Chapter V: Part 5

The bow ran faster and faster, as though it laughed in its sleeve at the wild figures they cut. Then, at length, the teacher slipped aside to relieve Eben. It was a different music, sweeter, softer, that she drew from the old cracked instrument, and she kept time with one foot, thrust a little forward; a smile played on her lips, there was a shining light in her eyes, and the yellow hat was pale against her ruddy hair.

But finally the measure changed. The revellers quieted under the unfamiliar strain. It was no longer dance music but Schubert's Serenade. A far-away look came over her face; a sweet tenderness. Her soul was in her touch; she called a speaking sadness from the strings. A great hush fell over the room.

*CHAPTER XII*

*A FACE IN THE NIGHT*

Mason, the watchman at the Freeport mills, stood as was his habit when off duty, quite at the end of the dock, his red hair blowing in the wind, his hands thrust in the pockets of his oily brown jeans, and his feet planted firmly apart, notwithstanding one was an insecure wooden peg around which the leg of his trousers fluttered loosely. It was after the hour of closing, and about the doorways of the cabins, which nestled well under the bluff. groups of workmen loitered, or like Mason, enjoyed the breezier, salter atmosphere of the wharf. The sound of bagpipes came from a distant quarter up the beach, and the rival notes of an accordion floated over from a passing fishing-smack. But above all rose the deep wash of the sea. A lumber ship, with the light lines of her deckload showing above her low black hull, swung out from the upper dock and took on a boatful of tuneful sailors who had crossed the harbor from the town. Her tug, lying to the northward, awaited her cable. And out beyond the headland and its black reflection, the late sun reddened the _Phantom's_ sails.

Mason's nautical gaze rested on the yacht, and he said, addressing Hop Sing, the cook, who had been transferred from the Judge's house to the mills, "A fine craft, ay, sir; a bit too narrer at ther beam, but a fine craft, sir."

Sing smiled blandly and tucked his long yellow finders into his wide sleeves. "_Phlantom_, she all lit-e," he admitted. "Mlisser Phil, he all lit-e."

The yacht swung into the shadow of the Head; the lightening cable between the ship and tug crossed her bows. The steamer with increased belching of smoke and pounding of machinery forged away and the vessel slowly answered the straining line. Mason leaned forward with a low exclamation; then, no longer able to hold himself, he lifted his voice in a hoarse shout. "Luff, luff 'er."

Even as he spoke the _Phantom_ veered suddenly, and came around close-hauled, all but grazing the stern of the ship. And Mason saw the master at the helm, his cap pushed back, his eyes on the flapping canvas, while his lips coolly shaped the end of a chorus. A woman, young and pretty, with a cloud of blond hair, was seated near him, strumming time on a banjo, and, as Mason moved to take the line, she looked up at him with a gay laugh.

Stratton relieved Kingsley of the tiller while he went into the bows with the coiled line. The old sailor caught it and made a twist around a pile, hauling taut. "It wore neatly done," he said with the pride glowing in his homely face; "ay, sir, but it wore a close call, sir."

Philip laughed. "Not much of a trick if you know the _Phantom_, Mason. No, I'm not coming ashore. Here, give these packages to Mr. Forrest. Tell him I'm taking a run over to Tacoma. Will look in at the camp about those logs. That's all. Cast off."

Mason watched the _Phantom_ swing out, then went up the wharf to the store. It was a long, low building with few windows and a massive door. The interior was gloomy, musty; sacks of flour piled in great lines partitioned the room; hams and bacon hung from the ceiling. At one side of the entrance the office was separated from the main floor by a latticed railing, and gave the manager an opportunity to work at his desk, and at the same time see those who entered. The window at his elbow overlooked the dock and informed him if an arriving vessel demanded his attention there.

Several men sauntered after Mason and joined the group gathered at the door. One entered, and Forrest turned from his desk to take the day's tally from him. Presently Hop Sing slipped through the idle and jeering crowd to collect an allowance of groceries. Mason laid his packages down and waited, leaning on the railing. His glance moved from the cook to the sawyer, a heavy, burly fellow, who stood in the entrance. As the Chinaman passed out this man turned with a sudden thrust of his powerful shoulder and Hop Sing plunged headlong on to the dock. There was a round of applause while he floundered in a broken crock of molasses and a burst bag of buckwheat, and the sawyer moved back with a gruff laugh. At the same instant something was thrown behind him, and he, too, fell, sprawling on the floor. The cry of derision was transferred to him, and Mason, having recovered his equilibrium, stooped and gravely felt of his wooden leg. "When a man's er peg like this," he said aggressively, forestalling the sawyer's anger, "he aren't to be walked over. I've known 'um to crack."

And the crowd cheered, for there was a story current at the mills that Mason had once, in an emergency, unstrapped this leg and used it for a weapon; not only to the discomfiture of his antagonist, but to the serious damage of the instrument, both having been laid up, afterwards, for extensive repairs.

The amusement shone for a moment in Forrest's eyes, but his face was tired and worn; the line between his brows had grown habitual. It deepened when the old sailor repeated Kingsley's message. He took a small packet of mail which the watchman had brought with the bundles, and hastily cut the string. "Here, Mason," he said, "take these letters over to Mrs. Kingsley.

