if there were some curious, latentantagonism between them. She puzzled over that a little. She had neverfelt that way about Paul Abbey, for instance, or indeed toward any manshe had ever known. Fyfe's more or less ambiguous remark in the boat hadhelped to arouse it again. His manner of saying that he had "thought alot about her" conveyed more than the mere words. She could quiteconceive of the Jack Fyfe type carrying things with a high hand where awoman was concerned. He had that reputation in all his other dealings. He was aggressive. He could drink any logger in the big firs off hisfeet. He had an uncanny luck at cards. Somehow or other in everyundertaking Jack Fyfe always came out on top, so the tale ran. Theremust be, she reasoned, a wide streak of the brute in such a man. It wasno gratification to her vanity to have him admire her. It did not dawnupon her that so far she had never got over being a little afraid ofhim, much less to ask herself why she should be afraid of him. 

But she did not spend much time puzzling over Jack Fyfe. Once out of hersight she forgot him. It was balm to her lonely soul to have some oneof her own sex for company. What Mrs. Howe lacked in the higher cultureshe made up in homely perception and unassuming kindliness. Her husbandwas Fyfe's foreman. She herself was not a permanent fixture in the camp. They had a cottage at Roaring Springs, where she spent most of the time, so that their three children could be in school. 

"I was up here all through vacation, " she told Stella. "But Lefty he gotto howlin' about bein' left alone shortly after school started again, soI got my sister to look after the kids for a spell, while I stay. I'llbe goin' down about the time Mr. Benton's through here. "

Stella eventually went out to take a look around the camp. A hard-beatenpath led off toward where rose the distant sounds of logging work, theponderous crash of trees, and the puff of the donkeys. She followed thata little way and presently came to a knoll some three hundred yardsabove the beach. There she paused to look and wonder curiously. 

For the crest of this little hillock had been cleared and graded leveland planted to grass over an area four hundred feet square. It wastrimmed like a lawn, and in the center of this vivid green block stoodan unfinished house foundation of gray stone. No stick of timber, noboard or any material for further building lay in sight. The thing stoodas if that were to be all. And it was not a new undertaking temporarilydelayed. There was moss creeping over the thick stone wall, shediscovered when she walked over it. Whoever had laid that foundation haddone it many a moon before. Yet the sward about was kept as if agardener had it in charge. 

A noble stretch of lake and mountain spread out before her gaze. Straight across the lake two deep clefts in the eastern range opened onthe water, five miles apart. She could see the white ribbon of foamingcascades in each. Between lifted a great mountain, and on the lakewardslope of this stood a terrible scar of a slide, yellow and brown, risingtwo thousand feet from the shore. A vaporous wisp of cloud hung alongthe top of the slide, and above this aërial banner a snow-cappedpinnacle thrust itself high into the infinite blue. 

"What an outlook, " she said, barely conscious that she spoke aloud. "Whydo these people build their houses in the bush, when they could live inthe open and have something like this to look at. They would, if theyhad any sense of beauty. "

"Sure they haven't? Some of them might have, you know, without beingable to gratify it. "

She started, to find Jack Fyfe almost at her elbow, the gleam of aquizzical smile lighting his face. 

"I daresay that might be true, " she admitted. 

Fyfe's gaze turned from her to the huge sweep of lake and mountainchain. She saw that he was outfitted for fishing, creel on his shoulder, unjointed rod in one hand. By means of his rubber-soled waders he hadcome upon her noiselessly. 

"It's truer than you think, maybe, " he said at length. "You don't wantto come along and take a lesson in catching rainbows, I suppose?"

"Not this time, thanks, " she shook her head. 

"I want to get enough for supper, so I'd better be at it, " he remarked. "Sometimes they come pretty slow. If you should want to go up and watchthe boys work, that trail will take you there. "

He went off across the grassy level and plunged into the deep timberthat rose like a wall beyond. Stella looked after. 

"It is certainly odd, " she reflected with some irritation, "how that manaffects me. I don't think a woman could ever be just friends with him. She'd either like him a lot or dislike him intensely. He isn't anythingbut a logger, and yet he has a presence like one of the lords ofcreation. Funny. "

Then she went back to the house to converse upon domestic matters withMrs. Howe until the shrilling of the donkey whistle brought forty-oddlumberjacks swinging down the trail. 

Behind them a little way came Jack Fyfe with sagging creel. He did notstop to exhibit his catch, but half an hour later they were served hotand crisp at the table in the big living room, where Fyfe, Stella andCharlie Benton, Lefty Howe and his wife, sat down together. 

A flunkey from the camp kitchen served the meal and cleared it away. Foran hour or two after that the three men sat about in shirt-sleeved ease, puffing at Jack Fyfe's cigars. Then Benton excused himself and went tobed. When Howe and his wife retired, Stella did likewise. The longtwilight had dwindled to a misty patch of light sky in the northwest, and she fell asleep more at ease than she had been for weeks. Sitting inJack Fyfe's living room through that evening she had begun to formulatea philosophy to fit her enforced environment--to live for the day only, and avoid thought of the future until there loomed on the horizon someprospect of a future worth thinking about. The present looked passableenough, she thought, if she kept her mind strictly on it alone. 

And with that idea to guide her, she found the days slide by smoothly. She got on famously with Mrs. Howe, finding that woman full of virtuesunsuspected in her type. Charlie was in his element. His prospectslooked so rosy that they led him into egotistic outlines of what heintended to accomplish. To him the future meant logs in the water, bigholdings of timber, a growing bank account. Beyond that, --what all hisconcentrated effort should lead to save more logs and more timber, --hedid not seem to go. Judged by his talk, that was the ultimate, economicpower, --money and more money. More and more as Stella listened to him, she became aware that he was following in his father's footsteps; savethat he aimed at greater heights and that he worked by differentmethods, juggling with natural resources where their father had merelyjuggled with prices and tokens of product, their end was the same--notto create or build up, but to grasp, to acquire. That was the game. Toget and to hold for their own use and benefit and to look upon men andthings, in so far as they were of use, as pawns in the game. 

She wondered sometimes if that were a characteristic of all men, if thatwere the big motif in the lives of such men as Paul Abbey and JackFyfe, for instance; if everything else, save the struggle of getting andkeeping money, resolved itself into purely incidental phases of theirexistence? For herself she considered that wealth, or the getting ofwealth, was only a means to an end. 

Just what that end might be she found a little vague, rather hard todefine in exact terms. It embraced personal leisure and the good thingsof life as a matter of course, a broader existence, a large-handedgenerosity toward the less fortunate, an intellectual elevation entirelyunrelated to gross material things. Life, she told herself pensively, ought to mean something more than ease and good clothes, but what moreshe was chary of putting into concrete form. It hadn't meant much morethan that for her, so far. She was only beginning to recognize theflinty facts of existence. She saw now that for her there lay open onlytwo paths to food and clothing: one in which, lacking all training, shemust earn her bread by daily toil, the other leading to marriage. That, she would have admitted, was a woman's natural destiny, but one didn'tpick a husband or lover as one chose a gown or a hat. One went alongliving, and the thing happened. Chance ruled there, she believed. Themorality of her class prevented her from prying into this question ofmating with anything like critical consideration. It was only to bethought about sentimentally, and it was easy for her to so think. Withinher sound and vigorous body all the heritage of natural human impulsesbubbled warmly, but she recognized neither their source nor theirultimate fruits. 

Often when Charlie was holding forth in his accustomed vein, shewondered what Jack Fyfe thought about it, what he masked behind hisbrief sentences or slow smile. Latterly her feeling about him, thatinvoluntary bracing and stiffening of herself against his personality, left her. Fyfe seemed to be more or less self-conscious of her presenceas a guest in his house. His manner toward her remained always casual, as if she were a man, and there was no question of sex attraction ormasculine reaction to it between them. She liked him better for that;and she did admire his wonderful strength, the tremendous power investedin his magnificent body, just as she would have admired a tiger, withoutcaring to fondle the beast. 

Altogether she spent a tolerably pleasant three weeks. Autumn's gorgeouspaintbrush laid wonderful coloring upon the maple and alder and birchthat lined the lake shore. The fall run of the salmon was on, and everystream was packed with the silver horde, threshing through shoal andrapid to reach the spawning ground before they died. Off every creekmouth and all along the lake the seal followed to prey on the salmon, and sea-trout and lakers alike swarmed to the spawning beds to feed uponthe roe. The days shortened. Sometimes a fine rain would drizzle forhours on end, and when it would clear, the saw-toothed ranges flankingthe lake would stand out all freshly robed in white, --a mantle thatcrept lower on the fir-clad slopes after each storm. The winds thatwhistled off those heights nipped sharply. 

Early in October Charlie Benton had squared his neighborly account withJack Fyfe. With crew and equipment he moved home, to begin work anew onhis own limit. 

Katy John and her people came back from the salmon fishing. Jim Renfrew, still walking with a pronounced limp, returned from the hospital. Charlie wheedled Stella into taking up the cookhouse burden again. Stella consented; in truth she could do nothing else. Charlie spent alittle of his contract profits in piping water to the kitchen, in a fewthings to brighten up and make more comfortable their own quarters. 

"Just as soon as I can put another boom over the rapids, Stell, " hepromised, "I'll put a cook on the job. I've got to sail a little closefor a while. With this crew I ought to put a million feet in the waterin six weeks. Then I'll be over the hump, and you can take it easy. Buttill then--"

"Till then I may as well make myself useful, " Stella interruptedcaustically. 

"Well, why not?" Benton demanded impatiently. "Nobody around here worksany harder than I do. "

And there the matter rested. 

CHAPTER X

ONE WAY OUT

That was a winter of big snow. November opened with rain. Day after daythe sun hid his face behind massed, spitting clouds. Morning, noon, andnight the eaves of the shacks dripped steadily, the gaunt limbs of thehardwoods were a line of coursing drops, and through all the vastreaches of fir and cedar the patter of rain kept up a dreary monotone. Whenever the mist that blew like rolling smoke along the mountainslifted for a brief hour, there, creeping steadily downward, lay thebanked white. 

Rain or shine, the work drove on. From the peep of day till duskshrouded the woods, Benton's donkey puffed and groaned, axes thudded, the thin, twanging whine of the saws rose. Log after log slid down thechute to float behind the boomsticks; and at night the loggers troopedhome, soaked to the skin, to hang their steaming mackinaws around thebunkhouse stove. When they gathered in the mess-room they filled it withthe odor of sweaty bodies and profane grumbling about the weather. 

Early in December Benton sent out a big boom of logs with a hiredstern-wheeler that was no more than out of Roaring Lake before the snowcame. The sleety blasts of a cold afternoon turned to great, moistflakes by dark, eddying thick out of a windless night. At daybreak itlay a foot deep and snowing hard. Thenceforth there was no surcease. Thewhite, feathery stuff piled up and piled up, hour upon hour and dayafter day, as if the deluge had come again. It stood at the cabin eavesbefore the break came, six feet on the level. With the end of the stormcame a bright, cold sky and frost, --not the bitter frost of the highlatitudes, but a nipping cold that held off the melting rains and laid athin scum of ice on every patch of still water. 

Necessarily, all work ceased. The donkey was a shapeless mound of white, all the lines and gear buried deep. A man could neither walk on thatyielding mass nor wallow through it. The logging crew hailed theenforced rest with open relief. Benton grumbled. And then, with thehours hanging heavy on his hands, he began to spend more and more of histime in the bunkhouse with the "boys, " particularly in the longevenings. 

Stella wondered what pleasure he found in their company, but she neverasked him, nor did she devote very much thought to the matter. There wasbut small cessation in her labors, and that only because six or eight ofthe men drew their pay and went out. Benton managed to hold the othersagainst the thaw that might open up the woods in twenty-four hours, butthe smaller size of the gang only helped a little, and did not assisther mentally at all. All the old resentment against the indignity of herposition rose and smoldered. To her the days were full enough of thingsthat she was terribly weary of doing over and over, endlessly. She wasalways tired. No matter that she did, in a measure, harden to her work, grow callously accustomed to rising early and working late. Always herfeet were sore at night, aching intolerably. Hot food, sharp knives, anda glowing stove played havoc with her hands. Always she rose in themorning heavy-eyed and stiff-muscled. Youth and natural vigor alone kepther from breaking down, and to cap the strain of toil, she was soul-sickwith the isolation. For she was isolated; there was not a human being inthe camp, Katy John included, with whom she exchanged two dozen words aday. 

Before the snow put a stop to logging, Jack Fyfe dropped in once a weekor so. When work shut down, he came oftener, but he never singled Stellaout for any particular attention. Once he surprised her sitting with herelbows on the kitchen table, her face buried in her palms. She looked upat his quiet entrance, and her face must have given him his cue. Heleaned a little toward her. 

"How long do you think you can stand it?" he asked gently. 

"God knows, " she answered, surprised into speaking the thought that layuppermost in her mind, surprised beyond measure that Be should read thatthought. 

He stood looking down at her for a second or two. His lips parted, buthe closed them again over whatever rose to his tongue and passedsilently through the dining room and into the bunkhouse, where Bentonhad preceded him a matter of ten minutes. 

It lacked a week of Christmas. That day three of Benton's men had gonein the _Chickamin_ to Roaring Springs for supplies. They had returned inmid-afternoon, and Stella guessed by the new note of hilarity in thebunkhouse that part of the supplies had been liquid. This had happenedmore than once since the big snow closed in. She remembered Charlie'sfury at the logger who started Matt the cook on his spree, and shewondered at this relaxation, but it was not in her province, and shemade no comment. 

Jack Fyfe stayed to supper that evening. Neither he nor Charlie cameback to Benton's quarters when the meal was finished. While she stackedup the dishes, Katy John observed:

"Goodness sakes, Miss Benton, them fellers was fresh at supper. They washalf-drunk, some of them. I bet they'll be half a dozen fights beforemornin'. "

Stella passed that over in silence, with a mental turning up of hernose. It was something she could neither defend nor excuse. It was adisgusting state of affairs, but nothing she could change. She keptharking back to it, though, when she was in her own quarters, and KatyJohn had vanished for the night into her little room off the kitchen. Tired as she was, she remained wakeful, uneasy. Over in the bunkhousedisturbing sounds welled now and then into the cold, stillnight, --incoherent snatches of song, voices uproariously raised, burstsof laughter. Once, as she looked out the door, thinking she heardfootsteps crunching in the snow, some one rapped out a coarse oath thatdrove her back with burning face. 

As the evening wore late, she began to grow uneasily curious to know inwhat manner Charlie and Jack Fyfe were lending countenance to this minorriot, if they were even participating in it. Eleven o'clock passed, andstill there rose in the bunkhouse that unabated hum of voices. 

Suddenly there rose a brief clamor. In the dead silence that followed, she heard a thud and the clinking smash of breaking glass, a pantedoath, sounds of struggle. 

Stella slipped on a pair of her brother's gum boots and an overcoat, andran out on the path beaten from their cabin to the shore. It led pastthe bunkhouse, and on that side opened two uncurtained windows, yellowsquares that struck gleaming on the snow. The panes of one were brokennow, sharp fragments standing like saw teeth in the wooden sash. 

She stole warily near and looked in. Two men were being held apart; oneby three of his fellows, the other _by_ Jack Fyfe alone. Fyfe grinnedmildly, talking to the men in a quiet, pacific tone. 

"Now you know that was nothing to scrap about, " she heard him say, "You're both full of fighting whisky, but a bunkhouse isn't any place tofight. Wait till morning. If you've still got it in your systems, gooutside and have it out. But you shouldn't disturb our game and break upthe furniture. Be gentlemen, drunk or sober. Better shake hands and callit square. "

"Aw, let 'em go to it, if they want to. "

Charlie's voice, drink-thickened, harsh, came from a earner of the roominto which she could not see until she moved nearer. By the time shepicked him out, Fyfe resumed his seat at the table where three othersand Benton waited with cards in their hands, red and white chips andmoney stacked before them. 

She knew enough of cards to realize that a stiff poker game was on theboard when she had watched one hand dealt and played. It angered her, not from any ethical motive, but because of her brother's part in it. Hehad no funds to pay a cook's wages, yet he could afford to lose on onehand as much as he credited her with for a month's work. She could slaveat the kitchen job day in and day out to save him forty-five dollars amonth. He could lose that without the flicker of an eyelash, but hecouldn't pay her wages on demand. Also she saw that he had imbibed toofreely, if the redness of his face and the glassy fixedness of his eyescould be read aright. 

"Pig!" she muttered. "If that's his idea of pleasure. Oh, well, whyshould I care? I don't, so far as he's concerned, if I could just getaway from this beast of a place myself. "

Abreast of her a logger came to the broken window with a sack to bar outthe frosty air. And Stella, realizing suddenly that she was shiveringwith the cold, ran back to the cabin and got into her bed. 

But she did not sleep, save in uneasy periods of dozing, until midnightwas long past. Then Fyfe and her brother came in, and by the sounds shegathered that Fyfe was putting Charlie to bed. She heard his deep, drawly voice urging the unwisdom of sleeping with calked boots on, andBeaton's hiccupy response. The rest of the night she slept fitfully, morbidly imagining terrible things. She was afraid, that was the sumand substance of it. Over in the bunkhouse the carousal was still at itsheight. She could not rid herself of the sight of those two menstruggling to be at each other like wild beasts, the bloody face of theone who had been struck, the coarse animalism of the wholewhisky-saturated gang. It repelled and disgusted and frightened her. 

The night frosts had crept through the single board walls of Stella'sroom and made its temperature akin to outdoors when the alarm wakenedher at six in the morning. She shivered as she dressed. Katy John wasblissfully devoid of any responsibility, for seldom did Katy rise firstto light the kitchen fire. Yet Stella resented less each day's bleakbeginning than she did the enforced necessity of the situation; the factthat she was enduring these things practically under compulsion was whatgalled. 

A cutting wind struck her icily as she crossed the few steps of openbetween cabin and kitchen. Above no cloud floated, no harbinger ofmelting rain. The cold stars twinkled over snow-blurred forest, strucktiny gleams from stumps that were now white-capped pillars. A nightswell from the outside waters beat, its melancholy dirge on the frozenbeach. And, as she always did at that hushed hour before dawn, sheexperienced a physical shrinking from those grim solitudes in whichthere was nothing warm and human and kindly, nothing but vastness ofspace upon which silence lay like a smothering blanket, in which she, the human atom, was utterly negligible, a protesting mote in theinexorable wilderness. She knew this to be merely a state of mind, butsituated as she was, it bore upon her with all the force of reality. Shefelt like a prisoner who above all things desired some mode of escape. 

A light burned in the kitchen. She thanked her stars that this bittercold morning she would not have to build a fire with freezing fingerswhile her teeth chattered, and she hurried in to the warmth heralded bya spark-belching stovepipe. But the Siwash girl had not risen to theoccasion. Instead, Jack Fyfe sat with his feet on the oven door, a cigarin one corner of his mouth. The kettle steamed. Her porridge pot bubbledready for the meal. 

"Good morning, " he greeted. "Mind my preempting your job?"

"Not at all, " she answered. "You can have it for keeps if you want. "

"No, thanks, " he smiled. "I'm sour on my own cooking. Had to eat toomuch of it in times gone by. I wouldn't be stoking up here either, onlyI got frozen out. Charlie's spare bed hasn't enough blankets for methese cold nights. "

He drew his chair aside to be out of the way as she hurried about herbreakfast preparations. All the time she was conscious that his eyeswere on her, and also that in them lurked an expression of keeninterest. His freckled mask of a face gave no clue to his thoughts; itnever did, so far as she had ever observed. Fyfe had a gambler'simmobility of countenance. He chucked the butt of his cigar in the stoveand sat with hands clasped over one knee for some time after Katy Johnappeared and began setting the dining room table with a great clatterof dishes. 

He arose to his feet then. Stella stood beside the stove, frying bacon. A logger opened the door and walked in. He had been one to fare ill inthe night's hilarity, for a discolored patch encircled one eye, and hislips were split and badly swollen. He carried a tin basin. 

"Kin I get some hot water?" he asked. 

Stella silently indicated the reservoir at one end of the range. The manladled his basin full. The fumes of whisky, the unpleasant odor of hisbreath offended her, and she drew back. Fyfe looked at her as the manwent out. 

"What?" he asked. 

She had muttered something, an impatient exclamation of disgust. Theman's appearance disagreeably reminded her of the scene she had observedthrough the bunkhouse window. It stung her to think that her brother wasfast putting himself on a par with them--without their valid excuse oftype and training. 

"Oh, nothing, " she said wearily, and turned to the sputtering bacon. 

Fyfe put his foot up on the stove front and drummed a tattoo on hismackinaw clad knee. 

"Aren't you getting pretty sick of this sort of work, these more or lessuncomfortable surroundings, and the sort of people you have to come incontact with?" he asked pointedly. 

"I am, " she returned as bluntly, "but I think that's rather animpertinent question, Mr. Fyfe. "

He passed imperturbably over this reproof, and his glance turnedbriefly toward the dining room. Katy John was still noisily at work. 

"You hate it, " he said positively. "I know you do. I've seen yourfeelings many a time. I don't blame you. It's a rotten business for agirl with your tastes and bringing up. And I'm afraid you'll find itworse, if this snow stays long. I know what a logging camp is when workstops, and whisky creeps in, and the boss lets go his hold for the timebeing. "

"That may be true, " she returned gloomily, "but I don't see why youshould enumerate these disagreeable things for my benefit. "

"I'm going to show you a way out, " he said softly. "I've been thinkingit over for quite a while. I want you to marry me. "

Stella gasped. 

"Mr. Fyfe. "

"Listen, " he said peremptorily, leaning closer to her and lowering hisvoice. "I have an idea that you're going to say you don't love me. Lord, _I_ know that. But you _hate_ this. It grates against every inclinationof yours like a file on steel. I wouldn't jar on you like that. Iwouldn't permit you to live in surroundings that would. That's thematerial side of it. Nobody can live on day dreams. I like you, StellaBenton, a whole lot more than I'd care to say right out loud. You and Itogether could make a home we'd be proud of. I want you, and you want toget away from this. It's natural. Marry me and play the game fair, and Idon't think you'll be sorry. I'm putting it as baldly as I can. Youstand to win everything with nothing to lose--but your domesticchains--" the gleam of a smile lit up his features for a second. "Won'tyou take a chance?" "No, " she declared impulsively. "I won't be a partyto any such cold-blooded transaction. "

"You don't seem to understand me, " he said soberly. "I don't want tohand out any sentiment, but it makes me sore to see you wasting yourselfon this sort of thing. If you must do it, why don't you do it forsomebody who'll make it worth while? If you'd use the brains God gaveyou, you know that lots of couples have married on flimsier grounds thanwe'd have. How can a man and a woman really know anything about eachother till they've lived together? Just because we don't marry with ourheads in the fog is no reason we shouldn't get on fine. What are yougoing to do? Stick here at this till you go crazy? You won't get away. You don't realize what a one-idea, determined person this brother ofyours is. He has just one object in life, and he'll use everything andeverybody in sight to attain that object. He means to succeed and hewill. You're purely incidental; but he has that perverted, middle-classfamily pride that will make him prevent you from getting out and tryingyour own wings. Nature never intended a woman like you to be a celibate, any more than I was so intended. And sooner or late you'll marrysomebody--if only to hop out of the fire into the frying pan. "

"I hate you, " she flashed passionately, "when you talk like that. "

"No, you don't, " he returned quietly. "You hate what I say, becauseit's the truth--and it's humiliating to be helpless. You think I don't_sabe?_ But I'm putting a weapon into your hand. Let's put itdifferently; leave out the sentiment for a minute. We'll say that I wanta housekeeper, preferably an ornamental one, because I like beautifulthings. You want to get away from this drudgery. That's what it is, simple drudgery. You crave lots of things you can't get by yourself, butthat you could help me get for you. There's things lacking in your life, and so is there in mine. Why shouldn't we go partners? You think aboutit. "

"I don't need to, " she answered coolly. "It wouldn't work. You don'tappear to have any idea what it means for a woman to give herself upbody and soul to a man she doesn't care for. For me it would be plainselling myself. I haven't the least affection for you personally. Imight even detest you. "

"You wouldn't, " he said positively. 

"What makes you so sure of that?" she demanded. 

"It would sound conceited if I told you why, " he drawled. "Listen. We'renot gods and goddesses, we human beings. We're not, after all, in ourreal impulses, so much different from the age when a man took his cluband went after a female that looked good to him. They mated, and raisedtheir young, and very likely faced on an average fewer problems thanarise in modern marriages supposedly ordained in Heaven. You'd have theone big problem solved, --the lack of means to live decently, --whichwrecks more homes than anything else, far more than lack of love. Affection doesn't seem to thrive on poverty. What is love?"

His voice took on a challenging note. 

Stella shook her head. He puzzled her, wholly serious one minute, awhimsical smile twisting up the corners of his mouth the next. And hesurprised her too by his sureness of utterance on subjects she had notsupposed would enter such a man's mind. 

"I don't know, " she answered absently, turning over strips of bacon withthe long-handled fork. 

"There you are, " he said. "I don't know either. We'd start even, then, for the sake of argument. No, I guess we wouldn't either, because you'rethe only woman I've run across so far with whom I could calmlycontemplate spending the rest of my life in close contact. That's afact. To me it's a highly important fact. You don't happen to have anysuch feeling about me, eh?"

"No. I hadn't even thought of you in that way, " Stella answeredtruthfully. 

"You want to think about me, " he said calmly. "You want to think aboutme from every possible angle, because I'm going to come back and ask youthis same question every once in a while, so long as you're in reach anddoing this dirty work for a thankless boss. You want to think of me as apossible refuge from a lot of disagreeable things. I'd like to have youto chum with, and I'd like to have some incentive to put a big whitebungalow on that old foundation for us two, " he smiled. "I'll never doit for myself alone. Go on. Take a gambling chance and marry me, Stella. Say yes, and say it now. "

But she shook her head resolutely, and as Katy John came in just then, Fyfe took his foot off the stove and went out of the kitchen. He threw aglance over his shoulder at Stella, a broad smile, as if to say that heharbored no grudge, and nursed no wound in his vanity because she wouldhave none of him. 

Katy rang the breakfast gong. Five minutes later the tattoo of knivesand forks and spoons told of appetites in process of appeasement. Charlie came into the kitchen in the midst of this, bearing certainunmistakable signs. His eyes were inflamed, his cheeks still bearing theflush of liquor. His demeanor was that of a man suffering an intolerableheadache and correspondingly short-tempered. Stella barely spoke to him. It was bad enough for a man to make a beast of himself with whisky, butfar worse was his gambling streak. There were so many little ways inwhich she could have eased things with a few dollars; yet he alwaysgrumbled when she spoke of money, always put her off with promises to beredeemed when business got better. 

Stella watched him bathe his head copiously in cold water and then seathimself at the long table, trying to force food upon an aggrieved andrebellious stomach. Gradually a flood of recklessness welled up in herbreast. 

"For two pins I would marry Jack Fyfe, " she told herself savagely. "_Anything_ would be better than this. "

CHAPTER XI

THE PLUNGE

Stella went over that queer debate a good many times in the ten daysthat followed. It revealed Jack Fyfe to her in a new, inexplicablelight, at odd variance with her former conception of the man. She couldnot have visualized him standing with one foot on the stove frontspeaking calmly of love and marriage if she had not seen him with herown eyes, heard him with somewhat incredulous ears. She had continued toendow him with the attributes of unrestrained passion, of headlongleaping to the goal of his desires, of brushing aside obstacles andopposition with sheer brute force; and he had shown unreckoned qualitiesof restraint, of understanding. She was not quite sure if this wereguile or sensible consideration. He had put his case logically, persuasively even. She was very sure that if he had adopted emotionalmethods, she would have been repelled. If he had laid siege to her handand heart in the orthodox fashion, she would have raised that siege inshort order. As it stood, in spite of her words to him, there was in herown mind a lack of finality. As she went about her daily tasks, thatprospect of trying a fresh fling at the world as Jack Fyfe's wifetantalized her with certain desirable features. 

Was it worth while to play the game as she must play it for some timeto come, drudge away at mean, sordid work and amid the dreariest sort ofenvironment? At best, she could only get away from Charlie's camp andbegin along new lines that might perhaps be little better, that mustinevitably lie among strangers in a strange land. To what end? What didshe want of life, anyway? She had to admit that she could not say fullyand explicitly what she wanted. When she left out her material wants, there was nothing but a nebulous craving for--what? Love, she assumed. And she could not define love, except as some incomprehensible transportof emotion which irresistibly drew a man and a woman together, a divinefire kindled in two hearts. It was not a thing she could vouch for bypersonal experience. It might never touch and warm her, that divinefire. Instinct did now and then warn her that some time it would wrapher like a flame. But in the meantime--Life had her in midstream of itsremorseless, drab current, sweeping her along. A foothold offered. Halfa loaf, a single slice of bread even, is better than none. 

Jack Fyfe did not happen in again for nearly two weeks and then only topay a brief call, but he stole an opportunity, when Katy John was notlooking, to whisper in Stella's ear:

"Have you been thinking about that bungalow of ours?"

She shook her head, and he went out quietly, without another word. Heneither pleaded nor urged, and perhaps that was wisest, for in spite ofherself Stella thought of him continually. He loomed always before her, a persistent, compelling factor. 

She knew at last, beyond any gainsaying, that the venture tempted, largely perhaps because it contained so great an element of the unknown. To get away from this soul-dwarfing round meant much. She felt herselfreasoning desperately that the frying pan could not be worse than thefire, and held at least the merit of greater dignity and freedom fromthe twin evils of poverty and thankless domestic slavery. 

While she considered this, pro and con, shrinking from such a step onehour, considering it soberly the next, the days dragged past inwearisome sequence. The great depth of snow endured, was added to byspasmodic flurries. The frosts held. The camp seethed with therestlessness of the men. In default of the daily work that consumedtheir superfluous energy, the loggers argued and fought, drank andgambled, made "rough house" in their sleeping quarters till sometimesStella's cheeks blanched and she expected murder to be done. Twice the_Chickamin_ came back from Roaring Springs with whisky aboard, and aprotracted debauch ensued. Once a drunken logger shouldered his way intothe kitchen to leer unpleasantly at Stella, and, himself inflamed byliquor and the affront, Charlie Benton beat the man until his face was amass of bloody bruises. That was only one of a dozen brutal incidents. All the routine discipline of the woods seemed to have slipped out ofBenton's hands. When the second whisky consignment struck the camp, Stella stayed in her room, refusing to cook until order reigned again. Benton grumblingly took up the burden himself. With Katy's help and thatof sundry loggers, he fed the roistering crew, but for his sister it wasa two-day period of protesting disgust. 

That mood, like so many of her moods, relapsed into dogged endurance. She took up the work again when Charlie promised that no more whiskyshould be allowed in the camp. 

"Though it's ten to one I won't have a corporal's guard left when I wantto start work again, " he grumbled. "I'm well within my rights if I putmy foot down hard on any jinks when there's work, but I have no licenseto set myself up as guardian of a logger's morals and pocketbook when Ihave nothing for him to do. These fellows are paying their board. Solong as they don't make themselves obnoxious to you, I don't see thatit's our funeral whether they're drunk or sober. They'd tell me so quickenough. "

To this pronouncement of expediency Stella made no rejoinder. She nolonger expected anything much of Charlie, in the way of consideration. So far as she could see, she, his sister, was little more to him thanone of his loggers; a little less important than, say, his donkeyengineer. In so far as she conduced to the well-being of the camp andeffected a saving to his credit in the matter of preparing food, hevalued her and was willing to concede a minor point to satisfy her. Beyond that Stella felt that he did not go. Five years in totallydifferent environments had dug a great gulf between them. He felt anarbitrary sense of duty toward her, she knew, but in its manifestationsit never lapped over the bounds of his own immediate self-interest. 

And so when she blundered upon knowledge of a state of affairs whichmust have existed under her very nose for some time, there were fewremnants of sisterly affection to bid her seek extenuatingcircumstances. 

Katy John proved the final straw. Just by what means Stella grew tosuspect any such moral lapse on Benton's part is wholly irrelevant. Oncethe unpleasant likelihood came to her notice, she took measures toverify her suspicion, and when convinced she taxed her brother with it, to his utter confusion. 

"What kind of a man are you?" she cried at last in shamed anger. "Isthere nothing too low for you to dabble in? Haven't you any respect foranything or anybody, yourself included?"

"Oh, don't talk like a damned Puritan, " Benton growled, though histanned face was burning. "This is what comes of having women around thecamp. I'll send the girl away. "

"You--you beast!" she flared--and ran out of the kitchen to seek refugein her own room and cry into her pillow some of the dumb protest thatsurged up within her. For her knowledge of passion and the workings ofpassion as they bore upon the relations of a man and a woman were atonce vague and tinctured with inflexible tenets of morality, thesteel-hard conception of virtue which is the bulwark of middle-classtheory for its wives and daughters and sisters--with an eye consistentlyblind to the concealed lapses of its men. 

Stella Benton passed that morning through successive stages of shockedamazement, of pity, and disgust. As between her brother and the Siwashgirl, she saw little to choose. From her virtuous pinnacle she abhorredboth. If she had to continue intimate living with them, she felt thatshe would be utterly defiled, degraded to their level. That was herfirst definite conclusion. 

