Chapter III: Part 3

"But," she answered, "his father is a devout Catholic. The priest is making an acolyte of Mose." She sank back, helplessly, into her place. "I--I suppose it's impossible for him to grasp everything"--she was thinking of Laramie and the globe--"at once."

Her sister leaned towards Kingsley. A sudden apprehension rose in her great, dark eyes, and her voice, in emotion, dropped to contralto notes. "I wish you would give up that idea of trying for the summit," she said.

He laughed again, tossing his fine head. "Oh, don't bother, Louise; I shall be safe enough with Stratton along. He never takes a risk."

Stratton smiled and adjusted the rolled blankets to his back, leaning on them comfortably. "The Captain's right," he said. "He knows me. I always ask myself first, 'Is it safe?' And then, 'Is it worth while?'"

The teacher looked at him a searching moment and arched her brows. Then she reached and lifted her sister's guitar from the end of the log. Her fingers trailed briefly over the strings and settled in a thread of tune. She repeated the accompaniment, singing softly, inviting Kingsley's tenor.

"She shone in the light of declining day,
Each sail was set, and each heart was gay."

And presently the other man hummed an undernote, but Louise was silent. She had changed her position a little, clasping her hands loosely around her knee, with her face slightly lifted and turned to the darkening wood. It was the face of a dreamer, rapt, sensitive, who peopled the shadows, and to whom the many voices of the night tuned in unbroken symphony.

In the interlude Kingsley turned to her. "Where is your voice, Louise? We need the contralto."

She started and looked at him, smiling. It was then she resembled Alice. The expression was there and the charm; but softened, finer, as the painting of a master may be reproduced in pastel.

Her voice was beautiful. She took up the song, subduing her notes to her sister's lighter compass, but the music, that had been simply pleasing, assumed, suddenly, the touch and finish of grand opera.

For the white squall rides on the surg-ing wave, And the
bark is gulph'd in an o-cean's grave, For the
white squall rides on the surg-ing wave, And the
bark is gulph'd in an o-cean's grave, in an
o-cean's grave, in an o - - ocan's grave.

*CHAPTER VII*

*THE INSTRUMENT OF TYEE SAHGALEE*

The summer day breaks early in the Puget Sound country. It was not yet four by Stratton's watch when he stepped from his tent and stood analyzing the weather, but all the sky overhead was changing to yellow, and directly, while he looked, to streaks of flame. The heights, towering a thousand feet on the opposite side of the gorge, were burnished copper, and Rainier, walling the top of the canyon, warmed to amethyst and rose. Its crest, at an altitude of nearly fifteen thousand feet, was hardly seven miles distant.

But the great forest that hemmed in the small open where the camp was pitched, still gloomed in shadow, and the air was sharp with the breath of near glacier and snowfield. Stratton saw that Mose had left his blanket, gone already to bring up the horses, and the close report of a gun told that Kingsley was off in search of the early bird. Then Samantha came from the other tent and stirred the smouldering fire. She added a dry hemlock bough, watching the roused flames fasten on the resinous wood.

"Good morning, Psyche," he said.

She lifted her glance, nodding. She had a mouth like a Cupid's bow and the short upper lip twitched with enforced gravity before the shaft sped. "Ef you hed er wife, I 'low she'd get er new name 'bout every day, an' mebbe twicet. Land, it 'ud keep her busy rememberin' who she was."

She tucked her sleeves up from her tapering arms, and kneeling, dipped them deep in a bubbling pool. Stratton laughed softly, enjoying her, and lifting his bag, crossed the open seeking a warm spring, which, screened in a network of young cedars, afforded a morning plunge. All along the valley iron and soda deposits discolored the earth, and mineral water, hot or sharply cold, sparkled in crystal basins.

An hour later the little cavalcade formed in line, with Kingsley leading on his big white horse, followed by Samantha, whose clear piping voice rose in alternate upbraiding or admonition, for she rode the indifferent Ginger. Mose, mounting Yelm Jim's piebald pony, crowded the cayuse with the two pack animals; then came Louise and the teacher, while Stratton closed the rear.

The trail became more and more precipitous, switch-backing across the face of a spur, taking the edge of a cliff, breaking into sharp pitches to a rushing ford. Trunks, logs, netlike boughs, shelving rock crowded close. The head of the Nisqually and its glacier were not far off. Then finally they turned up its beautiful tributary, the Paradise. Over the stream Eagle Peak, the first of the Tatoosh Mountains, lifted a tremendous front, and boulders, hurled from it, blocked the limpid current, creating innumerable cascades. The air was flooded with drifting spray, and the wet, luxuriant earth, reflecting the sun, filled the gorge with playing color.

At last Alice drew rein near the brink fronting a great cataract. Stratton dismounted and went to tighten her horse's girth. "Are you a little afraid?" he asked.

"Afraid? Of the trail? Oh, no. I love it; it's my element. And Colonel can go anywhere. He picks his way through bogs, pits, better than I could, and he runs straight up these rocky stairs. I have only to cling on," and she laughed.

"Well, you can trust him." Stratton's glance moved from her horse to his own mount and back to the black. "Sir Donald has found his match. But, how was it that Forrest gave up his horse?"

"He hasn't. I am only keeping Colonel for him, while he is at Freeport."

"I see," said Stratton slowly, "I see. I hope if the time comes when I must part with Sir Donald, I can leave him in the same hands."

