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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The White Desert, by Courtney Ryley Cooper,
+Illustrated by Anton Otto Fischer
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The White Desert
+
+
+Author: Courtney Ryley Cooper
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 21, 2006  [eBook #20155]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE DESERT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 20155-h.htm or 20155-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/1/5/20155/20155-h/20155-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/1/5/20155/20155-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WHITE DESERT
+
+by
+
+COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER
+
+Author of
+The Cross-Cut, Etc.
+
+Frontispiece by Anton Otto Fischer
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: It was easier to accept the more precipitous journey,
+straight downward.]
+
+
+
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers ---------- New York
+Copyright, 1922,
+by Little, Brown, And Company
+All Rights Reserved
+Published February, 1922
+Reprinted March, 1922
+
+
+
+
+To a Certain Little Gray Lady
+
+who seems to like everything
+
+I write, the main reason being
+
+the fact that she is
+
+MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+THE WHITE DESERT
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+It was early afternoon.  Near by, the smaller hills shimmered in the
+radiant warmth of late spring, the brownness of their foliage and
+boulders merging gradually upward to the green of the spruces and pines
+of the higher mountains, which in turn gave way before the somber
+blacks and whites of the main range, where yet the snow lingered from
+the clutch of winter, where the streams ran brown with the down-flow of
+the continental divide, where every cluster of mountain foliage
+sheltered a mound of white, in jealous conflict with the sun.  The
+mountains are tenacious of their vicious traits; they cling to the snow
+and cold and ice long after the seasons have denoted a time of warmth
+and summer's splendor; the columbine often blooms beside a ten-foot
+drift.
+
+But down in the hollow which shielded the scrambling little town of
+Dominion, the air was warm and lazy with the friendliness of May.  Far
+off, along the course of the tumbling stream, turbulently striving to
+care for far more than its share of the melt-water of the hills, a
+jaybird called raucously as though in an effort to drown the sweeter,
+softer notes of a robin nesting in the new-green of a quaking aspen.
+At the hitching post before the one tiny store, an old horse nodded and
+blinked,--as did the sprawled figure beside the ramshackle
+motor-filling station, just opened after the snow-bound months of
+winter.  Then five minutes of absolute peace ensued, except for the
+buzzing of an investigative bottle-fly before the figure shuffled,
+stretched, and raising his head, looked down the road.  From the
+distance had come the whirring sound of a motor, the forerunner of a
+possible customer.  In the hills, an automobile speaks before it is
+seen.
+
+Long moments of throbbing echoes; then the car appeared, a mile or so
+down the canon, twisting along the rocky walls which rose sheer from
+the road, threading the innumerable bridges which spanned the little
+stream, at last to break forth into the open country and roar on toward
+Dominion.  The drowsy gasoline tender rose.  A moment more and a long,
+sleek, yellow racer had come to a stop beside the gas tank, chortled
+with greater reverberation than ever as the throttle was thrown open,
+then wheezed into silence with the cutting off of the ignition.  A
+young man rose from his almost flat position in the low-slung driver's
+seat and crawling over the side, stretched himself, meanwhile staring
+upward toward the glaring white of Mount Taluchen, the highest peak of
+the continental backbone, frowning in the coldness of snows that never
+departed.  The villager moved closer.
+
+"Gas?"
+
+"Yep."  The young man stretched again.  "Fill up the tank--and better
+give me half a gallon of oil."
+
+Then he turned away once more, to stare again at the great, tumbled
+stretches of granite, the long spaces of green-black pines, showing in
+the distance like so many upright fronds of some strange, mossy fern;
+at the blank spaces, where cold stone and shifting shale had made
+jagged marks of bareness in the masses of evergreen, then on to the
+last gnarled bulwarks of foliage, struggling bravely, almost
+desperately, to hold on to life where life was impossible, the dividing
+line, as sharp as a knife-thrust, between the region where trees may
+grow and snows may hide beneath their protecting boughs and the
+desolate, barren, rocky, forbidding waste of "timber line."
+
+Young he was, almost boyish; yet counterbalancing this was a
+seriousness of expression that almost approached somberness as he stood
+waiting until his machine should be made ready for the continuance of
+his journey.  The eyes were dark and lustrous with something that
+closely approached sorrow, the lips had a tightness about them which
+gave evidence of the pressure of suffering, all forming an expression
+which seemed to come upon him unaware, a hidden thing ever waiting for
+the chance to rise uppermost and assume command.  But in a flash it was
+gone, and boyish again, he had turned, laughing, to survey the gas
+tender.
+
+"Did you speak?" he asked, the dark eyes twinkling.  The villager was
+in front of the machine, staring at the plate of the radiator and
+scratching his head.
+
+"I was just sayin' I never seed that kind o' car before.  Barry
+Houston, huh?  Must be a new make.  I--"
+
+"Camouflage," laughed the young man again.  "That's my name."
+
+"Oh, is it?" and the villager chuckled with him.  "It shore had me
+guessin' fer a minute.  You've got th' plate right where th' name o' a
+car is plastered usually, and it plum fooled me.  That's your name,
+huh?  Live hereabouts--?"
+
+The owner of the name did not answer.  The thought suddenly had come to
+him that once out of the village, that plate must be removed and tossed
+to the bottom of the nearest stream.  His mission, for a time at least,
+would require secrecy.  But the villager had repeated his question:
+
+"Don't belong around here?"
+
+"I?  No, I'm--" then he hesitated.
+
+"Thought maybe you did.  Seein' you've got a Colorado license on."
+
+Houston parried, with a smile.
+
+"Well, this isn't all of Colorado, you know."
+
+"Guess that's right.  Only it seems in th' summer thet it's most o' it,
+th' way th' machines pile through, goin' over th' Pass.  Where you
+headed for?"
+
+"The same place."
+
+"Over Hazard?" The villager squinted.  "Over Hazard Pass?  Ain't daft,
+are you?"
+
+"I hope not.  Why?"
+
+"Ever made it before?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you're tacklin' it for the first time at this season o' th' year?"
+
+"Yes.  Why not?  It's May, isn't it?"
+
+The villager moved closer, as though to gain a better sight of Barry
+Houston's features.  He surveyed him carefully, from the tight-drawn
+reversed cap with the motor goggles resting above the young, smooth
+forehead, to the quiet elegance of the outing clothing and well-shod
+feet.  He spat, reflectively, and drew the back of a hand across
+tobacco-stained lips.
+
+"And you say you live in Colorado."
+
+"I didn't say--"
+
+"Well, it don't make no difference whether you did or not.  I know--you
+don't.  Nobody thet lives out here'd try to make Hazard Pass for th'
+first time in th' middle o' May."
+
+"I don't see--"
+
+"Look up there."  The old man pointed to the splotches of white,
+thousands of feet above, the swirling clouds which drifted from the icy
+breast of Mount Taluchen, the mists and fogs which caressed the
+precipices and rolled through the valleys created by the lesser peaks.
+"It may be spring down here, boy, but it's January up there.  They's
+only been two cars over Hazard since November and they come through
+last week.  Both of 'em was old stagers; they've been crossin' th'
+range for th' last ten year.  Both of 'em came through here lookin'
+like icicles 'an' swearing t' beat four o' a kind.  They's mountains
+an' mountains, kid.  Them up there's th' professional kind."
+
+A slight, puzzled frown crossed the face of Barry Houston.
+
+"But how am I going to get to the other side of the range?  I'm going
+to Tabernacle."
+
+"They's a train runs from Denver, over Crestline.  Look up there--jest
+to the right of Mount Taluchen.  See that there little puff o' smoke?
+That's it."
+
+"But that'd mean--."
+
+"For you t' turn around, go back to Denver, leave that there chariot o'
+your'n in some garage and take the train to-morrow mornin'.  It'd get
+you t' Tabernacle some time in the afternoon."
+
+"When would I get there--if I could make the Pass all right?"
+
+"In about five hours.  It's only fourteen mile from th' top.  But--"
+
+"And you say two other cars have gone through?"
+
+"Yep.  But they knowed every crook an' turn!"
+
+For a long moment, the young man made no reply.  His eyes were again on
+the hills and gleaming with a sudden fascination.  From far above, they
+seemed to call to him, to taunt him with their imperiousness, to
+challenge him and the low-slung high-powered car to the combat of
+gravitation and the elements.  The bleak walls of granite appeared to
+glower at him, as though daring him to attempt their conquest; the
+smooth stretches of pines were alluring things, promising peace and
+quiet and contentment,--will-o-the-wisps, which spoke only their
+beauty, and which said nothing of the long stretches of gravelly mire
+and puddles, resultant from the slowly melting snows.  The swirling
+clouds, the mists, the drifting fogs all appeared to await him, like
+the gathered hosts of some mighty army, suddenly peaceful until the
+call of combat.  A thrill shot through Barry Houston.  His life had
+been that of the smooth spaces, of the easy ascent of well-paved
+grades, of streets and comforts and of luxuries.  The very raggedness
+of the thing before him lured him and drew him on.  He turned, he
+smiled, with a quiet, determined expression of anticipation, yet of
+grimness.
+
+"They've got me," came quietly.  "I'm--I'm going to make the try!"
+
+The villager grunted.  His lips parted as though to issue a final
+warning.  Then, with a disgruntled shake of the head, he turned away.
+
+"Ain't no use arguin' with you Easterners," came at last.  "You come
+out here an' take one look at these here hills an' think you can beat
+Ole Lady Nature when she's sittin' pat with a royal flush.  But go
+on--I ain't tryin' t' stop you.  'Twouldn't be nothin' but a waste o'
+breath.  You've got this here conquerin' spirit in your blood--won't be
+satisfied till you get it out.  You're all th' same--I 've seen fellows
+with flivvers loaded down till th' springs was flat, look up at them
+hills an' figure t' get over an' back in time for supper.  So go
+on--only jis' remember this: once you get outside of Dominion an' start
+up th' grade, there ain't no way stations, an' there ain't no
+telephones, ner diner service, ner somebody t' bring y' th' evenin'
+paper.  You're buckin' a brace game when y' go against Hazard Pass at a
+time when she ain't in a mood f'r comp'ny.  She holds all th' cards,
+jis' remember that--an' a few thet ain't in th' deck.  But jis' th'
+same," he backed away as Barry stepped into the racer and pressed a
+foot on the starter, "I'm wishin' you luck.  You'll need it."
+
+"Thanks!"  Houston laughed with a new exhilaration, a new spirit of
+desire.  "It can't do any more than kill me."
+
+"Nope."  The villager was shouting now above the exhaust of the
+powerful engine, "But it shore can take a delight in doin' that!  S'
+long!"
+
+"So long!"  The gears meshed.  A stream of smoke from the new oil spat
+out for a second.  Then, roaring and chortling with the beginning of
+battle, the machine swept away toward the slight turn that indicated
+the scraggly end of the little town of Dominion, and the beginning of
+the first grade.
+
+The exhilaration still was upon Barry Houston.  He whistled and sang,
+turning now and then to view the bright greenness of the new-leafed
+aspens, to watch the circling sallies of the jaybirds, or to stare
+ahead to where the blues and greens and purples of the foliage and
+rocks merged in the distance.  The grade was yet easy and there was no
+evidence of strain upon the engine; the tiny rivulets which ran along
+the slight ruts at each side of the road betokened nothing to him save
+the slight possibility of chains, should a muddy stretch of
+straightaway road appear later on.  But as yet, that had not occurred,
+and Barry was living for the moment.
+
+The road began to twist slightly, with short raises and shorter level
+stretches winding among the aspens and spruces, with sudden, jagged
+turns about heavy, frowning boulders whose jutting noses seemed to
+scrape the fenders of the car, only to miss them by the barest part of
+an inch.  Suddenly Barry found himself bending forward, eyes still on
+the road in spite of his half-turned head, ears straining to catch the
+slightest variation of the motor.  It seemed to be straining,--yet the
+long, suddenly straight stretch of road ahead of him seemed perfectly
+level; downhill if anything.  More and more labored became the engine.
+Barry stopped, and lifting the hood, examined the carbureter.  With the
+motor idling, it seemed perfect.  Once more he started,--only to stop
+again and anxiously survey the ignition, test the spark plugs and again
+inquire into the activities of the carbureter.  At last, reassured, he
+walked to the front of the machine, and with the screwdriver pried the
+name plate from its position on the radiator and tossed it into the
+tumbling, yellow stream beside the road.  Then he turned back to the
+machine,--only to stop suddenly and blink with surprise.  The road was
+not level!  The illusion which comes to one at the first effort to
+conquer a mountain grade had faded now.  A few feet away was a deserted
+cabin, built upon a level plot of ground and giving to Barry a chance
+for comparison, and he could see that his motor had not been at fault.
+Now the road, to his suddenly comprehending eyes, rose before him in a
+long, steady sweep of difficult grades, upward, steadily upward, with
+never a varying downfall, with never a rest for the motor which must
+climb it.  And this was just the beginning!  For Barry could see beyond.
+
+Far in the distance he could make it out, a twisting, turning, almost
+writhing thing, cutting into the side of the mountain, a jagged scar,
+searing its way up the range in flights that seemed at times to run
+almost perpendicular and which faded, only to reappear again, like the
+trail of some gigantic cut-worm, mark above mark, as it circled the
+smaller hills, cut into the higher ones, was lost at the edge of some
+great beetling rock, only to reappear once more, hundreds of feet
+overhead.  The eyes of Barry Houston grew suddenly serious.  He reached
+into the toolbox, and bringing forth the jack, affixed the chains,
+forgetting his usually cheery whistle, forgetting even to take notice
+when an investigative jay scrambled out upon a dead aspen branch and
+chattered at him.  The true meaning of the villager's words had come at
+last.  The mountains were frowning now, instead of beckoning, glowering
+instead of promising, threatening instead of luring.  One by one he
+locked the chains into place, and tossing the jack once more into the
+tool-box, resumed his place at the wheel.
+
+"A six per cent. grade if it's an inch!" he murmured.  "And this is
+only the beginning.  Wonder what I'm stepping into?"
+
+The answer came almost before the machine had warmed into action.  Once
+more the engine labored; nor was it until Barry had answered its
+gasping plea by a shift to second gear that it strengthened again.  The
+grade was growing heavier; once Barry turned his head and stared with
+the knowledge that far beneath him a few tiny buildings dotted what
+seemed to be a space of ground as level as a floor.  Dominion!  And he
+had barely passed outside its environs!
+
+He settled more firmly in his seat and gripped hard at the steering
+wheel.  The turns had become shorter; more, Barry found himself
+righting the machine with sudden jerks as the car rounded the short
+curves where the front wheels seemed to hang momentarily above
+oblivion, as the chasms stretched away to seemingly bottomless depths
+beneath.  Gradually, the severity of the grade had increased to ten, to
+twelve and in short pitches to even eighteen and twenty per cent!  For
+a time the machine sang along in second, bucking the raises with almost
+human persistence, finally, however, to gasp and break in the smooth
+monotony of the exhaust, to miss, to strain and struggle vainly, then
+to thunder on once more, as Houston pressed the gears into low and
+began to watch the motormeter with anxious eyes.  The mercury was
+rising; another half-hour and the swish of steam told of a boiling
+radiator.
+
+A stop, while the red, hissing water splattered from the radiator cock,
+and the lifted hood gave the machine a chance to cool before
+replenishment came from the murky, discolored stream of melted snow
+water which churned beneath a sapling bridge.  Panting and light-headed
+from the altitude, Barry leaned against the machine for a moment, then
+suddenly straightened to draw his coat tighter about him and to raise
+the collar about his neck.  The wind, whistling down from above, was
+cold: something touched his face and melted there,--snow!
+
+The engine was cool now.  Barry leaped to the wheel and once more began
+his struggle upward, a new seriousness upon him, a new grimness
+apparent in the tightness of his lips.  The tiny rivulets of the road
+had given place to gushing streams; here and there a patch of snow
+appeared in the highway; farther above, Barry could see that the white
+was unbroken, save for the half-erased marks of the two cars which had
+made the journey before him.  The motor, like some refreshed animal,
+roared with a new power and new energy, vibrant, confident, but the
+spirit was not echoed by the man at the wheel.  He was in the midst of
+a fight that was new to him, a struggle against one of the mightiest
+things that Nature can know, the backbone of the Rocky Mountains,--a
+backbone which leered above him in threatening, vicious coldness, which
+nowhere held surcease; it must be a battle to the end!
+
+Up--up--up--the grades growing steadily heavier, the shifting clouds
+enveloping him and causing him to stop at intervals and wait in
+shivering impatience until they should clear and allow him once more to
+continue the struggle.  Grayness and sunshine flitted about him; one
+moment his head was bowed against the sweep of a snow flurry, driving
+straight against him from the higher peaks, the next the brilliance of
+mountain sunshine radiated about him, cheering him, exhilarating him,
+only to give way to the dimness of damp, drifting mists, which closed
+in upon him like some great, gray garment of distress and held him in
+its gloomy clutch until the grade should carry him above it and into
+the sun or snow again.
+
+Higher!  The machine was roaring like a desperate, cornered thing now;
+its crawling pace slackening with the steeper inclines, gaining with
+the lesser raises, then settling once more to the lagging pace as
+steepness followed steepness, or the abruptness of the curve caused the
+great, slow-moving vehicle to lose the momentum gained after hundreds
+of feet of struggle.  Again the engine boiled, and Barry stood beside
+it in shivering gratitude for its warmth.  The hills about him were
+white now; the pines had lost their greenness to become black
+silhouettes against the blank, colorless background Barry Houston had
+left May and warmth and springtime behind, to give way to the clutch of
+winter and the white desert of altitude.
+
+But withal it was beautiful.  Cold, harassed by dangers that he never
+before knew could exist, disheartened by the even more precipitous
+trail which lay ahead, fighting a battle for which he was unfitted by
+experience, Houston could not help but feel repaid for it all as he
+flattened his back against the hot radiator and, comforted by the
+warmth, looked about him.  The world was his--his to look upon, to
+dissect, to survey with the all-seeing eyes of tremendous heights, to
+view in the perspective of the eagle and the hawk, to look down upon
+from the pinnacles and see, even as a god might see it.  Far below lay
+a tiny, discolored ribbon,--the road which he had traversed, but now
+only a scratch upon the expanse of the great country which tumbled away
+beneath him.  Hills had become hummocks, towering pines but blades of
+grass, streams only a variegated line in the vast display of Nature's
+artistry.  And above--
+
+Barry Houston looked upon it with dazzled eyes.  The sun had broken
+forth again, to stream upon the great, rounded head of Mount Taluchen,
+and there to turn the serried snows to a mass of shell-pink pearl, to
+smooth away the glaring whiteness and paint instead a down-like
+coverlet of beauty.  Here and there the great granite precipices stood
+forth in old rose and royal purple; farther the shadows melted into
+mantles, not of black, but of softest lavender; mound upon mound of
+color swung before him as he glanced from peak to peak,--the colors
+that only an artist knows, tintings instead of solid grounds,
+suggestions rather than actualities.  Even the gnarled pines of timber
+line, where the world of vegetation was sliced off short to give way to
+the barrenness of the white desert, seemed softened and freed from
+their appearance of constant suffering in the pursuit of life.  A lake
+gleamed, set, it seemed, at an upright angle upon the very side of a
+mountain; an ice gorge glistened with the scintillation of a million
+jewels, a cloud rolled through a great crevice like the billowing of
+some soft-colored crepe and then--
+
+Barry crouched and shivered, then turned with sudden activity.  It all
+had faded, faded in the blast of a shrilling wind, bringing upon its
+breast the cutting assault of sleet and the softer, yet no less vicious
+swirl of snow.  Quickly the radiator was drained and refilled.  Once
+more, huddled in the driver's seat, Barry Houston gripped the wheel and
+felt the crunching of the chain-clad wheels in the snow of the roadway.
+The mountains had lured again, only that they might clutch him in a
+tighter embrace of danger than ever.  Now the snow was whirling about
+him in almost blinding swiftness; the small windshield counted for
+nothing; it was only by leaning far outside the car that he could see
+to drive and then there were moments that seemed to presage the end.
+
+Chasms lurked at the corners, the car skidded and lurched from one side
+of the narrow roadway to the other; once the embankment crumbled for an
+instant as a rear wheel raced for a foothold and gained it just in
+time.  Thundering below, Barry could hear the descent of the dirt and
+small boulders as they struck against protruding rocks and echoed forth
+to a constantly growing sound that seemed to travel for miles that it
+might return with the strength of thunder.  Then for a moment the sun
+came again and he stared toward it with set, anxious eyes.  It no
+longer was dazzling; it was large and yellow and free from glare.  He
+swerved his gaze swiftly to the dashboard clock, then back to the sun
+again.  Four o'clock!  Yet the great yellow ball was hovering on the
+brim of Mount Taluchen; dusk was coming.  A frightened glance showed
+him the black shadows of the valleys, the deeper tones of coloring, the
+vagueness of the distance which comes with the end of day.
+
+Anxiously he studied his speedometer as the road stretched out for a
+space of a few hundred feet for safety.  Five miles--only five miles in
+a space of time that on level country could have accounted for a
+hundred.  Five miles and the route book told plainly that there were
+four more to go before the summit was reached.  Anxiously--with a
+sudden hope--he watched the instrument, with the thought that perhaps
+it had broken, but the slow progress of the mile-tenths took away that
+possibility.  He veered his gaze along the dashboard, suddenly to
+center it upon the oil gauge.  His jaw sagged.  He pressed harder upon
+the accelerator in a vain effort.  But the gauge showed no indication
+that the change of speed had been felt.
+
+"The oil pump!" came with a half gasp.  "It's broken--I'll have to--"
+
+The sentence was not finished.  A sudden, clattering roar had come from
+beneath the hood, a clanking jangle which told him that his eyes had
+sought the oil gauge too late,--the shattering, agonizing cacophony of
+a broken connecting rod, the inevitable result of a missing oil supply
+and its consequent burnt bearing.  Hopelessly, dejectedly Barry shut
+off the engine and pulled to one side of the road,--through sheer force
+of habit.  In his heart he knew that there could be no remedy for the
+clattering remonstrance of the broken rod, that the road was his
+without question, that it was beyond hope to look for aid up here where
+all the world was pines and precipices and driven snow, that he must go
+on, fighting against heavier odds than ever.  And as he realized the
+inevitable, his dull, tired eyes saw from the distance another, a
+greater enemy creeping toward him over the hills and ice gorges,
+through the valleys and along the sheer walls of granite.  The last,
+ruddy rim of a dying sun was just disappearing over Mount Taluchen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Hazard Pass had held true to its name.  There were yet nearly four
+miles to go before the summit of nearly twelve thousand feet elevation
+could be reached and the downward trip of fourteen miles to the nearest
+settlement made.  And that meant--
+
+Houston steadied himself and sought to figure just what it did mean.
+The sun was gone now, leaving grayness and blackness behind,
+accentuated by the single strip of gleaming scarlet which flashed
+across the sky above the brim of Mount Taluchen, the last vestige of
+daylight.  The wind was growing shriller and sharper, as though it had
+waited only for the sinking of the sun to loose the ferocity which too
+long had been imprisoned.  Darkness came, suddenly, seeming to sweep up
+from the valleys toward the peaks, and with it more snow.  Barry
+accepted the inevitable.  He must go on--and that as swiftly as his
+crippled machine, the darkness and the twisting, snow-laden,
+treacherous road would permit.
+
+Once more at the wheel, he snapped on the lights and huddled low, to
+avail himself of every possible bit of warmth from the clanking,
+discordant engine.  Slowly the journey began, the machine laboring and
+thundering with its added handicap of a broken rod and the consequent
+lost power of one cylinder.  Literally inch by inch it dragged itself
+up the heavier grades, puffing and gasping and clanking, the rattling
+rod threatening at every moment to tear out its very vitals.  The heavy
+smell of burnt oil drifted back to the nostrils of Barry Houston; but
+there was nothing that he could do but grip the steering wheel a bit
+tighter with his numbed hands,--and go on.
+
+Slowly, ever so slowly, the indicator of the speedometer measured off a
+mile in dragging decimals.  The engine boiled and Barry stopped, once
+more to huddle against the radiator, and to avail himself of its
+warmth, but not to renew the water.  No stream was near; besides, the
+cold blast of the wind, shrilling through the open hood, accomplished
+the purpose more easily.  Again a sally and again a stop.  And Barry
+was thankful, as, huddled and shivering in his light clothing, he once
+more sought the radiator.  Vaguely there came to him the thought that
+he might spend the night somewhere on the Pass and go on with the flush
+of morning.  But the thought vanished as quickly as it came; there was
+no shelter, no blankets, nothing but the meager warmth of what fire he
+might be able to gather, and that would fade the minute he nodded.
+Already the temperature had sunk far beneath the freezing point; the
+crackling of the ice in the gulleys of the road fairly shouted the fact
+as he edged back once more from the radiator to his seat.
+
+An hour--and three more after that--with the consequent stops and
+pauses, the slow turns, the dragging process up the steeper inclines of
+the road.  A last final, clattering journey, and Barry leaped from the
+seat with something akin to enthusiasm.
+
+Through the swirling snow which sifted past the glare of his
+headlights, he could discern a sign which told him he had reached the
+summit, that he now stood at the literal top of the world.
+
+But it was a silent world, a black world, in which the hills about him
+were shapeless, dim hulks, where the wind whined, where the snow swept
+against his face and drifted down the open space of his collar; a world
+of coldness, of malice, of icy venom, where everything was a
+threatening thing, and never a cheering aspect except the fact that the
+grades had been accomplished, and that from now on he could progress
+with the knowledge that his engine at least need labor no longer.  But
+the dangers!  Barry knew that they had only begun.  The descent would
+be as steep as the climb he had just made.  The progress must be
+slower, if anything, and with the compression working as a brake.  But
+it was at least progress, and once more he started.
+
+The engine clanked less now, the air seemed a bit warmer with the down
+grade, and Barry, in spite of his fatigue, in spite of the
+disappointment of a disabled car, felt at least the joy of having
+conquered the thing which had sought to hold him back, the happiness of
+having fought against obstacles, of having beaten them, and of knowing
+that he now was on the down trail.  The grade lessened for a few
+hundred feet, and the machine slowed.  Houston pressed on the clutch
+pedal, allowing the car to coast slowly until the hill became steeper
+again.  Then he sought once more to shift into gear,--and stopped short!
+
+Those few moments of coasting had been enough.  Overheated, distended,
+the bearings had cooled too suddenly about the crank shaft and frozen
+there with a tightness that neither the grinding pull of the starter
+nor the heavy tug of the down grade could loosen.  Once more Barry
+Houston felt his heart sink in the realization of a newer, a greater
+foreboding than ever.  A frozen crank shaft meant that from now on the
+gears would be useless.  Fourteen miles of down grade faced him.  If he
+were to make them, it must be done with the aid of brakes alone.  That
+was dangerous!
+
+He cupped his hands and called,--in the vain hope that the stories of
+Hazard Pass and its loneliness might not be true, after all.  But the
+only answer was the churning of the bank-full stream a hundred yards
+away, the thunder of the wind through the pines below, and the eerie
+echo of his own voice coming back to him through the snows.
+Laboriously he left the machine and climbed back to the summit, there
+to seek out the little tent house he had seen far at one side and which
+he instinctively knew to be the rest room and refreshment stand of the
+summer season.  But he found it, as he had feared he would find it, a
+deserted, cold, napping thing, without a human, without a single
+comfort, or the possibility of fire or warmth through the night.
+Summer, for Hazard Pass, at least, still was a full month away.  For a
+moment he shivered within it, staring about its bleak interior by the
+aid of a flickering match.  Then he went outside again.  It was only a
+shell, only a hope that could not be realized.  It would be less of a
+hardship to make the fight to reach the bottom of the Pass than to
+attempt to spend the night in this flimsy contraption.  In travel there
+would be at least action, and Barry clambered down the hill to his
+machine.
+
+Again he started, the brake bands squeaking and protesting, the machine
+sloughing dangerously as now and again its sheer weight forced it
+forward at dangerous speeds until lesser levels could be reached and
+the hold of the brake bands accomplish their purpose again.  Down and
+down, the miles slipping away with far greater speed than even Barry
+realized, until at last--
+
+He grasped desperately for the emergency brake and gripped tight upon
+it, steering with one hand.  For five minutes there had come the strong
+odor of burning rubber; the strain had been too great, the foot-brake
+linings were gone; everything depended upon the emergency now!  And
+almost with the first strain--
+
+Careening, the car seemed to leap beneath him, a maddened, crazed
+thing, tired of the hills, tired of the turmoil and strain of hours of
+fighting, racing with all the speed that gravity could thrust upon it
+for the bottom of the Pass.  The brakes were gone, the emergency had
+not even lasted through the first hill.  Barry Houston was now a
+prisoner of speed,--cramped in the seat of a runaway car, clutching
+tight at the wheel, leaning, white, tense-faced, out into the snow, as
+he struggled to negotiate the turns, to hold the great piece of runaway
+machinery to the crusted road and check its speed from time to time in
+the snowbanks.
+
+A mile more--halted at intervals by the very thing which an hour or so
+before Barry Houston had come almost to hate, the tight-packed banks of
+snow--then came a new emergency.  One chance was left, and Barry took
+it,--the "burring" of the gears in lieu of a brake.  The snow was
+fading now, the air was warmer; a mile or so more and he would be safe
+from that threat which had driven him down from the mountain
+peaks,--the possibility of death from exposure, had he, in his light
+clothing, attempted to spend the night in the open.  If the burred
+gears could only hold the car for a mile or so more--
+
+But a sudden, snapping crackle ended his hope.  The gears had meshed,
+and meshing, had broken.  Again a wild, careening thing, with no snow
+banks to break the rush, the car was speeding down the steepest of the
+grades like a human thing determined upon self-destruction.
+
+A skidding curve, then a straightaway, while Barry clung to the wheel
+with fingers that were white with the tightness of their grip.  A
+second turn, while a wheel hung over the edge, a third and--
+
+The awful, suspended agony of space.  A cry.  A crash and a dull,
+twisting moment of deadened Suffering.  After that--blackness.  Fifty
+feet below the road lay a broken, crushed piece of mechanism, its
+wheels still spinning, the odor of gasoline heavy about it from the
+broken tank, one light still gleaming, like a blazing eye, one light
+that centered upon the huddled, crumpled figure of a man who groaned
+once and strove vaguely, dizzily, to rise, only to sink at last into
+unconsciousness.  Barry Houston had lost his fight.
+
+How long he remained there, Barry did not know.  He remembered only the
+falling, dizzy moment, the second or so of horrible, racking suspense,
+when, breathless, unable to move, he watched the twisting rebound of
+the machine from which he had been thrown and sought to evade it as it
+settled, metal crunching against metal, for the last time.  After that
+had come agonized hours in which he knew neither wakefulness nor the
+quiet of total unconsciousness.  Then--
+
+Vaguely, as from far away, he heard a voice,--the sort of a voice that
+spelled softness and gentleness.  Something touched his forehead and
+stroked it, with the caress that only a woman's hand can give.  He
+moved slightly, with the knowledge that he lay no longer upon the rocky
+roughness of a mountain side, but upon the softness of a bed.  A pillow
+was beneath his head.  Warm blankets covered him.  The hand again
+lingered on his forehead and was drawn away.  A moment more and slowly,
+wearily, Barry Houston opened his eyes.
+
+It was the room of a mountain cabin, with its skiis and snowshoes; with
+its rough chinkings in the interstices of the logs which formed the
+mainstay of the house, with its four-paned windows, with its
+uncouthness, yet with its comfort.  Barry noticed none of this.  His
+eyes had centered upon the form of a girl standing beside the little
+window, where evidently she had gone from his bedside.
+
+Fair-haired she was, though Barry did not notice it.  Small of build
+and slight, yet vibrant with the health and vigor that is typical of
+those who live in the open places.  And there was a piquant something
+about her too; just enough of an upturned little nose to denote the
+fact that there was spirit and independence in her being; dark blue
+eyes that snapped even as darker eyes snapped, as she stood, half
+turned, looking out the window, watching with evident eagerness the
+approach of some one Barry could not see.  The lips carried a
+half-smile of anticipation.  Barry felt the instinctive urge to call to
+her, to raise himself--
+
+He winced with a sudden pain, a sharp, yet aching throb of agony which
+involuntarily closed his eyes and clenched tight his teeth until it
+should pass.  When he looked again, she was gone, and the opening of a
+door in the next room told him where.  Almost wondering, he turned his
+eyes then toward the blankets and sought to move an arm,--only again to
+desist in pain.  He tried the other, and it responded.  The covers were
+lowered, and Barry's eyes stared down upon a bandaged, splinted left
+arm.  Broken.
+
+He grunted with surprise, then somewhat doggedly began an inspection of
+the rest of his human machine.  Gingerly he wiggled one toe beneath the
+blankets.  It seemed to be in working order.  He tried the others, with
+the same result.  Then followed his legs--and the glorious knowledge
+that they still were intact.  His one free hand reached for his head
+and felt it.  It was there, plus a few bandages, which however, from
+their size, gave Barry little concern.  The inventory completed, he
+turned his head at the sound of a voice--hers--calling from the doorway
+to some one without.
+
+"He's getting along fine, Ba'tiste."  Barry liked the tone and the
+enthusiastic manner of speaking.  "His fever's gone down.  I should
+think--"
+
+"Ah, _oui_!" had come the answer in booming bass.  "And has he, what
+you say, come to?"
+
+"Not yet.  But I think he ought to, soon."
+
+"_Oui_!  Heem no ver' bad.  He be all right tomorrow."
+
+"That's good.  It frightened me, for him to be unconscious so long.
+It's been five or six hours now, hasn't it?"
+
+"Lemme see.  I fin' heem six o'clock.  Now--eet is the noon.  Six hour."
+
+"That's long enough.  Besides, I think he's sleeping now.  Come inside
+and see--"
+
+"Wait, _m' enfant_.  M'sieu Thayer he come in the minute.  He say he
+think he know heem."
+
+The eyes of Barry Houston suddenly lost their curiosity.  Thayer?  That
+could mean only one Thayer!  Barry had taken particular pains to keep
+from him the information that he was anywhere except the East.  For it
+had been Fred Thayer who had caused Barry to travel across country in
+his yellow speedster, Thayer who had formed the reason for the
+displacement of that name plate at the beginning of Hazard Pass, Thayer
+who--
+
+"Know him?  Is he a friend?"
+
+"_Oui_.  So Thayer say.  He say he think eet is the M'sieu Houston, who
+own the mill."
+
+"Probably coming out to look over things, then?"
+
+"_Oui_.  Thayer, he say the young man write heem about coming.  That is
+how he know when I tell heem about picking heem up from the machine.
+He say he know M'sieu Houston is coming by the automobile."
+
+In the other room, Barry Houston blinked rapidly and frowned.  He had
+written Thayer nothing of the sort.  He had--  Suddenly he stared
+toward the ceiling in swift-centered thought.  Some one else must have
+sent the information, some one who wanted Thayer to know that Barry was
+on the way, so that there would be no surprise in his coming, some one
+who realized that his mission was that of investigation!
+
+The names of two persons flashed across his mind, one to be dismissed
+immediately, the other--
+
+"I'll fire Jenkins the minute I get back!" came vindictively.  "I'll--."
+
+He choked his words.  A query had come from the next room.
+
+"Was that heem talking?"
+
+"No, I don't think so.  He groans every once in a while.  Wait--I'll
+look."
+
+The injured man closed his eyes quickly, as he heard the girl approach
+the door, not to open them until she had departed.  Barry was thinking
+and thinking hard.  A moment later--
+
+"How's the patient?"  It was a new voice, one which Barry Houston
+remembered from years agone, when he, a wide-eyed boy in his father's
+care, first had viewed the intricacies of a mountain sawmill, had
+wandered about the bunk houses, and ridden the great, skidding bobsleds
+with the lumberjacks in the spruce forests, on a never-forgotten trip
+of inspection.  It was Thayer, the same Thayer that he once had looked
+upon with all the enthusiasm and pride of boyhood, but whom he now
+viewed with suspicion and distrust.  Thayer had brought him out here,
+without realizing it.  Yet Thayer had known that he was on the way.
+And Thayer must be combatted--but how?  The voice went on, "Gained
+consciousness yet?"
+
+"No."  The girl had answered.  "That is--"
+
+"Of course, then, he hasn't been able to talk.  Pretty sure it's
+Houston, though.  Went over and took a look at the machine.  Colorado
+license on it, but the plates look pretty new, and there are fresh
+marks on the license holders where others have been taken off recently.
+Evidently just bought a Colorado tag, figuring that he'd be out here
+for some time.  How'd you find him?"
+
+The bass voice of the man referred to as Ba'tiste gave the answer, and
+Barry listened with interest.  Evidently he had struggled to his feet
+at some time during the night--though he could not remember it--and
+striven to find his way down the mountain side in the darkness, for the
+story of Ba'tiste told Barry that he had found him just at dawn, a full
+five hundred yards from the machine.
+
+"I see heem move," the big voice was saying, "jus' as I go to look at
+my trap.  Then Golemar come beside me and raise his hair along his neck
+and growl--r-r-r-r-r-u-u-f-f-f--like that.  I look again--it is jus' at
+the dawn.  I cannot see clearly.  I raise my gun to shoot, and Golemar,
+he growl again.  Then I think eet strange that the bear or whatever he
+is do not move.  I say to Golemar, 'We will closer go, _ne c'est pas_?'
+A step or two--then three--but he do not move--then pretty soon I look
+again, close.  Eet is a man, I pick heem up, like this--and I bring
+heem home.  _Ne c'est pas_, Medaine?"
+
+Her name was Medaine then.  Not bad, Barry thought.  It rather matched
+her hair and the tilt of her nose and the tone of her laugh as she
+answered:
+
+"I would say you carried him more like a sack of meal, Ba'tiste.  I'm
+glad I happened along when I did; you might have thrown him over your
+shoulder!"
+
+A booming laugh answered her and the sound of a light scuffle, as
+though the man were striving to catch the girl in his big embrace.  But
+the cold voice of Thayer cut in:
+
+"And he hasn't regained consciousness?"
+
+"Not yet.  That is, I think he's recovered his senses, all right, and
+fallen immediately into a heavy sleep."
+
+"Guess I'll go in and stay with him until he wakes up.  He's my boss,
+you know--since the old man died.  We've got a lot of important things
+to discuss.  So if you don't mind--"
+
+"Certainly not."  It was the girl again.  "We'll go in with you."
+
+"No, thanks.  I want to see him alone."
+
+Within the bedroom, Barry Houston gritted his teeth.  Then, with a
+sudden resolve, he rested his head again on the pillow and closed his
+eyes as the sound of steps approached.  Closer they came to the bed,
+and closer.  Barry could feel that the man was bending over him,
+studying him.  There came a murmur, almost whispered:
+
+"Wonder what the damn fool came out here about?  Wonder if he's wise?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+It was with an effort that Houston gave no indication that he had
+heard.  Before, there had been only suspicions, one flimsy clue leading
+to another, a building-block process, which, in its culmination, had
+determined Barry to take a trip into the West to see for himself.  He
+had believed that it would be a long process, the finding of a certain
+telegram and the possibilities which might ensue if this bit of
+evidence should turn out to be the thing he had suspected.  He had not,
+however, hoped to have from the lips of the man himself a confession
+that conditions were not right at the lumber mill of which Barry
+Houston now formed the executive head; to receive the certain statement
+that somewhere, somehow, something was wrong, something which was
+working against the best interests of himself and the stern necessities
+of the future.  But now--
+
+Thayer had turned away and evidently sought a chair at the other side
+of the room.  Barry remained perfectly still.  Five minutes passed.
+Ten.  There came no sound from the chair; instinctively the man on the
+bed knew that Thayer was watching him, waiting for the first flicker of
+an eyelid, the first evidence of returning consciousness.  Five minutes
+more and Barry rewarded the vigil.  He drew his breath in a shivering
+sigh.  He turned and groaned,--quite naturally with the pain from his
+splintered arm.  His eyes opened slowly, and he stared about him, as
+though in non-understanding wonderment, finally to center upon the
+window ahead and retain his gaze there, oblivious of the sudden tensity
+of the thin-faced Thayer.  Barry Houston was playing for time, playing
+a game of identities.  In the same room was a man he felt sure to be an
+enemy, a man who had in his care everything Barry Houston possessed in
+the world, every hope, every dream, every chance for the wiping out of
+a thing that had formed a black blot in the life of the young man for
+two grim years, and a man who, Barry Houston now felt certain, had not
+held true to his trust.  Still steadily staring, he pretended not to
+notice the tall, angular form of Fred Thayer as that person crossed the
+brightness of the window and turned toward the bed.  And when at last
+he did look up into the narrow, sunken face, it was with eyes which
+carried in them no light of friendship, nor even the faintest air of
+recognition.  Thayer put forth a gnarled, frost-twisted hand.
+
+"Hello, kid," he announced, his thin lips twisting into a cynical smile
+that in days gone by had passed as an affectation.  Barry looked
+blankly at him.
+
+"Hello."
+
+"How'd you get hurt?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Old Man Renaud here says you fell over the side of Two Mile Hill.  He
+picked you up about six o'clock this morning.  Don't you remember?"
+
+"Remember what?"  The blank look still remained.  Thayer moved closer
+to the bed and bending, stared at him.
+
+"Why, the accident.  I'm Thayer, you know--Thayer, your manager at the
+Empire Lake mill."
+
+"Have I a manager?"
+
+The thin man drew back at this and stood for a moment staring down at
+Houston.  Then he laughed and rubbed his gnarled hands.
+
+"I hope you've got a manager.  You--you haven't fired me, have you?"
+
+Barry turned his head wearily, as though the conversation were ended.
+
+"I don't know what you are talking about."
+
+"You--don't--say, you're Barry Houston, aren't you?"
+
+"I?  Am I?"
+
+"Well, then, who are you?"
+
+The man on the bed smiled.
+
+"I'd like to have you tell me.  I don't know myself."
+
+"Don't you know your name?"
+
+"Have I one?"
+
+Thayer, wondering now, drew a hand across his forehead and stood for a
+moment in disconcerted silence.  Again he started to frame a question,
+only to desist.  Then, hesitatingly, he turned and walked to the door.
+
+"Ba'tiste."
+
+"Ah, _oui_!"
+
+"Come in here, will you?  I'm up against a funny proposition.  Mr.
+Houston doesn't seem to be able to remember who he is."
+
+"Ah!"  Then came the sound of heavy steps, and Barry glanced toward the
+door, to see framed there the gigantic form of a grinning, bearded man,
+his long arms hanging with the looseness of tremendous strength, his
+gray eyes gleaming with twinkling interest, his whole being and build
+that of a great, good-humored, eccentric giant.  His beard was
+splotched with gray, as was the hair which hung in short, unbarbered
+strands about his ears.  But the hint of age was nullified by the cocky
+angle of the blue-knit cap upon his head, the blazing red of his
+double-breasted pearl-buttoned shirt, the flexible freedom of his
+muscles as he strode within.  Beside him trotted a great gray
+cross-breed dog, which betokened collie and timber wolf, and which
+progressed step by step at his master's knee.  Close to the bed they
+came, the great form bending, the twinkling, sharp eyes boring into
+those of Houston, until the younger man gave up the contest and turned
+his head,--to look once more upon the form of the girl, waiting
+wonderingly in the doorway.  Then the voice came, rumbling, yet
+pleasant:
+
+"He no remember, eh?"
+
+"No.  I know him all right.  It's Barry Houston--I've been expecting
+him to drop in most any day.  Of course, I haven't seen him since he
+was a kid out here with his father--but that doesn't make any
+difference.  The family resemblance is there--he's got his father's
+eyes and mouth and nose, and his voice.  But I can't get him to
+remember it.  He can't recall anything about his fall, or his name or
+business.  I guess the accident--"
+
+"Eet is the--"  Ba'tiste was waving one hand vaguely, then placing a
+finger to his forehead, in a vain struggle for a word.  "Eet is
+the--what-you-say--"
+
+"Amnesia."  The answer had come quietly from the girl.  Ba'tiste turned
+excitedly.
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  Eet is the amnesia.  Many time I have seen it--" he waved
+a hand--"across the way, _ne c'est pas_?  Eet is when the mind he will
+no work--what you say--he will not stick on the job.  See--" he
+gesticulated now with both hands--"eet is like a wall.  I see eet with
+the shell shock.  Eet is all the same.  The wall is knock down--eet
+will not hold together.  Blooey--" he waved his hands--"the man he no
+longer remember!"
+
+This time the stare in Barry Houston's eyes was genuine.  To hear a
+girl of the mountains name a particular form of mental ailment, and
+then to further listen to that ailment described in its symptoms by a
+grinning, bearded giant of the woods was a bit past the comprehension
+of the injured man.  He had half expected the girl to say "them" and
+"that there", though the trimness of her dress, the smoothness of her
+small, well-shod feet, the air of refinement which spoke even before
+her lips had uttered a word should have told him differently.  As for
+the giant, Ba'tiste, with his outlandish clothing, his corduroy
+trousers and high-laced, hob-nailed boots, his fawning, half-breed dog,
+his blazing shirt and kippy little knit cap, the surprise was all the
+greater.  But that surprise, it seemed, did not extend to the other
+listener.  Thayer had bobbed his head as though in deference to an
+authority.  When he spoke, Barry thought that he discerned a tone of
+enthusiasm, of hope:
+
+"Do they ever get over it?"
+
+"Sometime, yes.  Sometime--no.  Eet all depend."
+
+"Then there isn't any time limit on a thing like this."