After a time she heard Benton come into their living room and light afire in the heater. She dried her eyes and went out to face him. 

"Charlie, " she declared desperately, "I can't stay here any longer. It'ssimply impossible. "

"Don't start that song again. We've had it often enough, " he answeredstubbornly. "You're not going--not till spring. I'm not going to let yougo in the frame of mind you're in right now, anyhow. You'll get overthat. Hang it, I'm not the first man whose foot slipped. It isn't yourfuneral, anyway. Forget it. "

The grumbling coarseness of this retort left her speechless. Benton gotthe fire going and went out. She saw him cross to the kitchen, and latershe saw Katy John leave the camp with all her belongings in a bundleover her shoulder, trudging away to the camp of her people around thepoint. 

Kipling's pregnant line shot across her mind:

"For the colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under their skins. "

"I wonder, " she mused. "I wonder if we are? I wonder if that poor, little, brown-skinned fool isn't after all as much a victim as I am. Shedoesn't know better, maybe; but Charlie does, and he doesn't seem tocare. It merely embarrasses him to be found out, that's all. It isn'tright. It isn't fair, or decent, or anything. We're just for him to--touse. "

She looked out along the shores piled high with broken ice and snow, through a misty air to distant mountains that lifted themselvesimperiously aloof, white spires against the sky, --over a forest alldraped in winter robes; shore, mountains, and forest alike were chilland hushed and desolate. The lake spread its forty-odd miles in aboomerang curve from Roaring Springs to Fort Douglas, a cold, lifelessgray. She sat a long time looking at that, and a dead weight seemed tosettle upon her heart. For the second time that day she broke down. Notthe shamed, indignant weeping of an hour earlier, but with the essenceof all things forlorn and desolate in her choked sobs. 

She did not hear Jack Fyfe come in. She did not dream he was there, until she felt his hand gently on her shoulder and looked up. And sodeep was her despondency, so keen the unassuaged craving for some humansympathy, some measure of understanding, that she made no effort toremove his hand. She was in too deep a spiritual quagmire to refuse anysort of aid, too deeply moved to indulge in analytical self-fathoming. She had a dim sense of being oddly comforted by his presence, as if she, afloat on uncharted seas, saw suddenly near at hand a safe anchorage andwelcoming hands. Afterward she recalled that. As it was, she looked upat Fyfe and hid her wet face in her hands again. He stood silent a fewseconds. When he did speak there was a peculiar hesitation in hisvoice. 

"What is it?" he said softly. "What's the trouble now?"

Briefly she told him, the barriers of her habitual reserve swept asidebefore the essentially human need to share a burden that has grown toogreat to bear alone. 

"Oh, hell, " Fyfe grunted, when she had finished. "This isn't any placefor you at all. "

He slid his arm across her shoulders and tilted her face with his otherhand so that her eyes met his. And she felt no desire to draw away orany of that old instinct to be on her guard against him. For all sheknew--indeed, by all she had been told--Jack Fyfe was tarred with thesame stick as her brother, but she had no thought of resisting him, nofeeling of repulsion. 

"Will you marry me, Stella?" he asked evenly. "I can free you from thissort of thing forever. "

"How can I?" she returned. "I don't want to marry anybody. I don't loveyou. I'm not even sure I like you. I'm too miserable to think, even. I'mafraid to take a step like that. I should think you would be too. "

He shook his head. 

"I've thought a lot about it lately, " he said. "It hasn't occurred to meto be afraid of how it may turn out. Why borrow trouble when there'splenty at hand? I don't care whether you love me or not, right now. Youcouldn't possibly be any worse off as my wife, could you?"

"No, " she admitted. "I don't see how I could. "

"Take a chance then, " he urged. "I'll make a fair bargain with you. I'llmake life as pleasant for you as I can. You'll live pretty much asyou've been brought up to live, so far as money goes. The rest we'llhave to work out for ourselves. I won't ask you to pretend anything youdon't feel. You'll play fair, because that's the way you'remade, --unless I've sized you up wrong. It'll simply be a case of ouradjusting ourselves, just as mating couples have been doing since theyear one. You've everything to gain and nothing to lose. "

"In some ways, " she murmured. 

"Every way, " he insisted. "You aren't handicapped by caring for anyother man. "

"How do you know?" she asked. 

"Just a hunch, " Fyfe smiled. "If you did, he'd have beaten me to therescue long ago--if he were the sort of man you _could_ care for. "

"No, " she admitted. "There isn't any other man, but there might be. Think how terrible it would be if it happened--afterward. "

Fyfe shrugged his shoulders. 

"Sufficient unto the day, " he said. "There is no string on either of usjust now. We start even. That's good enough. Will you?"

"You have me at a disadvantage, " she whispered. "You offer me a lot thatI want, everything but a feeling I've somehow always believed ought toexist, ought to be mutual. Part of me wants to shut my eyes and jump. Part of me wants to hang back. I can't stand this thing I've got intoand see no way of getting out of. Yet I dread starting a new train ofwretchedness. I'm afraid--whichever way I turn. "

Fyfe considered this a moment. 

"Well, " he said finally, "that's a rather unfortunate attitude. But I'mgoing into it with my eyes open. I know what I want. You'll be making asort of experiment. Still, I advise you to make it. I think you'll bethe better for making it. Come on. Say yes. "

Stella looked up at him, then out over the banked snow, and all thedreary discomforts, the mean drudgery, the sordid shifts she had beenput to for months rose up in disheartening phalanx. For that moment JackFyfe loomed like a tower of refuge. She trusted him now. She had afeeling that even if she grew to dislike him, she would still trust him. He would play fair. If he said he would do this or that, she could bankon it absolutely. 

She turned and looked at him searchingly a long half-minute, wonderingwhat really lay behind the blue eyes that met her own so steadfastly. Hestood waiting patiently, outwardly impassive. But she could feel throughthe thin stuff of her dress a quiver in the fingers that rested on hershoulder, and that repressed sign of the man's pent-up feeling gave heran odd thrill, moved her strangely, swung the pendulum of her impulse. 

"Yes, " she said. 

Fyfe bent a little lower. 

"Listen, " he said in characteristically blunt fashion. "You want to getaway from here. There is no sense in our fussing or hesitating aboutwhat we're going to do, is there?"

"No, I suppose not, " she agreed. 

"I'll send the _Panther_ down to the Springs for Lefty Howe's wife, " heoutlined his plans unhesitatingly. "She'll get up here this evening. To-morrow we will go down and take the train to Vancouver and bemarried. You have plenty of good clothes, good enough for Vancouver. Iknow, "--with a whimsical smile, --"because you had no chance to wear themout. Then we'll go somewhere, California, Florida, and come back toRoaring Lake in the spring. You'll have all the bad taste of this out ofyour mouth by that time. "

Stella nodded acquiescence. Better to make the plunge boldly, since shehad elected to make it. 

"All right. I'm going to tell Benton, " Fyfe said. "Good-by tillto-morrow. "

She stood up. He looked at her a long time earnestly, searchingly, oneof her hands imprisoned tight between his two big palms. Then, beforeshe was quite aware of his intention, he kissed her gently on the mouth, and was gone. 

 * * * * *

This turn of events left Benton dumbfounded, to use a trite butexpressive phrase. He came in, apparently to look at Stella in amazedcuriosity, for at first he had nothing to say. He sat down beside hismakeshift desk and pawed over some papers, running the fingers of onehand through his thick brown hair. 

"Well, Sis, " he blurted out at last. "I suppose you know what you'redoing?"

"I think so, " Stella returned composedly. 

"But why all this mad haste?" he asked. "If you're going to get married, why didn't you let me know, so I could give you some sort of decentsend-off. "

"Oh, thanks, " she returned dryly. "I don't think that's necessary. Notat this stage of the game, as you occasionally remark. "

He ruminated upon this a minute, flushing slightly. 

"Well, I wish you luck, " he said sincerely enough. "Though I can hardlyrealize this sudden move. You and Jack Fyfe may get on all right. He's agood sort--in his way. "

"His way suits me, " she said, spurred to the defensive by what shedeemed a note of disparagement in his utterance. "If you have anyobjections or criticisms, you can save your breath--or address themdirect to Mr. Fyfe. "

"No, thank you, " he grinned. "I don't care to get into any argument with_him_, especially as he's going to be my brother-in-law. Fyfe's allright. I didn't imagine he was the sort of man you'd fancy, that's all. "

Stella refrained from any comment on this. She had no intention ofadmitting to Charlie that marriage with Jack Fyfe commended itself toher chiefly as an avenue of escape from a well-nigh intolerablecondition which he himself had inflicted upon her. Her pride rose inarms against any such belittling admission. She admitted it frankly toherself, --and to Fyfe, --because Fyfe understood and was content withthat understanding. She desired to forget that phase of thetransaction. She told herself that she meant honestly to make the bestof it. 

Benton turned again to his papers. He did not broach the subject againuntil in the distance the squat hull of the _Panther_ began to show onher return from the Springs. Then he came to where Stella was puttingthe last of her things into her trunk. He had some banknotes in onehand, and a check. 

"Here's that ninety I borrowed, Stell, " he said. "And a check for yourback pay. Things have been sort of lean around here, maybe, but I stillthink it's a pity you couldn't have stuck it out till it came smoother. I hate to see you going away with a chronic grouch against me. I supposeI wouldn't even be a welcome guest at the wedding?"

"No, " she said unforgivingly. "Some things are a little too--toorecent. "

"Oh, " he replied casually enough, pausing in the doorway a second on hisway out, "you'll get over that. You'll find that ordinary, everydayliving isn't any kid-glove affair. "

She sat on the closed lid of her trunk, looking at the check and money. Three hundred and sixty dollars, all told. A month ago that would havespelled freedom, a chance to try her luck in less desolate fields. Well, she tried to consider the thing philosophically; it was no use to bewailwhat might have been. In her hands now lay the sinews of a war she hadforgone all need of waging. It did not occur to her to repudiate herbargain with Jack Fyfe. She had given her promise, and she consideredshe was bound, irrevocably. Indeed, for the moment, she was glad ofthat. She was worn out, all weary with unaccustomed stress of body andmind. To her, just then, rest seemed the sweetest boon in the world. Anyport in a storm, expressed her mood. What came after was to be met as itcame. She was too tired to anticipate. 

It was a pale, weary-eyed young woman, dressed in the same plaintailored suit she had worn into the country, who was cuddled to Mrs. Howe's plump bosom when she went aboard the _Panther_ for the firststage of her journey. 

A slaty bank of cloud spread a somber film across the sky. When the_Panther_ laid her ice-sheathed guard-rail against the Hot Springs wharfthe sun was down. The lake spread gray and lifeless under a gray sky, and Stella Benton's spirits were steeped in that same dour color. 

CHAPTER XII

AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED

Spring had waved her transforming wand over the lake region before theFyfes came home again. All the low ground, the creeks and hollows andbanks, were bright green with new-leaved birch and alder and maple. Theair was full of those aromatic exudations the forest throws off when itis in the full tide of the growing time. Shores that Stella had lastseen dismal and forlorn in the frost-fog, sheathed in ice, banked withdeep snow, lay sparkling now in warm sunshine, under an unflecked archof blue. All that was left of winter was the white cap on Mount Douglas, snow-filled chasms on distant, rocky peaks. Stella stood on the HotSprings wharf looking out across the emerald deep of the lake, thinkingsoberly of the contrast. 

Something, she reflected, some part of that desolate winter, must haveseeped to the very roots of her being to produce the state of mind inwhich she embarked upon that matrimonial voyage. A little of it clung toher still. She could look back at those months of loneliness, ofimmeasurable toil and numberless indignities, without any qualms. Therewould be no repetition of that. The world at large would say she haddone well. She herself in her most cynical moments could not deny thatshe had done well. Materially, life promised to be generous. She wasmarried to a man who quietly but inexorably got what he wanted, and itwas her good fortune that he wanted her to have the best of everything. 

She saw him now coming from the hotel, and she regarded himthoughtfully, a powerful figure swinging along with light, effortlesssteps. He was back on his own ground, openly glad to be back. Yet shecould not recall that he had ever shown himself at a disadvantageanywhere they had been together. He wore evening clothes when occasionrequired as unconcernedly as he wore mackinaws and calked boots amonghis loggers. She had not yet determined whether his equable poise arosefrom an unequivocal democracy of spirit, or from sheer egotism. At anyrate, where she had set out with subtle misgivings, she had to admitthat socially, at least, Jack Fyfe could play his hand at any turn ofthe game. Where or how he came by this faculty, she did not know. Infact, so far as Jack Fyfe's breeding and antecedents were concerned, sheknew little more than before their marriage. He was not given toreminiscence. His people--distant relatives--lived in her own nativestate of Pennsylvania. He had an only sister who was now in SouthAmerica with her husband, a civil engineer. Beyond that Fyfe did not go, and Stella made no attempt to pry up the lid of his past. She was notparticularly curious. 

Her clearest judgment of him was at first hand. He was a big, viriletype of man, generous, considerate, so sure of himself that he could betolerant of others. She could easily understand why Roaring Lakeconsidered Jack Fyfe "square. " The other tales of him that circulatedthere she doubted now. The fighting type he certainly was, aggressive ina clash, but if there were any downright coarseness in him, it had nevermanifested itself to her. She was not sorry she had married him. If theyhad not set out blind in a fog of sentiment, as he had once put it, nevertheless they got on. She did not love him, --not as she defined thatmagic word, --but she liked him, was mildly proud of him. When he kissedher, if there were no mad thrill in it, there was at least a passivecontentment in having inspired that affection. For he left her in nodoubt as to where he stood, not by what he said, but wholly by hisactions. 

He joined her now. The _Panther_, glossy black as a crow's wing withfresh paint, lay at the pier-end with their trunks aboard. Stellasurveyed those marked with her initials, looking them over with acritical eye, when they reached the deck. 

"How in the world did I ever manage to accumulate so much stuff, Jack?"she asked quizzically. "I didn't realize it. We might have been doingEurope with souvenir collecting our principal aim, by the amount of ourbaggage. "

Fyfe smiled, without commenting. They sat on a trunk and watched RoaringSprings fall astern, dwindle to a line of white dots against the greatgreen base of the mountain that rose behind it. 

"It's good to get back here, " he said at last. "To me, anyway. How aboutit, Stella? You haven't got so much of a grievance with the world ingeneral as you had when we left, eh?"

"No, thank goodness, " she responded fervently. 

"You don't look as if you had, " he observed, his eyes admiringly uponher. 

Nor had she. There was a bloom on the soft contour of her cheek, aluminous gleam in her wide, gray eyes. All the ill wrought by months ofdrudging work and mental revolt had vanished. She was undeniably good tolook at, a woman in full flower, round-bodied, deep-breasted, aglow withthe unquenched fires of youth. She was aware that Jack Fyfe found her soand tolerably glad that he did so find her. She had revised a good manyof her first groping estimates of him that winter. And when she lookedover the port bow and saw in behind Halfway Point the huddled shacks ofher brother's camp where so much had overtaken her, she experienced aswift rush of thankfulness that she was--as she was. She slid her glovedhand impulsively into Jack Fyfe's, and his strong fingers shut down onhers closely. 

They sat silent until the camp lay abeam. About it there was every signof activity. A chunky stern-wheeler, with blow-off valve hissing, stoodby a boom of logs in the bay, and men were moving back and forth acrossthe swifters, making all ready for a tow. Stella marked a new bunkhouse. Away back on the logging ground in a greater clearing she saw theseparate smoke of two donkey engines. Another, a big roader, Fyfeexplained, puffed at the water's edge. She could see a string of logstearing down the skid-road. 

"He's going pretty strong, that brother of yours, " Fyfe remarked. "Ifhe holds his gait, he'll be a big timberman before you know it. "

"He'll make money, I imagine, " Stella admitted, "but I don't know whatgood that will do him. He'll only want more. What is there aboutmoney-making that warps some men so, makes them so grosslyself-centered? I'd pity any girl who married Charlie. He used to berather wild at home, but I never dreamed any man could change so. "

"You use the conventional measuring-stick on him, " her husband answered, with that tolerance which so often surprised her. "Maybe his ways arepretty crude. But he's feverishly hewing a competence--which is whatwe're all after--out of pretty crude material. And he's just a kid, after all, with a kid's tendency to go to extremes now and then. I kindalike the beggar's ambition and energy. "

"But he hasn't the least consideration for anybody or anything, " Stellaprotested. "He rides rough-shod over every one. That isn't either rightor decent. "

"It's the only way some men can get to the top, " Fyfe answered quietly. "They concentrate on the object to be attained. That's all that countsuntil they're in a secure position. Then, when they stop to draw theirbreath, sometimes they find they've done lots of things they wouldn't doagain. You watch. By and by Charlie Benton will cease to have thoseviolent reactions that offend you so. As it is--he's a youngster, bucking a big game. Life, when you have your own way to hew through it, with little besides your hands and brain for capital, is no silk-linedaffair. "

She fell into thought over this reply. Fyfe had echoed almost herbrother's last words to her. And she wondered if Jack Fyfe had attainedthat degree of economic power which enabled him to spend severalthousand dollars on a winter's pleasuring with her by the exercise of astrong man's prerogative of overriding the weak, bending them to his owninflexible purposes, ruthlessly turning everything to his own advantage?If women came under the same head! She recalled Katy John, and her faceburned. Perhaps. But she could not put Jack Fyfe in her brother'scategory. He didn't fit. Deep in her heart there still lurked an abidingresentment against Charlie Benton for the restraint he had put upon herand the license he had arrogated to himself. She could not convinceherself that the lapses of that winter were not part and parcel of herbrother's philosophy of life, a coarse and material philosophy. 

Presently they were drawing in to Cougar Point, with theweather-bleached buildings of Fyfe's camp showing now among theupspringing second-growth scrub. Fyfe went forward and spoke to the manat the wheel. The _Panther_ swung offshore. 

"Why are we going out again?" Stella asked. 

"Oh, just for fun, " Fyfe smiled. 

He sat down beside her and slipped one arm around her waist. In a fewminutes they cleared the point. Stella was looking away across the lake, at the deep cleft where Silver Creek split a mountain range in twain. 

"Look around, " said he, "and tell me what you think of the House ofFyfe. "

There it stood, snow-white, broad-porched, a new house reared upon theold stone foundation she remembered. The noon sun struck flashing on thewindows. About it spread the living green of the grassy square, behindthat towered the massive, darker-hued background of the forest. 

"Oh, " she exclaimed. "What wizard of construction did the work. _That_was why you fussed so long over those plans in Los Angeles. I thought itwas to be this summer or maybe next winter. I never dreamed you werehaving it built right away. "

"Well, isn't it rather nice to come home to?" he observed. 

"It's dear. A homey looking place, " she answered. "A beautiful site, andthe house fits, --that white and the red tiles. Is the big stonefireplace in the living room, Jack?"

"Yes, and one in pretty nearly every other room besides, " he nodded. "Wood fires are cheerful. "

The _Panther_ turned her nose shoreward at Fyfe's word. 

"I wondered about that foundation the first time I saw it, " Stellaconfessed, "whether you built it, and why it was never finished. Therewas moss over the stones in places. And that lawn wasn't made in asingle season. I know, because dad had a country place once, and he wasraging around two or three summers because the land was so hard to getwell-grassed. "

"No, I didn't build the foundation or make the lawn, " Fyfe told her. "Imerely kept it in shape. A man named Hale owned the land that takes inthe bay and the point when I first came to the lake. He was going to bemarried. I knew him pretty well. But it was tough going those days. Hewas in the hole on some of his timber, and he and his girl kept waiting. Meantime he cleared and graded that little hill, sowed it to grass, andlaid the foundation. He was about to start building when he was killed. A falling tree caught him. I bought in his land and the timber limitsthat lie back of it. That's how the foundation came there. "

"It's a wonder it didn't grow up wild, " Stella mused. "How long ago wasthat?"

"About five years, " Fyfe said. "I kept the grass trimmed. It didn't seemright to let the brush overrun it after the poor devil put that labor oflove on it. It always seemed to me that it should be kept smooth andgreen, and that there should be a big, roomy bungalow there. You see myhunch was correct, too. "

She looked up at him in some wonder. She hadn't accustomed herself toassociating Jack Fyfe with actions based on pure sentiment. He was toointensely masculine, solid, practical, impassive. He did not seem torealize even that sentiment had influenced him in this. He discussed ittoo matter-of-factly for that. She wondered what became of thebride-to-be. But that Fyfe could not tell her. 

"Hale showed me her picture once, " he said, "but I never saw her. Oh, Isuppose she's married some other fellow long ago. Hale was a good sort. He was out-lucked, that's all. "

The _Panther_ slid in to the float. Jack and Stella went ashore. LeftyHowe came down to meet them. Thirty-five or forty men were stringingaway from the camp, back to their work in the woods. Some waved greetingto Jack Fyfe, and he waved back in the hail-fellow fashion of the camps. 

"How's the frau, Lefty?" he inquired, after they had shaken hands. 

"Fine. Down to Vancouver. Sister's sick, " Howe answered laconically. "House's all shipshape. Wanta eat here, or up there?"

"Here at the camp, until we get straightened around, " Fyfe responded. "Tell Pollock to have something for us in about half an hour. We'll goup and take a look. "

Howe went in to convey this message, and the two set off up the path. Asudden spirit of impishness made Jack Fyfe sprint. Stella gathered upher skirt and raced after him, but a sudden shortness of breath overtookher, and she came panting to where Fyfe had stopped to wait. 

"You'll have to climb hills and row and swim so you'll get some wind, "Fyfe chuckled. "Too much easy living, lady. "

She smiled without making any reply to this sally, and they entered thehouse--the House of Fyfe, that was to be her home. 

If the exterior had pleased her, she went from room to room inside withgrowing amazement. Fyfe had finished it from basement to attic without aword to her that he had any such undertaking in hand. Yet there wasscarcely a room in which she could not find the visible result of someexpressed wish or desire. Often during the winter they had talked overthe matter of furnishings, and she recalled how unconsciously she hadbeen led to make suggestions which he had stored up and acted upon. Forthe rest she found her husband's taste beyond criticism. There weredrapes and rugs and prints and odds and ends that any woman might beproud to have in her home. 

"You're an amazing sort of a man, Jack, " she said thoughtfully. "Isthere anything you're not up to? Even a Chinese servant in the kitchen. It's perfect. "

"I'm glad you like it, " he said. "I hoped you would. "

"Who wouldn't?" she cried impulsively. "I love pretty things. Wait tillI get done rearranging. "

They introduced themselves to the immobile-featured Celestial when theyhad jointly and severally inspected the house from top to bottom. SamFoo gazed at them, listened to their account of themselves, anddisappeared. He re-entered the room presently, bearing a package. 

"Mist' Chol' Bentlee him leave foh yo'. "

Stella looked at it. On the outer wrapping was written:

 _From C. A. Benton to Mrs. John Henderson Fyfe_ _A Belated Wedding Gift_

She cut the string, and delved into the cardboard box, and gasped. Outof a swathing of tissue paper her hands bared sundry small articles. Alittle cap and jacket of knitted silk--its double in fine, fleecyyarn--a long silk coat--a bonnet to match, --both daintily embroidered. Other things--a shoal of them--baby things. A grin struggled forlodgment on Fyfe's freckled countenance. His blue eyes twinkled. 

"I suppose, " he growled, "that's Charlie's idea of a joke, huh?"

Stella turned away from the tiny garments, one little, hood crumpledtight in her hand. She laid her hot face against his breast and hershoulders quivered. She was crying. 

"Stella, Stella, what's the matter?" he whispered. 

"It's no joke, " she sobbed. "It's a--it's a reality. "

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH EVENTS MARK TIME

From that day on Stella found in her hands the reins over a smooth, frictionless, well-ordered existence. Sam Foo proved himself such adomestic treasure as only the trained Oriental can be. When the labor ofan eight-room dwelling proved a little too much for him, he urbanelysaid so. Thereupon, at Fyfe's suggestion, he imported a fellowcountryman, another bland, silent-footed model of efficiency in personalservice. Thereafter Stella's task of supervision proved a sinecure. 

A week or so after their return, in sorting over some of her belongings, she came across the check Charlie had given her: that two hundred andseventy dollars which represented the only money she had ever earned inher life. She studied it a minute, then went out to where her husbandsat perched on the verandah rail. 

"You might cash this, Jack, " she suggested. 

He glanced at the slip. 

"Better have it framed as a memento, " he said, smiling. "You'll neverearn two hundred odd dollars so hard again, I hope. No, I'd keep it, ifI were you. If ever you should need it, it'll always be good--unlessCharlie goes broke. "

There never had been any question of money between them. From the dayof their marriage Fyfe had made her a definite monthly allowance, agreater sum than she needed or spent. 

"As a matter of fact, " he went on, "I'm going to open an account in yourname at the Royal Bank, so you can negotiate your own paper and pay yourown bills by check. "

She went in and put away the check. It was hers, earned, all tooliterally, in the sweat of her brow. For all that it represented she hadgiven service threefold. If ever there came a time when that hunger forindependence which had been fanned to a flame in her brother's kitchenshould demand appeasement--she pulled herself up short when she foundher mind running upon such an eventuality. Her future was ordered. Shewas married--to be a mother. Here lay her home. All about her ties werein process of formation, ties that with time would grow stronger thanany shackles of steel, constraining her to walk in certain ways, --waysthat were pleasant enough, certain of ease if not of definite purpose. 

Yet now and then she found herself falling into fits of abstraction inwhich Roaring Lake and Jack Fyfe, all that meant anything to her now, faded into the background, and she saw herself playing a lone handagainst the world, making her individual struggle to be something morethan the petted companion of a dominant male and the mother of hischildren. She never quite lost sight of the fact that marriage had beenthe last resort, that in effect she had taken the avenue her personalcharm afforded to escape drudgery and isolation. There was stilldeep-rooted in her a craving for something bigger than mere ease ofliving. She knew as well as she knew anything that in the naturalevolution of things marriage and motherhood should have been the bigthing in her life. And it was not. It was too incidental, tooincomplete, too much like a mere breathing-place on life's highway. Sometimes she reasoned with herself bluntly, instead of dreaming, wasdriven to look facts in the eye because she did dream. Always sheencountered the same obstacle, a feeling that she had been defrauded, robbed of something vital; she had forgone that wonderful, passionatedrawing together which makes the separate lives of the man and woman whoexperiences it so fuse that in the truest sense of the word they becomeone. 

Mostly she kept her mind from that disturbing introspection, becauseinvariably it led her to vague dreaming of a future which she toldherself--sometimes wistfully--could never be realized. She had shut thedoor on many things, it seemed to her now. But she had the sense to knowthat dwelling on what might have been only served to make her morbid, and did not in the least serve to alter the unalterable. She had chosenwhat seemed to her at the time the least of two evils, and she meant toabide steadfast by her choice. 

Charlie Benton came to visit them. Strangely enough to Stella, who hadnever seen him on Roaring Lake, at least, dressed otherwise than as hisloggers, he was sporting a natty gray suit, he was clean shaven, Oxfordties on his feet, a gentleman of leisure in his garb. If he had startedon the down grade the previous winter, he bore no signs of it now, forhe was the picture of ruddy vigor, clear-eyed, brown-skinned, alert, bubbling over with good spirits. 

"Why, say, you look like a tourist, " Fyfe remarked after an appraisingglance. 

"I'm making money, pulling ahead of the game, that's all, " Bentonretorted cheerfully. "I can afford to take a holiday now and then. I'mputting a million feet a month in the water. That's going some for smallfry like me. Say, this house of yours is all to the good, Jack. It's gotclass, outside and in. Makes a man feel as if he had to live up to it, eh? Mackinaws and calked boots don't go with oriental rugs and oakfloors. "

"You should get a place like this as soon as possible then, " Stella putin drily, "to keep you up to the mark, on edge aesthetically, one mightput it. "

"Not to say morally, " Benton laughed. "Oh, maybe I'll get to it by andby, if the timber business holds up. "

Later, when he and Stella were alone together, he said to her:

"You're lucky. You've got everything, and it comes without an effort. You sure showed good judgment when you picked Jack Fyfe. He's athoroughbred. "

"Oh, thank you, " she returned, a touch of irony in her voice, a subtletyof inflection that went clean over Charlie's head. 

He was full of inquiries about where they had been that winter, whatthey had done and seen. Also he brimmed over with his own affairs. Hestayed overnight and went his way with a brotherly threat of makingthe Fyfe bungalow his headquarters whenever he felt like it. 

"It's a touch of civilization that looks good to me, " he declared. "Youcan put my private mark on one of those big leather chairs, Jack. I'mgoing to use it often. All you need to make this a social center is agood-looking girl or two--unmarried ones. You watch. When the summerflock comes to the lake, your place is going to be popular. "

That observation verified Benton's shrewdness. The Fyfe bungalow didbecome popular. Two weeks after Charlie's visit, a lean, white cruiser, all brass and mahogany above her topsides, slid up to the float, and twowomen came at a dignified pace along the path to the house. Stella hadmet Linda Abbey once, reluctantly, under the circumstances, but it wasdifferent now--with the difference that money makes. She could playhostess against an effective background, and she did so graciously. Norwas her graciousness wholly assumed. After all, they were her kind ofpeople: Linda, fair-haired, perfectly gowned, perfectly mannered, sweetly pretty; Mrs. Abbey, forty-odd and looking thirty-five, with thatcalm self-assurance which wealth and position confer upon those who holdit securely. Stella found them altogether to her liking. It pleased her, too, that Jack happened in to meet them. He was not a scintillatingtalker, yet she had noticed that when he had anything to say, he neverfailed to attract and hold attention. His quiet, impersonal manner neversuggested stolidness. And she was too keen an observer to overlook thefact that from a purely physical standpoint Jack Fyfe made animpression always, particularly on women. Throughout that winter it hadnot disturbed her. It did not disturb her now, when she noticed LindaAbbey's gaze coming back to him with a veiled appraisal in her blue eyesthat were so like Fyfe's own in their tendency to twinkle and gleam withno corresponding play of features. 

"We'll expect to see a good deal of you this summer, " Mrs. Abbey saidcordially at leave-taking. "We have a few people up from town now andthen to vary the monotony of feasting our souls on scenery. Sometimes weare quite a jolly crowd. Don't be formal. Drop in when you feel theinclination. "

When Stella reminded Jack of this some time later, in a moment ofboredom, he put the _Panther_ at her disposal for the afternoon. But hewould not go himself. He had opened up a new outlying camp, and he haddirections to issue, work to lay out. 

"You hold up the social end of the game, " he laughed. "I'll hustlelogs. "

So Stella invaded the Abbey-Monohan precincts by herself and enjoyedit--for she met a houseful of young people from the coast, and in thatlight-hearted company she forgot for the time being that she was marriedand the responsible mistress of a house. Paul Abbey was there, but hehad apparently forgotten or forgiven the blow she had once dealt hisvanity. Paul, she reflected, was not the sort to mourn a lost love long. 

She had the amused experience too of beholding Charlie Benton appear anhour or so before she departed and straightway monopolize Linda Abbey inhis characteristically impetuous fashion. Charlie was no diplomat. Hebelieved in driving straight to any goal he selected. 

"So _that's_ the reason for the outward metamorphosis, " Stellareflected. "Well?"

Altogether she enjoyed the afternoon hugely. The only fly in herointment was a greasy smudge bestowed upon her dress--a garment sheprized highly--by some cordage coiled on the _Panther's_ deck. The blacktender had carried too many cargoes of loggers and logging supplies tobe a fit conveyance for persons in party attire. She exhibited thesoiled gown to Fyfe with due vexation. 

"I hope you'll have somebody scrub down the _Panther_ the next time Iwant to go anywhere in a decent dress, " she said ruefully. "That'llnever come out. And it's the prettiest thing I've got too. "

"Ah, what's the odds?" Fyfe slipped one arm around her waist. "You canbuy more dresses. Did you have a good time? That's the thing!"

That ruined gown, however, subsequently produced an able, forty-foot, cruising launch, powerfully engined, easy in a sea, and comfortably, even luxuriously fitted as to cabin. With that for their private use, the _Panther_ was left to her appointed service, and in the new boatFyfe and Stella spent many a day abroad on Roaring Lake. They fishedtogether, explored nooks and bays up and down its forty miles of length, climbed hills together like the bear of the ancient rhyme, to see whatthey could see. And the _Waterbug_ served to put them on intimate termswith their neighbors, particularly the Abbey crowd. The Abbeys took tothem wholeheartedly. Fyfe himself was highly esteemed by the elderAbbey, largely, Stella suspected, for his power on Roaring Lake. Abbey_père_ had built up a big fortune out of timber. He respected any manwho could follow the same path to success. Therefore he gave Fyfe doublecredit, --for making good, and for a personality that could not beoverlooked. He told Stella that once; that is to say, he told herconfidentially that her husband was a very "able" young man. Abbeysenior was short and double-chinned and inclined to profuse perspirationif he moved in haste over any extended time. Paul promised to be likehim, in that respect. 