"Ay sir." The answer was hearty, but Forrest caught the consternation in the tone. He knew that it took less courage for this crippled sailor to brave the sawyer than face a woman; and he understood, when Mason stopped at the corner outside to light his pipe, it was a subterfuge to gain time.

The Captain's house, like the cabins, stood in an enclosure filled with slabs and sawdust and covered with rough planking. The board walk, which led from the store to the cookhouse and mills, branched to this building, and, raised on higher piling, extended on around the headland to an old abandoned hotel. It was there, going slowly with her toddling baby in the direction of the ruin, that Mason discovered Mrs. Kingsley as he crossed up from the store.

The waves broke in a continuous swash under the planking, casting at intervals a piece of wreckage or rope of seaweed on the shore. The collection of drift there was wet from the ebbing tide. Far out, beyond the shadow of the Head, a pink flush still rested on he water, and the _Phantom_, moving into this glow with all her white sails set, heeled gently, a golden craft on a painted sea. And it was in that direction, towards the receding yacht, Louise's face was turned. She had stopped and the child, steadying himself with his hand on her skirt, stood dropping pebbles slowly between the rails.

Mason slackened his pace, setting his wooden peg lightly. It was difficult to approach any woman, but this one, young, pretty and with her back turned-- He halted, waiting, with a forlorn hope that she would look around. But she did not. He coughed softly and pulled off his cap. Still she stood with her eyes towards the _Phantom_. He put on his cap and removed his pipe from his mouth, regarding her in mild helplessness. The small, proud head, the high, soft knot of dark hair, the graceful, slender figure in its trim gown, the shapely hand that rested on the railing; he noted all with growing awe. Then his clutch tightened on the letters and he cleared his throat with a gentle thump of the wooden peg.

She turned, startled, and looked at him. Her eyes were full of tears.

He thrust the letters into her hand in speechless haste and fled.

"Mason," she said, "oh, Mason." But he failed to hear. She did not repeat the call; she waited, listening to the thump, thump, of the receding peg, then her glance fell to the articles he had given her. One of the letters was pencilled and unstamped. She read it first.

"DEAR LOUISE:--

"I am sorry, but business kept me in town again last night, and I am on my way now to Tacoma. I have to hunt up a boom near there, and am taking a little crowd along for company. We will look in on the Yacht Club's dance and I wish you were coming. You really ought to find some sort of a nursemaid. I would stop off half an hour to see you, but must make the most of this wind. Will be back tomorrow evening.

"Yours,
"PHIL."

The hand holding the note trembled a little, and she lifted her clouding eyes again to the _Phantom_. "It is of no use," she said slowly, "I might as well be any piece of drift thrown here out of the tide. But--I had to try it. It was the only way."

She stood for a long time watching the yacht. It moved a lessening shape on the fading sea, and swung at last behind a point into the long southward sweep of the Sound. Then she was conscious that the child had left her. He was toddling to the ruin. She ran to overtake him. "Silas," she called. "No, Silas, no." But her voice and her rapid steps only hurried him laughing and crowing through the open bar-room door.

The broad floor of fine planking was still firm and smooth except about the place where the pool table had stood, and in front of the bar. The baby ran to hide there, peeping out at his mother with little exultant bursts of delight.

But this old bar, the last remaining bit of furniture in the place, guarded the sagging door of a small ell evidently once used as a tap-room. It stopped at the first story, and the flooring, made of rougher, wider lumber than that in the main building, was laid in short patched strips. It was rotting about the rusty nailheads; sometimes there were breaks. All this was lighted dimly by one small window, high up in the unfinished wall and curtained by the bluff, and she saw a dozen pitfalls in the ruin, yawning for her baby's feet. She drew the door shut, but it was without a lock and dragged back a foot or more.

The great rear door of the bar-room also stood open; it was loose on its hinges and grounded on the floor. The threshold dipped to a balcony, dismembered of railing and stairs. She caught the child up in her arms and hurried out through the front entrance back along the walk.

It was twilight when she entered her gate. A first star glimmered over the mills, and on the water front across the harbor Seattle's lamps shone whitely. Close at hand the burning slabpile at the end of the waste-chute took on a redder glow, sending long searching tongues of flame into the gloom of the bluff. She went in and lighted a swinging lamp. Its crimson shade sent a pleasing warmth through the room, which possessed the attractive element that follows the touch of a refined and orderly woman. There were no housemaids in that milling camp; no other women. The few men who had wives made their homes over in the town, where they spent the week-end. Once during the day Mason came in to make things "ship-shape," but he took the hour when she was at the cook-house, where the meals for the Captain's family, which included Forrest, were served in a small private dining-room off the main hall.

The night was cool and she lighted the fire in the grate and seated herself in a low wicker chair to read her remaining letter. It was from her sister, briefer than usual, for she expected to follow it within the week to go that promised cruise among the islands.