+
+"No.  Sometime a year--sometime a week--sometime never.  It all depend.
+Sometime he get a shock--something happen quick, sudden--blooey--he
+come back, he say 'where am I', and he be back again, same like he was
+before!"  Ba'tiste gesticulated vigorously.  Thayer moved toward the
+door.
+
+"Then I guess there's nothing more for me to do, except to drop in
+every few days and see how he's getting along.  You'll take good care
+of him?"
+
+"Ah, _oui_."
+
+"Good.  Want to walk a piece down the road--with me, Medaine?"
+
+"Of course.  It's too bad, isn't it--"
+
+Then they faded through the doorway, and Barry could hear no more.  But
+he found himself looking after them, wondering about many
+things,--about the girl and her interest in Fred Thayer, and whether
+she too might be a part of the machinery which he felt had been set up
+against him; about the big, grinning Ba'tiste, who still remained in
+the room; who now was fumbling about with the bedclothes at the foot of
+the bed and--
+
+"Ouch!  Don't--don't do that!"
+
+Barry suddenly had ceased his thoughts to jerk his feet far up under
+the covers, laughing and choking and striving to talk at the same time.
+At the foot of the bed, Ba'tiste, his eyes twinkling more than ever,
+had calmly rolled back the covering and just as calmly tickled the
+injured man's feet.  More, one long arm had outstretched again, as the
+giant once more reached for the sole of a foot, to tickle it, then to
+stand back and boom with laughter as Barry involuntarily sought to jerk
+the point of attack out of the way.  For a fourth time he repeated the
+performance, followed by a fourth outburst of mirth at the recoil from
+the injured man.  Barry frowned.
+
+"Pardon me," he said rather caustically.  "But I don't get the joke."
+
+"Ho, ho!" and Ba'tiste turned to talk to the shaggy dog at his side.
+"_L'enfant_ feels it!  _L'enfant_ feels it!"
+
+"Feel it," grunted Houston.  "Of course I feel it!  I'm ticklish."
+
+"You hear, Golemar?"  Ba'tiste, contorted with merriment, pointed
+vaguely in the direction of the bed, "M'sieu l' Nobody, heem is
+ticklish!"
+
+"Of course I'm ticklish.  Who isn't, on the bottom of his feet?"
+
+The statement only brought a new outburst from the giant.  It nettled
+Houston; further, it caused him pain to be jerking constantly about the
+bed in an effort to evade the tickling touch of the trapper's big
+fingers.  Once more Ba'tiste leaned forward and wiggled his fingers as
+if in preparation for a new assault, and once more Barry withdrew his
+pedal extremities to a place of safety.
+
+"Please don't," he begged.  "I--I don't know what kind of a game you're
+playing--and I'm perfectly willing to join in on it when I feel
+better--but now it hurts my arm to be bouncing around this way.  Maybe
+this afternoon--if you've got to play these fool games--I'll feel
+better--"
+
+The thunder of the other man's laugh cut him off.  Ba'tiste was now, it
+seemed, in a perfect orgy of merriment.  As though weakened by his
+laughter, he reeled to the wall and leaned there, his big arms hanging
+loosely, the tears rolling down his cheeks and disappearing in the gray
+beard, his face reddened, his whole form shaking with series after
+series of chuckles.
+
+"You hear heem?" he gasped at the wolf-dog.  "M'sieu l' Nobody, he will
+play with us this afternoon!  M'sieu l' Ticklefoot!  That is heem, my
+Golemar, M'sieu l' Ticklefoot!  Oh, ho--M'sieu l' Ticklefoot!"
+
+"What in thunder is the big idea?"  Barry Houston had lost his reserve
+now.  "I want to be a good fellow--but for the love of Mike let me in
+on the joke.  I can't get it.  I don't see anything funny in lying here
+with a broken arm and having my feet tickled.  Of course, I'm grateful
+to you for picking me up and all that sort of thing, but--"
+
+Choking back the laughter, Ba'tiste returned to the foot of the bed and
+stood wiping the tears from his eyes.
+
+"Pardon, _mon ami_," came seriously at last.  "Old Ba'teese must have
+his joke.  Listen, Ba'teese tell you something.  You see people here
+today, _oui_, yes?  You see, the petite Medaine?  Ah, _oui_!"  He
+clustered his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss toward the ceiling.
+"She is the, what-you-say, fine li'l keed.  She is the--_bon bebe_!
+You no nev' see her before?"
+
+Barry shook his head.  Ba'tiste went on.
+
+"You see M'sieu Thayer?  _Oui_?  You know heem?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You sure?"
+
+"Never saw him before."
+
+"So?"  Batiste grinned and wagged a finger, "Ba'teese he like the
+truth, yes, _oui_.  Ba'teese he don't get the truth, he tickle M'sieu's
+feet."
+
+"Now listen!  Please--"
+
+"No--no!"  The giant waved a hand in dismissal of threat.  "Old
+Ba'teese, he still joke.  Ba'teese say he tell you something.  Eet is
+this.  You see those people?  All right.  _Bon_--good.  You don' know
+one.  You know the other.  Yes?  _Oui_?  Ba'teese not know why you do
+it.  Ba'teese not care.  Ba'teese is right--in here."  He patted his
+heart with a big hand.  "But you--you not tell the truth.  I know.  I
+tickle your feet."
+
+"You're crazy!"
+
+"So, mebbe.  Ba'teese have his trouble.  Sometime Ba'teese wish he go
+crazy--like you say."
+
+The face suddenly aged.  The twinkling light left the eyes.  The big
+hands knitted, and the man was silent for a long moment.  Then, "But
+Ba'-teese he know--see?"  He pointed to his head, then twisting, ran
+his finger down his spine.  "When eet is the--what-you-say,
+amnesia--the nerve eet no work in the foot.  I could tickle, tickle,
+tickle, and you would not know.  But with you--blooey--right away, you
+feel.  So, for some reason, you are, what-you-say?--shamming.  But you
+are Ba'teese' gues'.  You sleep in Ba'teese' bed.  You eat Ba'teese'
+food.  So long as that, you are Ba'teese' friend.  Ba'teese--" he
+looked with quiet, fatherly eyes toward the young man on the
+bed--"shall ask no question--and Ba'teese shall tell no tales!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The simple statement of the gigantic trapper swept the confidence from
+Houston and left him at a disadvantage.  His decision had been a hasty
+one,--a thing to gain time, a scheme by which he had felt he could, at
+the proper time, take Thayer off his guard and cause him to come into
+the open with his plans, whatever they might be.  Fate had played a
+strange game with Barry Houston.  It had taken a care-free,
+happy-go-lucky youth and turned him into a suspicious, distrustful
+person with a constantly morbid strain which struggled everlastingly
+for supremacy over his usually cheery grin and his naturally optimistic
+outlook upon life.  For Fate had allowed Houston to live the youth of
+his life in ease and brightness and lack of worry, only that it might
+descend upon him with the greatest cloud that man can know.  And two
+years of memories, two years of bitterness, two years of ugly
+recollections had made its mark.  In all his dealings with Thayer,
+conducted though they might have been at a distance, Barry Houston
+could not place his finger upon one tangible thing that would reveal
+his crookedness.  But he had suspected; had come to investigate, and to
+learn, even before he was ready to receive the information, that his
+suspicions had been, in some wise at least, correct.  To follow those
+suspicions to their stopping place Barry had feigned amnesia.  And it
+had lasted just long enough for this grinning man who stood at the foot
+of the bed to tickle his feet!
+
+And how should that grotesque giant with his blazing red shirt and
+queer little cap know of such things as amnesia and the tracing of a
+deadened nerve?  How should he,--then Barry suddenly tensed.  Had it
+been a ruse?  Was this man a friend, a companion--even an accomplice of
+the thin-faced, frost-gnarled Thayer--and had his simple statement been
+an effort to take Barry off his guard?  If so, it had not succeeded,
+for Barry had made no admissions.  But it all affected him curiously;
+it nettled him and puzzled him.  For a long time he was silent, merely
+staring at the grinning features of Ba'tiste.  At last:
+
+"I should think you would wait until you could consult a doctor before
+you'd say a thing like that."
+
+"So?  It has been done."
+
+"And he told you--"
+
+"Nothing.  He does not need to even speak to Ba'teese."  A great
+chuckle shook the big frame "Ba'teese know as soon as _l' M'sieu
+Doctaire_."
+
+"On good terms, aren't you?  When's he coming again?"
+
+"_Parbleu_!"  The big man snapped his fingers.  "Peuff!  Like that.
+Ba'teese call heem, and he is here."
+
+Houston blinked.  Then, in spite of his aching head, and the pain of
+the swollen, splint-laced arm he sat up in bed.
+
+"What kind of--"
+
+"Old Ba'teese, he mus' joke," came quickly and seriously from the other
+man.  "Ba'teese--he is heem."
+
+"A doctor?"
+
+Slowly the big man nodded.  Barry went on "I--I--didn't know.  I
+thought you were just a trapper.  I wondered--"
+
+"So!  That is all--jus' a trapper."
+
+Quietly, slowly, the big man turned away from the bed and stood looking
+out the window, the wolf-dog edging close to him as though in
+companionship and some strange form of sympathy.  There was silence for
+a long time, then the voice of Ba'tiste came again, but now it was soft
+and low, addressed, it seemed, not to the man on the bed, but to
+vacancy.
+
+"So!  Ba'teese, he is only a trapper now.  Ba'teese, he had swear he
+never again stand beside a sick bed.  But you--" and he turned swiftly,
+a broken smile playing about his lips--"you, _mon ami_, you, when I
+foun' you this morning, with your head twisted under your arm, with the
+blood on your face, and the dust and dirt upon you--then you--you look
+like my Pierre!  And I pick you up--so!"  He fashioned his arms as
+though he were holding a baby, "and I look at you and I say--'Pierre!
+Pierre!'  But you do not answer--just like he did not answer.  Then I
+start back with you, and the way was rough.  I take you under one
+arm--so.  It was steep.  I must have one arm free.  Then I meet
+Medaine, and she laugh at me for the way I carry you.  And I was glad.
+Eet made Ba'teese forget."
+
+"What?"  Barry said it with the curiosity of a boy.  The older man
+stared hard at the crazy design of the covers.
+
+"My Pierre," came at last.  "And my Julienne.  Ba'teese, he is all
+alone now.  Are you all alone?"  The question came quickly.  Barry
+answered before he thought.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you know--you know how eet feel.  You know how Ba'teese think
+when he look out the window.  See?"  He pointed, and Barry raised
+himself slightly that he might follow the direction of the gesture.
+Faintly, through the glass, he could see something white, rearing
+itself in the shadows of the heavy pines which fringed the cabin,--a
+cross.  And it stood as the guardian of a mound of earth where pine
+boughs had been placed in smooth precision, while a small vase, half
+implanted in the earth, told of flowers in the summer season.  Ba'tiste
+stared at his palms.  "Julienne," came at last.  "My wife."  Then, with
+a sudden impulse, he swerved about the bed and sat down beside the sick
+man.  "Ba'teese--" he smiled plaintively--"like to talk about
+Pierre--and Julienne.  Even though eet hurt."
+
+Barry could think only in terms of triteness.
+
+"Have they been gone long?"
+
+The big man counted on his fingers.
+
+"One--two--t'ree year.  Before that--_bon_!"  He kissed his fingers
+airily.  "Old Ba'teese, he break the way--long time ago.  He come down
+from Montreal, with his Julienne and his Pierre--in his arm, so.  He
+like to feel big and strong--to help other people.  So, down here where
+there were few he came, and built his cabin, with his Pierre and his
+Julienne.  And, so happy!  Then, by'm'by, Jacques Robinette come too,
+with his petite Medaine--"
+
+"That's the girl who was here?"
+
+"Ah, _oui_.  I am _l' M'sieu Doctaire_.  I look after the sick for
+ten--twenty--thirty mile.  Jacques he have more head.  He buy land."  A
+great sweep of the arm seemed to indicate all outdoors.  "Ev'where--the
+pine and spruce, it was Jacques!  By'm'by, he go on and leave Medaine
+alone.  Then she go 'way to school, but ev' summer she come back and
+live in the big house.  And Ba'teese glad--because he believe some day
+she love Pierre and Pierre love her and--"
+
+Another silence.  At last:
+
+"And then war came.  My Pierre, he is but eighteen.  But he go.
+Ba'teese want him to go.  Julienne, she say nothing--she cry at night.
+But she want him to go too.  Medaine, she tell funny stories about her
+age and she go too.  It was lonely.  Ba'teese was big.  Ba'teese was
+strong.  And Julienne say to him, 'You too--you go.  You may save a
+life.'  And Ba'teese went."
+
+"To France?"
+
+Ba'tiste bowed his head.
+
+"Long time Ba'teese look for his Pierre.  Long time he look for
+Medaine.  But no.  Then--" his face suddenly contorted "--one night--in
+the cathedral at St. Menehould, I find heem.  But Pierre not know his
+_pere_.  He not answer Ba'teese when he call 'Pierre!  Pierre!'  Here,
+and here, and here--" the big man pointed to his breast and face and
+arms--"was the shrapnel.  He sigh in my arms--then he is gone.
+Ba'teese ask that night for duty on the line.  He swear never again to
+be _l' M'sieu Doctaire_.  All his life he help--help--help--but when
+the time come, he cannot help his own.  And by'm'by, Ba'teese come
+home--and find that."
+
+He pointed out into the shadows beneath the pines.
+
+"She had died?"
+
+"Died!"  The man's face had gone suddenly purple.  His eyes were
+glaring, his hands upraised and clutched.  "No!  Murder!  Murder, mon
+ami!  Murder!  Lost Wing--he Medaine's Indian--he find her--so!  In a
+heap on the floor--and a bullet through her brain.  And the money we
+save, the ten thousan' dollar--eet is gone!  Murder!"
+
+A shudder went over the young man on the bed.  His face blanched.  His
+lips lost their color.  For a moment, as the big French-Canadian bent
+over him, he stared with glazed, unseeing eyes, at last to turn dully
+at the sharp, questioning voice of the trapper:
+
+"Murder--you know murder?"
+
+There was a long moment of silence.  Then, as though with an effort
+which took his every atom of strength, Houston shook himself, as if to
+throw some hateful, vicious thing from him, and turned, with a parrying
+question:
+
+"Did you ever find who did it?"
+
+"No.  But sometime--Ba'teese not forget.  Ba'teese always wait.
+Ba'teese always look for certain things--that were in the deed-box.
+There was jewelry--Ba'teese remember.  Sometime--"  Then he switched
+again.  "Why you look so funny?  Huh?  Why you get pale--?"
+
+"Please--"  Barry Houston put forth a hand.  "Please--"  Then he
+straightened.  "Ba'tiste, I'm in your hands.  You can help me, or you
+can harm me.  You know I was shamming when I acted as though I had lost
+my identity.  Now--now you know there's something else.  Will you--"
+
+He ceased suddenly and sank back.  From without there had come the
+sound of steps.  A moment later, the door opened, and shadows of a man
+and a girl showed on the floor.  Thayer and Medaine had returned.  Soon
+they were in the room, the girl once more standing in the doorway,
+regarding Barry with a quizzical, half-wondering gaze, the man coming
+forward and placing one gnarled hand on the Canadian's shoulder,
+staring over his head down into the eyes of the injured man on the bed.
+
+"I couldn't go back to the mill without making one more try," he
+explained.  "Has he shown any signs yet?"
+
+Barry watched Ba'teese closely.  But the old man's face was a blank.
+
+"Signs?  Of what?"
+
+"Coming to--remembering who he is."
+
+"Oh."  Ba'tiste shrugged his shoulders.  "I have give eet up."
+
+"Then--"
+
+"So far Ba'teese is concern'," and he looked down on the bed with a
+glance which told Barry far more than words, "he is already name.  He
+is M'sieu Nobody.  I can get no more."
+
+Thayer scratched his head.  He turned.
+
+"Anyway, I'm going to make one more attempt at it.  See what you can
+do, Medaine."
+
+The girl came forward then, half smiling, and seated herself beside the
+bed.  She took Barry's hand in hers, then with a laugh turned to Thayer.
+
+"What shall I do?  Make love to him?"
+
+"Why not?"  It was old Ba'tiste edging forward, the twinkle once more
+in his eyes.  "Bon--good!  Make love to him."
+
+"Do you suppose it would help?"  The girl was truly serious now.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I don't think--"  Thayer had edged forward, nervously.  Ba'tiste
+pushed him gently.
+
+"Peuff!  And when did M'sieu Thayer become _l' M'sieu Doctaire_?
+Ba'teese say ask him if he like you."
+
+Medaine laughed.
+
+"Do you like me?"
+
+Brown eyes met blue eyes.  A smile passed between them.  It was with an
+effort that Houston remembered that he was only playing a part.
+
+"I certainly do!"
+
+"Ask him, 'Do you like me better than anybody you ever--'"
+
+"What sense is there to all this?"
+
+"Blooey!  And why should you ask?  Why should you stand with a frown on
+your face?  Peuff!  It is ugly enough already!"  To Barry, it was quite
+evident that there was some purpose behind the actions of Old Ba'tiste,
+and certainly more than mere pleasantry in his words.  "You ask Medaine
+to help Ba'teese, and then _facher vous_!  Enough.  Ask him, Medaine."
+
+"But--" the girl was laughing now, her eyes beaming, a slight flush
+apparent in her cheeks--"maybe he doesn't want me to--"
+
+"Oh, but I do!"  There was something in the tone of Barry Houston which
+made the color deepen.  "I--I like it."
+
+"That's enough!"  Thayer, black-featured, his gnarled hands clenched
+into ugly knots, came abruptly forward.  "I thought this was a serious
+thing; I didn't know you were going to turn it into a burlesque!"
+
+"Perhaps M'sieu Thayer has studied the practice of medicine?"
+
+"No.  But--"
+
+"Nor, pardon, the practice of politeness.  Ba'teese will not need your
+help."
+
+"Whether you need it or not, I'll come back when you're through with
+this infernal horseplay.  I--"
+
+"Ba'teese choose his guests."
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"Ba'teese mean what he say."
+
+"Very well, then.  Come on, Medaine."
+
+The girl, apparently without a thought of the air of proprietorship in
+the man's tone, rose, only to face Ba'tiste.  The Canadian glowered at
+her.
+
+"And are you chattel?" he stormed.  "Do you stand in the cup of his
+hand that he shall tell you when to rise and when to sit, when to walk
+and where to go?"
+
+She turned.
+
+"You were abrupt, Fred.  I'm glad Ba'tiste reminded me.  Personally, I
+don't see why I should have been drawn into this at all, or why I
+should be made the butt of a quarrel over some one I never saw before."
+
+"I'm sorry--terribly sorry."  Barry was speaking earnestly and holding
+forth his hand.  "I shouldn't have answered you that way--I'm--"
+
+"We'll forget it all."  A flashing smile had crossed the girl's lips.
+"Fred never knows how to take Ba'tiste.  They're always quarreling this
+way.  The only trouble is that Fred--" and she turned to face him
+piquantly--"always takes in the whole world when he gets mad.  And that
+includes me.  I think," and the little nose took a more upward turn
+than ever, "that Ba'tiste is entirely right, Fred.  You talked to me as
+though I were a sack of potatoes.  I won't go with you, and I won't see
+you until you can apologize."
+
+"There's nothing to apologize for!"
+
+Thayer jammed on his hat and stamped angrily out the door.  Medaine
+watched him with laughing eyes.
+
+"He'll write me a letter to-night," came quietly.  Then, "Lost Wing!"
+
+"Ugh!"  It was a grunt from outside.
+
+"I just wanted to be sure you were there.  Call me when Mr. Thayer has
+passed the ridge."
+
+"Ugh!"
+
+Medaine turned again to Ba'tiste, a childish appearance of confidence
+in her eyes, her hand lingering on the chair by the bed.
+
+"Were you really fooling, Ba'tiste--or shall we continue?"
+
+"Perhaps--" the twinkle still shone in the old man's eyes--"but not
+now.  Perhaps--sometime.  So mebbe sometime you--"
+
+"Wah--hah--hai-i-e-e-e!"  The  Sioux  had called from without.  Medaine
+turned.
+
+"When you need me, Ba'tiste," she answered, with a smile that took in
+also the eager face on the bed, "I'll be glad to help you.  Good-by."
+
+That too included Barry, and he answered it with alacrity.  Then for a
+moment after she had gone, he lay scowling at Ba'tiste, who once more,
+in a weakened state of merriment, had reeled to the wall, followed as
+usual by his dog, and leaned there, hugging his sides.  Barry growled:
+
+"You're a fine doctor!  Just when you had me cured, you quit!  I'd
+forgotten I even had a broken arm."
+
+"So?"  Ba'tiste straightened.  "You like her, eh?  You like the petite
+Medaine?"
+
+"How can I help it?"
+
+"_Bon_!  Good!  I like you to like Medaine.  You no like Thayer?"
+
+"Less every minute."
+
+"Bon!  I no like heem.  He try to take Pierre's place with Medaine.
+And Pierre, he was strong and tall and straight.  Pierre, he could
+smile--_bon_!  Like you can smile.  You look like my Pierre!" came
+frankly.
+
+"Thanks, Ba'tiste."  Barry said it in wholehearted manner.  "You don't
+know how grateful I am for a little true friendliness."
+
+"Grateful?  Peuff!  You?  Bah, you shall go back, and they will ask who
+helped you when you were hurt, and you--you will not even remember what
+is the name."
+
+"Hardly that."  Barry pulled thoughtfully at the covers.  "In the first
+place, I'm not going back, and in the second, I haven't enough true
+friends to forget so easily.  I--I--"  Then his jaw dropped and he lay
+staring ahead, out to the shadows beneath the pines and the stalwart
+cross which kept watch there.  "I--"
+
+"You act funny again.  You act like you act when I talk about my
+Julienne.  Why you do eet?"
+
+Barry Houston did not answer at once.  Old scenes were flooding through
+his brain, old agonies that reflected themselves upon his features, old
+sorrows, old horrors.  His eyes grew cold and lifeless, his hands white
+and drawn, his features haggard.  The chuckle left the lips of Ba'tiste
+Renaud.  He moved swiftly, almost sinuously to the bed, and gripped the
+younger man by his uninjured arm.  His eyes came close to Barry
+Houston, his voice was sharp, tense, commanding:
+
+"You!  Why you act like that when I talk about murder?  Why you get
+pale, huh?  Why you get pale?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The gaze of Ba'tiste Renaud was strained as he asked the question, his
+manner tense, excited.  Through sheer determination, Barry forced a
+smile and pulled himself back to at least a semblance of composure.
+
+"Maybe you know the reason already--through Thayer.  But if you
+don't--Ba'tiste, how much of it do you mean when you say you are a
+man's friend?"
+
+"Ba'teese may joke," came quietly, "but Ba'teese no lie.  You look like
+my Pierre--you help where it has been lonesome.  You are my frien'."
+
+"Then I know you are not going to ask me for something that hurts in
+telling.  And at least, I can give you my word of honor that it isn't
+because of my conscience!"
+
+Ba'tiste was silent after that, walking slowly about the room, shaggy
+head bent, hands clasped behind his back, studious, as though striving
+to fathom what had been on the man's mind.  As for Barry, he stared
+disconsolately at vacancy, living again a thing which he had striven to
+forget.  It had been forced upon him, this partial admission of a cloud
+in the past; the geniality, the utter honesty, the friendliness of the
+old French-Canadian, the evident dislike for a man whom he, Barry, also
+thoroughly distrusted, had lowered the younger man's guard.  The tragic
+story of Pierre and Julienne had furthered the merest chance
+acquaintance into what seemed the beginning, at least, of closest
+friendship.  Houston had known Ba'tiste for only a matter of a few
+hours,--yet it seemed months since he first had looked upon the funny
+little blue cap and screaming red shirt of the Canadian; and it was
+evident that Renaud had felt the same reaction.  Barry Houston, to this
+great, lonely man of the hills, looked like a son who was gone, a son
+who had grown tall and straight and good to look upon a son upon whom
+the old man had looked as a companion, and a chum for whom he had
+searched in every battle-scarred area of a war-stricken nation, only to
+find him,--too late.  And with this viewpoint, there was no shamming
+about the old man's expressions of friendship.  More, he took Barry's
+admission of a cloud in the past as a father would take it from a son;
+he paced the floor minute after minute, head bowed, gray eyes half
+closed, only to turn at last with an expression which told Barry
+Houston that a friend was his for weal or woe, for fair weather or
+foul, good or evil.
+
+"Eet is enough!" came abruptly.  "There is something you do not want to
+tell.  I like you--I not ask.  You look like my Pierre--who could do no
+wrong.  So!  _Bon_--good!  Ba'teese is your frien'.  You have trouble?
+Ba'teese help."
+
+"I've had plenty of that, in the last two years," came quietly.  "I
+think I've got plenty ahead of me.  What do you know about Thayer?"
+
+"He no good."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ba'teese don' know.  On'y he have narrow eyes too close together.  He
+have a quirk to his mouth Ba'teese no like.  He have habit nev' talkin'
+about himself--he ask you question an' tell you nothing.  He have
+hatchet-face; Ba'teese no like a man with a hatchet-face.  Beside, he
+make love to Medaine!"
+
+Barry laughed.
+
+"Evidently that's a sore spot with you, Ba'tiste."
+
+"No.  Ba'teese no care.  But if my Pierre had live, he would have make
+love to her.  She would have marry him.  And to have M'sieu Thayer take
+his place?  No!  Mebbe--" he said it hopefully, "mebbe you like
+Medaine, huh?"
+
+"I do!  She's pretty, Ba'tiste."
+
+"Mebbe you make love?"
+
+But the man on the bed shook his head.
+
+"I can't make love to anybody, Ba'tiste.  Not until I've--I've found
+something I'm looking for.  I'm afraid that's a long way off.  I
+haven't the privileges of most young fellows.  I'm a little--what would
+you call it--hampered by circumstance.  I've--besides, if I ever do
+marry, it won't be for love.  There's a girl back East who says she
+cares for me, and who simply has taken it for granted that I think the
+same way about her.  She stood by me--in some trouble.  Out of every
+one, she didn't believe what they said about me.  That means a lot.
+Some way, she isn't my kind; she just doesn't awaken affection on my
+part, and I spend most of my time calling myself a cad over it.  But
+she stood by me--and--I guess that's all that's necessary, after all.
+When I've fulfilled my contract with myself--if I ever do--I'll do the
+square thing and ask her to marry me."
+
+Ba'tiste scowled.
+
+"You dam' fool," he said.  "Buy 'em present.  Thank 'em, _merci
+beaucoup_.  But don' marry 'em unless 'you love 'em.  Ba'teese, he
+know.  Ba'teese, he been in too many home where there is no love."
+
+"True.  But you don't know the story behind it all, Ba'tiste.  And I
+can't tell you except this: I got in some trouble.  I'd rather not tell
+you what it was.  It broke my father's heart--and his confidence in me.
+He--he died shortly afterward."
+
+"And you--was it your fault?"
+
+"If you never believe anything else about me, Ba'tiste, believe this:
+that it wasn't.  And in a way, it was proven to him, before he went.
+But he had been embittered then.  He left a will--with stipulations.  I
+was to have the land he owned out here at Empire Lake; and the flume
+site leading down the right side of Hawk Creek to the mill.  Some one
+else owns the other side of the lake and the land on the opposite bank
+of the stream."
+
+"_Oui_.  Medaine Robinette."
+
+"Honestly?  Is it hers?"
+
+"When she is twenty-one.  But go on."
+
+"Father wouldn't leave me the mill.  He seemed to have a notion that
+I'd sell it all off--and he tied everything up in a way to keep me from
+doing anything like that.  The mill is rented to me.  The land is mine,
+and I can do everything but actually dispose of it.  But on top of that
+comes another twist: if I haven't developed the business within five
+years into double what it was at the peak of its best development, back
+goes everything into a trust fund, out of which I am to have a hundred
+dollars a month, nothing more.  That's what I'm out here for, Ba'tiste,
+to find out why, in spite of the fact that I've worked day and night
+now for a year and a half, in spite of the fact that I've gone out and
+struggled and fought for contracts, and even beaten down the barriers
+of dislike and distrust and suspicion to get business--why I can't get
+it!  Something or some one is blocking me, and I'm going to find out
+what and who it is!  I think I know one man--Thayer.  But there may be
+more.  That's why I'm playing this game of lost identity.  I thought I
+could get out here and nose around without him knowing it.  When he
+found out at once who I was, and seemed to have had a previous tip that
+I was coming out here, I had to think fast and take the first scheme
+that popped into my head.  Maybe if I can play the game long enough, it
+will take him off his guard and cause him to work more in the open.
+They may give me a chance to know where I stand.  And I've got to know
+that, Ba'tiste.  Because--" and his voice was vibrant with
+determination, "I don't care what happens to me personally.  I don't
+care whether five minutes after I have made it, I lose every cent of
+what I have worked for.  But I do care about this; I'm going to make
+good to my father's memory.  I'm going to be able to stand before a
+mirror and look myself straight in the eye, knowing that I bucked up
+against trouble, that it nearly whipped me, that it took the unfairest
+advantage that Fate can take of a man in allowing my father to die
+before I could fully right myself in his eyes, but that if there is a
+Justice, if there is anything fair and decent in this universe, some
+way he'll know, some way he'll rest in peace, with the understanding
+that his son took up the gauntlet that death laid down for him, that he
+made the fight, and that he won!"
+
+"_Bon_--good!"  Old Ba'tiste leaned over the foot of the bed.  "My
+Pierre--he would talk like that.  _Bon_?  Now--what is it you look for?"
+
+"In the first place, I want to know how so many accidents can happen in
+a single plant, just at the wrong time.  I want to know why it is that
+I can go out and fight for a contract, and then lose it because a saw
+has broken, or an off-bearer, lugging slabs away from the big wheel,
+can allow one to strike at just the wrong moment and let the saw pick
+it up and drive it through the boiler, laying up the whole plant for
+three weeks.  I want to know why it is that only about one out of three
+contracts I land are ever filled.  Thayer's got something to do with
+it, I know.  Why?  That's another question.  But there must be others.
+I want to know who they are and weed them out.  I've only got three and
+a half years left, and things are going backward instead of forward."
+
+"How you intend to fin' this out?"
+
+"I don't know.  I've got one lead--as soon as I'm able to get into
+town.  That may give me a good deal of information; I came out here, at
+least, in the hope that it would.  After that, I'm hazy.  How big a
+telegraph office is there at Tabernacle?"
+
+"How big?" Ba'tiste laughed.  "How _petite_!  Eet is about the size of
+the--what-you-say--the peanut."
+
+"Is there ever a time when the operator isn't there?"
+
+"At noon.  He go out to dinner, and he leave open the door.  If eet is
+something you want, walk in."
+
+"Thanks."  A strange eagerness was in Houston's eyes.  "I think I'll be
+able to get up to-morrow.  Maybe I can walk over there; it's only a
+mile or two, isn't it?"
+
+But when to-morrow, came, it found a white, bandaged figure sitting
+weakly in front of Ba'tiste's cabin, nothing more.  Strength of purpose
+and strength of being had proved two different things, and now he was
+quite content to rest there in the May sunshine, to watch the
+chattering magpies as they went about the work of spring
+house-building, to study the colors of the hills, the mergings of the
+tintings and deeper hues as the scale ran from brown to green to blue,
+and finally to the stark red granite and snow whites of Mount Taluchen.
+
+Ba'tiste and his constant companion, Golemar, were making the round of
+the traps and had been gone for hours.  Barry was alone--alone with the
+beauties of spring in the hills, with the soft call of the meadow lark
+in the bit of greenery which fringed the still purling stream in the
+little valley, the song of the breeze through the pines, the sunshine,
+the warmth--and his problems.
+
+Of these, there were plenty.  In the first place, how had Thayer known
+that he was on the way from the East?  He had spoken to only two
+persons,--Jenkins, his bookkeeper, and one other.  To these two persons
+he merely had given the information that he was going West on a bit of
+a vacation.  He had deliberately chosen to come in his car, so that
+there might be every indication, should there be such a thing as a spy
+in his rather diminutive office, that he merely intended a jaunt
+through a few States, certainly not a journey half across the country.
+But just the same, the news had leaked; Thayer had been informed, and
+his arrival had been no surprise.
+
+That there had been need for his coming, Barry felt sure.  At the
+least, there was mismanagement at the mill; contract after contract
+lost just when it should have been gained told him this, if nothing
+more.  But--and he drew a sheet of yellow paper from his pocket and
+stared hard at it--there was something else, something which had
+aroused his curiosity to an extent of suspicion, something which might
+mean an open book of information to him if only he could reach
+Tabernacle at the right moment and gain access to the telegraph files
+without the interference of the agent.
+
+Then suddenly he ceased his study of the message and returned it to his
+pocket.  Two persons were approaching the cabin from the opposite
+hill,--a girl whom he was glad to see, and a man who walked, or rather
+rolled, in the background: Medaine Robinette and a sort of rear guard
+who, twenty or thirty feet behind her, followed her every step, trotted
+when she ran down the steep side of an embankment, then slowed as she
+came to a walk again.  A bow-legged creature he was, with ill-fitting
+clothing and a broad "two-gallon" hat which evidently had been
+bequeathed to him by some cow-puncher, long hair which straggled over
+his shoulders, and a beaded vest which shone out beneath the scraggly
+outer coat like a candle on a dark night.  Instinctively Barry knew him
+to be the grunting individual who had waited outside the door the night
+before,--Lost Wing, Medaine's Sioux servant: evidently a
+self-constituted bodyguard who traveled more as a shadow than as a
+human being.  Certainly the girl in the foreground gave no indication
+that she was aware of his presence; nor did she seem to care.
+
+Closer she came, and Barry watched her, taking a strange sort of
+delight in the skipping grace with which she negotiated the stepping
+stones of the swollen little stream which intervened between her and
+the cabin of Ba'tiste Renaud, then clambered over the straggling pile
+of massed logs and dead timber which strewed the small stretch of flat
+before the rise began, leading to where he rested.  More like some
+graceful, agile boy was she than a girl.  Her clothing was of that type
+which has all too soon taken the place of the buckskin in the West,--a
+riding habit, with stout little shoes and leather puttees; her hair was
+drawn tight upon her head and encased in the shielding confines of a
+cap, worn low over her forehead, the visor pulled aside by a jutting
+twig and now slanting out at a rakish angle; her arms full of something
+pink and soft and pretty.  Barry wondered what it could be,--then
+brightened with sudden hope.
+
+"Wonder if she's bringing them to me?"
+
+The answer came a moment later as she faced him, panting slightly from
+the exertion of the climb, the natural flush of exercise heightened by
+her evident embarrassment.
+
+"Oh, you're up!" came in an almost disappointed manner.  Then with a
+glance toward the great cluster of wild roses in her arms, "I don't
+know what to do with these things now."
+
+"Why?"  Barry's embarrassment was as great as hers.  "If--if it'll do
+any good, I'll climb back into bed again."
+
+"No--don't.  Only I thought you were really, terribly ill and--"
+
+"I am--I was--I will be.  That is--gosh, it's a shame for you to go out
+and pick all those and then have me sitting up here as strong as an ox.
+I--"
+
+"Oh, don't worry about that."  She smiled at him with that sweetness
+which only a woman can know when she has the advantage.  "I didn't pick
+them.  Lost Wing"--she pointed to the skulking, outlandishly dressed
+Indian in the background--"attended to that.  I was going to send them
+over by him.  But I didn't have anything to do, so I just thought I'd
+bring them myself."
+
+"Thanks for that, anyway.  Can't I keep them just the same--to put on
+the table or something?"
+
+"Oh, if you care to."  Barry felt that she was truly disappointed that
+he wasn't at the point of death, or at least somewhere near it.
+"Where's Ba'tiste."
+
+"Out looking after his traps, picking them up I think, for the summer.
+He'll be back soon.  Is there--"
+
+"No.  I usually come over every day to see him, you know."  Then the
+blue eyes lost their diffidence to become serious.  "Do you remember
+yet who you are?"
+
+"Less right at this minute than at any other time!" spoke Barry
+truthfully.  "I'm out of my head entirely!"  He reached for the flowers.
+
+"Please don't joke that way.  It's really serious.  When I was
+across--army nursing--I saw a lot of just such cases as yours.  Shell
+shock, you know.  One has to be awfully careful with it."
+
+"I know.  But I'm getting the best of care.  I--ouch!"  His interest
+had exceeded his caution.  The unbandaged hand had waved the flowers
+for emphasis and absently gripped the stems.  The wild roses fluttered
+to the ground.  "Gosh!" came dolefully, "I'm all full of thorns.  Guess
+I'll have to pick 'em out with my teeth."
+
+"Oh!"  Then she picked up the roses and laid them gingerly aside.  "You
+can't use your other hand, can you?"
+
+"No.  Arm's broken."
+
+"Then--" she looked back toward Lost Wing, hunched on a stump, and
+Barry's heart sank.  She debated a moment, at last to shake her head.
+"No--he'd want to dig them out with a knife.  If you don't mind."  She
+moved toward Houston and Barry thrust forth his hand.
+
+"If you don't mind," he countered and she sat beside him.  A moment
+later:
+
+"I must look like a fortune teller."
+
+"See anything in my palm besides thorns?"
+
+"Yes.  A little dirt.  Ba'tiste evidently isn't a very good nurse."
+
+"I did the best I could with one hand.  But I was pretty grimy.  I--I
+didn't know," and Barry grinned cheerfully, "I was going to be this
+lucky."
+
+She pretended not to hear the sally.  And in some way Barry was glad.
+He much rather would have her silent than making some flippant remark,
+much rather would he prefer to lean comfortably back on the old bench
+and watch the quiet, almost childish determination of her features as
+she sought for a grip on the tiny protuberances of the thorns, the soft
+brownness of the few strands of hair which strayed from beneath the
+boyish cap, the healthy glow of her complexion, the smallness of the
+clear-skinned hands, the daintiness of the trim little figure.  Much
+rather would he be silent with the picture than striving for answers to
+questions that in their very naiveness were an accusation.  Quite
+suddenly Barry felt cheap and mean and dishonest.  He felt that he
+would like to talk about himself,--about home and his reasons for being
+out here; his hopes for the mill which now was a shambling,
+unprofitable thing; about the future and--a great many things.  It was
+with an effort, when she queried him again concerning his memory, that
+he still remained Mr. Nobody.  Then he shifted the conversation from
+himself to her.
+
+"Do you live out here?"
+
+"Yes.  Didn't Ba'tiste tell you?  My house is just over the hill--you
+can just see one edge of the roof through that bent aspen."
+
+Barry stared.
+
+"I'd noticed that.  Thought it was a house, but couldn't be sure.  I
+thought I understood Ba'tiste to say you only came out here in the
+summer."
+
+"I did that when I was going to school.  Now I stay here all the year
+'round."
+
+"Isn't it lonely?"
+
+"Out here?  With a hundred kinds of birds to keep things going?  With
+the trout leaping in the streams in the summer time, and a good gun in
+the hollow of your arm in the winter?  Besides, there's old Lost Wing
+and his squaw, you know.  I get a lot of enjoyment out of them when
+we're snowed in--in the winter.  He's told me fully fifty versions of
+how the Battle of Wounded Knee was fought, and as for Custer's last
+battle--it's wonderful!"
+
+"He knows all about it?"
+
+"I'd hardly say that."  Medaine reached under her cap for a hairpin,
+looked quickly at Barry as though to ask him whether he could stand
+pain, then pressed a recalcitrant thorn into a position where it could
+be extracted.  "I think the best description of Lost Wing is that he's
+an admirable fiction writer.  Ba'tiste says he has more lies than a dog
+has fleas."
+
+"Then it isn't history?"
+
+"Of course not.  Just imagination.  But it's well done, with plenty of
+gestures.  He stands in front of the fire and acts it all out while his
+squaw sits on the floor and grunts and nods and wails at the right
+time, and it's really entertaining.  They're about a million years old,
+both of them.  My father got them when he first came down here from
+Montreal.  He wanted Lost Wing as a sort of bodyguard.  It was a good
+deal wilder in this region then than it is now, and father owned a good
+deal of land."
+
+"So Ba'tiste tells me.  He says that practically all of the forests
+around here are yours."
+
+"They will be, next year," came simply, "when I'm--"
+
+She stopped and laughed.
+
+"Ba'tiste told me.  Twenty-one."
+
+"He never could keep anything to himself."
+
+"What's wrong about that?  I'm twenty-seven myself."
+
+"Honestly?  You don't look it."
+
+"Don't I?  I ought to.  I've got a beard and everything.  See?"  He
+pulled his hand away for a moment to rub the two-days' growth on his
+face.  "I tried to shave this morning.  Couldn't make it.  Ba'tiste
+said he'd play barber for me this afternoon.  Next time you come over
+I'll be all slicked up."
+
+Again she laughed, and once more pursued the remaining thorns.
+
+"How do you know there'll be a next time?"
+
+"If there isn't, I'll drive nails in myself, so you'll have to pull 'em
+out."  Then seriously.  "You do come over here often, don't you?"
+
+"Of course--" then, the last thorn disposed of, she rose--"to see
+Ba'tiste.  I look on him as a sort of a guardian.  He knew my father.
+But let's talk about yourself.  You seem remarkably clear in your mind
+to be afflicted with amnesia.  Are you sure you don't remember
+anything--?"
+
+"No--not now.  But," and Barry hedged painfully, "I think I will.  It
+acts to me like a momentary thing.  Every once in a while I get a flash
+as though it were all coming back; it was just the fall, I'm sure of
+that.  My head's all right."
+
+"You mean your brain?"
+
+"Yes.  I don't act crazy, or anything like that, do I?"
+
+"Well," and she smiled quizzically, "of course, I don't know you, so I
+have nothing to go by.  But I must admit that you say terribly foolish
+things."
+
+Leaving him to think over that, she turned, laughed a good-by, and with
+the rolling, bow-legged old Lost Wing in her wake, retraced the path to
+the top of the hill, there to hesitate a moment, wave her hand quickly,
+and then, as though hurrying away from her action, disappeared.  Barry
+Houston sat for a long time, visualizing her there on the brow of the
+hill, her head with its long-visored cap tilted, her hand upraised, her
+trimness and her beauty silhouetted against the opalesque sky,
+dreaming,--and with a bit of heartache in it.  For this sort of thing
+had been his hope in younger, fairer days.  This sort of a being had
+been his make-believe companion of a Castle in Spain.  This sort of a
+joking, whimsical girl had been the one who had come to him in the
+smoke wreaths and tantalized him and promised him--
+
+But now, his life was gray.  His heart was not his own.  His life was
+at best only a grim, drab thing of ugly memories and angered
+determinations.  If a home should ever come to him, it must be in
+company with some one to whom he owed the gratitude of friendship in
+time of need; not love not affection, but the paying of a debt of
+deepest honor.  Which Barry would do, and faithfully and honestly and
+truthfully.  As for the other--
+
+He leaned against the bark slabs of the cabin.  He closed his eyes.  He
+grinned cheerily.
+
+"Well," came at last, "there's no harm in thinking about it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+It was thus that Ba'tiste found him, still dreaming.  The big voice of
+the Canadian boomed, and he reached forward to nudge Barry on his
+injured shoulder.
+
+"And who has been bringing you flowers?" he asked.
+
+"Medaine.  That is--Miss Robinette."
+
+"Medaine?  Oh, ho!  You hear, Golemar?" he turned to the fawning
+wolf-dog.  "He calls her Medaine!  Oh, ho!  And he say he will marry,
+not for love.  Peuff!  We shall see, by gar, we shall see!  Eh,
+Golemar?"  Then to Barry, "You have sit out here too long."
+
+"I?  Nothing of the kind.  Where's the axe?  I'll do some fancy
+one-handed woodchopping."
+
+And while Ba'tiste watched, grinning, Barry went about his task,
+swinging the axe awkwardly, but whistling with the joy of work.  Nor
+did he pause to diagnose his light-heartedness.  He only knew that he
+was in the hills; that the streets and offices and people of the
+cities, and the memories that they carried, had been left behind for
+him that he was in a new world to make a new fight and that he was
+strangely, inordinately happy Time after time the axe glinted, to
+descend upon the chopping block, until at last the pile of stovewood
+had reached its proper dimensions, and old Ba'tiste came from the
+doorway to carry it in.  Then, half an hour later, they sat down to
+their meal of sizzling bacon and steaming coffee,--a great, bearded
+giant and the younger man whom he, in a moment of impulsiveness, had
+all but adopted.  Ba'tiste was still joking about the visit of Medaine,
+Houston parrying his thrusts.  The meal finished, Ba'tiste went forth
+once more, to the hunt of a bear trap and its deadfall, dragged away by
+a mountain lion during the last snow.  Barry sought again the bench
+outside the cabin, to sit there waiting and hoping,--in vain.  At last
+came evening, and he undressed laboriously for a long rest.  Something
+awaited him in Tabernacle,--either the opening of a book of schemes, or
+at least the explanation of a mystery, and that meant a walk of quite
+two miles, the exercise of muscles which still ached, the straining of
+tendons drawn by injury and pain.  But when the time came, he was ready.
+
+"_Bon_--good!" came from Ba'tiste, as they turned into the little
+village of Tabernacle the next day, skirted the two clapboarded stores
+forming the "main business district," and edged toward the converted
+box car that passed as a station.  "_Bon_--the agent he is leaving."
+
+Barry looked ahead, to see a man crossing an expanse of flat country
+toward what was evidently a boarding house.  Ba'tiste nudged him.
+
+"You will walk slowly, as though going into the station to loaf.
