HIDDEN CREEK

BY KATHARINE NEWLIN BURT

AUTHOR OF "THE BRANDING IRON" AND "THE RED LADY"

1920

TO MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT WHO BLAZED THE TRAIL

CONTENTS

PART ONE: THE GOOD OLD WORLD

 I. SHEILA'S LEGACY II. SYLVESTER HUDSON COMES FOR HIS PICTURE III. THE FINEST CITY IN THE WORLD IV. MOONSHINE V. INTERCESSION VI. THE BAWLING-OUT VII. DISH-WASHINGVIII. ARTISTS IX. A SINGEING OF WINGS X. THE BEACON LIGHT XI. IN THE PUBLIC EYE XII. HUDSON'S QUEENXIII. SYLVESTER CELEBRATES XIV. THE LIGHT OF DAWN XV. FLAMES

PART TWO: THE STARS

 I. THE HILL II. ADVENTURE III. JOURNEY'S END IV. BEASTS V. NEIGHBOR NEIGHBOR VI. A HISTORY AND A LETTER VII. SANCTUARYVIII. DESERTION IX. WORK AND A SONG X. WINTER XI. THE PACK XII. THE GOOD OLD WORLD AGAINXIII. LONELINESS XIV. SHEILA AND THE STARS

HIDDEN CREEK

PART ONE

THE GOOD OLD WORLD

CHAPTER I

SHEILA'S LEGACY

Just before his death, Marcus Arundel, artist and father of Sheila, bore witness to his faith in God and man. He had been lying apparentlyunconscious, his slow, difficult breath drawn at longer and longerintervals. Sheila was huddled on the floor beside his bed, her handpressing his urgently in the pitiful attempt, common to human love, tohold back the resolute soul from the next step in its adventure. Thenurse, who came in by the day, had left a paper of instructions on thetable. Here a candle burned under a yellow shade, throwing a circle ofwarm, unsteady light on the head of the girl, on the two hands, on therumpled coverlet, on the dying face. This circle of light seemed tocollect these things, to choose them, as though for the expression ofsome meaning. It felt for them as an artist feels for his compositionand gave to them a symbolic value. The two hands were in the center ofthe glow--the long, pale, slack one, the small, desperate, clingingone. The conscious and the unconscious, life and death, humanity andGod--all that is mysterious and tragic seemed to find expression therein the two hands. 

So they had been for six hours, and it would soon be morning. The large, bare room, however, was still possessed by night, and the city outsidewas at its lowest ebb of life, almost soundless. Against the skylight thewinter stars seemed to be pressing; the sky was laid across the panes ofglass like a purple cloth in which sparks burned. 

Suddenly and with strength Arundel sat up. Sheila rose with him, drawingup his hand in hers to her heart. 

"Keep looking at the stars, Sheila, " he said with thrilling emphasis, andwidened his eyes at the visible host of them. Then he looked down at her;his eyes shone as though they had caught a reflection from the myriadlights. "It is a good old world, " he said heartily in a warm and humanvoice, and he smiled his smile of everyday good-fellowship. 

Sheila thanked God for his return, and on the very instant he was gone. He dropped back, and there were no more difficult breaths. 

Sheila, alone there in the garret studio above the city, cried to herfather and shook him, till, in very terror of her own frenzy in the faceof his stillness, she grew calm and laid herself down beside him, put hisdead arm around her, nestled her head against his shoulder. She wasseventeen years old, left alone and penniless in the old world that hehad just pronounced so good. She lay there staring at the stars till theyfaded, and the cold, clear eye of day looked down into the room. 

CHAPTER II

SYLVESTER HUDSON COMES FOR HIS PICTURE

Back of his sallow, lantern-jawed face, Sylvester Hudson hidsuccessfully, though without intention, all that was in him whether ofgood or ill. Certainly he did not look his history. He wasstoop-shouldered, pensive-eyed, with long hands on which he was alwaysturning and twisting a big emerald. He dressed quietly, almost correctly, but there was always something a little wrong in the color or pattern ofhis tie, and he was too fond of brown and green mixtures which did notbecome his sallowness. He smiled very rarely, and when he did smile, hislong upper lip unfastened itself with an effort and showed a horizontalwrinkle halfway between the pointed end of his nose and the irregular, nicked row of his teeth. 

Altogether, he was a gentle, bilious-looking sort of man, who might havebeen anything from a country gentleman to a moderately prosperous clerk. As a matter of fact, he was the owner of a dozen small, not toorespectable, hotels through the West, and had an income of nearly half amillion dollars. He lived in Millings, a town in a certain Far-WesternState, where flourished the most pretentious and respectable of hishotels. It had a famous bar, to which rode the sheep-herders, thecowboys, the ranchers, the dry-farmers of the surrounding country--yes, and sometimes, thirstiest of all, the workmen from more distantoil-fields, a dangerous crew. Millings at that time had not yielded tothe generally increasing "dryness" of the West. It was "wet, "notwithstanding its choking alkali dust; and the deep pool of itswetness lay in Hudson's bar, The Aura. It was named for a woman who hadbecome his wife. 

When Hudson came to New York he looked up his Eastern patrons, and it wasone of these who, knowing Arundel's need, encouraged the hotel-keeper inhis desire to secure a "jim-dandy picture" for the lobby of The Aura andtook him for the purpose to Marcus's studio. On that morning, hardly afortnight before the artist's death, Sheila was not at home. 

Marcus, in spite of himself, was managed into a sale. It was of anenormous canvas, covered weakly enough by a thin reproduction of a rangeof the Rockies and a sagebrush flat. Mr. Hudson in his hollow voicepronounced it "classy. " "Say, " he said, "put a little life into theforeground and that would please _me_. It's what I'm seekin'. Put in anautomobile meetin' one of these old-time prairie schooners--the old Westsayin' howdy to the noo. That will tickle the trade. " Mark, who wasfeeling weak and ill, consented wearily. He sketched in the proposedamendment and Hudson approved with one of his wrinkled smiles. He offereda small price, at which Arundel leapt like a famished hound. 

When his visitors had gone, the painter went feverishly to work. The daybefore his death, Sheila, under his whispered directions, put the lasttouches to the body of the "auto_m_obile. "

"It's ghastly, " sighed the sick man, "but it will do--for Millings. " Heturned his back sadly enough to the canvas, which stood for him like amonument to fallen hope. Sheila praised it with a faltering voice, but hedid not turn nor speak. So she carried the huge picture out of his sight. 

The next day, at about eleven o'clock in the morning, Hudson called. Hecame with stiff, angular motions of his long, thin legs, up the foursteep, shabby flights and stopped at the top to get his breath. 

"The picture ain't worth the climb, " he thought; and then, struck by thepeculiar stillness of the garret floor, he frowned. "Damned if the fellerain't out!" He took a stride forward and knocked at Arundel's door. Therewas no answer. He turned the knob and stepped into the studio. 

A screen stood between him and one half of the room. The other half wasempty. The place was very cold and still. It was deplorably bare andshabby in the wintry morning light. Some one had eaten a meager breakfastfrom a tray on the little table near the stove. Hudson's canvas stoodagainst the wall facing him, and its presence gave him a feeling ofownership, of a right to be there. He put his long, stiff hands into hispockets and strolled forward. He came round the corner of the screen andfound himself looking at the dead body of his host. 

The nurse, that morning, had come and gone. With Sheila's help she hadprepared Arundel for his burial. He lay in all the formal detachment ofdeath, his eyelids drawn decently down over his eyes, his lips putcarefully together, his hands, below their white cuffs and black sleeves, laid carefully upon the clean smooth sheet. 

Hudson drew in a hissing breath, and at the sound Sheila, crumpled up inexhausted slumber on the floor beside the bed, awoke and lifted her face. 

It was a heart-shaped face, a thin, white heart, the peak of her haircutting into the center of her forehead. The mouth struck a note of lifewith its dull, soft red. There was not lacking in this young face theslight exaggerations necessary to romantic beauty. Sheila had a strange, arresting sort of jaw, a trifle over-accentuated and out of drawing. Hereyes were long, flattened, narrow, the color of bubbles filled withsmoke, of a surface brilliance and an inner mistiness--indescribableeyes, clear, very melting, wistful and beautiful under sooty lashes andslender, arched black brows. 

Sheila lifted this strange, romantic face on its long, romantic throatand looked at Hudson. Then she got to her feet. She was soft and silken, smooth and tender, gleaming white of skin. She had put on an old blackdress, just a scrap of a flimsy, little worn-out gown. A certain slim, crushable quality of her body was accentuated by this flimsiness ofcovering. She looked as though she could be drawn through a ring--asthough, between your hands, you could fold her to nothing. A thin littlekitten of silky fur and small bones might have the same feel as Sheila. 