Summer slipped by. There were dances, informal little hops at the Abbeydomicile, return engagements at the Fyfe bungalow, laughter and musicand Japanese lanterns strung across the lawn. There was tea and tennisand murmuring rivers of small talk. And amid this Stella Fyfe flittedgraciously, esteeming it her world, a fair measure of what the futuremight be. Viewed in that light, it seemed passable enough. 

Later, when summer was on the wane, she withdrew from much of thisactivity, spending those days when she did not sit buried in a book outon the water with her husband. When October ushered in the first of thefall rains, they went to Vancouver and took apartments. In December herson was born. 

CHAPTER XIV

A CLOSE CALL AND A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

With the recurrence of spring, Fyfe's household transferred itself tothe Roaring Lake bungalow again. Stella found the change welcome, forVancouver wearied her. It was a little too crude, too much as yet in thetransitory stage, in that civic hobbledehoy period which overtakes everyvillage that shoots up over-swiftly to a city's dimensions. They knewpeople, to be sure, for the Abbey influence would have opened the wayfor them into any circle. Stella had made many friends and pleasantacquaintances that summer on the lake, but part of that butterfly cliquesought pleasanter winter grounds before she was fit for social activity. Apart from a few more or less formal receptions and an occasionalauction party, she found it pleasanter to stay at home. Fyfe himself hadspent only part of his time in town after their boy was born. He wasextending his timber operations. What he did not put into words, butwhat Stella sensed because she experienced the same thing herself, wasthat town bored him to death, --such town existence as Vancouverafforded. Their first winter had been different, because they had soughtplaces where there was manifold variety of life, color, amusement. Shewas longing for the wide reach of Roaring Lake, the immenseamphitheater of the surrounding mountains, long before spring. 

So she was quite as well pleased when a mild April saw them domiciled athome again. In addition to Sam Foo and Feng Shu, there was a nurse forJack Junior. Stella did not suggest that; Fyfe insisted on it. He wasquite proud of his boy, but he did not want her chained to her baby. 

"If the added expense doesn't count, of course a nurse will mean a lotmore personal freedom, " Stella admitted. "You see, I haven't the leastidea of your resources, Jack. All I know about it is that you allow meplenty of money for my individual expenses. And I notice we're acquiringa more expensive mode of living all the time. "

"That's so, " Fyfe responded. "I never have gone into any details of mybusiness with you. No reason why you shouldn't know what limits thereare to our income. You never happened to express any curiosity before. Operating as I did up till lately, the business netted anywhere fromtwelve to fifteen thousand a year. I'll double that this season. Infact, with the amount of standing timber I control, I could make itfifty thousand a year by expanding and speeding things up. I guess youneedn't worry about an extra servant or two. "

So, apart from voluntary service on behalf of Jack Junior, she was freeas of old to order her days as she pleased. Yet that small morsel ofhumanity demanded much of her time, because she released through thematernal floodgates a part of that passionate longing to bestow lovewhere her heart willed. Sometimes she took issue with herself over thatwayward tendency. By all the rules of the game, she should have lovedher husband. He was like a rock, solid, enduring, patient, kind, andgenerous. He stood to her in the most intimate relation that can existbetween a man and a woman. But she never fooled herself; she never hadso far as Jack Fyfe was concerned. She liked him, but that was all. Hewas good to her, and she was grateful. 

Sometimes she had a dim sense that under his easy-going exterior lurkeda capacity for tremendously passionate outbreak. If she had beencompelled to modify her first impression of him as an arrogant, dominantsort of character, scarcely less rough than the brown firs out of whichhe was hewing a fortune, she knew likewise that she had never seenanything but the sunny side of him. He still puzzled her a little attimes; there were odd flashes of depths she could not see into, aquality of unexpectedness in things he would do and say. Even so, granting that in him was embodied so much that other men she knewlacked, she did not love him; there were indeed times when she almostresented him. 

Why, she could not perhaps have put into words. It seemed too fantasticfor sober summing-up, when she tried. But lurking always in thebackground of her thoughts was the ghost of an unrealized dream, anebulous vision which once served to thrill her in secret. It couldnever be anything but a vision, she believed now, and believing, regretted. The cold facts of her existence couldn't be daydreamed away. She was married, and marriage put a full stop to the potentialadventuring of youth. Twenty and maidenhood lies at the opposite polefrom twenty-four and matrimony. Stella subscribed to that. She took forher guiding-star--theoretically--the twin concepts of morality and dutyas she had been taught to construe them. So she saw no loophole, andseeing none, felt cheated of something infinitely precious. Marriage andmotherhood had not come to her as the fruits of love, as thepassionately eager fulfilling of her destiny. It had been thrust uponher. She had accepted it as a last resort at a time when her powers ofresistance to misfortune were at the ebb. 

She knew that this sort of self-communing was a bad thing, that it wasbound to sour the whole taste of life in her mouth. As much as possibleshe thrust aside those vague, repressed longings. Materially she hadeverything. If she had foregone that bargain with Jack Fyfe, God onlyknew what long-drawn agony of mind and body circumstances and CharlieBenton's subordination of her to his own ends might have inflicted uponher. That was the reverse of her shield, but one that grew dimmer astime passed. Mostly, she took life as she found it, concentrating uponJack Junior, a sturdy boy with blue eyes like his father, and who grewsteadily more adorable. 

Nevertheless she had recurring periods when moodiness and ill-stifleddiscontent got hold of her. Sometimes she stole out along the cliffs tosit on a mossy boulder, staring with absent eyes at the distant hills. And sometimes she would slip out in a canoe, to lie rocking in the lakeswell, --just dreaming, filled with a passive sort of regret. She couldnot change things now, but she could not help wishing she could. 

Fyfe warned her once about getting offshore in the canoe. Roaring Lake, pent in the shape of a boomerang between two mountain ranges, wassubject to squalls. Sudden bursts of wind would shoot down its lengthlike blasts from some monster funnel. Stella knew that; she had seen theglassy surface torn into whitecaps in ten minutes, but she was notafraid of the lake nor the lake winds. She was hard and strong. Theopen, the clean mountain air, and a measure of activity, had built herup physically. She swam like a seal. Out in that sixteen-foot Peterboroshe could detach herself from her world of reality, lie back on acushion, and lose herself staring at the sky. She paid little heed toFyfe's warning beyond a smiling assurance that she had no intention ofcourting a watery end. 

So one day in mid-July she waved a farewell to Jack Junior, crowing inhis nurse's lap on the bank, paddled out past the first point to thenorth, and pillowing her head on a cushioned thwart, gave herself up todreamy contemplation on the sky. There was scarce a ripple on the lake. A faint breath of an offshore breeze fanned her, drifting the canoe at asnail's pace out from land. Stella luxuriated in the quiet afternoon. Aparty of campers cruising the lake had tarried at the bungalow tillafter midnight. Jack Fyfe had risen at dawn to depart for some distantlogging point. Stella, once wakened, had risen and breakfasted with him. She was tired, drowsy, content to lie there in pure physicalrelaxation. Lying so, before she was aware of it, her eyes closed. 

She wakened with a start at a cold touch of moisture on her face, --rain, great pattering drops. Overhead an ominously black cloud hid the face ofthe sun. The shore, when she looked, lay a mile and a half abeam. To thenorth and between her and the land's rocky line was a darkening of thelake's surface. Stella reached for her paddle. The black cloud let falllong, gray streamers of rain. There was scarcely a stirring of the air, but that did not deceive her. There was a growing chill, and there wasthat broken line sweeping down the lake. Behind that was wind, a summergale, the black squall dreaded by the Siwashes. 

She had to buck her way to shore through that. She drove hard on thepaddle. She was not afraid, but there rose in her a peculiar tensed-upfeeling. Ahead lay a ticklish bit of business. The sixteen-foot canoedwarfed to pitiful dimensions in the face of that snarling line ofwind-harried water. She could hear the distant murmur of it presently, and gusty puffs of wind began to strike her. 

Then it swept up to her, a ripple, a chop, and very close behind thatthe short, steep, lake combers with a wind that blew off the tops aseach wave-head broke in white, bubbling froth. Immediately she began tolose ground. She had expected that, and it did not alarm her. If shecould keep the canoe bow on, there was an even chance that the squallwould blow itself out in half an hour. But keeping the canoe bow onproved a task for stout arms. The wind would catch all that forwardpart which thrust clear as she topped a sea and twist it aside, tendingalways to throw her broadside into the trough. Spray began to splashaboard. The seas were so short and steep that the Peterboro would riseover the crest of a tall one and dip its bow deep in the next, or leapclear to strike with a slap that made Stella's heart jump. She had neverundergone quite that rough and tumble experience in a small craft. Shewas being beaten farther out and down the lake, and her arms weregrowing tired. Nor was there any slackening of the wind. 

The combined rain and slaps of spray soaked her thoroughly. A puddlegathered about her knees in the bilge, sloshing fore and aft as thecraft pitched, killing the natural buoyancy of the canoe so that shedove harder. Stella took a chance, ceased paddling, and bailed with asmall can. She got a tossing that made her head swim while she lay inthe trough. And when she tried to head up into it again, one comberbigger than its fellows reared up and slapped a barrel of water inboard. The next wave swamped her. 

Sunk to the clamps, Stella held fast to the topsides, crouching on herknees, immersed to the hips in water that struck a chill through herflesh. She had the wit to remember and act upon Jack Fyfe's coaching, namely, to sit tight and hang on. No sea that ever ran can sink a canoe. Wood is buoyant. So long as she could hold on, the submerged craft wouldkeep her head and shoulders above water. But it was numbing cold. Fed byglacial streams, Roaring Lake is icy in hottest midsummer. 

What with paddling and bailing and the excitement of the struggle, Stella had wasted no time gazing about for other boats. She knew that ifany one at the camp saw her, rescue would be speedily effected. Now, holding fast and sitting quiet, she looked eagerly about as the swampedcanoe rose loggily on each wave. Almost immediately she was heartened byseeing distinctly some sort of craft plunging through the blow. She hadnot long to wait after that, for the approaching launch was a lean-linedspeeder, powerfully engined, and she was being forced. Stella supposedit was one of the Abbey runabouts. Even with her teeth chattering andnumbness fastening itself upon her, she shivered at the chances the manwas taking. It was no sea for a speed boat to smash into at thirty milesan hour. She saw it shoot off the top of one wave and disappear in awhite burst of spray, slash through the next and bury itself deep again, flinging a foamy cloud far to port and starboard. Stella cried futilelyto the man to slow down. She could hang on a long time yet, but hervoice carried no distance. 

After that she had not long to wait. In four minutes the runabout waswithin a hundred yards, open exhausts cracking like a machine gun. Andthen the very thing she expected and dreaded came about. Every momentshe expected to see him drive bows under and go down. Here and there atintervals uplifted a comber taller than its fellows, standing, just asit broke, like a green wall. Into one such hoary-headed sea the whiteboat now drove like a lance. Stella saw the spray leap like a cascade, saw the solid green curl deep over the forward deck and engine hatchand smash the low windshield. She heard the glass crack. Immediately theroaring exhausts died. Amid the whistle of the wind and the murmur ofbroken water, the launch staggered like a drunken man, lurched off intothe trough, deep down by the head with the weight of water she hadtaken. 

The man in her stood up with hands cupped over his mouth. 

"Can you hang on a while longer?" he shouted. "Till I can get my boatbailed?"

"I'm all right, " she called back. 

She saw him heave up the engine hatch. For a minute or two he bailedrapidly. Then he spun the engine, without result. He straightened up atlast, stood irresolute a second, peeled off his coat. 

The launch lay heavily in the trough. The canoe, rising and clinging onthe crest of each wave, was carried forward a few feet at a time, takingthe run of the sea faster than the disabled motorboat. So now only ahundred-odd feet separated them, but they could come no nearer, for thecanoe was abeam and slowly drifting past. 

Stella saw the man stoop and stand up with a coil of line in his hand. Then she gasped, for he stepped on the coaming and plunged overboard ina beautiful, arching dive. A second later his head showed glisteningabove the gray water, and he swam toward her with a slow, overhandstroke. It seemed an age--although the actual time was briefenough--before he reached her. She saw then that there was method inhis madness, for the line strung out behind him, fast to a cleat on thelaunch. He laid hold of the canoe and rested a few seconds, panting, smiling broadly at her. 

"Sorry that whopping wave put me out of commission, " he said at last. "I'd have had you ashore by now. Hang on for a minute. "

He made the line fast to a thwart near the bow. Holding fast with onehand, he drew the swamped canoe up to the launch. In that continuousroll it was no easy task to get Stella aboard, but they managed it, andpresently she sat shivering in the cockpit, watching the man spill thewater out of the Peterboro till it rode buoyantly again. Then he went towork at his engine methodically, wiping dry the ignition terminals, allthe various connections where moisture could effect a short circuit. Atthe end of a few minutes, he turned the starting crank. The multiplecylinders fired with a roar. 

He moved back behind the wrecked windshield where the steering gearstood. 

"Well, Miss Ship-wrecked Mariner, " said he lightly, "where do you wishto be landed?"

"Over there, if you please. " Stella pointed to where the red roof of thebungalow stood out against the green. "I'm Mrs. Fyfe. "

"Ah!" said he. An expression of veiled surprise flashed across his face. "Another potential romance strangled at birth. You know, I hoped youwere some local maiden before whom I could pose as a heroic rescuer. Such is life. Odd, too. Linda Abbey--I'm the Monohan tail to the Abbeybusiness kite, you see--impressed me as pilot for a spin this afternoonand backed out at the last moment. I think she smelled this blow. So Iwent out for a ride by myself. I was glowering at that new house througha glass when I spied you out in the thick of it. "

He had the clutch in now, and the launch was cleaving the seas, even athalf speed throwing out wide wings of spray. Some of this the windbrought across the cockpit. "Come up into this seat, " Monohan commanded. "I don't suppose you can get any wetter, but if you put your feetthrough this bulkhead door, the heat from the engine will warm you. ByJove, you're fairly shivering. "

"It's lucky for me you happened along, " Stella remarked, when she wasensconced behind the bulkhead. "I was getting so cold. I don't know howmuch longer I could have stood it. "

"Thank the good glasses that picked you out. You were only a speck onthe water, you know, when I sighted you first. "

He kept silent after that. All his faculties were centered on the seasahead which rolled up before the sharp cutwater of the launch. He wasmaking time and still trying to avoid boarding seas. When a big onelifted ahead, he slowed down. He kept one hand on the throttle control, whistling under his breath disconnected snatches of song. Stella studiedhis profile, clean-cut as a cameo and wholly pleasing. He was almost asbig-bodied as Jack Fyfe, and full four inches taller. The wet shirtclinging close to his body outlined well-knit shoulders, ropy-muscledarms. He could easily have posed for a Viking, so strikingly blond washe, with fair, curly hair. She judged that he might be around thirty, yet his face was altogether boyish. 

Sitting there beside him, shivering in her wet clothes, she foundherself wondering what magnetic quality there could be about a man thatfocussed a woman's attention upon him whether she willed it or no. Whyshould she feel an oddly-disturbing thrill at the mere physical nearnessof this fair-haired stranger? She did. There was no debating that. Andshe wondered--wondered if a bolt of that lightning she had dreaded eversince her marriage was about to strike her now. She hoped not. All heremotions had lain fallow. If Jack Fyfe had no power to stir her, --andshe told herself Jack had so failed, without asking herself why, --thensome other man might easily accomplish that, to her unutterable grief. She had told herself many a time that no more terrible plight couldovertake her than to love and be loved and sit with hands folded, foregoing it all. She shrank from so tragic an evolution. It meant onlypain, the ache of unfulfilled, unattainable desires. If, she reflectedcynically, this man beside her stood for such a motif in her life, hemight better have left her out in the swamped canoe. 

While she sat there, drawn-faced with the cold, thinking rather amazedlythese things which she told herself she had no right to think, thelaunch slipped into the quiet nook of Cougar Bay and slowed down to thefloat. 

Monohan helped her out, threw off the canoe's painter, and climbed backinto the launch. 

"You're as wet as I am, " Stella said. "Won't you come up to the houseand get a change of clothes? I haven't even thanked you. "

"Nothing to be thanked for, " he smiled up at her. "Only please remembernot to get offshore in a canoe again. I mightn't be handy the nexttime--and Roaring Lake's as fickle as your charming sex. All smiles oneminute, storming the next. No, I won't stay this time, thanks. A littlewet won't hurt me. I wasn't in the water long enough to get chilled, youknow. I'll be home in half an hour. Run along and get dressed, Mrs. Fyfe, and drink something hot to drive that chill away. Good-by. "

Stella went up to the house, her hand tingling with his parting grip. Over and above the peril she had escaped rose an uneasy vision of agreater peril to her peace of mind. The platitudes of soul-affinity, ofirresistible magnetic attraction, of love that leaped full-blown intoreality at the touch of a hand or the glance of an eye, she had alwaysviewed with distrust, holding them the weaknesses of weak, volatilenatures. But there was something about this man which had stirred her, nothing that he said or did, merely some elusive, personal attribute. She had never undergone any such experience, and she puzzled over itnow. A chance stranger, and his touch could make her pulse leap. Itfilled her with astonished dismay. 

Afterward, dry-clad and warm, sitting in her pet chair, Jack Juniorcooing at her from a nest among cushions on the floor, the naturalreaction set in, and she laughed at herself. When Fyfe came home, shetold him lightly of her rescue. 

He said nothing at first, only sat drumming on his chair-arm, his eyessteady on her. 

"That might have cost you your life, " he said at last. "Will youremember not to drift offshore again?"

"I rather think I shall, " she responded. "It wasn't a pleasantexperience. "

"Monohan, eh?" he remarked after another interval. "So he's on RoaringLake again. "

"Do you know him?" she asked. 

"Yes, " he replied briefly. 

For a minute or so longer he sat there, his face wearing its habitualimpassiveness. Then he got up, kissed her with a queer sort ofintensity, and went put. Stella gazed after him, mildly surprised. Itwasn't quite in his usual manner. 

CHAPTER XV

A RESURRECTION

It might have been a week or so later that Stella made a discovery whichprofoundly affected the whole current of her thought. The long twilightwas just beginning. She was curled on the living-room floor, playingwith the baby. Fyfe and Charlie Benton sat by a window, smoking, conversing, as they frequently did, upon certain phases of the timberindustry. A draft from an open window fluttered some sheet music downoff the piano rack, and Stella rescued it from Jack Junior's tiny, clawing hands. Some of the Abbeys had been there the evening before. Onebit of music was a song Linda had tried to sing and given up because itsoared above her vocal range. Stella rose to put up the music. Withoutany premeditated idea of playing, she sat down at the piano and began torun over the accompaniment. She could play passably. 

"That doesn't seem so very hard, " she thought aloud. Benton turned atsound of her words. 

"Say, did you never get any part of your voice back, Stell?" he asked. "I never hear you try to sing. "

"No, " she answered. "I tried and tried long after you left home, but itwas always the same old story. I haven't sung a note in five years. "

"Linda fell down hard on that song last night, " he went on. "There was atime when that wouldn't have been a starter for you, eh? Did you knowStella used to warble like a prima donna, Jack?"

Fyfe shook his head. 

"Fact. The governor spent a pot of money cultivating her voice. It wassome voice, too. She--"

He broke off to listen. Stella was humming the words of the song, herfingers picking at the melody instead of the accompaniment. 

"Why, you can, " Benton cried. 

"Can what?" She turned on the stool. 

"Sing, of course. You got that high trill that Linda had to screechthrough. You got it perfectly, without effort. "

"I didn't, " she returned. "Why, I wasn't singing, just humming it over. "

"You let out a link or two on those high notes just the same, whetheryou knew you were doing it or not, " her brother returned impatiently. "Go on. Turn yourself loose. Sing that song. "

"Oh, I couldn't, " Stella said ruefully. "I haven't tried for so long. It's no use. My voice always cracks, and I want to cry. "

"Crack fiddlesticks!" Benton retorted. "I know what it used to be. Believe me, it sounded natural, even if you were just lilting. Here. "

He came over to the piano and playfully edged her off the stool. 

"I'm pretty rusty, " he said. "But I can fake what I can't play of this. It's simple enough. You stand up there and sing. "

She only stood looking at him. 

"Go on, " he commanded. "I believe you can sing anything. You have toshow me, if you can't. "

Stella fingered the sheets reluctantly. Then she drew a deep breath andbegan. 

It was not a difficult selection, merely a bit from a current lightopera, with a closing passage that ranged a trifle too high for theordinary untrained voice to take with ease. Stella sang it effortlessly, the last high, trilling notes pouring out as sweet and clear as thecarol of a lark. Benton struck the closing chord and looked up at her. Fyfe leaned forward in his chair. Jack Junior, among his pillows on thefloor, waved his arms, kicking and gurgling. 

"You did pretty well on that, " Charlie remarked complacently. "Now_sing_ something. Got any of your old pieces?"

"I wonder if I could?" Stella murmured. "I'm almost afraid to try. "

She hurried away to some outlying part of the house, reappearing in afew minutes with a dog-eared bundle of sheets in her hand. From amongthese she selected three and set them on the rack. 

Benton whistled when he glanced over the music. 

"The Siren Song, " he grunted. "What is it? something new? Lord, look atthe scale. Looks like one of those screaming arias from the 'FlyingDutchman. ' Some stunt. "

"Marchand composed it for the express purpose of trying out voices, "Stella said. "It _is_ a stunt. "

"You'll have to play your own accompaniment, " Charlie grinned. "That'stoo much for me. "

"Oh, just so you give me a little support here and there, " Stella toldhim. "I can't sing sitting on a piano stool. "

Benton made a face at the music and struck the keys. 

It seemed to Stella nothing short of a miracle. She had been mute solong. She had almost forgotten what a tragedy losing her voice had been. And to find it again, to hear it ring like a trumpet. It did! It was toobig for the room. She felt herself caught up in a triumphant ecstasy asshe sang. She found herself blinking as the last note died away. Herbrother twisted about on the piano stool, fumbling for a cigarette. 

"And still they say they can't come back, " he remarked at last. "Why, you're better than you ever were, Stella. You've got the old sweetnessand flexibility that dad used to rave about. But your voice is bigger, somehow different. It gets under a man's skin. "

She picked up the baby from the floor, began to play with him. Shedidn't want to talk. She wanted to think, to gloat over and hug toherself this miracle of her restored voice. She was very quiet, verymuch absorbed in her own reflections until it was time--very shortly--toput Jack Junior in his bed. That was a function she made wholly her own. The nurse might greet his waking whimper in the morning and minister tohis wants throughout the day, but Stella "tucked him in" his crib everynight. And after the blue eyes were closed, she sat there, very still, thinking. In a detached way she was conscious of hearing Charlie leave. 

Later, when she was sitting beside her dressing table brushing her hair, Fyfe came in. He perched himself on the foot rail of the bed, lookingsilently at her. She had long grown used to that. It was a familiartrick of his. 

"How did it happen that you've never tried your voice lately?" he askedafter a time. 

"I gave it up long ago, " she said. "Didn't I ever tell you that I usedto sing and lost my voice?"

"No, " he answered. "Charlie did just now. You rather took my breathaway. It's wonderful. You'd be a sensation in opera. "

"I might have been, " she corrected. "That was one of my little dreams. You don't know what a grief it was to me when I got over that throattrouble and found I couldn't sing. I used to try and try--and my voicewould break every time. I lost all heart to try after a while. That waswhen I wanted to take up nursing, and they wouldn't let me. I haven'tthought about singing for an age. I've crooned lullabies to Jackywithout remembering that I once had volume enough to drown out anaccompanist. Dad was awfully proud of my voice. "

"You've reason to be proud of it now, " Fyfe said slowly. "It's a voicein ten thousand. What are going to do with it?"

Stella drew the brush mechanically through her heavy hair. She had beenasking herself that. What could she do? A long road and a hard one layahead of her or any other woman who essayed to make her voice the basisof a career. Over and above that she was not free to seek such a career. Fyfe himself knew that, and it irritated her that he should ask such aquestion. She swung about on him. 

"Nothing, " she said a trifle tartly. "How can I? Granting that my voiceis worth the trouble, would you like me to go and study in the East orabroad? Would you be willing to bear the expense of such an undertaking?To have me leave Jack to nursemaids and you to your logs?"

"So that in the fullness of time I might secure a little reflected gloryas the husband of Madame Fyfe, the famous soprano, " he replied slowly. "Well, I can't say that's a particularly pleasing prospect. "

"Then why ask me what I'm going to do with it?" she flung backimpatiently. "It'll be an asset--like my looks--and--and--"

She dropped her face in her hands, choking back an involuntary sob. Fyfecrossed the room at a bound, put his arms around her. 

"Stella, Stella!" he cried sharply. "Don't be a fool. "

"D--don't be cross, Jack, " she whispered. "Please. I'm sorry. I simplycan't help it. You don't understand. "

"Oh, don't I?" he said savagely. "I understand too well; that's thedevil of it. But I suppose that's a woman's way, --to feed her soul withillusions, and let the realities go hang. Look here. "

He caught her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet, facing him. There was a fire in his eye, a hard shutting together of his lips thatfrightened her a little. 

"Look here, " he said roughly. "Take a brace, Stella. Do you realize whatsort of a state of mind you're drifting into? You married me under moreor less compulsion, --compulsion of circumstances, --and gradually you'rebeginning to get dissatisfied, to pity yourself. You'll precipitatethings you maybe don't dream of now, if you keep on. Damn it, I didn'tcreate the circumstances. I only showed you a way out. You took it. Itsatisfied you for a while; you can't deny it did. But it doesn't anymore. You're nursing a lot of illusions, Stella, that are going to makeyour life full of misery. "

"I'm not, " she sobbed. "It's because I haven't any illusionsthat--that--Oh, what's the use of talking, Jack? I'm not complaining. Idon't even know what gave me this black mood, just now. I suppose thatqueer miracle of my voice coming back upset me. I feel--well, as if Iwere a different person, somehow; as if I had forfeited any right tohave it. Oh, it's silly, you'll say. But it's there. I can't help myfeeling--or my lack of it. "

Fyfe's face whitened a little. His hands dropped from her shoulders. 

"Now you're talking to the point, " he said quietly. "Especially thatlast. We've been married some little time now, and if anything, we'refarther apart in the essentials of mating than we were at thebeginning. You've committed yourself to an undertaking, yet more andmore you encourage yourself to wish for the moon. If you don't stopdreaming and try real living, don't you see a lot of trouble ahead foryourself? It's simple. You're slowly hardening yourself against me, beginning to resent my being a factor in your life. It's only a matterof time, if you keep on, until your emotions center about some otherman. "

"Why do you talk like that?" she said bitterly. "Do you think I've gotneither pride nor self-respect?"

"Yes. Both a-plenty, " he answered. "But you're a woman, with a rathercomplex nature even for your sex. If your heart and your head ever clashover anything like that, you'll be in perfect hell until one or theother gets the upper hand. You're a thoroughbred, and high-strung asthoroughbreds are. It takes something besides three meals a day andplenty of good clothes to complete your existence. If I can't make itcomplete, some other man will make you think he can. Why don't you try?Haven't I got any possibilities as a lover? Can't you throw a littlehalo of romance about me, for your own sake--if not for mine?"

He drew her up close to him, stroking tenderly the glossy brown hairthat flowed about her shoulders. 

"Try it, Stella, " he whispered passionately. "Try wanting to like me, for a change. I can't make love by myself. Shake off that infernalapathy that's taking possession of you where I'm concerned. If you can'tlove me, for God's sake fight with me. Do _something_!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE CRISIS

Looking back at that evening as the summer wore on, Stella perceivedthat it was the starting point of many things, no one of them definitelyoutstanding by itself but bulking large as a whole. Fyfe made hisappeal, and it left her unmoved save in certain superficial aspects. Shewas sorry, but she was mostly sorry for herself. And she denied hispremonition of disaster. If, she said to herself, they got no rapturesout of life, at least they got along without friction. In her mind theirmarriage, no matter that it lacked what she no less than Fyfe deemed anessential to happiness, was a fixed state, final, irrevocable, not to bealtered by any emotional vagaries. 

No man, she told herself, could make her forget her duty. If it shouldbefall that her heart, lacking safe anchorage, went astray, that wouldbe her personal cross--not Jack Fyfe's. _He_ should never know. Onemight feel deeply without being moved to act upon one's feelings. So sheassured herself. 

She never dreamed that Jack Fyfe could possibly have foreseen in WalterMonohan a dangerous factor in their lives. A man is not supposed to haveuncanny intuitions, even when his wife is a wonderfully attractivewoman who does not care for him except in a friendly sort of way. Stella herself had ample warning. From the first time of meeting, theman's presence affected her strangely, made an appeal to her that no manhad ever made. She felt it sitting beside him in the plunging launchthat day when Roaring Lake reached its watery arms for her. There wasseldom a time when they were together that she did not feel it. And shepitted her will against it, as something to be conquered and crushed. 

There was no denying the man's personal charm in the ordinary sense ofthe word. He was virile, handsome, cultured, just such a man as shecould easily have centered her heart upon in times past, --just such aman as can set a woman's heart thrilling when he lays siege to her. Ifhe had made an open bid for Stella's affection, she, entrenched behindall the accepted canons of her upbringing, would have recoiled from him, viewed him with wholly distrustful eyes. 

But he did nothing of the sort. He was a friend, or at least he becameso. Inevitably they were thrown much together. There was a continualinformal running back and forth between Fyfe's place and Abbey's. Monohan was a lily of the field, although it was common knowledge onRoaring Lake that he was a heavy stock-holder in the Abbey-Monohancombination. At any rate, he was holidaying on the lake that summer. There had grown up a genuine intimacy between Linda and Stella. Therewere always people at the Abbeys'; sometimes a few guests at the Fyfebungalow. Stella's marvellous voice served to heighten her popularity. The net result of it all was that in the following three months sourcethree days went by that she did not converse with Monohan. 

She could not help making comparisons between the two men. They stoodout in marked contrast, in manner, physique, in everything. Where Fyfewas reserved almost to taciturnity, impassive-featured, save for thatwhimsical gleam that was never wholly absent from his keen blue eyes, Monohan talked with facile ease, with wonderful expressiveness of face. He was a finished product of courteous generations. Moreover, he hadbeen everywhere, done a little of everything, acquired in his mannersomething of the versatility of his experience. Physically he was fit asany logger in the camps, a big, active-bodied, clear-eyed, ruddy man. 

What it was about him that stirred her so, Stella could never determine. She knew beyond peradventure that he had that power. He had the gift ofquick, sympathetic perception, --but so too had Jack Fyfe, she remindedherself. Yet no tone of Jack Fyfe's voice could raise a flutter in herbreast, make a faint flush glow in her cheeks, while Monohan could dothat. He did not need to be actively attentive. It was only necessaryfor him to be near. 

It dawned upon Stella Fyfe in the fullness of the season, when the firstcool October days were upon them, and the lake shores flamed again withthe red and yellow and umber of autumn, that she had been playing withfire--and that fire burns. 

This did not filter into her consciousness by degrees. She had steeledherself to seeing him pass away with the rest of the summer folk, totake himself out of her life. She admitted that there would be a gap. But that had to be. No word other than friendly ones would ever passbetween them. He would go away, and she would go on as before. That wasall. She was scarcely aware how far they had traveled along that roadwhereon travelers converse by glance of eye, by subtle intuitions, eloquent silences. Monohan himself delivered the shock that awakened herto despairing clearness of vision. 

He had come to bring her a book, he and Linda Abbey and Charlietogether, --a commonplace enough little courtesy. And it happened thatthis day Fyfe had taken his rifle and vanished into the woodsimmediately after luncheon. Between Linda Abbey and Charlie Bentonmatters had so far progressed that it was now the most natural thing forthem to seek a corner or poke along the beach together, oblivious to allbut themselves. This afternoon they chatted a while with Stella and thengradually detached themselves until Monohan, glancing through thewindow, pointed them out to his hostess. They were seated on a log atthe edge of the lawn, a stone's throw from the house. 

"They're getting on, " he said. "Lucky beggars. It's all plain sailingfor them. "

There was a note of infinite regret in his voice, a sadness that stabbedStella Fyfe like a lance. She did not dare look at him. Something rosechokingly in her throat. She felt and fought against a slow welling oftears to her eyes. Before she sensed that she was betraying herself, Monohan was holding both her hands fast between his own, gripping themwith a fierce, insistent pressure, speaking in a passionate undertone. 

"Why should we have to beat our heads against a stone wall like this?"he was saying wildly. "Why couldn't we have met and loved and beenhappy, as we could have been? It was fated to happen. I felt it that dayI dragged you out of the lake. It's been growing on me ever since. I'vestruggled against it, and it's no use. It's something stronger than Iam. I love you, Stella, and it maddens me to see you chafing in yourchains. Oh, my dear, why couldn't it have been different?"

"You mustn't talk like that, " she protested weakly. "You mustn't. Itisn't right. "

"I suppose it's right for you to live with a man you don't love, whenyour heart's crying out against it?" he broke out. "My God, do you thinkI can't see? I don't have to see things; I can feel them. I know you'rethe kind of woman who goes through hell for her conceptions of right andwrong. I honor you for that, dear. But, oh, the pity of it. Why shouldit have to be? Life could have held so much that is fine and true foryou and me together. For you do care, don't you?"