+Ba'tiste will come behind--and keep watch."
+
+Barry obeyed.  A moment more and he was within the converted box car,
+to find it deserted and silent, except for the constant clackle of the
+telegraph key, rattling off the business of a mountain railroad system,
+like some garrulous old woman, to any one who would listen.  There was
+no private office, only a railing and a counter, which Barry crossed
+easily.  A slight crunching of gravel sounded without.  It was
+Ba'tiste, now lounging in the doorway, ready at a moment to give the
+alarm.  Houston turned hastily toward the file hook and began to turn
+the pages of the original copy which hung there.
+
+A moment of searching and he leaned suddenly forward.  Messages were
+few from Tabernacle; it had been an easy matter for him to come upon
+the originals of the telegrams he sought, in spite of the fact that
+they had been sent more than two weeks before.  Already he was reading
+the first of the night letters:
+
+
+Barry Houston,
+  Empire Lake Mill and Lumber Co.,
+    212 Grand Building, Boston, Mass.
+
+Please order six-foot saw as before.  Present one broken to-day through
+crystallization.
+
+F. B. THAYER.
+
+
+"That's one of 'em."  Houston grunted the words, rather than spoke
+them.  "That was meant for me all right--humph!"
+
+The second one was before him now, longer and far more interesting to
+the man who bent over the telegraph file, while Ba'tiste kept watch at
+the door.  Hastily he pulled a crumpled message from his pocket and
+compared them,--and grunted again.
+
+"The same thing.  Identically the same thing, except for the addresses!
+Ba'tiste," he called softly, "what kind of an operator is this fellow?"
+
+"No good.  A boy.  Just out of school.  Hasn't been here long."
+
+"That explains it."  Houston was talking to himself again.  "He got the
+two messages and--"  Suddenly he bent forward and examined a notation
+in a strange hand:
+
+"Missent Houston.  Resent Blackburn."
+
+It explained much to Barry Houston, that scribble of four words.  It
+told him why he had received a telegram which meant nothing to him, yet
+caused suspicion enough for a two-thousand-mile trip.  It explained
+that the operator, in sending two messages, had, through
+absent-mindedness, put them both on the wire to the same person, when
+they were addressed separately, that he later had seen his mistake and
+corrected it.  Barry smiled grimly.
+
+"Thanks very much, Operator," he murmured.  "It isn't every mistake
+that turns out this lucky."
+
+Then slowly, studiously, he compared the messages again, the one he had
+received, and the one on the hook which read:
+
+
+J. C. Blackburn,
+  Deal Building, Chicago, Ill.
+
+Our friend reports Boston deal put over O. K.  Everything safe.
+Suggest start preparations for operations in time compete Boston for
+the big thing.  Have Boston where we want him and will keep him there.
+
+THAYER.
+
+
+It was the same telegram that Barry Houston had received and puzzled
+over in Boston, except for the address.  He had been right then; the
+message had not been for him; instead it had been intended decidedly
+_not_ for him and it meant--what?  Hastily Houston crawled over the
+railing, and motioning to Ba'tiste, led him away from the station.
+Around the corner of the last store he brought forth his telegram and
+placed it in the big man's hands.
+
+"That's addressed to me,--but it should have gone to some one else.
+Who's J. C. Blackburn of Chicago?"
+
+"Ba'teese don't know.  Try fin' out.  Why?"
+
+"Have you read that message?"
+
+The giant traced out the words, almost indecipherable in places from
+creasing and handling.  He looked up sharply.
+
+"Boston?  You came from Boston?"
+
+"Yes.  That must refer to me.  It must mean what I've been suspecting
+all along,--that Thayer's been running my mill down, to help along some
+competitor.  You'll notice that he says he has me where he wants me."
+
+"_Oui_--yes.  But has he?  What was the deal?"
+
+"I don't know.  I haven't been in any deal that I know of, yet he must
+refer to me.  I haven't any idea what he means by the reference to
+starting operations, or that sentence about the 'big thing.'  There
+isn't another mill around here?"
+
+"None nearer than the Moscript place at Echo Lake."
+
+"Then what can it be?"  Suddenly Houston frowned with presentiment.
+"Thayer's been going with Medaine a good deal, hasn't he?"
+
+"_Oui_--yes.  When Ba'teese can think of no way to keep him from it."
+
+"It couldn't be that he's made some arrangement with her--about her
+forest lands?"
+
+"They are not hers yet.  She does not come into them until she is
+twenty-one."
+
+"But they are available then?"
+
+"_Oui_.  And they are as good as yours."
+
+"Practically the same thing, aren't they?  How much of the lake does
+she own?"
+
+"The east quarter, and the forests that front on eet, and the east bank
+of Hawk Creek."
+
+"Then there would be opportunity for everything, for skidways into the
+lake, a flume on her side and a mill.  That must be--"
+
+"Ba'teese would have hear of eet."
+
+"Surely.  But Thayer might have--"
+
+"Ba'teese would have hear of eet," came the repetition.  "No, eet is
+something else.  She would have ask Ba'teese and Ba'teese would have
+said, 'No.  Take nothing and give nothing.  _M'sieu_ Thayer, he is no
+good.'  So eet is not that.  You know the way back?  _Bon_--good.  Go
+to the cabin.  Ba'teese will try to learn who eet is, this Blackburn."
+
+They parted, Ba'teese to lounge back into the tiny town, Houston to
+take the winding road which led back to the cabin.  A pretty road it
+was, too, one which trailed along beside the stream, now clear with
+that sharp brilliancy which is characteristic of the mountain creek, a
+road fringed with whispering aspens, bright green in their new foliage,
+with small spruce and pine.  Here and there a few flowers showed; by
+the side of the road the wild roses peeped up from the denser growths
+of foliage, and a vagrant butterfly or so made the round of blossom
+after blossom.  It was spring-summer down here, sharp contrast indeed
+to the winter which lurked above and which would not fade until June
+had far progressed.  But with it all, its beauty, its serenity, its
+peace and soft moistness, Houston noticed it but slightly.  His
+thoughts were on other things: on Thayer and his duplicity, on the
+possibilities of the future, and the methods of combating a business
+enemy he felt sure was lurking in the background.
+
+It meant more to Houston than the mere monetary value of a
+loss,--should a loss come.  Back in the family burying ground in Boston
+was a mound that was fresher than others, a mound which shielded the
+form of a man who had died in disappointment, leaving behind an edict
+which his son had sworn to carry through to its fulfillment.  Now there
+were obstacles, and ones which were shielded by the darkness of
+connivance and scheming.  The outlook was not promising.  Yet even in
+its foreboding, there was consolation.
+
+"I at least know Thayer's a crook.  I can fire him and run the mill
+myself," Barry was murmuring to himself, as he plodded along.  "There
+may be others; I can weed them out.  At least saws won't be breaking
+every two weeks and lumber won't warp for lack of proper handling.
+Maybe I can get somebody back East to look after the office there and--"
+
+He ceased his soliloquy as he glanced ahead and noticed the trim figure
+of Medaine Robinette swinging along the road, old Lost Wing, as usual,
+trailing in her rear, astride a calico pony and leading the saddle
+horse which she evidently had become tired of riding.  A small switch
+was in one hand, and she flipped it at the new leaves of the aspens and
+the broad-leafed mullens beside the road.  As yet, she had not seen
+him, and Barry hurried toward her, jamming his cap into a pocket that
+his hand might be free to greet her.  He waved airily as they came
+closer and called.  But if she heard him, she gave no indication.
+Instead, she turned--swiftly, Houston thought--and mounted her horse.
+A moment later, she trotted past him, and again he greeted her, to be
+answered by a nod and a slight movement of the lips.  But the eyes had
+been averted.  Barry could see that the thinnest veneer of politeness
+had shielded something else as she spoke to him,--an expression of
+distaste, of dislike, almost loathing!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"Why?"
+
+Barry Houston could not answer the self-imposed question.  He could
+only stand and stare after her and the trotting, rolling Indian, as
+they moved down the road and disappeared in the shadow of the aspens at
+the next curve.  She had seen him; there could be no doubt of that.
+She had recognized him; more, Houston felt sure that she had mounted
+her horse that she might better be able to pass him and greet him with
+a formal nod instead of a more friendly acknowledgment.  And this was
+the girl who, an afternoon before, had sat beside him on the worn old
+bench at the side of Ba'tiste's cabin and picked thorns from the palm
+of his hand,--thorns from the stems of wild roses which she had brought
+him!  The enigma was too great for Houston.  He could only gasp with
+the suddenness of it and sink back into a dullness of outlook and
+viewpoint which he had lost momentarily.  It was thus that old friends
+had passed him by in Boston; it was thus that men who had been glad to
+borrow money from him in other days had looked the other way when the
+clouds had come.  A strange chill went over him.
+
+"Thayer's told her!"
+
+He spoke the sentence like a man repeating the words of an execution.
+His features suddenly had grown haggard.  He stumbled slightly as he
+made the next rise in the road and went on slowly, silently, toward the
+cabin.
+
+There Ba'tiste found him, slumped on the bench, staring out at the
+white and rose pinks of Mount Taluchen, yet seeing none of it.  The big
+man boomed a greeting, and Barry, striving for a smile, answered him.
+The Canadian turned to his wolf-dog.
+
+"_Peuff_!  Golemar!  Loneliness sits badly upon our friend.  He is
+homesick.  Trot over the hill and bring to him the petite Medaine!  Ah
+_oui_," he laughed in immense enjoyment at his raillery, "bring to him
+the petite Medaine to make him laugh and be happy."  Then, seeing that
+the man was struggling vainly for a semblance of cheeriness, he slid
+beside him on the bench and tousled his hair with one big hand.  "Nev'
+min' old Ba'teese," he said hurriedly; "he joke when eet is no time.
+You worry, huh?  So, mebbe, Ba'teese help.  There are men at the
+boarding house."
+
+"The Blackburn crowd?"
+
+"So.  Seven carpenters, and others.  They work for Blackburn, who is in
+Chicago.  They are here to build a mill."
+
+"A mill?"  Barry looked up now with new interest.  "Where?"
+
+"Near the lake.  The mill, eet will be sawing in a month.  The rest,
+the big plant, eet will take time for that."
+
+"On Medaine's land then!"  But Ba'tiste shook his head.
+
+"No.  Eet is on the five acres own' by Jerry Martin.  He has been try'
+to sell eet for five year.  Eet is no good--rocks and rocks--and rocks.
+They build eet there."
+
+"But what can they do on five acres?  Where will they get their lumber?"
+
+The trapper shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Ba'teese on'y know what they tell heem."
+
+"But surely, there must be some mistake about it.  You say they are
+going to start sawing in a month, and that a bigger plant is going up.
+Do you mean a complete outfit,--planers and all that sort of thing?"
+
+"So!"
+
+Houston shook his head.
+
+"For the life of me, I can't see it.  In the first place, I have the
+only timber around here with the exception of Medaine's land, and you
+say that she doesn't come into that until next year.  But they're going
+to start sawing at this new mill within a month.  My timber stretches
+back from the lake for eight miles; they either will have to go beyond
+that and truck in the logs for that distance, which would be ruinous as
+far as profits are concerned, or content themselves with scrub pine and
+sapling spruce.  I don't see what they can make out of that.  Isn't
+that right?  All I know about it is from what I've heard.  I've never
+made a cruise of the territory around here.  But it's always been my
+belief that with the exception of the land on the other quarter of the
+lake--"
+
+"That is all."
+
+"Then where--"
+
+But again Ba'tiste shrugged his shoulders.  Then he pulled long at his
+grizzled beard, regarding the wolf-dog which sat between his legs,
+staring up at him.
+
+"Golemar," came at last.  "There is something strange.  Peuff!  We
+shall fin' out, you and me and _mon ami_."  Suddenly he turned.
+"M'sieu Thayer, he gone."
+
+"Gone?  You mean he's run away?"
+
+"By gar, no.  But he leave hurried.  He get a telephone from long
+distance.  Chicago."
+
+"Then--"
+
+"Ba'teese not know.  M'sieu Shuler in the telephone office, he tell me.
+Eet is a long call, M'sieu Shuler is curious, and he listen in while
+they, what-you-say, chew up the rag.  Eet is a woman.  She say to meet
+her in Denver.  This morning M'sieu Thayer take the train.
+_Bon_--good!"
+
+"Good?  Why?"
+
+"What you know about lumber?"
+
+Houston shook his head.
+
+"A lot less than I should.  It wasn't my business, you know.  My father
+started this mill out here during boom times, when it looked as though
+the railroad over Crestline would make the distance between Denver and
+Salt Lake so short that the country would build up like wild fire.  He
+got them to put in a switch from above Tabernacle to the mill and
+figured on making a lot of money out of it all.  But it didn't pan out,
+Ba'tiste.  First of all, the railroad didn't go to Salt Lake and in the
+second--"
+
+"The new road will," said the French-Canadian.  "Peuff!  When they
+start to build eet, blooey!  Eet will be no time."
+
+"The new road?  I didn't know there was to be one."
+
+"_Ah, oui, oui, oui_!"  Ba'tiste became enthusiastic.  "They shall make
+eet a road!  Eet will not wind over the range like this one.  Eet shall
+come through the mountains with a six-mile tunnel, at Carrow Peak where
+they have work already one, two, t'ree year.  Then eet will start out
+straight, and peuff!  Eet will cut off a hundred mile to Salt Lake.
+Then we will see!"
+
+"When is all this going to happen?"
+
+The giant shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"When the railroad, eet is ready, and the tunnel, eet is done.  When
+that shall be?  No one know.  But the survey, eet is made.  The land,
+eet is condem'.  So it must be soon.  But you say you no know lumber?"
+
+"Not more than any office man could learn in a year and a half.  It
+wasn't my business, Ba'tiste.  Father thought less and less of the mill
+every year.  Once or twice, he was all but ready to sell it to Thayer,
+and would have done it, I guess, if Thayer could have raised the money.
+He was sick of the thing and wanted to get rid of it.  I had gone into
+the real estate business, never dreaming but that some day the mill
+would be sold and off our hands.  Then--then my trouble came along, and
+my father--left this will.  Since then, I've been busy trying to stir
+up business.  Oh, I guess I could tell a weathered scantling from a
+green one, and a long time ago, when I was out here, my father taught
+me how to scale a log.  That's about all."
+
+"Could you tell if a man cut a tree to get the greatest footage?  If
+you should say to a lumberjack to fell a tree at the spring of the
+root, would you know whether he did it or not?  Heh?  Could you know if
+the sawyer robbed you of fifty feet on ever' log?  No?  Then we shall
+learn.  To-morrow, we shall go to the mill.  M'sieu Thayer shall not be
+there.  Perhaps Ba'tiste can tell you much.  _Bien_!  We shall take
+Medaine, _oui_?  Yes?"
+
+"I--I don't think she'd go."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I'd rather--"  Houston was thinking of a curt nod and averted eyes.
+"Maybe we'd better just go alone, Ba'tiste."
+
+"_Tres bien_.  We shall go into the forest.  We shall learn much."
+
+And the next morning the old French-Canadian lived true to his promise.
+Behind a plodding pair of horses hitched to a jolting wagon, they made
+the journey, far out across the hills and plateau flats from
+Tabernacle, gradually winding into a shallow canon which led to places
+which Houston remembered from years long gone.  Beside the road ran the
+rickety track which served as a spur from the main line of the
+railroad, five miles from camp,--the ties rotten, the plates loosened
+and the rails but faintly free from rust; silent testimony of the fact
+that cars traveled but seldom toward the market, that the hopes of
+distant years had not been fulfilled.  Ahead of them, a white-faced
+peak reared itself against the sky, as though a sentinel against
+further progress,--Bear Mountain, three miles beyond the farthest
+stretch of Empire Lake.  Nearer, a slight trail of smoke curled upward,
+and Ba'tiste pointed.
+
+"The mill," he said.  "Two mile yet."
+
+"Yes, I remember in a hazy sort of way."  Then he laughed shortly.
+"Things will have to happen and happen fast if I ever live up to my
+contract, Ba'tiste."
+
+"So?"
+
+"Yes, I put too much confidence in Thayer.  I thought he was honest.
+When my father died, he came back to Boston, of course, and we had a
+long talk.  I agreed that I was not to interfere out here any more than
+was necessary, spending my time, instead, in rounding up business.  He
+had been my father's manager, and I naturally felt that he would give
+every bit of his attention to my business.  I didn't know that he had
+other schemes, and I didn't begin to get on to the fact until I started
+losing contracts.  That wasn't so long ago.  Now I'm out here, and if
+necessary, I'll stay here and be everything from manager to lumberjack,
+to pull through."
+
+"_Bon_!  My Pierre, he would talk like that."  Then the old man was
+silent for a moment.  "Old Ba'tiste, he has notice some things.  He
+will show you.  Golemar!  Whee!"
+
+In answer to the whining call of the giant, the wolf-dog, trotting
+beside the lazy team, swerved and nipped at the horses' heels.  The
+pace became a jogging trot.  Soon they were in view of the long, smooth
+mound of sawdust leading to the squat, rambling saw shed.  A moment
+more and the bunk house, its unpainted clapboards blackened by the rain
+and sun and snows, showed ahead.  A half-mile, then Ba'tiste left the
+wagon and, Barry following him, walked toward the mill and its whining,
+groaning saws.
+
+"Watch close!" he ordered.  "See ever'thing they do.  Then remember.
+Ba'tiste tell you about it when we come out."
+
+Within they went, where hulking, strong-shouldered men were turning the
+logs from the piles without, along the skidways and to the carriage of
+the mill, their cant hooks working in smooth precision, their muscles
+bulging as they rolled the great cylinders of wood into place, steadied
+them, then stood aside until the carriages should shunt them toward the
+sawyer and the tremendous, revolving wheel which was to convert them
+into "board feet" of lumber.  Hurrying "off-bearers", or slab-carriers,
+white with sawdust, scampered away from the consuming saw, dragging the
+bark and slab-sides to a smaller blade, there to be converted into
+boiler fuel and to be fed to the crackling fire of the stationary
+engine, far at one end of the mill.  Leather belts whirred and slapped;
+there was noise everywhere, except from the lips of men.  For they,
+these men of the forest, were silent, almost taciturn.
+
+To Barry, it all seemed a smooth-working, perfectly aligned thing: the
+big sixteen-foot logs went forward, rough, uncouth things, to be
+dragged into the consuming teeth of the saw; then, through the sheer
+force of the blade, pulled on until brownness became whiteness, the
+cylindrical shape a lopsided thing with one long, glaring, white mark;
+to be shunted back upon the automatic carriage, notched over for a
+second incision, and started forward again, while the newly sawn boards
+traveled on to the trimmers and edgers, and thence to the drying racks.
+
+Log after log skidded upon the carriage and was brought forward, while
+Houston, fascinated, watched the kerf mark of the blade as it tore away
+a slab-side.  Then a touch on the arm and he followed Ba'tiste without.
+The Canadian wandered thoughtfully about a moment, at last to approach
+a newly stacked pile of lumber and lean against it.  A second more and
+he drew something to his side and stared at it.
+
+"Oh, ho!" came at last.  "M'sieu Houston, he will, what-you-say, fix
+the can on the sawyer."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"First," said Ba'tiste quietly, "he waste a six-inch board on each
+slab-side he take off.  Un'stand?  The first cut--when the bark, eet is
+sliced off.  He take too much.  Eet is so easy.  And then--look."  He
+drew his hand from its place of concealment, displaying a big thumb
+measuring upon a small ruler.  "See?  Eet is an inch and a quarter.
+Too thick."
+
+"I know that much at least.  Lumber should be cut at the mill an inch
+and an eighth thick to allow for shrinkage to an inch--but not an inch
+and a quarter."
+
+"Bon!" Ba'tiste grinned.  "Eet make a difference on a big log.  Eight
+cuts of the saw and a good board, eet is gone."
+
+"No wonder I don't make money."
+
+"There is much more.  The trimmer and the edger, they take off too
+much.  They make eight-inch boards where there should be ten, and ten
+where there should be twelve.  You shall have a new crew."
+
+"And a new manager," Houston said it quietly.  The necessity for his
+masquerade was fading swiftly now.
+
+"And new men on the kilns.  See!"
+
+Far to one side, a great mass of lumber reared itself against the sky,
+twisted and warped, the offal of the drying kilns.  Ba'tiste shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"So!  When the heat, eet is made too quick, the lumber twist.  Eet is
+so easy--when one wants some one to be tired and quit!"
+
+To quit!  It was all plain to Barry Houston now.  Thayer had tried to
+buy the mill when the elder Houston was alive.  He had failed.  Now, he
+was striving for something else to make Houston the newcomer, Houston,
+who was striving to succeed without the fundamentals of actual logging
+experience, disgusted with the business and his contract with the dead.
+The first year and a half of the fight had passed,--a losing
+proposition; Barry could see why now, in warped lumber and thick-cut
+boards, in broken machinery and unfulfilled contracts.  Thayer wanted
+him to quit; his father's death had tied up the mill proper to such an
+extent that it could neither be leased nor sold for a long time.  But
+the timber could be bought on a stumpage basis, the lake and flume
+leased, and with a new mill--
+
+"I understand the whole thing now!"  There was excitement in the tone.
+"They can't get this mill--on account of the way the will reads.  I
+can't dispose of it.  But they know that with the mill out of the way,
+and the whole thing a disappointment, that I should be willing to
+contract my timber to them and lease the flume.  Then they can go ahead
+with their own plans and their own schemes.  It's the lake and flume
+and timber that counts, anyway; this mill's the cheapest part of it
+all."
+
+"Ah, _oui_!" The big man wagged his head in sage approval.  "But it
+shall not be, eh?"
+
+Houston's lips went into a line,
+
+"Not until the last dog dies!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"Ah, _oui_!"  Evidently Ba'tiste liked the expression.  "Eet shall not
+be until--what-you-say--the last dog, eet is dead.  Come!  We will go
+into the forest.  Ba'tiste will show you things you should know."
+
+And to the old wagon again they went, to trail their way up the narrow
+road along the bubbling, wooden flume which led from the lake, to
+swerve off at the dam and turn into the hills again.  Below them, the
+great expanse of water ruffled and shimmered in the May sun; away off
+at the far end, a log slid down a skidway, and with a booming splash
+struck the water, to bury itself for a hundred feet, only to rise at
+last, and bobbing, go to join others of its kind, drifting toward the
+dam with the current of the stream which formed the lake.  In the
+smoother spaces, trout splashed; the reflections of the hills showed in
+the great expanse as the light wind lessened, allowing the surface to
+become glass-like, revealing also the twisted roots and dead branches
+of trees long inundated in forming the big basin of water.
+
+Evidently only a few men were working in the hills; the descent of the
+logs was a thing spaced by many minutes, and the booming of the splash
+struck forth into the hills to be echoed and re-echoed.  Houston stared
+gloomily at the skid, at the lake and the small parcel of logs drifting
+there.
+
+"All for nothing," came at last.  "It takes about three logs to make
+one--the way they're working."
+
+"_Oui_!  But M'sieu Houston shall learn."
+
+Barry did not answer.  He had learned a great deal already.  He knew
+enough to realize that his new effort must be a clean sweep,--from the
+manager down.  Distrust had enveloped him completely; even to the last
+lumberjack must the camp be cleaned, and the start made anew with a
+crew upon whom he could depend for honesty, at least.  How the rest of
+the system was to work out, he did not know.  How he was to sell the
+lumber which he intended milling, how he was to look after both the
+manufacturing and the disposing of his product was something beyond
+him, just at this moment.  But there would be a way; there must be.
+Besides, there was Ba'tiste, heavy-shouldered, giant Ba'tiste, leaning
+over the side of the wagon, whistling and chiding the faithful old
+Golemar, and some way Houston felt that he would be an ally always.
+
+The wagon had turned into the deeper forest now redolent with the heavy
+odor of the coniferous woods, and Ba'tiste straightened.  Soon he was
+talking and pointing,--now to describe the spruce and its short,
+stubby, upturned needles; the lodgepole pines with their straighter,
+longer leaves and more brownish, scaly bark; the Englemann spruce; the
+red fir and limber pine; each had its characteristic, to be pointed out
+in the simple words of the big Canadian, and to be catalogued by the
+man at his side.  A moment before, they had been only pines, only so
+many trees.  Now each was different, each had its place in the mind of
+the man who studied them with a new interest and a new enthusiasm, even
+though they might fall, one after another, into the maw of the saw for
+the same purpose.
+
+"They are like people, _oui_!"  Old Ba'tiste was gesticulating.  "They
+have their, what-you-say, make-ups.  The lodgepole, he is like the man
+who runs up and looks on when the crowd, eet gathers about some one who
+has been hurt.  He waits until there had been a fire, and then he comes
+in and grows first, along with the aspens, so he can get all the room
+he wants.  The spruce, he is like a woman, yes, _oui_.  He looks better
+than the rest--but he is not.  Sometime, he is not so good.  Whoa!"
+
+The road had narrowed to a mere trail; Ba'tiste tugged on the reins,
+and motioning to Barry, left the wagon, pulling forth an axe and heavy,
+cross-cut saw as he did so.  A half-hour later, Golemar preceding them,
+they were deep in the forest.  Ba'tiste stopped and motioned toward a
+tall spruce.
+
+"See?" he ordered, as he nicked it with his axe, "you cut heem as far
+above the ground as he is thick through.  Now, first, the undercut."
+
+"Looks like an overcut to me."
+
+"Oh, ho!  Ah, _oui_, so eet is!  But eet is called the undercut.  Eet
+makes the tree fall the way you want heem!"
+
+The axe gleamed in blow after blow.  A deep incision appeared in the
+trunk of the tree, and at the base of it Ba'tiste started the saw,
+Barry working on the other end with his good arm.  Ten minutes of work
+and they switched to the other side.  Here no "undercut" was made; the
+saw bit into the bark and deep toward the heart of the tree in a
+smooth, sharp line that progressed farther, farther--
+
+"_Look out_!"
+
+A crackling sound had come from above.  Ba'tiste abandoned the saw, and
+with one great leap caught Houston and pulled him far to one side, as
+with a roar, the spruce seemed to veritably disintegrate, its trunk
+spreading in great, splintered slabs, and the tree proper crashing to
+the ground in the opposite direction to which it should have fallen,
+breaking as it came.  A moment Ba'tiste stood, with his arm still about
+the younger man, waiting for the dead branches, severed from other
+trees, to cease falling, and the disturbed needles and dust of the
+forest to settle.  Then, pulling his funny little knit cap far down
+over his straggly hair, he came forth, to stand in meditation upon the
+largest portion of the shattered tree.
+
+"Eet break up like an ice jam!" came at last.  "That tree, he is not
+made of wood.  Peuff!  He is of glass!"
+
+Barry joined him, studying the splintered fragments of the spruce,
+suddenly to bend forward in wonderment.
+
+"That's queer.  Here's a railroad spike driven clear into the heart."
+
+"Huh?  What's that?"  Ba'tiste bent beside him to examine the rusty
+spike, then hurried to a minute examination of the rest of the tree.
+"And another," came at last.  "And more!"
+
+Four heavy spikes had revealed themselves now, each jutting forth at a
+place where the tree had split.  Ba'tiste straightened.
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  Eet is no wonder!  See?  The spike, they have been in the
+tree for mebbe one, two, t'ree year.  And the tree, he is not strong.
+When the winter come, last year, he split inside, from the frost, where
+the spike, he spread the grain.  But the split, he does not show.  When
+we try to cut heem down and the strain come, blooey, he, what-you-say,
+bust!"
+
+"But why the spikes?"
+
+"Wait!"  Ba'tiste, suddenly serious, turned away into the woods, to go
+slowly from tree to tree, to dig at them with his knife, to squint and
+stare, to shin a few feet up a trunk now and then, examining every
+protuberance, every round, bulbous scar.  At last he shouted, and
+Houston hurried to him, to find the giant digging excitedly at a
+lodgepole.  "I have foun' another!"
+
+The knife, deep in the tree, had scratched on metal.  Five minutes more
+and they had discovered a third one, farther away.  Then a fourth, a
+fifth; soon the number had run to a score, all within a small radius.
+Ba'tiste, more excited than ever, ranged off into the woods, leaving
+Barry to dig at the trees about him and to discover even more metal
+buried in the hearts of the standing lumber.  For an hour he was gone,
+to return at last and stand staring about him.
+
+"The spike, they are all in this little section," he said finally.  "I
+have cruise' all about here--there are no more."
+
+"But why should trees grow spikes?"
+
+"Ah, why?  So that saws will break at the right time!  Eet is easy for
+the iron hunter at the mill to look the other way--eef he knows what
+the boss want.  Eet is easy for the sawyer to step out of the way while
+the blade, he hit a spike!"
+
+A long whistle traveled over Houston's lips.  This was the explanation
+of broken saws, just at the crucial moment!
+
+"Simple, isn't it?" he asked caustically.  "Whenever it's necessary for
+an 'accident' to happen, merely send out into the woods for a load of
+timber from a certain place."
+
+"Then the iron hunter--the man who look for metal in the wood--he look
+some other place.  Beside," and Ba'tiste looked almost admiringly at a
+spike-filled tree.  "Eet is a good job.  The spike, they are driven
+deep in the wood, they are punched away in, so the bark, eet will close
+over them.  If the iron hunter is not, what-you-say, full of pepper,
+and if he is lazy, then he not find heem, whether he want to or not.
+M'sieu Thayer, he have a head on him."
+
+"Then Thayer--"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"But why?  He was the only man on the job out here.  He didn't have to
+fill a whole section of a forest full of spikes when he wanted to break
+a saw or cause me trouble."
+
+"Ah, no.  But M'sieu--that is, whoever did eet--maybe he figure on the
+time when you yourself try to run the mill.  Eh?"
+
+"Well, if he did," came sharply, "he's figured on this exact moment.
+I've seen enough, Ba'tiste.  I'm going to Denver and contract myself an
+entirely new crew.  Then I'm coming back to drop this masquerade I've
+been carrying on--and if you'll help me--run this place myself.
+Thayer's out--from the minute I can get a new outfit.  I'm not going to
+take any chances.  When he goes, the whole bunch here goes with him!"
+
+"Ah, _oui_!"  Ba'tiste grinned with enthusiasm.  "You said a
+what-you-say--large bite!  Now," he walked toward the saw, "we shall
+fell a tree that shall not split."
+
+"If you don't mind, I'd rather go back and look around the place.  I
+want to get lined up on everything before I start to Denver."
+
+"Ah, _oui_."  Together, led by the wolf-dog, they made their way to the
+wagon again, once more to skirt the lake and to start down the narrow
+roadway leading beside the flume.  A half-hour more and there came the
+sound of hammers and of saws.  They stopped, and staring through the
+scraggly trees, made out the figures of half a dozen men busily at work
+upon the erection of a low, rambling building.  All about them were
+vast piles of lumber, two-by-fours, scantlings, boardings,
+shingles,--everything that possibly could be needed in the building of
+not one, but many structures.  Ba'tiste nodded.
+
+"The new mill."
+
+"Yes.  Probably being built out of my lumber.  It's a cinch they didn't
+transport it all the way from Tabernacle."
+
+"Nor pay M'sieu Houston.  Many things can happen when one is the
+manager."
+
+Barry made no answer.  For another mile they drove in silence, at last
+to come into the clearing of Barry's mill, with its bunk house, its
+cook house, its diminutive commissary, its mill and kilns and sheds.
+Houston leaped from the wagon to start a census and to begin his
+preparations for a cleaning-out of the whole establishment.  But at the
+door of the commissary he whirled, staring.  A buggy was just coming
+over the brow of the little hill which led to the mill property.  Some
+one had called to him,---a woman whose voice had caused him to start,
+then, a second later, to go running forward.
+
+She was beside Thayer in the buggy, leaning forth, one hand extended as
+Barry hurried toward her, her black eyes flashing eagerness, her full,
+yet cold lips parted, her olive-skinned cheeks enlivened by a flush of
+excitement as Houston came to her, forgetful of the sneer of the man at
+her side, forgetful of the staring Ba'tiste in the background,
+forgetful of his masquerade, of everything.
+
+"Agnes!" he gasped.  "Why did you--"
+
+"I thought--" and the drawling voice of Fred Thayer had a suddenly
+sobering effect on Houston, "that you weren't hurt very bad.  Your
+memory came back awful quick, didn't it?  I thought she'd bring you to
+your senses!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Houston pretended not to hear the remark.  The woman in the buggy was
+holding forth her hands to him and he assisted her to the ground.
+
+"Well," she asked, in a sudden fawning manner, "aren't you glad to see
+me, Barry?  Aren't you going to kiss me?"
+
+"Of course."  He took her in his arms.  "I--I was so surprised, Agnes.
+I never thought of you--"
+
+"Naturally you didn't."  It was Thayer again.  "That's why I sent for
+her.  Thought you'd get your memory back when--"
+
+"I've had my memory for long enough--"  Houston had turned upon him
+coldly--"to know that from now on I'll run this place.  You're through!"
+
+"Barry!"  The woman had grasped his arm.  "Don't talk like that.  You
+don't know what you're saying!"
+
+"Please, Agnes--"
+
+"Let him rave, if that's the way he wants to repay faithfulness."
+
+"Wait until I've talked to you, Barry.  You haven't had time to think.
+You've jumped at conclusions.  Fred just thought that I could--"
+
+"This hasn't anything to do with you, Agnes.  There hasn't been
+anything wrong with me.  My brain's been all right; I've known every
+minute what I've been doing.  This man's crooked, and I know he's
+crooked.  I needed time, and I shammed forgetfulness.  I've gotten the
+information I need now--and I'm repeating that he's through!  And every
+one else in this camp goes with him!"
+
+"I'm not in the habit of taking insults!  I--"
+
+Thayer moved forward belligerently, one hand reaching toward a cant
+hook near by.  But suddenly he ceased.  Ba'tiste, quite naturally, had
+strolled between them.
+
+"M'sieu Houston have a broke' arm," had come very quietly.  Thayer
+grunted.
+
+"Maybe that's the reason he thinks he can insult every one around here."
+
+Ba'tiste looked down upon him, as a Newfoundland would look upon a
+snapping terrier.
+
+"M'sieu Houston insult nobody."
+
+"But--"
+
+The voice of the big man rose to a roar.
+
+"Ba'teese say, M'sieu Houston insult nobody.  Un'stan'?  Ba'teese say
+that!  Ba'teese got no broke' arm!"
+
+"Who is this man?"  The woman had turned angrily toward Barry; "What
+right has he to talk this way?  The whole thing's silly, as far as I
+can see, Barry.  This man, whoever he is, has been stuffing you full of
+stories.  There--"
+
+"This man, Agnes," and Barry Houston's voice carried a quality he never
+before had used with Agnes Jierdon, "is the best friend I ever had.
+You'll realize it before long.  He not only has saved my life, but he's
+going to help me save my business.  I want you to know him and to like
+him."
+
+A quick smile flashed over the full lips.
+
+"I didn't know, Barry.  Pardon me."
+
+Houston turned to the introduction, while Agnes Jierdon held forth a
+rather limp hand and while Ba'tiste, knit cap suddenly pulled from
+straggly gray hair, bent low in acknowledgment.  Thayer, grumbling
+under his breath, started away.  Houston went quickly toward him.
+
+"You understood me?"
+
+"Perfectly.  I'm fired.  I was good enough for your father, but you
+know more than he did.  I was--"
+
+"We won't go into that."
+
+"There's nothing about it that I'm ashamed of."
+
+Still the sneer was there, causing Barry's bandaged arm to ache for
+freedom and strength.  "I don't have to go around hiding my past."
+
+Houston bit down a retort and forced himself to the question:
+
+"How long will it take you to get out of here?"
+
+"I'll be out to-night.  I don't stay where I'm not wanted.  Needn't
+think I'll hang around begging you for a job.  There are plenty of 'em,
+for men like me."
+
+"One that I know of, in particular.  I asked you when you could get
+out."
+
+"An hour, if you're so impatient about it.  But I want my check first."
+
+"You'll get it, and everybody else connected with you.  So you might as
+well give the word."
+
+For a moment, Thayer stared at him in malignant hate, his gnarled hands
+twisting and knotting.  Then, with a sudden impulse, he turned away
+toward the mill.  A moment later the whistle blew and the saws ceased
+to snarl.  Barry turned back to Agnes and Ba'tiste.  The woman caught
+impulsively at his arm.
+
+"Where on earth am I going to live, Barry?" she questioned.  "I don't
+want to go back to town.  And I can't stay in this deserted place, if
+every one is leaving it."
+
+"I'll keep the cook.  She can fix you a room in one of the cottages and
+stay there with you.  However, it would be best to go back."
+
+"But I won't."  She shook her head with an attempt at levity.  "I've
+come all this distance, worried to death every moment over you, and now
+I'm going to stay until I'm sure that everything's all right.  Besides,
+Barry," she moved close to him, "you'll need me.  Won't you?  Haven't I
+always been near you when you've needed me?  And aren't you taking on
+the biggest sort of job now?"
+
+Houston smiled at her.  True, she had always been near in time of
+trouble and it was only natural that now--
+
+"Of course," came his answer.  "Come, I'll have you made comfortable in
+the cottage."  Then, as he started away, "May I see you, Ba'tiste,
+sometime to-night?"
+
+"Ah, _oui_."  The Canadian was moving toward his wagon and the waiting
+dog.  "In the cabin."
+
+Three hours later, the last of the men paid off, Agnes installed in the
+best of three little cottages in care of the motherly old cook, Barry
+Houston approached the door of Ba'tiste's cabin, the wolf-dog, who had
+picked him up a hundred yards away, trotting beside him.  There was a
+light within; in the shadows by the grave, a form moved,--old Lost
+Wing.  Medaine was there, then.  Barry raised his hand to knock,--and
+halted.  His name had been mentioned angrily; then again,--followed by
+the voice of the girl:
+
+"I don't know what it is, Ba'tiste.  Fred wouldn't tell me, except that
+it was something too horrible for me to know.  And I simply can't do
+what you say.  I can't be pleasant to him when I feel this way."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Oh, I know.  I want to be fair, and I try to be.  I speak to him when
+I meet him; isn't that enough?  We're not old friends; we're hardly
+even acquaintances.  And if there is something in his past to be
+ashamed of, isn't it best that we simply remain that way?  I--"
+
+Then she ceased.  Houston had knocked on the door.  A second later, he
+entered the cabin, to return Medaine Robinette's cool but polite
+greeting in kind, and to look apprehensively toward Ba'tiste Renaud.
+But the old man's smile was genuine.
+
+"We have been talk' about you, _oui_, yes!" he said.  "Eh, Medaine?"
+
+It was one of his thrusts.  The girl colored, then turned toward the
+door.
+
+"I'm afraid I've stayed longer than I intended," she apologized.  "It's
+late.  Good night."
+
+Then she was gone.  Houston looked at Ba'tiste, but the old
+French-Canadian merely waved a big hand.
+
+"Woman," he said airily, "peuff!  She is strange.  Eet is nothing.  Eet
+will pass.  Now," as though the subject had been dismissed, "what mus'
+Ba'teese do?"
+
+"At the mill?  I wish, if you don't mind, that you'd guard it for me.
+I'm going to Denver on the morning train to hire a new crew.  I don't
+want Thayer to do anything to the mill in my absence."
+
+"Ah, _oui_.  It shall be.  You will sleep here?"
+
+"If you don't mind?  It's nearer Tabernacle."
+
+"Bon--good!  Golemar!"  And the dog scratched at the door.  "Come, we
+shall go to the mill.  We are the watchmen, yes?"
+
+"But I didn't mean for you to start to-night.  I just thought--"
+
+"There is no time like the minute," answered the Canadian quietly.
+"To-night, you shall be Ba'teese, _oui_, yes.  Ba'teese shall be you."
+
+Pulling his knit cap on his head, he went out into the darkness and to
+the guardianship of the mill that belonged--to a man who looked like
+his Pierre.  As for Houston, the next morning found him on the
+uncomfortable red cushions of the smoking car as the puffing train
+pulled its weary, way through the snowsheds of Crestline Mountain, on
+the way over the range.  Evening brought him to Denver, and the three
+days which followed carried with them the sweaty smell of the
+employment offices and the gathering of a new crew.  Then, tired,
+anxious with an eagerness that he never before had known, he turned
+back to the hills.
+
+Before, in the days agone, they had been only mountains, reminders of
+an eruptive time in the cooling of the earth,--so many bumpy places
+upon a topographical railroad map.  But now,--now they were different.
+They seemed like home.  They were the future.  They were the housing
+place of the wide spaces where the streams ran through green valleys,
+where the sagebrush dotted the plateau plains, and where the world was
+a thing with a rim about it; hills soft blue and brown and gray and
+burning red in the sunlight, black, crumpled velvet beneath the moon
+and stars; hills where the pines grew, where his life awaited him, a
+new thing to be remolded nearer to his own desires, and where lived
+Ba'tiste, Agnes--and Medaine.
+
+Houston thought of her with a sudden cringing.
+
+In that moment as he stood outside the door of Ba'tiste's cabin, he had
+heard himself sealed and delivered to oblivion as far as she was
+concerned.  He was only an acquaintance--one with a grisly shadow in
+his past--and it was best that he remain such.  Grudgingly, Barry
+admitted the fact to himself, as he sat once more in the red-plush
+smoking car, surrounded by heavy-shouldered, sodden-faced men, his new
+crew, en route to Empire Lake.  It was best.  There was Agnes, with her
+debt of gratitude to be paid and with her affection for him, which in
+its blindness could not discern the fact that it was repaid only as a
+sense of duty.  There was the fight to be made,--and the past.  Houston
+shuddered with the thought of it.  Things were only as they should be;
+grimly he told himself that he had erred in even thinking of happiness
+such as comes to other men.  His life had been drab and gray; it must
+remain so.
+
+Past the gleaming lakes and eternal banks of snow the train crawled to
+the top of the world at Crestline, puffed and clattered through the
+snowsheds, then clambered down the mountain side to Tabernacle.  With
+his dough-faced men about him, Houston sought transportation, at last
+to obtain it, then started the journey to the mill.
+
+Into the canon and to the last rise.  Then a figure showed before him,
+a gigantic form, running and tumbling through the underbrush at one
+side of the road, a dog bounding beside him.  It was Ba'tiste, excited,
+red-faced, his arms waving like windmills, his voice booming even from
+a distance:
+
+"M'sieu Houston!  M'sieu Houston!  Ba'teese have fail!  Ba'teese no
+good!  He watch for you--he is glad you come!  Ba'teese ashame'!
+Ashame'!"
+
+He had reached the wagon now, panting, still striving to talk and
+failing for lack of breath, his big hands seeking to fill in the spaces
+where words had departed.  Houston leaned toward him, gripping him by a
+massive shoulder.
+
+"What's happened?  What's--"
+
+"Ba'teese ashame'!" came again between puffs of the big lungs.
+"Ba'teese watch one, two, t'ree night.  Nothin' happen.  Ba'teese think
+about his lost trap.  He think mebbe there is one place where he have
+not look'.  He say to Golemar he will go for jus' one, two hour.
+Nobody see, he think.  So he go.  And he come back.  Blooey!  Eet is
+done!  Ba'teese have fail!"
+
+"But what, Ba'tiste?  It wasn't your fault.  Don't feel that way about
+it?  Has anything happened to Agnes?"
+
+"No.  The mill."
+
+"They've--?"
+
+"Look!"
+
+They had reached the top of the rise.  Below them lay something which
+caused Barry Houston to leap to his feet unmindful of the jolting
+wagon, to stand weaving with white-gripped hands, to stare with
+suddenly deadened eyes--
+
+Upon a blackened, smoldering mass of charred timbers and twisted
+machinery.  The remainder of all that once had been his mill!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Words would not come for a moment.  Houston could only stare and
+realize that his burden had become greater than ever.  In the wagons
+behind him were twenty men, guaranteed at least a month of labor, and
+now there was nothing to provide it.  The mill was gone; the blade was
+still hanging in its sockets, a useless, distempered thing; the boiler
+was bent and blackened, the belting burned; the carriages and muley
+saws and edgers and trimmers were only so much junk.  He turned at last
+to Ba'tiste, to ask tritely what he knew could not be answered:
+
+"But how did it happen, Ba'tiste?  Didn't any one see?"
+
+The Canadian shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Ba'teese come back.  Eet is done."
+
+"Let's see Agnes.  Maybe she can tell us something."
+
+But the woman, her arms about Houston's neck, could only announce
+hysterically that she had seen the mill burning, that she had sought
+help and had failed to find it.
+
+"Then you noticed no one around the place?"
+
+"Only Ba'tiste."
+
+"But that was an hour or so before."
+
+The big French-Canadian had moved away, to stand in doleful
+contemplation of the charred mass.  The voice of Agnes Jierdon sank low:
+
+"I don't know, Barry.  I don't want to accuse--"
+
+"You don't mean--"
+
+"All I know is that I saw him leave the place and go over the hill.
+Fifteen minutes later, I saw the mill burning and ran down there.  All
+about the place rags were burning and I could smell kerosene.  That's
+all I saw.  But in the absence of any one else, what should a person
+think?"
+
+Houston's lips pressed tight.  He turned angrily, the old grip of
+suspicion upon him,--suspicion that would point in time of stress to
+every one about him, suspicion engendered by black days of
+hopelessness, of despair.  But in an instant, it all was gone; the
+picture of Ba'tiste Renaud, standing there by the embers, the honesty
+of his expression of sorrow, the slump of his shoulders, while the dog,
+unnoticed, nuzzled its cold nose in a limp hand, was enough to wipe it
+all out forever.  Houston's eyes went straight to those of Agnes
+Jierdon and centered there.