She stood up now and looked tragically and helplessly at Hudson andtried to speak. 

He backed away from the bed, beckoned to her, and met her in the otherhalf of the room so that the leather screen stood between them and thedead man. They spoke in hushed voices. 

"I had no notion, Miss Arundel, that--that--of--this, " Hudson began in adry, jerky whisper. "Believe _me_, I wouldn't 'a' thought of intrudin'. Iordered the picture there from your father a fortnight ago, and this wasthe day I was to come and give it a last looking-over before I camethrough with the cash, see? I hadn't heard he was sick even, muchless"--he cleared his throat--"gone beyond, " he ended, quoting from the"Millings Gazette" obituary column. "You get me?"

"Yes, " said Sheila, in her voice that in some mysterious way was anotherexpression of the clear mistiness of her eyes and the suppleness of herbody. "You are Mr. Hudson. " She twisted her hands together behind herback. She was shivering with cold and nervousness. "It's done, you see. Father finished it. "

Hudson gave the canvas an absent glance and motioned Sheila to a chairwith a stiff gesture of his arm. 

"You set down, " he said. 

She obeyed, and he walked to and fro before her. 

"Say, now, " he said, "I'll take the picture all right. But I'd like toknow, Miss Arundel, if you'll excuse me, how you're fixed?"

"Fixed?" Sheila faltered. 

"Why, yes, ma'am--as to finances, I mean. You've got some funds, or somerelations or some friends to call upon--?"

Sheila drew up her head a trifle, lowered her eyes, and began to plaither thin skirt across her knee with small, delicate fingers. Hudsonstopped in his walk to watch this mechanical occupation. She struggleddumbly with her emotion and managed to answer him at last. 

"No, Mr. Hudson. Father is very poor. I haven't any relations. We have nofriends here nor anywhere near. We lived in Europe till quite lately--afishing village in Normandy. I--I shall have to get some work. "

"Say!" It was an ejaculation of pity, but there was a note of triumph init, too; perhaps the joy of the gratified philanthropist. 

"Now, look-a-here, little girl, the price of that picture will just aboutcover your expenses, eh?--board and--er--funeral?"

Sheila nodded, her throat working, her lids pressing down tears. 

"Well, now, look-a-here. I've got a missus at home. "

Sheila looked up and the tears fell. She brushed them from her cheeks. "A missus?"

"Yes'm--my wife. And a couple of gels about your age. Well, say, we'vegot a job for you. "

Sheila put her hand to her head as though she would stop a whirlingsensation there. 

"You mean you have some work for me in your home?"

"You've got it first time. Yes, _ma'am_. Sure thing. At Millings, finestcity in the world. After you're through here, you pack up your duds andyou come West with me. Make a fresh start, eh? Why, it'll make me plumbcheerful to have a gel with me on that journey . . . Seem like I'd Girlieor Babe along. They just cried to come, but, say, Noo York's no place forthe young. "

"But, Mr. Hudson, my ticket? I'm sure I won't have the money--?"

"Advance it to you on your pay, Miss Arundel. "

"But what is the work?" Sheila still held her hand against her forehead. 

Hudson laughed his short, cracked cackle. "Jest old-fashioned house-work, dish-washing and such. 'Help' can't be had in Millings, and Girlie andBabe kick like steers when Momma leads 'em to the dish-pan. Not thatyou'd have to do it all, you know, just lend a hand to Momma. Maybeyou're too fine for that?"

"Oh, no. I have done all the work here. I'd be glad. Only--"

He came closer to her and held up a long, threatening forefinger. It wasa playful gesture, but Sheila had a distinct little tremor of fear. Shelooked up into his small, brown, pensive eyes, and her own were held asthough their look had been fastened to his with rivets. 

"Now, look-a-here, Miss Arundel, don't you say 'only' to me. Nor 'but. 'Nor 'if. ' Nary one of those words, if you please. Say, I've got daughtersof my own and I can manage gels. I know _how_. Do you know my nickname?Well--say--it's 'Pap. ' Pap Hudson. I'm the adopting kind. Sort ofpaternal, I guess. Kids and dogs follow me in the streets. You want arecommend? Just call up Mr. Hazeldean on the telephone. He's the man thatfetched me here to buy that picture off Poppa. "

"Oh, " said Sheila, daughter of Mark who looked at stars, "of courseI shouldn't think of asking for a recommendation. You've been onlytoo kind--"

He put his hand on her shoulder in its thin covering and patted it, wondering at the silken, cool feeling against his palm. 

"Kind, Miss Arundel? Pshaw! My middle name's 'Kind' and that's the truth. Why, how does the song go--''T is love, 't is love that makes the worldgo round'--love's just another word for kindness, ain't it? And it's notsuch a bad old world either, eh?"

Without knowing it, with the sort of good luck that often attends theenterprises of such men, Hudson had used a spell. He had quoted, almostliterally, her father's last words and she felt that it was a messagefrom the other side of death. 

She twisted about in her chair, took his hand from her shoulder, and drewit, stiff and sallow, to her young lips. 

"Oh, " she sobbed, "you're kind! It _is_ a good world if there are suchmen as you!"

When Sylvester Hudson went down the stairs a minute or two after Sheila'simpetuous outbreak, his sallow face was deeply flushed. He stopped totell the Irishwoman who rented the garret floor to the Arundels, thatSheila's future was in his care. During this colloquy, pure business onhis side and mixed business and sentiment on Mrs. Halligan's, Sylvesterdid not once look the landlady in the eye. His own eyes skipped hers, nowacross, now under, now over. There are some philanthropists who areovercome with such bashfulness in the face of their own good deeds. But, sitting back alone in his taxicab on his way to the station to buySheila's ticket to Millings, Sylvester turned his emerald rapidly abouton his finger and whistled to himself. And cryptically he expressed hisglow of gratified fatherliness. 

"As smooth as silk, " said Sylvester aloud. 

CHAPTER III

THE FINEST CITY IN THE WORLD

So Sheila Arundel left the garret where the stars pressed close, andwent with Sylvester Hudson out into the world. It was, that morning, aworld of sawing wind, of flying papers and dust-dervishes, a world, tomeet which people bent their shrinking faces and drew their bodiestogether as against the lashing of a whip. Sheila thought she had neverseen New York so drab and soulless; it hurt her to leave it under sodesolate an aspect. 

"Cheery little old town, isn't it?" said Sylvester. "Gee! Millings isGod's country all right. "

On the journey he put Sheila into a compartment, supplied her withmagazines and left her for the most part to herself--for which isolationshe was grateful. With her compartment door ajar, she could see him inhis section, when he was not in the smoking-car, or rather she could seehis lean legs, his long, dark hands, and the top of his sleek head. Therest was an outspread newspaper. Occasionally he would come into thecompartment to read aloud some bit of information which he thought mightinterest her. Once it was the prowess of a record-breaking hen; again itwas a joke about a mother-in-law; another time it was the Hilliard murdercase, a scandal of New York high-life, the psychology of which intriguedSylvester. 

"Isn't it queer, though, Miss Arundel, that such things happen in theslums and they happen in the smart set, but they don't happen near sooften with just plain folks like you and me! Isn't this, now, a realTenderloin Tale--South American wife and American husband and all theirlove affairs, and then one day her up and shooting him! Money, " quothSylvester, "sure makes love popular. Now for that little ro-mance, poorfolks would hardly stop a day's work, but just because the Hilliards herehave po-sition and spon-dulix, why, they'll run a couple of columns about'em for a week. What's your opinion on the subject, Miss Arundel?"

He was continually asking this, and poor Sheila, strange, bewildered, oppressed by his intrusion into her uprooted life, would grope wildlythrough her odds and ends of thought and find that on most of thesubjects that interested him, she had no opinions at all. 

"You must think I'm dreadfully stupid, Mr. Hudson, " she faltered onceafter a particularly deplorable failure. 

"Oh, you're a kid, Miss Sheila, that's all your trouble. And I reckonyou're half asleep, eh? Kind of brought up on pictures and country walks, in--what's the name of the foreign part?--Normandy? No friends of yourown age? No beaux?"

Sheila shook her head, smiling. Her flexible smile was as charming as achild's. It dawned on the gravity of her face with an effect of springmoonlight. In it there was some of the mischief of fairyland. 