"... The country is being settled very fast," she wrote. "Mill Thornton is clearing on his new homestead for a cabin, and Mr. Stratton has built a charming little lodge of cedar shakes thatched with bark, on his timber claim up the headwaters. It is tucked away in a clump of fine old trees, and the first time I saw him there, leaning in the doorway, with one of Laramie's dogs fawning over him, and bargaining with the trapper over a beaver pelt at his feet, I couldn't help calling, 'Good morning, Robin Hood.' It was so pleasant to find the place unspoiled, for most of the settlers set up their homes in a great burn, with not even an alder saved; not a flower or blade of grass left to ease the eyes."

But, though she had so much to tell about these matters, of her own homestead there was not a word. Louise folded the letter, puzzled, and laid it aside. She sat for an interval looking absently into the fire. "I don't understand," she said at last. "I don't understand why she is staying up there in the wilderness. She has promised to marry Uncle Silas, and yet she has let him go to Washington without her. She is willing to have the whole continent between them; and when a woman loves, as she should love the man she is going to marry, she is ready to shape her plans and interests to his. She wants to give him her companionship, to be at hand to help him the first moment he may need her. But Alice seems happy. I wonder what her reason is."

She had learned in this solitude to think aloud, gathering comradery from the sounds of her voice, and young Silas, growing tired of his playthings, came over to her knee. He looked up into her face gravely, trying to fathom her meaning. She laughed softly and lifted him to her lap. He was a lovely child; a little copy of Philip Kingsley in form and gesture; he had the same close-curling blond hair. He returned his mother's caress warmly, putting his stout arm about her neck and kissing her mouth, her cheek, again and again. Presently she undressed him, but she deferred the bed-going, enticing him, with surprise and frolic, to stay awake. She dreaded the silence that was to follow; the interminable loneliness of the slow night. But at last he went to sleep in her arms.

When she had tucked him away in his bed in an inner room and returned, she moved about restlessly, giving housewifely touches to things already arranged. "After all, it is the business," she said. "It must be--nearly always--the business. I am too exacting. I expect too much."

She reached the window and lifted her hand to draw the blind. But she started and dropped her arm, letting the shade spring back to the roller. Someone stood on the walk without. His long figure rose in the square of light which, blocked on the piazza, included the breadth of fence where he leaned. His dark, repulsive face was raised to her, and he seemed to fix her with his small, snakelike eyes. The next instant he dropped his goblin shape and shrank writhing away into the gloom.

She shivered and her fingers trembled when she reached again for the cord and drew the blind. She went into the hall and pushed the heavy bolt above the lock on the front door. When she had gone through the house and secured every door and window, she came back, still shivering, to the fire. "It is nothing," she told herself, and put her hand on the mantel, reassuring herself as a woman must when denied human support, "it was nothing. The man stopped a moment in passing, attracted by the light. I must have some--courage. But his face--was terrible."

Presently she went over to the piano and began to sound the keys; she struck loud, clarion chords, martialling forces to put down her fears. Her shaking fingers grew surer; she commenced to shape a bit of Wagner, and then a fragment of Schubert. That was the music she loved. She opened a folio of sonatas. She played with ease and skill and her frame swayed with a slight, rhythmic motion. Her soul was in her touch and in her eyes, grown large and misty. It was then her face was beautiful.

At last she turned a page and a loose sheet fluttered out. It was that sea song of Barry Cornwall's, that had been a favorite quartette in the old days aboard the _Phantom_. She began to play it, and presently her voice flooded the night.

"For the white squall rides on the surging wave,
And the bark is 'gulfed in an ocean's grave,
In an ocean's grave; in an ocean's grave."

Forrest, coming that way from his customary rounds of the mills, heard it, and the passion, the despair of it, held him at the gate. But he dropped his hand from the latch at the end and turned away. "There is nothing I can do for her." he told himself. "She is past feeling the solitude now. She is past being afraid."

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE PRESSURE OF THE THUMB-SCREW*

The following night Forrest was seated near the open fire in his room off the store. His journal and ledger were on the table before him, and opposite Kingsley tilted his chair comfortably, and clasping his hands at the back of his head, lifted his glance to the lamp-lighted ceiling. He was smoking and looked a trifle bored.

"It amounts to this," said Forrest; "lumber has dropped to eight dollars a thousand and we've simply got to cut down expenses." He paused with his hands on the arms of his chair, his body slightly inclined forward, and looked at Philip with clear, stern eyes. "I am running the lightest possible force; I have dispensed with a bookkeeper and am doing his work nights. But here are still unpaid bills for machinery, saw-logs and towing; some weeks it even comes to a question of the wages of the men. I could, though, have met these demands better if I hadn't been so handicapped. For instance, in the matter of the _Corona_. I made out the bills of lading; I relied on the funds at a certain time and gave promises of payment. And then found out you had received the checks and had them cashed, and put most of the money to personal use. It not only places me in a difficult position but weakens the credit, the standing of the mills."

"I suppose so," said Kingsley, knocking the ashes carefully from his cigar. "I suppose so; I hadn't looked at it in that way. But the _Enterprise_ will be here in a few days and her shipment ought to make things straight."

"Temporarily, yes. But see here, why can't you limit yourself to a salary? Say two hundred a month? If you could do this, and devote a definite time to work, I should know what to depend on, and we could pull through the year without calling on the Judge."