+
+"Agnes," came slowly, "I want to ask a favor.  No matter what may
+happen, no matter what you may think personally, there is one man who
+trusts me as much as you have trusted me, and whom I shall trust in
+return.  That man is Ba'tiste Renaud, my friend.  I hope you can find a
+friend in him too; but if you can't, please, for me, never mention it."
+
+"Why, of course not, Barry."  She laughed in an embarrassed manner and
+drew away from him.  "I just thought I'd tell you what I knew.  I
+didn't have any idea you were such warm comrades.  We'll forget the
+whole incident."
+
+"Thank you."  Then to Ba'tiste he went, to bang him on the shoulder,
+and with an effort to whirl him about.  "Well!" he demanded, in an echo
+of Ba'tiste's own thundering manner, "shall we stand here and weep?
+Or--"
+
+"Eet was my fault!"  The French-Canadian still stared at the ruins.
+"Eet is all Ba'teese' fault--"
+
+"I thought you were my friend, Ba'tiste."
+
+"_Sacre_!  I am."
+
+"Then show it!  We'll not be able to make a case against the
+firebugs--even though you and I may be fairly sure who did it.  Anyway,
+it isn't going to break us.  I've got about fifteen thousand in the
+bank.  There's enough lumber around here to build a new saw-shed of a
+sort, and money to buy a few saws, even if we can't have as good a
+place as we had before.  We can manage.  And I need help--I won't be
+able to move without you.  But--"
+
+"_Oui_?"
+
+"But," and Barry smiled at him, "if you ever mention any responsibility
+for this thing again--you're fired.  Do we understand each other?"
+
+Very slowly the big trapper turned and looked down into the frank,
+friendly eyes of the younger man.  He blinked slightly, and then one
+tremendous arm encircled Houston's shoulder for just a moment.  At last
+a smile came, to grow stronger.  The grip about the shoulders
+tightened, suddenly to give way to a whanging blow, as Batiste, jovial
+now, drew away, pulled back his shoulders and squared himself as though
+for some physical encounter.
+
+"Ah, _oui_!"  He bellowed.  "_Oui, oui, oui_!  _Bon_--good!  Ba'teese,
+he un'stan'.  Now what you want me to do?"
+
+"Take this bunch of men and turn to at clearing away this wreckage.
+Then," and he smiled his confidence at Renaud, "make your plans for the
+building of a saw-shed.  That is--if you really want to go through with
+it?"
+
+"Ah, _oui--oui_!"  The Canadian waved his arms excitedly and summoned
+his men.  For a moment, Barry stood watching, then returning to Agnes,
+escorted her toward her cottage.
+
+"Don't you think," he asked, as they walked along, "that you'd better
+be going back?  This isn't just the place for a woman, Agnes."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--well for one thing, this is a man's life out here, not a
+woman's.  There's no place for you--nothing to interest you or hold
+you.  I can't guarantee you any company except that of a cook--or some
+one like that."
+
+"But Mr. Thayer--" and Houston detected a strange tone in the
+voice--"spoke of a very dear friend of yours, in whom I might be
+greatly interested."
+
+"A friend of mine?"
+
+"Yes--a Miss Robinette.  Fred said that she was quite interested in
+you."
+
+Houston laughed.
+
+"She is--by the inverse ratio.  So much, in fact, that she doesn't care
+to be anywhere near me.  She knows--" and he sobered, "that there's
+something--back there."
+
+"Indeed?"  They had reached the cottage and the subject was
+discontinued.  Agnes lingered a moment on the veranda.  "I suppose I'm
+never to see anything of you?"
+
+"That's just it, Agnes.  It makes me feel like a cad to have you out
+here--and then not to be able to provide any entertainment for you.
+And, really, there's no need to worry about me.  I'm all right--with
+the exception of this broken arm.  And it'll be all right in a couple
+of weeks.  Besides, there's no telling what may happen.  You can see
+from the burning of this mill that there isn't any love lost between
+Thayer and myself."
+
+"Why, Barry!  You don't think he had anything to do with it?"
+
+"I know he did.  Directly or indirectly, he was back of it.  I haven't
+had much of a chance to talk to you, Agnes, but this much is a
+certainty: Thayer is my enemy, for business reasons.  I know of no
+other.  He believes that if he can make the going rough enough for me
+that I'll quit, lease him my stumpage, and let him go into business for
+himself.  So far, he hasn't had much luck--except to tie me up.  He may
+beat me; I don't know.  Then again, he may not.  But in the meanwhile,
+you can see, Agnes, that the battlefield is going to be no place for a
+woman."
+
+"But, Barry, you're wrong.  I think you've done an injustice to--"
+
+"Please don't tell me that, Agnes.  I put so much faith in your
+beliefs.  But in this case, I've heard it from his own lips--I've seen
+his telegrams.  I know!"
+
+The woman turned quickly.  For a moment she examined, in an absent sort
+of way, the blossoms of a climbing rose, growing, quite uninvited, up
+the porch pillar of the cottage.  Then:
+
+"Maybe you're right, Barry.  Probably I will go away.  But I want to be
+sure that you're all right first."
+
+"Would you care to go to the village to-night?  There's a picture show
+there--and we could at least get a dish of ice cream and some candy."
+
+"I think not," came the answer in a tired voice.  "It's so far;
+besides, all this excitement has given me a headache.  Go back to your
+work and forget about me.  I think that I'll go to bed immediately I've
+had something to eat."
+
+"You're not ill?"
+
+"Only a headache--and with me, bed is always the best place for that.
+I suppose you'll go to Denver in the morning for new saws?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I'll wait until you return before I make up my mind.  Good-by."
+She bent forward to be kissed, and Barry obeyed the command of her lips
+with less of alacrity than ever before.  Nor could he tell the reason.
+Five minutes more and he was back at the mill, giving what aid he could
+with his uninjured arm.
+
+Night, and he traveled with Ba'tiste to his cabin, only to fret
+nervously about the place and at last to strike out once more, on foot,
+for the lumber camp.  He was worried, nervous; in a vague way he
+realized that he had been curt, almost brusque, with a woman for whom
+he felt every possible gratitude and consideration.  Nor had he
+inquired about her when work had ended for the day.  Had the excuse of
+a headache been made only to cover feelings that had been deeply
+injured?  Or had it meant a blind to veil real, serious illness?  For
+three years, Barry Houston had known Agnes Jierdon in day-to-day
+association.  But never had he remembered her in exactly the light that
+he had seen her to-day.  There had been a strangeness about her, a
+sharpness that he could not understand.
+
+He stopped just at the entrance to the mill clearing and looked toward
+the cottage.  It was darkened.  Barry felt that without at least the
+beckoning of a light to denote the wakefulness of the cook, he could
+not in propriety go there, even for an inquiry regarding the condition
+of the woman whom he felt that some day he would marry.  Aimlessly he
+wandered about, staring in the moonlight at the piled-up remains of his
+mill, then at last he seated himself on a stack of lumber, to rest a
+moment before the return journey to Ba'tiste's cabin.  But suddenly he
+tensed.  A low whistle had come from the edge of the woods, a hundred
+yards away, and Barry listened attentively for its repetition, but it
+did not come.  Fifteen minutes he waited, then rose, the better to
+watch two figures that had appeared for just a moment silhouetted in
+the moonlight at the bald top of a small hill.  A man and a woman were
+walking close together,--the woman, it seemed, with her head against
+the man's shoulder; the man evidently with his arm about her.
+
+There was no time for identities.  A second more and they had faded
+into the shadows.  Barry rose and started toward the darkened cottage,
+only to turn again into the road.
+
+"Foolishness!" he chided himself as he plodded along.  "She doesn't
+know any one but Thayer--and what if she does?  It's none of my
+business.  She's the one who has the claim on me; I have none on her!"
+
+And with this decision he walked on.  A mile--two.  Then a figure came
+out of the woods just ahead of him, cut across the road and detoured
+into the scraggly hills on the other side, without noticing the
+approaching Houston in the shadows.  But Barry had been more fortunate.
+The moonlight had shown full on the man's lean face and gangling form;
+it was undoubtedly Fred Thayer.  He was still in the neighborhood, then.
+
+Had he been the man in the woods,--the one who had stood silhouetted on
+the hill top?  Barry could only guess.  Again he chided himself for his
+inquisitiveness and walked on.  Almost to Ba'tiste's cabin he went; at
+last to turn from the road at the sound of hoofbeats, then to stare as
+Medaine Robinette, on horseback, passed him at a trot, headed toward
+her home, the shadowy Lost Wing, on his calico pony, straggling along
+in the rear.  The next morning he went to Denver, still wondering, as
+he sought to make himself comfortable on the old red plush seats,
+wondering whether the girl he had seen in the forest with the man he
+now felt sure was Fred Thayer had been Agnes Jierdon or Medaine
+Robinette, whom, in spite of her coldness to him, in spite of her
+evident distaste and revulsion that was so apparent in their meetings,
+had awakened within him a thing he had believed, in the drabness of his
+gray, harassed life, could never exist,--the thrill and the yearnings
+of love.
+
+It was a question which haunted him during the days in which he cut
+into his bank account with the purchase of the bare necessities of a
+sawmill.  It was a question which followed him back to Tabernacle,
+thence across country to camp.  But it was one that was not to be
+answered.  Things had happened again.
+
+Ba'tiste was not at the mill, where new foundations had appeared in
+Houston's absence.  A workman pointed vaguely upward, and Barry hurried
+on toward the lake, clambering up the hill nearest the clearing, that
+he might take the higher and shorter road.
+
+He found no Ba'tiste but there was something else which held Houston's
+interest for a moment and which stopped him, staring wonderingly into
+the distance.  A new skidway had made its appearance on the side of the
+jutting mountain nearest the dam.  Logs were tumbling downward in slow,
+but steady succession, to disappear, then to show themselves, bobbing
+jerkily outward toward the center of the lake.  That skidway had not
+been there before.  Certainly, work at the mill had not progressed to
+such an extent that Ba'tiste could afford to start cutting timber
+already.  Houston turned back toward the lower camp road, wondering
+vaguely what it all could mean, striving to figure why Ba'tiste should
+have turned to logging operations instead of continuing to stress every
+workman's ability on the rebuilding of the burned structure.  A mile he
+went--two--then halted.
+
+A thunderous voice was booming belligerently from the distance:
+
+"You lie--un'stan'?  Ba'teese say you lie--if you no like eet,
+jus'--what-you-say--climb up me!  Un'stan'?  Climb up me!"
+
+Houston broke into a run, racing along the flume with constantly
+increasing speed as he heard outburst after outburst from the giant
+trapper, interjected by the lesser sounds of argumentative voices in
+reply.  Faintly he heard a woman's voice, then Ba'tiste's in sudden
+command:
+
+"Go on--you no belong here.  Ba'tiste, he handle this.  Go 'long!"
+
+Faster than ever went Barry Houston, at last to make the turn of the
+road as it followed the flume, and to stop, breathless, just in time to
+escape colliding with the broad back of the gigantic Canadian, squared
+as he was, half across the road.  Facing him were five men with shovels
+and hammers, workmen of the Blackburn camp, interrupted evidently in
+the building of some sort of contraption which led away into the woods.
+Houston looked more closely, then gasped.  It was another flume; they
+were making a connection with his own; already water had been diverted
+from the main flume and was flowing down the newly boarded conduit
+which led to the Blackburn mill.  A lunge and he had taken his place
+beside Renaud.
+
+"What's this mean?" he demanded angrily, to hear his words echoed by
+the booming voice of his big companion:
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  Yes--what this mean?  Huh?"
+
+The foreman looked up caustically.
+
+"I've told you about ten times," he answered, addressing himself to
+Ba'tiste.  "We're building a connection on our flume."
+
+"Our flume?"  Houston gasped the words.  "Where do you get that 'our'
+idea?  I own this flume and this lake and this flume site--"
+
+"If your name's Houston, I guess you do," came the answer.  "But if you
+can read and write, you ought to know that while you may own it, you
+don't use it.  That's our privilege from now on, in cold black and
+white.  As far as the law is concerned, this is our flume, and our
+water, and our lake, and our woods back there.  And we're going to use
+all of 'em, as much as we please--and it's your business to stay out of
+our way!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The statement took Houston off his feet for a moment; but recovery came
+just as quickly, a recoil with the red splotches of anger blazing
+before his eyes, the surge of hot blood sweeping through his veins, the
+heat of conflict in his brain.  His good hand clenched.  A leap and he
+had struck the foreman on the point of the chin, sending him reeling
+backward, while the other men rushed to his assistance.
+
+"That's my answer to you!" shouted Houston.  "This is my flume and--"
+
+"Run tell Thayer!" shouted the foreman, and then with recovering
+strength, he turned for a cant hook.  But Ba'tiste seized it first, and
+with a great wrench, threw it far out of the way.  Then, like some
+great, human trip hammer, he swung into action, spinning Houston out of
+the way as he went forward, his big fists churning, his voice bellowing
+his call of battle:
+
+"Climb up me!  Climb up me!"
+
+The foreman stooped for a club,--and rose just in time to be lifted
+even higher, at the point of Ba'tiste's right fist then to drop in a
+lump.  Then they were all about him, seeking for an opening, fists
+pounding, heavy shoes kicking at shins, while in the rear, Houston,
+scrambling around with his one arm, almost happy with the enthusiasm of
+battle, swung hard and often at every opportunity, then swerved and
+covered until he could bring his fist into action again.
+
+The fight grew more intense with a last spurt, then died out, as
+Ba'tiste, seizing the smallest of the men, lifted him bodily and
+swinging him much after the fashion of a sack of meal, literally used
+him as a battering ram against the rest of the attacking forces.  For a
+last time, Houston hit a skirmisher and was hit in return.  Then
+Ba'tiste threw his human weapon from him, straight into the mass of men
+whom he had driven back for a second, tumbling them all in a
+scrambling, writhing heap at the edge of the flume.
+
+"Climb up me!" he bellowed, as they struggled to their feet.  "Ah,
+_oui_?"  And the big arms moved threateningly.  "Climb up me!"
+
+But the invitation was not accepted.  Bloody, eyes discolored, mouth
+and nose steadily swelling, the foreman moved away with his battered
+crew, finally to disappear in the forest.  Ba'tiste reached for the
+cant hook, and balancing it lightly in one hand, sought a resting place
+on the edge of the flume.  Houston sat beside him.
+
+"What on earth can it all mean?" he asked, after a moment of thought.
+
+"They go back--get more men.  Mebbe they think they whip us, _oui_?
+Yes?  Ba'teese use this, nex' time."  He balanced the cant hook,
+examining it carefully as though for flaws which might cause it to
+break in contact with a human target.  Barry went on:
+
+"I was talking about the flume.  You heard what that fellow said--that
+they had the woods, the lake and the flume to use as they pleased?
+How--"
+
+"Mebbe they think they jus' take it."
+
+"Which they can't.  I'm going back to the camp and get more men."
+
+"No."  Ba'tiste grinned.  "We got enough--you an' Ba'teese.  I catch
+'em with this.  You take that club.  If they get 'round me, you,
+what-you-say, pickle 'em off."
+
+But the expected attack did not come.  An hour they waited, and a hour
+after that.  Still no crowd of burly men came surging toward them from
+the Blackburn camp, still no attempt was made to wrest from their
+possession the waterway which they had taken over as their rightful
+property.
+
+Houston studied the flume.
+
+"We'll have to get some men up here and rip out this connection," came
+at last.  "They've broken off our end entirely."
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  But we will stay here.  By'm'by, Medaine come.  We will
+send her for men."
+
+"Medaine?  That was she I heard talking?"
+
+"_Oui_.  She had come to ask me if she should bring me food.  She was
+riding.  Ba'teese sen' her away.  But she say she come back to see if
+Ba'teese is all right."
+
+Houston shook his head.
+
+"That's good.  But I'm afraid that you won't find her doing anything to
+help me out."
+
+"She will help Ba'teese," came simply from the big man, as the
+iron-bound cant hook was examined for the fiftieth time.  "Why they no
+come, huh?"
+
+"Search me.  Do you suppose they've given it up?  It's a bluff on their
+part, you know, Ba'tiste.  They haven't any legal right to this land or
+flume or anything else; they just figured that my mill was burned and
+that I wouldn't be in a position to fight them.  So they decided to
+take over the flume and try to force us into letting them have it."
+
+"Here comes somebody!"  Ba'tiste's grip tightened about the cant hook
+and he rose, squaring himself.  Houston seized the club and stood
+waiting a few feet in the rear, in readiness for any one who might
+evade the bulwark of blows which Ba'tiste evidently intended to set up.
+Far in the woods showed the shadowy forms of three men, approaching
+steadily and apparently without any desire for battle.  Ba'tiste turned
+sharply.  "Your eye, keep heem open.  Eet may be a blind."
+
+But Houston searched the woods in vain.  There were no supporters
+following the three men, no deploying groups seeking to flank them.  A
+moment more, and Ba'tiste, with a sudden exclamation, allowed his cant
+hook to drop to the ground.
+
+"Wade!"
+
+"Who?"  Houston came closer.
+
+"Eet is Thayer and Wade, the sheriff from Montview, and his deputy.
+Peuff!  Have he fool heem too?"
+
+Closer they came, and the sheriff waved a hand in friendly greeting.
+Ba'tiste returned the gesture.  Thayer, scowling, black-faced, dropped
+slightly to the rear, allowing the two officials to take the lead--and
+evidently do the talking.  The sheriff grinned as he noticed the cant
+hook on the ground.  Then he looked up at Ba'tiste Renaud.
+
+"What's been going on here?"
+
+"This man," Ba'tiste nodded grudgingly toward the angular form of Fred
+Thayer, "heem a what-you-say a big bomb.  This my frien', M'sieu
+Houston.  He own this flume.  This Thayer's men, they try to jump it."
+
+"From the looks of them," chuckled the sheriff, "you jumped them.
+They've got a young hospital over at camp.  But seriously, Ba'tiste, I
+think you're on the wrong track.  Thayer and Blackburn have a perfect
+right to this flume and to the use of the lake and what stumpage they
+want from the Houston woods."
+
+"A right?"  Barry went forward.  "What right?  I haven't given them--"
+
+"You're the owner of the land, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, in a way.  It was left to me conditionally."
+
+"You can let it out and sell the stumpage if you want to?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Then, what are you kicking about?"
+
+"I--simply on account of the fact that these men have no right to be on
+the land, or to use it in any way.  I haven't given them permission."
+
+"That's funny," the sheriff scratched his head; "they've just proved in
+court that you have."
+
+"In court?  I--?"
+
+"Yeh.  I've got an injunction in my pocket to prevent you from
+interfering with them.  Judge Bardley gave it in Montview about an hour
+ago, and we came over by automobile."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Why?" the sheriff stared at him.  "When you give a man a lease, you
+have to live up to it in this country."
+
+"But I've given no one--"
+
+"Oh, show it to him, sheriff."  Thayer came angrily forward.  "No use
+to let him stand there and lie."
+
+"That's what I want to see!"  Houston squared himself grimly.  "If
+you've got a lease, or anything else, I want to look at it."
+
+"You know your own writing, don't you?"  The sheriff was fishing in his
+pockets.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"You'd admit it if you saw it?"
+
+"I'm not trying to hide anything.  But I know that I've not given any
+lease, and I've not sold any stumpage and--"
+
+"Then, what's this?"  The sheriff had pulled two legal documents from
+his pocket, and unfolding them, had shown Houston the bottom of each.
+Barry's eyes opened wide.
+
+"That's--that's my signature," came at last.
+
+"This one's the same, isn't it?"  The second paper was shoved forward.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I don't see what you're kicking about.  Do you know any one named
+Jenkins, who is a notary public?"
+
+"He works in my office in Boston."
+
+"That's his writing, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And his seal."
+
+"I suppose so."  Bewildered, Houston was looking at the papers with
+glazed eyes.  "It looks like it."
+
+"Then," and the sheriff's voice went brusque, "what right have you to
+try to run these men off of property for which you've given them a
+bona-fide lease, and to which you've just admitted your signature as
+genuine?"
+
+"I've--I've given no lease.  I--"
+
+"Then look 'em over.  If that isn't a lease to the lake and flume and
+flume site, and if the second one isn't a contract for stumpage at a
+dollar and a half a thousand feet,--well, then, I can't read."
+
+"But I'm telling you that I didn't give it to them."  Houston had
+reached for the papers with a trembling hand.  "There's a fraud about
+it somewhere!"
+
+"I don't see where there can be any fraud when you admit your
+signature, and there's a notary's seal attached."
+
+"But there is!  I can't tell you why--but--"
+
+"Statements like that don't count in law.  There are the papers and
+they're duly signed and you've admitted your signature.  If there's any
+fraud about it, you've got the right to prove it.  But in the
+meanwhile, the court's injunction stands.  You've leased this land to
+these men, and you can't interfere with them.  Understand?"
+
+"All right."  Houston moved hazily back, away from the flume site.
+Ba'tiste stood staring glumly, wondering, at the papers which had been
+returned to the sheriff.  "But I know this, that it's a
+fakery--somehow--and I'll prove it.  I have absolutely no memory of
+ever signing any such papers as that, or of even talking to any one
+about selling stumpage at a figure that you should know is ridiculous.
+Why, you can't even buy the worst kind of timber from the government at
+that price!  I don't remember--"
+
+"Didn't I tell you?"  Thayer had turned to the sheriff.  "There he goes
+pulling that loss of memory stunt again.  That's one of his best little
+bets," he added sneering, "to lose his memory."
+
+"I've never lost it yet!"
+
+"No--then you can forget things awfully easy.  Such as coming out here
+and pretending not to know who you were.  Guess you forgot your
+identity for a minute, didn't you?  Just like you forgot signing this
+lease and stumpage contract!  Yeh, you're good at that--losing your
+memory.  You never remember anything that happens.  You can't even
+remember the night you murdered your own cousin, can you?"
+
+"That's a--"
+
+"See, sheriff?  His memory's bad."  All the malice and hate of pent-up
+enmity was in Fred Thayer's voice now.  One gnarled hand went forward
+in accusation.  "He can't even remember how he killed his own cousin.
+But if he can't, I can.  Ask him about the time when he slipped that
+mallet in his pocket at a prize fight and then went on out with his
+cousin.  Ask him what became of Tom Langdon after they left that prize
+fight.  He won't be able to tell you, of course.  He loses his memory;
+all he will be able to remember is that his father spent a lot of money
+and hired some good lawyers and got him out of it.  He won't be able to
+tell you a thing about how his own cousin was found with his skull
+crushed in, and the bloody wooden mallet lying beside him--the mallet
+that this fellow had stolen the night before at a prize fight!  He
+won't--"
+
+White-hot with anger, Barry Houston lurched forward, to find himself
+caught in the arms of the sheriff and thrown back.  He whirled,--and
+stopped, looking with glazed, deadened eyes into the blanched,
+horrified features of a girl who evidently had heard the accusation, a
+girl who stood poised in revulsion a moment before she turned, and,
+almost running, hurried to mount her horse and ride away.  And the
+strength of anger left the muscles of Barry Houston.  The red flame of
+indignation turned to a sodden, dead thing.  He could only realize that
+Medaine Robinette now knew the story.  That Medaine Robinette had heard
+him accused without a single statement given in his own behalf; that
+Medaine, the girl of his smoke-wreathed dreams, now fully and
+thoroughly believed him--a murderer!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Dully Houston turned back to the sheriff and to the goggle-eyed
+Ba'tiste, trying to fathom it all.  Weakly he motioned toward Thayer,
+and his words, when they came, were hollow and expressionless:
+
+"That's a lie, Sheriff.  I'll admit that I have been accused of murder.
+I was acquitted.  You say that nothing counts but the court action--and
+that's all I have to say in my behalf.  The jury found me not guilty.
+In regard--to this, I'll obey the court order until I can prove to the
+judge's satisfaction that this whole thing is a fraud and a fake.  In
+the meanwhile--" he turned anxiously, almost piteously, "do you care to
+go with me, Ba'tiste?"
+
+Heavily, silently, the French-Canadian joined him, and together they
+walked down the narrow road to the camp.  Neither spoke for a long
+time.  Ba'tiste walked with his head deep between his shoulders, and
+Houston knew that memories were heavy upon him, memories of his
+Julienne and the day that he came home to find, instead of a waiting
+wife, only a mound beneath the sighing pines and a stalwart cross above
+it.  As for Houston, his own life had gone gray with the sudden
+recurrence of the past.  He lived again the first days of it all, when
+life had been one constant repetition of questions, then solitude,
+questions and solitude, as the homicide squad brought him up from his
+cell to inquire about some new angle that they had come upon, to
+question him regarding his actions on the night of the death of Tom
+Langdon, then to send him back to "think it over" in the hope that the
+constant tangle of questions might cause him to change his story and
+give them an opening wedge through which they could force him to a
+confession.  He lived again the black hours in the dingy courtroom,
+with its shadows and soot spots brushing against the window, the twelve
+blank-faced men in the jury box, and the witnesses, one after another,
+who went to the box in an effort to swear his life away.  He went again
+through the agony of the new freedom--the freedom of a man imprisoned
+by stronger things than mere bars and cells of steel--when first he had
+gone into the world to strive to fight back to the position he had
+occupied before the pall of accusation had descended upon him, and to
+fight seemingly in vain.  Friends had vanished, a father had gone to
+his grave, believing almost to the last that it had been his money and
+the astuteness of his lawyers that had obtained freedom for a guilty
+son, certainly not a self-evidence of innocence that had caused the
+twelve men to report back to the judge that they had been unable to
+force their convictions "beyond the shadow of a doubt."  A nightmare
+had it been and a nightmare it was again, as drawn-featured,
+stoop-shouldered, suddenly old and haggard, Barry Houston walked down
+the logging road beside a man whose mind also had been recalled to
+thoughts of murder.  A sudden fear went over the younger man; he
+wondered whether this great being who walked at his side had believed,
+and at last in desperation, he faced him.
+
+"Well, Ba'tiste," came in strained tones, "I might as well hear it now
+as at any other time.  They've about got me whipped, anyway, so you'll
+only be leaving a sinking ship."
+
+"What you mean?"  The French-Canadian stopped.
+
+"Just the plain facts.  I'm about at the end of my rope; my mill's all
+but gone, my flume is in the hands of some one else, my lake is leased,
+and Thayer can make as many inroads on my timber as he cares to, as
+long as he appeases the court by paying me the magnificent sum of a
+dollar and a half a thousand for it.  So, you see, there isn't much
+left for me."
+
+"What you do?"
+
+"That depends entirely on you--and what effect that accusation made.
+If you're with me, I fight.  If not--well frankly--I don't know."
+
+"'Member the mill, when he burn down?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You no believe Ba'teese did heem.  _Oui_, yes?  Well, now I no believe
+either!"
+
+"Honestly, Ba'tiste?"  Houston had gripped the other man's arm.  "You
+don't believe it?  You don't--"
+
+"Ba'teese believe M'sieu Houston.  You look like my Pierre.  My Pierre,
+he could do no wrong.  Ba'teese satisfy."
+
+It sent a new flow of blood through the veins of Barry Houston,--that
+simple, quiet statement of the old trapper.  He felt again a surge of
+the fighting instinct, the desire to keep on and on, to struggle until
+the end, and to accept nothing except the bitterest, most absolute
+defeat.  He quickened his pace, the French-Canadian falling in with
+him.  His voice bore a vibrant tone, almost of excitement:
+
+"I'm going back to Boston to-night.  I'm going to find out about this.
+I can get a machine at Tabernacle to take me over the range; it may
+save me time in catching a train at Denver.  There's some fraud,
+Ba'tiste.  I know it.--and I'll prove it if I can get back to Boston.
+We'll stop by the cottage down here and see Miss Jierdon; then I'm
+gone!"
+
+"She no there.  She, what-you-say, smash up 'quaintance with Medaine.
+She ask to go there and stay day or two."
+
+"Then she'll straighten things out, Ba'tiste.  I'm glad of it.  She
+knows the truth about this whole thing--every step of the way.  Will
+you tell her?"
+
+"_Oui_.  Ba'teese tell her--about the flume and M'sieu Thayer, what he
+say.  But Ba'teese--"
+
+"What?"
+
+The trapper was silent a moment.  At last:
+
+"You like her, eh?"
+
+"Medaine?"
+
+"No--the other."
+
+"A great deal, Ba'teese.  She has meant everything to me; she was my
+one friend when I was in trouble.  She even went on the stand and
+testified for me.  What were you going to say?"
+
+"Nothing," came the enigmatical reply.  "Ba'teese will wait here.  You
+go Boston to-night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And that night, in the moonlight, behind the rushing engine of a motor
+car, Barry Houston once more rode the heights where Mount Taluchen
+frowned down from its snowy pinnacles, where the road was narrow and
+the turns sharp, and where the world beneath was built upon a scale of
+miniature.  But this time, the drifts had faded from beside the
+highway; nodding flowers showed in the moonlight; the snow flurries
+were gone.  Soon the downward grade had come and after that the
+straggling little town of Dominion.  Early morning found Houston in
+Denver, searching the train schedules.  That night he was far from the
+mountains, hurrying half across the continent in search of the thing
+that would give him back his birthright.
+
+Weazened, wrinkle-faced little Jenkins met him at the office, to stare
+in apparent surprise, then to rush forward with well-simulated
+enthusiasm.
+
+"You're back, Mr. Houston!  I'm so glad.  I didn't know whether to send
+the notice out to you in Colorado, or wire you.  It just came
+yesterday."
+
+"The notice?  Of what?"
+
+"The M. P. & S. L. call for bids.  You've heard about it."
+
+But Houston shook his head.  Jenkins stared.
+
+"I thought you had.  The Mountain, Plains and Salt Lake Railroad.  I
+thought you knew all about it."
+
+"The one that's tunneling Carrow Peak?  I've heard about the road, but
+I didn't know they were ready for bids for the western side of the
+mountain yet.  Where's the notice?"
+
+"Right on your desk, sir."
+
+Abstractedly, Houston picked it up and glanced at the
+specifications,--for railroad ties by the million, for lumber, lathes,
+station-house material, bridge timbers, and the thousands of other
+lumber items that go into the making of a road.  Hastily he scanned the
+printed lines, only at last to place it despondently in a pocket.
+
+"Millions of dollars," he murmured.  "Millions--for somebody!"
+
+And Houston could not help feeling that it was for the one man he
+hated, Fred Thayer.  The specifications called for freight on board at
+the spurs at Tabernacle, evidently soon to have competition in the way
+of railroad lines.  And Tabernacle meant just one thing, the output of
+a mill which could afford to put that lumber at the given point cheaper
+then any other.  The nearest other camp was either a hundred miles
+away, on the western side, or so far removed over the range in the
+matter of altitude that the freight rates would be prohibitive to a
+cheaper bid.  Thayer, with his ill-gotten flume, with his lake, with
+his right to denude Barry Houston's forests at an insignificant cost,
+could out-bid the others.  He would land the contract, unless--
+
+"Jenkins!"  Houston's voice was sharp, insistent.  The weazened man
+entered, rubbing his hands.
+
+"Yes, sir.  Right here, sir."
+
+"What contracts have we in the files?"
+
+"Several, sir.  One for mining timber stulls, logs, and that sort of
+thing, for the Machol Mine at Idaho Springs; one for the Tramway
+company in Denver for two thousand ties to be delivered in June; one
+for--"
+
+"I don't mean that sort.  Are there any stumpage contracts?"
+
+"Only one, sir."
+
+"One?  What!"
+
+"The one you signed, sir, to Thayer and Blackburn, just a week or so
+before you started out West.  Don't you remember, sir; you signed it,
+together with a lease for the flume site and lake?"
+
+"I signed nothing of the sort!"
+
+"But you did, sir.  I attested it.  I'll show it to you in just a
+moment, sir.  I have the copy right here."
+
+A minute later, Barry Houston was staring down at the printed lines of
+a copy of the contract and lease which had been shown him, days before,
+out in the mountains of Colorado.  Blankly he looked toward the servile
+Jenkins, awaiting the return of the documents, then toward the papers
+again.
+
+"And I signed these, did I?"
+
+"You certainly did, sir.  It was about five o'clock in the afternoon.
+I remember it perfectly."
+
+"You're lying!"
+
+"I don't lie, sir.  I attested the signature and saw you read both
+contracts.  Pardon, sir, but if any one's lying, sir--it's yourself!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Ten minutes after that, Barry Houston was alone in his office.  Jenkins
+was gone, discharged; and Houston felt a sort of relief in the
+knowledge that he had departed.  The last of the Thayer clan, he
+believed, had been cleaned out of his organization--and it was like
+lightening a burden to realize it.
+
+That the lease and stumpage contract were fraudulent, Barry Houston was
+certain.  Surely he had seen neither of them; and the signing must have
+been through some sort of trickery of which he was unaware.  But would
+such a statement hold in court?  Houston learned, a half-hour later,
+that it wouldn't, as he faced the family attorney, in his big, bleak,
+old-fashioned office.
+
+"It's all right, Barry, for you to tell me that you didn't sign it,"
+came the edict.  "I'd believe you--because I feel sure you wouldn't lie
+to me.  But it would be pretty thin stuff to tell to a jury.  There is
+the contract and the lease in black and white.  Both bear your
+signature which, you have declared in the presence of witnesses, to be
+genuine.  Even when a man signs a paper while insane, it's a hard job
+to pull it back; and we certainly wouldn't have any witnesses who could
+swear that you had lost your reason."
+
+"Nope," he concluded, giving the papers a flip, as though disposing of
+the whole matter, "somebody has just worked the old sewing-machine
+racket on you--with trimmings.  This is an adaptation of a game that is
+as old as the hills--the one where the solicitors would go up to a
+farmhouse, sell a man a sewing-machine or a cream separator at a
+ridiculous figure, let him sign what he thought was a contract to pay a
+certain amount a month for twelve months--and then take the promissory
+note which he really had signed down to the bank and discount it.
+Instead of a promissory note, they made this a contract and a lease.
+And just to make it good, they had their confederate, a legalized
+notary public, put his seal upon it as a witness.  You can't remember
+when all this happened?"
+
+"According to Jenkins--who put the notary seal on there--the whole
+thing was put over about a week or so before I left for the West.
+That's the date on them too.  About that time, I remember, I had a good
+many papers to sign.  A lot of legal stuff, if you'll remember, came up
+about father's estate, in which my signature was more of a form than
+anything else.  I naturally suspected nothing, and in one or two
+instances signed without reading."
+
+"And signed away your birthright--to this contract and lease.  You did
+it with no intention of giving your land and flume and flume site away,
+that's true.  If one of the men would be willing to confess to a
+conspiracy, it would hold water in court.  Otherwise not.  You've been
+bunked, and your signature is as legal and as binding as though you had
+read that contract and lease-form a hundred times over.  So I don't see
+anything to do but to swallow your medicine with as little of a wry
+face as possible."
+
+It was with this ultimatum that Houston turned again for the West, glad
+to be out of Boston, glad to be headed back once more for the
+mountains, in spite of the fact that the shadows of his life had
+followed him even there, that the ill luck which seemed to have been
+perched continuously on his shoulders for the past two years still
+hovered, like a vulture, above him.  What he was going to do, how he
+could hope to combat the obstacles which had arisen was more than he
+could tell.  He had gone into the West, believing, at worst, that he
+would be forced to become the general factotum of his own business.
+Now he found there was not even a business; his very foundations had
+been swept from beneath him, leaving only the determination, the grim,
+earnest resolution to succeed where all was failure and to fight to
+victory--but how?
+
+Personally, he could not answer the question, and he longed for the
+sight of the shambling little station at Tabernacle, with Ba'tiste, in
+answer to the telegram he had sent from Chicago, awaiting him with the
+buggy from camp.  And Ba'tiste was there, to boom at him, to call
+Golemar's attention to the fact that a visit to a physician in Boston
+had relieved the bandaged arm of all except the slightest form of a
+splint, and to literally lift Houston into the buggy, tossing his
+baggage in after him, then plump in beside him with excited happiness.
+
+"_Bon_!" he rumbled.  "It is good you are back.  Ba'teese, he was
+lonely.  Ba'teese, he was so excite' when he hear you come.  He have
+good news!"
+
+"About what?"
+
+"The railroad.  They are near' through with the tunnel.  Now they shall
+start upon the main road to Salt Lake.  And they shall need
+timbers--_beaucoup_!  Ties and beams and materials!  They have ask for
+bids.  Ah, _oui_.  Eet is, what-you-say, the swollen chance!  M'sieu
+Houston shall bid lower than--"
+
+"How, Ba'tiste?"  Houston asked the question with a dullness that
+caused the aged trapper to turn almost angrily upon him.
+
+"How?  Is eet putty that you are made of?  Is eet--but no, Ba'teese,
+he, what-you-say, misplace his head.  You think there is no chance, eh?
+Mebbe not.  Me'bbe--"
+
+"I found a copy of that contract in our files.  The clerk I had in the
+office was in the conspiracy.  I fired him and closed everything up
+there; as far as a Boston end to the business is concerned, there is
+none.  But the damage is done.  My lawyer says that there is not a
+chance to fight this thing in court."
+
+"Ah, _oui_.  I expec' that much.  But Ba'teese, he think, mebbe, of
+another way.  Eh, Golemar?"  He shouted to the dog, trotting, as usual,
+beside the buggy.  "Mebbe we have a, what-you-say, punch of luck."
+
+Then, silent, he leaned over the reins.  Houston too was quiet,
+striving in vain to find a way out of the difficulties that beset him.
+At the end of half an hour he looked up in surprise.  They no longer
+were on the way to the mill.  The road had become rougher, hillier, and
+Houston recognized the stream and the aspen groves which fringed the
+highway leading to Ba'tiste's cabin.  But the buggy skirted the cabin,
+at last to bring into sight a snug, well-built, pretty little cottage
+which Houston knew, instinctively, to be the home of Medaine Robinette.
+At the veranda, Ba'tiste pulled on the reins and alighted.
+
+"Come," he ordered quietly.
+
+"But--"
+
+"She have land, and she have a part of the lake and a flume site."
+
+Houston hung back.
+
+"Isn't it a bad bet, Ba'tiste?  Have you talked to her?"
+
+"No--I have not seen her since the day--at the flume.  She is
+here--Lost Wing is at the back of the cabin.  We will talk to her, you
+and I.  Mebbe, when the spring come, she will lease to you the lake and
+the flume site.  Mebbe--"
+
+"Very well."  But Houston said it against his will.  He felt, in the
+first place, that he would be presuming to ask it of her,--himself a
+stranger against whom had come the accusation of murder, hardly denied.
+Yet, withal, in a way, he welcomed the chance to see her and to seek to
+explain to her the deadly thrusts which Fred Thayer had sent against
+him.  Then too a sudden hope came; Ba'tiste had said that Agnes Jierdon
+had become friendly with her; certainly she had told the truth and
+righted the wrongs of malicious treachery.  He joined Ba'tiste with a
+bound.  A moment more and the door had opened, to reveal Medaine,
+repressed excitement in her eyes, her features a trifle pale, her hand
+trembling slightly as she extended it to Ba'tiste.  Houston she
+received with a bow,--forced, he thought.  They went within, and
+Ba'tiste pulled his queer little cap from his head, to crush it in the
+grasp of his massive hands.
+
+"We have come for business, Medaine," he announced, with a slight show
+of embarrassment.  "M'sieu Houston, he have need for a flume site."
+
+"But I don't see where I could be of any assistance.  I have no right--"
+
+"Ah!  But eet is not for the moment present.  Eet is for the
+springtime."
+
+She seemed to hesitate then and Houston took a sudden resolve.  It
+might as well be now as later.
+
+"Miss Robinette," he began, coming forward, "I realize that all this
+needs some explanation.  Especially," and he halted, "about myself."
+
+"But is that any of my affair?"  Her old pertness was gone.  She seemed
+white and frightened, as though about to listen to something she would
+rather not hear.  Houston answered her as best he could:
+
+"That depends upon yourself, Miss Robinette.  Naturally, you wouldn't
+want to have any business dealings with a man who really was all that
+you must believe me to be.  It isn't a pleasant thing for me to talk
+about--I would like to forget it.  But in this case, it has been
+brought up against my will.  You were present a week ago when Thayer
+accused me of murder."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Eet was a big lie!"
+
+"Wait just a minute, Ba'tiste."  Cold sweat had made its appearance on
+Barry Houston's forehead.  "I--I--am forced to admit that a part of
+what he said was true.  When I first met Ba'tiste here, I told him
+there was a shadow in my life that I did not like to talk about.  He
+was good enough to say that he didn't want to hear it.  I felt that out
+here, perhaps I would not be harassed by certain memories that have
+been rather hard for me to bear in the last couple of years.  I was
+wrong.  The thing has come up again, in worse form than ever and
+without giving me a chance to make a denial.  But perhaps you know the
+whole story?"
+
+"Your story?"  Medaine Robinette looked at him queerly.  "No--I never
+have heard it."
+
+"Then you've heard--"
+
+"Only accusations."
+
+"Is it fair to believe only one side of a thing?"
+
+"Please, Mr. Houston," and she looked at him with a certain note of
+pleading, "you must remember that I--well, I didn't feel that it was
+any of my business.  I didn't know that circumstances would throw you
+at all in my path."
+
+"But they have, Miss Robinette.  The land on my side of the creek has
+been taken from me by fraud.  It is absolutely vital that I use every
+resource to try to make my mill what it should be.  It still is
+possible for me to obtain lumber, but to get it to the mill
+necessitates a flume and rights in the lake.  I've lost that.  We've
+been hoping, Ba'tiste and myself, that we would be able to induce you
+to lease us your portion of the lake and a flume site.  Otherwise, I'm
+afraid there isn't much hope."
+
+"As I said, that doesn't become my property until late spring, nearly
+summer, in fact."
+
+"That is time enough.  We are hoping to be able to bid for the railroad
+contract.  I believe it calls for the first shipment of ties about June
+first.  That would give us plenty of time.  If we had your word, we
+could go ahead, assemble the necessary machinery, snake a certain
+amount of logs down through the snow this winter and be in readiness
+when the right moment came.  Without it, however, we can hardly hope
+for a sufficient supply to carry us through.  And so--"
+
+"You want to know--about heem.  You have Ba'teese's word----"
+
+"Really--" she seemed to be fencing again.
+
+Houston, with a hard pull at his breath, came directly to the question.
+
+"It's simply this, Miss Robinette.  If I am guilty of those things, you
+don't want to have anything to do with me, and I don't want you to.
+But I am here to tell you that I am not guilty, and that it all has
+been a horrible blunder of circumstance.  It is very true in one
+sense--" and his voice lowered--"that about two years ago in Boston, I
+was arrested and tried for murder."
+
+"So Mr. Thayer said."
+
+"I was acquitted--but not for the reason Thayer gave.  They couldn't
+make a case, they failed absolutely to prove a thing which, had I
+really been guilty, should have been a simple matter.  A worthless
+cousin, Tom Langdon, was the man who was murdered.  They said I did it
+with a wooden mallet which I had taken from a prize fight, and which
+had been used to hammer on the gong for the beginning and the end of
+the rounds.  I had been seen to take it from the fight, and it was
+found the next morning beside Langdon.  There was human blood on it.  I
+had been the last person seen with Langdon.  They put two and two
+together--and tried to convict me on circumstantial evidence.  But they
+couldn't convince the jury; I went free, as I should have done.  I was
+innocent!"
+
+Houston, white now with the memories and with the necessity of
+retailing again in the presence of a girl who, to him, stood for all
+that could mean happiness, gritted his teeth for the determination to
+go on with the grisly thing, to hide nothing in the answers to the
+questions which she might ask.  But Medaine Robinette, standing beside
+the window, the color gone from her cheeks, one hand lingering the
+curtains, eyes turned without, gave no evidence that she had heard.
+Ba'tiste, staring at her, waited a moment for her question.  It did not
+come.  He turned to Houston.
+
+"You tell eet!" he ordered.  There was something of the father about
+him,--the father with a wayward boy, fearful of the story that might
+come, yet determined to do everything within his power to aid a person
+he loved.  Houston straightened.
+
+"I'll try not to shield myself in any way," came at last.  The words
+were directed to Ba'tiste, but meant for Medaine Robinette.  "There are
+some things about it that I'd rather not tell--I wish I could leave
+them out.  But--it all goes.  My word of honor--if that counts for
+anything--goes with it.  It's the truth, nothing else.
+
+"I had come home from France--invalided back.  The records of the
+Twenty-sixth will prove that.  Gas.  I was slated for out here--the
+recuperation hospital at Denver.  But we managed to persuade the army
+authorities that I could get better treatment at home, and they gave me
+a disability discharge in about ten months--honorable, of course.
+After a while, I went back to work, still weak, but rather eager to get
+at it, in an effort to gather up the strands which had become tangled
+by the war.  I was in the real-estate business then, for myself.  Then,
+one afternoon," his breath pulled sharp, "Tom Langdon came into my
+office."
+
+"He was your cousin?"  Ba'tiste's voice was that of a friendly
+cross-examiner.
+
+"Yes.  I hadn't seen him in five years.  We had never had much to do
+with him; we," and Houston smiled coldly with the turn that Fate had
+given to conditions in the Houston family, "always had looked on him as
+a sort of a black sheep.  He had been a runaway from home; about the
+only letters my uncle ever had received from him had asked for money to
+get him out of trouble.  Where he had been this time, I don't know.  He
+asked for my father and appeared anxious to see him.  I told him that
+father was out of town.  Then he said he would stay in Boston until he
+came back, that he had information for him that was of the greatest
+importance, and that when he told father what it was, that he, Langdon,
+could have anything my father possessed in the way of a job and a
+competence for life.  It sounded like blackmail--I could think of
+nothing else coming from Tom Langdon--and I told him so.  That was
+unfortunate.  There were several persons in my office at the time.  He
+resented the statement and we quarreled.  They heard it and later
+testified."