"What _you_ need is--Millings, " prescribed Sylvester. "Girlie and Babewill wake you up. Yes, and the boys. You'll make a hit in Millings. " Hecontemplated her for an instant with his head on one side. "We ain't gotanything like you in Millings. "

Sheila, looking out at the wide Nebraskan prairies that slippedendlessly past her window hour by hour that day, felt that she would notmake a hit at Millings. She was afraid of Millings. Her terror of Babeand Girlie was profound. She had lived and grown up, as it were, underher father's elbow. Her adoration of him had stood between her andexperience. She knew nothing of humanity except Marcus Arundel. And hewas hardly typical--a shy, proud, head-in-the-air sort of man, who wouldhave been greatly loved if he had not shrunk morbidly from humancontacts. Sheila's Irish mother had wooed and won him and had made amerry midsummer madness in his life, as brief as a dream. Sheila was allthat remained of it. But, for all her quietness, the shadow of hisbroken heart upon her spirit, she was a Puck. She could make laughterand mischief for him and for herself--not for any one else yet; she wastoo shy. But that might come. Only, Puck laughter is a little unearthly, a little delicate. The ear of Millings might not be attuned. . . . Justnow, Sheila felt that she would never laugh again. Sylvester's humorcertainly did not move her. She almost choked trying to swallowbecomingly the mother-in-law anecdote. 

But Sylvester's talk, his questions, even his jokes, were not what mostoppressed her. Sometimes, looking up, she would find him staring at herover the top of his newspaper as though he were speculating aboutsomething, weighing her, judging her by some inner measurement. It wasrather like the way her father had looked a model over to see if shewould fit his dream. 

At such moments Sylvester's small brown eyes were the eyes of anartist, of a visionary. They embarrassed her painfully. What was it, after all, that he expected of her? For an expectation of some kind hemost certainly had, and it could hardly have to do with her skill inwashing dishes. 

She asked him a few small questions as they drew near to Millings. Thestrangeness of the country they were now running through excited her andfired her courage--these orange-colored cliffs, these purple buttes, these strange twisting cañons with their fierce green streams. 

"Please tell me about Mrs. Hudson and your daughters?" she asked. 

This was a few hours before they were to come to Millings. They hadchanged trains at a big, bare, glaring city several hours before andwere now in a small, gritty car with imitation-leather seats. They wererunning through a gorge, and below and ahead Sheila could see the brownplain with its patches of snow and, like a large group of red toyhouses, the town of Millings, far away but astonishingly distinct in theclear air. 

Sylvester, considering her question, turned his emerald slowly. 

"The girls are all _right_, Miss Sheila. They're lookers. I guess I'vespoiled 'em some. They'll be crazy over you--sort of a noo pet in thehouse, eh? I've wired to 'em. They must be hoppin' up and down like apopper full of corn. "

"And Mrs. Hudson?"

Sylvester grinned--the wrinkle cutting long and deep across his lip. "Well, ma'am, she ain't the hoppin' kind. "

A few minutes later Sheila discovered that emphatically she was not thehopping kind. A great, bony woman with a wide, flat, handsome face, shecame along the station platform, kissed Sylvester with hard lips andstared at Sheila . . . The stony stare of her kind. 

"Babe ran the Ford down, Sylly, " she said in the harshest voice Sheilahad ever heard. "Where's the girl's trunk?"

Sylvester's sallow face reddened. He turned quickly to Sheila. 

"Run over to the car yonder, Miss Sheila, and get used to Babe, while Ikind of take the edge off Momma. "

Sheila did not run. She walked in a peculiar light-footed manner whichgave her the look of a proud deer. 

"Momma" was taken firmly to the baggage-room, where, it would seem, theedge was removed with difficulty, for Sheila waited in the motor withBabe for half an hour. 

Babe hopped. She hopped out of her seat at the wheel and shook Sheila'shand and told her to "jump right in. "

"Sit by me on the way home, Sheila. " Babe had a tremendous voice. "Andleave the old folks to gossip on the back seat. Gee! you're differentfrom what I thought you'd be. Ain't you small, though? You've got noform. Say, Millings will do lots for you. Isn't Pap a character, though?Weren't you tickled the way he took you up? Your Poppa was a painter, wasn't he? Can you make a picture of me? I've got a steady that would bejust wild if you could. "

Sheila sat with hands clenched in her shabby muff and smiled hermoonlight smile. She was giddy with the intoxicating, heady air, with thebrilliant sunset light, with Babe's loud cordiality. She wanteddesperately to like Babe; she wanted even more desperately to be liked. She was in an unimaginable panic, now. 

Babe was a splendid young animal, handsome and round and rosy, her bodycrowded into a bright-blue braided, fur-trimmed coat, her face crowdedinto a tight, much-ornamented veil, her head with heavy chestnut hair, crowded into a cherry-colored, velvet turban round which seemed to bewrapped the tail of some large wild beast. Her hands were ready to burstfrom yellow buckskin gloves; her feet, with high, thick insteps, fromtheir tight, thin, buttoned boots, even her legs shone pink and plumpbelow her short skirt, through silk stockings that were threatened at theseams. And the blue of her eyes, the red of her cheeks, the white of herteeth, had the look of being uncontainable, too brilliant and full tostay where they belonged. The whole creature flashed and glowed anddistended herself. Her voice was a riot of uncontrolled vitality, and, asthough to use up a little of all this superfluous energy, she wasviolently chewing gum. Except for an occasional slight smacking sound, itdid not materially interfere with speech. 

"There's Poppa now, " she said at last. "Say, Poppa, you two sit in theback, will you? Sheila and I are having a fine time. But, Poppa, you oldtin-horn, what did you mean by saying in your wire that she was a huskygirl? Why, she's got the build of a sagebrush mosquito! Look-a-here, Sheila. " Babe by a miracle got her plump hand in and out of a pocket andhanded a telegram to her new friend. "Read that and learn to know Poppa!"

Sylvester laughed rather sheepishly as Sheila read:

Am bringing home artist's A1 picture for The Aura and artist's A1daughter. Husky girl. Will help Momma. 

"Well, " said Sylvester apologetically, "she's one of the wiry kind, aren't you, Miss Sheila?"

Sheila was struggling with an attack of hysterical mirth. She noddedand put her muff before her mouth to hide an uncontrollable quiveringof her lips. 

"Momma" had not spoken. Her face was all one even tone of red, hernostrils opened and shut, her lips were tight. Sylvester, however, was ina genial humor. He leaned forward with his arms folded along the back ofthe front seat and pointed out the beauties of Millings. He showed Sheilathe Garage, the Post-Office, and the Trading Company, and suddenlypressing her shoulder with his hand, he cracked out sharply:

"There's The Aura, girl!"

His eyes were again those of the artist and the visionary. They glowed. 

Sheila turned her head. They were passing the double door of the saloonand went slowly along the front of the hotel. 

It stood on that corner where the main business street intersects withthe Best Residence Street. Its main entrance opened into the flattenedcorner of the building where the roof rose to a fantastic façade. For therest, the hotel was of yellowish-brick, half-surrounded by a wooden porchwhere at milder seasons of the year in deep wicker chairs men and womenwere always rocking with the air of people engaged in serious and notunimportant work. At such friendlier seasons, too, by the curb was alwaysa weary-looking Ford car from which grotesquely arrayed "travelers" fromnear-by towns and cities were descending covered with alkali dust--faces, chiffon veils, spotted silk dresses, high white kid boots, danglingpurses and all, their men dust-powdered to a wrinkled sameness of aspect. At this time of the year the porch was deserted, and the only car insight was Hudson's own, which wriggled and slipped its way courageouslyalong the rutted, dirty snow. 

Around the corner next to the hotel stood Hudson's home. It was a largehouse of tortured architecture, cupolas and twisted supports and strange, overlapping scallops of wood, painted wavy green, pinkish red and yellow. Its windows were of every size and shape and appeared in unreasonable, impossible places--opening enormous mouths on tiny balconies with twistedposts and scalloped railings, like embroidery patterns, one on top of theother up to a final absurdity of a bird cage which found room for itselfbetween two cupolas under the roof. 

Up the steps of the porch Mrs. Hudson mounted grimly, followed by Babe. Sylvester stayed to tinker with the car, and Sheila, after a doubtful, tremulous moment, went slowly up the icy path after the two women. 

She stumbled a little on the lowest step and, in recovering herself, shehappened to turn her head. And so, between two slender aspen trees thatgrew side by side like white, captive nymphs in Hudson's yard, she saw amountain-top. The sun had set. There was a crystal, turquoisetranslucency behind the exquisite snowy peak, which seemed to stand therefacing God, forgetful of the world behind it, remote and reverent andmost serene in the light of His glory. And just above where the turquoisefaded to pure pale green, a big white star trembled. Sheila's heartstopped in her breast. She stood on the step and drew breath, throwingback her veil. A flush crept up into her face. She felt that she had beentraveling all her life toward her meeting with this mountain and thisstar. She felt radiant and comforted. 

"How beautiful!" she whispered. 

Sylvester had joined her. 

"Finest city in the world!" he said. 