"Two hundred a month?" repeated Philip, and laughed.

"Yes. You know the Judge advised a regular salary."

"You seem to forget I have practically a half interest in this property."

"On the other hand, it is that I remember," answered Forrest dryly. "If the mills should go under it would bar me, of course, from another position of trust; but for you it would mean financial ruin."

Kingsley smoked for a brief interval in silence. Then he said, "I don't see the necessity of all this. There's Stratton, now, talks differently. He thinks I have a sure thing; that another year or two will see the opening of a great lumber traffic with the Orient. He calls Puget Sound the Gateway of the Pacific. I wish you could hear him."

"I have heard him," answered Forrest, again dryly. "But with me, his opinion doesn't count for much. To hold my faith a man has got to do the things he talks about. And Stratton isn't a man who works. In short, it's a problem where he gets his money. My friend Bates, of the Customs Service, has been in Victoria a good deal; he knows something about Stratton's family. His father, before he died, made a fortune in the fur trade, but his mother, who lived a rather smart life over there, spent it faster. Stratton is like her."

"He has taken up his father's business," said Kingsley warmly. "He is building a fine coasting schooner, now, to carry on an extensive trade, northward, with the Indians."

Forrest shook his head. "That's just it. A man dabbling spasmodically in furs, and living extravagantly most of the time about town, is hardly expected to have capital to invest in a fine steam-schooner."

Philip watched a puff of smoke rise and expand in blue haze above him. "I know what you're driving at," he said. "You're referring to his possible connection with a smuggling ring. Stratton told me all about it. There's nothing in it. Bates happens to have a grudge against him."

"Bates is hardly the man to satisfy a personal grudge in that way. He merely answered a question or two I asked him." Forrest paused and went on in a slightly deepened tone. "It seems to me incredible that you should let a fellow like Stratton manage you."

"Manage?" The Captain's chair came down abruptly on its front legs. "See here, even you can't say that, Paul. Stratton is my friend; I'm fond of him, but I do as I damn please."

Forrest was silent.

Kingsley rose to his feet and threw his cigar in the fire. "It's time I went up to the house," he said. "The crowd will be ready to go on to town, soon, and I've hardly seen Louise."

Forrest pushed back his chair and rose. "You agree, then, to the two hundred," he said quietly.

"Oh, come, you are worse than thumb-screws." He laughed a short, constrained laugh and looked at his watch.

"The Judge, you remember, takes it for granted."

"Oh, well,"--he ran his fingers swiftly through his close-cropped hair, and repeated the movement,--"I don't see how I can do it--but--I suppose so for awhile--yes."

He picked up his cap and started out through the store. Forrest followed him to the outer door. But there Philip stopped. "Come up to the house with me," he said, "and bring your violin. I've been telling them about you."

He stood jingling his keys in his pockets, and whistling in snatches, much like a schoolboy who tries to forget, yet remembers the unpleasant ending of a scrape, while Forrest went back to his room for the instrument.

It was a moonless night, but in the direction of the mills the burning slabpile brought out the lines of the bluff. It lighted the upper wharf and the great piles of finished or rough lumber. The whitewashed walls of the cabins reflected the glare. Everywhere, in the open doorways, seated on timbers or blocks in the vicinity of the fire, wherever there was protection from the north wind, or the flames threw heat, groups of workmen loitered. Suddenly Kingsley said, "I would like to see the whole thing dumped into that slabfire."

Forrest put his hand on Philip's shoulder. Both stopped and the light shone on the manager's face. The laugh lurked in his eyes, and the lines about his mouth softened. "And you'd like to see me at the bottom of the heap."

"I'm sick of these mills," said Philip petulantly. "I hate the place."

"And me. Come, say so."

"Well, then, yes, and you, since you are determined to put me through." He threw off Forrest's hand, and seeing the old watchman approaching on the branch walk, went a step to meet him. "I want you to go over to the cookhouse, Mason," he said, "and tell Sing to bring a little supper up. Take him down to the _Phantom_ and get a dozen of champagne from the port cabin locker. Here's the key."

He rejoined Forrest and they finished the distance in silence. But when they entered the parlor, where Kingsley's friends awaited him, his manner changed. "You must blame Paul for keeping me," he said lightly; "he was determined to talk. When he has a point to gain he has the grip of a vise; never lets go. You've simply got to yield through sheer weariness."

Every one laughed, and he crossed the room to seat himself beside the girl with a small blond head, who had accompanied him the previous day with a banjo. But his glance moved again and again to his wife. For the first time it nettled him to see another man interested in her. And Stratton was interested; Stratton, who was undeniably hard to please. It is the way of some men to appraise their wives according to the value placed on them by other men, and Kingsley began to make an inventory of her points; that was a nice flush in her cheeks, and he had nearly forgotten about that lighting of her dark eyes. And, too, that was a pretty way she wore her hair. Then he remembered how splendid it was unbound, for it rippled to her knees, and was soft as a black velvet cloak. And when she sang, presently, to the accompaniment of Forrest's violin, the Captain told himself she had never been in better voice. He resolved to be at the mills oftener; on the whole, if he had not just been forced into that miserable limit of two hundred dollars, he would like to set up an establishment over in town.