+
+Houston halted, tongue licking at dry lips.  Medaine still gave no
+indication that she had heard.  Ba'tiste, his knit cap still crushed in
+his big hands, moved forward.
+
+"Go on."
+
+"Gradually, the quarrel wore off and Tom became more than friendly,
+still harping, however, on the fact that he had tremendous news for my
+father.  I tried to get rid of him.  It was impossible.  He suggested
+that we go to dinner together and insisted upon it.  There was nothing
+to do but acquiesce; especially as I now was trying to draw from him
+something of what had brought him there.  We had wine.  I was weak
+physically.  It went to my head, and Tom seemed to take a delight in
+keeping my glass full.  Oh," and he swerved suddenly toward the woman
+at the window, "I'm not trying to make any excuses for myself.  I
+wanted if--after that first glass or two, it seemed there wasn't enough
+in the world.  He didn't force it on me--he didn't play the part of a
+tempter or pour it down my throat.  I took it readily enough.  But I
+couldn't stand it.  We left the cafe, he fairly intoxicated, myself
+greatly so.  We saw the advertisement of a prize fight and went,
+getting seats near the ring-side.  They weren't close enough for me.  I
+bribed a fellow to let me sit at the press stand, next to the
+timekeeper, and worried him until he let me have the mallet that he was
+using to strike the gong.
+
+"The fight was exciting--especially to me in my condition.  I was
+standing most of the time, even leaning on the ring.  Once, while in
+this position, one of the men, who was bleeding, was knocked down.  He
+struck the mallet.  It became covered with blood.  No one seemed to
+notice that, except myself--every one was too excited.  A moment more
+and the fight was over, through a knock-out.  Then I stuck the mallet
+in my pocket, telling every one who cared to hear that I was carrying
+away a souvenir.  Langdon and I went out together.
+
+"We started home--for he had announced that he was going to spend the
+night with me.  Persons about us heard him.  It was not far to the
+house and we decided to walk.  On the way, he demanded the mallet for
+himself and pulled it out of my pocket.  I struggled with him for it,
+finally however, to be bested, and started away.  He followed me a
+block or so, taunting me with his superior strength and cursing me as
+the son of a man whom he intended to make bow to his every wish.  I ran
+then and, evading him, went home and to bed.  About four o'clock in the
+morning, I was awakened by the police.  They had found Tom Langdon
+dead, with his skull crushed, evidently by the blow of a club or a
+hammer.  They said I did it."
+
+A slight gasp traveled over the lips of Medaine, still by the window.
+Ba'tiste, his features old and lined, reached out with one big hand and
+patted the man on the shoulder.  Then for a long time, there was
+silence.
+
+"Eet is the lie, eh?"
+
+"Ba'tiste," Houston turned appealingly to him "as I live, that's all I
+know.  I never saw Langdon after he took that mallet from me.  Some one
+killed him, evidently while he was wandering around, looking for me.
+The mallet dropped by his side.  It had blood on it--and they accused
+me.  It looked right--there was every form of circumstantial evidence
+against me.  And," the breath pulled hard, "what was worse, everybody
+believed that I killed him.  Even my best friends--even my father."
+
+"Ba'teese no believe it."
+
+"Why?"  Houston turned to him in hope,--in the glimmering chance that
+perhaps there was something in the train of circumstances that would
+have prevented the actuality of guilt.  But the answer, while it
+cheered him, was rather disconcerting.
+
+"You look like my Pierre.  Pierre, he could do no wrong.  You look like
+heem."
+
+It was sufficient for the old French-Canadian.  But Houston knew it
+could carry but little weight with the girl by the window.  He went on:
+
+"Only one shred of evidence was presented in my behalf.  It was by a
+woman who had worked for about six months for my father,--Miss Jierdon.
+She testified to having passed in a taxicab just at the end of our
+quarrel, and that, while it was true that there was evidence of a
+struggle, Langdon had the mallet.  She was my only witness, besides the
+experts.  But it may help here, Miss Robinette."
+
+It was the first time he had addressed her directly and she turned,
+half in surprise.
+
+"How," she asked the question as though with an effort, "how were you
+cleared?"
+
+"Through expert medical testimony that the blow which killed Langdon
+could not have been struck with that mallet.  The whole trial hinged on
+the experts.  The jury didn't believe much of either side.  They
+couldn't decide absolutely that I had killed Langdon.  And so they
+acquitted me.  I'm trying to tell you the truth, without any veneer to
+my advantage."
+
+"_Bon_!  Good!  Eet is best."
+
+"Miss Jierdon is the same one who is out here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She testified in your behalf?"
+
+"Yes.  And Miss Robinette, if you'll only talk to her--if you'll only
+ask her about it, she'll tell you the story exactly as I've told it.
+She trusted me; she was the only bright spot in all the blackness.  I
+may not be able to convince you--but she could, Miss Robinette.  If
+you'll only--"
+
+"Would you guarantee the truth of anything she should tell me?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"Even if she told hidden things?"
+
+"Hidden?  I don't know what you mean.  There's nothing to be hidden.
+What she tells you will be the truth, the whole truth, the absolute
+truth."
+
+"I'm--I'm sorry."  She turned again to the window.  Houston went
+forward.
+
+"Sorry?  Why?  There's nothing--"
+
+"Miss Jierdon has told me," came in a strained voice, "things that
+perhaps you did not mean for her to tell."
+
+"I?  Why, I--"
+
+"That she did pass as you were struggling.  That she saw the blow
+struck--and that it was you who struck it."
+
+"Miss Robinette!"
+
+"That further, you confessed to her and told her why you had killed
+Langdon--because he had discovered something in your own father's life
+that would serve as blackmail.  That she loved you.  And that because
+she loved you, she went on the stand and perjured herself to save you
+from a conviction of murder--when she knew in her heart that you were
+guilty!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+It was a blow greater, far greater than one that could have been struck
+in mere physical contact.  Houston reeled with the effect of it; he
+gasped, he struggled aimlessly, futilely, for words to answer it.
+Vaguely, dizzily, knowing nothing except a dim, hazy desire to rid
+himself of the loathsomeness of it, Houston started to the door, only
+to be pulled back in the gigantic grip of Ba'tiste Renaud.  The old
+Canadian was glaring now, his voice was thunderous.
+
+"No!  No!  You shall not go!  You hear Ba'teese, huh?  You tell Medaine
+that is a lie!  Un'stan'?  That is a lie!"
+
+"It is," Houston heard his voice as though coming from far away, "but I
+don't know how to answer it.  I--I--can't answer it.  Where is Miss
+Jierdon?  Is she here?  May I see her?"
+
+"Miss Jierdon," Medaine Robinette answered him as though with an
+effort, "went back to camp last night."
+
+"May I bring her here, to repeat that before me?  There's been some
+sort of a horrible mistake--she didn't know what she was saying.  She--"
+
+"I'm afraid, Mr. Houston, that I would need stronger evidence--now.
+Oh, I want to be fair about this," she burst out suddenly.  "I--I
+shouldn't ever have been drawn into it.  It's nothing of my concern;
+certainly, I shouldn't be the one to be called upon to judge the
+innocence or guilt of some one I hardly know!  I--"
+
+"I realize that, Miss Robinette.  I withdraw my request for anything
+you can give me."  Again he started toward the door, and this time
+Ba'tiste did not detain him.  But abruptly he halted, a sudden thought
+searing its way through his brain.  "Just one moment more, Miss
+Robinette.  Then I'll go.  But this question means a great deal.  You
+passed me one night on the road.  Would it be impertinent to ask where
+you had been?"
+
+"Certainly not.  To Tabernacle.  Lost Wing went with me, as usual.  You
+may ask him."
+
+"Your word is enough.  May I inquire if on that night you saw Fred
+Thayer?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"Thank you."  Dully he reached for the knob.  The woman who had
+appeared that night in the clearing, her head upon a man's shoulder,
+had been Agnes Jierdon!
+
+He stepped to the veranda, waiting for Ba'tiste, who was making a last
+effort in his behalf.  Then he called:
+
+"I'd rather you'd not say anything more, Ba'tiste.  Words aren't much
+use--without something to back them up."
+
+And he knew that this possibility was all but gone.  Tricked!  For now
+he realized that Agnes Jierdon had stood by him at a time when her
+supposed confidence and trust could do no more for him than cheer him
+and cause him to trust her to the end that,--what?
+
+Had it been she who had slipped the necessary papers of the contract
+and the lease into the mass of formalities which he had signed without
+even looking at the contents of more than the first page or two of the
+pile?  They had been so many technical details, merely there for
+signature; he had signed dozens before.  It would have been easy.
+
+But Houston forced back the thought.  He himself knew what it meant to
+be unjustly accused.  Time was but of little moment now; his theories
+could wait until he had seen Agnes Jierdon, until he had talked to her
+and questioned her regarding the statements made to Medaine Robinette.
+Besides, Ba'tiste already was in the buggy, striving to cover his
+feelings by a stream of badinage directed toward Golemar, the wolf-dog,
+and waiting for Houston to take his place beside him.  A moment more
+and they were driving away, Ba'tiste humped over the reins as usual,
+Houston striving to put from him the agony of the new accusation.
+Finally, the trapper cocked his head and spoke, rather to the horse and
+Golemar than to Houston.
+
+"Eet is the one, big lie!"
+
+"Yes, but there's not much way of proving it, Ba'tiste."
+
+"Proof?  Bah!  And does Ba'teese need proof?  Ba'teese no like this
+woman, Jierdon.  She say Ba'teese burn the mill."
+
+"I didn't know you heard that."
+
+"She have a bad mouth.  She have a bad eye.  She have a bad tongue.
+Yes, _oui_!  She have a bad tongue!"
+
+"Let's wait, Ba'tiste.  There may be some mistake about it.  Of course,
+it's possible.  She had worked for my father for six months at the
+time--she could have been placed there for a purpose.  Her testimony
+was of the sort that the jury could take either as for me or against
+me; she established, as an eyewitness, that we had quarreled and that
+the mallet played a part in it.  Naturally, though, I looked to her as
+my friend.  I thought that her testimony helped me."
+
+"And the taxi-driver?  What did he say?  Eh?"
+
+"We never were able to find him."
+
+"Oh, ho!  Golemar!  You hear?"  The old trapper's voice was stinging
+with sarcasm.  "They nev' fin' heem.  But the woman she was in a taxi.
+Ah, _oui_.  She could pass, just at the moment.  She could put in the
+mind of the jury the fact that there was a quarrel, while she preten'
+to help M'sieu Houston.  But the taxi-driver--no, they nev' fin' heem!"
+
+"Let's wait, Ba'tiste."
+
+"Oh--ah, _oui_."
+
+On they drove in silence, talking of trivial things, each fencing away
+from the subject that was on their minds and from mention of the
+unfortunate interview with Medaine Robinette.  The miles faded slowly,
+at last to bring the camp into view.  Ten minutes later, Houston leaped
+from the buggy and knocked at the door of the cottage.
+
+"I want to see Miss Jierdon," he told the cook who had opened the door.
+That person shook her head.
+
+"She's gone."
+
+"Gone?  Where?"
+
+"To town, I guess.  She came back here from Miss Robinette's last night
+and packed her things and left.  She didn't say where she was going.
+She left a note for you."
+
+"Let me have it!"  There was anxiety in the command.  The cook bustled
+back into the house, to return with a sealed envelope addressed to
+Houston.  He slit it with a trembling finger.
+
+"What she say?"  Ba'tiste was leaning from the buggy.  Houston took his
+place beside him, and as the horse was turned back toward the trapper's
+cabin, read aloud:
+
+
+"Dearest Barry:
+
+"Hate awfully to run away like this without seeing you, but it can't be
+helped.  Have an offer of a position in St. Louis that I can't very
+well refuse.  Will write you from there.
+
+"Love and kisses.
+
+  "AGNES."
+
+
+Ba'tiste slapped the reins on the horse's back.
+
+"She is like the Judas, eh?" he asked quietly, and Houston cringed with
+the realization that he had spoken the truth.  Judas!  A feminine
+Judas, who had come to him when his guard had been lowered, who had
+pretended that she believed in him, that she even loved him, that she
+might wreck his every plan and hope in life.  A Judas, a--
+
+"Let's don't talk about it, Ba'tiste!" Houston's voice was hoarse,
+weary.  "It's a little too much to take, all in one day."
+
+"_Tres bien_," answered the old French-Canadian, not to speak again
+until they had reached his cabin and, red-faced, he had turned from the
+stove to place the evening meal on the table.  Then, his mouth full of
+crisply fried bacon, he waved a hand and spluttered with a sudden
+inspiration:
+
+"What you do, now?"
+
+"Queer question, isn't it?"  The grim humor of it brought a smile, in
+spite of the lead in Houston's heart.  "What is there to do?"
+
+"What?"  Ba'tiste gulped his food, rose and waved a hand with a sudden
+flash of emphasis.  "Peuff!  And there is ever'thin'.  You have a mill."
+
+"Such as it is."
+
+"But eet is a mill.  And eet can saw timber--enough to keep the wolf
+from the door.  You have yourself.  Your arm, he is near' well.  And
+there is alway'--" he gestured profoundly--"the future.  He is like a
+woman, the future," he added, with a little smile.  "He always look
+good when he is in the far away."
+
+The enthusiasm of the trapper found a faint echo in Houston's heart.
+"I'm not whipped yet, Ba'tiste.  But I'm near it.  I've had some pretty
+hard knocks."
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  But so have Ba'teese!"  The shadows were falling, and the
+old French-Canadian walked to the window.  "_Oui, oui, oui_!  Look."
+And he pointed to the white cross, still faintly visible, like a
+luminous thing, beneath the pines.  "Ev' day, Ba'teese, he see that.
+Ev' day, Ba'teese remember--how he work for others, how he is _L'
+M'sieu Doctaire_, how he help and help and help--but how he cannot help
+his own.  Ev' day, Ba'teese, he live again that night in the cathedral
+when he call, so, 'Pierre!  Pierre!'  But Pierre does not answer.  Ev'
+day, he remind how he come home, and how his heart, eet is cold, but
+how he hope that his Julienne, she will warm eet again--to fin' that.
+But does Ba'teese stop?  Does Ba'teese fol' his hands?  No!  No!"  He
+thundered the words and beat his heavy chest.  "Some day, Ba'teese will
+fin' what he look for!  When the cloud, he get heavy, Ba'teese, he go
+out there--out to his Julienne--and he kneel down and he pray that she
+give to heem the strength to go on--to look and look and look until he
+find eet--the thing he is want'!  Ba'teese, he too have had his
+trouble.  Ba'teese, he too would like to quit!  But no, he shall not!
+And you shall not!  By the cross of my Julienne, you shall not!  Eet is
+to the end--and not before!  You look like my Pierre!  My Pierre had in
+heem the blood of Ba'teese--Ba'teese, who had broke' the way.  And
+Pierre would not quit, and you will not quit.  And--"
+
+"I will not quit!"  Barry Houston said the words slowly, in a voice
+heightened by feeling and by a new strength, a sudden flooding of a
+reserve power that he did not know he possessed.  "That is my absolute
+promise to you, Ba'tiste.  I will not quit!"
+
+"_Bon_!  Good!  Golemar, you hear, eh?  _Mon ami_, he come to the
+barrier, and he look at the trouble, but he say he will not quit.
+_Veritas_!  _Bon_!  He is my Pierre!  He speak like my Pierre would
+speak!  He will not quit!"
+
+"No," and then Houston repeated it, a strange light shining in his
+eyes, his hands clenched, breath pulling deep into his lungs.  "I will
+not quit."
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  Eet is now the, what-you-say, the swing-around point.
+To-night Ba'teese go out.  Where?  Ah, you shall wait an' see.
+Ba'teese go--Ba'teese come back.  Then you shall see.  Ah, _oui_!  Then
+you shall see."
+
+For an hour or so after that he boomed about the cabin, singing queer
+old songs in a _patois_, rumbling to the faithful Golemar, washing the
+dishes while Houston wiped them, joking, talking of everything but the
+troubles of the day and the plans of the night.  Outside the shadows
+grew heavier, finally to turn to pitch darkness.  The bull bats began
+to circle about the cabin.  Ba'tiste walked to the door.
+
+"_Bon_!  Good!" he exclaimed.  "The sky, he is full of cloud'.  The
+star, he do not shine.  _Bon_!  Ba'teese shall go."
+
+And with a final wave of the hand, still keeping his journey a mystery,
+he went forth into the night.
+
+Long Houston waited for his return, but he did not come.  The old,
+creaking clock on the rustic ledge ticked away the minutes and the
+hours until midnight, but still no crunching of gravel relieved his
+anxious ears, still no gigantic form of the grizzled, bearded trapper
+showed in the doorway.  One o'clock came and went.  Two--three.
+Houston still waited.  Four--and a scratch on the door.  It was
+Golemar, followed a moment later by a grinning, twinkling-eyed Ba'tiste.
+
+"_Bon_!  Good!" he exclaimed.  "See, Golemar?  What I say to you?  He
+wait up for Ba'teese.  _Bon_!  Now--_alert, mon ami_!  The pencil and
+the paper!"
+
+He slumped into a chair and dived into a pocket of his red shirt, to
+bring forth a mass of scribbled sheets, to stare at them, striving
+studiously to make out the writing.
+
+"Ba'teese, he put eet down by a match in the shelter of a lumber pile,"
+came at last.  "Eet is all, what-you-say, scramble up.  But we shall
+see--ah, _oui_--we shall see.  Now," he looked toward Houston, waiting
+anxiously with paper and pencil, "we shall put eet in the list.  So.
+One million ties, seven by eight by eight feet, at the one dollar and
+the forty cents.  Put that down."
+
+"I have it.  But what--"
+
+"Wait!  Five thousan' bridge timber, ten by ten by sixteen feet, at the
+three dollar and ninety cents."
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"Ten thousand feet of the four by four, at--"
+
+"Ba'tiste!" Houston had risen suddenly.  "What have you got there?"
+
+The trapper grinned and pulled at his gray-splotched beard.
+
+"Oh, ho!  Golemar!  He wan' to know.  Shall we tell heem, eh?  Ah,
+_oui_--" he shook his big shoulders and spread his hands.  "Eet is--the
+copy of the bid!"
+
+"The copy?  The bid?"
+
+"From the Blackburn mill.  There is no one aroun'.  Ba'teese, he go
+through a window.  Ba'teese, he find heem--in a file.  And he bring
+back the copy."
+
+"Then--"
+
+"M'sieu Houston, he too will bid.  But he will make it lower.  And
+this," he tapped the scribbled scraps of paper, "is cheaper than any
+one else.  Eet is because of the location.  M'sieu Houston--he know
+what they bid.  He will make eet cheaper."
+
+"But what with, Ba'tiste?  We haven't a mill to saw the stuff, in the
+first place.  This ramshackle thing we're setting up now couldn't even
+begin to turn out the ties alone.  The bid calls for ten thousand laid
+down at Tabernacle, the first of June.  We might do that, but how on
+earth would we ever keep up with the rest?  The boxings, the rough
+lumber, the two by fourteen's finished, the dropped sidings and groved
+roofing, and lath and ceiling and rough fencings and all the rest?
+What on earth will we do it with?"
+
+"What with?"  Ba'tiste waved an arm grandiloquently.  "With the future!"
+
+"It's taking the longest kind of a chance--"
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  But the man who is drowning, he will, what-you-say, grab
+at a haystack."
+
+"True enough.  Go ahead.  I'll mark our figures down too, as you read."
+
+And together they settled to the making of a bid that ran into the
+millions, an overture for a contract for which they had neither mill,
+nor timber, nor flume, nor resources to complete!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Time dragged after that.  Once the bid was on its way to Chicago, there
+was nothing to do but wait.  It was a delay which lengthened from June
+until July, thence into late summer and early autumn, while the hills
+turned brown with the colorings of the aspens, while Mount Taluchen and
+its surrounding mountains once more became grim and forbidding with the
+early fall of snow.
+
+The time for the opening of the bids had passed, far in the distance, but
+there had come no word.  Ba'tiste, long since taken into as much of a
+partnership agreement as was possible, went day after day to the post
+office, only to return empty-handed, while Houston watched with more
+intensity than ever the commercial columns of the lumber journals in the
+fear that the contract, after all, had gone somewhere else.  But no
+notice appeared.  Nothing but blankness as concerned the plans of the
+Mountain Plains and Salt Lake Railroad.
+
+Medaine he saw but seldom,--then only to avoid her as she strove to avoid
+him.  Houston's work was now in the hills and at the camp, doing exactly
+what the Blackburn mill was doing, storing up a reasonable supply of
+timber and sawing at what might or might not be the first consignment of
+ties for the fulfillment of the contract.  But day after day he realized
+that he was all but beaten.
+
+His arm had healed now and returned to the strength that had existed
+before the fracture.  Far greater in strength, in fact, for Houston had
+taken his place in the woods side by side with the few lumberjacks whom
+he could afford to carry on his pay roll.  There, at least, he had right
+of way.  He had sold only stumpage, which meant that the Blackburn camp
+had the right to take out as much timber as it cared to, as long as it
+was paid for at the insignificant rate of one dollar and fifty cents a
+thousand feet.  Thayer and the men in his employ could not keep him out
+of his own woods, or prevent him from cutting his own timber.  But they
+could prevent him from getting it to the mill by an inexpensive process.
+
+From dawn until dusk he labored, sometimes with Ba'tiste singing lustily
+beside him, sometimes alone.  The task was a hard one; the snaking of
+timber through the forest to the high-line roadway, there to be loaded
+upon two-wheeled carts and dragged, by a slow, laborious, costly process,
+to the mill.  For every log that he sent to the saw in this wise, he knew
+that Thayer was sending ten,--and at a tenth of the cost.  But Houston
+was fighting the last fight,--a fight that could not end until absolute,
+utter failure stood stark before him at the end of the road.
+
+September became October with its rains, and its last flash of brilliant
+coloring from the lower hills, and then whiteness.  November had arrived,
+bringing with it the first snow and turning the whole, great, already
+desolate country into a desert of white.
+
+It was cold now; the cook took on a new duty of the maintenance of hot
+pails of bran mash and salt water for the relief of frozen hands.  Heavy
+gum-shoes, worn over lighter footgear and reaching with felt-padded
+thickness far toward the knee, encased the feet.  Hands numbed, in spite
+of thick mittens; each week saw a new snowfall, bringing with it the
+consequent thaws and the hardening of the surface.  The snowshoe rabbit
+made its appearance, tracking the shadowy, silent woods with great,
+outlandish marks.  The coyotes howled o' nights; now and then Houston, as
+he worked, saw the tracks of a bear, or the bloody imprints of a mountain
+lion, its paws cut by the icy crust of the snow as it trailed the elk or
+deer.  The world was a quiet thing, a white thing, a cold, unrelenting
+thing, to be fought only by thick garments and snowshoes.  But with it
+all, it gave Houston and Ba'tiste a new enthusiasm.  They at least could
+get their logs to the mill now swiftly and with comparative ease.
+
+Short, awkward-appearing sleds creaked and sang along the icy,
+hard-packed road of snow, to approach the piles of logs snaked out of the
+timber, to be loaded high beyond all seeming regard for gravitation or
+consideration for the broad-backed, patient horses, to be secured at one
+end by heavy chains leading to a patent binder which cinched them to the
+sled, and started down the precipitous road toward the mill.  Once in a
+while Houston rode the sleds, merely for the thrill of it; for the
+singing and crunching of the logs against the snow, the grinding of bark
+against bark, the quick surge as the horses struck a sharp decline and
+galloped down it, the driver shouting, the logs kicking up the snow
+behind the sled in a swirling, feathery wake.
+
+At times he stayed at the bunk house with the lumberjacks, silent as they
+were silent, or talking of trivial things which were mighty to them,--the
+quality of the food, the depth of the snow, the fact that the little gray
+squirrels were more plentiful in one part of the woods than another, or
+that they chattered more in the morning than in the afternoon.  Hours he
+spent in watching Old Bill, a lumberjack who, in his few moments of
+leisure between the supper table and bed, whittled laboriously upon a
+wooden chain, which with dogged persistence he had lugged with him for
+months.  Or perhaps staring over the shoulder of Jade Hains, striving to
+copy the picture of a motion-picture star from a worn, dirty, months-old
+magazine; as excited as they over the tiny things in life, as eager to
+seek a bunk when eight o'clock came, as grudging to hear the clatter of
+alarm clocks in the black coldness before dawn and to creak forth to the
+watering and harnessing of the horses for the work of the day.  Some way,
+it all seemed to be natural to Barry Houston, natural that he should
+accept this sort of dogged, humdrum, eventless life and strive to think
+of nothing more.  The other existence, for him, had ended in a blackened
+waste; even the one person in whom he had trusted, the woman he would
+have been glad to marry, if that could have repaid her in any way for
+what he thought she had done for him, had proved traitorous.  His
+letters, written to her at general delivery, St. Louis, had been
+returned, uncalled for.  From the moment that he had received that light,
+taunting note, he had heard nothing more.  She had done her work; she was
+gone.
+
+December came.  Christmas, and with it Ba'tiste, with flour in his hair
+and beard, his red shirt pulled out over his trousers, distributing the
+presents which Houston had bought for the few men in his employ.  January
+wore on, bringing with it more snow.  February and then--
+
+"Eet is come!  Eet is come!"  Ba'tiste, waving his arms wildly, in spite
+of the stuffiness of his heavy mackinaw, and the broad belt which sank
+into layer after layer of clothing at his waist, came over the brow of
+the raise into camp, to seize Houston in his arms and dance him about, to
+lift him and literally throw him high upon his chest as one would toss a
+child, to roar at Golemar, then to stand back, brandishing an opened
+letter above his head.  "Eet is come!  I have open eet--I can not wait.
+Eet say we shall have the contract!  Ah, _oui! oui! oui!  oui_!  We shall
+have the contract!"
+
+Houston, suddenly awake to what the message meant, reached for the
+letter.  It was there in black and white.  The bid had been accepted.
+There need now be but the conference in Chicago, the posting of the
+forfeit money, and the deal was made.
+
+"Eet say five thousand dollars cash, and the rest in a bond!" came
+enthusiastically from Ba'tiste.  "Eet is simple.  You have the mill, you
+have the timber.  Ba'teese, he have the friend in Denver who will make
+the bond."
+
+"But how about the machinery; we'll need a hundred-thousand-dollar plant
+before we're through, Ba'tiste."
+
+"Ah!"  The old French-Canadian's jaw dropped.  "Ba'teese, he is like the
+child.  He have not think of that.  He have figure he can borrow ten
+thousand dollar in his own name.  But he have not think about the
+machinery."
+
+"But we must think about it, Ba'tiste.  We've got to get it.  With the
+equipment that's here, we never could hope to keep up with the contract.
+And if we can't do that, we lose everything.  Understand me, I'm not
+thinking of quitting; I merely want to look over the battlefield first.
+Shall we take the chance?"
+
+Big Ba'tiste shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Ba'teese, he always try to break the way," came at last.  "Ba'teese, he
+have trouble--but he have nev' been beat.  You ask Ba'teese--Ba'teese say
+go ahead.  Somehow we make it."
+
+"Then to-morrow morning we take the train to Denver, and from there I'll
+go on to Boston.  I'll raise the money some way.  I don't know how.  If I
+don't, we're only beaten in the beginning instead of at the end.  We'll
+simply have to trust to the future--on everything, Ba'tiste.  There are
+so many things that can whip us, that--" Houston laughed shortly--"we
+might as well be gamblers all the way through.  We'll never fulfill the
+contract, even with the machinery, unless we can get the use of the lake
+and a flume to the mill.  We may be able to keep it up for a month or
+two, but that will be all.  The expense will eat us up.  But one chance
+is no greater than the other, and personally, I'm at the point where I
+don't care."
+
+"_Oui_!  Ba'teese, he have nothing.  Ba'teese he only fight for the
+excitement.  So, to-morrow we go!"
+
+And on the next day they went, again to go over all the details of their
+mad, foundationless escapade with Chance, to talk it all over in the old
+smoking car, to weigh the balance against them from every angle, and to
+see failure on every side.  But they had become gamblers with Fate; for
+one, it was his final opportunity, to take or disregard, with a faint
+glimmer of success at one end of the vista, with the wiping out of every
+hope at the other.  They tried not to look at the gloomy side, but that
+was impossible.  As the train ground its way up the circuitous grades,
+Houston felt that he was headed finally for the dissolution.  But there
+was at least the consolation about it that within a short time the
+uncertainty of his life would be ended; the hopes either crushed forever,
+or realized, that--
+
+"Ba'tiste!"  They were in the snowsheds at Crestline, and Houston had
+pointed excitedly toward a window of the west-bound train, just pulling
+past them on the way down the slope.  A woman was there, a woman who had
+turned her head sharply, but with not enough speed to prevent a sight of
+her by the French-Canadian who glanced quickly and gasped:
+
+"The Judas!"
+
+Houston leaped from his seat and ran to the vestibule of the car, but in
+vain.  It was closed; already the other last coach of the other train was
+pulling past and gaining headway with the easier grade.  Wondering, he
+returned to his seat beside his partner.
+
+"It was she, Ba'tiste," came with conviction.  "I got a good look at her
+before she noticed me.  Then, when I pointed--she turned her head away."
+
+"But Ba'teese, he see her."
+
+"She's going back.  What do you suppose it can mean?  Can she be--"
+
+"Ba'teese catch the nex' train to Tabernacle so soon as we have finish
+our business.  Eet is for no good."
+
+"I wonder--" it was a hope, but a faint one--"if she could be coming back
+to make amends, Ba'tiste?  That--that other thing seemed so unlike the
+person who had been so good to me, so apart from the side of her nature
+that I knew--"
+
+"She have a bad mouth," Ba'tiste repeated grimly.  "She have a bad eye,
+she have a bad tongue.  A woman with a bad tongue, she is a devil.
+You--you no see it, because she come to you with a smile, when every one
+else, he frown.  You think she is the angel, yes, _oui_?  But she come to
+Ba'teese different.  She talk to you sof' and she try to turn you against
+your frien'.  Yes.  _Oui_?  _Ne c'est pas_?  Ba'teese see her with the
+selfish mouth.  Peuff!  He see her when she look to heem out from the
+corner of her eye--so.  Ba'teese know.  Ba'teese come back quick, to keep
+watch!"
+
+"I guess you're right, Ba'tiste.  It won't do any harm.  If she's
+returned for a good purpose, very well.  If not, we're at least prepared
+for her."
+
+With that resolution they went on to Denver, there to seek out the few
+friends Ba'tiste possessed, to argue one of them into a loan of ten
+thousand dollars on the land and trustworthy qualities which formed the
+total of Ba'tiste's resources, to gain from the other the necessary bond
+to cover the contract,--a contract which Barry Houston knew only too well
+might never be fulfilled.  But against this fear was the booming
+enthusiasm of Ba'tiste Renaud:
+
+"Nev' min'.  Somehow we do eet.  Ah, _oui_!  Somehow.  If we make the
+failure, then it shall be Ba'teese who will fin' the way to pay the bond.
+Now, Ba'teese, he go back."
+
+"Yes, and keep watch on that woman.  She's out here for something'--I
+feel sure of it--something that has to do with Thayer.  Before you go,
+however, make the rounds of the employment agencies and tell them to send
+you every man they can spare, up to a hundred.  We'll give them work to
+the extent of five thousand dollars.  They ought to be able to get enough
+timber down to keep us going for a while anyway--especially with the
+roads iced."
+
+"Ah.  _Oui_.  It is the three o'clock.  _Bon voyage, mon_ Baree!"
+
+It was the first time Ba'tiste Renaud ever had dropped the conventional
+"M'sieu" in addressing Houston, and Barry knew, without the telling,
+without the glowing light in the old man's eyes, that at least a part of
+the great loneliness in the trapper's heart had departed, that he had
+found a place there in a portion of the aching spot left void by a
+shrapnel-shattered son to whom a father had called that night in the
+ruined cathedral,--and called in vain.  It caused a queer pang of
+exquisite pain in Houston's heart, a joy too great to be expressed by the
+reflexes of mere pleasure.  Long after the train had left Denver, he
+still thought of it, he still heard the old man's words, he still sat
+quiet and peaceful in a new enthusiasm of hope.  The world was not so
+blank, after all.  One man, at least, believed in him fully.
+
+Came Chicago and the technicalities of ironing out the final details of
+the contract.  Then, dealer in millions and the possessor of nothing,
+Houston went onward toward Boston.
+
+And Ba'tiste was not there to boom enthusiastically regarding the chances
+of the future, to enlarge upon the opportunities which might arise for
+the fulfillment of a thing which seemed impossible.
+
+Coldly, dispassionately, now that it was done, that the word of the
+Empire Lake Mill and Lumber Company had been given to deliver the
+materials for the making of a great railroad, had guaranteed its
+resources and furnished the necessary bond for the fulfillment of a
+promise, Barry Houston could not help but feel that it all had been rash,
+to say the least.  Where was the machinery to be obtained?  Where the
+money to keep things going?  True, there would be spot cash awaiting the
+delivery of every installment of the huge order, enough, in fact, to
+furnish the necessary running expenses of a mill under ordinary
+circumstances.  But the circumstances which surrounded the workings of
+the Empire Lake project were far from ordinary.  No easy skidways to a
+lake, no flume, no aerials; there was nothing to cut expenses.  Unless a
+miracle should happen, and Houston reflected that miracles were few and
+far between, that timber must be brought to the mill by a system that
+would be disastrous as far as costs were concerned.  Yet, the contract
+had been made!
+
+He wandered the aisle of the sleeper, fidgeting from one end to the
+other, as neither magazines, nor the spinning scenery without held a
+counter-attraction for his gloomy thoughts.  When night at last came, he
+entered the smoking compartment and slumped into a seat in a far corner,
+smoking in a detached manner, often pulling on his cigar long after
+lengthy minutes of reflection had allowed its ashes to cool.
+
+About him the usual conversation raged, the settling of a nation's
+problems, the discussion of crime waves, Bolshevism and the whatnot that
+goes with an hour of smoking on a tiresome journey.  From Washington and
+governmental affairs, it veered to the West and dry farming, thence to
+the cattle business; to anecdotes, and finally to ghost stories.  And
+then, with a sudden interest, Houston forgot his own problems to listen
+attentively, tensely, almost fearfully.  A man whom he never before had
+seen, and whom he probably never would see again, was talking,--about
+something which might be as remote to Houston as the poles.  Yet it held
+him, it fascinated, it gripped him!
+
+"Speaking of gruesome things," the talker had said, "reminds me.  I'm a
+doctor--not quite full fledged, I'll admit, but with the right to put M.
+D. after my name.  Spent a couple of years as an interne in Bellstrand
+Hospital in New York.  Big place.  Any of you ever been there?"
+
+No one had.  The young doctor went on.
+
+"Quite a place for experiments.  They've got a big room on the fifth
+floor where somebody is always dissecting, or carrying out some kind of
+investigations into this bodily thing we call a home.  My work led me
+past there a good deal, and I'd gotten so I hardly noticed it.  But one
+Sunday night, I guess it was along toward midnight, I saw something that
+brought me up short.  I happened to look in and saw a man in there,
+murdering another one with a wooden mallet."
+
+"Murdering him?"  The statement had caused a rise from the rest of the
+auditors.  The doctor laughed.
+
+"Well, perhaps I used too sentimental a phrase.  I should have said,
+acting out a murder.  You can't very well murder a dead man.  The fellow
+he was killing already was a corpse.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"Just what I'm saying.  There were two or three assistants.  Pretty big
+doctors, I learned later, all of them from Boston.  They had taken a
+cadaver from the refrigerator and stood it in a certain position.  Then
+the one man had struck it on the head with the mallet with all the force
+he could summon.  Of course it knocked the corpse down--I'm telling you,
+it was gruesome, even to an interne!  The last I saw of them, the doctors
+were working with their microscopes--evidently to see what effect the
+blow had produced."
+
+"What was the idea?"
+
+"Never found out.  They're pretty close-mouthed about that sort of thing.
+You see, opposite sides in a trial are always carrying out experiments
+and trying their level best to keep the other fellow from knowing what's
+going on.  I found out later that the door was supposed to have been
+locked.  I passed through about ten minutes later and saw them working on
+another human body--evidently one of a number that they had been trying
+the tests on.  About that time some one heard me and came out like a
+bullet.  The next thing I knew, everything was closed.  How long the
+experiments had been going on, I couldn't say.  I do know, however, that
+they didn't leave there until about three o'clock in the morning."
+
+"You--you don't know who the men were?"  Houston, forcing himself to be
+casual, had asked the question.  The young doctor shook his head.
+
+"No--except that they were from Boston.  At least, the doctors were.  One
+of the nurses knew them.  I suppose the other man was a district
+attorney--they usually are around somewhere during an experiment."
+
+"You never learned with what murder case it was connected?"
+
+"No--the fact is, it passed pretty much out of my mind, as far as the
+details were concerned.  Although I'll never forget the picture."
+
+"Pardon me for asking questions.  I--I--just happen to come from Boston
+and was trying to recall such a case.  You don't remember what time of
+the year it was, or how long ago?"
+
+"Yes, I do.  It was in the summer, along about two or two and a half
+years ago."
+
+Houston slumped back into his corner.  Ten minutes later, he found an
+opportunity to exchange cards with the young physician and sought his
+berth.  To himself, he could give no reason for establishing the identity
+of the smoking-compartment informant.  He had acted from some sort of
+subconscious compulsion, without reasoning, without knowing why he had
+catalogued the information or of what possible use it could be to him.
+But once in his berth, the picture continued to rise before him; of a big
+room in a hospital, of doctors gathered about, and of a man "killing"
+another with a mallet.  Had it been Worthington?  Worthington, the
+tired-eyed, determined, over-zealous district attorney, who, day after
+day, had struggled and fought to send him to the penitentiary for life?
+Had it been Worthington, striving to reproduce the murder of Tom Langdon
+as he evidently had reconstructed it, experimenting with his experts in
+the safety of a different city, for points of evidence that would clinch
+the case against the accused man beyond all shadow of a doubt?
+Instinctively Houston felt that he just had heard an unwritten,
+unmentioned phase of his own murder case.  Yet--if that had been
+Worthington, if those experts had found evidence against him, if the
+theories of the district attorney had been verified on that gruesome
+night in the "dead ward" of Bellstrand Hospital--
+
+Why had this damning evidence been allowed to sink into oblivion?  Why
+had it not been used against him?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+It was a problem which Barry Houston, in spite of wakefulness, failed
+to solve.  Next morning, eager for a repetition of the recital, in the
+hope of some forgotten detail, some clue which might lead him to an
+absolute decision, he sought the young doctor, only to find that he had
+left the train at dawn.  A doorway of the past had been opened to
+Houston, only to be closed again before he could clearly discern
+beyond.  He went on to Boston, still struggling to reconstruct it all,
+striving to figure what connection it might have had, but in vain.  And
+with his departure from the train, new thoughts, new problems, arose to
+take the place of memories.  His purposes now were of the future, not
+of the past.
+
+And naturally, he turned first to the office of his father's
+attorney,--the bleak place where he had conferred so many times in the
+black days.  Old Judge Mason, accustomed to seeing Barry in time of
+stress, tried his best to be jovial.
+
+"Well, boy, what is it this time?"
+
+"Money."  Houston came directly to the point.  "I've come back to
+Boston to find out if any one will trust me."
+
+"With or without security."
+
+"With it--the best in the world."  Then he brought forward a copy of
+the contract.  Mason studied it at length, then, with a slow gesture,
+raised his glasses to a resting place on his forehead.
+
+"I--I don't know, boy," he said at last.  "It's a rather hard problem
+to crack.  I wish there was some one in the family we could go to for
+the money."
+
+"But there isn't."
+
+"No.  Your uncle Walt might have it.  But I'm afraid that he wouldn't
+feel like lending it to you.  He still believes--well, you know how
+fathers are about their boys.  He's forgotten most of Tom's bad points
+by now."
+
+"We'll drop him from the list.  How about the bankers."
+
+"We'll have to see.  I'm a little afraid there.  I know you'll pardon
+me for saying it, Barry, but they like to have a man come to them with
+clean hands.  Not that you haven't got them," he interjected,
+"but--well, you know bankers.  What's the money for; running expenses?"
+
+"No.  Machinery.  The other mill burned down, you know--and as usual,
+without insurance.  We have a makeshift thing set up there now--but
+it's nothing to what will be needed.  I've got to have a good,
+smooth-working plant--otherwise I won't be able to live up to
+specifications."
+
+"You're not," and the old lawyer smiled quizzically, "going to favor
+your dearly beloved friend with the order, are you?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Worthington."
+
+"The district attorney?"
+
+"That was.  Plutocrat now, and member of society, you know.  He came
+into his father's money, just after he went out of office, and bought
+into the East Coast Machinery Company when it was on its last legs.
+His money was like new blood.  They've got a good big plant.  He's
+president," again the smile, "and I know he'd be glad to have your
+order."
+
+Houston continued the sarcasm.
+
+"I'd be overjoyed to give it to him.  In fact, I think I'd refuse to
+buy any machinery if I couldn't get it from such a dear friend as
+Worthington was.  It wasn't his fault that I wasn't sent to the
+penitentiary."
+
+"No, that's right, boy."  Old Lawyer Mason was quietly reminiscent.
+"He tried his best.  It seemed to me in those days he was more of a
+persecutor than prosecutor."
+
+"Let's forget it."  Houston laughed uneasily.
+
+"Now, to go back to the bankers--"
+
+"There isn't much for us to do but to try them, one after another.  I
+guess we might as well start now as any time."
+
+Late that afternoon they were again in the office, the features of
+Mason wrinkled with thought, those of Barry Houston plainly
+discouraged.  They had failed.  The refusals had been courteous,
+fraught with many apologies for a tight market, and effusive regrets
+that it would be impossible to loan money on such a gilt-edged
+proposition as the contract seemed to hold forth, but--  There had
+always been that one word, that stumbling-block against which they had
+run time after time, shielded and padded by courtesy, but present
+nevertheless.  Nor were Houston and Mason unaware of the real fact
+which lay behind it all; that the bankers did not care to trust their
+money in the hands of a man who had been accused of murder and who had
+escaped the penalty of such a charge by a margin, which to Boston, at
+least, had seemed exceedingly slight.  One after another, there in the
+office, Mason went over the list of his business acquaintances, seeking
+for some name that might mean magic to them.  But no such inspiration
+came.
+
+"Drop back to-morrow, boy," he said at last.  "I'll think over the
+thing to-night, and I may be able to get a bright idea.  It's going to
+be tough sledding--too tough, I'm afraid.  If only we didn't have to
+buck up against that trial, and the ideas people seem to have gotten of
+it, we'd be all right.  But--"
+
+There it was again, that one word, that immutable obstacle which seemed
+to arise always.  Houston reached for his hat.
+
+"I'm going to keep on trying, anyway, Mr. Mason.  I'll be back
+to-morrow.  I'm going to get that money if I have to make a canvass of
+Boston, if I have to go out and sell shares at a dollar apiece and if I
+go broke paying dividends.  I've made my promise to go through--and I'm
+going!"
+
+"Good.  I'll be looking for you."
+
+But half an hour later, following a wandering, aimless journey through
+the crooked streets, Barry Houston suddenly straightened with an
+inspiration.  He whirled, he dived for a cigar store and for a
+telephone.
+
+"Hello!" he called, after the long wait for connections.  "Mr. Mason?
+Don't look for me tomorrow--I believe I'll not be there."
+
+"But you haven't given it up?"
+
+"Given up?"  Houston laughed with sudden enthusiasm.  "No--I've just
+started.  Put the date off a day or two until I can try something
+that's buzzing around in my head.  It's a wild idea--but it may work.
+If it doesn't, I'll see you Thursday."
+
+Then he turned from the telephone and toward the railroad station.
+
+"One, to New York," he ordered hurriedly through the ticket window.
+"I've got time to make that seven-forty, if you rush it."
+
+And the next morning, Barry Houston was in New York, swirling along
+Seventh Avenue toward Bellstrand Hospital.  There he sought the
+executive offices and told his story.  "Five minutes later he was
+looking at the books of the institution, searching, searching,--at last
+to stifle a cry of excitement and bend closer to a closely written page.
+
+"August second," he read.  "Kilbane Worthington, district attorney,
+Boston, Mass.  Acc by Drs. Horton, Mayer and Brensteam.  Investigations
+into effect of blows on skull.  Eight cadavers."
+
+With fingers that were almost frenzied, Houston copied the notation,
+closed the book, and hurried again for a taxicab.  It yet was only nine
+o'clock.  It the traffic were not too thick, if the driver were
+skilful--
+
+He raced through the gate at Grand Central just as it was closing.  He
+made the train in unison with the last drawling cry of the conductor.
+Then for hours, in the Pullman chair car, he fidgeted, counting the
+telegraph posts, checking off the stations as they flipped past the
+windows, through a day of eagerness, of excited, racking anticipation.
+It was night when he reached Boston, but Houston did not hesitate.  A
+glance at a telephone book, another rocking ride in a taxicab, and
+Barry stood on the veranda of a large house, awaiting the answer to his
+ring at the bell.  Finally it came.
+
+"Mr. Worthington," he demanded.  The butler arched his eyebrows.