At this she swept him with a swift, critical look, ruffling her brows. "I have known Paul Forrest all my life," she said, and turned her eyes again to the cataract.

"I understand." He smiled a little, both nettled and amused. "Before I can venture to ask a favor of you, you must know and like me better than you do now."

She flashed him another look, tilting her chin. "I like you as well as I could like any American with _un_-American ways."

For an instant he betrayed his surprise, then, "Well, thank you," he said; "I appreciate your frankness; and perhaps you are right. My mother was more a French woman than an American; she was a Creole of the Mississippi. And my grandfather, on the other side, was a factor of the Hudson Bay Company. My father, I suppose, passed over with New Georgia into the hands of the United States. After all, it is hard for most any American to tell in just what generation he began. But I admit I have lived close to the border, Miss Hunter, often on the other side. In fact I haven't always been able to determine the line."

"And I," she answered, with a gathering storm in her eyes, "I have lived all of my life close to the boundary, but in a different way. The best patriot is he who fights for his home while he defends his country, and the sun for my family rose and set in 'Fifty-four, forty or fight.' We know the line; we never crossed to the other side. My grandfather died with Marcus Whitman."

She spoke then to her horse, starting him briskly. Stratton vaulted into his saddle. "You touch-me-not!" he said under his breath. "You touch-me-not!"

Far ahead Samantha approached a second cataract. It was a perilous place, for the trail, skirting a precipice, rose from a bog in rocky and winding stairs worn smooth and slippery by continuous spray.

Kingsley's horse cleared the morass; his iron shoes struck fire from the shelving granite and he set himself to the steps. His master looked back. "Make him leap," he shouted to Samantha, and while he spoke was carried beyond a turn.

But Ginger delayed. He snuffed the ooze with disfavor. The girl jerked his muzzle high. "Heft yourself, Ginger," she shrilled, and cut him sharply on the flank. "Now, now, Ginger, get up."

And against belief, Ginger gathered himself, but the effort fell short. His forefeet grappled the rock and he sank back floundering in the ooze. The trained pack horses halted, and Mose threw himself from his pony and pushed swiftly around the bog, through underbrush, to Ginger's head. But Samantha had already slipped from her saddle, and worked herself free of the struggling horse. She moved back coolly from the abyss and emerged from the mudhole, dripping, but unhurt.

She drew a full breath and looked about her. Stratton, who had arrival, grasped the situation and drew in his horse, humorously regarding her. "Ain't I a sight?" she asked.

"Yes, Aphrodite, you are. You are a vision to haunt a man's dreams."

"I jedge you're 'bout right." She paused and the imps danced in her eyes. "But I 'low it 'ud be er turrible nightmare."

She reached and broke a low branch of hemlock, with which she began hastily to brush the mud from her skirt. Beyond the bog, Mose, who had extricated the unfortunate pony, urged him up the granite stair. His flanks were slippery with ooze. "My stars," she said, "I'm glad Mill didn't kem this trip. I'd never hear ther last of it. He'd run er joke ter death."

The ax was brought, and the bog was hurriedly bridged with corduroy for the remaining horses. Then finally they trailed out of the heavy timber into the parks of Paradise. A succession of emerald slopes opened before them, broken by clumps of amabilis fir and mountain hemlock; where a higher top rose out of a shapely mass it became a cathedral spire. Sometimes the way wound through an area of blooming heliotrope or asters; banks of gorgeous snapdragon or flaming Indian paintbrush gave color, like landscape gardening, to whole hillsides. Then behind them, pinnacle on pinnacle, closed the Tatoosh Range; a last sharp ascent and they were on that small and lofty Plateau, at an altitude of five thousand feet, since called The Camp of Clouds, with the splendor of the great summit almost overhead.

The tents were pitched; horses picketed. It was hardly mid-afternoon. "By this time tomorrow," said Kingsley, "if this weather stays with us, we shall have made and I hope passed Gibraltar."

Stratton, lounging on a blanket, looked up to the black cliff, which, rising sheer fifteen hundred feet, stood like a mighty fortress against the whiteness of the dome. "I hope so," he answered, "but, Captain, I never saw anything look so tremendously like work."

Louise rested on a grassy knob, her hands clasped loosely on her knee, inspiration in her lifted face. She hardly heard her husband's remark, or the other man's reply, but Alice started from her place beside her. "Phil," she said, "take me with you. You can't understand what it means to me, to be so near, to see the summit shining there, and go no farther. I'm very strong, Phil, and clear-headed. I'm not afraid of things. I--oh, you don't understand, but the mountain seems to beckon."

Kingsley walked a restless turn. "I do understand," he said. "I feel it myself. But we don't know what we are going through, and we can't be sure of the weather an hour ahead; clouds are manufactured right here at a moment's notice. But wait, don't tease, and we'll compromise. I'm going off now to reconnoiter. I believe the most feasible start is from that ridge across this valley of the Paradise, but I want to be sure. There'll be no time to waste in doubling back for fresh starts to-morrow. And Mose has been up that way; he says, with care, we can use the horses as far as the old snow. A glacier cuts in there, probably the source of the Cowlitz, and he thinks we should be able to reach it in a couple of hours. I'll take you that far--to the glacier."

At this Mose started from his recumbent position on the earth. He threw out his arms in protest. "No, no, Mees," he said. "It ees bes' you doan' go dare. Sacre, no."