CHAPTER IV

MOONSHINE

Dickie Hudson pushed from him to the full length of his arm the ledger ofThe Aura Hotel, tilted his chair back from the desk, and, leaning farover to one side, set the needle on a phonograph record, pressed thestarter, and absorbed himself in rolling and lighting a cigarette. Thisaccomplished, he put his hands behind his head and, wreathed in aromatic, bluish smoke, gave himself up to complete enjoyment of the music. 

It was a song from some popular light opera. A very high soprano and amusical tenor duet, sentimental, humoresque:

"There, dry your eyes, I sympathizeJust as a mother would--Give me your hand, I understand, we're off to slumber landLike a father, like a mother, like a sister, like a brother. "

Listening to this melody, Dickie Hudson's face under the gaslightexpressed a rapt and spiritual delight, tender, romantic, melancholy. 

He was a slight, undersized youth, very pale, very fair, with the face ofa delicate boy. He had large, near-sighted blue eyes in which lurked awistful, deprecatory smile, a small chin running from wide cheek-bonesto a point. His lips were sensitive and undecided, his nose unformed, hishair soft and easily ruffled. There were hard blue marks under thelong-lashed eyes, an unhealthy pallor to his cheeks, a slightunsteadiness of his fingers. 

Dickie held a position of minor importance in the hotel, and his pale, innocent face was almost as familiar to its patrons as to those of thesaloon next door--more familiar to both than it was to Hudson's"residence. " Sometimes for weeks Dickie did not strain the scant welcomeof his "folks. " To-night, however, he was resolved to tempt it. Afterlistening to the record, he strolled over to the saloon. 

Dickie was curious. He shared Millings's interest in the "young lady fromNoo York. " Shyness fought with a sense of adventure, until to-night, anight fully ten nights after Sheila's arrival, the courage he imbibed atthe bar of The Aura gave him the necessary impetus. He pulled himself upfrom his elbow, removed his foot from the rail, straightened his spottedtie, and pushed through the swinging doors out into the night. 

It was a moonlit night, as still and pure as an angel of annunciation--anight that carried tall, silver lilies in its hands. Above the small, sleepy town were lifted the circling rim of mountains and the web ofblazing stars. Sylvester's son, after a few crunching steps along the icypavement, stopped with his hand against the wall, and stood, not quitesteadily, his face lifted. The whiteness sank through his tainted bodyand brain to the undefiled child-soul. The stars blazed awfully forDickie, and the mountains were awfully white and high, and the airshattered against his spirit like a crystal sword. He stood for aninstant as though on a single point of solid earth and looked giddilybeyond earthly barriers. 

His lips began to move. He was trying to put that mystery, thatemotion, into words . . . "It's white, " he murmured, "andsharp--burning--like--like"--his fancy fumbled--"like the inside of acold flame. " He shook his head. That did not describe the marvelousquality of the night. And yet--if the world had gone up to heaven in asingle, streaming point of icy fire and a fellow stood in it, frozen, swept up out of a fellow's body. . . . Again he shook his head and his eyeswere possessed by the wistful, apologetic smile. He wished he were nottormented by this queer need of describing his sensations. He rememberedvery vividly one of the many occasions when it had roused his father'sanger. Dickie, standing with his hand against the cold bricks of TheAura, smiled with his lips, not happily, but with a certain amusement, thinking of how Sylvester's hand had cracked against his cheek and sentall his thoughts flying like broken china. He had been apologizing forhis slowness over an errand--something about leaves, it had been--theleaves of those aspens in the yard--he had told his father that they hadbeen little green flames--he had stopped to look at them. 

"You damn fool!" Sylvester had said as he struck. 

"You damn fool!" Once, when a stranger asked five-year-old Dickie hisname, he had answered innocently "Dickie-damn-fool!"

"They'll probably put it on my tombstone, " Dickie concluded, and, stungby the cold, he shrank into his coat and stumbled round the corner of thestreet. The reek of spirits trailed behind him through the purity like asoiled rag. 

Number 18 Cottonwood Avenue was brilliantly lighted. Girlie was playingthe piano, Babe's voice, "sassing Poppa, " was audible from one end to theother of the empty street. Her laughter slapped the air. Dickiehesitated. He was afraid of them all--of Sylvester's pensive, small, brown eyes and hard, long hands, of Babe's bodily vigor, of Girlie's mildcontemptuous look, of his mother's gloomy, furtive tenderness. Dickiefelt a sort of aching and compassionate dread of the rough, awkwardcaress of her big red hand against his cheek. As he hesitated, the dooropened--a blaze of light, yellow as old gold, streamed into the bluebrilliance of the moon. It was blotted out and a figure came quickly downthe steps. It had an air of hurry and escape. A small, slim figure, itcame along the path and through the gate; then, after just an instant ofhesitation, it turned away from Dickie and sped up the wide street. 

Dickie named it at once. "That's the girl, " he said; and possessed byhis curiosity and by the sense of adventure which whiskey had fortified, he began to walk rapidly in the same direction. Out there, where theshort street ended, began the steep side of a mesa. The snow on the roadthat was graded along its front was packed by the runners of freightingsleighs, but it was rough. He could not believe the girl meant to go fora walk alone. And yet, would she be out visiting already, she, astranger? At the end of the street the small, determined figure did notstop; it went on, a little more slowly, but as decidedly as ever, up theslope. On the hard, frozen crust, her feet made hardly a sound. Above thelevel top of the white hill, the peak that looked remote from Hudson'syard became immediate. It seemed to peer--to lean forward, bright as asilver helmet against the purple sky. Dickie could see that "the girl"walked with her head tilted back as though she were looking at the sky. Perhaps it was the sheer beauty of the winter night that had brought herout. Following slowly up the hill, he felt a sense of nearness, ofwarmth; his aching, lifelong loneliness was remotely comforted because agirl, skimming ahead of him, had tilted her chin up so that she could seethe stars. She reached the top of the mesa several minutes before he didand disappeared. She was now, he knew, on the edge of a great plateau, insummer covered with the greenish silver of sagebrush, now an unbroken, glittering expanse. He stood still to get his breath and listen to thevery light crunch of her steps. He could hear a coyote wailing off therein the foothills, and the rushing noise of the small mountain river thathurled itself down upon Millings, ran through it at frenzied speed, andmade for the canon on the other side of the valley. Below him Millingstwinkled with a few sparse lights, and he could, even from here, distinguish the clatter of Babe's voice. But when he came to the top, Millings dropped away from the reach of his senses. Here was dazzlingspace, the amazing presence of the mountains, the pressure of the starrysky. Far off already across the flat, that small, dark figure moved. Shehad left the road, which ran parallel with the mountain range, and waswalking over the hard, sparkling crust. It supported her weight, butDickie was not sure that it would do the same for his. He tried itcarefully. It held, and he followed the faint track of small feet. It didnot occur to him, dazed as he was by the fumes of whiskey and the headyair, that the sight of a man in swift pursuit of her loneliness mightfrighten Sheila. For some reason he imagined that she would know that hewas Sylvester's son, and that he was possessed only by the most sociableand protective impulses. 

He was, besides, possessed by a fateful feeling that it was intended thatout here in the brilliant night he should meet her and talk to her. Theadventurous heart of Dickie was aflame. 

When the hurrying figure stopped and turned quickly, he did notpause, but rather hastened his steps. He saw her lift her muff up toher heart, saw her waver, then move resolutely toward him. She camethus two or three steps, when a treacherous pitfall in the snow openedunder her frightened feet and she went down almost shoulder deep. Dickie ran forward. 

Bending over her, he saw her white, heart-shaped face, and its red mouthas startling as a June rose out here in the snow. And he saw, too, thepanic of her shining eyes. 

"Miss Arundel"--his voice came thin and tender, feeling its waydoubtfully as though it was too heavy a reality--"let me help you. You_are_ Miss Arundel, aren't you? I'm Dickie--Dickie Hudson, Pap Hudson'sson. You hadn't ought to be scared. I saw you coming out alone and tookafter you. I thought you might find it kind of lonesome up here on theflat at night in all the moonlight--hearing the coyotes and all. And, look-a-here, you might have had a time getting out of the snow. Oncet afellow breaks through it sure means a floundering time before a fellowpulls himself out--"

She had given him a hand, and he had pulled her up beside him. Her smileof relief seemed very beautiful to Dickie. 

"I came out, " she said, "because it looked so wonderful--and I wantedto see--" She stopped, looking at him doubtfully, as though sheexpected him not to understand, to think her rather mad. But hefinished her sentence. 

"--To see the mountains, wasn't it?"