+
+"Sorry, but Mr. Worthington has left orders not to be--"
+
+"Tell him that it is a matter of urgent business.  That it is something
+of the utmost importance to him."
+
+A wait.  The butler returned.
+
+"Sorry, sir.  But Mr. Worthington is just ready to retire."
+
+"You tell Mr. Worthington," answered Houston in a crisp voice, "that he
+either will see me or regret it.  Tell him that I am very sorry, but
+that just now, I am forced to use his own methods--and that if he
+doesn't see me within five minutes, there will be something in the
+morning papers that will be, to say the least, extremely distasteful to
+him."
+
+"The name, please?"
+
+"It doesn't matter."
+
+"Are you from a newspaper?"
+
+"I'm not saying.  Whether I go to one directly from here, depends
+entirely upon Mr. Worthington.  Will you please take my message?"
+
+"I'm afraid--"
+
+"Take my message!"
+
+"Directly, sir!"
+
+Another wait.  Then:
+
+"Mr. Worthington will see you in the library, sir."
+
+"Thanks."  Houston almost bounded into the hall.  A moment later, in
+the dimness of the heavily furnished, somewhat mysterious appearing
+library, Barry Houston again faced the man whom, at one time, he had
+hoped never again to see.  Kilbane Worthington was seated at the large
+table, much in the manner which he had affected in court, elbows on the
+surface, chin cupped in his thin, nervous hands.  The light was not
+good for recognizing faces; without realizing it, the former district
+attorney had placed himself at a disadvantage.  Squinting, he sought to
+make out the features of the man who had hurried into the room, and
+failing, rose.
+
+"Well," he asked somewhat brusquely, "may I inquire--"
+
+"Certainly.  My name's Houston."
+
+"Houston--Houston--it seems to me--"
+
+"Maybe your memory needs refreshing.  Such little things as I figured
+in probably slipped your mind the minute you were through with them.
+To be explicit, my name is Barry Houston, son of the late William K.
+Houston.  You and I met--in the courtroom.  You once did me the very
+high honor to accuse me of murder and then tried your level best to
+send me to the penitentiary for life when you knew, absolutely and
+thoroughly, that I was an innocent man!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The former district attorney started slightly.  Then, coming still
+closer, he peered into the tense, angry features of Barry Houston.
+
+"A bit melodramatic, aren't you?" he asked in a sneering tone.
+
+"Perhaps so.  But then murder is always melodramatic."
+
+"Murder?  You don't intend--"
+
+"No.  I simply referred to the past.  I should have said 'reference to
+murder.'  I hope you will pardon me if any inelegance of language
+should offend you."
+
+"Sarcastic, aren't you?"
+
+"I have a right to be.  Knowing what I know--I should use more than
+sarcasm."
+
+"If I'm not mistaken, you have.  The butler spoke of some threat."
+
+"Hardly a threat, Mr. Worthington."  Houston was speaking coldly,
+incisively.  "Merely what I have heard you often call in court a
+statement of fact.  In case it wasn't repeated to you correctly, I'll
+bore you with it again.  I said that if you didn't see me immediately,
+there would be something extremely distasteful to you in the morning
+papers."
+
+"Well?  I've seen you.  Now--"
+
+"Wait just a moment, Mr. Worthington.  I thought it was only civil
+lawyers who indulged in technicalities.  I didn't know that criminal,"
+and he put emphasis on the word, then repeated it, "that criminal
+lawyers had the habit also."
+
+"If you'll cease this insulting--"
+
+"Oh, I think I have a right to that.  To tell the truth, I've only
+begun to insult you.  That is--if you call this sort of a thing an
+insult.  To get at the point of the matter, Mr. Worthington, I want to
+be fair with you.  I've come here to ask something--I'll admit
+that--but it is something that should benefit you in a number of ways.
+But we'll speak of that later.  The main point is this: I am thinking
+very seriously of suing the city of Boston for a million dollars."
+
+"Well?  What's that to me?"  Worthington sighed, with a bit of relief,
+Houston thought, and walked back to the table for a cigarette.  "I
+haven't anything to do with the city.  Go as far as you like.  I'm out
+of politics; in case you don't know, I'm in business for myself and
+haven't the least interest in what the city does, or what any one does
+to it."
+
+"Even though you should happen to be the bone of contention--and the
+butt of what may be a good deal of unpleasant newspaper notoriety?"
+
+"You're talking blackmail!"
+
+"I beg your pardon.  Blackmail is something by which one extorts money.
+I'm here to try to give you money--or at least the promise of it--and
+at the same time allow you to make up for something that should,
+whether it does or not, weigh rather heavily on your conscience."
+
+"If you'll come to the point."
+
+"Exactly.  Do you remember my case?"
+
+"In a way.  I had a good many of them."
+
+"Which, I hope, you did not handle in the same way that you did mine.
+But to recall it all to your recollection, I was accused of having
+killed my own cousin, Tom Langdon, with a mallet."
+
+"Yes--I remember now.  You two had some kind of a drunken fight."
+
+"And you, at the time, if I remember correctly, had a fight of your
+own.  It was nearing election time."
+
+"Correct.  I remember now."  Then, with a little smile, "Quite luckily,
+I was beaten."
+
+"I agree with you there.  But to return to the original statement.  Am
+I right, or am I wrong, when I say that you were striving very hard,
+for a record that would aid you in the election?"
+
+"Every official tries to make the best possible record.  Especially at
+election time."
+
+"No matter whom it injures."
+
+"I didn't say that."
+
+"But I did--and I repeat it.  No matter whom it injures!  Now, to be
+plain and frank and brutal with you to-night as you were with me in the
+courtroom, Mr. Worthington, I have pretty convincing evidence that you
+knew I was innocent.  Further, that you knew it almost at the beginning
+of the trial.  But that in spite of this knowledge, you continued to
+persecute me--notice, I don't say prosecute--to persecute me in a hope
+of gaining a conviction, simply that you might go before the voters and
+point to me in prison as a recommendation of your efficiency as a
+district attorney."
+
+"Oh!"  Worthington threw away his cigarette with an angry gesture, and
+came forward.  "You fellows are all the same.  You're always squealing
+about your innocence.  I never saw a man yet who wasn't innocent in one
+way or another.  Even when they confess, they've got some kind of an
+alibi for their act.  They didn't know the gun was loaded, or the other
+fellow hit them first or--"
+
+"In my case I have no alibis.  And this isn't simply my own statement.
+I have sufficient witnesses."
+
+"Then why didn't you produce them at the trial?"
+
+"I couldn't.  You had them."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes.  I don't mind giving you the names.  One of them was Doctor
+Horton.  Another was Doctor Mayer.  A third was Doctor Brensteam, all
+physicians of the highest reputation.  I would like, Mr. Worthington,
+to know why you did not make use of them in the trial instead of the
+expert Hamon, and that other one, Jaggerston, who, as every one knows,
+are professional expert witnesses, ready at all times to testify upon
+anything from handwriting to the velocity of a rifle bullet, providing
+they are sufficiently paid."
+
+"Why?  Simply because I figured they would make the best witnesses."
+
+"It couldn't have been," and Houston's voice was more coldly caustic
+than ever, "that it was because they would be willing to perjure
+themselves, while the real doctors wouldn't?"
+
+"Of course not!  This whole thing is silly.  Besides, I'm out of it
+entirely.  I'm--"
+
+"Mr. Worthington," and Houston's tone changed.  "Your manner and your
+words indicate very plainly that you're not out of it--that you merely
+wish you were.  Isn't that the truth?  Don't you?"
+
+"Well," and the man lit a fresh cigarette, "I feel that way about every
+murder case."
+
+"But especially about this one.  You're not naturally a persecutor.
+You don't naturally want to railroad men to the penitentiary.  And I
+believe that, as a general thing, you didn't do it.  You tried it in my
+case; election was coming on, you had just run up against two or three
+acquittals, and you had made up your mind that in my case you were
+going to run the gauntlet to get a conviction.  I don't believe you
+wanted to send me up simply for the joy of seeing an innocent man
+confined in prison.  You wanted a conviction--wasn't that it?"
+
+"Every prosecutor works for that."
+
+"Not when he knows the man is innocent, Mr. Worthington.  You knew
+that--I have proof.  I have evidence that you found it out almost at
+the beginning of my trial--August second, to be exact--and that you
+used this information to your own ends.  In other words, it told you
+what the defense would testify; and you built up, with your
+professional experts, a wall to combat it.  Now, isn't that the truth?"
+
+"Why--"  The former district attorney took more time than usual to
+knock the ashes from his cigarette, then suddenly changed the subject.
+
+"You spoke of a suit you might bring when you came in here?"
+
+"Yes.  Against the city.  I have a perfect one.  I was persecuted when
+the official in charge of the case knew that I was not guilty.  To that
+end I can call the three doctors I've mentioned and put them on the
+stand and ask them why they did not testify in the case.  I also can
+call the officials of Bellstrand Hospital in New York where you
+conducted certain experiments on cadavers on the night of August
+second; also a doctor who saw you working in there and who watched you
+personally strike the blows with a mallet; further, I can produce the
+records of the hospital which state that you were there, give the names
+of the entire party, together with the number of corpses experimented
+upon.  Is that sufficient evidence that I know what I'm talking about?"
+
+Worthington examined his cigarette again.
+
+"I suppose it's on the books down there.  But there's nothing to state
+of what the experiments consisted."
+
+"I have just told you that I have an eye-witness.  Further, there are
+the three doctors."
+
+"Have you seen them?"
+
+Houston thought quickly.  It was his only chance.
+
+"I know exactly what their testimony will be."
+
+"You've made arrangements for your suit then."  Worthington's color had
+changed.  Houston noticed that the hand which held the cigarette
+trembled slightly.
+
+"No, I haven't.  I'm not here to browbeat you, Mr. Worthington, or lie
+to you.  It came to me simply as a ruse to get in to see you.  But the
+more I think of it, the more I know that I could go through with it and
+possibly win it.  I might get my million.  I might not.  I don't want
+money gained in that way.  The taxpayers would have to foot the bill,
+not yourself."
+
+"Oh, I guess I'd pay enough," Worthington had assumed an entirely
+different attitude now.  "It would hurt me worse in business than it
+would if I were still in office.  Whether it's true or not."
+
+"You know in your heart that there's no doubt of that."
+
+Worthington did not answer.  Houston waited a moment, then went on.
+
+"But personally, I don't want to file the suit.  I don't want any
+money--that way.  I don't want any bribes, or exculpations, or
+statements from you that you know me to be innocent.  Some might
+believe it; others would only ask how much I paid to have that
+statement given out.  The damage has been done and is next to
+irreparable.  You could have cleared me easily enough by dropping the
+case, or making your investigations before ever an indictment was
+issued.  You didn't, and I remain guilty in the minds of most of
+Boston, in spite of what the jury said.  A man is not guilty until
+convicted--under the law.  He is guilty as soon as accused, with the
+lay mind.  So you can't help me much there; my only chance for freedom
+lies in finding the man who actually committed that murder.  But that's
+something else.  We won't talk about it.  You owe me something.  And
+I'm here to-night to ask you for it."
+
+"I thought you said you didn't want any bribes."
+
+"I don't.  May I ask you what your margin of profit is at your
+machinery company?"
+
+"My margin of profit?  What's that?  Well, I suppose it runs around
+twelve per cent."
+
+"Then will you please allow me to give you twelve thousand dollars in
+profits?  I'm in the lumber business.  I have a contract that runs into
+the millions; surely that is good enough security to a man"--he
+couldn't resist the temptation--"who knows my absolute innocence.  It
+isn't good enough for the bankers, who still believe me guilty, so I've
+come directly to you.  I need one hundred thousand dollars' worth of
+lumber-mill machinery, blade saws, crosscuts, jackers, planers,
+kickers, chain belting, leather belting, and everything else that goes
+to make up a first-class plant.  I can pay for it--in installments.  I
+guarantee to give you every cent above my current running expenses
+until the bill is disposed of.  My contract with the Mountain, Plains
+and Salt Lake Railroad is my bond.  I don't even ask a discount, or for
+you to lose any of your profits.  I don't even ask any public statement
+by you regarding my innocence.  All I want is to have you do what you
+would do to any reputable business man who came to you with a contract
+running into the millions of dollars--to give me credit for that
+machinery.  It's a fair proposition.  Come in with me on it, and we'll
+forget the rest.  Stay out--and I fight!"
+
+For a long moment, Kilbane Worthington paced the floor, his hands
+clasped behind him, his rather thin head low upon his chest.  Then, at
+last, he looked up.
+
+"How long are you going to be in town?"
+
+"Until this matter's settled."
+
+"Where are you staying?"
+
+"The Touraine."
+
+"Very well.  I'll have a machine there to pick you up at ten o'clock
+to-morrow morning and take you to my office.  In the meanwhile--I'll
+think it over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+It was a grinning Barry Houston who leaped from the train at Tabernacle
+a week later and ran open-armed through the snow toward the waiting
+Ba'tiste.
+
+"You got my telegram?"  He asked it almost breathlessly.
+
+"Ah, _oui! oui, oui, oui_!  _Sacre_, and you are the wizard!"
+
+"Hardly that."  They were climbing into the bobsled.  "I just had
+enough sense to put two and two together.  On the train to Boston I got
+a tip about my case, something that led me to believe that the district
+attorney knew all the time that I was innocent.  He had conducted
+experiments at the Bellstrand Hospital of which nothing had been said
+in the trial.  Three famous doctors had been with him.  As soon as I
+saw their names, I instinctively knew that if the experiments had
+turned out the way the district attorney had wanted them, he would have
+used them in the trial against me, but that their silence meant the
+testimony was favorable to me."
+
+"_Bon_!"  Ba'tiste grinned happily.  "And he?"
+
+"It just happened that he is now in the mill machinery business.  I,"
+and Houston smiled with the memory of his victory, "I convinced him
+that he should give me credit."
+
+"Eet is good.  In the woods, there are many men.  The log, he is pile
+all about the mill.  Three thousand tie, already they are stack up."
+
+"And the woman--she has caused no trouble?"
+
+"No.  Peuff!  I have no see her.  Mebbe so, eet was a mistake."
+
+"Maybe, Ba'tiste, but I was sure I recognized her.  The Blackburn crowd
+hasn't given up the ghost yet?"
+
+"Ah, no.  But eet will.  Still they think that we cannot fill the
+contract.  They think that after the first shipment or so, then we will
+have to quit."
+
+"They may be right, Ba'tiste.  It would require nearly two thousand men
+to keep that mill supplied with logs, once we get into production,
+outside of the regular mill force, under conditions such as they are
+now.  It would be ruinous.  We've got to find some other way, Ba'tiste,
+of getting our product to the mill.  That's all there is to it."
+
+"Ba'teese, he have think of a way--that he have keep secret.  Ba'teese,
+he have a, what-you-say, hump."
+
+"Hunch, you mean?"
+
+"Ah, _oui_.  Eet is this.  We will not bring the log to the mill.  We
+will bring the mill to the log.  We have to build the new plant, yes,
+_oui_?  Then, _bon_, we shall build eet in the forest, where there is
+the lumber."
+
+"Quite so.  And then who will build a railroad switch that can
+negotiate the hills to the mill?"
+
+"Ah!"  Ba'tiste clapped a hand to his forehead.  "_Veritas_?  I am the
+prize, what-you-say, squash!  Ba'teese, he never think of eet!"  A
+moment he sat glum, only to surge with another idea.  "But, now,
+Ba'teese have eet!  He shall go to Medaine!  He shall tell her to write
+to the district attorney of Boston--that he will tell her--"
+
+"It was part of my agreement, Ba'tiste, that he be forced to make no
+statements regarding my innocence."
+
+"Ah, but--"
+
+"It was either that, or lose the machinery.  He's in business.  He's
+afraid of notoriety.  The plain, cold truth is that he tried to
+railroad me, and only my knowledge of that fact led him into doing a
+decent and honorable thing.  But I sealed any chance of his moral aid
+when I made my bargain.  It was my only chance."
+
+Slowly Ba'tiste nodded and slapped the reins on the back of the horse.
+
+"Ba'teese will not see Medaine," came at last, and they went on.
+
+Again the waiting game, but a busy game however, one which kept the ice
+roads polished and slippery; which resulted, day by day, in a
+constantly growing mountain of logs about the diminutive sawmill.  One
+in which plans were drawn, and shell-like buildings of mere slats and
+slab sidings erected, while heavy, stone foundations were laid in the
+firm, rocky soil to support the machinery, when it arrived.  A game in
+which Houston hurried from the forests to the mill and back again, now
+riding the log sheds as a matter of swifter locomotion, instead of for
+the thrill, as he once had done.  Another month went by, to bring with
+it the bill of lading which told that the saws, the beltings, the
+planers and edgers and trimmers, and the half hundred other items of
+machinery were at last on their way, a month of activities and--of
+hopes.
+
+For to Ba'tiste Renaud and Barry Houston there yet remained one faint
+chance.  The Blackburn crowd had taken on a gamble, one which, at the
+time, had seemed safe enough; the investment of thousands of dollars
+for a plant which they had believed firmly would be free of
+competition.  That plant could not hope for sufficient business to keep
+it alive, with the railroad contract gone, and the bigger mill of
+Houston and Renaud in successful operation.  There would come the time
+when they must forfeit that lease and contract through non-payment, or
+agree to re-lease them to the original owner.  But would that time
+arrive soon enough?  It was a grim possibility,--a gambling wager that
+held forth hope, and at the same time threatened them with extinction.
+For the same thing applied to Houston and Ba'tiste that applied to
+Blackburn and Thayer.  If they could not make good on their contract,
+the other mill was ever ready to step in.
+
+"Eet all depen'," said Ba'tiste more than once during the snowy,
+frost-caked days in which they watched every freight train that pulled,
+white-coated, over the range into Tabernacle.  "Eet all depen' on the
+future.  Mebbe so, we make eet.  Mebbe so, we do not.  But we gamble,
+eh, _mon_ Baree?"
+
+"With our last cent," came the answer of the other man, and in the
+voice was grimness and enthusiasm.  It was a game of life or extinction
+now.
+
+March, and a few warm days, which melted the snows only that they might
+crust again.  Back and forth traveled the bobsled to Tabernacle, only
+to meet with disappointment.
+
+"I've wired the agent at Denver three times about that stuff," came the
+announcement of the combined telegrapher and general supervisor of
+freight at the little station.  "He's told me that he'd let me know as
+soon as it got in.  But nothing's come yet."
+
+A week more, and another week after that, in which spring taunted the
+hills, causing the streams to run bank-full with the melting waters of
+the snow, in which a lone robin made his appearance about the
+camp,--only to fade as quickly as he had come.  For winter, tenacious,
+grim, hateful winter, had returned for a last fling, a final outburst
+of frigid viciousness that was destined to wrap the whole range country
+in a grip of terror.
+
+They tried the bobsled, Ba'tiste and Houston, only to give it up.  All
+night had the snow fallen, in a thick, curtain-like shield which
+blotted out even the silhouettes of the heaviest pines at the brow of
+the hill, which piled high upon the ridges, and with great sweeps of
+the wind drifted every cut of the road to almost unfathomable depths.
+The horses floundered and plowed about in vain efforts at locomotion,
+at last to plunge in the terror of a bottomless road.  They whinnied
+and snorted, as though in appeal to the men on the sled behind,--a sled
+that worked on its runners no longer, but that sunk with every fresh
+drift to the main-boards themselves.  Wadded with clothing, shouting in
+a mixture of French and English and his own peculiar form of slang,
+Ba'tiste tried in vain to force the laboring animals onward.  But they
+only churned uselessly in the drift; their hoofs could find no footing,
+save the yielding masses of snow.  Puffing, as though the exertion had
+been his own, the trapper turned and stared down at his companion.
+
+"Eet is no use," came finally.  "The horse, he can not pull.  We must
+make the trip on the snowshoe."
+
+They turned back for the bunk house, to emerge a few moments
+later,--bent, padded forms, fighting clumsily against the sweep of the
+storm.  Ghosts they became almost immediately, snow-covered things that
+hardly could be discerned a few feet away, one hand of each holding
+tight to the stout cord which led from waist-belt to waist-belt, their
+only insurance against being parted from each other in the blinding
+swirl of winter.
+
+Hours, stopping at short intervals to seek for some landmark--for the
+road long ago had become obliterated--at last to see faintly before
+them the little box-car station house, and to hurry toward it in a fear
+that neither of them dared to express to the other.  Snow in the
+mountains is not a gentle thing, nor one that comes by fits and gusts.
+The blizzard does not sweep away its vengeful enthusiasm in a day or a
+night.  It comes and it stays--departing for a time, it seems--that it
+may gather new strength and fury for an even fiercer attack.  And the
+features of the agent, as he stared up from the rattling telegraph key,
+were not conducive to relief.
+
+"Your stuff's on the way, if that's any news to you," came with a
+worried laugh.  "It left Denver on Number 312 at five o'clock this
+morning behind Number Eight.  That's no sign that it's going to get
+here.  Eight isn't past Tollifer yet."
+
+"Not past Tollifer?" Houston stared anxiously.  "Why, it should be at
+the top of the range by now.  It hasn't even begun to climb."
+
+"Good reason.  They're getting this over there too."
+
+"The snow?"
+
+"Worse than here, if anything.  Denver reported ten inches at eleven
+o'clock--and it's fifteen miles from the range.  There was three inches
+when the train started.  Lord knows where that freight is--I can't get
+any word from it."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Gone out again!"  The telegrapher hammered disgustedly on the key.
+"The darned line grounds on me about every five minutes.  I--"
+
+"Do you hear anything from Crestline--about conditions up there?"
+
+"Bad.  It's even drifting in the snowsheds.  They've got two plows
+working in 'em keeping 'em open, and another down at Crystal Lake.  If
+things let up, they're all right.  If not--they'll run out of coal by
+to-morrow morning and be worse than useless.  There's only about a
+hundred tons at Crestline--and it takes fuel to feed them babies.  But
+so far--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"They're keeping things halfway open.  Wait a minute--" he bent over
+the key again--"it's opened up.  Number Eight's left Tollifer.  The
+freight's behind it, and three more following that.  I guess they're
+going to try to run them through in a bunch.  They'll be all right--if
+they can only get past Crestline.  But if they don't--"
+
+He rattled and banged at the key for a long moment, cursing softly.
+Only the dead "cluck" of a grounded line answered him.  Houston turned
+to Ba'tiste.
+
+"It looks bad."
+
+"_Oui_!  But eet depen'--on the storm.  Eet come this way, near' ev'
+spring.  Las' year the road tie up--and the year before.  Oh," he
+shrugged his shoulders, "that is what one get for living in a country
+where the railroad eet chase eetself all over the mountain before eet
+get here."
+
+"There wouldn't be any chance at the tunnel either, would there?  They
+haven't cut through yet."
+
+"No--and they won' finish until June.  That is when they figure--"
+
+"That's a long way off."
+
+"Too long," agreed Ba'tiste, and turned again toward the telegrapher,
+once more alert over a speaking key.  But before it could carry
+anything but a fragmentary message, life was gone again, and the
+operator turned to the snow-caked window, with its dreary exterior of
+whirling snow that seemed to come ever faster.
+
+"Things are going to get bad in this country if this keeps up," came at
+last.  "There ain't any too great a stock of food."
+
+"How about hay for the cattle?"
+
+"All right.  I guess.  If the ranchers can get to it.  But that's the
+trouble about this snow.  It ain't like the usual spring blizzard.
+It's dry as a January fall, and it's sure drifting.  Keeps up for four
+or five days; they'll be lucky to find the haystacks."
+
+For a long time then, the three stood looking out the window,
+striving--merely for the sake of passing time--to identify the almost
+hidden buildings of the little town, scarcely more than a hundred yards
+away.  At last the wire opened again, and the operator went once more
+to his desk.  Ba'tiste and Houston waited for him to give some report.
+But there was none.  At last:
+
+"What is it?"  Houston was at his side.  The operator looked up.
+
+"Denver asking Marionville if it can put its snowplow through and try
+to buck the drifts from this side.  No answer yet."
+
+A long wait.  Then:
+
+"Well, that's done.  Only got one Mallett engine at Marionville.  Other
+two are in the shop.  One engine couldn't--"
+
+He stopped.  He bent over the key.  His face went white--tense.
+
+"God!"
+
+"What's wrong?"  The two men were close beside him now.
+
+"Number one-eleven's kicked over the hill!"
+
+"One-eleven--kicked over?"
+
+"Yes.  Snowplow.  They're wiring Denver, from Crestline.  The second
+plow's up there in the snowshed with the crew.  One of 'em's dead.  The
+other's--wait a minute, I have to piece it together."
+
+A silence, except for the rattling of the key, broken, jagged, a
+clattering voice of the distance, faint in the roar and whine of the
+storm, yet penetrating as it carried the news of a far-away world,--a
+world where the three waiting men knew that all had turned to a white
+hell of wintry fury; where the grim, forbidding mountains were now the
+abiding place of the snow-ledge and the avalanche; where even steel and
+the highest product of invention counted for nothing against the blast
+of the wind and the swirl of the tempest.  Then finally, as from far
+away, a strained voice came, the operator's:
+
+"Ice had gotten packed on the rails already.  One-eleven tried to keep
+on without a pick and shovel gang.  Got derailed on a curve just below
+Crestline and went over.  One-twelve's crew got the men up.  The plow's
+smashed to nothing.  Fifty-three thousand dollars' worth of junk now.
+Wait a minute--here's Denver."
+
+Again one of those agonizing waits, racking to the two men whose future
+depended largely upon the happenings atop the range.  Far on the other
+side, fighting slowly upward, was a freight train containing flatcar
+after flatcar loaded with the necessary materials of a large sawmill.
+True, June was yet two months away.  But months are short when there is
+work to do, when machinery must be installed, and when contracts are
+waiting.  Every day, every hour, every minute counted now.  And as if
+in answer to their thoughts, the operator straightened, with a little
+gesture of hopelessness.
+
+"Guess it's all off," came at last.  "The general superintendent in
+Denver's on the wire.  Says to back up everything to Tollifer,
+including the plows, and give up the ghost."
+
+"Give it up?" Houston stared blankly at the telegrapher.  "But that's
+not railroading!"
+
+"It is when you're with a concern that's all but broke," answered the
+operator.  "It's cheaper for this old wooden-axle outfit to quit than
+to go on fighting--"
+
+"That mean six weeks eef this storm keep up two days longer!" Ba'tiste
+broke in excitedly.  "By to-morrow morning, ever' snowshed, he will be
+bank-full of snow.  The track, he will be four inches in ice.  Six
+week--this country, he can not stand it!  Tell him so on the telegraph!
+Tell him the cattle, he will starve!  Peuff!  No longer do I think of
+our machinery!  Eef it is los'--we are los'.  But let eet go.  Say to
+heem nothing of that.  Say to heem that there are the cattle that will
+starve, that in the stores there is not enough provision.  That--"
+
+"I know.  I'll call Denver.  But I don't know what chance there is--the
+road's been waiting for a chance to go into bankruptcy, anyway--since
+this new Carrow Point deal is about through.  They haven't got any
+money--you know that, Ba'tiste.  It's cheaper for them to shut down for
+six weeks than to try to keep running.  That fifty thousand they lost
+on that snowplow just about put the crimp in 'em.  It might cost a
+couple of hundred thousand more to keep the road open.  What's the
+result?  It's easier to quit.  But I'll try 'em--"
+
+He turned to the key and hammered doggedly.  Only soggy deadness
+answered.  He tested his plugs and tried again.  In vain.  An hour
+later, he still was there, fighting for the impossible, striving to
+gain an answer from vacancy, struggling to instil life into a thing
+deadened by ice, and drifts, and wind, and broken, sagging telegraph
+poles.  The line was gone!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Until dusk they remained in the boxlike station, hoping against hope.
+But the whine and snarl of the wind were the only sounds that came to
+them, the steady banking of the snow against the windows the only
+evidence of life.  The telegraph line, somewhere between Tabernacle and
+the country which lay over the bleak, now deadly range, was a shattered
+thing, with poles buried in drifts, with loose strands of wire swinging
+in the gusts of the blizzard, with ice coated upon the insulations, and
+repair--until the sun should come and the snows melt--an almost
+impossible task.
+
+"It'd take a guy with a diving suit to find some of them wires, I
+guess," the operator hazarded, as he finally ceased his efforts and
+reached for his coat and hat and snowshoes.  "There ain't no use
+staying here.  You fellows are going to sleep in town to-night, ain't
+you?"
+
+There was little else to do.  They fought their way to the rambling
+boarding house, there to join the loafing group in what passed for a
+lobby and to watch with them the lingering death of day in a shroud of
+white.  Night brought no cessation of the wind, no lessening of the
+banks of snow which now were drifting high against the first-story
+windows; the door was only kept in working order through constant
+sallies of the bent old boarding-house keeper, with his snow shovel.
+
+Windows banged and rattled, with a muffled, eerie sound; snow sifted
+through the tiniest cracks, spraying upon those who sat near them.  The
+old cannon-ball stove, crammed with coal, reached the point where dull
+red spots enlivened its bulging belly; yet the big room was cold with
+non-detectable drafts, the men shivered in spite of their heavy
+clothing, and the region outside the immediate radius of the heater was
+barn-like with frigidity.  Midnight came, and the group about the stove
+slept in their chairs, rather than undergo the discomfort and coldness
+of bed.
+
+Morning brought no relief.  The storm was worse, if anything, and the
+boarding-house keeper faced drifts waist high at the doorway with his
+first shoveling expedition of the day.  The telegrapher, at the
+frost-caked window, rubbed a spot with his hand and stared into the
+dimness of the flying snow, toward his station.
+
+"Guess I'll have t' call for volunteers if I get in there to-day.
+We'll have to tunnel."
+
+Ba'tiste and Houston joined him.  The box car that served as a station
+house--always an object of the heaviest drifts--was buried!  The big
+French-Canadian pulled at his beard.
+
+"Peuff!  Eet is like the ground hog," he announced.  "Eet is
+underground already."
+
+"Yeh.  But I've got to get in there.  The wire might be working."
+
+"So?  We will help, Baree and Ba'teese.  Come--we get the shovels."
+
+Even that was work.  The town simply had ceased to be; the stores were
+closed, solitude was everywhere.  They forced a window and climbed into
+the little general merchandise establishment, simply because it was
+easier than striving to get in through the door.  Then, armed with
+their shovels, they began the work of tunneling to the station.  Two
+hours later, the agent once more at his dead key, Ba'tiste turned to
+Houston.
+
+"Eet is the no use here," he announced.  "We must get to camp and
+assemble the men that are strong and willing to help.  Then--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Then, eet will be the battle to help those who are not fortunate.
+There is death in this storm."
+
+Again with their waist-belt guide lines, they started forth, to bend
+against the storm in a struggle that was to last for hours; to lose
+their trail, to find it again, through the straggling poles that in the
+old days had carried telephone wires, and at last to reach the squat,
+snowed-in buildings of camp.  There, Ba'tiste assembled the workmen in
+the bunk house.
+
+"There are greater things than this now," he announced.  "We want the
+strong men--who will go back with us to Tabernacle, and who will be
+willing to take the risk to help the countryside.  Ah, _oui_, eet is
+the danger that is ahead.  How many of you will go?"
+
+One after another they readied for their snowshoes, silent men who
+acted, rather than spoke.  A few were left behind, to care for the camp
+in case of emergencies, to keep the roofs as free from snow as possible
+and to avoid cave-ins.  The rest filed outside, one by one, awkwardly
+testing the bindings of their snowshoes, and awaiting the command.  At
+the doorway, Ba'tiste, his big hands fumbling, caught the paws of
+Golemar, his wolf-dog, and raised the great, shaggy creature against
+his breast.
+
+"No," he said in kindly, indulgent fashion.  "Eet is not for Golemar to
+go with us.  The drift, they are deep.  There is no crust on the snow.
+Golemar, he would sink above his head.  Then blooey!  There would be no
+Golemar!"
+
+Guide lines were affixed.  Once more, huddled, clumsy figures of white,
+one following the other, they made the gruelling trip back to
+Tabernacle and the duties which they knew lay before them.  For already
+the reports were beginning to come in, brought by storm-weakened,
+blizzard-battered men, of houses where the roofs had crashed beneath
+the weight of snow, of lost ranchmen, of bawling cattle, drifting
+before the storm,--to death.  It was the beginning of a two-weeks'
+siege of a white inferno.
+
+Little time did Barry Houston have for thought in those weeks.  There
+were too many other things to crowd upon him; too many cold, horrible
+hours in blinding snow, or in the faint glare of a ruddy sun which only
+broke through the clouds that it might jeer at the stricken country
+beneath it, then fade again in the whipping gusts of wind and its
+attendant clouds, giving way once more to the surging sweep of white
+and the howl of a freshened blizzard.
+
+Telegraph poles reared only their cross-arms above the mammoth drifts.
+Haystacks became buried, lost things.  The trees of the forest,
+literally harnessed with snow, dropped their branches like tired arms
+too weary to longer bear their burdens.  The whole world, it seemed,
+was one great, bleak thing of dreary white,--a desert in which there
+was life only that there might be death, where the battle for existence
+continued only as a matter of instinct.
+
+And through--or rather over--this bleak desert went the men of the West
+Country, silent, frost-burned men, their lips cracked from the cut of
+wind, their eyes blood-red with inflammation, struggling here and there
+with a pack of food upon their back that they might reach some desolate
+home where there were women and children; or stopping to pull and tug
+at a snow-trapped steer and by main effort, drag him into a barren spot
+where the sweep of the gale had kept the ground fairly clear of snow;
+at times also, they halted to dig into a haystack, and through long
+hours scattered the welcome food about for the bawling cattle; or
+gathered wood, where such a thing was possible, and lighting great
+fires, left them, that they might melt the snows about a spot near a
+supply of feed, where the famished cattle could gather and await the
+next trip of the rescuers, bearing them sustenance.
+
+Oftimes they stopped in vain--the beast which they sought to succor was
+beyond aid--and a revolver shot sounded, muffled in the thickness of
+the storm.  Then, with knives and axes, the attack came, and struggling
+forms bore to a ranch house the smoking portions of a newly butchered
+beef; food at least for one family until the relief of sun and warmth
+would come.  It was a never-ending agony of long hours and
+muscle-straining work.  But the men who partook--were men.
+
+And side by side with the others, with giant Ba'tiste, with the silent
+woodsmen, with the angular, wiry ranchmen, was Barry Houston.  His
+muscles ached.  His head was ablaze with the eye-strain of constant
+white; his body numbed with cold from the time that he left the old
+cannon-ball stove of the boarding house in the early morning until he
+returned to it at night.  Long ago had he lost hope,--so far as
+personal aims and desires were concerned.  The Crestline road was tied
+up; it had quit completely; Barry Houston knew that the fury of the
+storm in this basin country below the hills was as nothing compared to
+the terror of those crag tops where altitude added to the frigidity,
+and where from mountain peak to mountain peak the blizzard leaped with
+ever-increasing ferocity.  Far out on the level stretches leading up to
+the plains of Wyoming, other men were working, struggling doggedly from
+telegraph pole to telegraph pole, in an effort to repair the lines so
+that connection might be made to Rawlins, and thence to Cheyenne and
+Denver,--to apprise the world that a great section of the country had
+been cut off from aid, that women and children were suffering from lack
+of food, that every day brought the news of a black splotch in the
+snow,--the form of a man, arms outstretched, face buried in the drift,
+who had fought and lost.  But so far, there had been only failure.  It
+was a struggle that made men grim and dogged; Barry Houston no less
+than the rest.  He had ceased to think of the simpler things of life,
+of the ordinary problems, the usual worries or likes and dislikes.  His
+path led once by the home of Medaine Robinette, and he clambered toward
+the little house with little more of feeling than of approaching that
+of the most unfamiliar ranchman.
+
+Smoke was coming from the chimney.  There were the marks of snowshoes.
+But they might mean nothing in the battle for existence.  Houston
+scrambled up to the veranda and banged on the door.  A moment more, and
+he faced Medaine Robinette.
+
+"Just wanted to see if you're all right," came almost curtly.
+
+"Yes--thank you."
+
+"Need any food?"
+
+"I have plenty."
+
+"Anybody sick?"
+
+"No.  Lost Wing has found wood.  We're keeping warm.  Tell me--" and
+there was the politeness of emergency in her tones--"is there any need
+for women in Tabernacle?  I am willing to go if--"
+
+"Not yet.  Besides, a woman couldn't get in there alone."
+
+"I could.  I'm strong enough.  Besides, I've been out--I went to the
+Hurd Ranch yesterday.  Mrs. Hurd's sick--Lost Wing brought me the word."
+
+"Then keep on with that.  There's nothing in Tabernacle--and no place
+for any one who isn't destitute.  Stay here.  Have you food enough for
+Hurd's?"
+
+"Yes.  That is--"
+
+"I'll leave my pack.  Take that over as you need it.  There's enough
+for a week there.  If things don't let up by that time, I'll be by
+again."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Then the door was closed, and Houston went his way again, back to
+Tabernacle and a fresh supply for his pack--hardly realizing the fact
+that he had talked to the woman he could not help wishing for--the
+woman he would have liked to have loved.  The world was almost too
+gray, too grim, too horrible for Houston even to remember that there
+was an estrangement between them.  Dully, his intellect numbed as his
+body was numbed, he went back to his tasks,--tasks that were seemingly
+endless.
+
+Day after day, the struggle remained the same, the wind, the snow, the
+drifts, the white fleece flying on the breast of the gale even when
+there were no storm clouds above, blotting out the light of the sun and
+causing the great ball to be only a red, ugly, menacing thing in a
+field of dismal gray.  Night after night the drifts swept, changing,
+deepening in spots where the ground had been clear before, smoothing
+over the hummocks, weaving across the country like the vagaries of
+shifting sands before they finally packed into hard, compressed mounds,
+to form bulwarks for newer drifts when the next storm came.  Day after
+day,--and then quiet, for forty-eight hours.
+
+It caused men to shout,--men who had cursed the sun in the blazing
+noonday hours of summer, but men who now extended their arms to it, who
+slapped one another on the back, who watched the snow with blood-red
+eyes for the first sign of a melting particle, and who became
+hysterically jubilant when they saw it.  Forty-eight hours!  Deeper and
+deeper went the imprints of milder weather upon the high-piled
+serrations of white, at last to cease.  The sun had faded on the
+afternoon of the second day.  The thaw stopped.  The snowshoes soon
+carried a new crunching sound that gradually became softer, more
+muffled.  For the clouds had come again, the wind had risen with a
+fiercer bite than ever in it; again the snow was falling.  But the grim
+little army of rescuers, plodding from one ranchhouse to another, had
+less of worriment in their features now,--even though the situation was
+no less tense, no less dangerous.  At least the meager stores of the
+small merchandise establishment in Tabernacle could be distributed with
+more ease; a two-inch crust of snow had formed over the main snowfall,
+permitting small sleds to be pulled behind struggling men; the world
+beneath had been frozen in, to give place to a new one above.  And with
+that:
+
+"It's open!  It's open!"  The shout came from the lips of the
+telegrapher, waving his arms as he ran from the tunnel that led to the
+stationhouse.  "It's open!  I've had Rawlins on the wire!"
+
+Men crowded about him and thumped into the little box car to listen,
+like children, to the rattling of the telegraph key,--as though they
+never had heard one before.  So soon does civilization feel the need of
+its inventions, once they are taken away; so soon does the mind become
+primitive, once the rest of the world has been shut away from it.
+Eagerly they clustered there, staring with anxious eyes toward the
+operator as he hammered at the key, talking in whispers lest they
+disturb him, waiting for his interpretation of the message, like
+worshippers waiting for the word of an oracle.
+
+"I'm putting it all on the wire!" he announced at last, with feverish
+intensity.  "I'm telling 'em just how it is over here.  Maybe they can
+do something--from Rawlins."
+
+"Rawlins?"  Houston had edged forward.  "There's not a chance.  It's
+hundreds of miles away; they can't use horses, and they certainly can't
+walk.  Wait--will you give me a chance at something?"
+
+A gleam had come into his eyes.  His hands twisted nervously.  Voices
+mumbled about him; suddenly the great hands of Ba'tiste grasped him by
+the shoulders and literally tossed him toward the telegrapher.
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  If eet is the idea--then speak it."
+
+"Go on--" the telegrapher had stopped his key for a moment--"I'll put
+it through, if it'll help."
+
+"All right.  Get Denver on the wire.  Then take this message to every
+newspaper in the city:
+
+
+"'Can't you help us?  Please try to start campaign to force Crestline
+Road to open the Pass.  Women and children are starving here.  We have
+been cut off from the rest of the world for two weeks.  We need
+food--and coal.  Road will not be open for four or five weeks more
+under ordinary circumstances.  This will mean death to many of us here,
+the wiping out of a great timber and agricultural country, and a blot
+on the history of Colorado.  Help us--and we will not forget it."
+
+"'THE CITIZENS OF THE WEST COUNTRY.'"
+
+
+"Ah, _oui_!"  Old Ba'tiste was addressing the rest of the crowd.  "The
+newspapers, they can help, better than any one else.  Eet is our
+chance.  _Bon_--good!  _Mon_ Baree, he have the big, what-you-say,
+sentiment."
+
+"Sounds good."  The telegrapher was busily putting it on the wire.
+Then a wait of hours,--hours in which the operator varied his routine
+by sending the word of the stricken country to Cheyenne, to Colorado
+Springs, to Pueblo, and thence, through the news agencies, to the rest
+of the world.
+
+"Might as well get everybody in on it," he mused, as he pounded the
+telegraph instrument; "can't tell--some of those higher-ups might be in
+New York and think there wasn't anything to it unless they could see it
+in the New York papers.  I--"  Then he stopped as the wire cut under
+his finger and clattered forth a message.  He jumped.  He grasped
+Ba'tiste in his lank arms, then turned beaming to the rest of the
+gaping crowd.
+
+"It's from the papers in Denver!" he shouted.  "A joint message.
+They've taken up the fight!"
+
+A fight which had its echoes in the little railroad box car, the center
+of the deadened, shrouded West Country, the news of which must travel
+to Cheyenne, to Rawlins, thence far down through the northern country
+over illy patched telegraph wires before it reached the place for which
+it was intended, the box car and its men who came and went, eager for
+the slightest word from the far-away, yet grudging of their time, lest
+darkness still find them in the snows, and night come upon them
+struggling to reach the little town and send them into wandering,
+aimless journeys that might end in death.  For the snows still swirled,
+the storms still came and went, the red ball of the sun still refused
+to come forth in its beaming strength.  And it was during this period
+of uncertainty that Houston met Ba'tiste Renaud, returning from a
+cruising expedition far in the lake region, to find him raging, his
+fists clenched, his eyes blazing.
+
+"Is eet that the world is all unjust?" he roared, as he faced Houston.
+"Is eet that some of us do our part, while others store up for
+emergency?  Eh?   Bah!  I am the mad enough to tear them apart!"
+
+"Who?  What's gone wrong?"
+
+"I am the mad!  You have no seen the M'sieu Thayer during all the
+storm?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor the M'sieu Blackburn?  Nor the men who work for them.  Eh?  You
+have no seen them?"
+
+"No, not once."
+
+"Ah!  I pass to-day the Blackburn mill.  They have shovel out about the
+sawshed.  They have the saw going,--they keep at work, when there are
+the women and the babies who starve, when there are the cattle who are
+dying, when there is the country that is like a broken thing.  But they
+work--for themself!  They saw the log into the tie--they work from the
+piles of timber which they have about the sawmill, to store up the
+supply.  They know that we do not get our machinery!  They have think
+they have a chance--for the contract!"
+
+It brought Houston to a sharp knowledge of conditions.  They had given,
+that the rest of the country might not suffer.  Their enemies had
+worked on, fired with the new hope that the road over the mountains
+would not be opened; that the machinery so necessary to the carrying
+out of Houston's contract would not arrive in time to be of aid.  For
+without the ability to carry out the first necessities of that
+agreement, the rest must surely and certainly fail.  Long before,
+Houston had realized the danger that the storm meant; there had been no
+emergency clause in the contract.  Now his hands clenched, his teeth
+gritted.
+
+"It almost seems that there's a premium on being crooked, Ba'tiste,"
+came at last.  "It--"
+
+Then he ceased.  A shout had come from the distance.  Faintly through
+the sifting snow they could see figures running.  Then the words
+came,--faint, far-away, shrill shouts forcing their way through the
+veil of the storm.
+
+"They're going to open the road!  They're going to open the road!"
+
+Here, there and back again it came, men calling to men, the few women
+of the little settlement braving the storm that they too might add to
+the gladful cry.  Already, according to the telegram, snow-fighting
+machinery and men were being assembled in Denver for the first spurt
+toward Tollifer, and from there through the drifts and slides of the
+hills toward Crestline.  Ba'tiste and Houston were running now, as fast
+as their snowshoes would allow, oblivious for once of the cut of the
+wind and the icy particles of its frigid breath.
+
+"They open the road!" boomed Ba'tiste in chorus with the rest of the
+little town.  "Ah, _oui_!  They open the road.  The Crestline Railroad,
+he have a heart after all, he have a--"
+
+"Any old time!"  It was a message bearer coming from the shack of a
+station.  "They're not going to do it--it's the M. P. & S. L."
+
+"Through the tunnel?"
+
+"No.  Over the hill.  According to the message, the papers hammered the
+stuffing out of the Crestline road.  But you've got to admit that they
+haven't got either the motive power or the money.  The other road saw a
+great chance to step in and make itself solid with this country over
+here.  It's lending the men and the rolling stock.  They're going to
+open another fellow's road, for the publicity and the good will that's
+in it."