"I'm not afraid," she answered smiling, "and if I'm a trouble I'll turn back. I promise."

"You doan' be some tro'ble, Mees," he said quickly. "No, no, it ees dat Tyee Sahgalee ees goin' be mad. Mebbe he ees mek dis mountain burn an' break an' fall down. Monjee, monjee, Mees, you can' ride quick 'nough away."

She laughed, shaking her head. "I don't believe that, Mose," she said, "and you won't, after we have been there. Tyee Sahgalee don't care how many of us go creeping up there, any more than we care about the ants and spiders that crawl to the cabin door."

"You mean it is you who don't care," said Stratton. "You are ready to take the risks, whatever they are. And if you are determined to go on braving Providence, or Tyee Sahgalee, or whoever it is, the rest of the day, I'm going to join the expedition; that is, unless Mrs. Kingsley is afraid to stay here alone with Samantha."

"Oh," answered Louise, at last awake to the situation, "I want you to go."

"I thought so," and he smiled. "I've proved something of a mascot on occasion, and I'll look after the Captain."

The horses were brought and presently they were trailing away up the pathless slopes in the wake of the piebald pony; fording countless streams, leaping them, sinking in pitfalls through treacherous banks of bloom. When, switchbacking up a lofty rise, Alice ventured to look down, all the colored breadth of Paradise park unfolded like a map, and the dome gathered majesty at every turn. They gained a shoulder, rounded a curve, and before them stretched the levels of a plateau carpeted with snow. Then, as they moved across this field, mountain on mountain opened, shading to blue distance. Through a gap, out of a woolly cloud, shone the opal crown of Adams, and presently, far off St. Helens rose like a floating berg on an uptossed sea.

They dismounted at the foot of a knob flanked by loose rock. The red stain of old snow was under their feet and beyond the spur shone the clean, blue-green edge of the glacier. "We are higher than the treeline, now," said Philip, "and above the clouds."

She drew a breath of delight, lifting her glance to the near dome. "And it looks as though we could reach the summit in fifteen or twenty minutes. Oh, Phil, come, let's go."

Kingsley laughed. "We haven't climbed nine thousand feet; the hardest third of the ascent is above us. Don't you remember, the only two men who ever made that summit were half a day in just passing Gibraltar. We may find it no longer passable."

While his look rested on the grim fortress a thin cloud rose like smoke from its base. It covered the cliff swiftly and trailed across the dome. "Out of nothing, without notice," and he shook his head; "that's what I've heard."

He turned. Stratton was busy searching for a safe hitching-place for his horse; he never stood well. But Mose had stepped nearer Kingsley. The boy's shoulders were inclined forward, and his eyes, in that instant, were those of a crouching animal about to spring.

"Well, Mose," he said carelessly, "your Tyee Sahgalee is hiding his face. I suppose you think we've come far enough. But we'll show him."

He moved on with Alice up the knob, and Stratton joined them. But presently Mose stalked by leading the way to the glacier. His face had the gray look of fear, but his lips were set in the thin line that gave him an older, sinister touch, the shadow of cruelty.

He moved swiftly and surely. He did not once look back. He gave no direction or warning. They followed, slipping and stumbling through the moraine, and gaining the ragged brow of the knob, found themselves suddenly on the brink of a mighty precipice. Far, far down, the infant Cowlitz sprang into life and struggled out between stupendous columns and needles. Locked in the opposite pinnacled cliffs shone the sheer, blue-seamed front of the glacier, and the throes that gave the river birth resounded through the gorge.

Stratton uncoiled the spare lariat he carried, and taking an end, with Philip closing, and the girl between, drew slowly along the rim. Mose, curving far ahead, came out on the slippery incline of the glacier. Finally he stopped under a great upheaval of ice, and resting against a block, waited, with his back turned to them and his face lifted to the clouding dome.

Behind them another cloud formed over the Tatoosh Mountains, driving fast to meet the advancing column from Gibraltar; and, in a little while, when they had come out on the ice, and made slow headway up the tilting surface from the abyss, mist lifted swiftly, flooding, giving immensity to the darkening gorge. Kingsley walked a trifle in advance of Alice, with Stratton abreast of him. Suddenly Mose's tracks, on a recent light snowfall which had offered foothold, swerved, and both men stopped. They were on the brink of a narrow, deep, incredibly deep, crevasse.

Alice moved back, shivering. She looked, a mute question trembling on her lips, at Mose. But he continued to stand, oblivious, with his eyes fixed, expectantly, on the clouding dome.

"See here," called Philip, "see here; next time you let us know." Then his glance returned to the crevasse. "Reminds me of a tremendous white watermelon," he said, "with just one thin, clean slice gone."

"Yes?" questioned Stratton, smiling, "it strikes me differently. I thought right away of some curious metal, with just enough taken, by some nice process, to shape a gigantic blade."

"A blade, yes," said Alice, "for the hand of Tyee Sahgalee."

Stratton's eyes met hers amusedly. He wondered if she was capable of superstition. "Even then," he said, "it is only a surface impression, lost the moment you look down. It's an ice-crevasse; nothing else." He turned to Kingsley, who was already studying the glacier ahead. "Of course this will not delay us to-morrow, Captain, but it is time, now, to turn back."

"In a moment. There's a streak on there that bothers me. Looks like a more serious break. I want to see it at closer range. Wait here; I won't be fifteen minutes."