"What difference does that make?" she whispered. "What difference can itmake? Oh, you mustn't tell me these things, I mustn't listen. Imustn't. "

"But they're terribly, tragically true, " Monohan returned. "Look at me, Stella. Don't turn your face away, dear. I wouldn't do anything thatmight bring the least shadow on you. I know the pitiful hopelessness ofit. You're fettered, and there's no apparent loophole to freedom. I knowit's best for me to keep this locked tight in my heart, as somethingprecious and sorrowful. I never meant to tell you. But the flesh isn'talways equal to the task the spirit imposes. "

She did not answer him immediately, for she was struggling for a grip onherself, fighting back an impulse to lay her head against him and cryher agony out on his breast. All the resources of will that shepossessed she called upon now to still that tumult of emotion thatracked her. When she did speak, it was in a hard, strained tone. But shefaced the issue squarely, knowing beyond all doubt what she had to face. 

"Whether I care or not isn't the question, " she said. "I'm neitherlittle enough nor prudish enough to deny a feeling that's big and clean. I see no shame in that. I'm afraid of it--if you can understand that. But that's neither here nor there. I know what I have to do. I marriedwithout love, with my eyes wide open, and I have to pay the price. Soyou must never talk to me of love. You mustn't even see me, if it can beavoided. It's better that way. We can't make over our lives to suitourselves--at least I can't. I must play the game according to the onlyrules I know. We daren't--we mustn't trifle with this sort of a feeling. With you--footloose, and all the world before you--it'll die outpresently. "

"No, " he flared. "I deny that. I'm not an impressionable boy. I knowmyself. "

He paused, and the grip of his hands on hers tightened till the pain ofit ran to her elbows. Then his fingers relaxed a little. 

"Oh, I know, " he said haltingly. "I know it's got to be that way. I haveto go my road and leave you to yours. Oh, the blank hopelessness of it, the useless misery of it. We're made for each other, and we have to grinand say good-by, go along our separate ways, trying to smile. What adevilish state of affairs! But I love you, dear, and no matter--I--ah--"

His voice flattened out. His hands released hers, he straightenedquickly. Stella turned her head. Jack Fyfe stood in the doorway. Hisface was fixed in its habitual mask. He was biting the end off a cigar. He struck a match and put it to the cigar end with steady fingers as hewalked slowly across the big room. 

"I hear the kid peeping, " he said to Stella quite casually, "and Inoticed Martha outside as I came in. Better go see what's up with him. "

Trained to repression, schooled in self-control, Stella rose to obey, for under the smoothness of his tone there was the iron edge of command. Her heart apparently ceased to beat. She tried to smile, but she knewthat her face was tear-wet. She knew that Jack Fyfe had seen andunderstood. She had done no wrong, but a terrible apprehension ofconsequences seized her, a fear that tragedy of her own making mightstalk grimly in that room. 

In this extremity she banked with implicit faith on the man she hadmarried rather than the man she loved. For the moment she feltoverwhelmingly glad that Jack Fyfe was iron--cool, unshakable. He wouldnever give an inch, but he would never descend to any sordid scene. Shecould not visualize him the jealous, outraged husband, breathing theconventional anathema, but there were elements unreckonable in thatroom. She knew instinctively that Fyfe once aroused would be deadly inanger and she could not vouch for Monohan's temper under the strain offeeling. That was why she feared. 

So she lingered a second or two outside the door, quaking, but therearose only the sound of Fyfe's heavy body settling into a leather chair, and following that the low, even rumble of his voice. She could notdistinguish words. The tone sounded ordinary, conversational. She prayedthat his intent was to ignore the situation, that Monohan would meet himhalfway in that effort. Afterward there would be a reckoning. But forherself she neither thought nor feared. It was a problem to be faced, that was all. And so, the breath of her coming in short, quickrespirations, she went to her room. There was no wailing from thenursery. She had known that. 

Sitting beside a window, chin in hand, her lower lip compressed betweenher teeth, she saw Fyfe, after the lapse of ten minutes, leave by thefront entrance, stopping to chat a minute with Linda and Charlie Benton, who were moving slowly toward the house. Stella rose to her feet anddabbed at her face with a powdered chamois. She couldn't let Monohan golike that; her heart cried out against it. Very likely they would nevermeet again. 

She flew down the hall to the living room. Monohan stood just withinthe front door, gazing irresolutely over his shoulder. He took a step ortwo to meet her. His clean-cut face was drawn into sullen lines, a deepflush mantled his cheek. 

"Listen, " he said tensely. "I've been made to feel like--like--Well, Icontrolled myself. I knew it had to be that way. It was unfortunate. Ithink we could have been trusted to do the decent thing. You and I werebred to do that. I've got a little pride. I can't come here again. And Iwant to see you once more before I leave here for good. I'll be goingaway next week. That'll be the end of it--the bitter finish. Will youslip down to the first point south of Cougar Bay about three in theafternoon to-morrow? It'll be the last and only time. He'll have you forlife; can't I talk to you for twenty minutes?"

"No, " she whispered forlornly. "I can't do that. I--oh, good-by--good-by. "

"Stella, Stella, " she heard his vibrant whisper follow after. But sheran away through dining room and hall to the bedroom, there to flingherself face down, choking back the passionate protest that welled upwithin her. She lay there, her face buried in the pillow, until thesputtering exhaust of the Abbey cruiser growing fainter and more fainttold her they were gone. 

She heard her husband walk through the house once after that. Whendinner was served, he was not there. It was eleven o'clock by thetime-piece on her mantel when she heard him come in, but he did not cometo their room. He went quietly into the guest chamber across the hall. 

She waited through a leaden period. Then, moved by an impulse she didnot attempt to define, a mixture of motives, pity for him, a craving forthe outlet of words, a desire to set herself right before him, sheslipped on a dressing robe and crossed the hall. The door swung opennoiselessly. Fyfe sat slumped in a chair, hat pulled low on hisforehead, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He did not even look up. Hiseyes stared straight ahead, absent, unseeingly fixed on nothing. Heseemed to be unconscious of her presence or to ignore it, --she could nottell which. 

"Jack, " she said. And when he made no response she said again, tremulously, that unyielding silence chilling her, "Jack. "

He stirred a little, but only to take off his hat and lay it on a tablebeside him. With one hand pushing back mechanically the straight, reddish-tinged hair from his brow, he looked up at her and said briefly, in a tone barren of all emotion:

"Well?"

She was suddenly dumb. Words failed her utterly. Yet there was much tobe said, much that was needful to say. They could not go on with a cloudlike that over them, a cloud that had to be dissipated in the crucibleof words. Yet she could not begin. Fyfe, after a prolonged silence, seemed to grasp her difficulty. Abruptly he began to speak, cuttingstraight to the heart of his subject, after his fashion. 

"It's a pity things had to take his particular turn, " said he. "But nowthat you're face to face with something definite, what do you propose todo about it?"

"Nothing, " she answered slowly. "I can't help the feeling. It's there. But I can thrust it into the background, go on as if it didn't exist. There's nothing else for me to do, that I can see. I'm sorry, Jack. "

"So am I, " he said grimly. "Still, it was a chance we took, --or I took, rather. I seem to have made a mistake or two, in my estimate of both youand myself. That is human enough, I suppose. You're making a biggermistake than I did though, to let Monohan sweep you off your feet. "

There was something that she read for contempt in his tone. It stungher. 

"He hasn't swept me off my feet, as you put it, " she cried. "GoodHeavens, do you think I'm that spineless sort of creature? I've neverforgotten I'm your wife. I've got a little self-respect left yet, if Iwas weak enough to grasp at the straw you threw me in the beginning. Iwas honest with you then. I'm trying to be honest with you now. "

"I know, Stella, " he said gently. "I'm not throwing mud. It's a damnablyunfortunate state of affairs, that's all. I foresaw something of thesort when we were married. You were candid enough about your attitude. But I told myself like a conceited fool that I could make your life sofull that in a little while I'd be the only possible figure on yourhorizon. I've failed. I've known for some time that I was going to fail. You're not the thin-blooded type of woman that is satisfied withpleasant surroundings and any sort of man. You're bound to run the gamutof all the emotions, sometime and somewhere. I loved you, and I thoughtin my conceit I could make myself the man, the one man who would meaneverything to you. "

"Just the same, " he continued, "you've been a fool, and I don't see howyou can avoid paying the penalty for folly. "

"What do you mean?" she asked. 

"You haven't tried to play the game, " he answered tensely. "For monthsyou've been withdrawing into your shell. You've been clanking yourchains and half-heartedly wishing for some mysterious power to strikethem off. It wasn't a thing you undertook lightly. It isn't athing--marriage, I mean--that you hold lightly. That being the case, youwould have been wise to try making the best of it, instead of making theworst of it. But you let yourself drift into a state of mind whereyou--well, you see the result. I saw it coming. I didn't need to happenin this afternoon to know that there were undercurrents of feelingswirling about. And so the way you feel now is in itself a penalty. Ifyou let Monohan cut any more figure in your thoughts, you'll pay biggerin the end. "

"I can't help my thoughts, or I should say my feelings, " she saidwearily. 

"You think you love him, " Fyfe made low reply. "As a matter of fact, youlove what you think he is. I daresay that he has sworn his affection byall that's good and great. But if you were convinced that he didn'treally care, that his flowery protestations had a double end in view, would you still love him?"

"I don't know, " she murmured. "But that's beside the point. I do lovehim. I know it's unwise. It's a feeling that has overwhelmed me in away that I didn't believe possible, that I had hoped to avoid. But--butI can't pretend, Jack. I don't want you to misunderstand. I don't wantthis to make us both miserable. I don't want it to generate anatmosphere of suspicion and jealousy. We'd only be fighting about ashadow. I never cheated at anything in my life. You can trust me still, can't you?"

"Absolutely, " Fyfe answered without hesitation. 

"Then that's all there is to it, " she replied, "unless--unless you'reready to give me up as a hopeless case, and let me go away and blunderalong the best I can. "

He shook his head. 

"I haven't even considered that, " he said. "Very likely it's unwise ofme to say this, --it will probably antagonize you, --but I know Monohanbetter than you do. I'd go pretty far to keep you two apart--now--foryour sake. "

"It would be the same if it were any other man, " she muttered. "I canunderstand that feeling in you. It's so--so typically masculine. "

"No, you're wrong there, dead wrong, " Fyfe frowned. "I'm not aself-sacrificing brute by any means. Still, knowing that you'll onlylive with me on sufferance, if you were honestly in love with a man thatI felt was halfway decent, I'd put my feelings in my pocket and let yougo. If you cared enough for him to break every tie, to face theembarrassment of divorce, why, I'd figure you were entitled to yourfreedom and whatever happiness it might bring. But Monohan--hell, Idon't want to talk about him. I trust you, Stella. I'm banking on yourown good sense. And along with that good, natural common sense, you'vegot so many illusions. About life in general, and about men. They seemto have centered about this one particular man. I can't open your eyesor put you on the right track. That's a job for yourself. All I can dois to sit back and wait. "

His voice trailed off huskily. 

Stella put a hand on his shoulder. 

"Do you care so much as all that, Jack?" she whispered. "Even in spiteof what you know?"

"For two years now, " he answered, "you've been the biggest thing in mylife. I don't change easy; I don't want to change. But I'm gettinghopeless. "

"I'm sorry, Jack, " she said. "I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am. I didn't love you to begin with--"

"And you've always resented that, " he broke in. "You've hugged thatghost of a loveless marriage to your bosom and sighed for the realromance you'd missed. Well, maybe you did. But you haven't found it yet. I'm very sure of that, although I doubt if I could convince you. "

"Let me finish, " she pleaded. "You knew I didn't love you--that I wasworn out and desperate and clutching at the life line you threw. Inspite of that, --well, if I fight down this love, or fascination, orinfatuation, or whatever it is, --I'm not sure myself, except that itaffects me strongly, --can't we be friends again?"

"Friends! Oh, hell!" Fyfe exploded. 

He came up out of his chair with a blaze in his eyes that startled her, caught her by the arm, and thrust her out the door. 

"Friends? You and I?" He sank his voice to a harsh whisper. "MyGod--friends! Go to bed. Good night. "

He pushed her into the hall, and the lock clicked between them. For oneconfused instant Stella stood poised, uncertain. Then she went into herbedroom and sat down, her keenest sensation one of sheer relief. Alreadyin those brief hours emotion had well-nigh exhausted her. To be alone, to lie still and rest, to banish thought, --that was all she desired. 

She lay on her bed inert, numbed, all but her mind, and that traversedsection by section in swift, consecutive progress all the amazing turnsof her life since she first came to Roaring Lake. There was neithermethod nor inquiry in this back-casting--merely a ceaseless, involuntaryactivity of the brain. 

A little after midnight when all the house was hushed, she went into theadjoining room, cuddled Jack Junior into her arms, and took him to herown bed. With his chubby face nestled against her breast, she lay therefighting against that interminable, maddening buzzing in her brain. Sheprayed for sleep, her nervous fingers stroking the silky, baby hair. 

CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH THERE IS A FURTHER CLASH

One can only suffer so much. Poignant feeling brings its ownanaesthetic. When Stella Fyfe fell into a troubled sleep that night, thestorm of her emotions had beaten her sorely. Morning brought itsphysical reaction. She could see things clearly and calmly enough toperceive that her love for Monohan was fraught with factors that must betaken into account. All the world loves a lover, but her world did notlove lovers who kicked over the conventional traces. She had made aniche for herself. There were ties she could not break lightly, and shewas not thinking of herself alone when she considered that, but of herhusband and Jack Junior, of Linda Abbey and Charlie Benton, of each andevery individual whose life touched more or less directly upon her own. 

She had known always what a woman should do in such case, what she hadbeen taught a woman should do: grin, as Monohan had said, and take hermedicine. For her there was no alternative. Fyfe had made that clear. But her heart cried out in rebellion against the necessity. To her, trying to think logically, the most grievous phase of the doing was thefact that nothing could ever be the same again. She could go on. Oh, yes. She could dam up the wellspring of her impulses, walk steadfastalong the accustomed ways. But those ways would not be the old ones. There would always be the skeleton at the feast. She would know it wasthere, and Jack Fyfe would know, and she dreaded the fruits of thatknowledge, the bitterness and smothered resentment it would breed. Butit had to be. As she saw it, there was no choice. 

She came down to breakfast calmly enough. It was nothing that could bealtered by heroics, by tears and wailings. Not that she was much givento either. She had not whined when her brother made things so hard forher that any refuge seemed alluring by comparison. Curiously enough, shedid not blame her brother now; neither did she blame Jack Fyfe. 

She told herself that in first seeking the line of least resistance shehad manifested weakness, that since her present problem was indirectlythe outgrowth of that original weakness, she would be weak no more. Soshe tried to meet her husband as if nothing had happened, in which shesucceeded outwardly very well indeed, since Fyfe himself chose to ignoreany change in their mutual attitude. 

She busied herself about the house that forenoon, seeking deliberately amultitude of little tasks to occupy her hands and her mind. 

But when lunch was over, she was at the end of her resources. JackJunior settled in his crib for a nap. Fyfe went away to that area backof the camp where arose the crash of falling trees and the laboredpuffing of donkey engines. She could hear faint and far the voices ofthe falling gangs that cried: "Tim-ber-r-r-r. " She could see on thebank, a little beyond the bunkhouse and cook-shack, the big roaderspooling up the cable that brought string after string of logs down tothe lake. Rain or sun, happiness or sorrow, the work went on. She foundit in her heart to envy the sturdy loggers. They could forget theirtroubles in the strain of action. Keyed as she was to that high pitch, that sense of their unremitting activity, the ravaging of the forestwhich produced the resources for which she had sold herself irritatedher. She was very bitter when she thought that. 

She longed for some secluded place to sit and think, or try to stopthinking. And without fully realizing the direction she took, she walkeddown past the camp, crossed the skid-road, stepping lightly over mainline and haul-back at the donkey engineer's warning, and went along thelake shore. 

A path wound through the belt of brush and hardwood that fringed thelake. Not until she had followed this up on the neck of a littlepromontory south of the bay, did she remember with a shock that she wasapproaching the place where Monohan had begged her to meet him. Shelooked at her watch. Two-thirty. She sought the shore line for sight ofa boat, wondering if he would come in spite of her refusal. But to hergreat relief she saw no sign of him. Probably he had thought better ofit, had seen now as she had seen then that no good and an earnest chanceof evil might come of such a clandestine meeting, had taken her stand asfinal. 

She was glad, because she did not want to go back to the house. She didnot want to make the effort of wandering away in the other direction tofind that restful peace of woods and water. She moved up a little on thepoint until she found a mossy boulder and sat down on that, resting herchin in her palms, looking out over the placid surface of the lake withsomber eyes. 

And so Monohan surprised her. The knoll lay thick-carpeted with moss. Hewas within a few steps of her when a twig cracking underfoot apprisedher of some one's approach. She rose, with an impulse to fly, to escapea meeting she had not desired. And as she rose, the breath stopped inher throat. 

Twenty feet behind Monohan came Jack Fyfe with his hunter's stride, soundlessly over the moss, a rifle drooping in the crook of his arm. Asunbeam striking obliquely between two firs showed her his face plainly, the faint curl of his upper lip. 

Something in her look arrested Monohan. He glanced around, twistedabout, froze in his tracks, his back to her. Fyfe came up. Of the threehe was the coolest, the most rigorously self-possessed. He glanced fromMonohan to his wife, back to Monohan. After that his blue eyes neverleft the other man's face. 

"What did I say to you yesterday?" Fyfe opened his mouth at last. "Butthen I might have known I was wasting my breath on you!"

"Well, " Monohan retorted insolently, "what are you going to do about it?This isn't the Stone Age. "

Fyfe laughed unpleasantly. 

"Lucky for you. You'd have been eliminated long ago, " he said. "No, ittakes the present age to produce such rotten specimens as you. "

A deep flush rose in Monohan's cheeks. He took a step toward Fyfe, hishands clenched. 

"You wouldn't say that if you weren't armed, " he taunted hoarsely. 

"No?" Fyfe cast the rifle to one side. It fell with a metallic clinkagainst a stone. "I do say it though, you see. You are a sort of ayellow dog, Monohan. You know it, and you know that I know it. That'swhy it stings you to be told so. "

Monohan stepped back and slipped out of his coat. His face was crimson. 

"By God, I'll teach you something, " he snarled. 

He lunged forward as he spoke, shooting a straight-arm blow for Fyfe'sface. It swept through empty air, for Fyfe, poised on the balls of hisfeet, ducked under the driving fist, and slapped Monohan across themouth with the open palm of his hand. 

"Tag, " he said sardonically. "You're It. "

Monohan pivoted, and rushing, swung right and left, missing by inches. Fyfe's mocking grin seemed to madden him completely. He rushed again, launching another vicious blow that threw him partly off his balance. Before he could recover, Fyfe kicked both feet from under him, sent himsprawling on the moss. 

Stella stood like one stricken. The very thing she dreaded had comeabout. Yet the manner of its unfolding was not as she had visualized itwhen she saw Fyfe near at hand. She saw now a side of her husband thatshe had never glimpsed, that she found hard to understand. She couldhave understood him beating Monohan senseless, if he could. A murderousfury of jealousy would not have surprised her. This did. He had notstruck a blow, did not attempt to strike. 

She could not guess why, but she saw that he was playing with Monohan, making a fool of him, for all Monohan's advantage of height and reach. Fyfe moved like the light, always beyond Monohan's vengeful blows, slipping under those driving fists to slap his adversary, to trip him, mocking him with the futility of his effort. 

She felt herself powerless to stop that sorry exhibition. It was not afight for her. Dimly she had a feeling that back of her lay somethingelse. An echo of it had been more than once in Fyfe's speech. Here andnow, they had forgotten her at the first word. They were engaged in astruggle for mastery, sheer brute determination to hurt each other, which had little or nothing to do with her. She foresaw, watching theodd combat with a feeling akin to fascination, that it was a losing gamefor Monohan. Fyfe was his master at every move. 

Yet he did not once attempt to strike a solid blow, nothing but thathumiliating, open-handed slap, that dexterous swing of his foot thatplunged Monohan headlong. He grinned steadily, a cold grimace thatreflected no mirth, being merely a sneering twist of his features. Stella knew the deadly strength of him. She wondered at his purpose, howit would end. 

The elusive light-footedness of the man, the successive stinging ofthose contemptuous slaps at last maddened Monohan into ignoring therules by which men fight. He dropped his hands and stood panting withhis exertions. Suddenly he kicked, a swift lunge for Fyfe's body. 

Fyfe leaped aside. Then he closed. Powerful and weighty a man as Monohanwas, Fyfe drove him halfway around with a short-arm blow that landednear his heart, and while he staggered from that, clamped one thick armabout his neck in the strangle-hold. Holding him helpless, bentbackwards across his broad chest, Fyfe slowly and systematically chokedhim; he shut off his breath until Monohan's tongue protruded, and hiseyes bulged glassily, and horrible, gurgling noises issued from hisgaping mouth. 

"Jack, Jack!" Stella found voice to shriek. "You're killing him. "

Fyfe lifted his eyes to hers. The horror he saw there may have stirredhim. Or he may have considered his object accomplished. Stella could nottell. But he flung Monohan from him with a force that sent him reeling adozen feet, to collapse on the moss. It took him a full minute to regainhis breath, to rise to unsteady feet, to find his voice. 

"You can't win all the time, " he gasped. "By God, I'll show you that youcan't. "

With that he turned and went back the way he had come. Fyfe stoodsilent, hands resting on his hips, watching until Monohan pushed out aslim speed launch from under cover of overhanging alders and set offdown the lake. 

"Well, " he remarked then, in a curiously detached, impersonal tone. "The lightning will begin to play by and by, I suppose. "

"What do you mean?" Stella asked breathlessly. 

He did not answer. His eyes turned to her slowly. She saw now that hisface was white and rigid, that the line of his lips drew harder togetheras he looked at her; but she was not prepared for the storm that broke. She did not comprehend the tempest that raged within him until he hadher by the shoulders, his fingers crushing into her soft flesh like thejaws of a trap, shaking her as a terrier might shake a rat, till theheavy coils of hair cascaded over her shoulders, and for a second feartugged at her heart. For she thought he meant to kill her. 

When he did desist, he released her with a thrust of his arms that senther staggering against a tree, shaken to the roots of her being, thoughnot with fear. Anger had displaced that. A hot protest against his brutestrength, against his passionate outbreak, stirred her. Appearances wereagainst her, she knew. Even so, she revolted against his cave-manroughness. She was amazed to find herself longing for the power tostrike him. 

She faced him trembling, leaning against the tree trunk, staring at himin impotent rage. And the fire died out of his eyes as she looked. Hedrew a deep breath or two and turned away to pick up his rifle. When hefaced about with that in his hand, the old mask of immobility was inplace. He waited while Stella gathered up her scattered hairpins andmade shift to coil her hair into a semblance of Order. Then he saidgently:

"I won't break out like that again. "

"Once is enough. "

"More than enough--for me, " he answered. 

She disdained reply. Striking off along the path that ran to the camp, she walked rapidly, choking a rising flood of desperate thought. Withgrowing coolness paradoxically there burned hotter the flame of anelemental wrath. What right had he to lay hands on her? Her shouldersached, her flesh was bruised from the terrible grip of his fingers. Thevery sound of his footsteps behind her was maddening. To be suspectedand watched, to be continually the target of jealous fury! No, athousand times, no. She wheeled on him at last. 

"I can't stand this, " she cried. "It's beyond endurance. We're likeflint and steel to each other now. If to-day's a sample of what we mayexpect, it's better to make a clean sweep of everything. I've got to getaway from here and from you--from everybody. "

Fyfe motioned her to a near-by log. 

"Sit down, " said he. "We may as well have it out here. "

For a few seconds he busied himself with a cigar, removing the band withutmost deliberation, biting the end off, applying the match, his browspuckered slightly. 

"It's very unwise of you to meet Monohan like that, " he uttered finally. 

"Oh, I see, " she flashed. "Do you suggest that I met him purposely--byappointment? Even if I did--"

"That's for you to say, Stella, " he interrupted gravely. "I told youlast night that I trusted you absolutely. I do, so far as really vitalthings are concerned, but I don't always trust your judgment. I merelyknow that Monohan sneaked along shore, hid his boat, and stole throughthe timber to where you were sitting. I happened to see him, and Ifollowed him to see what he was up to, why he should take such measuresto keep under cover. "

"The explanation is simple, " she answered stiffly. "You can believe itor not, as you choose. My being there was purely unintentional. If I hadseen him before he was close, I should certainly not have been there. Ihave been at odds with myself all day, and I went for a walk, to find aquiet place where I could sit and think. "

"It doesn't matter now, " he said. "Only you'd better try to avoid thingslike that in the future. Would you mind telling me just exactly what youmeant a minute ago? Just what you propose to do?"

He asked her that as one might make any commonplace inquiry, but hisquietness did not deceive Stella. 

"What I said, " she began desperately. "Wasn't it plain enough? It seemsto me our life is going to be a nightmare from now on if we try to liveit together. I--I'm sorry, but you know how I feel. It may be unwise, but these things aren't dictated by reason. You know that. If ouremotions were guided by reason and expediency, we'd be altogetherdifferent. Last night I was willing to go on and make the best ofthings. To-day, --especially after this, --it looks impossible. You'lllook at me, and guess what I'm thinking, and hate me. And I'll grow tohate you, because you'll be little better than a jailer. Oh, don't yousee that the way we'll feel will make us utterly miserable? Why shouldwe stick together when no good can come of it? You've been good to me. I've appreciated that and liked you for it. I'd like to be friends. ButI--I'd hate you with a perfectly murderous hatred if you were always onthe watch, always suspecting me, if you taunted me as you did a whileago. I'm just as much a savage at heart as you are, Jack Fyfe. I couldgladly have killed you when you were jerking me about back yonder. "

"I wonder if you are, after all, a little more of a primitive being thanI've supposed?"

Fyfe leaned toward her, staring fixedly into her eyes--eyes that werebright with unshed tears. 

"And I was holding the devil in me down back there, because I didn'twant to horrify you with anything like brutality, " he went onthoughtfully. "You think I grinned and made a monkey of _him_ because itpleased me to do that? Why, I could have--and ached to--break him intolittle bits, to smash him up so that no one would ever take pleasure inlooking at him again. And I didn't, simply and solely because I didn'twant to let you have even a glimpse of what I'm capable of when I getstarted. I wonder if I made a mistake? It was merely the reaction fromletting him go scot-free that made me shake you so. I wonder--well, never mind. Go on. "

"I think it's better that I should go away, " Stella said. "I want you toagree that I should; then there will be no talk or anything disagreeablefrom outside sources. I'm strong, I can get on. It'll be a relief tohave to work. I won't have to be the kitchen drudge Charlie made of me. I've got my voice. I'm quite sure I can capitalize that. But I've got togo. Anything's better than this; anything that's clean and decent. I'ddespise myself if I stayed on as your wife, feeling as I do. It was amistake in the beginning, our marriage. "

"Nevertheless, " Fyfe said slowly, "I'm afraid it's a mistake you'll haveto abide by--for a time. All that you say may be true, although I don'tadmit it myself. Offhand, I'd say you were simply trying to welch on afair bargain. I'm not going to let you do it blindly, all wrought up toa pitch where you can scarcely think coherently. If you are fullydetermined to break away from me, you owe it to us both to be sure ofwhat you're doing before you act. I'm going to talk plain. You canbelieve it and disdain it if you please. If you were leaving me for aman, a real man, I think I could bring myself to make it easy for youand wish you luck. But you're not. He's--"

"Can't we leave him out of it?" she demanded. "I want to get away fromyou both. Can you understand that? It doesn't help you any to pick _him_to pieces. "

"No, but it might help you, if I could rip off that swathing ofidealization you've wrapped around him, " Fyfe observed patiently. "It'snot a job I have much stomach for however, even if you were willing tolet me try. But to come back. You've got to stick it out with me, Stella. You'll hate me for the constraint, I suppose. But until--untilthings shape up differently--you'll understand what I'm talking aboutby and by, I think--you've got to abide by the bargain you made with me. I couldn't force you to stay, I know. But there's one hold you can'tbreak--not if I know you at all. "

"What is that?" she asked icily. 

"The kid's, " he murmured. 

Stella buried her face in her hands for a minute. 

"I'd forgotten--I'd forgotten, " she whispered. 

"You understand, don't you?" he said hesitatingly. "If you leave--I keepour boy. "

"Oh, you're devilish--to use a club like that, " she cried. "You know Iwouldn't part from my baby--the only thing I've got that's worthhaving. "

"He's worth something to me too, " Fyfe muttered. "A lot more than youthink, maybe. I'm not trying to club you. There's nothing in it for me. But for him; well, he needs you. It isn't his fault he's here, or thatyou're unhappy. I've got to protect him, see that he gets a fair shake. I can't see anything to it but for you to go on being Mrs. Jack Fyfeuntil such time as you get back to a normal poise. Then it will be timeenough to try and work out some arrangement that won't be too much of ahardship on him. It's that--or a clean break in which you go your ownway, and I try to mother him to the best of my ability. You'llunderstand sometime why I'm showing my teeth this way. "

"You have everything on your side, " she admitted dully, after a longinterval of silence. "I'm a fool. I admit it. Have things your way. Butit won't work, Jack. This flare-up between us will only smoulder. Ithink you lay a little too much stress on Monohan. It isn't that I lovehim so much as that I don't love you at all. I can live withouthim--which I mean to do in any case--far easier than I can live withyou. It won't work. "

"Don't worry, " he replied. "You won't be annoyed by me in person. I'llhave my hands full elsewhere. "

They rose and walked on to the house. On the porch Jack Junior was beingwheeled back and forth in his carriage. He lifted chubby arms to hismother as she came up the steps. Stella carried him inside, hugging thesturdy, blue-eyed mite close to her breast. She did not want to cry, butshe could not help it. It was as if she had been threatened withirrevocable loss of that precious bit of her own flesh and blood. Shehugged him to her, whispering mother-talk, half-hysterical, whollytender. 

Fyfe stood aside for a minute. Then he came up behind her and stoodresting one hand on the back of her chair. 

"Stella. "

"Yes. "

"I got word from my sister and her husband in this morning's mail. Theywill very likely be here next week for a three days' stay. Brace up. Let's try and keep our skeleton from rattling while they're here. Willyou?"

"All right, Jack. I'll try. "

He patted her tousled hair lightly and left the room. Stella lookedafter him with a surge of mixed feeling. She told herself she hated himand his dominant will that always beat her own down; she hated him forhis amazing strength and for his unvarying sureness of himself. And inthe same breath she found herself wondering if, --with their statusreversed, --Walter Monohan would be as patient, as gentle, asself-controlled with a wife who openly acknowledged her affection foranother man. And still her heart cried out for Monohan. She flared hotagainst the disparaging note, the unconcealed contempt Fyfe seemed tohave for him. 

Yet in spite of her eager defence of him, there was something ugly aboutthat clash with Fyfe in the edge of the woods, something that jarred. Itwasn't spontaneous. She could not understand that tigerish onslaught ofMonohan's. It was more the action she would have expected from herhusband. 

It puzzled her, grieved her, added a little to the sorrowful weight thatsettled upon her. They were turbulent spirits both. The matter might notend there. 

In the next ten days three separate incidents, each isolated andrelatively unimportant, gave Stella food for much puzzled thought. 

The first was a remark of Fyfe's sister in the first hours of theiracquaintance. Mrs. Henry Alden could never have denied blood kinshipwith Jack Fyfe. She had the same wide, good-humored mouth, the blue eyesthat always seemed to be on the verge of twinkling, and the same fair, freckled skin. Her characteristics of speech resembled his. She wasdirect, bluntly so, and she was not much given to small talk. Fyfe andStella met the Aldens at Roaring Springs with the _Waterbug_. Aldenproved a genial sort of man past forty, a big, loose-jointed individualwhose outward appearance gave no indication of what he wasprofessionally, --a civil engineer with a reputation that promised tospread beyond his native States. 

"You don't look much different, Jack, " his sister observed critically, as the _Waterbug_ backed away from the wharf in a fine drizzle of rain. "Except that as you grow older, you more and more resemble the pater. Has matrimony toned him down, my dear?" she turned to Stella. "The lasttime I saw him he had a black eye!"

Fyfe did not give her a chance to answer. 

"Be a little more diplomatic, Dolly, " he smiled. "Mrs. Jack doesn'trealize what a rowdy I used to be. I've reformed. "

"Ah, " Mrs. Alden chuckled, "I have a vision of you growing meek andmild. "

They talked desultorily as the launch thrashed along. Alden's professiontook him to all corners of the earth. That was why the winter of Fyfe'shoneymoon had not made them acquainted. Alden and his wife were then inSouth America. This visit was to fill in the time before the departureof a trans-Pacific liner which would land the Aldens at Manila. 

Presently the Abbey-Monohan camp and bungalow lay abeam. Stella toldMrs. Alden something of the place. 

"That reminds me, " Mrs. Alden turned to her brother. "I was quite sure Isaw Walter Monohan board a train while we were waiting for the hotel carin Hopyard. I heard that he was in timber out here. Is he this Monohan?"