When she went from the room to consult Sing about that little supper, Philip followed her. She believed he had come to look in at little Silas, and she quietly threw open the inner door. The light streamed into the dark interior, showing the small white bed, the charming face of the sleeping child. There was a rosy glow on the round cheek, and one stout, dimpled arm, bared to the elbow, encircled his curly head.

Kingsley stood watching him a silent moment, then he put his arm around his wife and said softly, "He's all right; yes, he's fine. But he's been growing since I saw him; I hadn't thought it was so long. I must get home oftener. Do you know you were in great voice to-night; I never heard you sing so well."

"Yes?" she answered, smiling, "I am glad you think so. I sang for you."

"And this color in your cheeks; is it for me, too?"

"You know that I am glad to have you home."

He bent and kissed her. Her head rested an instant on his breast; he brushed his cheek against her hair. "You miss me, then, when I'm away?"

"Yes." She lifted her face. An intensity of expression that he had seen rarely, and always disliked, came over it; the force in her low voice jarred. Why couldn't she stay pleasant, as she had been there in the crowd. "I would do anything to keep you at home, Philip. Anything, if you would spend your evenings with me; your nights, as you used to."

His arm fell. "I thought you understood the outside business would keep me away," he said coolly. "I explained it at the first when you wanted to live here at the mills."

She moved a step away. Her heart cried, "It is not the business," but she said aloud, turning to him again with a smile, "A woman doesn't often reason; she only feels."

"That's the trouble; you feel too much; more than most women. When you are not serious, though, you are a very attractive woman."

She stood quite still, with her slender fingers locked, and that intensity growing in her eyes. "Do you know, Philip, sometimes I wonder how you ever could have cared for me; for the best that is in me is what you have overlooked. I should think,"--she paused and forced again that brave little smile,--"I should think that you might be--happier, if you had married a different kind--of woman."

At this he laughed. So she was a little jealous, that explained things, and of that flyaway, there in the other room. "There's the woman one marries," he answered lightly, "and the woman with whom one has a good time; they are seldom alike."

She was silent. There is nothing so cuts a proud and refined woman as the enforced knowledge of her husband's coarser grain; but her disappointment finds no expression; she covers her shame.

"But I don't blame you," he went on, still lightly, "I don't blame you; I don't deny you've had cause. I'm coming home oftener, after this, though; or, perhaps, before long, I can arrange to take a house in town. You would like that?"

"Yes. The loneliness is harder than I believed it could be; it wears on me. And I can't grow accustomed to the mill people. Last evening I saw a strange face at the window. It haunts me. I woke up in the night time, seeing it. It was--terrible. I have never been a brave woman, Philip. I am--afraid."

Her whole body trembled, overcome by the recollection of that face. But Kingsley laughed again. "Well, I don't wonder. For sheer physical ugliness, this crew Forrest has picked up might, almost to a man, dispute the palm. But Alice is coming; she'll show you pluck; she has it to spare. And we'll have that cruise through the islands. We'll make it a small family affair and take along little Si. Meantime Paul must see that the night watchman gives the house special attention, and I'll ask him to come in oftener with his violin."

*CHAPTER XIV*

*THE SALMON-TROLLERS*

"O-h, o-h, Mason, I hate to, but I've got to let you land him. He's a _wh-a-le_." She spoke softly; her eyes shone. She put the line in the old sailor's hands. "Now, now, Mason; oh, I don't mind a little water; that's all--right."

But it was a deluge, for the great salmon floundered first against her, almost in her lap, and then into the bottom of the skiff, at her feet. Mason bent to remove the hook, and Louise, in the bow, held little Silas over to see the big fish. "Mighty purty play; weighs all o' twenty pund; bet you a bottle."

"I believe it's a Chinook," said Alice.

The sailor's homely face glowed. He looked back to be sure the child's view was unobstructed. "Aye, sir, it's a Chinook, an' big's they make 'em. Bet you a bottle."

But the wager passed again unchallenged, and having met Louise's amused glance, Mason took up his oars abashed. Nothing but the excitement of landing that fish could have so loosened his tongue. He pulled a good stroke that brought them quickly to the shore. The wind came in long puffs from the north and the sea broke on the beach in a deliberate swell. The water was a cold blue, shading to brown in the shallows, for it was ebb-tide. They drew up to the float between the wharves and Mason steadied the boat while Alice lifted the baby out and, giving him to his mother, stopped to take a great bunch of flowering rhododendrons from high in the bow. Then he raised the salmon by the gills and stumped proudly ahead up the walk.

Alice looked at her sister and smiled. "There's a watch-dog you can trust," she said. "Yes, I mean it. He has a big, warm heart underneath, and little Si knows it, already."

"I think you are right," admitted Louise, "but it is strange it should have taken you hardly twenty-four hours to find it, while I have been months getting within speaking distance."

"I suppose," said Alice thoughtfully, "it's a way I have of wanting to utilize the material at hand. There's something, too, in meeting a man on his own ground. When you want to reach a sailor," and she laughed softly, "take a boat. Oh, Mason," she called, for he had made the turn up the branch walk to the house, "wait. Come around and weigh the salmon at the store."