He moved back impetuously, and, giving himself short headway, took the crevasse in a leap. Showers of loosened ice clinked down from the rim. Most of the particles struck the sides that closed in twenty feet below, and rebounding, dropped again and sent back faint echoes from the last level of the abyss.

Stratton stood watching Philip up the glacier, but presently, Alice drew away from the crevasse and turned to look back down the gorge. The sun no longer shone. All that brilliant vista of opal peak and amethyst spur, shading to blue distance, was curtained in closing sheets of mist. There a great crag loomed an instant and was gone. Here an uptossed pile of ice-blocks flashed a sudden prismatic light and grew dim. Then they themselves were wrapped in a noiseless, drenching cloud.

At the same moment she was startled by Stratton's brief note of surprise and felt behind her a sudden jar. She turned. Mose was hurled sprawling at her feet, and, clutching her skirt, was up instantly, panting, with quivering nostril, eyes ablaze. Then, in the recoil, Stratton reeled on the brink of the crevasse, recovered, stumbled on breaking crust, and went down.

She stood for an interminable moment, waiting, listening, numbed, body and mind. Then she was conscious that Mose was going, and she went after him a few steps, calling his name. But his receding shape drifted faster and faster, a fading shadow in the mist. She turned back, lifting her voice in a great cry to Philip. And she was answered from the abyss.

She dropped to her knees and crept close to look down. Stratton was there, where the pale, green walls narrowed. He rested wedgelike, caught at the armpits. He looked up and saw her. "Be careful," he said, "I am all right."

Instantly the executive in her rose. "I have the lariat," she said.

"Fasten it to the ice where Mose stood," he called. "I can work along that far."

He remembered that the rope was new and strong, one he himself had selected as a reserve in picketing his own spirited horse. The question was whether the ice would take his weight. He worked carefully, laboriously along by shoulder and elbow, his body swinging from the waist, starting a rain of ice at every move. At last, where the wall crumbled, leaving a ledge, he was able to draw himself to his knees. He cut foothold with his knife, and other niches higher up for his hands, and pulled himself erect on the slippery shelf.

Beyond him the chasm widened between sheer walls, and it was in this shaft that the lowered rope hung. It swung for a moment, like a failing pendulum, and each oscillation, though he stood alert, missed his reach a little more. The girl, peering into the abyss, understood, and again disappeared. The line was drawn up, and presently it dropped almost at his shoulder. He caught the end and, looking up, met her eyes over the rim. "That's better," he said.

"Wait--one moment," she called and was gone once more. She did not return this time, but her voice came to him, "Now, now, all ready."

The lariat tightened. It creaked, ground on the edge of the chasm; ice chips fell ceaselessly. He swung out. He was a big fellow, heavy. Would the support hold? Would Mose, his fury cooled, be neutral? Why, yes, surely the boy was even setting himself to ease the strain. He could feel an unmistakable give and pull above on the rope, as he climbed, hand over hand.

He gained the top. He reached a palm around a slight pinnacle, for a final grasp on the line, and pulled himself slowly out on the surface of the glacier. He was a strong man, physically, a man of steady nerve, one accustomed to take risks with Nature, as in those times a man of the Northwest must, but what he saw, in that brief pause, sent a shiver through him. He closed his eyes like one brought suddenly into intense light.

The rope was fastened, as he had directed, to a thick column in the upheaval, but it stretched diagonally to the projection on the brink of the crevasse. And it was Alice, not Mose, who steadied it, throwing her weight on it, twisting it on her hands, digging her heels in a shallow cleft, straining back to ease the pressure on the knob. Suppose the support had given way; suppose he had dragged her--this brave girl, all life, charm, loveliness--down to destruction. It was horrible to think of. Horrible.

Seeing him safe, she relaxed her hold and drew back, making way for him. She breathed deeply, her chest heaving, and a moisture not of the cloud clung to her lip, her brow in drops.

He pulled himself together and got to his feet. He did not speak to her, then; he could not. But he put his hand to his mouth and lifted his voice in a great hail. Kingsley responded, but his "Hello," came faintly, through billows of mist. The calls were repeated. "We cannot wait," Stratton said. "We must follow that rascal's tracks down, while they last, to the horses."

"What made Mose do it?" she asked. "Oh, what made him?"

"Why, just Indian, I suppose; or say he was an instrument, self-appointed, of his Tyee Sahgalee. But he shall be punished." He closed his lips over the word, and a heat, like the flash of a blade, leaped in his eyes. But when he took her hands to help her to her feet the look changed. The light returned, yet softened, steady, and currents of tenderness, long pent in the man, surged to his face. Her palms were bruised, cut, cruelly. He lifted them, one, and then the other, swiftly, very gently, to his lips. "You did this--for me," he said. "You could do it--for me."

"Of course," she answered quickly, and drew the hands away, "I must have done my best for anyone--for Mose, if things had been reversed. But, if I hadn't been able, Phil would have come back in time; no doubt he could have seen a better way."

She met his look briefly, but long enough for him to fathom the clear depths of her eyes; and suddenly, before her dauntless white spirit, his own soul, for the first time, shrank. It was as though another unsounded abyss yawned between them, that the exigency of this hour could not bridge.

They hurried on then, groping and slipping down the glacier, taking Mose's trail. Sometimes they stopped while Stratton renewed his shout, waiting always for Kingsley's answer, and they knew when he had crossed the crevasse in safety, and that he followed on to the gorge.