"Yes. " She was again relieved, almost as much so, it seemed, as at theknowledge of his friendliness. "Especially that big one. " She waved hermuff toward the towering peak. "I never did see such a night! It'slike--it's like--" She widened her eyes, as though, by taking into herbrain an immense picture of the night, she might find out its likeness. 

Dickie, moving uncertainly beside her, murmured, "Like the inside of acold flame, a very white flame. "

Sheila turned her chin, pointed above the fur collar of her coat, andincluded him in the searching and astonished wideness of her look. 

"You work at The Aura, don't you?" she asked with childlike _brusquerie_. 

Dickie's sensitive, undecided mouth settled into mournfulness. Helooked away. 

"Yes, ma'am, " he said plaintively. 

Sheila's widened eyes, still fixed upon him, began to embarrass him. Aflush came up into his face. 

She moved her look across him and away to the range. 

"It _is_ like that, " she said--"like a cold flame, going up--how did youthink of that?"

Dickie looked quickly, gratefully at her. "I kind of felt, " he saidlamely, "that I had got to find out what it was like. But"--he shook hishead with his deprecatory smile--"but that don't tell it, Miss Arundel. It's more than that. " He smiled again. "I bet you, you could think ofsomethin' better to say about it, couldn't you?"

Sheila laughed. "What a funny boy you are! Not like the others. You don'teven look like them. How old are you? When I first saw you I thought youwere quite grown up. But you can't be much more than nineteen. "

"Just that, " he said, "but I'll be twenty next month. "

"You've always lived here in Millings?"

"Yes, ma'am. Do you like it? I mean, do you like Millings? I hope youdo. "

Sheila pressed her muff against her mouth and looked at him over it. Hereyes were shining as though the moonlight had got into their mistygrayness. She shook her head; then, as his face fell, she began toapologize. 

"Your father has been so awfully kind to me. I am so grateful. And thegirls are awfully good to me. But, Millings, you know?--I wouldn'thave told you, " she said half-angrily, "if I hadn't been so sure youhated it. "

They had come to the edge of the mesa, and there below shone the small, scattered lights of the town. The graphophone was playing in the saloon. Its music--some raucous, comic song--insulted the night. 

"Why, no, " said Dickie, "I don't hate Millings. I never thought about itthat way. It's not such a bad place. Honest, it isn't. There's lots offine folks in it. Have you met Jim Greely?"

"Why, no, but I've seen him. Isn't that Girlie's--'fellow'?"

Dickie made round, respectful eyes. He was evidently very much impressed. 

"Say!" he ejaculated. "Is that the truth? Girlie's aiming kind of high. "

It was not easy to walk side by side on the rutted snow of the road. Sheila here slipped ahead of him and went on quickly along the middle rutwhere the horses' hoofs had beaten a pitted path. 

She looked back at him over her shoulder with a sort of malice. 

"Is it aiming high?" she said. "Girlie is much more beautiful thanJim Greely. "

"Oh, but he's some looker--Jim. "

"Do you think so?" she said indifferently, with a dainty touch of scorn. 

Dickie staggered physically from the shock of her speech. She had beenspeaking--was it possible?--of Jim Greely. . . . 

"I mean Mr. James Greely, the son of the president of the MillingsNational Bank, " he said painstakingly, and a queer confusion came to himthat the words were his feet and that neither were under his control. Also, he was not sure that he had said "Natural, " or "National. "

"I do mean Mr. James Greely, " Sheila's clear voice came back to him. "Heis, I should think, a very great hero of yours. "

"Yes, ma'am, " said Dickie. 

Astonished at the abject humility of his tone, Sheila stopped and turnedquite around to look at him. He seemed to be floundering in and out ofinvisible holes in the snow. He stepped very high, plunged, put out hishand, and righted himself by her shoulder. And he stayed there, lurchedagainst her for a moment. She shook him off and began to run down thehill. His breath had struck her face. She knew that he was drunk. 

Dickie followed her as fast as he could. Several times he fell, but, onthe whole, he made fairly rapid progress, so that, by the time she dashedinto the Hudsons' gate, he was only a few steps behind her and caught thegate before it shut. Sheila fled up the steps and beat at the door withher fist. Dickie was just behind her. 

Sylvester himself opened the door. Back of him pressed Babe. 

"Why, say, " she said, "it's Sheila and she's got a beau already. You'resome girl--"

"Please let me in, " begged Sheila; "I--I am frightened. It's yourbrother, Dickie--but I think--there's something wrong--"

Sylvester put his hand on her and pushed her to one side. 

He strode out on the small porch. Dickie wavered before him onthe top step. 

"I thought I'd make the ac-acquaintance of the young lady, " he begandoubtfully. "I saw her admiring at the stars and I--"

"Oh, you did!" snarled Hudson. "All right. Now go and make acquaintancewith the bottom step. " He thrust a long, hard hand at Dickie's chest, andthe boy fell backward, clattering ruefully down the steps with a rattleof thin knees and elbows. At the bottom he lay for a minute, painfullyhuddled in the snow. 

"Go in, Miss Sheila, " said Sylvester. "I'm sorry my son came hometo-night and frightened you. He usually has more sense. He'll have moresense next time. "

He ran down the steps, but before he could reach the huddled figure itgathered itself fearfully together and fled, limping and staggeringacross the yard, through the gate and around the corner of the street. 

Hudson came up, breathing hard. 

"Where's Sheila?" he asked sharply. 

"She ran upstairs, " said Babe. "Ain't it a shame? What got into Dick?"

"Something that will get kicked out of him good and proper to-morrow, "said his father grimly. 

He stood at the bottom of the steep, narrow stairs, looking up, his handsthrust into his pockets, his under lip stuck out. His eyes were unusuallygentle and pensive. 

"I wouldn't 'a' had her scared that way for anything, " he said, "not foranything. That's likely to spoil all my plans. "

He swore under his breath, wheeled about, and going into the parlor heshut the door and began walking to and fro. Babe crept rather quietly upthe stairs. There were times when even Babe was afraid of "Poppa. "

CHAPTER V

INTERCESSION

Babe tiptoed up the first flight, walked solidly and boldly up thesecond, and ran up the third. She had decided to have a talk with Sheila, to soothe her indignation, and, if possible, to explain Dickie. It seemedto Babe that Dickie needed explanation. 

Sheila's room was at the top of the house--the very room, in fact, whosedoor opened on the bird cage of a balcony between two cupolas. Babe cameto the door and knocked. A voice answered sharply: "Come in, " and Babe, entering, shut the door and leaned against it. 

It was a small, bare, whitewashed room, with a narrow cot, a washstand, a bureau, and two extraordinary chairs--a huge one that rocked ondamaged springs, enclosed in plaited leather like the case of anaccordion, and one that had been a rocker, but stood unevenly on itsdiminished legs. Babe had protested against Momma's disposal of the"girl from Noo York, " and had begged that Sheila be allowed to share herown red, white, and blue boudoir below. But Sheila had preferred hersmall room. It was red as a rose at sunset, still and high, remote fromMillings, and it faced The Hill. 

Now, the gaslight flared against the bare walls and ceiling. Sheila'shat and coat and muff lay on the bed where she had thrown them. Shestood, looking at Babe. Her face was flushed, her eyes gleamed, thatslight exaggeration of her chin was more pronounced than usual. 

Babe put her head on one side. "Oh, say, Sheila, why bother about Dickie. Nobody cares about Dickie. He'll get a proper bawlin'-out from Poppato-morrow. But I'd think myself simple to be scared by him. He'sharmless. The poor kid can't half help himself now. He got started whenhe was awful young. "

"Oh, " said Sheila, as sharply as before, stopping before Babe, "I'm notfrightened. I'm angry--angry at myself. I _like_ Dickie. I like him!"

Babe's lips fell apart. She sat down in the accordion-plaited chair androcked. A squealing, shaking noise accompanied the motion. Her fingerssought and found against the chair-back a piece of chewing-gum which shehad stuck there during her last visit to Sheila. Babe hid and resurrectedchewing-gum as instinctively as a dog hides and resurrects his bones. 

"I can _see_ you likin' Dickie, " she remarked ironically. 

"But I do, I tell you! He was sweet. He didn't say a word or do a thingto frighten me--"

"But he was full, Shee, you know he was. "

"Yes. He'd been drinking. I smelt it. And he didn't walk very straight, and he was a little mixed in his speech. But, all the same, he was asgood as gold. And friendly and nice. I might have walked home quietlywith him and sent him away at the door. And he wouldn't have been seen byhis father. " Sheila's eyes filled. "It was dreadful--to--to knock himdown the steps!"

"Say, if you'd had as much to put up with from Dickie as Poppa's had--"

"Oh, " said Sheila in a tone that welled up as from under a weight, "if Ihad always lived in Millings, I'd drink myself!"

Babe looked red and resentful, but Sheila's voice rushed on. 