She led the way, and the gloomy building seemed to gather a sudden radiance when she entered the door. Her face reflected a soft illumination from the showy pink flowers heaped in her arm. Forrest stepped down from his stool at the desk, and came outside the railing to meet her. Then, "What's that, Mason?" he asked. "You don't mean to tell me she really did catch a fish."

"Aye, sir,"--Mason stopped to put the salmon on the scales,--"twenty-two pund."

"That's so," said Forrest incredulously, "twenty-two and a quarter; well, for a Chinook that's a prize."

But the smile in her face died. Looking across the rhododendrons at him, it came over her again, as it had when she met him on her arrival the previous day, that he was losing his boyish color; that he was harassed and worn. "Don't you ever go fishing, Paul? Or cruising, or anywhere?"

He shook his head, smiling a little. "Hardly, this year. It's impossible to get away."

Little Silas, tugging at his mother's hand, drew her to the door. But Alice lingered. "Can't Phil Kingsley manage these mills yet, for even one day?"

He glanced in warning at Louise. "It takes us both," he answered quietly. "This milling business is pretty big; it reaches out; and he tends to the other end. But I'm all right. I like to work; I'm used to it. And I need it, lots of it, to keep me level-headed."

"You are that, but shall I tell you what I think, Paul Forrest? I think it's making you old, fast; or else, you are not well."

"Oh, yes, I am. But, I was up late last night; I was bothered some about a trial balance; that's all. I'm going to take this evening off. I want to try that accompaniment, if you will sing that new serenade for me."

He stood watching them from the entrance, Mason following with the salmon, while they crossed up the dock, then he went back to his desk. She had reached over the railing, in passing, to lay on his ledger a branch of rhododendron. He picked it up, smiling a little, and looked at it. No one else was in the store at the moment, and he touched the petals gently; his hand moved over the stiff, spiky leaves. "So," he told himself, "So, she has left me a bit of the woods. And she is like this plant; straight and self-reliant and independent like the stem; and with this same nice color of the blossom in her cheek." He laid the cool pink cluster against his own face; he pressed it with his lips. Then, suddenly, his whole frame began to tremble; his shoulders heaved. "I love her; I love--her," and he crushed the flower between his palms and threw it down. "My God, how can I help loving her?"

Two hours later, when Forrest had finished his rounds of the mills, he found her with Mrs. Kingsley at the burning slabpile. Mason, with his wooden peg planted firmly in the sawdust as a brace, steadied the baby on an inverted keg, and whirled chips into the fire for his amusement. The strong light brought out the indigo anchor tattooed on the sailor's big, rough hand. The young mother watched his maneuvers. She leaned with her elbow on a projecting shelf of lumber, and her head and throat were wrapped, Madonna-wise, in a black lace scarf. Alice was seated near her on a great fir block. The flames illumined her uncovered ruddy hair. She was interested in the efforts of a workman who, a little apart, but availing himself of the firelight, was mending a pair of jeans. Another patched a shoe, and farther still, a trio drew up an empty box, and converting it into a table, started a spirited game of poker. She commenced to hum a bit of the gypsy chorus from the Bohemian Girl; and as Forrest approached she looked up smiling, and took up the words. He seated himself by her. Louise's contralto caught the measure, and presently the harmony was rounded by his fine baritone. They sang on through all the familiar parts; the arias, duets, choruses; and once more the romance and mystery of the place and night gave setting to this man and spoke for him. The girl looked up absently to the trees on the bluff. High up a fallen hemlock, caught on a stony spur, reared its gnarled roots from the gloom. Had they not rested today on the brink of the canyon? Had they not threaded the windfall? And this sound of running water, was it not the near thunder of the Des Chutes?

At last the child grew tired and his mother took him away to bed. Forrest went down to the store for his violin, and Alice walked that way with him. "I want to speak to you about Louise," she said. "She tells me nothing, she is so proud, but something troubles her. You have noticed it?"

"Yes," he answered, "yes, I have noticed it; but I know she is a very sensitive woman. She would face any hardship from a sense of duty; it amounts to martyrdom. She exacts, also, considerable from others."

"Oh, I understand all that. Of course she came here to the mills because she thought she owed it to Philip. But he is seldom here. Is it really the business keeps him away?"

"Yes, it's business, sometimes, and--sometimes--well, if you must know, it's a gay crowd and a pleasant evening over in town."

"I was confident of it." She paused, ruffling her brows, then she added earnestly, "But you don't know what a security it is to me, Paul, to feel that you are here, and will take care of her."

He shook his head. "I will do what I can always, of course, but it's less than you think."

"It's more than you think. It's meeting the small emergencies of every day; sometimes through Mason or Sing; sometimes personally, in your quiet way. And it's tiding her through the slow evenings when you can; she loves your violin, and the practice will be a help to you both."

"All right," he answered, smiling, "I promise that much."

They had reached the store and she waited on the edge of the dock while he went in for his instrument. When he came back they lingered, listening to the swash and gurgle of the tide among the piers. "You always liked this," he said presently; "you must often miss the sea."