+
+A grin came to Houston's lips,--the first one in weeks.  He banged
+Ba'tiste on his heavily wadded shoulder.
+
+"That's the kind of railroad to work for!"
+
+"Ah, _oui_!  And when eet come through--ah, we shall help to build it."
+
+Two pictures flashed across Houston's brain; one of a snowy sawmill
+with the force working day and night, when all the surrounding country
+cried for help, working toward its selfish ends that it might have a
+supply of necessary lumber in case a more humane organization should
+fail; another of carload after carload of necessary machinery,
+snow-covered, ice-bound, on a sidetrack at Tollifer, with the whole,
+horrible, snow-clutched fierceness of the Continental Divide between it
+and its goal.
+
+"I hope so!" he exclaimed fervently.  "I hope so!"
+
+Then, swept along by hurrying forms, they went on toward the station
+house, there to receive the confirmation of the glad news, to shout
+until their throats were raw, and then, still with their duties before
+them, radiate once more on their missions of mercy.  For the
+announcement of intention was no accomplishment.  It was one thing for
+the snowplows and the gangs and tremendous engines of the M. P. & S. L.
+to attempt to open the road over the divide.  But it was quite another
+thing to do it!
+
+All that day Houston thought of it, dreamed of it, tried to visualize
+it,--the fight of a railroad against the snows of the hills.  He
+wondered how the snowplows would work, how they would break through the
+long, black snowsheds, now crammed with the thing which they had been
+built to resist.  He thought of the laborers; and his breath pulled
+sharply.  Would they have enough men?  It would be grueling work up
+there, terrific work; would there be sufficient laborers who would be
+willing to undergo the hardships for the money they received?  Would--
+
+In the night he awoke, again thinking of it.  Every possible hand that
+could swing a pick or jam a crowbar against grudging ice would be
+needed up there.  Every pair of shoulders willing to assume the burdens
+of a horrible existence that others might live would be welcomed.  A
+mad desire began to come over him; a strange, impelling scheme took
+hold of his brain.  They would need men,--men who would not be afraid,
+men who would be willing to slave day and night if necessary to the
+success of the adventure.  And who should be more willing than he?  His
+future, his life, his chance of success, where now was failure, lay at
+Tollifer.  His hands would be more than eager!  His muscles more than
+glad to ache with the fatigue of manual labor!  Long before dawn he
+rose and scribbled a note in the dim light of the old kerosene lamp in
+the makeshift lobby, a note to Ba'tiste Renaud:
+
+
+"I'm going over the range.  I can't wait.  They may need me.  I'm
+writing this, because you would try to dissuade me if I told you
+personally.  Don't be afraid for me--I'll make it somehow.  I've got to
+go.  It's easier than standing by.
+
+"HOUSTON."
+
+
+Then, his snowshoes affixed, he went out into the night.  The stars
+were shining dimly, and Houston noticed them with an air of
+thankfulness as he took the trail of the telephone poles and started
+toward the faint outline of the mountains in the distance.  It would
+make things easier; but an hour later, as he looked for a dawn that did
+not come, he realized that it had been only a jest of the night.  The
+storm clouds were thick on the sky again, the snow was dashing about
+him once more; half-blindly, gropingly, he sought to force his way from
+one pole to another,--in vain.
+
+He measured his steps, and stopping, looked about him.  He had traveled
+the distance from one pole to another, yet in the sweep of the darting
+sheet of white he could discern no landmark, nothing to guide him
+farther on his journey.  He floundered aimlessly, striving by short
+sallies to recover the path from which the storm had taken him, but all
+to no purpose.  If dawn would only come!
+
+Again and again, hardly realizing the dangers to which he was
+subjecting himself, Houston sought to regain his lost sense of
+direction.  Once faintly, in the far-away, as the storm lifted for a
+moment, he thought that he glimpsed a pole and hurried toward it with
+new hope, only to find it a stalwart trunk of a dead tree, rearing
+itself above the mound-like drifts.  Discouraged, half-beaten, he tried
+again, only to wander farther than ever from the trail.  Dawn found him
+at last, floundering hopelessly in snow-screened woods, going on toward
+he knew not where.
+
+A half-hour, then he stopped.  Fifty feet away, almost covered by the
+changing snows, a small cabin showed faintly, as though struggling to
+free itself from the bonds of white, and Houston turned toward it
+eagerly.  His numbed hands banged at the door, but there came no
+answer.  He shouted; still no sound came from within, and he turned the
+creaking, protesting knob.
+
+The door yielded, and climbing over the pile of snow at the step,
+Houston guided his snowshoes through the narrow door, blinking in the
+half-light in an effort to see about him.  There was a stove, but the
+fire was dead.  At the one little window, the curtain was drawn tight
+and pinned at the sides to the sash.  There was a bed--and the form of
+some one beneath the covers.  Houston called again, but still there
+came no answer.  He turned to the window, and ripping the shade from
+its fastenings, once more sought the bed, to bend over and to stare in
+dazed, bewildered fashion, as though in a dream.  He was looking into
+the drawn, haggard features of an unconscious woman, the eyes
+half-open, yet unseeing, one emaciated hand grasped about something
+that was shielded by the covers.  Houston forced himself even closer.
+He touched the hand.  He called:
+
+"Agnes!"
+
+The eyelids moved slightly; it was the only evidence of life, save the
+labored, irregular breathing.  Then the hand moved, clutchingly.
+Slowly, tremblingly, Houston turned back an edge of the blankets,--and
+stood aghast.
+
+On her breast was a baby--dead!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+There was no time for conjectures.  The woman meant a human life,--in
+deadly need of resuscitation, and Barry leaped to his task.
+
+Warmth was the first consideration, and he hurried to the sheet-iron
+stove, with its pile of wood stacked behind, noticing, as he built the
+fire, cans and packages of provisions upon the shelf over the small
+wooden table, evidence that some one other than the woman herself had
+looked after the details of stocking the cabin with food and of
+providing against emergencies.  At least a portion of the wood as he
+shoved it into the stove crackled and spit with the wetness of snow;
+the box had been replenished, evidently within the last few days.
+
+Soon water was boiling.  Hot cloths went to the woman's head; quietly,
+reverently, Barry had taken the still, small child from the tightly
+clenched arm and covered it, on the little table.  And with the touch
+of the small, lifeless form, the resentment which had smoldered in
+Houston's heart for months seemed to disappear.  Instinctively he knew
+what a baby means to a mother,--and she must be its mother.  He
+understood that the agony of loss which was hers was far greater even
+than the agony which her faithlessness had meant for him.  Gently,
+almost tenderly, he went again to the bed, to chafe the cold, thin
+wrists, to watch anxiously the eyes, then at last to bend forward.  The
+woman was looking at him, staring with fright in her gaze, almost
+terror.
+
+"Barry--" the word was more of a mumble.  "Barry--" then the eyes
+turned, searching for the form that no longer was beside her.
+"My--my--"  Then, with a spasm of realization, she was silent.  Houston
+strove dully for words.
+
+"I'm sorry--Agnes.  Don't be afraid of me.  I'll get help for you."
+
+"Don't."  The voice was a monotone, minus expression, almost minus
+life.  The face had become blank, so much parchment drawn over bone.
+"I've been sick--my baby--where's my baby?"
+
+"Don't you know?"
+
+"Yes," came at last.  There was the dullness that comes when grief has
+reached the breaking point.  "Dead.  It died--yesterday morning."
+
+Houston could say nothing in answer.  The simple statement was too
+tragic, too full of meaning, too fraught with the agony of that long
+day and night of suffering, for any reply in words that would not jar,
+or cause even a greater pang.  Quietly he turned to the stove, red-hot
+now, and with snow water began the making of gruel from the supplies on
+the shelf.  Once he turned, suddenly aware that the eyes of the woman
+were centered in his direction.  But they were not upon him; their gaze
+was for one thing, one alone,--that tiny, covered form on the table.
+
+An hour passed silently, except for the trivialities of speech
+accompanying the proffered food.  Then, at last, forcing himself to the
+subject, Houston asked a question:
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Who?"  Sudden fright had come into the woman's eyes.  A name formed on
+Houston's lips, only to be forced back into the more general query:
+
+"Your husband."
+
+She smiled faintly.
+
+"You've got me, haven't you, Barry?"  A half-hysterical tone came now.
+"You know a lot--and you want the rest, so you can pay me back, don't
+you?  Oh," and the thin fingers plucked at the bedclothes, "I expected
+it!  I expected it!  I knew sooner or later--"
+
+"If you're talking about me, Agnes--and what I've been led to believe,
+we'll save that for a future time.  I think I'm enough of a man not to
+harass a person in time of grief."
+
+"Coals of fire, eh?"  A tinge of her old expression had come back, with
+returning strength.
+
+"Nothing of the kind.  I simply wanted to help you--because you're a
+woman in trouble.  You're sick.  Your baby's--gone.  If I can get your
+husband for you, I--"
+
+But she shook her head, suddenly weak and broken, suddenly only what
+Barry was trying to make of her in his mind, a grieving woman, in need.
+
+"We're--not married.  You'll know it sooner or later.  I--I don't know
+where he is.  He was here three days ago and was coming back that
+night.  But he didn't.  Maybe he's gone--he'd threatened it."
+
+"He?  You mean--"
+
+She pressed her lips tight.
+
+"I'm not going to tell--yet.  You've got to do something for me first.
+I'm in trouble--" she was speaking rapidly now, the words flooding over
+her lips between gasps, her eyes set, her hands knitting.  "My baby's
+dead.  You know that, don't you?" she asked suddenly, in apparent
+forgetfulness of any previous conversation.  "My baby's dead.  It died
+yesterday morning--all day long I held it in my arms and cried.  Then I
+slept, didn't I?"
+
+"You were unconscious."
+
+"Maybe I'm going to die."  There was childishness in the voice.  "Like
+my baby.  I baptized her before she went.  Maybe I'm going to die too."
+
+"I hope not, Agnes."
+
+"You'd like to see me die!"  The frail bonds of an illness-ridden brain
+were straining at their leash.  "I can see it in your eyes.  You'd like
+to see me die!"
+
+"Why?" he could think of nothing else.
+
+"Because--" and then she stopped.  "No--you're trying to get me to
+tell--but I won't; I'll tell when you come back--I'll tell what I said
+and did when you bring me the note from the priest.  You want me to
+tell, don't you?  Don't you?  That's what you came here for.  You found
+out I was here.  I--did he tell?" she asked sharply.
+
+Barry shook his head.
+
+"I don't know who you mean, Agnes."
+
+"No?  I think you're--"
+
+"I was on my way over the range.  I got lost in the storm and stumbled
+in here."  He looked out.  "It's let up some now.  Maybe I could find
+my way back to town--you must have a doctor."
+
+"I don't want a doctor!  I want to go--with my baby.  And I don't want
+him to know--understand that--" with a struggle she raised to one
+elbow, eyes suddenly blazing with the flashes of her disordered brain,
+features strained and excited.  "I don't want him to know!  He ran away
+and left me for three days.  The fire went out--my baby--" hysterical
+laughter broke from her dry lips--"My baby died, and still he didn't
+come.  He--"
+
+"Agnes!"  Houston grasped her hands.  "Try to control yourself!  Maybe
+he couldn't get back.  The storm--"
+
+"Yes, the storm!  It's always the storm!  We would have been
+married--but there was the storm.  He couldn't marry me months
+ago--when I found out--and when I came back out here!  He couldn't
+marry me then.  'Wait'; that's what he always said--'wait--' and I
+waited.  Now--" then the voice trailed off--"it's been three days.  He
+promised to be back.  But--"
+
+Houston sought to end the repetition.
+
+"Perhaps I could find him and bring him here."
+
+But it was useless.  The woman drifted back to her rambling statements.
+Laughter and tears followed one another in quick succession; the
+breaking of restraint had come at last.  At last she turned, and
+staring with glazed eyes into those of Houston, burst forth.
+
+"You hate me, don't you?"
+
+"I--"
+
+"Don't deny it!"  Querulous imperiousness was in the voice.  "You hate
+me--you'll go back to Boston and tell my mother about this.  I
+know--you've got the upper hand now.  You'll tell her why I came out
+here--you'll tell her about the baby, won't you?  Yes, you'll--"
+
+"I'll tell nothing of the sort, Agnes.  I don't fight that way.  You
+ought to know that.  You've been my enemy, I'll admit.  I've felt
+bitter, terribly so, against you.  I believed that you used my trust to
+betray me.  But I believe I know the reason now.  Besides, the harm's
+done.  It's in the past.  I fight men, not women."
+
+"Do you want help?"  A thin hand stretched out.  "Will you give me a
+promise--if I give you one?"
+
+"About what, Agnes?"
+
+"My baby.  You--you're not going to let it stay there?  You're--"
+
+"I hardly know what to do.  I thought after you were better, I'd--"
+
+"I'm better now."  She tried to rise.  "I'm better--see?  I've more
+strength.  You could leave me alone.  I--I want you to take my baby."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Where she can sleep in peace--in hallowed ground.  I--I want a priest
+for her.  Tell him that I baptized her Helena."
+
+"Yes.  And the other name?"
+
+A weird laugh came from the colorless lips.
+
+"She hasn't one."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Then use mine--so you'll have evidence that I'm not married.  Use
+mine, if that's the kind of a man you are--so you can go back and tell
+them--back home--that I--I--"  The last bond had snapped.  She caught
+at him with clawing hands, her eyes wild, her teeth showing from behind
+tightly drawn lips.  "Torture me--that's it--torture me!  At least, I
+didn't do that to you!  I told you that I believed in you--at least
+that cheered you up when you needed it--I didn't tell you that I
+believed you guilty.  Did I?  I didn't continually ask you for the name
+of the man you'd killed?  Oh, there were other things--I know there
+were other things--" the lips seemed to fairly stream words, "but at
+least, I didn't torture you.  I--I--"
+
+Then she halted, for the briefest part of a moment, to become suddenly
+madly cajoling, crazily cunning:
+
+"Listen, Barry, listen to me.  You want to know things.  I can tell
+them to you--oh, so many of them.  I'll tell them too--if you'll only
+do this for me.  It's my baby--my baby.  Don't you know what that
+means?  Won't you promise for me?  Take her to a priest--please,
+Barry--for what you once thought I was?  Won't you, Barry?  Haven't I
+had punishment enough?  Did you ever lie all day and listen to the wind
+shriek, waiting for somebody who didn't come--with your dead baby in
+your arms?  Do you want to punish me more?  Do you want me to die
+too--or do you want me to live and tell you why I did the things I did?
+Do you?  Do you want to know who was back of everything?  I didn't do
+it for myself, Barry.  It was some one else--I'll help you, Barry,
+honestly I'll help you."
+
+"About the murder?"  Houston was leaning forward now, tense, hopeful.
+But the woman shook her head.
+
+"No--I don't know about that.  Maybe you did it--I can't say.  It's
+about other things--the lease, and the contract.  I'll help you about
+that--if you'll help me.  Take my baby--"
+
+"And keep your secret, Agnes?  Is that it?"
+
+"Will you?"  The woman's eyes were gleaming strangely.  "My mother
+doesn't know.  She's old--you know her, Barry.  She thinks I'm--what I
+should have been.  That's why I came back out here.  I--I--"
+
+The man rose.  He walked to the window and stood for a long time
+looking out, trying to close his ears to the ramblings of the woman on
+the bed, striving to find a way to keep the promise she sought.  For
+just a moment the old hatred flooded through him, the resentment toward
+this being who had been an integral factor in all the troubles which
+had pursued him in his efforts to beat back to a new life.  But as
+swift as they came, they faded.  No longer was she an enemy; only a
+broken, beaten woman, her empty arms aching as her heart ached;
+harassed by fears of exposure to the one woman in whom she still
+desired to be held in honor, of the whereabouts of the man who had led
+her on through the byways of love into a dismal maze of chicanery.
+Only a woman, ill, perhaps dying.  A woman crying out for the one boon
+that she could ask of a person she knew to distrust and despise her,
+seeking the thing that now was her greatest desire in the world, and
+willing to promise--whether truthfully or not, Barry had no way of
+telling--to reveal to him secrets of the past, if he would but comply.
+Was she honest?  As he stood there looking out at the snow, it seemed
+to make little difference.  Was she sincere?  He would strive to aid a
+dumb brute if he found it in distress.  At last he turned and walked to
+the bed.
+
+"I'll promise, Agnes.  If you want to help me afterward, well and good.
+If not--you are free to do as you please.  I suppose you want her
+dressed before--"
+
+"Yes."  The woman had raised eagerly.  "There are clothes--she's never
+had on--in the bottom drawer of that old bureau.  Take them with you.
+Then look in a box in the top drawer.  You'll find a crucifix.
+They--they might want to put it on her."
+
+She sank back in the bed, and Barry went to his task of searching the
+drawers of the rickety old bureau.  In a mass of tangled, old-fashioned
+jewelry, he found the crucifix, its chain broken and twisted, and
+placed it in a pocket.  Then he turned to the grimmer task,--and the
+good-by.  A half-hour later, white-featured, his arms cupped gently
+about a blanket-wrapped form, he stepped forth into the storm, and
+bending against the wind, turned toward the railroad in obedience to
+the hazy directions of the sobbing woman he had left behind.
+
+The snowfall was lighter now; he could find his way more easily.  A
+half-hour passed, and he stopped, kneeling and resting the tiny, still
+bundle upon his knees to relieve his aching arms.  Then on again in
+plodding perseverance,--fulfilling a promise to a woman who had done
+her best to wreck his existence.
+
+A mile farther, and the railroad telegraph poles appeared.  Houston saw
+them with grateful eyes, though with concern.  He knew to a certainty
+that there was no priest in Tabernacle, and what his story would be
+when he got there was a little more than he could hazard.  To Ba'tiste,
+he would tell the truth; to others, there must simply be some
+fabrication that would hold for the moment and that would allow him to
+go on--while Ba'tiste--
+
+But suddenly he ceased his plans.  Black splotches against the snow,
+two figures suddenly had come out of the sweeping veil,--a girl and a
+man.  Something akin to panic seized Houston.  The man was Lost Wing,
+faithfully in the background as usual.  The girl was Medaine Robinette.
+
+For once Houston hoped that she would pass him as usual,--with averted
+eyes.  He did not care to make explanations, to be forced to lie to
+her.  But Fate was against him.  A moment more and the storm closed in
+again, with one of its fitful gusts, only to clear at last and to leave
+them face to face.  Medaine's eyes went with womanly instinct to the
+bundle in his arms.  And even though she could see nothing but the
+roundness of the blankets, the tender manner in which Barry Houston
+held the poor, inanimate little parcel was enough.
+
+"A baby!"  There was surprise in her tone.  Forgetting for the moment
+her aversion to the man himself, she came forward, touching the
+blankets, then lifting one edge ever so slightly that she might peer
+beneath.  "Where did you find it?  Whose is it?"
+
+Houston sought vainly for words.  He stammered,--a promise made to an
+enemy struggling for supremacy.  And the words seem to come unbidden:
+
+"Does it matter?"
+
+"Of course not."  She looked at him queerly.  "I merely thought I could
+be of assistance."
+
+"You can.  Tell me where I can find a priest."
+
+"A priest?"
+
+"Yes, I need him--the baby is dead."
+
+"Oh."  She touched the bundle ever so softly.  "I didn't know."  Then
+with a sudden thought; "But her mother.  She must need--"
+
+"Only a doctor.  I will try to get Ba'tiste to come out."
+
+"But couldn't I--"
+
+"I'm sorry."  Barry tried in vain for the words that would tell her the
+truth, yet tell her nothing.  He felt that he was miring himself
+hopelessly, that his denials and his efforts at secrecy could cause
+only one idea to form in her brain.  He wanted to tell her the truth,
+to ask her aid, to send her back into the woods to the assistance of
+the stricken woman there.  But he could not frame the request.
+Instead, "I--I can't tell you.  I've given a woman my word.  She
+wouldn't understand--if you went there.  With Ba'tiste, it is
+different.  He is a doctor.  He has a right.  I--I--"
+
+"I understand," came quietly, and in those two words Houston felt that
+her opinion had been formed; that to her, he was the father; the quiet
+form in his arms his own child!  It was like a blow to him; yet it was
+only what he had expected from the moment that he had recognized her.
+And after all, he felt that it did not matter; it was only one more
+false accusation to be added to the total, only one more height to be
+added to the barrier which already existed between them.  He accepted
+her attitude--in spite of the pain it brought--and faced her.
+
+"You were willing to help--before you--knew.  You would have been glad
+to help in the case of a stranger.  Are you still willing--now?"
+
+She hesitated a moment, her eyes downcast, at last to force a smile.
+
+"Of course.  But you are asking something almost impossible.  The
+nearest priest is at Crestline."
+
+"Crestline?"  Houston instinctively turned toward the hills, a bleak,
+forbidding wall against the sky.  "I--"
+
+"Rather, a mile below there at the Croatian settlement on Mount Harris.
+I am afraid you couldn't find it."
+
+"I can try.  Will you lend me Lost Wing to run an errand?  I want to
+get Ba'tiste--for her."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"May I talk to him privately?  He understands English?"
+
+She nodded.  Then:
+
+"I will tell Lost Wing that anything you have to say to him shall be a
+secret even from me.  I--do not want to know it."
+
+She spoke to the Indian in Sioux then and drew away, her eyes on the
+tracings of a snowshoe.  Houston, pointing with his head, gave the
+Indian his directions.
+
+"A woman is sick in a cabin, two miles straight west from here.  Get
+Ba'tiste Renaud and take him there.  Turn away from the stream at a
+tall, dead lodgepole and go to the left.  You will see the cabin.  I
+would rather that you would not go in and that you know nothing about
+the woman.  Tell Ba'tiste that her name must stay a secret until she
+herself is willing that it be otherwise.  Do you understand?"
+
+"A'ri."  The Indian went then toward his mistress, waiting her sanction
+to the mission.  She looked at Barry Houston.
+
+"Have you given him his directions?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, Lost Wing, do as he has told you."
+
+The Sioux started on, soon to be engulfed in the swirling veil of the
+storm.  Barry turned again to the girl.
+
+"Just one more request: I can't carry the child up there--this way.
+Will you help strap her to my pack?"
+
+Silently she assisted him in the grim task of mercy.  Then:
+
+"Do you know the Pass?"
+
+"I can find my way."
+
+"Do you know it?"
+
+He shook his head.  She tapped one glove against the other.
+
+"It is impossible then.  You--"
+
+"I'll make it some way.  Thank you--for helping me."
+
+He started on.  But she called him back.
+
+"It's dangerous--too dangerous," and there was a note of pity in her
+voice.  "It's bad enough on foot when there's no snow--if you're not
+familiar with it.  I--"
+
+"Tell me the way.  Perhaps I could find it.  It's not for myself.  I
+made a promise to the child's mother.  I'm afraid she's dying."
+
+A new light came into the girl's eyes, a light of compassion, of utmost
+pity,--the pity that one can feel for some one who has transgressed,
+some one who faces the penalty, who feels the lash of the whip, yet
+does not cry out.  Slowly she came toward Houston, then bent to tighten
+the fastenings of her snowshoes.
+
+"I know the way," came quietly.  "I have been over it--in summer and
+winter.  I will show you."
+
+"You!  Medaine!  I--I--beg pardon."  The outburst had passed his lips
+almost before he realized it.  "Miss Robinette, you don't know what
+you're saying.  It's all a man could do to make that climb.  I--"
+
+"I know the way," she answered, without indicating that she had heard
+his remonstrance.  "I am glad to go--for the sake of--"  She nodded
+slightly toward the tenderly wrapped bundle on the pack.  "I would not
+feel right otherwise."
+
+"But--"
+
+Then she faced him.
+
+"I am not afraid," came with a quiet assurance that spoke more than
+words.  It told Barry Houston that this little woman of the hills was
+willing to help him, although she loathed him; that she was willing to
+undergo hardships, to quell her own dislike for the man she aided that
+she might give him assistance in a time of death.  And he thrilled with
+it, in spite of the false beliefs that he knew existed in the mind of
+Medaine Robinette.  It gave him a pride in her,--even though he knew
+this pride to be gained at the loss of his own prestige.  And more than
+all, it made him glad that he had played the man back there in the
+little, lonely cabin, where lay a sorrow-crazed woman, grieving for a
+child who was gone; that he too had been big enough and strong enough
+to forget the past in the exigencies of the moment; that he had aided
+where he might have hindered; that he had soothed where a lesser nature
+might have stormed.  He bowed his head in acknowledgment of her
+announcement.  Then, side by side, affixing the stout cord that was to
+form a bond of safety between two alien souls, they started forth, a
+man who had been accused, but who was strong enough to rise above it,
+and a woman whose woman-heart had dictated that dislike, distrust, even
+physical fear be subjugated to the greater, nobler purpose of human
+charity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Silence was their portion as they turned toward the mountains.  There
+was little to say.  Now and then as Houston, in the lead, got off the
+trail, Medaine jerked on the cord to draw his attention, then pointed,
+and Barry obeyed.  Thus their pilgrimage progressed.
+
+An hour found them in the hills, plodding steadily upward, following
+the smoother mounds of snow which indicated heavy, secure drifts, at
+times progressing easily, almost swiftly, at others veering and
+tacking, making the precipitous ascent by digging their shoes into the
+snow and literally pulling themselves up, step by step.  Here, where
+the crags rose about them, where sheer granite walls, too steep, too
+barren to form a resting place even for the driven snow, rose brown and
+gaunt above them, where the wind seemed to shriek at them from a
+hundred places at once, Houston dropped slowly back to watch the effect
+that it all was having upon the girl, to study her strength and her
+ability to go on.  But there was no weakening in the sturdy little
+step, no evidence of fatigue.  As they went higher, and the wind beat
+against them with its hail of splintered ice particles, Houston saw her
+heavily gloved hands go to her face in sudden pain and remain there.
+The man went to her side, and grasping her by the shoulder, stopped
+her.  Then, without explanation, he brought forth a heavy bandanna
+handkerchief and tied it about her features, as high as possible
+without shutting off the sight.  Her eyes thanked him.  They went on.
+
+Higher--higher! the old cracks of Houston's lips, formed in his days of
+wandering, opened and began to bleed, the tiny, red drops falling on
+his clothing and congealing there.  The flying ice cut his skin; he
+knew that his eyeballs were becoming red again, the blood-red where
+never a speck of white showed, only black pupils staring forth from a
+sea of carmine.  Harder and swifter the wind swept about them; its
+force greater than the slight form of the woman could resist.  Close
+went Houston to her; his arm encircled her--and she did not resist--she
+who, down there in the west country in the days that had gone, would
+have rebelled at the touch of his hand!  But now they were in a strange
+land where personalities had vanished; two beings equipped with human
+intelligence and the power of locomotion, little more.  All else in
+their natures had become subjugated to the greater tasks which faced
+them; the primitive had come to life; they were fighting against every
+vengeful weapon which an outraged Nature could hurl,--fighting at
+cross-purposes, he to fulfill a promise to a woman who might even now
+be dead, she to assuage the promptings of a merciful nature, even to
+the extent of the companionship of a man she had been led to revile.
+
+Afternoon came, and the welcome shelter of a ledge where the snow had
+drifted far outward, leaving a small space of dry rock,--to them like
+an island to a drifting victim of shipwreck.  There they stopped, to
+bring food from the small provision pack which had been shifted to
+Medaine's shoulders, to eat silently, then, without a word, to rise and
+go onward.
+
+Miles and miles,--rods in fact.  Aeons of space after that, in which
+huddled, bent figures in the grip of stormdom, climbed, veering,
+swinging about the easier stretches, crawling at painfully slow pace up
+the steeper inclines.  Upward through the stinging blast of the tempest
+they went, toward the top of a stricken world.  Late afternoon; then
+Medaine turned toward the bleeding man beside her.
+
+"A mile more."
+
+She said no more.  He nodded in answer and extended a hand to aid her
+over a slippery stretch of ice-coated granite.  Timber line came and
+went.  The snowfall ceased, to give way to the grayness of heavy,
+scudding clouds and the spasmodic flurries of driving white, as the
+gusty wind caught up the loose fall of the drifts and whirled it on,
+like harassed, lost souls seeking in vain a place they could abide.
+And it was in one of the moments of quiet that Medaine pointed above.
+
+Five splotches showed on the mountain side,--the roofs of as many
+cabins; the rest of them were buried in snow.  No smoke came from the
+slanting chimneys; no avenues were shoveled to the doorways; the drifts
+were unbroken.
+
+"Gone!" Houston voiced the monosyllable.
+
+"Yes.  Probably on to Crestline.  I was afraid of it."
+
+"Night's coming."
+
+"It's too late to turn back now."
+
+And in spite of the pain of bleeding, snow-burned lips, Houston smiled
+at her,--the smile that a man might give a sister of whom he was
+inordinately proud.
+
+"Are you afraid?"
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"Me."
+
+She did not answer for a moment.  Then:
+
+"Are you afraid--of yourself?"
+
+"No.  Only men with something on their conscience are afraid."
+
+She looked at him queerly, then turned away.  Houston again took the
+lead, rounding the stretches, then waiting for her, halting at the
+dangerous gulleys and guiding her safely across, but silently.  He had
+said enough; more would require explanations.  And there was a pack
+upon his back which contained a tiny form with tight-curled hands, with
+eyes that were closed,--a poor, nameless little thing he had sworn to
+carry to grace and to protection.  At last they reached the cabins.
+Houston untied the bond which connected them and loosened his
+snowshoes, that he might plunge into the smallest drift before a door
+and force his way within.  There was no wood; he tore the clapboards
+from a near-by cabin and the tar paper from the wind-swept roof.  Five
+minutes later a fire was booming; a girl tired, bent-shouldered, her
+eyes drooping from a sudden desire for sleep, huddled near it.  Houston
+walked to the pack and took food.
+
+"You would rather eat alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I shall be in the next cabin--awake."
+
+"Awake?"
+
+"Yes.  I'd rather--keep watch."
+
+"But there is nothing--"
+
+"Illness--a snowslide--a fresh drift.  I would feel easier in mind.
+Good night."
+
+Then with his snowshoes and his pack of death, he went out the door, to
+plunge through another drift, to force his way into a cabin, and there,
+a plodding, dumb figure, go soddenly about the duties of comfort.  And
+more than once in the howling, blustery night which followed, Houston
+shivered, shook himself into action and rose to rebuild a fire that had
+died while he had sat hunched in the hard, uncomfortable chair beside
+it, trying to fathom what the day had meant, striving to hope for the
+keeping of the promises that an hysterical woman had made, struggling
+for the strength to go on,--on with this cheery, brave little bit of
+humanity in the next cabin, without a word in self-extenuation, without
+a hint to break the lack of estimation in which she held him, without a
+plea in his own defense.  And some way, Houston felt that such a plea
+now would be cheap and tawdry; they were in a world where there were
+bigger things than human aims and human frailties.  Besides, he had
+locked his lips at the command of a grief-ridden woman.  To open them
+in self-extenuation would mean that she must be brought into it; for
+she had been the one who had clinched the points of suspicion in the
+mind of Medaine Robinette.  Were he now to speak of proof that she had
+lied--
+
+It was impossible.  The wind-swept night became wind-swept dawn, to
+find him still huddled there, still thinking, still grim and drawn and
+haggard with sleeplessness and fatigue.  Then he rose at a call from
+without:
+
+"Are you ready?"
+
+He affixed the pack.  Together they went on again, graceless figures in
+frozen clothing, she pointing the way, he aiding her with his strength,
+in the final battle toward the summit of the range,--and Crestline.
+
+Hours they plodded and climbed, climbed and plodded, the blood again
+dripping from his lips, her features again shielded by the heavy folds
+of the bandanna; the moisture of their breath at times swirling about
+them like angry steam, at others invisible in the areas of sudden
+dryness, where the atmosphere lapped up even the vapors of laboring
+lungs before it could visualize.  Snow and cloud and rising walls of
+granite: this was their world, and they crawling pigmies within it.
+Once she brushed against the pack on his back and drew away with a
+sudden recoil.  Houston dully realized the reason.  The selfish,
+gripping hands of Winter, holding nothing sacred, had invaded even
+there.
+
+Noon.  And a half-cry from both of them, a burst of energy which soon
+faded.  For above was Crestline--even as the little Croatian settlement
+had been--smokeless, lifeless.  They had gone from here also, hurrying
+humans fleeing with the last snowplow before the tempest, beings afraid
+to remain, once the lines of communication were broken.  But there was
+nothing to do but go on.
+
+Roofless houses met them, stacks of crumpled snow, where the beams had
+cracked beneath the weight of high piled drifts; staring, glassless
+windows and rooms filled with white; stoves that no longer fought the
+clasp of winter but huddled instead amid piles of snow; that was all.
+Crestline had fled; there was no life, no sound, only the angry,
+wailing cry of the wind through half-frozen roof spouts, the slap of
+clattering boards, loosened by the storm.  Gloomily Houston surveyed
+the desolate picture, at last to turn to the girl.
+
+"I must go on.  I gave my promise."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"It means Tollifer now.  The descent is more dangerous."
+
+"Do you know it?"
+
+"Not as well as the other.  If I only had something to guide me."
+
+And as if in answer, the storm lifted for a moment.  Gradually the wind
+stilled, in one of those stretches of calm which seem to be only the
+breeding spots of more terror, more bitterness.  But they gave no heed
+to that, nor to the red ball of the sun, faintly visible through the
+clouds.  Far below, miles in reality, straight jets of steam rose high
+above black, curling smoke; faintly, distantly, whistles sounded.  The
+snowplows!
+
+He gripped her arm with the sight of it, nor did she resist.  Thrilled,
+enthralled, they watched it: the whirling smoke, the shooting steam,
+the white spray which indicated the grinding, churning progress of the
+plows, propelled by the heavy engines behind.  Words came from the
+swollen lips of Houston, but the voice was hoarse, strained, unnatural:
+
+"They've started the fight!  They've--"
+
+"It's on the second grade, up from Tollifer.  It's fairly easy there,
+you know, for ten or twelve miles.  They're making that without
+difficulty--their work won't come until they strike the snowsheds at
+Crystal Lake.  Oh--" and there was in the voice all the yearning, the
+anxiety that a pent-up soul could know--"I wish I were a man now!  I
+wish I were a man--to help!"
+
+"I hope--" and Houston said it without thought of bravado--"that I may
+have the strength for both of us.  I'm a man--after a sort.  I'm going
+to work with them."
+
+"But--"
+
+He knew what she meant and shook his head.
+
+"No--she does not need me.  My presence would mean nothing to her.  I
+can't tell you why.  My place--is down there."
+
+For an instant Medaine Robinette looked at him with frankly questioning
+eyes, eyes which told that a thought was beginning to form somewhere
+back in her brain, a question arising as to his guilt in at least one
+of the things which circumstances had arrayed against him.  Some way
+Barry felt that she knew that a man willing to encounter the dangers of
+a snowy range would hurry again to the side of the woman for whom he
+had dared them, unless--  But suddenly she was speaking, as though to
+divert her thoughts.
+
+"We'll have about three hours--from the looks of the sky.  Unless
+conditions change quickly, there'll not be another blow before night.
+It's our chance.  We'd better cut this cord--the one in the lead may
+fall and pull the other one over.  We had better make haste."
+
+Houston stepped before her.  A moment later they were edging their way
+down the declivity of what once had been a railroad track, at last to
+veer.  The drifts from the mountain side had become too sharp; it was
+easier to accept the more precipitous and shorter journey, straight
+downward, the nearest cut toward those welcome spires of smoke.
+
+Gradually the snow shook or was melted from their clothing, through
+sheer bodily warmth.  Black dots they became,--dots which appeared late
+in the afternoon to the laboring crews of the snow-fighters far below;
+dots which appeared and disappeared, edging their way about beetling
+precipices, plunging forward, then stopping; pulling themselves out of
+the heavier drifts, where drops of ten and even twenty feet had thrown
+them; swinging and tacking; scrambling downward in long, almost running
+descents, then crawling slowly along the ice walls, while the jutting
+peaks about them seemed to close them in, seemed to threaten and seek
+to engulf them in their pitfalls, only to break from them at last and
+allow them once more to resume their journey.
+
+Breaks and stops, falls and plunges into drift after drift; through the
+glasses the workers below could see that a man was in the lead, with
+something strapped to his back, which the woman in the rear adjusted
+now and then, when it became partially displaced by the plunging
+journey.  Banks of snow cut them off; snowshoes sank in air
+pockets--holes made by protruding limbs of the short, gnarled trees of
+timber line,--and through these the man fought in short, spasmodic
+lunges, breaking the way for the woman who came behind, never stopping
+except to gather strength for a fresh attack, never ceasing for
+obstacle or for danger.  Once, at the edge of an overhanging ledge, he
+scrambled furiously, failed and fell,--to drop in a drift far below, to
+crawl painfully back to the waiting dot above, and to guide her, by
+safer paths, on downward.  Hours!  The dots grew larger.  The glasses
+no longer were needed.  On they came, stumbling, reeling, at last to
+stagger across the frozen, wind-swept surface of a small lake and
+toward the bunk cars of the snow crews.  The woman wavered and fell; he
+caught her.  Then double-weighted, a pack on his back, a form in his
+arms, he came on, his blood-red eyes searching almost sightlessly the
+faces of the waiting, stolid, grease-smeared men, his thick voice
+drooling over bloody lips:
+
+"Somebody take her--get her into the bunk cars.  She's given out.
+I'm--  I'm all right.  Take care of her.  I've got to go on--to
+Tollifer!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+It was night when Barry Houston limped, muscles cramped and
+frost-numbed, into the little undertaking shop at Tollifer and
+deposited his tiny burden.  Medaine Robinette had remained behind in
+the rough care of the snow crews, while he, revived by steaming coffee
+and hot food, had been brought down on a smaller snowplow, running
+constantly, and without extra power, between Tollifer and "the front",
+that the lines of communication be kept open.
+
+"Nameless," he said with an effort, when the lengthy details of
+certification were asked.  "The mother--" and a necessary lie came to
+his lips--"became unconscious before she could tell me anything except
+that the baby had been baptized and called Helena.  She wanted a
+priest."
+
+"I'll look after it.  There's clothing?"
+
+"Yes.  In the pack.  But wait--where does the Father live?"
+
+The man pointed the way.  Houston went on--to a repetition of his story
+and a fulfillment of his duties.  Then, from far up the mountain side,
+there came the churning, grinding sound of the snowplow, and he hurried
+toward the station house to greet it.  There on a spur, in the faint
+glow of an electric light, a short train was side-tracked, engineless,
+waiting until the time should come when the road again would be
+open, and the way over the Pass free.  One glance told him what
+it was: the tarpaulin-covered, snow-shielded, bulky forms of his
+machinery,--machinery that he now felt he could personally aid to its
+destination.  For there was work ahead.  Midnight found him in a shack
+buried in snow and reached only by a circuitous tunnel, a shack where
+men--no longer Americans, but black-smeared, red-eyed, doddering,
+stumbling human machines--came and went, their frost-caked Mackinaws
+steaming as they clustered about the red-hot stove, their faces smudged
+with engine grease to form a coating against the stinging blast of the
+ice-laden wind, their cheeks raw and bleeding, their mouths swollen
+orifices which parted only for mumblings; vikings of another age, the
+fighters of the ice gangs, of which Houston had become a part.
+
+The floor was their bed; silently, speaking only for the purpose of
+curses, they gulped the food that was passed out to them, taking the
+steaming coffee straight down in spite of its burning clutch at tender
+membranes, gnawing and tearing at their meal like beasts at the kill,
+then, still wadded in their clothing, sinking to the floor--and to
+sleep.  The air was rancid with the odor of wet, steaming clothing.
+Men crawled over one another, then dropped to the first open spot, to
+flounder there a moment, then roar in snoring sleep.  Against the wall
+a bearded giant half leaned, half lay, one tooth touching the ragged
+lips and breaking the filmy skin, while the blood dripped, slow drop
+after slow drop, upon his black, tousled beard.  But he did not wake.
+
+Of them all, only Houston, tired even as they were tired, yet with
+something that they had forgotten, a brain, remained open-eyed.  What
+had become of Medaine?  Had she recovered?  Had she too gone to
+Tollifer, perhaps on a later trip of the plow?  The thoughts ran
+through his head like the repetition of some weird refrain.  He sought
+sleep in vain.  From far away came the whistles of locomotives,
+answering the signals of the snowplows ahead.  Outside some one
+shouted, as though calling to him; again he remembered the bulky cars
+of machinery at Tollifer.  It was partially, at least, his battle they
+were fighting out there, while he remained inactive.  He rose and
+sought the door, fumbling aimlessly in his pockets for his gloves.
+Something tinkled on the floor as he brought them forth, and he bent to
+pick up the little crucifix with its twisted, tangled chain, forgotten
+at Tollifer.  Dully, hazily, he stared at it with his red eyes, with
+the faint feeling of a duty neglected.  Then:
+
+"She only said they might want it," he mumbled.  "I'm sorry--I should
+have remembered.  I'm always failing--at something."
+
+Then, dully anxious to do his part, to take his place in the fighting
+line, he replaced the tiny bit of gold in his pocket, and threading his
+way through the circuitous tunnel of snow, stepped forth into the night.
+
+It was one of those brief spaces of starlight between storms, and the
+crews were making the most of it.  The wind had ceased temporarily,
+allowing every possible workman to be pulled from the ordinary task of
+keeping the tracks clear of the "pick-ups" of the wind, blowing the
+snow down from the drifts of the hill, and to be concentrated upon the
+primary task of many,--the clearing of the packed sittings which filled
+the first snowshed.
+
+Atop the oblong shed, swept clear by the wind, a light was signalling,
+telling the progress of the plow, and its consequent engines, within.
+Even from the distance, Barry could hear the surge of the terrific
+impact, as the rotary, pushed by the four tremendous "compounds" and
+Malletts which formed its additional motive power, smashed against the
+tight-jammed contents of the shed, snarled and tore at its enemy, then,
+beaten at last by the crusted ice of the rails, came grudgingly back,
+that the ice crews, with their axes and bars, might break the
+crystallization from the rails and give traction for another assault.
+Houston started forward, only to stop.  A figure in the dim light of
+the cook car had caught his eye.  Medaine Robinette.
+
+She was helping with the preparation of the midnight meal for the
+laborers, hurrying from the steaming cauldrons to the benches and
+baskets, filling the big pots with coffee, arranging the tin cups in
+their stacks for the various crews, and doing something that Houston
+knew was of more value than anything else,--bringing a smile to the
+tired men who labored beside her.  And this in spite of the fact that
+the black rings of fatigue were about her eyes, that the pretty,
+smoothly rounded features had the suggestion of drawnness, that the
+lips, when they ceased to move, settled into the slightest bit of a
+droop.  Now and then she stopped by one of the tables and clung to it,
+as though for support,--only to perk her head with a sudden little
+motion of determination, to turn, and then with a laugh go on with her
+work.  Presently he heard her singing above the clatter of kitchenware
+and the scuffling of the men with their heavy, hobnailed shoes.  And he
+knew that it was a song of the lips, not of the heart, that she might
+lighten the burden of others in forgetfulness of self.
+
+And as he watched her, Houston knew for all time that he loved her,
+that he wanted her above all things, in spite of what she had been led
+to believe of him, in spite of everything.  His hands extended, as
+though to reach toward her,--the aching appeal of a lonely, harassed
+man, striving for a thing he could not touch.  Then hope surged in his
+heart.
+
+If the woman back there in the west country only would tell!  If she
+would only keep the promise which she had given him in her
+half-delirium!  It meant the world to Barry Houston now,--something far
+greater even than the success for which he had struggled; she could
+tell so much!
+
+For Houston felt that Agnes Jierdon knew the details of practically
+every conspiracy that had been fashioned against him; the substitution
+of the lease and contract in the pile of technical papers which he had
+signed, the false story which she had told to Medaine,--suddenly Barry
+wondered if she really had passed the scene of his struggle with Tom
+Langdon, if she had seen anything at all; if her whole testimony had
+not been a manufactured thing, built merely for the purpose of
+obtaining his utmost confidence.  If she only would tell!  If she only
+would stay by her promise to a man who had kept his promise to her!
+If--
+
+But a call had come from up the line.  The whistles no longer were
+tooting; instead, they were blowing with long foghorn blasts, an eerie
+sound in the cold, crisp night,--a sound of foreboding, of danger.  A
+dim figure made its appearance, running along the box cars, at last to
+sight Houston and come toward him.
+
+"Which car does the engine crews sleep in?" came sharply.
+
+Houston shook his head.
+
+"I don't know.  Has something gone wrong?"
+
+"Plenty.  Both the firemen on Number Six have went out from gas--in the
+snowshed.  We've picked up a guy out of an ice gang that's willin' to
+stand th' gaff, but we need another one.  Guess there ain't nothin' to
+do but wake up one of th' day crew.  Hate t' do it, though--they're all
+in."
+
+"Don't, then.  I'll make a try at it."
+
+"Know anything about firin' an engine?"
+
+"I know enough to shovel coal--and I've got a strong pair of shoulders."
+
+"Come on, then."
+
+Houston followed the figure toward the snowshed on the hill.  Ten
+minutes later he stood beside a great Mallet engine, a sleek,
+glistening grayhound of the mountains, taking from the superintendent
+the instructions that would enable him to assist, at least, in the
+propulsion of the motive power.  At the narrow areaway between the
+track and the high wall of the straightaway drifts through which the
+plow had cut, four men were lifting a limp figure, to carry it to the
+cars.  The superintendent growled.