"That saloon is the only interesting and attractive place in town. Theonly thrilling people that ever come here go in through those doors. I'veseen some wonderful-looking men. I'd like to paint them. I've made somedrawings of them--men from over there back of the mountains. "

"You mean the cowboys from over The Hill, I guess, " drawled Babecontemptuously. "Those sagebrush fellows from Hidden Creek. I don't thinka whole lot of them. Put one of them alongside of one of our town boys!Why, they don't speak good, Sheila, and they're rough as a hill trail. You'd be scared to death of them if you knew them better. "

"They look like real men to me, " said Sheila. "And I never didlike towns. "

"But you're a town girl. "

"I am not. I've been in cities and I've been in the country. I've neverlived in a town. "

"Well, there'll be a dance one of these days next summer in the TownHall, and maybe you'll meet some of those rough-necks. You'll change yourmind about them. Why, I'd sooner dance with a sheep-herder from beyondthe bad-lands, or with one of the hands from the oil-fields, than withthose Hidden Creek fellows. Horse-thieves and hold-ups and Lord knowswhat-all they are. No account runaways. Nothing solid or respectableabout them. Take a boy like Robert, now, or Jim--"

Sheila put her hands to her ears. Her face, between the hands, lookedrather wicked in a sprite-like fashion. 

"Don't mention to me Mr. James Greely of the Millings National Bank!"

Babe rose pompously. "I think you're kind of off your bat to-night, Sheila Arundel, " she said, chewing noisily. "First you run out at nightwith the mercury at 4 below and come dashing back scared to death, banging at the door, and then you tell me you like Dickie and ask me notto mention the finest fellow in Millings!"

"The finest fellow in the finest city in the world!" cried Sheila andlaughed. Her laugh was like a torrent of silver coins, but it had theright maliceful ring of a brownie's "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Babe stopped in the doorway and spoke heavily. 

"You're short on sense, Sheila, " she said. "You're kind of dippy . . . Going out to look at the stars and drawing pictures of that Hidden Creektrash. But you'll learn better, maybe. "

"Wait a minute, Babe!" Sheila was sober again and not unpenitent. "I'mcoming down with you. I want to tell your father that Dickie was sweet tome. I don't want him to--to--what was it he was going to do to-morrow?"

"Bawl Dickie out. "

"Yes. I don't want him to do that. It sounds awful. "

"Well, it is. But it won't hurt Dickie any. He's used to it. "

Babe, forgiving and demonstrative, here forgot the insult to Millings andJim Greely, put her arm round Sheila, and went down the stairs, squeezingthe smaller girl against the wall. 

"I guess I won't go with you to see Poppa, " she said, stopping at the topof the last flight. "Poppa's kind of a rough talker sometimes. "

Sheila looked rather alarmed. "You mean you think he--he will bawl meout?"

"I wouldn't wonder. " Babe smiled, showing a lump of putty-coloredchewing-gum between her flashing teeth. 

Sheila stood halfway down the stairs. She had not yet quite admitted toherself that she was afraid of Sylvester Hudson and now she did admit it. But with a forlorn memory of Dickie, she braced herself and went slowlydown the six remaining steps. The parlor door was shut and back of it toand fro prowled Sylvester. Sheila opened the door. 

Hudson's face, ready with a scowl, changed. He came quickly toward her. 

"Well, say, Miss Sheila, I am sure-ly sorry--"

Sheila shook her head. "Not half so sorry as I am, Mr. Hudson. I camedown to apologize. "

He pulled out a chair and Sheila sat down. Sylvester placed himselfopposite to her and lighted a huge black cigar, watching her meanwhilecuriously, even anxiously. His face was as quiet and sallow and gentle asusual. Sheila's fear subsided. 

"_You_ came down to apologize?" repeated Hudson. "Well, ma'am, thatsounds kind of upside down to me. "

"I behaved like a goose. Your son hadn't done or said anything tofrighten me. He was sweet. I like him so much. He was coming home and sawme walking off alone, and he thought that I might be lonely or frightenedor fall into the snow--which I did"--Sheila smiled coaxingly; "I wentdown up to my neck and Dickie pulled me out and was--lovely to me. Itwasn't till I was halfway down the hill that I--that it came to me, allof a sudden, that--perhaps--he'd been drinking--"

"Perhaps, " said Sylvester dryly. "It's never perhaps with Dickie. "

Sheila's eyes filled. For a seventeen-year-old girl the situation wasdifficult. It was not easy to discuss Dickie's habit with his father. 

"I am so--sorry, " she faltered. "I behaved absurdly. Just because I sawthat he wasn't quite himself I ran away from him and made a scene. Truly, Mr. Hudson, he had not said or done anything the least bit horrid. He'dbeen sensible and nice and friendly--Oh, dear!" For she saw before her arelentless and incredulous face. "You won't believe me now, I suppose!"

"I can't altogether, Miss Sheila, for I reckon you wouldn't have run awayfrom a true-blue, friendly fellow, would you?"

"Yes, Mr. Hudson, I would. Because, you see, I did. It was just a sort ofpanic. Too much moonshine. "

"Yes, ma'am. Too much moonshine inside of Dickie. I hope"--he leanedtoward her, and Sheila, the child, could not help but be flattered by hisdeference--"I hope you're not thinking that Dickie's unfortunate habit ismy fault. I'm his father and I own that saloon. But, all the same, it'snot my fault nor The Aura's fault either. I never did spoil Dickie. AndI'm a sober man myself. He's just naturally ornery, no account. He alwayswas. I believe he's kind of lacking in the upper story. "

"Oh, _no_, Mr. Hudson!"

The protest was so emphatic that Sylvester pulled his cigar out of hismouth, brushed away the smoke, and looked searchingly at Sheila. She wassitting very straight. Against the crimson plush of an enormouschair-back her small figure looked extravagantly delicate and her littlepointed fingers on the arms, startlingly white and fine. A color flamedin her cheeks, her eyes and lips were possessed by the remorsefulearnestness of her appeal. 

"Well, say, if _you_ think not!" Sylvester narrowed his eyes and thrustthe cigar back into a hole made by his mouth for its reception; "you'rethe first person that hasn't kind of agreed with me on that point. Ican't see why he took to the whiskey, anyway. Moderation's my motto andalways was. It's the motto of The Aura. There ain't a bar east nor westof the Rockies, Miss Sheila, believe _me_, that has the reputation fordecency and moderation that my Aura has. She's classy, she'sstylish--well, sir--she's exquisite"--he pronounced it ex-_squis_it--"Idon't mind sayin' so. She's a saloon in a million. And she's famous. Youcan hear talk of The Aura in the best clubs, the most se-lect bars ofChicago and Noo York and San Francisco. She's mighty near perfect. Well, say, there was an Englishman in there one night two summers ago. He wassome Englishman, too, an earl, that was him. Been all over the world, east, west, and in between. Had a glass in his eye--one of those fellers. Do you know what he told me, Miss Sheila? Can you guess?"

"That The Aura was classy?" suggested Sheila bravely. 

"More'n that, " Sylvester leaned farther toward her and emphasized hiswords with the long forefinger. 

"'It's all but perfect'--that's what he said--'it only needs one thing tomake it quite perfect!'"

"What was the thing?"

But Hudson did not heed her question. "Believe me or not, Miss Sheila, that saloon--"

"But I do believe you, " said Sheila with her enchanting smile. "Andthat's just the trouble with Dickie, isn't it? Your saloon is--mustbe--the most fascinating place in Millings. Why, Mr. Hudson, ever since Icame here, I've been longing to go into it myself!"

She got up after this speech and went to stand near the stove. Not thatshe was cold--the small room, which looked even smaller on account of itshuge flaming furniture and the enormous roses on its carpet andwall-paper, was as hot as a furnace--but because she was abashed by herown speech and by his curious reception of it. The dark blood of his bodyhad risen to his face; he had opened his eyes wide upon her, had sunkback again and begun to smoke with short, excited puffs. 

Sheila thought that he was shocked and she was very close to tears. Sheblinked at the stove and moved her fingers uncertainly. "Nice girls, " shethought, "never want to go into saloons!"

Then Sylvester spoke. "You're a girl in a million, Miss Sheila!" hesaid. His voice was more cracked than usual. Sheila transferred herblinking, almost tearful look from the stove to him. "You're a heap toogood for dish-washing, " said Sylvester. 

For some reason the girl's heart began to beat unevenly. She had afeeling of excitement and suspense. It was as if, after walking for manyhours through a wood where there was a lurking presence of danger, shehad heard a nearing step. She kept her eyes upon Sylvester. In his therewas that mysterious look of appraisal, of vision. He seemed nervous, rolled his cigar and moved his feet. 