Fyfe nodded. 

"How odd, " she remarked, "that you should be in the same region. Do youstill maintain the ancient feud?"

Fyfe shot her a queer look. 

"We've grown up, Dolly, " he said drily. Then: "Do you expect to get backto God's country short of a year, Alden?"

That was all. Neither of them reverted to the subject again. But Stellapondered. An ancient feud? She had not known of that. Neither man hadever dropped a hint. 

For the second incident, Paul Abbey dropped in to dinner a few dayslater and divulged a bit of news. 

"There's been a shake-up in our combination, " he remarked casually toFyfe. "Monohan and dad have split over a question of business policy. Walter's taking over all our interests on Roaring Lake. He appears to begoing to peel off his coat and become personally active in the loggingindustry. Funny streak for Monohan to take, isn't it? He never seemedto care a hoot about the working end of the business, so long as itproduced dividends. "

Lastly, Charlie Benton came over to eat a farewell dinner with theAldens the night before they left. He followed Stella into the nurserywhen she went to tuck Jack Junior in his crib. 

"Say, Stella" he began, "I have just had a letter from old man Lander;you remember he was dad's legal factotum and executor. "

"Of course, " she returned. 

"Well, do you recall--you were there when the estate was wound up, and Iwas not--any mention of some worthless oil stock? Some Californiawildcat stuff the governor got bit on? It was found among his effects. "

"I seem to recall something of the sort, " she answered. "But I don'tremember positively. What about it?"

"Lander writes me that there is a prospect of it being salable. Thecompany is reviving. And he finds himself without legal authority to dobusiness, although the stock certificates are still in his hands. Hesuggests that we give him a power of attorney to sell this stuff. He'san awfully conservative old chap, so there must be a reasonable prospectof some cash, or he wouldn't bother. My hunch is to give him a power ofattorney and let him use his own judgment. "

"How much is it worth?" she asked. 

"The par value is forty thousand dollars, " Benton grinned. "But thegovernor bought it at ten cents on the dollar. If we get what he paid, we'll be lucky. That'll be two thousand apiece. I brought you a blankform. I'm going down with you on the _Bug_ to-morow to send mine. I'dadvise you to have yours signed up and witnessed before a notary atHopyard and send it too. "

"Of course I will, " she said. 

"It isn't much, " Benton mused, leaning on the foot of the crib, watchingher smooth the covers over little Jack. "But it won't come amiss--to me, at least. I'm going to be married in the spring. "

Stella looked up. 

"You are?" she murmured. "To Linda Abbey?"

He nodded. A slight flush crept over his tanned face at the steady lookshe bent on him. 

"Hang it, what are you thinking?" he broke out. "I know you've ratherlooked down on me because I acted like a bounder that winter. But Ireally took a tumble to myself. You set me thinking when you made thatsudden break with Jack. I felt rather guilty about that--until I saw howit turned out. I know I'm not half good enough for Linda. But so long asshe thinks I am and I try to live up to that, why we've as good a chanceto be happy as anybody. We all make breaks, us fellows that go ateverything roughshod. Still, when we pull up and take a new tack, youshouldn't hold grudges. If we could go back to that fall and winter, I'ddo things a lot differently. "

"If you're both really and truly in love, " Stella said quietly, "that'sabout the only thing that matters. I hope you'll be happy. But you'llhave to be a lot different with Linda Abbey than you were with me. "

"Ah, Stella, don't harp on that, " he said shame-facedly. "I was rotten, it's true. But we're all human. I couldn't see anything then only what Iwanted myself. I was like a bull in a china shop. It's different now. I'm on my feet financially, and I've had time to draw my breath and takea squint at myself from a different angle. I did you a good turn, anyway, even if I was the cause of you taking a leap before you looked. You landed right. "

Stella mustered a smile that was purely facial. It maddened her to hearhis complacent justification of himself. And the most maddening part ofit was her knowledge that Benton was right, that in many essentialthings he had done her a good turn, which her own erratic inclinationsbade fair to wholly nullify. 

"I wish you all the luck and happiness in the world, " she said gently. "And I don't bear a grudge, believe me, Charlie. Now, run along. We'llkeep baby awake, talking. "

"All right. " He turned to go and came back again. 

"What I really came in to say, I've hardly got nerve enough for. " Hesank his voice to a murmur. "Don't fly off at me, Stell. But--youhaven't got a trifle interested in Monohan, have you? I mean, youhaven't let him think you are?"

Stella's hands tightened on the crib rail. For an instant her heartstood still. A wholly unreasoning blaze of anger seized her. But shecontrolled that. Pride forbade her betraying herself. 

"What a perfectly ridiculous question, " she managed to reply. 

He looked at her keenly. 

"Because, if you have--well, you might be perfectly innocent in thematter and still get in bad, " he continued evenly. "I'd like to put abug in your ear. "

She bent over Jack Junior, striving to inject an amused note into herreply. 

"Don't be so absurd, Charlie. "

"Oh, well, I suppose it is. Only, darn it, I've seen him look at you ina way--Pouf! I was going to tell you something. Maybe Jack has--onlyhe's such a close-mouthed beggar. I'm not very anxious to peddlethings. " Benton turned again. "I guess you don't need any coaching fromme, anyhow. "

He walked out. Stella stared after him, her eyes blazing, hands clenchedinto hard-knuckled little fists. She could have struck him. 

And still she wondered over and over again, burning with a consumingfire to know what that "something" was which he had to tell. All theslumbering devils of a stifled passion awoke to rend her, to make herrage against the coil in which she was involved. She despised herselffor the weakness of unwise loving, even while she ached to sweep awaythe barriers that stood between her and love. Mingled with that therewhispered an intuition of disaster to come, of destiny shaping topeculiar ends. In Monohan's establishing himself on Roaring Lake shesensed something more than an industrial shift. In his continuedpresence there she saw incalculable sources of trouble. She stoodleaning over the bed rail, staring wistfully at her boy for a fewminutes. When she faced the mirror in her room, she was startled at thelook in her eyes, the nervous twitch of her lips. There was a physicalache in her breast. 

"You're a fool, a fool, " she whispered to her image. "Where's your will, Stella Fyfe? Borrow a little of your husband's backbone. Presently--presently it won't matter. "

One can club a too assertive ego into insensibility. A man may smile andsmile and be a villain still, as the old saying has it, and so may awoman smile and smile when her heart is tortured, when every nerve inher is strained to the snapping point. Stella went back to the livingroom and sang for them until it was time to go to bed. 

The Aldens went first, then Charlie. Stella left her door ajar. An hourafterward, when Fyfe came down the hall, she rose. It had been herpurpose to call him in, to ask him to explain that which her brother hadhinted he could explain, what prior antagonism lay between him andMonohan, what that "something" about Monohan was which differentiatedhim from other men where she was concerned. Instead she shut the door, slid the bolt home, and huddled in a chair with her face in her hands. 

She could not discuss Monohan with him, with any one. Why should sheask? she told herself. It was a closed book, a balanced account. Onedoes not revive dead issues. 

CHAPTER XVIII

THE OPENING GUN

The month of November slid day by day into the limbo of the past. Therains washed the land unceasingly. Gray veilings of mist and clouddraped the mountain slopes. As drab a shade colored Stella Fyfe's dailyoutlook. She was alone a great deal. Even when they were together, sheand her husband, words did not come easily between them. He was away agreat deal, seeking, she knew, the old panacea of work, hard, unremitting work, to abate the ills of his spirit. She envied him thatoutlet. Work for her there was none. The two Chinamen and Martha thenurse left her no tasks. She could not read, for all their great storeof books and magazines; the printed page would lie idle in her lap, andher gaze would wander off into vacancy, into that thought-world whereher spirit wandered in distress. The Abbeys were long gone; her brotherhard at his logging. There were no neighbors and no news. The savor wasgone out of everything. The only bright spot in her days was JackJunior, now toddling precociously on his sturdy legs, a dozen steps at atime, crowing victoriously when he negotiated the passage from chair tochair. 

From the broad east windows of their house she saw all the traffic thatcame and went on the upper reaches of Roaring Lake, Siwashes in dugoutsand fishing boats, hunters, prospectors. But more than any other she sawthe craft of her husband and Monohan, the powerful, black-hulled_Panther_, the smaller, daintier _Waterbug_. 

There was a big gasoline workboat, gray with a yellow funnel, that sheknew was Monohan's. And this craft bore past there often, inching itsdownward way with swifters of logs, driving fast up-lake without a tow. Monohan had abandoned work on the old Abbey-Monohan logging-grounds. Thecamps and the bungalow lay deserted, given over to a solitary watchman. The lake folk had chattered at this proceeding, and the chatter had cometo Stella's ears. He had put in two camps at the lake head, so she heardindirectly: one on the lake shore, one on the Tyee River, a little abovethe mouth. He had sixty men in each camp, and he was getting the name ofa driver. Three miles above his Tyee camp, she knew, lay the camp herhusband had put in during the early summer to cut a heavy limit ofcedar. Fyfe had only a small crew there. 

She wondered a little why he spent so much time there, when he hadseventy-odd men working near home. But of course he had an ablelieutenant in Lefty Howe. And she could guess why Jack Fyfe kept away. She was sorry for him--and for herself. But being sorry--a meresemi-neutral state of mind--did not help matters, she told herselfgloomily. 

Lefty Howe's wife was at the camp now, on one of her occasional visits. Howe was going across the lake one afternoon to see a Siwash whom he hadengaged to catch and smoke a winter's supply of salmon for the camps. Mrs. Howe told Stella, and on impulse Stella bundled Jack Junior intowarm clothing and went with them for the ride. 

Halfway across the six-mile span she happened to look back, and a newmark upon the western shore caught her eye. She found a glass andleveled it on the spot. Two or three buildings, typical logging-campshacks of split cedar, rose back from the beach. Behind these again thebeginnings of a cut had eaten a hole in the forest, --a slashingdifferent from the ordinary logging slash, for it ran narrowly, straightback through the timber; whereas the first thing a logger does is to cutall the merchantable timber he can reach on his limit without moving hisdonkey from the water. It was not more than two miles from their house. 

"What new camp is that?" she asked Howe. 

"Monohan's, " he answered casually. 

"I thought Jack owned all the shore timber to Medicine Point?" she said. 

Howe shook his head. 

"Uh-uh. Well, he does too, all but where that camp is. Monohan's got afreak limit in there. It's half a mile wide and two miles straight backfrom the beach. Lays between our holdin's like the ham in a sandwich. Only, " he added thoughtfully, "it's a blame thin piece uh ham. About thepoorest timber in a long stretch. I dunno why the Sam Hill he's cuttin'it. But then he's doin' a lot uh things no practical logger would do. "

Stella laid down the glasses. It was nothing to her, she told herself. She had seen Monohan only once since the day Fyfe choked him, and thenonly to exchange the barest civilities--and to feel her heart flutter atthe message his eyes telegraphed. 

When she returned from the launch trip, Fyfe was home, and CharlieBenton with him. She crossed the heavy rugs on the living room floornoiselessly in her overshoes, carrying Jack Junior asleep in her arms. And so in passing the door of Fyfe's den, she heard her brother say:

"But, good Lord, you don't suppose he'll be sap-head enough to try suchfool stunts as that? He couldn't make it stick, and he brings himselfwithin the law first crack; and the most he could do would be to annoyyou. "

"You underestimate Monohan, " Fyfe returned. "He'll play safe, personally, so far as the law goes. He's foxy. I advise you to sell ifthe offer comes again. If you make any more breaks at him, he'll figuresome way to get you. It isn't your fight, you know. You unfortunatelyhappen to be in the road. "

"Damned if I do, " Benton swore. "I'm all in the clear. There's no way hecan get me, and I'll tell him what I think of him again if he gives mehalf a chance. I never liked him, anyhow. Why should I sell when I'mjust getting in real good shape to take that timber out myself? Why, Ican make a hundred thousand dollars in the next five years on that blockof timber. Besides, without being a sentimental sort of beggar, I don'tlose sight of the fact that you helped pull me out of a hole when I sureneeded a pull. And I don't like his high-handed style. No, if it comesto a showdown, I'm with you, Jack, as far as I can go. What the hell_can_ he do?"

"Nothing--that I can see. " Fyfe laughed unpleasantly. "But he'll try. Hehas dollars to our cents. He could throw everything he's got on RoaringLake into the discard and still have forty thousand a year fixed income. Sabe? Money does more than talk in this country. I think I'll pull thatcamp off the Tyee. "

"Well, maybe, " Benton said. "I'm not sure--"

Stella passed on. She wanted to hear, but it went against her grain toeavesdrop. Her pause had been purely involuntary. When she becameconscious that she was eagerly drinking in each word, she hurried by. 

Her mind was one urgent question mark while she laid the sleepingyoungster in his bed and removed her heavy clothes. What sort ofhostilities did Monohan threaten? Had he let a hopeless love turn to theacid of hate for the man who nominally possessed her? Stella couldscarcely credit that. It was too much at variance with her idealisticconception of the man. He would never have recourse to such littleness. Still, the biting contempt in Fyfe's voice when he said to Benton: "Youunderestimate Monohan. He'll play safe ... He's foxy. " That stung her tothe quick. That was not said for her benefit; it was Fyfe's profoundconviction. Based on what? He did not form judgments on momentaryimpulse. She recalled that only in the most indirect way had he everpassed criticism on Monohan, and then it lay mostly in a tone, suggestedmore than spoken. Yet he knew Monohan, had known him for years. They hadclashed long before she was a factor in their lives. 

When she went into the big room, Benton and Fyfe were gone outdoors. Sheglanced into Fyfe's den. It was empty, but a big blue-print unrolled onthe table where the two had been seated caught her eye. She bent overit, drawn by the lettered squares along the wavy shore line and themarked waters of creeks she knew. 

She had never before possessed a comprehensive idea of the varioustimber holdings along the west shore of Roaring Lake, since it had notbeen a matter of particular interest to her. She was not sure why it nowbecame a matter of interest to her, unless it was an impression thatover these squares and oblongs which stood for thousands upon thousandsof merchantable logs there was already shaping a struggle, a clash ofiron wills and determined purposes directly involving, perhaps arisingbecause of her. 

She studied the blue-print closely. Its five feet of length embraced allthe west shore of the lake, from the outflowing of Roaring River to theincoming Tyee at the head. Each camp was lettered in with pencil. Buther attention focussed chiefly on the timber limits ranging north andsouth from their home, and she noted two details: that while the limitsmarked A-M Co. Were impartially distributed from Cottonwood north, thesquares marked J. H. Fyfe lay in a solid block about Cougar Bay, --savefor that long tongue of a limit where she had that day noted the newcamp. That thrust like the haft of a spear into the heart of Fyfe'stimberland. 

There was the Abbey-Monohan cottage, the three limits her brothercontrolled lying up against Fyfe's southern boundary. Up around themouth of the Tyee spread the vast checkerboard of Abbey-Monohan limits, and beyond that, on the eastern bank of the river, a singleblock, --Fyfe's cedar limit, --the camp he thought he would close down. 

Why? Immediately the query shaped in her mind. Monohan was concentratinghis men and machinery at the lake head. Fyfe proposed to shut down acamp but well-established; established because cedar was climbing inprice, an empty market clamoring for cedar logs. Why?

Was there aught of significance in that new camp of Monohan's so nearby; that sudden activity on ground that bisected her husband's property?A freak limit of timber so poor that Lefty Howe said it could only belogged at a loss. 

She sighed and went out to give dinner orders to Sam Foo. If she couldonly go to her husband and talk as they had been able to talk thingsover at first. But there had grown up between them a deadly restraint. She supposed that was inevitable. Both chafed under conditions theycould not change or would not for stubbornness and pride. 

It made a deep impression on her, all these successive, disassociatedfinger posts, pointing one and all to things under the surface, tomotives and potentialities she had not glimpsed before and could onlyguess at now. 

Fyfe and Benton came to dinner more or less preoccupied, an odd mood forCharlie Benton. Afterwards they went into session behind the closed doorof Fyfe's den. An hour or so later Benton went home. While she listenedto the soft _chuff-a-chuff-a-chuff_ of the _Chickamin_ dying away in thedistance, Fyfe came in and slumped down in a chair before the fire wherea big fir stick crackled. He sat there silent, a half-smoked cigarclamped in one corner of his mouth, the lines of his square jaw inprofile, determined, rigid. Stella eyed him covertly. There were times, in those moods of concentration, when sheer brute power seemed his mostsalient characteristic. Each bulging curve of his thick upper arm, hisneck rising like a pillar from massive shoulders, indicated his power. Yet so well-proportioned was he that the size and strength of him wasmasked by the symmetry of his body, just as the deliberate immobility ofhis face screened the play of his feelings. Often Stella found herselfstaring at him, fruitlessly wondering what manner of thought and feelingthat repression overlaid. Sometimes a tricksy, half-provoked desire tobreak through the barricade of his stoicism tempted her. She toldherself that she ought to be thankful for his aloofness, hisacquiescence in things as they stood. Yet there were times when shewould almost have welcomed an outburst, a storm, anything rather thanthat deadly chill, enduring day after day. He seldom spoke to her nowexcept of most matter-of-fact things. He played his part like agentleman before others, but alone with her he withdrew into his shell. 

Stella was sitting back in the shadow, still studying him, measuring himin spite of herself by the Monohan yardstick. There wasn't much basisfor comparison. It wasn't a question of comparison; the two men stoodapart, distinctive, in every attribute. The qualities in Fyfe that sheunderstood and appreciated, she beheld glorified in Monohan. Yet it wasnot, after all, a question of qualities. It was something more subtle, something of the heart which defied logical analysis. 

Fyfe had never been able to set her pulse dancing. She had never cravedphysical nearness to him, so that she ached with the poignancy of thatcraving. She had been passively contented with him, that was all. AndMonohan had swept across her horizon like a flame. Why couldn't JackFyfe have inspired in her that headlong sort of passion? She smiledhopelessly. The tears were very close to her eyes. She loved Monohan;Monohan loved her. Fyfe loved her in his deliberate, repressed fashionand possessed her, according to the matrimonial design. And although nowhis possession was a hollow mockery, he would never give her up--not toWalter Monohan. She had that fatalistic conviction. 

How would it end in the long run?

She leaned forward to speak. Words quivered on her lips. But as shestruggled to shape them to utterance, the blast of a boat whistle camescreaming up from the water, near and shrill and imperative. 

Fyfe came out of his chair like a shot. He landed poised on his feet, lips drawn apart, hands clenched. He held that pose for an instant, thenrelaxed, his breath coming with a quick sigh. 

Stella stared at him. Nerves! She knew the symptoms too well. Nerves atterrible tension in that big, splendid body. A slight quiver seemed torun over him. Then he was erect and calmly himself again, standing in alistening attitude. 

"That's the _Panther_?" he said. "Pulling in to the _Waterbug's_landing. Did I startle you when I bounced up like a cougar, Stella?" heasked, with a wry smile. "I guess I was half asleep. That whistle joltedme. "

Stella glanced out the shaded window. 

"Some one's coming up from the float with a lantern, " she said. "Isthere--is there likely to be anything wrong, Jack?"

"Anything wrong?" He shot a quick glance at her. Then casually: "Notthat I know of. "

The bobbing lantern came up the path through the lawn. Footstepscrunched on the gravel. 

"I'll go see what he wants, " Fyfe remarked, "Calked boots won't be goodfor the porch floor. "

She followed him. 

"Stay in. It's cold. " He stopped in the doorway. 

"No. I'm coming, " she persisted. 

They met the lantern bearer at the foot of the steps. 

"Well, Thorsen?" Fyfe shot at him. There was an unusual note ofsharpness in his voice, an irritated expectation. 

Stella saw that it was the skipper of the _Panther_, a big and burlyDane. He raised the lantern a little. The dim light on his face showedit bruised and swollen. Fyfe grunted. 

"Our boom is hung up, " he said plaintively. "They've blocked the river. I got licked for arguin' the point. "

"How's it blocked?" Fyfe asked. 

"Two swifters uh logs strung across the channel. They're drivin' pilesin front. An' three donkeys buntin' logs in behind. "

"Swift work. There wasn't a sign of a move when I left this morning, "Fyfe commented drily. "Well, take the _Panther_ around to the innerlanding. I'll be there. "

"What's struck that feller Monohan?" the Dane sputtered angrily. "Has hegot any license to close the Tyee? He says he has--an' backs hisargument strong, believe me. Maybe you can handle him. I couldn't. Nexttime I'll have a cant-hook handy. By jingo, you gimme my pick uh Lefty'screw, Jack, an' I'll bring that cedar out. "

"Take the _Panther_ 'round, " Fyfe replied. "We'll see. "

Thorsen turned back down the slope. In a minute the thrum of the boat'sexhaust arose as she got under way. 

"Come on in. You'll get cold standing here, " Fyfe said to Stella. 

She followed him back into the living room. He sat on the arm of a bigleather chair, rolling the dead cigar thoughtfully between his lips, little creases gathering between his eyes. 

"I'm going up the lake, " he said at last, getting up abruptly. 

"What's the matter, Jack?" she asked. "Why, has trouble started upthere?"

"Part of the logging game, " he answered indifferently. "Don't amount tomuch. "

"But Thorsen has been fighting. His face was terrible. And I've heardyou say he was one of the most peaceable men alive. Is it--is Monohan--"

"We won't discuss Monohan, " Fyfe said curtly. "Anyway, there's no dangerof _him_ getting hurt. "

He went into his den and came out with hat and coat on. At the door hepaused a moment. 

"Don't worry, " he said kindly. "Nothing's going to happen. "

But she stood looking out the window after he left, uneasy with aprescience of trouble. She watched with a feverish interest the stirthat presently arose about the bunkhouses. That summer a wide space hadbeen cleared between bungalow and camp. She could see moving lanterns, and even now and then hear the voices of men calling to each other. Oncethe _Panther's_ dazzling eye of a searchlight swung across the landing, and its beam picked out a file of men carrying their blankets toward theboat. Shortly after that the tender rounded the point. Close behind herwent the _Waterbug_, and both boats swarmed with men. 

Stella looked and listened until there was but a faint thrum far up thelake. Then she went to bed, but not to sleep. What ugly passions wereloosed at the lake head she did not know. But on the face of it shecould not avoid wondering if Monohan had deliberately set out to crossand harass Jack Fyfe. Because of her? That was the question which hadhovered on her lips that evening, one she had not brought herself toask. Because of her, or because of some enmity that far preceded her?She had thought him big enough to do as she had done, as Fyfe wastacitly doing, --make the best of a grievous matter. 

But if he had allowed his passions to dictate reprisals, she trembledfor the outcome. Fyfe was not a man to sit quiet under either affront orinjury. He would fight with double rancor if Monohan were his adversary. 

"If anything happens up there, I'll hate myself, " she whispered, whenthe ceaseless turning of her mind had become almost unendurable. "I wasa silly, weak fool to ever let Walter Monohan know I cared. And I'llhate him too if he makes me a bone of contention. I elected to play thegame the only decent way there is to play it. So did he. Why can't heabide by that?"

Noon of the next day saw the _Waterbug_ heave to a quarter mile abeam ofCougar Point to let off a lone figure in her dinghy, and then bore on, driving straight and fast for Roaring Springs. Stella flew to thelanding. Mother Howe came puffing at her heels. 

"Land's sake, I been worried to death, " the older woman breathed. "Whenmen git to quarrellin' about timber, you never can tell where they'llstop, Mrs. Jack. I've knowed some wild times in the woods in the past. "

The man in the dink was Lefty Howe. He pulled in beside the float. Whenhe stepped up on the planks, he limped perceptibly. 

"Land alive, what happened yuh, Lefty?" his wife cried. 

"Got a rap on the leg with a peevy, " he said. "Nothin' much. "

"Why did the _Waterbug_ go down the lake?" Stella asked breathlessly. The man's face was serious. "What happened up there?"

"There was a fuss, " he answered quietly. "Three or four of the boys gotbeat up so they need patchin'. Jack's takin' 'em down to the hospital. Damn that yeller-headed Monohan!" his voice lifted suddenly inuncontrollable anger. "Billy Dale was killed this mornin', mother. "

Stella felt herself grow sick. Death is a small matter when it strikesafar, among strangers. When it comes to one's door! Billy Dale hadpiloted the _Waterbug_ for a year, a chubby, round-faced boy of twenty, a foster-son, of Mother Howe's before she had children of her own. Stella had asked Jack to put him on the _Waterbug_ because he was such aloyal, cheery sort of soul, and Billy had been a part of everyexpedition they had taken around the lake. She could not think of him asa rigid, lifeless lump of clay. Why, only the day before he had beenlaughing and chattering aboard the cruiser, going up and down the cabinfloor on his hands and knees, Jack Junior perched triumphantly astridehis back. 

"What happened?" she cried wildly. "Tell me, quick. "

"It's quick told, " Howe said grimly. "We were ready at daylight. Monohan's got a hard crew, and they jumped us as soon as we started toclear the channel. So we cleared them, first. It didn't take so long. Three of our men was used bad, and there's plenty of sore heads on bothsides. But we did the job. After we got them on the run, we blowed uptheir swifters an' piles with giant. Then we begun to put the cedarthrough. Billy was on the bank when somebody shot him from across theriver. One mercy, he never knew what hit him. An' you'll never come soclose bein' a widow again, Mrs. Fyfe, an' not be. That bullet was meantfor Jack, I figure. He was sittin' down. Billy was standin' right behindhim watchin' the logs go through. Whoever he was, he shot high, that'sall. There, mother, don't cry. That don't help none. What's done'sdone. "

Stella turned and walked up to the house, stunned. She could not creditbloodshed, death. Always in her life both had been things remote. And asthe real significance of Lefty Howe's story grew on her, she shuddered. It lay at her door, equally with her and Monohan, even if neither oftheir hands had sped the bullet, --an indirect responsibility butgruesomely real to her. 

God only knows to what length she might have gone in reaction. She wasquivering under that self-inflicted lash, bordering upon hysteria whenshe reached the house. She could not shut out a too-vivid picture ofBilly Dale lying murdered on the Tyee's bank, of the accusing look withwhich Fyfe must meet her. Rightly so, she held. She did not try toshirk. She had followed the line of least resistance, lacked the dourcourage to pull herself up in the beginning, and it led to this. Shefelt Billy Dale's blood wet on her soft hands. She walked into her ownhouse panting like a hunted animal. 

And she had barely crossed the threshold when back in the rear JackJunior's baby voice rose in a shrill scream of pain. 

 * * * * *

Stella scarcely heard her husband and the doctor come in. For a wearyage she had been sitting in a low rocker, a pillow across her lap, andon that the little, tortured body swaddled with cotton soaked in oliveoil, the only dressing she and Mrs. Howe could devise to ease the pain. All those other things which had so racked her, the fight on the Tyee, the shooting of Billy Dale, they had vanished somehow into thin airbefore the dread fact that her baby was dying slowly before heranguished eyes. She sat numbed with that deadly assurance, prayingwithout hope for help to come, hopeless that any medical skill wouldavail when it did come. So many hours had been wasted while a man rowedto Benton's camp, while the _Chickamin_ steamed to Roaring Springs, while the _Waterbug_ came driving back. Five hours! And the skin, yes, even shreds of flesh, had come away in patches with Jack Junior'sclothing when she took it off. She bent over him, fearful that everyfeeble breath would be his last. 

She looked up at the doctor. Fyfe was beside her, his calked bootsbiting into the oak floor. 

"See what you can do, doc, " he said huskily. Then to Stella: "How did ithappen?"

"He toddled away from Martha, " she whispered. "Sam Foo had set a pan ofboiling water on the kitchen floor. He fell into it. Oh, my poor littledarling. "

They watched the doctor bare the terribly scalded body, examine it, listen to the boy's breathing, count his pulse. In the end he re-dressedthe tiny body with stuff from the case with which a country physiciangoes armed against all emergencies. He was very deliberate andthoughtful. Stella looked her appeal when he finished. 

"He's a sturdy little chap, " he said, "and we'll do our best. A childfrequently survives terrific shock. It would be mistaken kindness for meto make light of his condition simply to spare your feelings. He has aneven chance. I shall stay until morning. Now, I think it would be bestto lay him on a bed. You must relax, Mrs. Fyfe. I can see that thestrain is telling on you. You mustn't allow yourself to get in thatabnormal condition. The baby is not conscious of pain. He is notsuffering half so much in his body as you are in your mind, and youmustn't do that. Be hopeful. We'll need your help. We should have anurse, but there was no time to get one. "

They laid Jack Junior amid downy pillows on Stella's bed. The doctorstood looking at him, then drew a chair beside the bed. 

"Go and walk about a little, Mrs. Fyfe, " he advised, "and have yourdinner. I'll want to watch the boy a while. "

But Stella did not want to walk. She did not want to eat. She wasscarcely aware that her limbs were cramped and aching from her longvigil in the chair. She was not conscious of herself and her problems, any more. Every shift of her mind turned on her baby, the little miteshe had nursed at her breast, the one joy untinctured with bitternessthat was left her. The bare chance that those little feet might neverpatter across the floor again, that little voice never wake her in themorning crying "Mom-mom, " drove her distracted. 

She went out into the living room, walked to a window, stood theredrumming on the pane with nervous fingers. Dusk was falling outside; adusk was creeping over her. She shuddered. 

Fyfe came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and turned herso that she faced him. 

"I wish I could help, Stella, " he whispered. "I wish I could make youfeel less forlorn. Poor little kiddies--both of you. "

She shook off his hands, not because she rebelled against his touch, against his sympathy, merely because she had come to that nervous statewhere she scarce realized what she did. 

"Oh, " she choked, "I can't bear it. My baby, my little baby boy. The onebright spot that's left, and he has to suffer like that. If he dies, it's the end of everything for me. "

Fyfe stared at her. The warm, pitying look on his face ebbed away, hardened into his old, mask-like absence of expression. 

"No, " he said quietly, "it would only be the beginning. Lord God, butthis has been a day. "

He whirled about with a quick gesture of his hands, a harsh, raspy laughthat was very near a sob, and left her. Twenty minutes later, whenStella was irresistibly drawn back to the bedroom, she found him sittingsober and silent, looking at his son. 

A little past midnight Jack Junior died. 

CHAPTER XIX

FREE AS THE WIND

Stella sat watching the gray lines of rain beat down on the asphalt, themuddy rivulets that streamed along the gutter. A forlorn sighing of windin the bare boughs of a gaunt elm that stood before her window remindedher achingly of the wind drone among the tall firs. 

A ghastly two weeks had intervened since Jack Junior's little lifeblinked out. There had been wild moments when she wished she could keephim company on that journey into the unknown. But grief seldom kills. Sometimes it hardens. Always it works a change, a greater or lessrevamping of the spirit. It was so with Stella Fyfe, although she wasnot keenly aware of any forthright metamorphosis. She was, for thepresent, too actively involved in material changes. 

The storm and stress of that period between her yielding to the lure ofMonohan's personality and the burial of her boy had sapped her of allemotional reaction. When they had performed the last melancholy servicefor him and went back to the bungalow at Cougar Point, she was asphysically exhausted, as near the limit of numbed endurance in mind andbody as it is possible for a young and healthy woman to become. Andwhen a measure of her natural vitality re-asserted itself, she laid hercourse. She could no more abide the place where she was than a pardonedconvict can abide the prison that has restrained him. It was empty nowof everything that made life tolerable, the hushed rooms a constantreminder of her loss. She would catch herself listening for that babyvoice, for those pattering footsteps, and realize with a sickening pangthat she would never hear them again. 

The snapping of that last link served to deepen and widen the gulfbetween her and Fyfe. He went about his business grave and preoccupied. They seldom talked together. She knew that his boy had meant a lot tohim; but he had his work. He did not have to sit with folded hands andthink until thought drove him into the bogs of melancholy. 

And so the break came. With desperate abruptness Stella told him thatshe could not stay, that feeling as she did, she despised herself forunwilling acceptance of everything where she could give nothing inreturn, that the original mistake of their marriage would never berectified by a perpetuation of that mistake. 

"What's the use, Jack?" she finished. "You and I are so made that wecan't be neutral. We've got to be thoroughly in accord, or we have topart. There's no chance for us to get back to the old way of living. Idon't want to; I can't. I could never be complaisant and agreeableagain. We might as well come to a full stop, and each go his own way. "

She had braced herself for a clash of wills. There was none. Fyfelistened to her, looked at her long and earnestly, and in the end made aquick, impatient gesture with his hands. 

"Your life's your own to make what you please of, now that the kid's nolonger a factor, " he said quietly. "What do you want to do? Have youmade any plans?"