They made the rocky knob and finally, out of obscurity, she caught Colonel's familiar neigh. The call shrilled again, inquiring, peremptory. But when they came to the end of the moraine where they had left the horses, they found them gone.

The neigh was repeated once more, coming back faintly, from far across the snowfield. "Mr. Stratton," she cried, "what has happened? Where is Mose going?"

"Over the mountains to the Palouse plains, I haven't a doubt," and the blade flashed again in his eyes. "It's the first thing a halfbreed does, and they always drive stolen horses over there; it is impossible to find them among those big, feeding bands of the Yakimas. He will stampede the rest in the valley, and Yelm Jim will probably meet him somewhere below the springs and help him take them through the Pass."

She stood for a moment with her head high, lips set, looking with storming eyes into the mist. Then, "There isn't any time to waste," she said. "We must take him this side of the springs." And she began to trail the horses on across the snow.

"I wish there was a chance of it," said Stratton, "but you will only spend yourself uselessly. You are miserably tired now. The horses will make the down grade to the springs very fast, and you must see that the trail through the timber, afoot, is simply impossible at night. We should bury ourselves in one of those mudholes or plunge over some cliff. We could never make the fords."

But she hurried on. There fell a long silence. It grew rapidly colder; the winds freshened, tearing the cloud-wrack, driving it this way and that, bringing the ragged ends together in bursts of hail or flurries of snow. The girl's drenched skirts hampered her, still she pressed resolutely on. Once she said, "An accident somewhere might delay the band." And Stratton caught at the hope. He told her Mose would probably try to mount Sir Donald, the fleetest horse, and that he had some unexpected tricks. He was as full of coquetry as--well--a pretty woman, though as easily managed, if a man knew him.

It was twilight and they were descending the final pitch into the park when Kingsley at last overtook them. The camp-fire, which Samantha had kindled with infinite difficulty on the plateau, burned like a beacon in the gloom. "You should have seen that second crevasse," he said. "It was tremendous. No way over, no way around; I tramped both directions to see. We've simply got to choose another route, to-morrow. But what became of the horses?"

"Mose took them." It was Alice who answered. "He took Colonel. But I shall find him. I've got to find him if I have to walk every step of the way over the mountains and through the Palouse. You know how much Paul thinks of his horse, Philip. Oh, I can never face him; I can never tell him--the truth."

She started on uncertainly, stumbled, and fell. Stratton lifted her, and carried her a few steps over a rough place. "You mustn't trouble so much," he said gently, "We are going to find that black if it takes a year. Yes, we are and punish that Klickitat."

*CHAPTER VIII*

*"I'M GOING TO MAKE HIM WHITE"*

The night was terrible. The wind became a gale. It assailed the tents; in the near hemlock grove it wrenched off great boughs; it lifted lighter brands from the fire and scattered them broadcast. There was a constant watch, which Samantha shared, to drag aside and beat out dangerous embers. The fire was enclosed in a circular windbreak of rocks, and other stones were brought to pin down the bellying canvas and ballast the working stakes. Up the mountain clouds clashed in thunder; the plateau was pelted by swift and furious storms of hail.

The final watch fell to Stratton. The wind was piercing and for warmth he tramped the earth. Once he stopped to lift a fresh log on the fire, and, drawing himself erect, his eyes rested on the women's tent. "She must be sleeping," he told himself. "I hope so; she was so unhappy about that black. That is her way--to take things hard--pleasure or sorrow. Jove, how she could love a man. But--she would hold him to his best, always, in every common move of every day." He shrugged his shoulders and swung on his heel to look out into the darkness of the valley. It was so dense that the flame-illumined plateau seemed to rim an abyss. "That was it--the reason I went so nearly to pieces for that minute, there on the glacier. I felt the Puritan in her all at once demanding the best in me. And there was no best; there never can be." He tramped another interval. "But," he said at last, and the steel flashed again in his eyes, "there is not a man living I am afraid to face; and if I ever loved a woman--or thought I did--sooner or later she was glad to have me tell her so. I never have failed to get what I wanted, all my life, and I am going to want--_her_."

At daybreak it was snowing on the plateau. He roused Kingsley. "Captain," he cried, shaking the sleeper, "Captain, wake up; we must hurry."

Philip rose, stretching himself, stiffly, and drew aside the tent-fly. "It doesn't look much like the summit to-day," he said.

"Summit?" repeated Stratton with disgust, "summit? What we have to think of, is the quickest way to get these women out of this."

A gust of wind rushed through the aperture, past Kingsley, and filled the tent. It lifted the canvas, balloon-wise, scattering the ballast, up-pulling the stakes, and carried it far afield. It led the men a chase, but they secured it and struggled with it back to the plateau. Truly it was not a day for mountain-tops.

Camp was broken hurriedly, each of the men taking the necessary shoulder pack, and leaving the bulk of the outfit to be sent for when they should find horses. They pushed quickly down from the snow, which became rain in the woods. And Alice led the way. She studied the trail continually, separating the tracks of the ponies, where they struck the path down the valley, from the deeper, water-filled impressions of the American horses. She set Stratton a pace, and kept it almost to the ford of the Paradise. Then suddenly she stopped an instant, listening, and ran on along the bank to an old log foot-crossing. There on the end of the bridge, sheltered by a trailing cedar, were her bridle and saddle; and picketed on a grassy knoll under some alders she saw the black.