"Are you satisfied with your work, Miss Sheila?"

Sheila assembled her courage. "I know you'll think me a beast, Mr. Hudson, after all your kindness--and it isn't that I don't like the work. But I've a feeling--no, it's more than a feeling!--I _know_ that yourwife doesn't need me. And I know she doesn't want me. She doesn't like tohave me here. I've been unhappy about that ever since I came. And it'sbeen getting worse. Yesterday she said she couldn't bear to have mewhistling round her kitchen. Mr. Hudson"--Sheila's voice brokechildishly--"I can't help whistling. It's a habit. I couldn't work at allif I didn't whistle. I wouldn't have told you, but since you asked me--"

Sylvester held up his long hand. Its emerald glittered. 

"That's all right, " he said. "I wanted to learn the truth about it. Perhaps you've noticed, Miss Sheila, that I'm not a very happy man athome. "

"You mean--?"

"I mean, " said Sylvester heavily--"_Momma_. "

Sheila overcame a horrible inclination to laugh. 

"I'm so sorry, " she said uncertainly. She was acutely embarrassed, butdid not know how to escape. And she _was_ sorry for him, for certainly itseemed to her that a man married to Momma had just cause for unhappiness. 

"I ought to be ashamed of myself for bringing you here, Miss Sheila. Yousee, that's me. I'm so all-fired soft-hearted that I just don't think. I'm all feelings. My heart's stronger than my head, as the palmists say. "He rose and came over to Sheila; standing beside her and smiling so thatthe wrinkle stood out sharply across his unwilling lip. "Did you ever goto one of those fellows?" he asked. 

"Palmists?"

"Yes, ma'am. Well, now, say, did they ever tell you that you weregoing to be the pride and joy of old Pap Hudson? Give me your littlepaw, girl!"

Sheila's hand obeyed rather unwillingly her irresolute, polite will. Hudson's came quickly to meet it, spread it out flat in his own longpalm, and examined the small rigid surface. 

"Well, now, Miss Sheila, I can read something there. "

"What can you read?"

"You're goin' to be famous. You're goin' to make Millings famous. Girl, you're goin' to be a picture that will live in the hearts of fellows andkeep 'em warm when they're herding winter nights. The thought of you isgoin' to keep 'em straight and pull 'em back here. You 're goin' to bea--a sort of a beacon light. "

He was holding her slim hand with its small, crushable bones in anexcited grip. He was bending forward, not looking at the palm, but ather. Sheila pulled back, wincing a little. 

"What do you mean, Mr. Hudson? How could I be all that?"

Sylvester let her go. He began to pace the room. He stopped and looked ather, almost wistfully. 

"You really think that I've been kind of nice to you?" he asked. 

"Indeed, you have!"

"I'm not a happy man and I've got to be sort of distrustful. I haven'tgot much faith in the thankfulness of people. I've got fooled too often. "

"Try me, " said Sheila quickly. 

He looked at her with a long and searching look. Then he sighed. 

"Some day maybe I will. Run away to bed now. "

Sheila felt as if she had been pushed away from a half-opened door. She drew herself up and walked across the huge flowers of the carpet. But before going out she turned back. Sylvester quickly banished asly smile. 

"You won't be angry with Dickie?" she asked. 

"Not if it's going to deal you any misery, little girl. "

"You're _very_ kind to me. "

He put up his hand. "That's all right, Miss Sheila, " he said. "That's allright. It's a real pleasure and comfort to me to have you here and I'lltry to shape things so they'll suit you--and Momma too. Trust _me_. Butdon't you ask me to put any faith in Dickie's upper story. I've climbedup there too often. I'll give up my plan to go round there to-morrowand--" He paused grimly. 

"And bawl him out?" suggested Sheila with one of her Puckish impulses. 

"Hump! I was going a little further than that. He would likely have donethe bawlin'. But don't you worry yourself about Dickie. He's safe forthis time--so long's you don't blame me, or--The Aura. "

His voice on the last word suffered from one of its cracks. It was asthough it had broken under a load of pride and tenderness. 

Sheila saw for a moment how it was with him. To every man his passion andhis dream: to Sylvester Hudson, his Aura. More than wife or child, heloved his bar. It was a fetish, an idol. To Sheila's fancy Dickiesuddenly appeared the sacrifice. 

CHAPTER VI

THE BAWLING-OUT

Dickie's room in The Aura Hotel was fitted in between the Men's Lavatoryand the Linen Room. It smelt of soiled linen and defective plumbing. Also, into its single narrow window rose the dust of ashes, of old ragsand other refuse thrown light-heartedly into the back yard, which notbeing visible from the street supplied the typical housewife of afrontier town with that relaxation from any necessity to keep up anappearance of economy and cleanliness so desirable to her liberty-lovingsoul. The housekeeper at The Aura was not Mrs. Hudson, but an enormouslystout young woman with blonde hair, named Amelia Plecks. She was sotightly laced and booted that her hard breathing and creaking wereaudible all over the hotel. When Dickie woke in his narrow room after hismoonlight adventure, he heard this heavy breathing in the linen room and, groaning, thrust his head under the pillow. With whatever bitterness hiskindly heart could entertain, he loathed Amelia. She took advantage ofthe favor of Sylvester and of her own exalted position in the hotel totaunt and to humiliate him. His plunge under the pillow did not escapeher notice. 

"Ain't you up yet, lazybones?" she cried, rapping on the wall. "Youwon't get no breakfast. It's half-past seven. Who's at the desk to seethem Duluth folks off? Pap's not going to be pleased with you. "

"I don't want any breakfast, " muttered Dickie. 

Amelia laughed. "No. I'll be bound you don't. Tongue like a kitten and ahead like a cracked stove!"

She slapped down some clean sheets on a shelf and creaked toward thehall, but stopped at the open door. Sylvester Hudson was coming down thepassage and she was in no mind to miss the "bawling-out" of Dickie whichthis visit must portend. She shut the linen-room door softly, therefore, and controlled her breathing. 

But Dickie knew that she was there and, when his father rapped, he knewwhy she was there. 

He tumbled wretchedly from his bed, swore at his injured ankle, hopped tothe door, unlocked it, and hopped back with panic swiftness before hisfather's entrance. He sat in his crumpled pajamas amidst his crumpled, dingy bedclothes, his hair scattered over his forehead, his large, heavyeyes fixed anxiously upon Sylvester. 

"Say, Poppa--" he began. 

Then "Pap's" voice cracked out at him. 

"You hold your tongue, " snapped Sylvester, "or you'll get what's comin'to you!" He jerked Dickie's single chair from against the wall, threw theclothing from it, and sat down, crossing his legs, and holding up at hisson the long finger that had frightened Sheila. Dickie blinked at it. 

"You know what I was plannin' to do to you after last night? I meant tocome round here and pull you out of your covers and onto the floorthere"--he pointed to a spot on the boards to which Dickie fearfullydirected his own eyes--"and kick the stuffin' out of you. " Dickiecontemplated the long, pointed russet shoes of his parent and shudderedvisibly. Nevertheless in the slow look he lifted from the boot to hisfather's face, there was a faint gleam of irony. 

"What made you change your mind?" he asked impersonally. 

It was this curious detachment of Dickie's, this imperturbability, thatmost infuriated Hudson. He flushed. 

"Just a little sass from you will bring me back to the idea, " hesaid sharply. 

Dickie lowered his eyes. 

"What made me change was--Miss Arundel's kindness. She came and beggedyou off. She said you hadn't done anything or said anything to frightenher, that you'd been"--Sylvester drawled out the two words in thesing-song of Western mockery--"'sweet and love-ly. '"

Dickie's face was pink. He began to tie a knot in the corner of one ofhis thin gray sheet-blankets. 

"I don't know how sweet and lovely you can be, Dickie, when you're litup, but I guess you were awful sweet. Anyway, if you didn't say anythingor do anything to scare her, you don't deserve a kickin'. But, just thesame, I've a mind to turn you out of Millings. "

This time, Dickie's look was not ironical. It was terrified. "Oh, Poppa, say! I'll try not to do it again. "

"I never heard that before, did I?" sneered Sylvester. "You put shame onme and my bar. And I'm not goin' to stand it. If you want to get drunkbuy a bottle and come up here in your room. God damn you! You're a niceson for the owner of The Aura!"

He stood up and looked with frank disgust at the thin, huddled figure. Under this look, Dickie grew slowly redder and his eyes watered. 

Sylvester lifted his upper lip. "Faugh!" he said. He walked over to thedoor. "Get up and go down to your job and don't you bother MissSheila--hear me? Keep away from her. She's not used to your sort andyou'll disgust her. She's here under my protection and I've got my plansfor her. I'm her guardian--that's what I am. " Sylvester was pleased likea man that has made a discovery. "Her guardian, " he repeated as thoughthe word had a fine taste. 