"I have to live, naturally, " she replied. "Since I've got my voice back, I feel sure I can turn that to account. I should like to go to Seattlefirst and look around. It can be supposed I have gone visiting, untilone or the other of us takes a decisive legal step. "

"That's simple enough, " he returned, after a minute's reflection. "Well, if it has to be, for God's sake let's get it over with. "

And now it was over with. Fyfe remarked once that with them luckily itwas not a question of money. But for Stella it was indeed an economicproblem. When she left Roaring Lake, her private account contained overtwo thousand dollars. Her last act in Vancouver was to re-deposit thatto her husband's credit. Only so did she feel that she could go free ofall obligation, clean-handed, without stultifying herself in her owneyes. She had treasured as a keepsake the only money she had ever earnedin her life, her brother's check for two hundred and seventy dollars, the wages of that sordid period in the cookhouse. She had it now. Twohundred and seventy dollars capital. She hadn't sold herself for that. She had given honest value, double and treble, in the sweat of her brow. She was here now, in a five-dollar-a-week housekeeping room, foot-loose, free as the wind. That was Fyfe's last word to her. He had come withher to Seattle and waited patiently at a hotel until she found a placeto live. Then he had gone away without protest. 

"Well, Stella, " he had said, "I guess this is the end of our experiment. In six months, --under the State law, --you can be legally free by atechnicality. So far as I'm concerned, you're free as the wind rightnow. Good luck to you. "

He turned away with a smile on his lips, a smile that his eyes belied, and she watched him walk to the corner through the same sort of drivingrain that now pelted in gray lines against her window. 

She shook herself impatiently out of that retrospect. It was done. Life, as her brother had prophesied, was no kid-glove affair. The future washer chief concern now, not the past. Yet that immediate past, bits ofit, would now and then blaze vividly before her mental vision. The onlydefense against that lay in action, in something to occupy her mind andhands. If that motive, the desire to shun mental reflexes that broughtpain, were not sufficient, there was the equally potent necessity toearn her bread. Never again would she be any man's dependent, a pampereddoll, a parasite trading on her sex. They were hard names she calledherself. 

Meantime she had not been idle; neither had she come to Seattle on ablind impulse. She knew of a singing teacher there whose reputation wasmore than local, a vocal authority whose word carried weight far beyondPuget Sound. First she meant to see him, get an impartial estimate ofthe value of her voice, of the training she would need. Through him shehoped to get in touch with some outlet for the only talent shepossessed. And she had received more encouragement than she dared hope. He listened to her sing, then tested the range and flexibility of hervoice. 

"Amazing, " he said frankly. "You have a rare natural endowment. If youhave the determination and the sense of dramatic values that musicaldiscipline will give you, you should go far. You should find your placein opera. "

"That's my ambition, " Stella answered. "But that requires time andtraining. And that means money. I have to earn it. "

The upshot of that conversation was an appointment to meet the managerof a photoplay house, who wanted a singer. Stella looked at her watchnow, and rose to go. Money, always money, if one wanted to get anywhere, she reflected cynically. No wonder men struggled desperately for thattoken of power. 

She reached the Charteris Theater, and a doorman gave her access to thedim interior. There was a light in the operator's cage high at the rear, another shaded glow at the piano, where a young man with hair brushedsleekly back chewed gum incessantly while he practiced pictureaccompaniments. The place looked desolate, with its empty seats, itsbald stage front with the empty picture screen. Stella sat down to waitfor the manager. He came in a few minutes; his manner was very curt, business-like. He wanted her to sing a popular song, a bit from a Verdiopera, Gounod's Ave Maria, so that he could get a line on what shecould do. He appeared to be a pessimist in regard to singers. 

"Take the stage right there, " he instructed. "Just as if the spot was onyou. Now then. "

It wasn't a heartening process to stand there facing the gum-chewingpianist, and the manager's cigar glowing redly five rows back, and thesilent emptinesses beyond, --much like singing into the mouth of a gloomycave. It was more or less a critical moment for Stella. But she waskeenly aware that she had to make good in a small way before she couldgrasp the greater opportunity, so she did her best, and her best was nomediocre performance. She had never sung in a place designed to showoff--or to show up--a singer's quality. She was even a bit astonishedherself. 

She elected to sing the Ave Maria first. Her voice went pealing to thedomed ceiling as sweet as a silver bell, resonant as a trumpet. When thelast note died away, there was a momentary silence. Then the accompanistlooked up at her, frankly admiring. 

"You're _some_ warbler, " he said emphatically, "believe _me_. "

Behind him the manager's cigar lost its glow. He remained silent. Thepianist struck up "Let's Murder Care, " a rollicking trifle from aBroadway hit. Last of all he thumped, more or less successfully, throughthe accompaniment to an aria that had in it vocal gymnastics as well asmelody. 

"Come up to the office, Mrs. Fyfe, " Howard said, with a singular changefrom his first manner. 

"I can give you an indefinite engagement at thirty a week, " he made ablunt offer. "You can sing. You're worth more, but right now I can't paymore. If you pull business, --and I rather think you will, --have to singtwice in the afternoon and twice in the evening. "

Stella considered briefly. Thirty dollars a week meant a great deal morethan mere living, as she meant to live. And it was a start, a move inthe right direction. She accepted; they discussed certain details. Shedid not care to court publicity under her legal name, so they agreedthat she should be billed as Madame Benton, --the Madame being Howard'ssuggestion, --and she took her leave. 

Upon the Monday following Stella stood for the first time in a fiercewhite glare that dazzled her and so shut off partially her vision of therows and rows of faces. She went on with a horrible slackness in herknees, a dry feeling in her throat; and she was not sure whether shewould sing or fly. When she had finished her first song and bowedherself into the wings, she felt her heart leap and hammer at thehand-clapping that grew and grew till it was like the beat of oceansurf. 

Howard came running to meet her. 

"You've sure got 'em going, " he laughed. "Fine work. Go out and give 'emsome more. "

In time she grew accustomed to these things, to the applause she neverfailed to get, to the white beam that beat down from the picture cage, to the eager, upturned faces in the first rows. Her confidence grew;ambition began to glow like a flame within her. She had gone throughthe primary stages of voice culture, and she was following now a methodof practice which produced results. She could see and feel that herself. Sometimes the fear that her voice might go as it had once gone wouldmake her tremble. But that, her teacher assured her, was a remotechance. 

So she gained in those weeks something of her old poise. Inevitably, shewas very lonely at times. But she fought against that with the mosteffective weapon she knew, --incessant activity. She was always busy. There was a rented piano now sitting in the opposite corner from the gasstove on which she cooked her meals. Howard kept his word. She "pulledbusiness, " and he raised her to forty a week and offered her a contractwhich she refused, because other avenues, bigger and better than singingin a motion-picture house, were tentatively opening. 

December was waning when she came to Seattle. In the following weeks heronly contact with the past, beyond the mill of her own thoughts, was anitem in the _Seattle Times_ touching upon certain litigation in whichFyfe was involved. Briefly, Monohan, under the firm name of theAbbey-Monohan Timber Company, was suing Fyfe for heavy damages for theloss of certain booms of logs blown up and set adrift at the mouth ofthe Tyee River. There was appended an account of the clash over theclosed channel and the killing of Billy Dale. No one had been brought tobook for that yet. Any one of sixty men might have fired the shot. 

It made Stella wince, for it took her back to that dreadful day. Shecould not bear to think that Billy Dale's blood lay on her and Monohan, neither could she stifle an uneasy apprehension that something moregrievous yet might happen on Roaring Lake. But at least she had donewhat she could. If she were the flame, she had removed herself from thepowder magazine. Fyfe had pulled his cedar crew off the Tyee before sheleft. If aggression came, it must come from one direction. 

They were both abstractions now, she tried to assure herself. Theglamour of Monohan was fading, and she could not say why. She did notknow if his presence would stir again all that old tumult of feeling, but she did know that she was cleaving to a measure of peace, ofserenity of mind, and she did not want him or any other man to disturbit. She told herself that she had never loved Jack Fyfe. She recognizedin him a lot that a woman is held to admire, but there were alsoqualities in him that had often baffled and sometimes frightened her. She wondered sometimes what he really thought of her and her actions, why, when she had been nerved to a desperate struggle for her freedom, if she could gain it no other way, he had let her go so easily?

After all, she reflected cynically, love comes and goes, but one isdriven to pursue material advantages while life lasts. And she wondered, even while the thought took form in her mind, how long she would retainthat point of view. 

CHAPTER XX

ECHOES

In the early days of February Stella had an unexpected visitor. Thelandlady called her to the common telephone, and when she took up thereceiver, Linda Abbey's voice came over the wire. 

"When can I see you?" she asked. "I'll only be here to-day andto-morrow. "

"Now, if you like, " Stella responded. "I'm free until two-thirty. "

"I'll be right over, " Linda said. "I'm only about ten minutes drive fromwhere you are. "

Stella went back to her room both glad and sorry: glad to hear afamiliar, friendly voice amid this loneliness which sometimes seemedalmost unendurable; sorry because her situation involved some measure ofexplanation to Linda. That hurt. 

But she was not prepared for the complete understanding of the matterLinda Abbey tacitly exhibited before they had exchanged a dozensentences. 

"How did you know?" Stella asked. "Who told you?"

"No one. I drew my own conclusions when I heard you had gone toSeattle, " Linda replied. "I saw it coming. My dear, I'm not blind, andI was with you a lot last summer. I knew you too well to believe you'dmake a move while you had your baby to think of. When he was gone--well, I looked for anything to happen. "

"Still, nothing much has happened, " Stella remarked with a touch ofbitterness, "except the inevitable break between a man and a woman whenthere's no longer any common bond between them. It's better so. Jack hasa multiplicity of interests. He can devote himself to them without theconstant irritation of an unresponsive wife. We've each taken our ownroad. That's all that has happened. "

"So far, " Linda murmured. "It's a pity. I liked that big, silent man ofyours. I like you both. It seems a shame things have to turn out thisway just because--oh, well. Charlie and I used to plan things for thefour of us, little family combinations when we settled down on the lake. Honestly, Stella, do you think it's worth while? I never could see youas a sentimental little chump, letting a momentary aberration throw yourwhole life out of gear. "

"How do you know that I have?" Stella asked gravely. 

Linda shrugged her shoulders expressively. 

"I suppose it looks silly, if not worse, to you, " Stella said. "But Ican't help what you think. My reason has dictated every step I've takensince last fall. If I'd really given myself up to sentimentalism, theLord only knows what might have happened. "

"Exactly, " Linda responded drily. "Now, there's no use beating aroundthe bush. We get so in that habit as a matter of politeness, --our sortof people, --that we seldom say in plain English just what we reallymean. Surely, you and I know each other well enough to be frank, even ifit's painful. Very likely you'll say I'm a self-centered little beast, but I'm going to marry your brother, my dear, and I'm going to marry himin the face of considerable family opposition. I _am_ selfish. Can youshow me any one who isn't largely swayed by motives of self-interest, ifit comes to that? I want to be happy. I want to be on good terms with myown people, so that Charlie will have some of the opportunities dad canso easily put in his way. Charlie isn't rich. He hasn't done anything, according to the Abbey standard, but make a fair start. Dad'spatronizing as sin, and mother merely tolerates the idea because sheknows that I'll marry Charlie in any case, opposition or no opposition. I came over expressly to warn you, Stella. Anything like scandal nowwould be--well, it would upset so many things. "

"You needn't be uneasy, " Stella answered coldly. "There isn't anyfoundation for scandal. There won't be. "

"I don't know, " Linda returned, "Walter Monohan came to Seattle a boatahead of me. In fact, that's largely why I came. "

Stella flushed angrily. 

"Well, what of that?" she demanded. "His movements are nothing to me. "

"I don't know, " Linda rejoined. She had taken off her gloves and wasrolling them nervously in a ball. Now she dropped them and impulsivelygrasped Stella's hands. 

"Stella, Stella, " she cried. "Don't get that hurt, angry look. I don'tlike to say these things to you, but I feel that I have to. I'm worried, and I'm afraid for you and your husband, for Charlie and myself, for allof us together. Walter Monohan is as dangerous as any man who'sunscrupulous and rich and absolutely self-centered can possibly be. Iknow the glamour of the man. I used to feel it myself. It didn't go veryfar with me, because his attention wandered away from me before myfeelings were much involved, and I had a chance to really fathom themand him. He has a queer gift of making women care for him, and he tradeson it deliberately. He doesn't play fair; he doesn't mean to. Oh, I knowso many cruel things, despicable things, he's done. Don't look at melike that, Stella. I'm not saying this just to wound you. I'm simplyputting you on your guard. You can't play with fire and not get burned. If you've been nursing any feeling for Walter Monohan, crush it, cut itout, just as you'd have a surgeon cut out a cancer. Entirely apart fromany question of Jack Fyfe, don't let this man play any part whatever inyour life. You'll be sorry if you do. There's not a man or woman whoserelations with Monohan have been intimate enough to enable them toreally know the man and his motives who doesn't either hate or fear ordespise him, and sometimes all three. "

"That's a sweeping indictment, " Stella said stiffly. "And you're veryearnest. Yet I can hardly take your word at its face value. If he's soimpossible a person, how does it come that you and your peoplecountenanced him socially? Besides, it's all rather unnecessary, Linda. I'm not the least bit likely to do anything that will reflect on yourprospective husband, which is what it simmers down to, isn't it? I'vebeen pulled and hauled this way and that ever since I've been on thecoast, simply because I was dependent on some one else--first Charlieand then Jack--for the bare necessities of life. When there's mutualaffection, companionship, all those intimate interests that marriage issupposed to imply, I daresay a woman gives full measure for all shereceives. If she doesn't, she's simply a sponge, clinging to a man forwhat's in it. I couldn't bear that. You've been rather painfully frank;so will I be. One unhappy marriage is quite enough for me. Looking back, I can see that even if Walter Monohan hadn't stirred a feeling in mewhich I don't deny, --but which I'm not nearly so sure of as I was sometime ago, --I'd have come to just this stage, anyway. I was drifting allthe time. My baby and the conventions, that reluctance most women haveto make a clean sweep of all the ties they've been schooled to thinkunbreakable, kept me moving along the old grooves. It would have comeabout a little more gradually, that's all. But I have broken away, andI'm going to live my own life after a fashion, and I'm going to achieveindependence of some sort. I'm never going to be any man's mate againuntil I'm sure of myself--and of him. There's my philosophy of life, assimply as I can put it. I don't think you need to worry about me. Rightnow I couldn't muster up the least shred of passion of any sort. I seemto have felt so much since last summer, that I'm like a sponge that'sbeen squeezed dry. "

"I don't blame you, dear, " Linda said wistfully. "A woman's heart is aqueer thing, though. When you compare the two men--Oh, well, I knowWalter so thoroughly, and you don't. You couldn't ever have cared muchfor Jack. "

"That hasn't any bearing on it now, " Stella answered. "I'm still hiswife, and I respect him, and I've got a stubborn sort of pride. Therewon't be any divorce proceedings or any scandal. I'm free personally towork out my own economic destiny. That, right now, is engrossing enoughfor me. "

Linda sat a minute, thoughtful. 

"So you think my word for Walter Monohan's deviltry isn't worth much, "she said. "Well, I could furnish plenty of details. But I don't think Ishall. Not because you'd be angry, but because I don't think you'requite as blind as I believed. And I'm not a natural gossip. Aside fromthat, he's quite too busy on Roaring Lake for it to mean any good. Henever gets active like that unless he has some personal axe to grind. Inthis case, I can grasp his motive easily enough. Jack Fyfe may not havesaid a word to you, but he certainly knows Monohan. They've clashedbefore, so I've been told. Jack probably saw what was growing on you, and I don't think he'd hesitate to tell Monohan to walk away around. Ifhe did, --or if you definitely turned Monohan down; you see I'm rather inthe dark, --he'd go to any length to play even with. Fyfe. When Monohanwants anything, he looks upon it as his own; and when you wound hisvanity, you've stabbed him in his most vital part. He never rests thenuntil he's paid the score. Father was always a little afraid of him. Ithink that's the chief reason for selling out his Roaring Lake intereststo Monohan. He didn't want to be involved in whatever Monohancontemplated doing. He has a wholesome respect for your husband's rathervolcanic ability. Monohan has, too. But he has always hated Jack Fyfe. To my knowledge for three years, --prior to pulling you out of the waterthat time, --he never spoke of Jack Fyfe without a sneer. He hates anyone who beats him at anything. That ruction on the Tyee is a sample. He'll spend money, risk lives, all but his own, do anything to satisfy agrudge. That's one of the things that worries me. Charlie will be intoanything that Fyfe is, for Fyfe's his friend. I admire the spirit of thething, but I don't want our little applecart upset in the sort ofstruggle Fyfe and Monohan may stage. I don't even know what form it willultimately take, except that from certain indications he'll try to makeFyfe spend money faster than he can make it, perhaps in litigation overtimber, over anything that offers, by making trouble in his camps, harassing him at every turn. He can, you know. He has immense resources. Oh, well, I'm satisfied, Stella, that you're a much wiser girl than Ithought when I knew you'd left Jack Fyfe. I'm quite sure now you aren'tthe sort of woman Monohan could wind around his little finger. But I'msure he'll try. You'll see, and remember what I tell you. There, I thinkI'd better run along. You're not angry, are you, Stella?"

"You mean well enough, I suppose, " Stella answered. "But as a matter offact, you've made me feel rather nasty, Linda. I don't want to talk oreven think of these things. The best thing you and Charlie and Jack Fyfecould do is to forget such a discontented pendulum as I ever existed. "

"Oh, bosh!" Linda exclaimed, as she drew on her gloves. "That's sheernonsense. You're going to be my big sister in three months. Things willwork out. If you felt you had to take this step for your own good, noone can blame you. It needn't make any difference in our friendship. "

On the threshold she turned on her heel. "Don't forget what I've said, "she repeated. "Don't trust Monohan. Not an inch. "

Stella flung herself angrily into a chair when the door closed on LindaAbbey. Her eyes snapped. She resented being warned and cautioned, as ifshe were some moral weakling who could not be trusted to make the mostobvious distinctions. Particularly did she resent having Monohan flungin her teeth, when she was in a way to forget him, to thrust the strangecharm of the man forever out of her thoughts. Why, she asked bitterly, couldn't other people do as Jack Fyfe had done: cut the Gordian knot atone stroke and let it rest at that?

So Monohan was in Seattle? Would he try to see her?

Stella had not minced matters with herself when she left Roaring Lake. Dazed and shaken by suffering, nevertheless she knew that she would notalways suffer, that in time she would get back to that normal state inwhich the human ego diligently pursues happiness. In time the legal tiebetween herself and Jack Fyfe would cease to exist. If Monohan cared forher as she thought he cared, a year or two more or less mattered little. They had all their lives before them. In the long run, the errors andmistakes of that upheaval would grow dim, be as nothing. Jack Fyfe wouldshrug his shoulders and forget, and in due time he would find a fittermate, one as loyal as he deserved. And why might not she, who had neverloved him, whose marriage to him had been only a climbing out of thefire into the frying-pan?

So that with all her determination to make the most of her gift of song, so that she would never again be buffeted by material urgencies in amaterial world, Stella had nevertheless been listening with the ear ofher mind, so to speak, for a word from Monohan to say that heunderstood, and that all was well. 

Paradoxically, she had not expected to hear that word. Once in Seattle, away from it all, there slowly grew upon her the conviction that inMonohan's fine avowal and renunciation he had only followed the cue shehad given. In all else he had played his own hand. She couldn't forgetBilly Dale. If the motive behind that bloody culmination were thwartedlove, it was a thing to shrink from. It seemed to her now, forcingherself to reason with cold-blooded logic, that Monohan desired her lessthan he hated Fyfe's possession of her; that she was merely an addedfactor in the breaking out of a struggle for mastery between twodiverse and dominant men. Every sign and token went to show that the potof hate had long been simmering. She had only contributed to its boilingover. 

"Oh, well, " she sighed, "it's out of my hands altogether now. I'm sorry, but being sorry doesn't make any difference. I'm the least factor, itseems, in the whole muddle. A woman isn't much more than an incident ina man's life, after all. "

She dressed to go to the Charteris, for her day's work was about tobegin. As so often happens in life's uneasy flow, periods of calm aresucceeded by events in close sequence. Howard and his wife insisted thatStella join them at supper after the show. They were decent folk whoaccorded frank admiration to her voice and her personality. They hadbeen kind to her in many little ways, and she was glad to accept. 

At eleven a taxi deposited them at the door of Wain's. The Seattle ofyesterday needs no introduction to Wain's, and its counterpart can befound in any cosmopolitan, seaport city. It is a place of subtledistinction, tucked away on one of the lower hill streets, whereafter-theater parties and nighthawks with an eye for pretty women, anear for sensuous music, and a taste for good food, go when they havemoney to spend. 

Ensconced behind a potted palm, with a waiter taking Howard's order, Stella let her gaze travel over the diners. She brought up with arepressed start at a table but four removes from her own, her eyesresting upon the unmistakable profile of Walter Monohan. He was diningvis-à-vis with a young woman chiefly remarkable for a profusion ofyellow hair and a blazing diamond in the lobe of each ear, --a plump, blond, vivacious person of a type that Stella, even with her limitedexperience, found herself instantly classifying. 

A bottle of wine rested in an iced dish between them. Monohan was toyingwith the stem of a half-emptied glass, smiling at his companion. Thegirl leaned toward him, speaking rapidly, pouting. Monohan nodded, drained his glass, signaled a waiter. When she got into an elaborateopera cloak and Monohan into his Inverness, they went out, the plump, jeweled hand resting familiarly on Monohan's arm. Stella breathed a sighof relief as they passed, looking straight ahead. She watched throughthe upper half of the café window and saw a machine draw against thecurb, saw the be-scarfed yellow head enter and Monohan's silk hatfollow. Then she relaxed, but she had little appetite for her food. Ahot wave of shamed disgust kept coming over her. She felt sick, physically revolted. Very likely Monohan had put her in _that_ class, inhis secret thought. She was glad when the evening ended, and the Howardsleft her at her own doorstep. 

On the carpet where it had been thrust by the postman under the door, awhite square caught her eye, and she picked it up before she switched onthe light. And she got a queer little shock when the light fell on theenvelope, for it was addressed in Jack Fyfe's angular handwriting. 

She tore it open. It was little enough in the way of a letter, a coupleof lines scrawled across a sheet of note-paper. 

 "_Dear Girl:_

 "I was in Seattle a few days ago and heard you sing. Here's hoping good luck rides with you. 

 "JACK. "

Stella sat down by the window. Outside, the ever-present Puget Soundrain drove against wall and roof and sidewalk, gathered in wet, glistening pools in the street. Through that same window she had watchedJack Fyfe walk out of her life three months ago without a backward look, sturdily, silently, uncomplaining. He hadn't whined, he wasn't whiningnow, --only flinging a cheerful word out of the blank spaces of his ownlife into the blank spaces of hers. Stella felt something warm and wetsteal down her cheeks. 

She crumpled the letter with a sudden, spasmodic clenching of her hand. A lump rose chokingly in her throat. She stabbed at the light switch andthrew herself on the bed, sobbing her heart's cry in the dusky quiet. And she could not have told why, except that she had been overcome by amiserably forlorn feeling; all the mental props she relied upon wereknocked out from under her. Somehow those few scrawled words had flungswiftly before her, like a picture on a screen, a vision of her babytoddling uncertainly across the porch of the white bungalow. And shecould not bear to think of that!

 * * * * *

When the elm before her window broke into leaf, and the sodden winterskies were transformed into a warm spring vista of blue, Stella wassinging a special engagement in a local vaudeville house that boasted a"big time" bill. She had stepped up. The silvery richness of her voicehad carried her name already beyond local boundaries, as the singingmaster under whom she studied prophesied it would. In proof thereof shereceived during April a feminine committee of two from Vancouver bearingan offer of three hundred dollars for her appearance in a series ofthree concerts under the auspices of the Woman's Musical Club, to begiven in the ballroom of Vancouver's new million-dollar hostelry, theGranada. The date was mid-July. She took the offer under advisement, promising a decision in ten days. 

The money tempted her; that was her greatest need now, --not for herdaily bread, but for an accumulated fund that would enable her to reachNew York and ultimately Europe, if that seemed the most direct route toher goal. She had no doubts about reaching it now. Confidence came toabide with her. She throve on work; and with increasing salary, her fundgrew. Coming from any other source, she would have accepted this furtheraugmentation of it without hesitation, since for a comparative beginner, it was a liberal offer. 

But Vancouver was Fyfe's home town; it had been hers. Many people knewher; the local papers would feature her. She did not know how Fyfe wouldtake it; she did not even know if there had been any open talk of theirseparation. Money, she felt, was a small thing beside opening old sores. For herself, she was tolerably indifferent to Vancouver's socialestimate of her or her acts. Nevertheless, so long as she bore Fyfe'sname, she did not feel free to make herself a public figure therewithout his sanction. So she wrote to him in some detail concerning theoffer and asked point-blank if it mattered to him. 

His answer came with uncanny promptness, as if every mail connection hadbeen made on the minute. 

 "If it is to your advantage to sing here, " he wrote, "by all means accept. Why should it matter to me? I would even be glad to come and hear you sing if I could do so without stirring up vain longings and useless regrets. As for the other considerations you mention, they are of no weight at all. I never wanted to keep you in a glass case. Even if all were well between us, I wouldn't have any feeling about your singing in public other than pride in your ability to command public favor with your voice. It's a wonderful voice, too big and fine a thing to remain obscure. 

 "JACK. "

He added, evidently as an afterthought, a somewhat lengthy postscript:

 "I wish you would do something next month, not as a favor to me particularly, but to ease things along for Charlie and Linda. They are genuinely in love with each other. I can see you turning up your little nose at that. I know you've held a rather biased opinion of your brother and his works since that unfortunate winter. But it doesn't do to be too self-righteous. Charlie, then, was very little different from any rather headlong, self-centered, red-blooded youngster. I'm afraid I'm expressing myself badly. What I mean is that while he was drifting then into a piggy muddle, he had the sense to take a brace before his lapses became vices. Partly because--I've flattered myself--I talked to him like a Dutch uncle, and partly because he's cast too much in the same clean-cut mold that you are, to let his natural passions run clean away with him. He'll always be more or less a profound egotist. But he'll be a good deal more of a man than you, perhaps, think. 

 "I never used to think much of these matters. I suppose my own failure at a thing in which I was cocksure of success had made me a bit dubious about anybody I care for starting so serious an undertaking as marriage under any sort of handicap. I do like Charlie Benton and Linda Abbey. They are marrying in the face of her people's earnest attempt to break it up. The Abbeys are hopelessly conservative. Anything in the nature of our troubles aired in public would make it pretty tough sledding for Linda. As it stands, they are consenting very ungracefully, but as a matter of family pride, intend to give Linda a big wedding. 

 "Now, no one outside of you and me and--well you and me--knows that there is a rift in our lute. I haven't been quizzed--naturally. It got about that you'd taken up voice culture with an eye to opera as a counteracting influence to the grief of losing your baby. I fostered that rumor--simply to keep gossip down until things shaped themselves positively. Once these two are married, they have started--Abbey _père_ and _mère_ will then be unable to frown on Linda's contemplated alliance with a family that's produced a divorce case. 

 "I do not suppose you will take any legal steps until after those concerts. Until then, please keep up the fiction that the house of Fyfe still stands on a solid foundation--a myth that you've taken no measures to dispel since you left. When it does come, it will be a sort of explosion, and I'd rather have it that way--one amazed yelp from our friends and the newspapers, and it's over. 

 "Meantime, you will receive an invitation to the wedding. I hope you'll accept. You needn't have any compunctions about playing the game. You will not encounter me, as I have my hands full here, and I'm notorious in Vancouver for backing out of functions, anyway. It is not imperative that you should do this. It's merely a safeguard against a bomb from the Abbey fortress. 

 "Linda is troubled by a belief that upon small pretext they would be very nasty, and she naturally doesn't want any friction with her folks. They have certain vague but highly material ambitions for her matrimonially, which she, a very sensible girl, doesn't subscribe to. She's a very shrewd and practical young person, for all her whole-hearted passion for your brother. I rather think she pretty clearly guesses the breach in our rampart--not the original mistake in our over-hasty plunge--but the wedge that divided us for good. If she does, and I'm quite sure she does, she is certainly good stuff, because she is most loyally your champion. I say that because Charlie had a tendency this spring to carp at your desertion of Roaring Lake. Things aren't going any too good with us, one way and another, and of course he, not knowing the real reason of your absence, couldn't understand why you stay away. I had to squelch him, and Linda abetted me successfully. However, that's beside the point. I hope I haven't irritated you. I'm such a dumb sort of brute generally. I don't know what imp of prolixity got into my pen. I've got it all off my chest now, or pretty near. 

 "J. H. F. "

Stella sat thoughtfully gazing at the letter for a long time. 

"I wonder?" she said aloud, and the sound of her own voice galvanizedher into action. She put on a coat and went out into the mellow springsunshine, and walked till the aimless straying of her feet carried herto a little park that overlooked the far reach of the Sound and gavewestward on the snowy Olympics, thrusting hoary and aloof to a perfectsky, like their brother peaks that ringed Roaring Lake. And all the timeher mind kept turning on a question whose asking was rooted neither infact nor necessity, an inquiry born of a sentiment she had neverexpected to feel. 

Should she go back to Jack Fyfe?

She shook her head impatiently when she faced that squarely. Why treadthe same bitter road again? But she put that self-interested phase of itaside and asked herself candidly if she _could_ go back and take up theold threads where they had been broken off and make life run smoothlyalong the old, quiet channels? She was as sure as she was sure of thebreath she drew that Fyfe wanted her, that he longed for and wouldwelcome her. But she was equally sure that the old illusions would neverserve. She couldn't even make him happy, much less herself. Monohan--well, Monohan was a dead issue. He had come to the Charteris tosee her, all smiles and eagerness. She had been able to look at him andthrough him--and cut him dead--and do it without a single flutter of herheart. 

That brief and illuminating episode in Wain's had merely confirmed animpression that had slowly grown upon her, and her outburst of feelingthat night had only been the overflowing of shamed anger at herself forletting his magnetic personality make so deep an impression on her thatshe could admit to him that she cared. She felt that she had belittledherself by that. But he was no longer a problem. She wondered now how heever could have been. She recalled that once Jack Fyfe had soberly toldher she would never sense life's real values while she nursed so manyillusions. Monohan had been one of them. 

"But it wouldn't work, " she whispered to herself. "I couldn't do it. He'd know I only did it because I was sorry, because I thought I should, because the old ties, and they seem so many and so strong in spite ofeverything, were harder to break than the new road is to follow alone. He'd resent anything like pity for his loneliness. And if Monohan hasmade any real trouble, it began over me, or at least it focussed on me. And he might resent that. He's ten times a better man than I am a woman. He thinks about the other fellow's side of things. I'm just what he saidabout Charlie, self-centered, a profound egotist. If I really and trulyloved Jack Fyfe, I'd be a jealous little fury if he so much as looked atanother woman. But I don't, and I don't see why I don't. I want to beloved; I want to love. I've always wanted that so much that I'll neverdare trust my instincts about it again. I wonder why people like meexist to go blundering about in the world, playing havoc with themselvesand everybody else?"

Before she reached home, that self-sacrificing mood had vanished in theface of sundry twinges of pride. Jack Fyfe hadn't asked her to comeback; he never would ask her to come back. Of that she was quite sure. She knew the stony determination of him too well. Neither hope orheaven nor fear of hell would turn him aside when he had made adecision. If he ever had moments of irresolution, he had successfullyconcealed any such weakness from those who knew him best. No one everfelt called upon to pity Jack Fyfe, and in those rocked-ribbedqualities, Stella had an illuminating flash, perhaps lay the secret ofhis failure ever to stir in her that yearning tenderness which she knewherself to be capable of lavishing, which her nature impelled her tolavish on some one. 

"Ah, well, " she sighed, when she came back to her rooms and put Fyfe'sletter away in a drawer. "I'll do the decent thing if they ask me. Iwonder what Jack would say if he knew what I've been debating withmyself this afternoon? I wonder if we were actually divorced and I'dmade myself a reputation as a singer, and we happened to meet quitecasually sometime, somewhere, just how we'd really feel about eachother?"

She was still musing on that, in a detached, impersonal fashion, whenshe caught a car down to the theater for the matinée. 

CHAPTER XXI

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

The formally worded wedding card arrived in due course. Following closecame a letter from Linda Abbey, a missive that radiated friendliness andbegged Stella to come a week before the date. 

 "You're going to be pretty prominent in the public eye when you sing here, " Linda wrote. "People are going to make a to-do over you. Ever so many have mentioned you since the announcement was made that you'll sing at the Granada concerts. I'm getting a lot of reflected glory as the future sister-in-law of a rising singer. So you may as well come and get your hand into the social game in preparation for being fussed over in July. "

In the same mail was a characteristic note from Charlie which ran:

 "_Dear Sis:_

 "As the Siwashes say, long time I see you no. I might have dropped a line before, but you know what a punk correspondent I am. They tell me you're becoming a real noise musically. How about it?

 "Can't you break away from the fame and fortune stuff long enough to be on hand when Linda and I get married? I wasn't invited to your wedding, but I'd like to have you at mine. Jack says it's up to you to represent the Fyfe connection, as he's too busy. I'll come over to Seattle and get you, if you say so. "

She capitulated at that and wrote saying that she would be there, andthat she did not mind the trip alone in the least. She did not wantCharlie asking pertinent questions about why she lived in such grubbyquarters and practiced such strict economy in the matter of living. 