"Oh," she said, and took his head in her arms, "you beauty! You heart's desire! But I knew--I knew Mose couldn't take you; I knew it."

Stratton stood for a moment watching her. "So," he said, "so the rascal was white enough to leave your horse. He brought him this far with the others to avoid pursuit last night."

Alice looked off a thoughtful moment, through the dripping trees. "I knew his white conscience would get to upbraiding him," she said. "But I can't help feeling glad he chose Colonel for the compromise."

Stratton laughed. "I hope it will upbraid him some more," he said, "and induce him to leave my horse."

She would not mount, but waited for Louise to take the black. She herself was not tired, and she moved lightly up the log, pausing fearlessly, mid-channel, to watch Colonel feel his steps through the ford and leading him up the bank and on some distance, until she was assured he would carry her sister quietly. The rain fell with renewed downpour, but she walked unmindful of boughs that drenched her shoulders, and dripping skirts that weighted her limbs. Delight shone in her eyes; whole face seemed to reflect some far illumination. She had recovered Forrest's horse; the day was faultless.

But at last she was in the saddle and descending to the ford of the Nisqually. The cloud-wrack was breaking then, and shafts of sunlight struck the wet, green earth. Stratton walked a trifle in advance, looking for a safe crossing over the rising channels. Suddenly he stopped, and the black also halted, tossing his mane and shrilling his ready, challenging neigh. There, moving out of the stream, up the opposite bank, was a riderless horse. It was Sir Donald.

Stratton whistled, a soft, imperative note. The chestnut wheeled. The man repeated the call, and the horse trotted gently back into the channel. He halted once more on a gravel bar, his head high, ears alert, then came on across to his master.

"So," said Stratton, slowly, "So, Donald, you showed the rascal your little trick. You see, Miss Hunter, it was as I thought. Mose chose the best horse. But he never mounted him. In his hurry he laid his hand on the bit, and Sir Donald never allows that; he was trained that way."

With this he vaulted into the saddle and led the way over from bar to bar. He returned bringing the black, and while the others made the crossing Alice waited, seating herself on a rock in the sun, and lifting her face to the upper canyon. Presently the clouds parted like a rent veil on the mountain. Once more Gibraltar menaced and the summit shone in splendor.

"After all," she said, when Stratton rejoined her, "I can't blame Mose for that belief. I felt it myself, for a moment, there on the glacier. It was the steps of the Great White Throne. You can't understand."

"No," he replied, "No, you are right, I cannot. I am outside the circle."

He bent and offered his hand to mount her on his horse, her sister having kept the black, and she sprang lightly up. "Then," she said, while he adjusted a stirrup, "you see no excuse for Mose?"

"No," and his face hardened, "No, I only see the half-breed threw me into that crevasse. He took me off guard. And he left us miles from anywhere, on that unknown mountain, in a storm, without horses. His motives do not count."

Sir Donald started, trailing after the black. The little company filed slowly down to the mineral springs. And there, in the open, unpicketed, ready for the long trail, they found the other horses quietly feeding in company with Ginger and the pack animals.

While Samantha made a fire and prepared the coffee the two men caught and picketed the herd, reserving the few horses necessary for a hurried trip back to the plateau for the outfit. And it was Alice, who, going for a drink from her favorite well, discovered Mose. He was lying semi-conscious on the wet earth, and over his black brows, branded with the tip of an iron shoe, Sir Donald had set his mark.

The teacher dipped her handkerchief in the basin and bathed the hurt. She went to ask Stratton's flask of him, and mixed the boy a draught, and, a little later, when the young man followed her to the spring, he found Mose able to recognize him. He stood a silent moment watching him with hard eyes, and the boy met the look steadily; his muscles stiffened as they had that day at school, when he braced himself to Laramie's blow. Stratton's lip curled in disgust. After all, he could not punish the fellow, down, helpless like that. He swung on his heel.

"Wait," said Alice, "it was just as you thought. The scheme to steal the horses was Yelm Jim's; he was to meet him at the branch to the Pass and help drive them over the mountains to the Palouse plains. But he meant to leave Colonel; he only brought him as far as the Paradise to avoid being overtaken. And that trouble at the crevasse was unpremeditated. He was terribly frightened by the gathering storm. He believed it was a judgment coming on us all, and he took the opportunity to--use you--for a propitiation. Afterwards, in the night, he crept back up the valley far enough to see the camp-fire, and you, safe--and keeping watch on the plateau."

There was another brief silence. Stratton stood, still hard, uncompromising, frowning down at the boy. "Be merciful," she said. "Think; you were not hurt; you have Sir Donald, unharmed. Be generous. Sometime,--who knows?--you yourself may ask it."

"No," he flashed, "No. I live my life; I do as I please. I ask nothing of anyone. And in the end--I take what I deserve. That is my creed. The boy must be punished."

He turned away, but she followed. In her earnestness she laid her hand on his sleeve. "He has been punished," she said. "Look. He will carry Sir Donald's brand all his life. He's just a boy, Mr. Stratton. He left home angry, outraged, and Yelm Jim took the opportunity to make him his tool. But he has good in him, I know. Remember, too, he saved my life. And I need him; I'll be responsible for him."