+
+"You payin' attention to me--or that guy they're cartin' off?  When you
+get in them gas pockets, stick your nose in the hollow of your elbow
+and keep it there 'till you've got your breath again.  There ain't no
+fresh air in that there shed; the minute these engines get inside and
+start throwin' on the juice, it fills up with smoke.  That's what gets
+you.  Hold your nose in your arm while you take your breath.  Then, if
+you've got to shovel, keep your mouth and your lungs shut.  Got me?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then go to it.  Hey, Andy!"
+
+"Yeh."  A voice had come from the engine cab.
+
+"Here's a guy that'll swing a shovel.  I've told him about the gas."
+
+Barry climbed to his place on the engine.  A whistle sounded, to be
+echoed and reechoed by the answering blasts of the snowplow train--four
+engines and the big auger itself--ready now for a fresh sally into the
+shed.  Headlights, extinguished momentarily, were thrown on again,
+lighting up the dirty, ragged edges of the snow walls, with their black
+marks of engine soot; throwing into sharp relief the smudge-faced
+figures of the pick-and-axe crews just emerging from the black maw of
+the tunnel; playing upon the smooth, white outlines of the forbidding
+mountains yet beyond, mountains which still must be conquered ere the
+top of the world was reached.  Ahead came the "high-ball" signal from
+the plow; two sharp blasts, to be repeated by the first, the second,
+the third and fourth of the engines.  Then, throttles open, fire boxes
+throwing their red, spluttering glare against the black sky as firemen
+leaped to their task, the great mass of machinery moved forward.
+
+Faster--faster--then the impact, like crashing into a stone wall.  They
+were within the snowshed now, the auger boring and tearing and snarling
+like some savage, vengeful thing against the solid mass of frigidity
+which faced it.  Inch by inch for eight feet it progressed; the offal
+of the big blades flying past in the glare of the headlights like
+swirling rainbows; then progress ceased, while the plow ahead, answered
+by the engines which backed it, shrilled the triple signal to back up,
+out into the air again, that the ice crews might hurry to their tasks.
+The engineer opened the cab window and gratefully sucked in the fresh,
+clean air.
+
+"Eight feet--that's all," he mused.  "Eight feet at a time."  Then,
+noticing Houston's attention, he went on:
+
+"It's all the big screw can make.  Got a hood on the front, you know,
+protecting the blades.  It's eight feet from the front of that hood to
+the first trucks.  When it's scooped that out, it's the finish.  The
+wheels hit ice, and it's either back out or get derailed.  So we back.
+Huh!  There she goes again.  Keep your nose in your elbow, youngster,
+this time.  We're goin' back pretty sudden.  We'll get gas."
+
+The screaming of the whistles faded, giving way to the lurching of
+steel monsters as they once more crawled within the blackness of the
+smoke-filled, snow-choked shed.  Deeper they went and deeper, the
+shouts from without fading away, the hot, penetrating sulphur smoke
+seeping in even through the closed cab, blackening it until the
+electric lights were nothing more than faint pinpoints, sending the
+faces of the men to their arms, while the two crouched, waiting
+anxiously until the signal should come from ahead.
+
+A long, long moment, while the smoke cut deeper into protesting lungs,
+in spite of every effort to evade it, while Old Andy on the engine seat
+twisted and writhed with the agony of fading breath, at last to reel
+from his position and stumble about in the throes of suffocation.  At
+last, from ahead, came the welcome signal, the three long-drawn-out
+blasts, and the engineer waved an arm.
+
+"Pull that rope!" he gasped toward the first fireman.  "For God's sake,
+pull that rope!  I'm about gone."
+
+A fumbling hand reached up and missed; the light was nearly gone now,
+in a swirling cloud of venomous smoke.  Again the old engineer
+stumbled, and Houston, leaping to his side, supported him.
+
+"Find that rope--"
+
+"I can't see!  The smoke--"
+
+Desperately Houston released the engineer and climbed upward, groping.
+Something touched his hand, and he jerked at it.  A blast
+sounded--repeated twice more.  In the rear the signal was answered.
+Out ground the train to freedom again.  It was the beginning of a night
+of an Arctic hell.
+
+Back and forth--back and forth--fresh air and foul air--gleaming
+lights, then dense blackness--so the hours passed.  Sally after sally
+the snowplow made, only to withdraw to give way to the pick crews, and
+they in turn, gasping and reeling, hurried out for the attack of the
+plow again.  Men fell grovelling, only to be dragged into the open air
+and resuscitated, then sent once more into the cruelty of the fight.
+The hours dragged by like stricken things.  Then--with dawn--the plow
+churned with lesser impact.  It surged forward.  Gray light broke
+through at the end of the tunnel.  The grip of at least one snowshed
+was broken; but there remained twenty more--and the Death Trail--beyond!
+
+"That's the baby I'm afraid of!"  Old Andy was talking as they went
+toward the cars, the relief day crew passing them on the way.  "We can
+whip these sheds.  But that there Death Trail--there's a million tons
+of snow above it!  Once that there vibration loosens it up--we'd better
+not be underneath it."
+
+Houston did not answer.  The clutch of forty-eight hours of wakeful
+activity was upon him.  The words of Old Andy were only so much of a
+meaningless jumble to him.  Into the car he stumbled, a doddering,
+red-eyed thing, to drink his coffee as the rest drank it, to shamble to
+the stove, forgetful of the steaming, rancid air, then like some tired
+beast, sink to the floor in exhausted, dreamless sleep.
+
+Hours he remained there, while the day crew carried the fight on
+upward, through three of the smaller snowsheds, at last to halt at the
+long, curved affair which shielded the jutting edge of Mount Taluchen.
+Then Houston stirred; some one had caught him by the shoulder and was
+shaking him gently.  A voice was calling, and Houston stirred, dazedly
+obedient to its command.
+
+"I hate to awaken you--"  It was a woman; her tones compassionate,
+gentle.  "But they're whistling for the night crew.  They've still got
+you on the list for firing."
+
+Houston opened his eyes and forced a smile.
+
+"That's all right.  Thanks--thanks for waking me."
+
+Then he rose and went forth into the agonies of the night,--willing,
+eager, almost happy.  A few words from a woman had given him strength,
+had wiped out fatigue and aching muscles, and cramped, lifeless
+limbs,--a few words from a woman he loved, Medaine Robinette.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+It was a repetition of the first night,--the same churning of the
+plows, the same smaller machines working along the right of way to keep
+the rails clear of drifting snow and ice particles, the wind howling
+again and carrying the offal of the plows in gigantic spouts of dirty
+white high into the air, to lash and pulverize it, then swish it away
+to the icy valleys beneath, where drifts could do no harm, where there
+were no struggling crews and dogged, half-dead men.
+
+A repetition of the foul-smelling wooden tunnels, the sulphur fumes,
+the gasping of stricken men.  The same long, horrible hours, the same
+staggering release from labor and the welcome hardness of a sleeping
+spot on a wooden floor.  Night after night it was the same--starlight
+and snow, fair weather and storm.  Barry Houston had become a
+rough-bearded, tattered piece of human machinery like all the rest.
+Then, at last--
+
+The sun!  Shining faintly through the windows of the bunk car, it
+caused him to stir in his sleep.  Dropping in a flood of ruby red, it
+still reflected faint streaks of color across the sky, when at last he
+started forth to what men had mentioned but seldom, and then with fear.
+For to-night was the last night, the last either in the struggle or in
+the lives of those who had fought their way upward to the final
+barricade which yet separated them from the top of the world,--the
+Death Trail.
+
+Smooth and sleek it showed before Houston in the early moonlight, an
+icy Niagara, the snow piled high above the railroad tracks, extending
+upward against an almost sheer wall of granite, in stacks and drifts,
+banked in places to a depth of a hundred feet.  Already the plows were
+assembled,--four heavy steel monsters, with tremendous beams lashed in
+place and jutting upward, that they might break the overcasts and knock
+down the snow roofings that otherwise might form tunnels, breaking the
+way above as the tremendous fan of the plow would break it below.  This
+was to be the fight of fights, there in the moonlight.  Houston could
+see the engines breathing lazily behind their plows, sixteen great,
+steel contrivances, their burdens graduated in size from the tremendous
+auger at the fore to the lesser, almost diminutive one, by comparison,
+at the rear, designed to take the last of the offal from the track.
+For there would be no ice here; the drippings of the snowsheds, with
+their accompanying stalactites and stalagmites, were absent.  A quick
+shoot and a lucky one.  Otherwise,--the men who went forward to their
+engines would not speak of it.  But there was one who did.
+
+She was standing beside the cook car as Houston passed, and she looked
+toward him with a glance that caused Barry to stop and to wait, as
+though she had called to him.  Hesitatingly she came forward, and
+Houston's dulled mentality at last took cognizance that a hand was
+extended slightly.
+
+"You're still working on the engine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you'll be with them?"
+
+"On the Death Trail?  I expect to."
+
+"They talk of it as something terrible.  Why?"
+
+Houston pointed to the forbidding wall of snow.  His thick, broken lips
+mumbled in the longest speech he had known in days.
+
+"It's all granite up there.  The cut of the roadbed forms a base for
+the remainder of the snow.  It's practically all resting on the tracks;
+above, there's nothing for the snow to cling to.  When we cut out the
+foundation--they're afraid that the vibration will loosen the rest and
+start an avalanche.  It all depends whether it comes before--or after
+we've passed through."
+
+"And you are not afraid?"  She asked it almost childishly.  He shook
+his head.
+
+"I--don't know.  I guess every one is--a bit afraid, when they're going
+into trouble.  I know what I'm doing, if that's what you mean."
+
+She was silent for a long moment, looking up at the packed drifts, at
+the ragged outlines of the mountains against the moonlit sky, then into
+the valleys and the shimmering form of the round, icy lake, far below.
+Her lips moved, and Barry went closer.
+
+"Beg pardon?"
+
+"Nothing--only there are some things I can't understand.  It doesn't
+seem quite natural--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"That things could--"  Then she straightened and looked at him with
+clear, frank eyes.  "Mr. Houston," came quietly, "I've been thinking
+about something all day.  I have felt that I haven't been quite
+fair--that a man who has acted as you have acted since--since I met you
+this last time--that he deserves more of a chance than I have given
+him.  That--"
+
+"I'm asking nothing of you, Miss Robinette."
+
+"I know.  I am asking something of you.  I want to tell you that I have
+been hoping that you can some day furnish me the proof--that you spoke
+of once.  I--that's what I wanted to tell you," she ended quickly and
+extended her hand.  "Good-by.  I'll be praying for all of you up there."
+
+Houston answered only with a pressure of his hand.  His throat had
+closed suddenly.  His breath jerked into his lungs; his burning,
+wind-torn lips ached to touch the hand that had lingered for a moment
+in his.  He looked at her with eyes that spoke what his tongue could
+not say, then he went on,--a shambling, dead-tired man, even on awaking
+from sleep, but a man whose heart was beating with a new fervor.  She
+would be praying for all of them up there at the Trail.  And all of
+them included him.
+
+At the cab of the engine, he listened to the final instructions of the
+cursing, anxious superintendent, then went to his black work of the
+shovel.  Higher and higher mounted the steam on the gauge; theirs was
+the first plow, theirs the greatest task.  For if they did not go
+through, the others could not follow; if their attack were not swift
+enough, staunch enough, the slide that was sure to come sooner or later
+would carry with it mangled machinery and the torn forms of men into a
+chasm of death.  One by one the final orders came,--crisp, shouted,
+cursing commands, answered in kind.  Then the last query:
+
+"If there's a damn man of you who's a coward, step out!  Hear that?  If
+you're afraid--come on--there's no stopping once you start!"
+
+Engine after engine answered, in jeering, sarcastic tones, the
+belligerent cries of men hiding what pounded in their hearts, driving
+down by sheer will-power the primitive desires of self-preservation.
+Again was the call repeated.  Again was it answered by men who snarled,
+men who cursed that they might not pray.  And with it:
+
+"A-w-w-w-w--right!  Let 'er go!"
+
+The whistles screamed.  Up the grade, four engines to a plow, the jets
+of steam shrilling upward, coughing columns of smoke leaping blackly up
+the mountain side, the start was made, as the great, roaring mass of
+machinery gathered speed for the impact.
+
+A jarring crash that all but threw the men of the first crews from
+their feet, and the Death Trail had been met.  Then churning, snarling,
+roaring, the snow flying in cloud-like masses past them, the first plow
+bit its way deep into the tremendous mass, while sweating men, Barry
+Houston among them, crammed coal into the open, angry fire boxes, the
+sand streamed on greasy tracks,--and the cavalcade went on.
+
+A hundred yards,--the beams knocking down the snow above and all but
+covering the engines which forced their way through, only to leave as
+high a mass behind; while the whole mountain seemed to tremble; while
+the peaks above sent back roar for roar, and grim, determined men
+pulled harder than ever at the throttles and waited,--for the breath of
+night again, or the crash of the avalanche.
+
+A shout from Old Andy.  A pull at the whistle, screeching forth its
+note of victory.  From in front was it answered, then from the rear,
+and on and on, seemingly through an interminable distance, as moonlit
+night came again, as the lesser plows in the rear swept their way clear
+of the Death Trail and ground onward and upward.  But only for a
+moment.  Then, the blare of the whistles was drowned in a greater
+sound, a roar that reverberated through the hills like the bellow of a
+thousand thunders, the cracking and crashing of trees, the splintering
+of great rocks as the snows of the granite spires above the Death Trail
+loosed at last and crashed downward in an all-consuming rush of
+destruction.  Trees gave way before the constantly gathering mass of
+white, and joined in the downfall.  Great boulders, abutting rocks,
+slides of shale!  On it went, thundering toward the valley and the
+gleaming lake, at last to crash there; to send the ten-foot thicknesses
+of ice splintering like broken glass; to pyramid, to spray the whole
+nether world with ice and snow and scattering rock; then to settle, a
+jumbled conglomerate mass of destructiveness, robbed of its prey.
+
+And the men shouted, and screamed and beat at one another in their
+frenzy of happiness, in spite of the fact that the track had been torn
+away from behind them as though it never had existed, and that they now
+were cut off entirely from the rest of the world.  Only one snowshed
+remained, with but a feeble bulwark of drifts before it.  Already
+lights were gleaming down the back-stretch, engines were puffing
+upward, bearing ties and rails and ballast and abuttment materials, on
+toward the expected, with men ready to repair the damage as soon as it
+was done.  There were cries also from there below, the shouts of men
+who were glad even as the crews of the engines and plows were glad, and
+the engineers and firemen leaned from their cabs to answer.
+
+Still the whistles screamed; all through the night they screamed, as
+drift after drift yielded, as the eight-foot bite of the first giant
+auger gnawed and tore at the packed contents of the last shed atop
+Crestline; then roared and sang, while the hills sent back their
+outbursts with echoes that rolled, one into another, until at last the
+whole world was one terrific out-pouring of explosive sounds and
+shrill, shrieking blasts, as though the mountains were bellowing their
+anger, their remonstrance at defeat.  Eight feet, then eight feet more;
+steadily eight feet onward.  Nor did the men curse at the sulphur
+fumes, nor rail at the steel-blue ice.  It was the final fight; on the
+downgrade were lesser drifts, puny in comparison to what they had gone
+through, simple, easily defeated obstacles to the giant machinery,
+which would work then with gravity instead of against it.  Eight feet
+more--eight feet after that; they marked it off on the windows of the
+engine cabs with greasy fingers and counted the hours until success.
+Night faded.  Dawn came and then,--the sun!  Clear and brilliant with
+the promise of spring again and of melting snows.  The fight was the
+same as over.
+
+Sleep,--and men who laughed, even as they snored, laughed with the
+subconscious knowledge of success, while the bunk cars which sheltered
+them moved onward, up to the peak, then started down the range.  Night
+again,--and Houston once more in the engine cab.  But this time, the
+red glare of the fire-box did not show as often against the sky; the
+stops were less frequent for the ice packs; once the men even sang!
+
+Morning of the second day,--and again the sunshine, causing dripping
+streams from the long, laden branches of the pines and spruce, filling
+the streams bank-full, here and there cutting through the blanket of
+white to the dun-brown earth again.  Work over, Houston leaned out the
+door of the bunk car, drinking in the sunshine, warm for the first time
+in weeks, it seemed,--and warm in heart and spirit.  If she would only
+keep her promise!  If she would allow Medaine to see her!  If she would
+tell her the truth,--about the contract, the lease, and most of all
+that accusation.  If--
+
+The whistles again,--and crowded forms at the doors of the cars.
+Tabernacle was in the distance, while men and women waded through the
+soggy snows to be the first to reach the train.  Happiness gleamed on
+the features of the inhabitants of a beleagured land shut away from the
+world for weeks, men and women who saw no shame in the tears which
+streamed down their cheeks, and who sought not to hide them.  Eagerly
+Barry searched the thronging crowd, at last to catch sight of a
+gigantic figure, his wolf-dog beside him.  He leaped from the car even
+before it had ceased to move.
+
+"Ba'tiste!" he called.  "Ba'tiste!"
+
+Great arms opened wide.  A sob came from the throat of a giant.
+
+"_Mon_ Baree!  _Mon_ Baree!"  It was all he could say for a moment.
+Then, "_Mon_ Baree, he have come back to Ba'teese.  Ah, Golemar!  _Mon_
+Baree, he have come back, he have come back!"
+
+"We've won, Ba'tiste!  The line's open--they'll be running trains
+through before night.  And if she keeps her promise--"
+
+"She?"  Ba'tiste stared down at him.  They had drawn away from the rest
+of the excited, noisy throng.  "She?  You mean--"
+
+"Agnes.  You've been taking care of her, haven't you?  I found her--she
+promised that she would tell the truth for me when I got back, that she
+would explain the lease and contract and tell Medaine that it was all a
+lie.  She--"
+
+But Ba'tiste Renaud shook his head.
+
+"No, Baree.  Eet is the too late.  I have jus' come--from there.  I
+have close her eyes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+Dead!  Houston saw Medaine Robinette pass in the distance, and his eyes
+followed her until she had rounded the curve by the dead aspens,--the
+eyes of lost hope.  For it was upon life that he had planned and
+dreamed; that the woman of the lonely cabin would stand by her promise
+made in a time of stress and right at least some of the wrongs which
+had been his burden.  But now--
+
+"She--she didn't tell you anything before she went?"
+
+Ba'tiste shook his head.
+
+"She would not speak to me.  Nothing would, she tell me.  At first I go
+alone--then yesterday, when the snow, he pack, I take Golemar.  Then
+she is unconscious.  All day and night I stay beside the bed, but she
+do not open her eye.  Then, with the morning, she sigh, and peuff!  She
+is gone."
+
+"Without a word."  It spelled blackness for Houston where there had
+been light.  "I--I--suppose you've taken charge of everything."
+
+"_Oui_!  But I have look at nothing--if that is what you mean."
+
+"No--I just had something here that you ought to have," Houston fumbled
+in his pockets.  "She would want it around her neck, I feel sure, I
+when she is----."
+
+But the sudden glare in Ba'tiste's eyes stopped him as he brought forth
+the crucifix and its tangled chain.  The giant's hands raised.  His big
+lips twisted.  A lunge and he had come forward, savage, almost
+beast-like.
+
+"You!"  He bellowed.  "Where you get that?  Hear me, where you get
+that?"
+
+"From her.  She--"
+
+"Then come!  Come--quick with me!"  He almost dragged the younger man
+away, hurrying him toward the sled and its broad-backed old horses.
+"We must go to the cabin, _oui_--yes!  Hurry--"  Houston saw that he
+was trembling.  "Eet is the thing I look for--the thing I look for!"
+
+"Ba'tiste!  What do you mean?"
+
+"My Julienne," came hoarsely.  "Eet is my Julienne's!"
+
+Already they were in the sled, the wolf-dog perched between them, and
+hurrying along the mushy road, which followed the lesser raises of
+snow, taking advantage of every windbreak and avoiding the greater
+drifts of the highway itself.  Two miles they went, the horses urged to
+their greatest speed.  Then, with a leap, Ba'tiste cleared the runners
+and motioned to the man behind him.
+
+"Come with me!  Golemar!  You shall stay behind.  You shall fall in the
+drift--"  The old man was talking excitedly, almost childishly.  "No?
+Then come--Eet is your own self that must be careful.  Ba'teese, he
+cannot watch you.  Come!"
+
+At a run, he went forward, to thread his way through the pines, to
+flounder where the snow had not melted, to go waist-deep at times, but
+still to rush onward at a speed which taxed even Houston's younger
+strength to keep him in sight.  The wolf-dog buried itself in the snow,
+Houston pulling it forth time after time, and lugging it at long
+intervals.  Then at last came the little clearing,--and the cabin.
+Ba'tiste already was within.
+
+Houston avoided the figure on the bed as he entered and dropped beside
+the older man, already dragging forth the drawers of the bureau and
+pawing excitedly among the trinkets there.  He gasped and pulled forth
+a string of beads, holding them trembling to the light, and veering
+from his jumbled English to a stream of French.  Then a watch, a ring,
+and a locket with a curly strand of baby hair.  The giant sobbed.
+
+"My Pierre--eet was my Pierre!"
+
+"What's that?"  Houston had raised suddenly, was staring in the
+direction of an old commode in the corner.  At the door the wolf-dog
+sniffed and snarled.  Ba'tiste, bending among the lost trinkets that
+once had been his wife's, did not hear.  Houston grasped him by the
+shoulder and shook him excitedly.
+
+"Ba'tiste!  Ba'tiste!  There's some one hiding--over there in the
+corner.  I heard sounds--look at Golemar!"
+
+"Hiding?  No.  There is no one here--no one but Ba'tiste and his
+memories.  No one--"
+
+"I tell you I heard some one.  The commode moved.  I know!"
+
+He rose, only to suddenly veer and flatten himself against the wall.
+The yellow blaze of aimless revolver fire had spurted from the corner;
+then the plunging form of a gnarled, gangling, limping man, who rushed
+past Houston to the door, swerved there, and once more raised the
+revolver.  But he did not fire.
+
+A furry, snarling thing had leaped at him, knocking the revolver from
+his hand in its plunging ascent.  Then a cry,--a gurgling growl.  Teeth
+had clenched at the throat of the man; together they rolled through the
+door to the snow without, Golemar, his hold broken by the fall,
+striving again for the death clutch, the man screaming in sudden
+frantic fear.
+
+"Take him off!"  The voice of the thin-visaged Fred Thayer was shrill
+now.  "Take him off--I'll tell you about it--she did it--she did it!
+Take him off!"
+
+"Golemar!"  Ba'tiste had appeared in the doorway.  Below the dog
+whirled in obedience to his command and edged back, teeth still bared,
+eyes vigilant, waiting for the first movement of the man on the ground.
+Houston went forward and stood peering down at the frightened, huddled
+form of Thayer, wiping the blood from the fang wound in his neck.
+
+"You'll tell about what?" came with sudden incisiveness.
+
+The man stared, suddenly aware that he had spoken of a thing that had
+been mentioned by neither Ba'tiste nor Houston.  His lips worked
+crookedly.  He tried to smile, but it ended only in a misshapen snarl.
+
+"I thought you fellows were looking for something.  I--I--wanted to get
+the dog off."
+
+"We were.  We've found it.  Ba'tiste," and Houston forced back the
+tigerish form of the big French-Canadian.  "You walk in front of us.
+I'm--I'm afraid to trust you right now.  And don't turn back.  Do you
+promise?"
+
+The big hands worked convulsively.  The eyes took on a newer, fiercer
+glare.
+
+"He is the man, eh?  His conscience, eet speak when there is no one to
+ask the question.  He--"
+
+"Go on, Ba'tiste.  Please."  Houston's voice was that of a pleading
+son.  Once more the big muscles knotted, the arms churned; the giant's
+teeth showed between furled lips in a sudden beast-like expression.
+
+"Ba'tiste!  Do you want to add murder to murder?  This is out of our
+hands now; it's a matter of law.  Now, go ahead--for me."
+
+With an effort the Canadian obeyed, the wolf-dog trotting beside him,
+Houston following, one hand locked about the buckle of the thinner
+man's belt, the other half supporting him as he limped and reeled
+through the snow.
+
+"It's my hip--"  The man's mind had gone to trivial things.  "I
+sprained it--about ten days ago.  I'd been living over here with her up
+till the storm.  Then I had to be at camp.  I--"
+
+"That was your child, then?"
+
+Fred Thayer was silent.  Barry Houston repeated the question
+commandingly.  There could be no secrecy now; events had gone too far.
+For a third time the accusation came and the man beside him turned
+angrily.
+
+"Whose would you think it was?"
+
+Houston did not answer.  They stumbled on through the snow-drifted
+woods, finally to reach the open space leading to the sleigh.  Thayer
+drew back.
+
+"What's the use of taking me into town?" he begged.  "She's dead and
+gone; you can't harm her now."
+
+"We're not inquiring about her."
+
+"But she's the one that did it.  She told me--when she first got sick.
+Those are her things in there.  They're--"
+
+"Have I asked you about anything?"  Houston bit the words at him.
+Again the man was silent.  They reached the sled, and Ba'tiste pointed
+to the seat.
+
+"In there," he ordered.  "Ba'teese will walk.  Ba'teese afraid--too
+close."  And then, in silence, the trip to town was made, at last to
+draw up in front of the boarding house.  Houston called to a bystander.
+
+"Is the 'phone working--to Montview?"
+
+"Yeh.  Think it is.  Got it opened up yesterday."
+
+"Then call up over there and tell the sheriff we want him.  It has to
+do with the Renaud murder."
+
+The loafer sprang to the street and veered across, shouting the news as
+he went, while Ba'tiste made hurried arrangements regarding the silent
+form of the lonely cabin.  A few moments later, the makeshift
+boarding-house lobby was crowded, while Barry Houston, reverting to the
+bitter lessons he had learned during the days of his own
+cross-examinations, took his place in front of the accused man.
+
+"In the first place, Thayer," he commanded.  "You might as well know
+one thing.  You're caught.  The goods are on you.  You're going up if
+for nothing else than an attempt to murder Ba'tiste Renaud and myself."
+
+"I--I thought you were robbers."
+
+"You know that's a lie.  But that's a matter for the court room.  There
+are greater things.  In the first place--"
+
+"About that other--"  Still he clung to his one shred of a story, his
+only possibility of hope.  Conscience had prompted the first outcry;
+now there was nothing to do but follow the lead.  "I don't know
+anything.  She told me--that's all.  And she's dead now."
+
+"Ah, _oui_!"  Ba'tiste had edged forward.  "She is dead.  And because
+she is dead--because she have suffer and die, you would lay to her door
+murder!  Eet is the lie!  Where then is the ten thousand dollar she
+took--if she kill my Julienne?  Eh?  Where is the gun with which she
+shot her?  Ah, you cringe!  For why you do that--for why do you not
+look at Ba'teese when he talk about his Julienne!  Eh?  Is eet that you
+are afraid?  Is eet that your teeth are on your tongue, to keep eet
+from the truth?  _Oui_!  You are the man--you are the man!"
+
+"I don't know anything about it.  She told me she did it--that those
+were Mrs. Renaud's things."
+
+"Ah!  Then you have nev' see that ring, which my Julienne, she wore on
+her finger.  Ah, no?  You have nev' see, in all the time that you come
+to Ba'teese house, the string of bead about her neck.  _Oui_!  Eet is
+the lie, you tell.  You have see them--eet is the lie!"
+
+And thus the battle progressed, the old man storming, the frowning,
+sullen captive in the chair replying in monosyllables, or refusing to
+answer at all.  An hour passed, while Tabernacle crowded the little
+lobby and overflowed to the street.  One by one Ba'tiste brought forth
+the trinkets and laid them before the thin-faced man.  He forced them
+into his hands.  He demanded that he explain why he had said nothing of
+their presence in the lonely cabin, when he had known them, every one,
+from having seen them time after time in the home of Renaud.  The
+afternoon grew old.  The sheriff arrived,--and still the contest went
+on.  Then, with a sudden shifting of the head, a sudden break of
+reserve, Thayer leaned forward and rubbed his gnarled hands, one
+against the other.
+
+"All right!" he snapped.  "Have it your way.  No use in trying to lay
+it on the woman--you could prove an alibi for her.  You're right.  I
+killed them both."
+
+"Both?"  They stared at him.  Thayer nodded, still looking at the
+floor, his tongue licking suddenly dry lips.
+
+"Yeh, both of 'em.  One brought on the other.  Mrs. Renaud and John
+Corbin--they called him Tom Langdon back East."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+It was staggering in its unexpectedness.  A gasp came from the lips of
+Barry Houston.  He felt himself reeling,--only to suddenly straighten,
+as though a crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders.  He
+whirled excitedly and grasped the nearest onlooker.
+
+"Go get Medaine Robinette.  Hurry!  Tell her that it is of the utmost
+importance--that I have found the proof.  She'll understand."
+
+Then, struggling to reassure himself, he turned again to the prisoner.
+Two hours later, in the last glint of day, the door opened, and a woman
+came to his side, where he was finishing the last of many closely
+written sheets of paper.  He looked up at her, boyishly, happily.
+Without waiting for her permission, he grasped her hand, and then, as
+though eager for her to hear, he turned to the worn-faced man, now
+slumped dejectedly in his chair.
+
+"You understand, Thayer, that this is your written confession?"
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"Given in the presence of the sheriff, of Ba'tiste Renaud, of myself,
+and the various citizens of Tabernacle that you see here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of your own free will, without threats or violence?"
+
+"I guess so."
+
+"And you are willing to sign it?"
+
+The man hesitated.  Then:
+
+"I'd want to know what I was signing."
+
+"Certainly.  I intend to read it to you--so that all witnesses may hear
+it.  It is then to be filed with the district attorney.  You can
+signify its correctness or incorrectness after every paragraph.  Is
+that agreeable?"
+
+"I guess so."
+
+A pause.  At last:
+
+"'My name is Fred Thayer.  I am forty-four years of age.  Prior to
+about a year ago, I was employed by the Empire Lake Mill and Lumber
+Company as superintendent.  I had occupied this position for some
+fifteen or twenty years, beginning with it when it was first started by
+Mr. Houston of Boston.'  Is that right?"
+
+A nod from the accused.  Houston went on:
+
+"'I figured from the first that I was going to be taken in partnership
+with Mr. Houston, although nothing ever was said about it.  I just took
+it for granted.  However, when years passed and, nothing was done about
+it, I began to force matters, by letting the mill run down, knowing
+that Mr. Houston was getting old, and that he might be willing to sell
+out to me if things got bad enough.  At that time, I didn't know where
+I was going to get the money, but hoped that Mr. Houston would let me
+have the mill and acreage on some sort of a payment basis.  I went back
+to see him about it a couple of times, but he wouldn't listen to me.
+He said that he wanted to either close the thing out for cash or keep
+on running it in the hope of making something of it.'  That's all
+right, isn't it, Thayer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"'I tried two or three times to get him to sell out to me, but we
+couldn't get together on the terms.  He always wanted cash, and I
+couldn't furnish it--although I pretended that I had the money all
+right, but that I simply did not want to tie it all up at once.  About
+this time--I think it was three or four years ago; I am not exactly
+clear on the dates--a nephew of his named Thomas Langdon came out here,
+under the name of John Corbin.  He had been a black sheep and was now
+wandering about the country, doing anything that he could set his hand
+to for a living.  I had known him since boyhood and gave him a job
+under his assumed name.  He pretended that he was very close to Mr.
+Houston, and I thought maybe he could help me get the plant.  But his
+word was not worth as much as mine.'  Have I taken that down correctly,
+Thayer?"
+
+"Yes.  Except about Langdon.  He told me when he came here that his
+uncle had sent him out to straighten him up.  But I don't guess it
+makes much difference."
+
+Houston, nevertheless, made the changes, glancing up once to assure
+himself that Medaine still was there.  She had not left his side.  He
+went on with the reading:
+
+"'By this time, the mill had gotten to be a sort of mania with me, and
+I almost had myself believing that Houston had promised me more than he
+had given me.  Then, a woman came out here, an Agnes Jierdon, a
+stenographer, on her vacation.  I met her and learned that she was from
+Boston.'"  A slight pressure exerted itself on Houston's arm.  He
+glanced down to see Medaine Robinette's hand, clasped tight.  "'She
+spent nearly the whole summer here, and I made love to her.  I asked
+her to marry me, and she told me that she would.  She was really very
+much in love with me.  I didn't care about her--I was working for a
+purpose.  I wanted to use her--to get her in Houston's office.  I
+wanted to find out what was going on, so that I would know in advance,
+and so that I could prepare for it by having breakage at the mill, to
+stop contracts and run things farther down than ever, so the old man
+would get disgusted and sell out at my terms.  I knew there would be a
+mint of money for me if I could get hold of that mill.  At the end of
+her vacation, she went back to Boston and got a job with Houston, as an
+office clerk.  Almost the first thing that she wrote me was that the
+old man was thinking about selling out to some concern back East.'"
+
+Houston looked toward the accused man for his confirmation, then
+continued.
+
+"'While she had been out here, I had told her that Houston had promised
+to take me into partnership and that he had gone back on his word.  I
+put it up to her pretty strong about how I had been tricked into
+working for him for years, and she was sympathetic with me, of course,
+inasmuch as she was in love with me.  Naturally, when she heard this,
+she wrote me right away.  It made me desperate.  Then I thought of
+Ba'tiste Renaud.'"
+
+"Ah!"  The word was accompanied by a sharp intake of breath as the big
+French-Canadian moved closer to hear again the story of a murder.  But
+the sheriff motioned him back.  The emotions of the old trapper were
+not to be trusted.  The recital went on:
+
+"'Everybody around this country had always talked about how rich he
+was.  There was a saying that he didn't believe in banks and that he
+kept more than a hundred thousand dollars in his little cabin.  At this
+time, both he and his son were away at war, and I thought I could steal
+this money, place it in other hands, and then work things so that if I
+did get hold of the mill, people around here would merely think I had
+borrowed the money and bought the mill with it.  By this time, a cousin
+of Miss Jierdon's, a fellow named Jenkins, had gotten a job with
+Houston and was working with her, and of course, I was hearing
+everything that went on.  It looked like the deal was going through,
+and it forced me to action.  One night I watched Mrs. Renaud and saw
+her leave the house.  I thought she was going to town.  Instead, after
+I'd gotten into the cabin, she came back, surprising me.  There wasn't
+anything else to do.  I killed her, with a revolver.'"
+
+"_Diable_!"
+
+"Easy, Ba'tiste.  That's the way you gave it to me, isn't it, Thayer?"
+
+"Yes.  I shot twice at her.  The first bullet missed."
+
+Again the door of the tiny lobby opened and closed, and a form edged
+forward,--Blackburn, summoned from his mill.  Thayer glanced at him,
+then lowered his eyes.  Houston made the additional notation on the
+confession and went back to his reading:
+
+"'When I found the deed box, there was only ten thousand dollars in it
+instead of the fortune that I had supposed was there.  I was about to
+take it out and stuff it into my pocket, when I heard a noise outside
+the window.  Thinking it was Renaud's wolf-dog, and that he might give
+the alarm, I pushed the box under my coat and ran out the back door.
+The next day, Corbin--or Langdon--came to me and demanded his share of
+what I had stolen.  He said that he had seen me at the deed box after I
+had killed the woman, that he had made the noise outside the window.  I
+put him off--denying it all.  But it wasn't any use.  At first he
+threatened that he would go to the sheriff at Montview, and for several
+days he came to me, telling me that this was the last chance that he
+would give me if I didn't let him have his share.  I played him for
+time.  Then he began to beg small amounts of money from me, promising
+to keep still if I gave them to him.  I guess this kept up for two or
+three months, the amounts getting larger all the time.  At last, I
+wouldn't stand it any longer.  He threatened me again,--and then,
+suddenly, one day disappeared.  I hurried to Montview, thinking of
+course that he had gone there, hoping to catch him on the way.  But no
+one had seen him.  Then I went to Tabernacle and learned that he had
+bought a ticket for Boston, and that he had left on a morning train.  I
+knew what was up then; he was going back to tell Old Man Houston and
+try to step into my shoes when I was arrested.  But I beat him there by
+going over the range in an automobile, and taking an earlier train for
+Boston.  I picked him up when he arrived and trailed him to young
+Houston's office.  After that I saw them go to a cafe, and from there
+to a prize fight.  I bought a ticket and watched them from the rear of
+the hall.  I had my gun with me--I had made up my mind to kill them
+both.  I thought Langdon had told.  After the fight, they started out,
+myself in the rear.  Young Houston had gotten a mallet from the
+timekeeper.  On the way home, I could hear them talking, and heard
+Houston asking Langdon why he wanted to see the old man.  By that I
+knew that it hadn't been told yet--and I felt safer.  Then they got in
+a quarrel, and my chance came.  It was over the mallet--Langdon took it
+away from his cousin and started to fight him.  Houston ran.  When he
+was well out of sight, I went forward.  No one was near.  Langdon still
+had the mallet in his hand.  I crept up behind him and clubbed my
+revolver, hitting him on the head with it.  He fell--dead--and I knew I
+was safe, that Houston would be accused.'"
+
+Barry looked earnestly at the man before him.
+
+"That's all true, isn't it, Thayer?"
+
+"I haven't made any objection, have I?" came surlily.
+
+"I merely wanted to be sure.  But to go on: 'Then I thought of a way to
+get what I wanted from Miss Jierdon.  This was several months
+afterward, just before the trial.  I argued that I was sure young
+Houston hadn't committed the murder, and that if some woman could
+testify to the fact that Langdon had that mallet, it might free
+Houston, and make a hit with the old man and that maybe he would make
+good on his promises.  I did it pretty skilfully and she listened to
+me, largely, I guess, because she was in love with me.  Anyway, it
+ended with her testifying at the trial in a sort of negative way.  I
+didn't care about that--it was something else I wanted.  Later after
+the old man had died, I used it.  I wanted her to switch some papers on
+young Mr. Houston for me, and she bucked against it.  Then I told her
+that she had done worse things, that she had perjured herself, and that
+unless she stayed by me, she could be sent to the penitentiary.  Of
+course, I didn't tell her in those exact words--I did it more in the
+way of making a criminal out of her already, so that the thing she was
+going to do wouldn't seem as bad to her.  I wasn't foolish enough to
+threaten her.  Besides, I told her that the mill should have been
+rightfully mine, that the old man had lied to me and gotten me to work
+for him for years at starvation wages, on promises that it would be
+mine some time, and that he had neither taken me in partnership, nor
+left it to me in the will.  She got her cousin to help her in the
+transfer of the papers; it was a lease and stumpage contract.  He
+affixed a notary seal to it.  The thing was illegitimate, of course.
+Shortly after that, young Houston came out here again, and I got her to
+come too.  I wanted to see what he was up to.  He fired me, and while
+he was in Denver, and Renaud away from the mill, I got Miss Jierdon and
+took her for a walk, while one of the other men kept watch for the cook
+who was asleep.  But she didn't wake up.  On the way back, Miss Jierdon
+saw that the mill was burning, and I directed her suspicion toward
+Renaud.  She accused him, and it brought about a little quarrel between
+Miss Jierdon and young Houston.  I had forced her, by devious ways, to
+pretend that she was in love with him--keeping that perjury thing
+hanging over her all the time and constantly harping on how, even
+though he was a nice young fellow, he was robbing us both of something
+that was rightfully ours.  All this time, I had dodged marrying her,
+promising that I would do it when the mill was mine.  In the meantime,
+with the lease and contract in my hands, I had hooked up with this man
+here, Blackburn, and he had started a mill for me.  I guess Miss
+Jierdon had gotten to thinking a little of Houston, after all, because
+when I forced her to the final thing of telling some lies about him to
+a young woman, she did it, but went away mad at me and threatening
+never to see me again.  But a little while later, she came back.  Our
+relations, while she had been at the Houston camp, hadn't been exactly
+what they should have been.  Miss Jierdon is dead--she had stayed in a
+little cabin in the woods.  I had lived with her there.  About ten days
+ago, the baby died, while I was laid up at camp with a sprained hip.
+To-day I went there to find her dead, and while I was there, Renaud and
+young Houston caught me.  This is all I know.  I make this statement of
+my own free will, without coercion, and I swear it to be the truth, the
+whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.'"
+
+The little lobby milled and buzzed, drowning the scratching of the pen
+as a trembling man signed the confession, page by page.  Then came the
+clink of handcuffs.  A moment later two figures had departed in the
+dusk,--the sheriff and Fred Thayer, bound for the jail at Montview.
+Houston straightened, to find a short, bulky form before him, Henry
+Blackburn.
+
+"Well?" questioned that person.  "I guess it's up to me.  I--I haven't
+got much chance against that."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Simply this," and the bulky Blackburn drew a nervous, sweating hand
+across his brow.  "I ain't above dealing with crooks, I'll admit that.
+I've done a few things in my life that haven't been any too straight,
+or any too noble, and when Thayer came to me with this contract and
+lease, I didn't ask any questions.  My lawyer said it was O. K.  That
+was enough for me.  But somehow or other, I kind of draw the line at
+murder.  I'm in your hands, Houston.  I've got a mill up there that
+I've put a lot of money in.  It ain't worth the powder to blow it up
+now--to me, anyway.  But with you, it's different.  If you want to make
+me a fair offer, say the word, and I'll go more than half-way.  What
+say?"
+
+"Is to-morrow time enough?"
+
+"To-morrow--or the next day--or the next week.  Suits me.  I'm in your
+hands."
+
+Then he went on, leaving only three figures in the lobby,--the bent,
+silent form of Ba'tiste Renaud, grave, but rewarded at last in his
+faithful search; the radiant-eyed Houston, free with a freedom that he
+hardly believed could exist; and a girl who walked to the window and
+stood looking out a moment before she turned to him.  Then impetuously
+she faced him, her eyes searching his, her hands tight clasped, her
+whole being one of supplication.
+
+"I'm sorry," she begged.  "Can you--will you forgive me?"
+
+Boyishly Barry Houston reached forward and drew away a strand of hair
+that had strayed from place, a spirit of venture in his manner, a
+buoyant tone in his voice.
+
+"Say it again.  I like it!"
+
+"But I am--don't you believe me?"
+
+"Of course.  But then--I--I--"  Then he caught her hands.  "Will you go
+with me while I telegraph?" he asked in sudden earnestness.  "I want to
+wire--to the papers back in Boston and tell them that I've been
+vindicated.  Will you--?"
+
+"I'd be glad to."
+
+They went out the door together, Houston beaming happily downward, the
+girl close beside him, her arm in his.  And it was then that the
+features of Ba'tiste Renaud lost their gravity and sorrow.  He looked
+after them, his eyes soft and contented.  Then his big hands parted
+slowly.  His lips broke into a smile of radiant happiness.
+
+
+And it was with the same glad light in his eyes that three months later
+Ba'tiste Renaud stood on the shores of Empire Lake, his wolf-dog beside
+him, looking out over the rippling sheen of the water.  The snow was
+gone from the hills now; the colors were again radiant, the blues and
+purples and greens and reds vying, it seemed, with one another, in a
+constantly recurring contest of beauty.  Afar off, logs were sliding in
+swift succession down the skidways, to lose themselves in the waters,
+then to bob along toward the current that would carry them to the
+flume.  The jays cried and quarreled in the aspens; in a little bay, an
+old beaver made his first sally of the evening, and by angry slaps of
+his tail warned the rest of the colony that humans were near.
+Distantly, from down the bubbling stream which led from the lake, there
+sounded the snarl of giant saws and the hum of machinery, where, in two
+great mills, the logs traveled into a manufactured state through a
+smooth-working process that led from "jacker" to "kicker", thence to
+the platforms and the shotgun carriages; into the mad rush of the bank
+saws, while the rumbling rolls caught the offal to cart it away; then
+surging on, to the edgers and trimmers and kilns.  Great trucks rumbled
+along the roadways.  Faintly a locomotive whistled, as the switch
+engine from Tabernacle clanked to the mills for the make-up of its
+daily stub-train of lumber cars.  But the attention of Ba'tiste Renaud
+was on none of these.  Out in a safe portion of the lake was a boat,
+and within it sat two persons, a man and a woman, their rods flashing
+as they made their casts, now drawing slowly backward for another whip
+of the fly, now bending with the swift leap of a captive trout.  And he
+watched them with the eyes of a father looking upon children who have
+fulfilled his every hope, children deeply, greatly beloved.
+
+As for the man and the woman, they laughed and glanced at each other as
+they cast, or shouted and shrilled with the excitement of the leaping
+trout as the fly caught fair and the struggle of the rod and reel
+began, to end with another flopping form in the creel, another delicacy
+for the table at camp.  But at last the girl leaned back, and her fly
+trailed disregarded in the water.
+
+"Barry," she asked, "what day's to-morrow?"
+
+"Wednesday," he said, and cast again in the direction of a dead,
+jutting tree, the home of more than one three-pounder.  She pouted.
+
+"Of course it's Wednesday.  But what else?"
+
+"I don't know.  Let me see.  Twentieth, isn't it?"
+
+This time her rod flipped in mock anger.
+
+"Barry," she commanded.  "What day is tomorrow?"
+
+He looked at her blankly.
+
+"I give it up," came after deep thought.  "What day is to-morrow?"
+
+She pressed tight her lips, striving bravely for sternness.  But in
+vain.  An upward curve made its appearance at the corners.  The blue
+eyes twinkled.  She laughed.
+
+"Foolish!" she chided.  "I might have expected you to forget.  It's our
+first monthiversary!"
+
+
+
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