Then there was the detail of arranging a break in her engagements, whichran continuously to the end of June. She managed that easily enough, forshe was becoming too great a drawing card for managers to curtlyoverride her wishes. 

Almost before she realized it, June was at hand. Linda wrote againurgently, and Stella took the night boat for Vancouver a week before thewedding day. Linda met her at the dock with a machine. Mrs. Abbey wasthe essence of cordiality when she reached the big Abbey house onVancouver's aristocratic "heights, " where the local capitalists, allthose fortunate climbers enriched by timber and mineral, grown wealthyin a decade through the great Coast boom, segregated themselves in"Villas" and "Places" and "Views, " all painfully new and sometimesgarish, striving for an effect in landscape and architecture which thevery intensity of the striving defeated. They were well-meaning folk, however, the Abbeys included. 

Stella could not deny that she enjoyed the luxury of the Abbey ménage, the little festive round which was shaping about Linda in these lastdays of her spinsterhood. She relished the change from unremittingwork. It amused her to startle little groups with the range and qualityof her voice, when they asked her to sing. They made a much ado overthat, a genuine admiration that flattered Stella. It was easy for her tofall into the swing of that life; it was only a lapsing back to the oldways. 

But she saw it now with a more critical vision. It was soft andsatisfying and eminently desirable to have everything one wanted withoutthe effort of striving for it, but a begging wheedling game on the partof these women. They were, she told herself rather harshly, anincompetent, helpless lot, dependent one and all upon some man's favoror affection, just as she herself had been all her life until the pastfew months. Some man had to work and scheme to pay the bills. She didnot know why this line of thought should arise, neither did she so farforget herself as to voice these social heresies. But it helped toreconcile her with her new-found independence, to put a less formidableaspect on the long, hard grind that lay ahead of her before she couldrevel in equal affluence gained by her own efforts. All that they hadshe desired, --homes, servants, clothes, social standing, --but she didnot want these things bestowed upon her as a favor by some man, theemoluments of sex. 

She expected she would have to be on her guard with her brother, even todissemble a little. But she found him too deeply engrossed in what tohim was the most momentous event of his career, impatiently awaiting theday, rather dreading the publicity of it. 

"Why in Sam Hill can't a man and a woman get married without all thisfuss?" he complained once. "Why should we make our private affairs aspectacle for the whole town?"

"Principally because mamma has her heart set on a spectacle, " Lindalaughed. "She'd hold up her hands in horror if she heard you. Decoratedbridal bower, high church dignitary, bridesmaids, orange blossoms, rice, and all. Mamma likes to show off. Besides, that's the way it's done insociety. _And_ the honeymoon. "

They both giggled, as at some mirthful secret. 

"Shall we tell her?" Linda nodded toward Stella. 

"Sure, " Benton said. "I thought you had. "

"The happy couple will spend their honeymoon on a leisurely tour of theSouthern and Eastern States, remaining for some weeks in Philadelphia, where the groom has wealthy and influential connections. It's allprepared for the pay-a-purs, " Linda whispered with exaggerated secrecybehind her hand. 

Benton snorted. 

"Can you beat that?" he appealed to Stella. 

"And all the time, " Linda continued, "the happy couple, unknown to everyone, will be spending their days in peace and quietness in their shantyat Halfway Point. My, but mamma would rave if she knew. Don't give usaway, Stella. It seems so senseless to squander a lot of money gaddingabout on trains and living in hotels when we'd much rather be at home byourselves. My husband's a poor young man, Stella. 'Pore but worthy. ' Hehas to make his fortune before we start in spending it. I'm sick of allthis spreading it on because dad has made a pile of money, " she brokeout impatiently. "Our living used to be simple enough when I was a kid. I think I can relish a little simplicity again for a change. Mamma'sbeen trying for four years to marry me off to her conception of aneligible man. It didn't matter a hang about his essential qualities solong as he had money and an assured social position. "

"Forget that, " Charlie counseled slangily. "I have all the essentialqualities, and I'll have the money and social position too; you watch mysmoke. "

"Conceited ninny, " Linda smiled. But there was no reproof in her tone, only pure comradeship and affection, which Benton returned so openly andunaffectedly that Stella got up and left them with a pang of envy, adull little ache in her heart. She had missed that. It had passed herby, that clean, spontaneous fusing of two personalities in the biggestpassion life holds. Marriage and motherhood she had known, not as theflowering of love, not as an eager fulfilling of her natural destiny, but as something extraneous, an avenue of escape from an irksomeness ofliving, a weariness with sordid things, which she knew now had obsessedher out of all proportion to their reality. She had never seen thattenderness glow in the eyes of a mating pair that she did not envy them, that she did not feel herself hopelessly defrauded of her woman'sheritage. 

She went up to her room, moody, full of bitterness, and walked thethick-carpeted floor, the restlessness of her chafing spirit seeking theoutlet of action. 

"Thank the Lord I've got something to do, something that's worth doing, "she whispered savagely. "If I can't have what I want, I can make my lifeembrace something more than just food and clothes and social trifling. If I had to sit and wait for each day to bring what it would, I believeI'd go clean mad. "

A maid interrupted these self-communings to say that some one had calledher over the telephone, and Stella went down to the library. She wasn'tprepared for the voice that came over the line, but she recognized itinstantly as Fyfe's. 

"Listen, Stella, " he said. "I'm sorry this has happened, but I can'tvery well avoid it now, without causing comment. I had no choice aboutcoming to Vancouver. It was a business matter I couldn't neglect. And asluck would have it, Abbey ran into me as I got off the train. On accountof your being there, of course, he insisted that I come out for dinner. It'll look queer if I don't, as I can't possibly get a return train forthe Springs before nine-thirty this evening. I accepted withoutstuttering rather than leave any chance for the impression that I wantedto avoid you. Now, here's how I propose to fix it. I'll come out abouttwo-thirty and pay a hurry-up five-minute call. Then I'll excuse myselfto Mrs. Abbey for inability to join them at dinner--press of importantbusiness takes me to Victoria and so forth. That'll satisfy theconventions and let us both out. I called you so you won't be taken bysurprise. Do you mind?"

"Of course not, " she answered instantly. "Why should I?"

There was a momentary silence. 

"Well, " he said at last, "I didn't know how you'd feel about it. Anyway, it will only be for a few minutes, and it's unlikely to happen again. "

Stella put the receiver back on the hook and looked at her watch. Itlacked a quarter of two. In the room adjoining, Charlie and Linda werejubilantly wading through the latest "rag" song in a passable sopranoand baritone, with Mrs. Abbey listening in outward resignation. Stellasat soberly for a minute, then joined them. 

"Jack's in town, " she informed them placidly, when the ragtime spasmended. "He telephoned that he was going to snatch a few minutes betweenimportant business confabs to run out and see me. "

"I could have told you that half an hour ago, my dear, " Mrs. Abbeyresponded with playful archness. "Mr. Fyfe will dine with us thisevening. "

"Oh, " Stella feigned surprise. "Why, he spoke of going to Victoria onthe afternoon boat. He gave me the impression of mad haste--making adash out here between breaths, as you might say. "

"Oh, I hope he won't be called away on such short notice as that, " Mrs. Abbey murmured politely. 

She left the room presently. Out of one corner of her eye Stella sawLinda looking at her queerly. Charlie had turned to the window, staringat the blue blur of the Lions across the Inlet. 

"It's a wonder Jack would leave the lake, " he said suddenly, "withthings the way they are. I've been hoping for rain ever since I've beendown. I'll be glad when we're on the spot again, Linda. "

"Wishing for rain?" Stella echoed. "Why?"

"Fire, " he said shortly. "I don't suppose you realize it, but there'sbeen practically no rain for two months. It's getting hot. A few weeksof dry, warm weather, and this whole country is ready to blow away. Thewoods are like a pile of shavings. That would be a fine weddingpresent--to be cleaned out by fire. Every dollar I've got's in timber. "

"Don't be a pessimist, " Linda said sharply. 

"What makes you so uneasy now?" Stella asked thoughtfully. "There'salways the fire danger in the dry months. That's been a bugaboo eversince I came to the lake. "

"Yes, but never like it is this summer, " Benton frowned. "Oh, well, nouse borrowing trouble, I suppose. "

Stella rose. 

"When Jack comes, I'll be in the library, " she said. "I'm going to reada while. "

But the book she took up lay idle in her lap. She looked forward to thatmeeting with a curious mixture of reluctance and regret. She could notface it unmoved. No woman who has ever lain passive in a man's arms canever again look into that man's eyes with genuine indifference. She mayhate him or love him with a degree of intensity according to her nature, be merely friendly, or nurse a slow resentment. But there is always thatintangible something which differentiates him from other men. Stellafelt now a shyness of him, a little dread of him, less sureness ofherself, as he swung out of the machine and took the house steps withthat effortless lightness on his feet that she remembered so well. 

She heard him in the hall, his deep voice mingling with the thin, penetrating tones of Mrs. Abbey. And then the library door opened, andhe came in. Stella had risen, and stood uncertainly at one corner of abig reading table, repressing an impulse to fly, finding herselfstricken with a strange recurrence of the feeling she had first dislikedhim for arousing in her, --a sense of needing to be on her guard, ofimpending assertion of a will infinitely more powerful than her own. 

But that was, she told herself, only a state of mind, and Fyfe put herquickly at her ease. He came up to the table and seated himself on theedge of it an arm's length from her, swinging one foot free. He lookedat her intently. There was no shadow of expression on his face, only inhis clear eyes lurked a gleam of feeling. 

"Well, lady, " he said at length, "you're looking fine. How goeseverything?"

"Fairly well, " she answered. 

"Seems odd, doesn't it, to meet like this?" he ventured. "I'd havedodged it, if it had been politic. As it is, there's no harm done, Iimagine. Mrs. Abbey assured me we'd be free from interruption. If theexceedingly cordial dame had an inkling of how things stand between us, I daresay she'd be holding her breath about now. "

"Why do you talk like that, Jack?" Stella protested nervously. 

"Well, I have to say something, " he remarked, after a moment'sreflection. "I can't sit here and just look at you. That would be rude, not to say embarrassing. "

Stella bit her lip. 

"I don't see why we can't talk like any other man and woman for a fewminutes, " she observed. 

"I do, " he said quietly. "You know why, too, if you stop to think. I'mthe same old Jack Fyfe, Stella. I don't think much where you areconcerned; I just feel. And that doesn't lend itself readily toimpersonal chatter. "

"How do you feel?" she asked, meeting his gaze squarely. "If you don'thate me, you must at least rather despise me. "

"Neither, " he said slowly. "I admire your grit, lady. You broke awayfrom everything and made a fresh start. You asserted your ownindividuality in a fashion that rather surprised me. Maybe the incentivewasn't what it might have been, but the result is, or promises to be. Iwas only a milestone. Why should I hate or despise you because yourecognized that and passed on? I had no business setting myself up forthe end of your road instead of the beginning. I meant to have it thatway until the kid--well, Fate took a hand there. Pshaw, " he broke offwith a quick gesture, "let's talk about something else. "

Stella laid one hand on his knee. Unbidden tears were crowding up in hergray eyes. 

"You were good to me, " she whispered. "But just being good wasn'tenough for a perverse creature like me. I couldn't be a sleek pussy-cat, comfortable beside your fire. I'm full of queer longings. I want wings. I must be a variation from the normal type of woman. Our marriage didn'ttouch the real me at all, Jack. It only scratched the surface. Andsometimes I'm afraid to look deep, for fear of what I'll see. Even ifanother man hadn't come along and stirred up a temporary tumult in me, Icouldn't have gone on forever. "

"A temporary tumult, " Fyfe mused. "Have you thoroughly chucked thatillusion? I knew you would, of course, but I had no idea how long itwould take you. "

"Long ago, " she answered. "Even before I left you, I was shaky aboutthat. There were things I couldn't reconcile. But pride wouldn't let meadmit it. I can't even explain it to myself. "

"I can, " he said, a little sadly. "You've never poured out that big, warm heart of yours on a man. It's there, always has been there, thoseconcentrated essences of passion. Every unattached man's a possiblefactor, a potential lover. Nature has her own devices to gain her end. Icouldn't be the one. We started wrong. I saw the mistake of that when itwas too late. Monohan, a highly magnetic animal, came along at a timewhen you were peculiarly and rather blindly receptive. That's all. Sex--you have it in a word. It couldn't stand any stress, that sort ofattraction. I knew it would only last until you got one illuminatingglimpse of the real man of him. But I don't want to talk about him. He'll keep. Sometime you'll really love a _man_, Stella, and he'll be avery lucky mortal. There's an erratic streak in you, lady, but there's abigger streak that's fine and good and true. You'd have gone throughwith it to the bitter end, if Jack Junior hadn't died. The weaklingsdon't do that. Neither do they cut loose as you did, burning all theireconomic bridges behind them. Do you know that it was over a monthbefore I found out that you'd turned your private balance back into myaccount? I suppose there was a keen personal satisfaction in going onyour own and making good from the start. Only I couldn't restuntil--until--"

His voice trailed huskily off into silence. The gloves in his left handwere doubled and twisted in his uneasy fingers. Stella's eyes wereblurred. 

"Well, I'm going, " he said shortly. "Be good. "

He slipped off the table and stood erect, a wide, deep-chested man, tanned brown, his fair hair with its bronze tinge lying back in a smoothwave from his forehead, blue eyes bent on her, hot with a slumberingfire. 

Without warning, he caught her close in his arms so that she could feelthe pounding of his heart against her breast, kissed her cheeks, herhair, the round, firm white neck of her, with lips that burned. Then heheld her off at arm's length. 

"That's how _I_ care, " he said defiantly. "That's how I want you. Noother way. I'm a one-woman man. Some time you may love like that, and ifyou do, you'll know how I feel. I've watched you sleeping beside me andached because I couldn't kindle the faintest glow of the real thing inyou. I'm sick with a miserable sense of failure, the only thing I'veever failed at, and the biggest, most complete failure I can conceiveof, --to love a woman in every way desirable; to have her and yet neverhave her. "

He caught up his hat, and the door clicked shut behind him. A minutelater Stella saw him step into the tonneau of the car. He never lookedback. 

And she fled to her own room, stunned, half-frightened, wholly amazed atthis outburst. Her face was damp with his lip-pressure, damp and warm. Her arms tingled with the grip of his. The blood stood in her cheekslike a danger signal, flooding in hot, successive waves to the roots ofher thick, brown hair. 

"If I thought--I could, " she whispered into her pillow, "I'd try. But Idaren't. I'm afraid. It's just a mood, I know it is. I've had it before. A--ah! I'm a spineless jellyfish, a weathercock that whirls to everyemotional breeze. And I won't be. I'll stand on my own feet if I can--sohelp me God, I will!"

CHAPTER XXII

THE FIRE BEHIND THE SMOKE

This is no intimate chronicle of Charlie Benton and Linda Abbey, save inso far as they naturally furnish a logical sequence in what transpired. Therefore the details of their nuptials is of no particular concern. They were wedded, ceremonially dined as befitted the occasion, anddeparted upon their hypothetical honeymoon, surreptitiously abbreviatedfrom an extravagant swing over half of North America to seventy miles byrail and twenty by water, --and a month of blissful seclusion, whichsuited those two far better than any amount of Pullman touring, besidesleaving them money in pocket. 

When they were gone, Stella caught the next boat for Seattle. She haddrawn fresh breath in the meantime, and while she felt tenderly, almostmaternally, sorry for Jack Fyfe, she swung back to the old attitude. Even granting, she argued, that she could muster courage to take up themantle of wifehood where she laid it off, there was no surety that theycould do more than compromise. There was the stubborn fact that she hadopenly declared her love for another man, that by her act she hadplunged her husband into far-reaching conflict. Such a conflict existed. She could put her finger on no concrete facts, but it was in the air. She heard whispers of a battle between giants--a financial duel to thedeath--with all the odds against Jack Fyfe. 

Win or lose, there would be scars. And the struggle, if not of and byher deed, had at least sprung into malevolent activity through her. Men, she told herself, do not forget these things; they rankle. Jack Fyfe wasonly human. No, Stella felt that they could only come safe to the oldport by virtue of a passion that could match Fyfe's own. And she putthat rather sadly beyond her, beyond the possibilities. She had feltstirrings of it, but not to endure. She was proud and sensitive andgrowing wise with bitterly accumulated experience. It had to be all ornothing with them, a cleaving together complete enough to erase andforever obliterate all that had gone before. And since she could not seethat as a possibility, there was nothing to do but play the gameaccording to the cards she held. Of these the trump was work, the innerglow that comes of something worth while done toward a definite, purposeful end. She took up her singing again with a distinct relief. 

Time passed quickly and uneventfully enough between the wedding day andthe date of her Granada engagement. It seemed a mere breathing spacebefore the middle of July rolled around, and she was once more aboard aVancouver boat. In the interim, she had received a letter from theattorney who had wound up her father's estate, intimating that there wasnow a market demand for that oil stock, and asking if he should sell orhold for a rise in price which seemed reasonably sure? Stellatelegraphed her answer. If that left-over of a speculative period wouldbring a few hundred dollars, it would never be of greater service to herthan now. 

All the upper reach of Puget Sound basked in its normal midsummer haze, the day Stella started for Vancouver. That great region of island-dottedsea spread between the rugged Olympics and the foot of the Coast rangelay bathed in summer sun, untroubled, somnolent. But nearing theinternational boundary, the _Charlotte_ drove her twenty-knot way into athickening atmosphere. Northward from Victoria, the rugged shores thatline those inland waterways began to appear blurred. Just north ofActive Pass, where the steamers take to the open gulf again, a vast bankof smoke flung up blue and gray, a rolling mass. The air was pungent, oppressive. When the _Charlotte_ spanned the thirty-mile gap betweenVancouver Island and the mainland shore, she nosed into the Lion's Gateunder a slow bell, through a smoke pall thick as Bering fog. Stella'srecollection swung back to Charlie's uneasy growl of a month earlier. Fire! Throughout the midsummer season there was always the danger offire breaking out in the woods. Not all the fire-ranger patrols couldguard against the carelessness of fishermen and campers. 

"It's a tough Summer over here for the timber owners, " she heard a manremark. "I've been twenty years on the coast and never saw the woods sodry. "

"Dry's no name, " his neighbor responded. "It's like tinder. A cigarettestub'll start a blaze forty men couldn't put out. It's me that knows it. I've got four limits on the North Arm, and there's fire on two sides ofme. You bet I'm praying for rain. "

"They say the country between Chehalis and Roaring Lake is one bigblaze, " the first man observed. 

"So?" the other replied. "Pity, too. Fine timber in there. I came nearbuying some timber on the lake this spring. Some stuff that was on themarket as a result of that Abbey-Monohan split. Glad I didn't now. I'djust as soon have _all_ my money out of timber this season. "

They moved away in the press of disembarking, and Stella heard no moreof their talk. She took a taxi to the Granada, and she bought a paper inthe foyer before she followed the bell boy to her room. She had scarcelytaken off her hat and settled down to read when the telephone rang. Linda's voice greeted her when she answered. 

"I called on the chance that you took the morning boat, " Linda said. "Can I run in? I'm just down for the day. I won't be able to hear yousing, but I'd like to see you, dear. "

"Can you come right now?" Stella asked. "Come up, and we'll havesomething served up here. I don't feel like running the gauntlet of thedining room just now. "

"I'll be there in a few minutes, " Linda answered. 

Stella went back to her paper. She hadn't noticed any particular stresslaid on forest fires in the Seattle dailies, but she could not say thatof this Vancouver sheet. The front page reeked of smoke and fire. Sheglanced through the various items for news of Roaring Lake, but foundonly a brief mention. It was "reported" and "asserted" and "rumored"that fire was raging at one or two points there, statements that wereovershadowed by positive knowledge of greater areas nearer at handburning with a fierceness that could be seen and smelled. The localpapers had enough feature stuff in fires that threatened the verysuburbs of Vancouver without going so far afield as Roaring Lake. 

Linda's entrance put a stop to her reading, without, however, changingthe direction of her thought. For after an exchange of greetings, Lindadivulged the source of her worried expression, which Stella hadimmediately remarked. 

"Who wouldn't be worried, " Linda said, "with the whole country on fire, and no telling when it may break out in some unexpected place and wipeone out of house and home. "

"Is it so bad as that at the lake?" Stella asked uneasily. "There's notmuch in the paper. I was looking. "

"It's so bad, " Linda returned, with a touch of bitterness, "that I'vebeen driven to the Springs for safety; that every able-bodied man on thelake who can be spared is fighting fire. There has been one man killed, and there's half a dozen loggers in the hospital, suffering from burnsand other hurts. Nobody knows where it will stop. Charlie's limits havebarely been scorched, but there's fire all along one side of them. Achange of wind--and there you are. Jack Fyfe's timber is burning in adozen places. We've been praying for rain and choking in the smoke for aweek. "

Stella looked out the north window. From the ten-story height she couldsee ships lying in the stream, vague hulks in the smoky pall thatshrouded the harbor. 

"I'm sorry, " she whispered. 

"It's devilish, " Linda went on. "Like groping in the dark and beingafraid--for me. I've been married a month, and for ten days I've onlyseen my husband at brief intervals when he comes down in the launch forsupplies, or to bring an injured man. And he doesn't tell me anythingexcept that we stand a fat chance of losing everything. I sit there atthe Springs, and look at that smoke wall hanging over the water, andwonder what goes on up there. And at night there's the red glow, veryfaint and far. That's all. I've been doing nursing at the hospital tohelp out and to keep from brooding. I wouldn't be down here now, onlyfor a list of things the doctor needs, which he thought could beobtained quicker if some one attended to it personally. I'm taking theevening train back. "

"I'm sorry, " Stella repeated. 

She said it rather mechanically. Her mind was spinning a thread, uponwhich, strung like beads, slid all the manifold succession of thingsthat had happened since she came first to Roaring Lake. Linda's voice, continuing, broke into her thoughts. 

"I suppose I shouldn't be croaking into your ear like a bird of illomen, when you have to throw yourself heart and soul into that concertto-morrow, " she said contritely. "I wonder why that Ancient Mariner wayof seeking relief from one's troubles by pouring them into another earis such a universal trait? You aren't vitally concerned, after all, andI am. Let's have that tea, dear, and talk about less grievous things. Istill have one or two trifles to get in the shops too. "

After they had finished the food that Stella ordered sent up, they wentout together. Later Stella saw her off on the train. 

"Good-by, dear, " Linda said from the coach window. "I'm just selfishenough to wish you were going back with me; I wish you could sit with meon the bank of the lake, aching and longing for your man up there in thesmoke as I ache and long for mine. Misery loves company. "

Stella's eyes were clouded as the train pulled out. Something in LindaBenton's parting words made her acutely lonely, dispirited, out of jointwith the world she was deliberately fashioning for herself. Into Linda'slife something big and elemental had come. The butterfly of yesterdayhad become the strong man's mate of to-day. Linda's heart wasunequivocally up there in the smoke and flame with her man, fighting fortheir mutual possessions, hoping with him, fearing for him, longing forhim, secure in the knowledge that if nothing else was left them, theyhad each other. It was a rare and beautiful thing to feel like that. Andbeyond that sorrowful vision of what she lacked to achieve any real andenduring happiness, there loomed also a self-torturing conviction thatshe herself had set in motion those forces which now threatened ruin forher brother and Jack Fyfe. 

There was no logical proof of this. Only intuitive, subtle suggestionsgleaned here and there, shadowy finger-posts which pointed to Monohanas a deadly hater and with a score chalked up against Fyfe to which shehad unconsciously added. He had desired her, and twice Fyfe had treatedhim like an urchin caught in mischief. She recalled how Monohan sprangat him like a tiger that day on the lake shore. She realized how bittera humiliation it must have been to suffer that sardonic cuffing atFyfe's hands. Monohan wasn't the type of man who would ever forget orforgive either that or the terrible grip on his throat. 

Even at the time she had sensed this and dreaded what it mightultimately lead to. Even while her being answered eagerly to thephysical charm of him, she had fought against admitting to herself whatdesperate intent might have lain back of the killing of Billy Dale, --ashot that Lefty Howe declared was meant for Fyfe. She had long outgrownMonohan's lure, but if he had come to her or written to make out a casefor himself when she first went to Seattle, she would have accepted hisword against anything. Her heart would have fought for him against thelogic of her brain. 

But--she had had a long time to think, to compare, to digest all thatshe knew of him, much that was subconscious impression rising late tothe surface, a little that she heard from various sources. The sum totalgave her a man of rank passions, of rare and merciless finesse where hisdesires figured, a man who got what he wanted by whatever means mostfitly served his need. Greater than any craving to possess a woman wouldbe the measure of his rancor against a man who humiliated him, thwartedhim. She could understand how a man like Monohan would hate a man likeJack Fyfe, would nurse and feed on the venom of his hate until setting atorch to Fyfe's timber would be a likely enough counterstroke. 

She shrank from the thought. Yet it lingered until she felt guilty. Though it made no material difference to her that Fyfe might or mightnot face ruin, she could not, before her own conscience, evaderesponsibility. The powder might have been laid, but her folly hadtouched spark to the fuse, as she saw it. That seared her like a painfar into the night. For every crime a punishment; for every sin apenance. Her world had taught her that. She had never danced; she hadonly listened to the piper and longed to dance, as nature had fashionedher to do. But the piper was sending his bill. She surveyed it wearily, emotionally bankrupt, wondering in what coin of the soul she would haveto pay. 

CHAPTER XXIII

A RIDE BY NIGHT

Stella sang in the gilt ballroom of the Granada next afternoon, behindthe footlights of a miniature stage, with the blinds drawn and a fewhundred of Vancouver's social elect critically, expectantly listening. She sang her way straight into the heart of that audience with heropening number. This was on Wednesday. Friday she sang again, andSaturday afternoon. 

When she came back to her room after that last concert, wearied with theeffort of listening to chattering women and playing the gracious lady toan admiring contingent which insisted upon making her last appearance asocial triumph, she found a letter forwarded from Seattle. She slit theenvelope. A typewritten sheet enfolded a green slip, --a check. Shelooked at the figures, scarcely comprehending until she read the letter. 

 "We take pleasure in handing you herewith, " Mr. Lander wrote for the firm, "our check for nineteen thousand five hundred dollars, proceeds of oil stock sold as per your telegraphed instructions, less brokerage charges. We sold same at par, and trust this will be satisfactory. "

She looked at the check again. Nineteen thousand, five hundred--payableto her order. Two years ago such a sum would have lifted her toplutocratic heights, filled her with pleasurable excitement, innumerableanticipations. Now it stirred her less than the three hundred dollarsshe had just received from the Granada Concert committee. She had earnedthat, had given for it due measure of herself. This other had comewithout effort, without expectation. And less than she had ever neededmoney before did she now require such a sum. 

Yet she was sensibly aware that this windfall meant a short cut tothings which she had only looked to attain by plodding over economichills. She could say good-by to singing in photoplay houses, tovaudeville engagements, to concert work in provincial towns. She couldhitch her wagon to a star and go straight up the avenue that led to acareer, if it were in her to achieve greatness. Pleasant dreams in whichthe buoyant ego soared, until the logical interpretation of herambitions brought her to a more practical consideration of ways andmeans, and that in turn confronted her with the fact that she couldleave the Pacific coast to-morrow morning if she so chose. 

Why should she not so choose?

She was her own mistress, free as the wind. Fyfe had said that. Shelooked out into the smoky veil that shrouded the water front and thehills across the Inlet, that swirled and eddied above the giant fir inStanley Park, and her mind flicked back to Roaring Lake where the RedFlower of Kipling's _Jungle Book_ bloomed to her husband's ruin. Did it?She wondered. She could not think of him as beaten, bested in anyundertaking. She had never been able to think of him in those terms. Always to her he had conveyed the impression of a superman. Always shehad been a little in awe of him, of his strength, his patient, inflexible determination, glimpsing under his habitual repressioncertain tremendous forces. She could not conceive him as a broken man. 

Staring out into the smoky air, she wondered if the fires at RoaringLake still ravaged that noble forest; if Fyfe's resources, like herbrother's, were wholly involved in standing timber, and if that timberwere doomed? She craved to know. Secured herself by that green slip inher hand against every possible need, she wondered if it were ordainedthat the two men whose possession of material resources had molded herinto what she was to-day should lose all, be reduced to the same stressthat had made her an unwilling drudge in her brother's kitchen. Then sherecalled that for Charlie there was an equivalent sum due, --a share likeher own. At the worst, he had the nucleus of another fortune. 

Curled among the pillows of her bed that night, she looked over theevening papers, read with a swift heart-sinking that the Roaring Lakefire was assuming terrific proportions, that nothing but a deluge ofrain would stay it now. And more significantly, except for a minor blazeor two, the fire raged almost wholly upon and around the Fyfe block oflimits. She laid aside the papers, switched off the lights, and laystaring wide-eyed at the dusky ceiling. 

At twenty minutes of midnight she was called to the door of her room toreceive a telegram. It was from Linda, and it read:

 "Charlie badly hurt. Can you come?"

Stella reached for the telephone receiver. The night clerk at the C. P. R. Depot told her the first train she could take left at six in themorning. That meant reaching the Springs at nine-thirty. Nine and a halfhours to sit with idle hands, in suspense. She did not knew what tragicdénouement awaited there, what she could do once she reached there. Sheknew only that a fever of impatience burned in her. The message hadstrung her suddenly taut, as if a crisis had arisen in which willy-nillyshe must take a hand. 

So, groping for the relief of action, some method of spanning that ninehours' wait, her eye fell upon a card tucked beside the telephone case. She held it between, finger and thumb, her brows puckered. 

 TAXIS AND TOURING CARS Anywhere . . . Anytime

She took down the receiver again and asked for Seymour 9X. 

"Western Taxi, " a man's voice drawled. 

"I want to reach Roaring Hot Springs in the shortest time possible, " shetold him rather breathlessly. "Can you furnish me a machine and areliable chauffeur?"

"Roaring Springs?" he repeated. "How many passengers?"

"One. Myself. "

"Just a minute. "

She heard a faint burble of talk away at the other end of the wire. Thenthe same voice speaking crisply. 

"We gotta big six roadster, and a first-class driver. It'll cost youseventy-five dollars--in advance. "

"Your money will be waiting for you here, " she answered calmly. "Howsoon can you bring the car around to the Hotel Granada?"

"In ten minutes, if you say so. "

"Say twenty minutes, then. "

"All right. "

She dressed herself, took the elevator down to the lobby, instructed thenight clerk to have a maid pack her trunk and send it by express toHopyard, care of St. Allwoods Hotel on the lake. Then she walked out tothe broad-stepped carriage entrance. 

A low-hung long-hooded, yellow car stood there, exhaust purring faintly. She paid the driver, sank into the soft upholstering beside him, and thebig six slid out into the street. There was no traffic. In a few minutesthey were on the outskirts of the city, the long asphalt ribbon ofKing's Way lying like a silver band between green, bushy walls. Theycrossed the last car track. The driver spoke to her out of one corner ofhis mouth. 

"Wanna make time, huh?"

"I want to get to Roaring Lake as quickly as you can drive, withouttaking chances. "

"I know the road pretty well, " he assured her. "Drove a party clear toRosebud day before yesterday. I'll do the best I can. Can't drive toofast at night. Too smoky. "

She could not gage his conception of real speed if the gait he struckwas not "too fast. " They were through New Westminster and rolling acrossthe Fraser bridge before she was well settled in the seat, breasting theroad with a lurch and a swing at the curves, a noise under that longhood like giant bees in an empty barrel. 

Ninety miles of road good, bad and indifferent, forest and farm androlling hill, and the swamps of Sumas Prairie, lies between Vancouverand Roaring Lake. At four in the morning, with dawn an hour old, theywoke the Rosebud ferryman to cross the river. Twenty minutes after thatStella was stepping stiffly out of the machine before Roaring Springshospital. The doctor's Chinaman was abroad in the garden. She beckonedhim. 

"You sabe Mr. Benton--Charlie Benton?" she asked. "He in doctor'shouse?"

The Chinaman pointed across the road. "Mist Bentle obah dah, " he said. "Velly much sick. Missa Bentle lib dah, all same gleen house. "

Stella ran across the way. The front door of the green cottage stoodwide. An electric drop light burned in the front room, though it wasbroad day. When she crossed the threshold, she saw Linda sitting in achair, her arms folded on the table-edge, her head resting on her hands. She was asleep, and she did not raise her head till Stella shook hershoulder. 

Linda Abbey had been a pretty girl, very fair, with apple-blossom skinand a wonderfully expressive face. It gave Stella a shock to see hernow, to gage her suffering by the havoc it had wrought. Linda lookedold, haggard, drawn. There was a weary droop to her mouth, her eyes weredull, lifeless, just as one might look who is utterly exhausted in mindand body. Oddly enough, she spoke first of something irrelevant, inconsequential. 

"I fell asleep, " she said heavily. "What time is it?"

Stella looked at her watch. 

"Half-past four, " she answered. "How is Charlie? What happened to him?"

"Monohan shot him. "

Stella caught her breath. She hadn't been prepared for that. 

"Is he--is he--" she could not utter the words. 