Her eyes were raised to Stratton eloquent with appeal; the hand on his arm trembled. "You need him; he saved your life." He paused and the hardness went out of his face. "And you saved mine--you saved mine; I do not forget that. And perhaps you were right just now; sometime I may ask that mercy. I may ask it of--you."

Her hand fell from his sleeve; she drew back a step. "I will be ready," she said slowly, "if you are good to Mose." She looked back at the boy. He was watching her. His lip quivered and his eyes filled with unaccustomed tears. "I'll be responsible for him," she repeated, "I'm going to make him white."

*CHAPTER IX*

*UNCLE SILAS*

It was the morning following his election and Judge Kingsley was taking a late breakfast in his dining room. He had laid aside the newspaper,--an interesting number, devoted chiefly to his final speech, a personal and flattering editorial, and the returns,--to conclude some business details with Forrest, who, seated near the open French window, overlooking the terraced orchard, made brief memoranda in his note-book.

The Judge, then, was a man in his first prime, with that commanding presence that does not challenge attention or respect, because he has long been sure of both. He carried with ease a suggestion of coming weight, and his voice, deliberate, sonorous, was that of a born orator. "There, Forrest, I believe that is all." He pushed back his chair and crossed his hands on his ample front. "Your father knew how to manage men, and, there at Tumwater, he gave you a thorough apprenticeship. He left you his executive ability and his knowledge of timber. But, if the Freeport mills pay expenses these first two years, and Philip learns something of business and the value of money, I shall have accomplished my purpose."

Forrest smiled, his smile of the eyes, shaking his head. "I'm not much of a diplomat; what I say is always just what I think. But I'll do my best." He put the notebook into his pocket, and looking at his watch, rose and took his hat. "I shall be able to catch the down steamer," he said.

"Better wait over a day or two; the young people would miss you tonight at the ball. And I want to speak to you about another matter." The Judge paused, stroking his blond beard. "I want to speak to you about--Alice."

Forrest returned to his chair. His eyes sought the window, avoiding the Judge's scrutiny. Louise was there, swinging her child in a hammock under the cherry trees. Her supple body swayed to the effort in unconscious grace; the loose sleeves of her house gown fell away from her uplifted, lovely arms, and the pose of her head brought out the beautiful lines of throat and oval chin, but he saw her absently.

After a moment the Judge added, "You never knew her mother."

"No." The young man turned in quick relief. "No, I never knew her. I was still a small boy when my father came to take charge of the Tumwater mills, and that tragedy of the Cowlitz had happened several months before. It has always seemed unaccountable to me; those old voyageurs understood a canoe; they must have made that trip down to the Columbia a good many times."

"True," answered the Judge, "but there was a strong spring chinook blowing, and the sudden melting of snows at the headwaters. The river was flooding; the current changed and the accident occurred at a shifting log jam."

There was a brief silence, then he went on, "She was on her way with Philip's mother to visit their early home in Oregon. There was something fine in that friendship of those two young women. Their lives had begun together in that small frontier settlement; they married at the same time men who were, themselves, warm friends, comrades in adventure and endurance; and they came that double wedding journey by canoe and trail, to start a social foundation here at the new capital of the young territory. And later, they faced their tragedy of the Indian war, when both husbands fell, fighting in the same skirmish. It softens the terror of that last journey to know they met the end together.

"But I shall always blame myself for letting them go down the Cowlitz without me;" and his voice vibrated a soft undernote. "I loved Alice Hunter. We were to have been married when she returned."

Forrest met the Judge's look; a sudden intelligence, sympathy, shone in his young eyes. "I understand," he said slowly, "I understand."

"I loved her always, from the first time I saw her, riding her little pony along the bluffs of the upper Columbia. It was the day I reached the river after my long journey overland, from New York. She was the first--the one woman. And--she had promised to be my wife--before John Hunter came."

"I understand," repeated Forrest, and his glance moved in delicacy to the window. "I understand."

He saw clearly, in that moment, this great man's devotion, through years, to that memory; the fineness of his solicitude for her children. They had shared the home he had established for his brother's boy. He had lavished benefits upon them; borne the expenses of their liberal education; made himself their natural protector, guardian, friend.

"And the new Alice is her reincarnation."

The Judge paused and Forrest gave him another look, swift, searching, and rose from his chair. He stood like a soldier at attention; or, like a man who sees certain danger, yet prepares himself for that inevitable of which he is afraid.

"She has the same bright face, the same quick intelligence, the dauntless spirit speaking in her eyes; the same decided uptilt of the chin; the same ruddy, shining hair." The Judge rose and moved a step towards him. "I was still a young man when I brought her home, Paul, and I have watched her grow. You cannot understand that. What it meant to see the child unfold; what it cost me later, to be her every-day companion, friend, to shape her pliant mind, and yet to--make no sign."

Forrest moved to the window, squaring his back to the room. He stood looking down across the orchard and the maple-lined streets of the town, to the shining sea; but his hand groped for the casing and held it with a steadying grip. The Judge drew nearer. He dropped his hand on the young man's shoulder, and the tender, insistent pleading that was the chief charm of the orator dominated his voice. "I know I am facing very possible defeat. It is natural that you two should think a good deal of each other, Paul, and there isn't another man on earth to whom I could better trust her. I am fond of you; I believe in you; I have called you the man of the future Northwest. Still she has chosen that hard life up in the wilderness, and you are leaving her there. If there is nothing between you, if you do not love her, I shall ask her to go to Washington with me--to be my wife."