"Yes," she answered, "you don't know how I've missed it. Sometimes, I've wanted it beyond anything." She looked at him. In the semi-darkness of the not yet risen moon, his face seemed to gather paleness. It touched her as its strength never had. The maternal down in the depths of her stirred. "And of course," she added gently, "you know, Paul, I couldn't think of the Sound, or indeed of any of the old life here, and leave out you."

It was not the words alone, nor the kind, sweet tone, nor yet her dear physical nearness, but rather that the silence which followed was eloquent with unspoken thought. It was as though he heard her spirit cry suddenly, "I can never leave out you."

"You do know it," he said. "You do know it." And then it broke from him. "What made you promise to marry Judge Kingsley? What made you, when you knew how much I thought of you?"

She did not answer, but she turned and walked up the dock towards the house. After a moment he overtook her. "Don't hurry so," he said. "Are you afraid of me? I won't hurt you."

"Hurt me? You? Oh, I wish you would." But she continued to hurry and he suited his steps to hers. They reached the gate. "Wait, just a moment," he said. "You are going away tomorrow. I know I shouldn't have said--what I did; it was worse than unfair to the Judge; but I want to know this--why did you put off that marriage? Why didn't you go to Washington with him, as he hoped? As I hoped, for there, at least you would have been--safe!"

"Please don't worry about me, Paul," she answered, and looked past him, steadily, holding her chin high, "I can take care of myself. You ought to know that. I'm very strong-minded; it grows on me. I like to do things; be the head. And I love the settlement; I want to finish my work. Sometimes--sometimes, when I think of it, I'm afraid of Washington. I shall find it too crowded; I'm so used to lots of room." She paused, but silence was harder than speech and she went on quickly, "Not one man in a thousand would understand me, but Uncle Silas--dear Silas--" she dashed her hand across her eyes and turning, ran up the steps to the door--"knows how to manage me. He--" she groped for the knob--"He is ready to--wait."

*CHAPTER XV*

*THE MAN IN THE TIDE-RIP*

On Orcas, one of the larger islands of the Archipelago de Haro, there is an eminence of several thousand feet. The eastern side rises in abrupt benches from the sea, but westward it breaks less precipitously to a narrow, bluff-locked harbor. Stratton objected to this anchorage; it was a place of strong currents and shallows. But Kingsley laughed. He knew Orcas like a book. He had been up to that summit and the view was worth stopping over a day for. There was a ranch on the shore of a lake high up in the timber where the night could be passed comfortably, and a couple of horses, the only ones on the island, could be secured there for the trail. The party could divide, Alice going up with Stratton that afternoon,--it was a matter of a few hours,--while he and Louise would ride up early the following morning.

In the end Philip had his way, and Stratton, who had exerted himself, hitherto, to make the cruise one of unalloyed pleasure, lapsed into moody silence. He found himself, late in the afternoon, riding with Alice, up a sharp pitch of the mountain. Below them dipped a cross-cut of trail, and overhead another section of the switchback hung like a tilting shelf under a knobby shoulder that concealed the true dome. They gained the spur and halted, breathing the horses on a breadth of level. The girl turned a little in her saddle to look down. There was the inlet where the _Phantom_, like a toy ship, rode at anchor; and there was the lake, a big, opal-filled bowl, with the farmhouse, where they had left Philip with Louise and the child, balanced like a tiny box on its rim. Northward islands on islands rose purple or amethyst out of the sea; southward and westward the Olympic Mountains stretched a gleaming barricade, and the Straits of Juan de Fuca divided like the fingers of a great reaching hand.

"I love it; oh, you don't know how I love it." Her glance returned to Stratton and she started; the glow in her face died. "But you--I see it doesn't compensate you for the rough trail and this excuse of a mount. When you ride you want Sir Donald."

"No, it is not that." He smiled briefly, with effort, and pulled his shoulders straight. "I happened to remember a man--I once knew. He was wrecked off this island; there on the north shore. It was another such day as this, clear and shining, but his sloop was caught in a tide-rip. You can see it down there; that creeping, white-lipped streak. The rocks under it grip like teeth." He paused and the hand directing her attention fell. He lifted his hat and wiped a sudden moisture from his face. "It all happened in a moment," he added, "and the boat was broken into kindling."

"But he, your friend,"--she leaned towards him all suspense, sympathy, charm,--"he was saved?"

"Yes, he was saved. But it is a long story. Wait until we reach the summit; I can tell you better up there."

He turned his horse, falling behind her as they resumed the climb. Presently they entered a cool belt of timber. The air was freighted with the balsam of fir and pine, and she looked about her, drawing full breaths; a soft delight rose in her eyes. "Isn't it the best perfume on earth?" she asked. "At Nisqually it just lacks the tang of the sea. And there are the Alaska cedars they spoke of at the farm. The stream should run through them."

The horses quickened their pace and stopped where the rill widened into a pool. They dropped eager muzzles and began to take long, still draughts. She freed her foot from the stirrup and slipped lightly down. "We must fill the flask," she said, "where the spring bubbles through the rock."