"He'll get better. Wait. " Linda rose stiffly from her seat. A door inone side of the room stood ajar. She opened it, and Stella, looking overher shoulder, saw her brother's tousled head on a pillow. A nurse inuniform sat beside his bed. Linda closed the door silently. 

"Come into the kitchen where we won't make a noise, " she whispered. 

A fire burned in the kitchen stove. Linda sank into a willow rocker. 

"I'm weary as Atlas, " she said. "I've been fretting for so long. Thenlate yesterday afternoon they brought him home to me--like that. Thedoctor was probing for the bullet when I wired you. I was in a panicthen, I think. Half-past four! How did you get here so soon? How couldyou? There's no train. "

Stella told her. 

"Why should Monohan shoot him?" she broke out. "For God's sake, talk, Linda!"

There was a curious impersonality in Linda's manner, as if she stoodaloof from it all, as if the fire of her vitality had burned out. Shelay back in her chair with eyelids drooping, speaking in dull, lifelesstones. 

"Monohan shot him because Charlie came on him in the woods setting afresh fire. They've suspected him, or some one in his pay, of that, andthey've been watching. There were two other men with Charlie, so thereis no mistake. Monohan got away. That's all I know. Oh, but I'm tired. I've been hanging on to myself for so long. About daylight, after weknew for sure that Charlie was over the hill, something seemed to let goin me. I'm awful glad you came, Stella. Can you make a cup of tea?"

Stella could and did, but she drank none of it herself. A dead weight ofapprehension lay like lead in her breast. Her conscience pointed adeadly finger. First Billy Dale, now her brother, and, sandwiched inbetween, the loosed fire furies which were taking toll in bodily injuryand ruinous loss. 

Yet she was helpless. The matter was wholly out of her hands, and shestood aghast before it, much as the small child stands aghast before theburning house he has fired by accident. 

Fyfe next. That was the ultimate, the culmination, which would leave herforever transfixed with remorseful horror. The fact that already themachinery of the law which would eventually bring Monohan to book forthe double lawlessness of arson and attempted homicide must be inmotion, that the Provincial police would be hard on his trail, did notoccur to her. She could only visualize him progressing step by step fromone lawless deed to another. And in her mind every step led to JackFyfe, who had made a mock of him. She found her hands clenching till thenails dug deep. 

Linda's head drooped over the teacup. Her eyelids blinked. 

"Dear, " Stella said tenderly, "come and lie down. You're worn out. "

"Perhaps I'd better, " Linda muttered. "There's another room in there. "

Stella tucked the weary girl into the bed, and went back to the kitchen, and sat down in the willow rocker. After another hour the nurse came outand prepared her own breakfast. Benton was still sleeping. He was in nodanger, the nurse told Stella. The bullet had driven cleanly through hisbody, missing as by a miracle any vital part, and lodged in the musclesof his back, whence the surgeon had removed it. Though weak from shock, loss of blood, excitement, he had rallied splendidly, and fallen into anormal sleep. 

Later the doctor confirmed this. He made light of the wound. Onecouldn't kill a young man as full of vitality as Charlie Benton with anaxe, he informed Stella with an optimistic smile. Which lifted oneburden from her mind. 

The night nurse went away, and another from the hospital took her place. Benton slept; Linda slept. The house was very quiet. To Stella, broodingin that kitchen chair, it became oppressive, that funeral hush. When itwas drawing near ten o'clock, she walked up the road past the cornerstore and post-office, and so out to the end of the wharf. 

The air was hot and heavy, pungent, gray with the smoke. Farther along, St. Allwoods bulked mistily amid its grounds. The crescent of shore linehalf a mile distant was wholly obscured. Up over the eastern mountainrange the sun, high above the murk, hung like a bloody orange, raylessand round. No hotel guests strolled by pairs and groups along the bank. She could understand that no one would come for pleasure into thatsuffocating atmosphere. Caught in that great bowl of which the lakeformed the watery bottom, the smoke eddied and rolled like a cloud ofmist. 

She stood a while gazing at the glassy surface of the lake where itspread to her vision a little way beyond the piles. Then she went backto the green cottage. 

Benton lifted alert, recognizing eyes when she peeped in the bedroomdoor. 

"Hello, Sis, " he greeted in strangely subdued tones. "When did you blowin? I thought you'd deserted the sinking ship completely. Come on in. "

She winced inwardly at his words, but made no outward sign, as she cameup to his bedside. The nurse went out. 

"Perhaps you'd better not talk?" she said. 

"Oh, nonsense, " he retorted feebly. "I'm all right. Sore as the mischiefand weak. But I don't feel as bad as I might. Linda still asleep?"

"I think so, " Stella answered. 

"Poor kid, " he breathed; "it's been tough on her. Well, I guess it'sbeen tough on everybody. He turned out to be some bad actor, thisMonohan party. I never did like the beggar. He was a little toohigh-handed in his smooth, kid-glove way. But I didn't suppose he'd tryto burn up a million dollars' worth of timber to satisfy a grudge. Well, he put his foot in it proper at last. He'll get a good long jolt in thepen, if the boys don't beat the constables to him and take him topieces. "

"He did start the fire then?" Stella muttered. 

"I guess so, " Benton replied. "At any rate, he kept it going. Did it byhis lonesome, too. Jack suspected that. We were watching for him as wellas fighting fire. He'd come down from the head of the lake in that speedboat of his, and this time daylight caught him before he could get backto where he had her cached, after starting a string of little fires inthe edge of my north limit. He had it in for me, too, you know; I battedhim over the head with a pike-pole here at the wharf one day thisspring, so he plunked me as soon as I hollered at him. I wish he'd doneit earlier in the game. We might have saved a lot of good timber. As itwas, we couldn't do much. Every time the wind changed, it would breakout in a new place--too often to be accidental. Damn him!"

"How is it going to end, the fire?" Stella forced herself to ask. "Willyou and Jack be able to save any timber?"

"If it should rain hard, and if in the meantime the boys keep it fromjumping the fire-trails we've cut, I'll get by with most of mine, " hesaid. "But Jack's done for. He won't have anything but his donkeys andgear and part of a cedar limit on the Tyee which isn't paid for. He hadpractically everything tied up in that big block of timber around thePoint. Monohan made him spend money like water to hold his own. Jack'sbroke. "

Stella's head drooped. Benton reached out an axe-calloused hand, allgrimy and browned from the stress of fire fighting, and covered her softfingers that rested on his bed. 

"It's a pity everything's gone to pot like that, Stell, " he said softly. "I've grown a lot wiser in human ways the last two years. You taught mea lot, and Jack a lot, and Linda the rest. It seems a blamed shame youand Jack came to a fork in the road. Oh, he never chirped. I've justguessed it the last few weeks. I owe him a lot that he'll never let mepay back in anything but good will. I hate to see him get the worst ofit from every direction. He grins and doesn't say anything. But I knowit hurts. There can't be anything much wrong between you two. Why don'tyou forget your petty larceny troubles and start all over again?"

"I can't, " she whispered. "It wouldn't work. There's too many scars. Toomuch that's hard to forget. "

"Well, you know about that better than I do, " Benton said thoughtfully. "It all depends on how you _feel_. "

The poignant truth of that struck miserably home to her. It was not amatter of reason or logic, of her making any sacrifice for herconscience sake. It depended solely upon the existence of an emotion shecould not definitely invoke. She was torn by so many emotions, not oneof which she could be sure was the vital, the necessary one. Her heartdid not cry out for Jack Fyfe, except in a pitying tenderness, as sheused to feel for Jack Junior when he bumped and bruised himself. She hadfelt that before and held it too weak a crutch to lean upon. 

The nurse came in with a cup of broth for Benton, and Stella went awaywith a dumb ache in her breast, a leaden sinking of her spirits, andwent out to sit on the porch steps. The minutes piled into hours, andnoon came, when Linda wakened. Stella forced herself to swallow a cup oftea, to eat food; then she left Linda sitting with her husband and wentback to the porch steps again. 

As she sat there, a man dressed in the blue shirt and mackinaw trousersand high, calked boots of the logger turned in off the road, a burlywoodsman that she recognized as one of Jack Fyfe's crew. 

"Well, " said he, "if it ain't Mrs. Jack. Say--ah--"

He broke off suddenly, a perplexed look on his face, an uneasiness, ahesitation in his manner. 

"What is it, Barlow?" Stella asked kindly. "How is everything up thelake?"

It was common enough in her experience, that temporary embarrassment ofa logger before her. She knew them for men with boyish souls, boyishinstincts, rude simplicities of heart. Long ago she had revised thosefirst superficial estimates of them as gross, hulking brutes who workedhard and drank harder, coarsened and calloused by their occupation. Theyhad their weaknesses, but their virtues of abiding loyalty, theirreckless generosity, their simple directness, were great indeed. Theytook their lives in their hands on skid-road and spring-board, that suchas she might flourish. They did not understand that, but she did. 

"What is it, Barlow?" she repeated. "Have you just come down the lake?"

"Yes'm, " he answered. "Say, Jack don't happen to be here, does he?"

"No, he hasn't been here, " she told him. 

The man's face fell. 

"What's wrong?" Stella demanded. She had a swift divination thatsomething was wrong. 

"Oh, I dunno's anythin's wrong, particular, " Barlow replied. "Only--well, Lefty he sent me down to see if Jack was at the Springs. Weain't seen him for a couple uh days. "

Her pulse quickened. 

"And he has not come down the lake?"

"I guess not, " the logger said. "Oh, I guess it's all right. Jack'spretty _skookum_ in the woods. Only Lefty got uneasy. It's desperate hotand smoky up there. "

"How did you come down? Are you going back soon?" she asked abruptly. 

"I got the _Waterbug_, " Barlow told her. "I'm goin' right straightback. "

Stella looked out over the smoky lake and back at the logger again, asudden resolution born of intolerable uncertainty, of a feeling that shecould only characterize as fear, sprang full-fledged into her mind. "Wait for me, " she said. "I'm going with you. "

CHAPTER XXIV

"OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME"

The _Waterbug_ limped. Her engine misfired continuously, and Barlowlacked the mechanical knowledge to remedy its ailment. He was satisfiedto let it pound away, so long as it would revolve at all. So the boatmoved slowly through that encompassing smoke at less than half speed. Outwardly the once spick and span cruiser bore every mark of hard usage. Her topsides were foul, her decks splintered by the tramping of calkedboots, grimy with soot and cinders. It seemed to Stella that everythingand every one on and about Roaring Lake bore some mark of that holocaustraging in the timber, as if the fire were some malignant diseasemenacing and marring all that it affected, and affecting all thattrafficked within its smoky radius. 

But of the fire itself she could see nothing, even when late in theafternoon they drew in to the bay before her brother's camp. A heaviersmoke cloud, more pungent of burning pitch, blanketed the shores, liftedin blue, rolling masses farther back. A greater heat made the airstifling, causing the eyes to smart and grow watery. That was the onlydifference. 

Barlow laid the _Waterbug_ alongside the float. He had already told herthat Lefty Howe, with the greater part of Fyfe's crew, was extending andguarding Benton's fire-trail, and he half expected that Fyfe might haveturned up there. Away back in the smoke arose spasmodic coughing ofdonkey engines, dull resounding of axe-blades. Barlow led the way. Theytraversed a few hundred yards of path through brush, broken tops, andstumps, coming at last into a fairway cut through virgin timber, asixty-foot strip denuded of every growth, great firs felled and drawnfar aside, brush piled and burned. A breastwork from which to fightadvancing fire, it ran away into the heart of a smoky forest. Here andthere blackened, fire-scorched patches abutted upon its northern flank, stumps of great trees smoldering, crackling yet. At the first suchplace, half a dozen men were busy with shovels blotting out streaks offire that crept along in the dry leaf mold. No, they had not seen Fyfe. But they had been blamed busy. He might be up above. 

Half a mile beyond that, beside the first donkey shuddering on itsanchored skids as it tore an eighteen-inch cedar out by the roots, theycame on Lefty Howe. He shook his head when Stella asked for Fyfe. 

"He took twenty men around to the main camp day before yesterday, " saidLefty. "There was a piece uh timber beyond that he thought he couldsave. I--well, I took a shoot around there yesterday, after your brothergot hurt. Jack wasn't there. Most of the boys was at camp loadin' gearon the scows. They said Jack's gone around to Tumblin' Creek with oneman. He wasn't back this mornin'. So I thought maybe he'd gone to theSprings. I dunno's there's any occasion to worry. He might 'a' gone tothe head uh the lake with them constables that went up last night. How's Charlie Benton?"

She told him briefly. 

"That's good, " said Lefty. "Now, I'd go around to Cougar Bay, if I wasyou, Mrs. Jack. He's liable to come in there, any time. You could stayat the house to-night. Everything around there, shacks 'n' all, wasburned days ago, so the fire can't touch the house. The crew there hasgrub an' a cook. I kinda expect Jack'll be there, unless he fell in withthem constables. "

She trudged silently back to the _Waterbug_. Barlow started the engine, and the boat took up her slow way. As they skirted the shore, Stellabegan to see here and there the fierce havoc of the fire. Black trunksof fir reared nakedly to the smoky sky, lay crisscross on bank andbeach. Nowhere was there a green blade, a living bush. Nothing butcharred black, a melancholy waste of smoking litter, with here and therea pitch-soaked stub still waving its banner of flame, or glowing redly. Back of those seared skeletons a shifting cloud of smoke obscuredeverything. 

Presently they drew in to Cougar Bay. Men moved about on the beach; twobulky scows stood nose-on to the shore. Upon them rested half a dozendonkey engines, thick-bellied, upright machines, blown down, dead ontheir skids. About these in great coils lay piled the gear of logging, miles of steel cable, blocks, the varied tools of the logger's trade. The _Panther_ lay between the scows, with lines from each passed overher towing bitts. 

Stella could see the outline of the white bungalow on its grassy knoll. They had saved only that, of all the camp, by a fight that sent threemen to the hospital, on a day when the wind shifted into the northwestand sent a sheet of flame rolling through the timber and down on CougarBay like a tidal wave. So Barlow told her. He cupped his hands now andcalled to his fellows on the beach. 

No, Fyfe had not come back yet. 

"Go up to the mouth of Tumbling Creek, " Stella ordered. 

Barlow swung the _Waterbug_ about, cleared the point, and stood up alongthe shore. Stella sat on a cushioned seat at the back of the pilothouse, hard-eyed, struggling against that dead weight that seemed, togrow and grow in her breast. That elemental fury raging in the woodsmade her shrink. Her own hand had helped to loose it, but her hands werepowerless to stay it; she could only sit and watch and wait, eaten upwith misery of her own making. She was horribly afraid, with a fear shewould not name to herself. 

Behind that density of atmosphere, the sun had gone to rest. The firstshadows of dusk were closing in, betokened by a thickening of thesmoke-fog into which the _Waterbug_ slowly plowed. To port a dimmingshore line; to starboard, aft, and dead ahead, water and air merged intwo boat lengths. Barlow leaned through the pilot-house window, one handon the wheel, straining his eyes on their course. Suddenly he threw outthe clutch, shut down his throttle control with one hand, and yankedwith the other at the cord which loosed the _Waterbug's_ shrill whistle. 

Dead ahead, almost upon them, came an answering toot. 

"I thought I heard a gas-boat, " Barlow exclaimed. "Sufferin' Jerusalem!Hi, there!"

He threw his weight on the wheel, sending it hard over. The cruiserstill had way on; the momentum of her ten-ton weight scarcely hadslackened, and she answered the helm. Out of the deceptive thicknessahead loomed the sharp, flaring bow of another forty-footer, sheeringquickly, as her pilot sighted them. She was upon them, and abreast, andgone, with a watery purl of her bow wave, a subdued mutter of exhaust, passing so near than an active man could have leaped the space between. 

"Sufferin' Jerusalem!" Barlow repeated, turning to Stella. "Did you seethat, Mrs. Jack? They got him. "

Stella nodded. She too had seen Monohan seated on the after deck, hishead sunk on his breast, irons on his wrists. A glimpse, no more. 

"That'll help some, " Barlow grunted. "Quick work. But they come blamenear cuttin' us down, beltin' along at ten knots when you can't seeforty feet ahead. "

An empty beach greeted them at Tumbling Creek. Reluctantly Stella badeBarlow turn back. It would soon be dark, and Barlow said he would betaking chances of piling on the shore before he could see it, or gettinglost in the profound black that would shut down on the water withdaylight's end. 

Less than a mile from Cougar Bay, the _Waterbug's_ engine gave a fewpremonitory gasps and died. Barlow descended to the engine room, hookedup the trouble lamp, and sought for the cause. He could not find it. Stella could hear him muttering profanity, turning the flywheel over, getting an occasional explosion. 

An hour passed. Dark of the Pit descended, shrouding the lake with asable curtain, close-folded, impenetrable. The dead stillness of the dayvanished before a hot land breeze, and Stella, as she felt the launchdrift, knew by her experience on the lake that they were movingoffshore. Presently this was confirmed, for out of the black wall on thewest, from which the night wind brought stifling puffs of smoke, therelifted a yellow effulgence that grew to a red glare as the boat driftedout. Soon that red glare was a glowing line that rose and fell, dippingand rising and wavering along a two-mile stretch, a fiery surf beatingagainst the forest. 

Down in the engine room Barlow finally located the trouble, and themotor took up its labors, spinning with a rhythmic chatter of valves. The man came up into the pilot house, wiping the sweat from his grimyface. 

"Gee, I'm sorry, Mrs. Fyfe, " he said. "A gas-engine man would 'a' fixedthat in five minutes. Took me two hours to find out what was wrong. It'll be a heck of a job to fetch Cougar Bay now. "

But by luck Barlow made his way back, blundering fairly into the landingat the foot of the path that led to the bungalow, as if the cruiser knewthe way to her old berth. And as he reached the float, the frontwindows on the hillock broke out yellow, pale blurs in the smoky night. 

"Well, say, " Barlow pointed. "I bet a nickel Jack's home. See? Nobodybut him would be in the house. "

"I'll go up, " Stella said. 

"All right, I guess you know the path better'n I do, " Barlow said. "I'lltake the _Bug_ around into the bay. "

Stella ran up the path. She halted halfway up the steps and leanedagainst the rail to catch her breath. Then she went on. Her step wasnoiseless, for tucked in behind a cushion aboard the _Waterbug_ she hadfound an old pair of her own shoes, rubber-soled, and she had put themon to ease the ache in her feet born of thirty-six hours' encasement inleather. She gained the door without a sound. It was wide open, and inthe middle of the big room Jack Fyfe stood with hands thrust deep in hispockets, staring absently at the floor. 

She took a step or two inside. Fyfe did not hear her; he did not lookup. 

"Jack. "

He gave ever so slight a start, glanced up, stood with head thrown backa little. But he did not move, or answer, and Stella, looking at him, seeing the flame that glowed in his eyes, could not speak. Somethingseemed to choke her, something that was a strange compound of relief andbewilderment and a slow wonder at herself, --at the queer, unsteadypounding of her heart. 

"How did you get way up here?" he asked at last. 

"Linda wired last night that Charlie was hurt. I got a machine to theSprings. Then Barlow came down this afternoon looking for you. He saidyou'd been missing for two days. So I--I--"

She broke off. Fyfe was walking toward her with that peculiar, lightfooted step of his, a queer, tense look on his face. 

"Nero fiddled when Rome was burning, " he said harshly. "Did you come tosing while _my_ Rome goes up in smoke?"

A little, half-strangled sob escaped her. She turned to go. But hecaught her by the arm. 

"There, lady, " he said, with a swift change of tone, "I didn't mean toslash at you. I suppose you mean all right. But just now, witheverything gone to the devil, to look up and see you here--I've reallygot an ugly temper, Stella, and it's pretty near the surface these days. I don't want to be pitied and sympathized with. I want to fight. I wantto hurt somebody. "

"Hurt me then, " she cried. 

He shook his head sadly. 

"I couldn't do that, " he said. "No, I can't imagine myself ever doingthat. "

"Why?" she asked, knowing why, but wishful to hear in words what hiseyes shouted. 

"Because I love you, " he said. "You know well enough why. "

She lifted her one free hand to his shoulder. Her face turned up to his. A warm wave of blood dyed the round, white neck, shot up into hercheeks. Her eyes were suddenly aglow, lips tremulous. 

"Kiss me, then, " she whispered. "That's what I came for. Kiss me, Jack. "

If she had doubted, if she had ever in the last few hours looked withmisgiving upon what she felt herself impelled to do, the pressure ofJack Fyfe's lips on hers left no room for anything but an amazing thrillof pure gladness. She was happy in his arms, content to rest there, tofeel his heart beating against hers, to be quit of all theuncertainties, all the useless regrets. By a roundabout way she had cometo her own, and it thrilled her to her finger tips. She could not quitecomprehend it, or herself. But she was glad, weeping with gladness, straining her man to her, kissing his face, murmuring incoherent wordsagainst his breast. 

"And so--and so, after all, you do care. " Fyfe held her off a littlefrom him, his sinewy fingers gripping gently the soft flesh of her arms. "And you were big enough to come back. Oh, my dear, you don't know whatthat means to me. I'm broke, and I'd just about reached the point whereI didn't give a damn. This fire has cleaned me out. I've--"

"I know, " Stella interrupted. "That's why I came back. I wouldn't havecome otherwise, at least not for a long time--perhaps never. It seemedas if I ought to--as if it were the least I could do. Of course, itlooks altogether different, now that I know I really want to. But yousee I didn't know that for sure until I saw you standing here. Oh, Jack, there's such a lot I wish I could wipe out. "

"It's wiped out, " he said happily. "The slate's clean. Fair weatherdidn't get us anywhere. It took a storm. Well, the storm's over. "

She stirred uneasily in his arms. 

"Haven't you got the least bit of resentment, Jack, for all this troubleI've helped to bring about?" she faltered. 

"Why, no" he said thoughtfully. "All you did was to touch the fireworksoff. And they might have started over anything. Lord no! put that ideaout of your head. "

"I don't understand, " she murmured. "I never have quite understood whyMonohan should attack you with such savage bitterness. That trouble hestarted on the Tyee, then this criminal firing of the woods. I've hadhints, first from your sister, then from Linda. I didn't know you'dclashed before. I'm not very clear on that yet. But you knew all thetime what he was. Why didn't you tell me, Jack?"

"Well, maybe I should have, " Fyfe admitted. "But I couldn't very well. Don't you see? He wasn't even an incident, until he bobbed up andrescued you that day. I couldn't, after that, start in picking hischaracter to pieces as a mater of precaution. We had a sort of an armedtruce. He left me strictly alone. I'd trimmed his claws once or twicealready. I suppose he was acute enough to see an opportunity to get awhack at me through you. You were just living from day to day, creatinga world of illusions for yourself, nourishing yourself with dreams, smarting under a stifled regret for a lot you thought you'd passed upfor good. _He_ wasn't a factor, at first. When he did finally stir inyou an emotion I had failed to stir, it was too late for me to do or sayanything. If I'd tried, at that stage of the game, to show you youridol's clay feet, you'd have despised me, as well as refused to believe. I couldn't do anything but stand back and trust the real woman of you tofind out what a quicksand you were building your castle on. I purposelyrefused to let you to, when you wanted to go away the firsttime, --partly on the kid's account, partly because I could hardly bearto let you go. Mostly because I wanted to make him boil over and showhis teeth, on the chance that you'd be able to size him up. 

"You see, I knew him from the ground up. I knew that nothing wouldafford him a keener pleasure than to take away from me a woman I caredfor, and that nothing would make him squirm more than for me tocheck-mate him. That day I cuffed him and choked him on the Point reallystarted him properly. After that, you--as something to be desired andpossessed--ran second to his feeling against me. He was bound to try andplay even, regardless of you. When he precipitated that row on the Tyee, I knew it was going to be a fight for my financial life--for my ownlife, if he ever got me foul. And it was not a thing I could talk aboutto you, in your state of mind, then. You were through with me. Regardless of him, you were getting farther and farther away from me. Ihad a long time to realize that fully. You had a grudge against life, and it was sort of crystallizing on me. You never kissed me once in allthose two years like you kissed me just now. "

She pulled his head down and kissed him again. 

"So that I wasn't restraining you with any hope for my own advantage, "he went on. "There was the kid, and there was you. I wanted to put abrake on you, to make you go slow. You're a complex individual, Stella. Along with certain fixed, fundamental principles, you've got a streak ofdivine madness in you, a capacity for reckless undertakings. You'd neverhave married me if you hadn't. I trusted you absolutely. But, I wasafraid in spite of my faith. You had draped such an idealistic mantlearound Monohan. I wanted to rend that before it came to a finalseparation between us. It worked out, because he couldn't resist tryingto take a crack at me when the notion seized him. 

"So, " he continued, after a pause, "you aren't responsible, and I'venever considered you responsible for any of this. It's between him andme, and it's been shaping for years. Whenever our trails crossed therewas bound to be a clash. There's always been a natural personalantagonism between us. It began to show when we were kids, you mightsay. Monohan's nature is such that he can't acknowledge defeat, he can'tdeny himself a gratification. He's a supreme egotist. He's always hadplenty of money, he's always had whatever he wanted, and it nevermattered to him how he gratified his desires. 

"The first time we locked horns was in my last year at high school. Monohan was a star athlete. I beat him in a pole vault. That irked himso that he sulked and sneered, and generally made himself so insultingthat I slapped him. We fought, and I whipped him. I had a temper that Ihadn't learned to keep in hand those days, and I nearly killed him. Ihad nothing but contempt for him, anyway, because even then, when hewasn't quite twenty, he was a woman hunter, preying on silly girls. Idon't know what his magic with women is, but it works, until they findhim out. He was playing off two or three fool girls that I knew and atthe same time keeping a woman in apartments down-town, --a girl he'dpicked up on a trip to Georgia, --like any confirmed rounder. 

"Well, from that time on, he hated me, always laid for a chance to stingme. We went to Princeton the same year. We collided there, so hard thatwhen word of it got to my father's ears, he called me home and read theriot act so strong that I flared up and left. Then I came to the coasthere and got a job in the woods, got to be a logging boss, and went intobusiness on my own hook eventually. I'd just got nicely started when Iran into Monohan again. He'd got into timber himself. I was hand loggingup the coast, and I'd hate to tell you the tricks he tried. He kept itup until I got too big to be harassed in a petty way. Then he left mealone. But he never forgot his grudge. The stage was all set for thisact long before you gave him his cue, Stella. You weren't to blame forthat, or if you were in part, it doesn't matter now. I'm satisfied. Paradoxically I feel rich, even though it's a long shot that I'm brokeflat. I've got something money doesn't buy. And he has overreachedhimself at last. All his money and pull won't help him out of this jackpot. Arson and attempted murder is serious business. "

"They caught him, " Stella said. "The constables took him down the laketo-night. I saw him on their launch as they passed the _Waterbug_. "

"Yes?" Fyfe said. "Quick work. I didn't even know about the shootingtill I came in here to-night about dark. Well, " he snapped his fingers, "exit Monohan. He's a dead issue, far as we're concerned. Wouldn't youlike something to eat, Stella? I'm hungry, and I was dog-tired when Ilanded here. Say, you can't guess what I was thinking about, lady, standing there when you came in. "

She shook her head. 

"I had a crazy notion of touching a match to the house, " he saidsoberly, "letting it go up in smoke with the rest. Yes, that's what Iwas thinking I would do. Then I'd take the _Panther_ and what gear Ihave on the scows and pull off Roaring Lake. It didn't seem as if Icould stay. I'd laid the foundation of a fortune here and tried to makea home--and lost it all, everything that was worth having. And then allat once there you were, like a vision in the door. Miracles _do_happen!"

Her arms tightened involuntarily about him. 

"Oh, " she cried breathlessly. "Our little, white house!"

"Without you, " he replied softly, "it was just an empty shell of boardsand plaster, something to make me ache with loneliness. "

"But not now, " she murmured. "It's home, now. "

"Yes, " he agreed, smiling. 

"Ah, but it isn't quite. " She choked down a lump in her throat. "Notwhen I think of those little feet that used to patter on the floor. Oh, Jack--when I think of my baby boy! My dear, my dear, why did all thishave to be, I wonder?"

Fyfe stroked her glossy coils of hair. 

"We get nothing of value without a price, " he said quietly. "Except byrare accident, nothing that's worth having comes cheap and easy. We'vepaid the price, and we're square with the world and with each other. That's everything. "

"Are you completely ruined, Jack?" she asked after an interval. "Charliesaid you were. "

"Well, " he answered reflectively, "I haven't had time to balanceaccounts, but I guess I will be. The timber's gone. I've saved most ofthe logging gear. But if I realized on everything that's left, andsquared up everything, I guess I'd be pretty near strapped. "

"Will you take me in as a business partner, Jack?" she asked eagerly. "That's what I had in mind when I came up here. I made up my mind topropose that, after I'd heard you were ruined. Oh, it seems silly now, but I wanted to make amends that way; at least, I tried to tell myselfthat. Listen. When my father died, he left some supposedly worthless oilstock. But it proved to have a market value. I got my share of it theother day. It'll help us to make a fresh start--together. "

She had the envelope and the check tucked inside her waist. She took itout now and pressed the green slip into his hand. 

Fyfe looked at it and at her, a little chuckle deep in his throat. 

"Nineteen thousand, five hundred, " he laughed. "Well, that's quite astake for you. But if you go partners with me, what about your singing?"

"I don't see how I can have my cake and eat it, too, " she said lightly. "I don't feel quite so eager for a career as I did. "

"Well, we'll see, " he said. "That light of yours shouldn't be hiddenunder a bushel. And still, I don't like the idea of you being away fromme, which a career implies. "

He put the check back in the envelope, smiling oddly to himself, andtucked it back in her bosom. She caught and pressed his hand there, against the soft flesh. 

"Won't you use it, Jack?" she pleaded. "Won't it help? Don't let anysilly pride influence you. There mustn't ever be anything like thatbetween us again. "

"There won't be, " he smiled. "Frankly, if I need it, I'll use it. Butthat's a matter there's plenty of time to decide. You see, althoughtechnically I may be broke, I'm a long way from the end of my tether. Ithink I'll have my working outfit clear, and the country's full oftimber. I've got a standing in the business that neither fire noranything else can destroy. No, I haven't any false pride about themoney, dear. But the money part of our future is a detail. With theincentive I've got now to work and plan, it won't take me five years tobe a bigger toad in the timber puddle than I ever was. You don't knowwhat a dynamo I am when I get going. "

"I don't doubt that, " she said proudly. "But the money's yours, if youneed it. "

"I need something else a good deal more right now, " he laughed. "That'ssomething to eat. Aren't you hungry, Stella? Wouldn't you like a cup ofcoffee?"

"I'm famished, " she admitted--the literal truth. The vaulting uplift ofspirit, that glad little song that kept lilting in her heart, filled herwith peace and contentment, but physically she was beginning toexperience acute hunger. She recalled that she had eaten scarcelyanything that day. 

"We'll go down to the camp, " Fyfe suggested. "The cook will havesomething left. We're camping like pioneers down there. The shacks wereall burned, and somebody sank the cookhouse scow. "

They went down the path to the bay, hand in hand, feeling their waythrough that fire-blackened area, under a black sky. 

A red eye glowed ahead of them, a fire on the beach around which mensquatted on their haunches or lay stretched on their blankets, sooty-faced fire fighters, a weary group. The air was rank with smokewafted from the burning woods. 

The cook's fire was dead, and that worthy was humped on his bed-rollsmoking a pipe. But he had cold meat and bread, and he brewed a pot ofcoffee on the big fire for them, and Stella ate the plain fare, sittingin the circle of tired loggers. 

"Poor fellows, they look worn out, " she said, when they were againtraversing that black road to the bungalow. 

"We've slept standing up for three weeks, " Fyfe said simply. "They'vedone everything they could. And we're not through yet. A north windmight set Charlie's timber afire in a dozen places. "

"Oh, for a rain, " she sighed. 

"If wishing for rain brought it, " he laughed, "we'd have had a secondflood. We've got to keep pegging away till it does rain, that's all. Wecan't do much, but we have to keep doing it. You'll have to go back tothe Springs to-morrow, I'm afraid, Stella. I'll have to stay on thefiring line, literally. "

"I don't want to, " she cried rebelliously. "I want to stay up here withyou. I'm not wax. I won't melt. "

She continued that argument into the house, until Fyfe laughinglysmothered her speech with kisses. 

 * * * * *

An oddly familiar sound murmuring in Stella's ear wakened her. At firstshe thought she must be dreaming. It was still inky dark, but the airthat blew in at the open window was sweet and cool, filtered of thatchoking smoke. She lifted herself warily, looked out, reached a handthrough the lifted sash. Wet drops spattered it. The sound she heard wasthe drip of eaves, the beat of rain on the charred timber, upon thedried grass of the lawn. 

Beside her Fyfe was a dim bulk, sleeping the dead slumber of utterweariness. She hesitated a minute, then shook him. 

"Listen, Jack, " she said. 

He lifted his head. 

"Rain!" he whispered. "Good night, Mister Fire. Hooray!"

"I brought it, " Stella murmured sleepily. "I wished it on Roaring Laketo-night. "

Then she slipped her arm about his neck, and drew his face down to herbreast with a tender fierceness, and closed her eyes with a contentedsigh. 

THE END