Forrest turned. His face was gray; suddenly older. "I don't stand in your way," he said. "I am just her friend, the one she depends on. That's all. She refused me."

"She refused you?" The Judge laid both hands on the young man's shoulders, compelling his look. "She refused you? And you love her--_like this_."

Forrest drew away from his detaining grasp. "I must catch that steamer," he said. He went back to his chair and picked up his hat. "Good-by." He lifted his head, smiling a little, and offered his hand; but his glance moved beyond the Judge to the window once more, and he started. "She is here," he added unsteadily. "She is there with her sister on the terrace. Good-by and _good luck_."

He was gone and the Judge stood regarding the closed door. Then a light step on the threshold of the open window roused him and he turned.

"Good morning, Uncle Silas," she said, "I had to come right in and congratulate you on the election, though Louise told me you were talking business with Paul."

Her glance searched the room. Disappointment clouded her face.

"He was here," answered the Judge. "He hurried away to catch the steamer back to Freeport."

"Why," she said in surprise, "Louise told me he came over with them in the _Phantom_ to hear the returns, and I thought--of course it was expected he would wait to go back with them after the ball. But," and she turned with recovered brightness to the small boy who stood waiting on the threshold, "this is Lem Myers, Uncle Silas. He came to see town and the salt water."

"Good morning," said the Judge, weighing this future voter with speculative eyes. "Good morning. You are just in time for a cruise. To-morrow my nephew will show you what the _Phantom_ can do. I suppose you never have boarded a yacht?"

"Wal, no," Lem moved towards the chair the politician offered, stepping high in new and unaccustomed shoes. "No, I dunno's I hev."

"But of course the first thing, you want to try Olympia oysters. Hop Sing manages a good pan roast." He rang and gave the order to the Chinese cook, and Lem proceeded to adapt himself to the elegant appointments of the table.

The teacher had taken the opposite chair. "Oh," she said presently, "I know I have missed things; torchlight processions and rallies, and orations,--I shall read that last speech directly,--and I'm sure you have been serenaded by all the bands. I do love a band, Uncle Silas."

"They will play again," said the Judge, laughing, "and I hope one at a time, and tonight you can enjoy the ball. But no doubt that is what brought you all the way from Nisqually. You expect to lead that ball."

She shook her head. "Your first dance belongs to Mrs. Governor, Uncle Si; we can't choose. That's the penalty of greatness."

The Judge laughed again, a soft rumble. "My dear," he said, after a moment, "isn't it about time you left off calling me Uncle?"

She looked at him, flushing, with quick surprise. "I understand," she said softly, "I understand. I should have thought of it long ago. Of course I always speak of you differently to strangers, but among ourselves--why-- It was you who taught me, at the first, when I was a little girl."

"Oh, but you don't understand," he replied hurriedly. "I mean--you see, my dear, when you were a child a young man seemed so much your senior; the years between us do not count so much since you are a woman. In short, it should be more natural to call me just Silas--or even Si."

"Call you--Si? Oh, how could I?" and she threw her head back and laughed and laughed. "Good morning--Si. I congratulate you on the election--Si--" the words came with difficulty, between trills of merriment. "I am very proud of you--Si. But it was what we expected; you are the one man big enough for the place--Si--and all the territory knew it. Oh, indeed, indeed, I cannot. It's so ridiculously familiar. But, yes, I will do it, I'll try if you--" she paused and looked away through the open window. "The truth is--of course I want to go to the ball, immensely, but I came from Nisqually really--because--to ask--"

The Judge laughed, his pleasant undernote. "I see," he said, "I see, you are ready to come home. I've expected it; I've waited for it, and I've missed you more than you can ever know. But things are changed. I am going East in a few months and the house here will be closed. You do not want to make your home with Louise at Freeport." He broke off and walked over to the window. Directly he turned, and, with his back to the light, his hands clasped loosely behind him, stood regarding her. "The home here was broken up when you went away," he added, "and I shall find it lonelier still at Washington--unless--"

"Oh," she interrupted brightly, "I'm sure you will be very gay there. Think what it means; to be the representative from the big new Northwest. A man distinguished, almost rich, and a bachelor. Why, you will never have a dull moment--Si."

He caught the swift look from under her lashes and smiled. "You are still laughing at me, yet that life at the capital would suit you well. You were meant for pleasant places, to hold your own among bright women and distinguished men. And I am eager to show what manner of woman the crude West can produce. My dear, you would outshine them all."

"Oh," she said, and clapped her hands an instant to her ears, "you need not practise those fine speeches on me, your success is assured; you will live in a whirl. And don't trouble about me, Uncle Silas; I'm not asking to come home. I--I only want you to go to the Land Office with me. I--I am going to--file a claim."

"You are what?"

"I am going to locate a homestead." And her voice tripped on the word.

"You are going to locate a homestead? You?"

"Oh, Uncle Silas,"--she rose and walked a few steps, then turned facing him with tilting chin and ruffled brows. "Why do you stand and frown like that at me? I'm not the first woman to take up Government land. Do you know of any reason why I shouldn't? I'm native born, and I'm twenty-one."

Lem cast an appreciative wink at the Judge, and, having reached familiar terms with the dish which Hop Sing had placed before him, he devoted himself to a second generous installment of Olympia oysters.

"But," said the Judge, "you are not going to improve that homestead like any settler? You do not intend to live there?"