Stratton tied the horses and followed her up the bank. She reached the place and stooped to fill her saddle-cup. "Oh," she said, pausing between draughts. "It's the kind of water to dream of hot summer nights; the kind you think of on dusty roads and want desperately."

She waited while he drank, watching him expectantly. "Yes," he admitted, "it is a spring to remember in a desert."

He stooped to fill the flask, but he did it clumsily, without his usual care, and drenched his sleeve. The pleasure in her face faded; she continued to watch him, but with ruffled brows. "Oh," she said at last, "I wouldn't have believed you could be so unrelenting; but you are determined to remind me, every step of the way, that you didn't want to stop at Orcas Island. You're the most unsatisfactory man, on a trip, I ever knew. Still, you were different last year, on the Paradise trail."

"Was I? Well, you see, I keep thinking of that man--in the tide-rip; he stopped here at this stream, to rest."

"The man who was wrecked? Did he come up here?"

"Yes, he thought that he was on the mainland. He tried to reach the settlement this way. But there isn't time to tell the story here."

He turned and led the way quickly back to the horses, and they mounted and rode on through the wood. At the foot of the final pitch they left the horses and pushed up over shelving rock to the bald summit. The sun was low in the west and the light touched the houses of a little seaport, eastward on the mainland; and above the craggy heights that overtopped the town a snow mountain caught the glory. Far southward the crown of Rainier seemed to rise like an opal island straight out of the shining sea.

Suddenly Stratton laid his hand on her arm. "Wait," he said, "this is the end. The summit breaks there, a sheer drop of a thousand feet, with a lake below.

"You know," she said. "You've been here before?"

"It is plain enough. Look down."

She looked; but she was obliged to creep another step and drop to her knees before she saw the lake, far, far below, tucked like a great sapphire in a high pocket of the mountain. "Oh," she said, "it seems fathoms deep; and there isn't a lasting snowfield on this mountain. What feeds it?"

He helped her back from the precipice and to her feet. "It is probably one of the Cascades' reservoirs," he answered; "supplied by some subterranean stream under the bed of the Straits."

She walked back a few rods and seated herself on a bench of rock. Her glance moved from the great white dome, on along the craggy peaks of the Cascades, northward. "Of course," she said presently, "that dim line of shore off there is the Vancouver coast. Think, Mr. Stratton, how near we came to losing all these lovely islands. While Congress was calling them 'a number of barren rocks, not worth the hour of discussion,' Sir Douglas was grazing great flocks of sheep on the fertile slopes of San Juan,--that must be it, that long, even shore between us and the end of Vancouver,--and investing its best harbor with British soldiers. Doesn't it rouse your blood, even now? Can't you almost hear that old pioneer slogan, 'Fifty-four, forty or fight?'"

Stratton laughed. "I am afraid not. You see I have lived in Victoria, and I have heard a good deal more about that old explorer Vancouver. You know he claimed all of this territory in the king's name. He called it New Georgia by right of discovery. And I have known some pretty fine people across the border, Miss Hunter. In fact they have treated me better than some I have known on this side. But there is hope; with you to teach me I may turn out a fairly good American patriot--yet."

She shook her head, looking him over gravely, and he laughed again, and seated himself near her on the ledge. "Now, I am ready for that story," she said.

He looked off to that far line of the British coast. "I am almost sorry I promised to tell it," he answered; "still, you may hear it sometime, through others, and understand it less. I, well, I think a good deal of him; I want you to see it from his side. He was just a boy, Miss Hunter; a dare-devil sort of boy, fond of adventure and proud of his little boat. He never had been taught to regard the Government patriotically, as you do, and the men who tempted him were upright, irreproachable men,"--his lip curled,--"the ones of whom the Captain told you. One of them had been a close friend of this boy's father, and held a Government position of trust; the other, in whose office the boy was reading law, was a prominent attorney known all over the Northwest. They both knew how to appeal. His mother lived in Victoria at the time; he had made several trips across to see her in his new sloop; and they told him, laughing, he could go unsuspected anywhere, he looked so honest."

Stratton paused and his listener turned her face to him, waiting. "I understand," she said at last, and set her lips, "it was a case of smuggling. There was--a ring. And of course it was opium. Uncle Silas says it usually is opium; the duty is so great, and there is such an immense profit on a smuggled lot."

"Yes, it was opium." He turned his face a little more from her, watching still that far amethyst coast. "And there was a ring. He was to have a third interest in the profit to start a business he liked better than the law. But the revenue officers saw the chest carried to his sloop. They followed. There was a splendid breeze at first, and he led them a chase, dodging between these islands, cross-cutting from channel to channel. But the wind fell at sunset, or rather shifted, and he found himself in unfamiliar water. Still he slipped the cutter off this island and made a landing. He concealed the stuff, intending to return for it when the pursuit was over. But he was slow in finding a safe hiding-place and the tide changed; and when the sloop swung out on her first tack she was caught in that tide-rip."

Stratton paused. He passed his hand across his eyes, but Alice was silent. She looked off at the white mountain, and waited, holding her chin high and creasing her brows. Clearly the man in the tide-rip had lost her sympathy. Her attitude said, "It was what he deserved."