Dickie watched him. There was no expression whatever in his face and hislips stood vacantly apart. He might have been seven years old. 

"Keep away from her--hear me?"

"Yes, sir, " said Dickie meekly. 

After his father had gone out, Dickie sat for an instant with his headon one side, listening intently. Then he got up, limped quietly andquickly on his bare feet out into the hall, and locked the linen-roomdoor on the outside. 

"Amelia's clean forgot to lock it, " he said aloud. "Ain't she careless, though, this morning!"

He went back. There was certainly a sound now behind the partition, asound of hard breathing that could no longer be controlled. 

"I'll hand the key over to Mary, " soliloquized Dickie in the hollow andunnatural voice of stage confidences. "She'll be goin' in for the towelsabout noon. "

Then he fell on his bed and smothered a fit of chuckling. 

Suddenly the mirth died out of him. He lay still, conscious of a pain inhis head and in his ankle and somewhere else--an indeterminate spot deepin his being. He had been forbidden to see the girl who ran away out intothe night to look at the stars, the girl who had not laughed at hisattempt to describe the white ecstasy of the winter moon. He hadfrightened her--disgusted her. He must have been more drunk than heimagined. It _was_ disgusting--and so hopeless. Perhaps it would bebetter to leave Millings. 

He sat up on the edge of his bed and let his hands hang limply downbetween his knees. It seemed to him that his thoughts were like a wheel, half-submerged in running water. The wheel went round rapidly, plungingin and out of his consciousness. Hardly had he grasped the meaning of onehalf when it went under and another blur of moving spokes emerged. Something his father had said, for instance, now began to pass throughhis mind. . . . "I've got my plans for her". . . . Dickie tried to stop theturning wheel because this speech gave him a distinct feeling of angerand alarm. By an effort of his will, he held it before hiscontemplation. . . . What possible plans could Sylvester have for Sheila?Did she understand his plans? Did she approve of them? She was so youngand small, with that sad, soft mouth and those shining, misty eyes. Dickie, with almost a paternal air, shook his ruffled head. He shut hiseyes so that the long lashes stood out in little points. A vision ofthose two faces--Sheila's so gleaming fair and open, Sylvester's so darkand shut--stood there to be compared. Her guardian, indeed!

Dickie dressed slowly and dragged himself down to the desk, where verysoberly and sadly he gave the key of the linen room to Mary. Then he satdown, turned on the Victor, and lit a cigarette. The "Duluth folks" hadgone without any assistance from him. There was nothing to do. Itoccurred to Dickie, all at once, that in Millings there was alwaysnothing to do. Nothing, that is, for him to do. Perhaps, after all, hedidn't like Millings. Perhaps that was what was wrong with him. 

The Victor was playing:

"Here comes Tootsie, Play a little music on the band. Here comes Tootsie, Tootsie, you are looking simply grand. Play a little tune on the piccolo and flutes, The man who wrote the rag wrote it especially for Toots. Here comes Tootsie--play a little music on the band. "

On the last nasal note, the door of The Aura flew open and a resplendentfigure crossed the chocolate-colored varnish of the floor. Tootsieherself was not more "simply grand. " This was a young man, perhaps itwould be more descriptive to say _the_ young man that accompanies _the_young woman on the cover of the average American magazine. He had--anose, a chin, a beautiful mouth, large brown eyes, wavy chestnut hair, aruddy complexion, and, what is not always given to the young man on thecover, a deep and generous dimple in the ruddiest part of his rightcheek. He was dressed in the latest suit produced by Schaffner and Marx;he wore a tie of variegated silk which, like Browning's star, "dartled"now red, now blue. The silk handkerchief, which protruded carefully fromhis breast pocket, also "dartled. " So did the socks. One felt that theheart of this young man matched his tie and socks. It was resplendentwith the vanity and hopefulness and illusions of twenty-two years. 

The large, dingy, chocolate-colored lobby became suddenly a background toMr. James Greely, cashier of the Millings National Bank, and the onlychild of its president. 

Upon the ruffled and rumpled Dickie he smiled pleasantly, made a curiousgesture with his hand--they both belonged to the Knights of Sagittariusand the Fire Brigade--and came to lean upon the desk. 

"Holiday at the bank this morning, " he said, "in honor of Dad'swedding-anniversary. We're giving a dance to-night in the Hall. Want tocome, Dickie?"

"No, " said Dickie, "I hurt my ankle last night on the icy pavement. Andanyhow I can't dance. And I sort of find girls kind of tiresome. "

"That's too bad. I'm sure sorry for you, Hudson. Particularly as I camehere just for the purpose of handing you over the cutest little billy-dooyou ever saw. "

He drew out of his pocket an envelope and held it away from Dickie. 

"You're trying to job me, Jim, "--but Dickie had his head coaxingly on oneside and his face was pink. 

"I'll give it to you if you can guess the sender. "

"Babe?"

"Wrong. "

"Girlie?"

"Well, sir, it ain't Girlie's fist--not the fist she uses when she drops_me_ billy-doos. "

Dickie's eyes fell. He turned aside in his chair and stopped thegrinding of the graphophone. He made no further guess. Jim, with hisdimple deepening, tossed the small paper into the air and caught itagain deftly. 

"It's from the young lady from Noo York who's helping Mrs. Hudson, " hesaid. "I guess she's kind of wishful for a beau. She's not much of alooker Girlie tells me. "

"Haven't you met her yet, Jim?" Dickie's hands were in his pockets, buthis eyes followed the gyrations of the paper. 

"No. Ain't that a funny thing, too? Seems like I never get round to it. Ijust saw her peeping at me one day through the parlor curtains while Iwas saying sweet nothings to Girlie on the porch. I guess she was kind ofin-ter-ested. She's skinny and pale, Girlie says. Your mother hasn't gotany use for her. I bet you, it won't be long before she makes tracks backto Noo York, Dickie. Girlie says she won't be lingering on here muchlonger. Too much competition. "

Jim handed the note to Dickie, who had listened to this speech with hisseven-year-old expression. He made no comment, but silently unfoldedSheila's note. 

The writing itself was like her, slender and fine and straight, a littlereckless, daintily desperate. That "I, " now, on the white paper might beSheila skimming across the snow. 

"_My dear Dickie_--somehow I can't call you 'Mr. Hudson'--I am soterribly sorry about the way I acted to you last night. I don't knowwhy I was so foolish. I have tried to explain to your father that youdid nothing and said nothing to frighten me, that you were very politeand kind, but I am afraid he doesn't quite understand. I hope he won'tbe very cross with you, because it was all my fault--no, not quite all, because I think you oughtn't to have followed me. I'm sure you're sorrythat you did. But it was a great deal my fault, so I'm writing this totell you that I wasn't really frightened nor very angry. Just sorry anddisappointed. Because I thought you were so very nice. And not likeMillings. And you liked the mountains better than the town. I wanted--Istill want--you to be my friend. For I do need a friend here, dreadfully. Will you come to see me some afternoon? I hope you didn'thurt yourself when you slipped on those icy steps. 

"Sincerely SHEILA ARUNDEL"

Dickie put the note into his pocket and looked unseeingly at Jim. Jim wasturning up the bottoms of his trousers preparing to go. 

"So you won't come to our dance?" he asked straightening himself, moreruddy than ever. 

"Well, sir, " said Dickie slowly and indifferently, "I wouldn't wonderif I would. "

CHAPTER VII

DISH-WASHING

On that night, while all Millings was preparing itself for the Greelys'dance, while Dickie, bent close to his cracked mirror, was tying hisleast crumpled tie with not too steady fingers, while Jim was applying tohis brown crest a pomade sent to him by a girl in Cheyenne, while Babewas wondering anxiously whether green slippers could be considered amatch or a foil to a dress of turquoise blue, while Girlie touched hercream-gold hair with cream-padded finger-tips, Sheila Arundel prowledabout her room with hot anger and cold fear in her heart. 

Nothing, perhaps, in all this mysterious world is so inscrutable amystery as the mind of early youth. It crawls, the beetle creature, in ahard shell, hiding the dim, inner struggle of its growing wings, movingnumbly as if in a torpid dream. It has forgotten the lively grub stage ofchildhood, and it cannot foresee the dragon-fly adventure just ahead. This blind, dumb, numb, imprisoned thing, an irritation to the nerves ofevery one who has to deal with it, suffers. First it suffers darkly anddimly the pain growth, and then it suffers the sharp agony of a splittingshell, the dazzling wounds of light, the torture of first moving itsfeeble wings. It drags itself from its shell, it clings to its perch, itfinds itself born anew into the world. 

When Sheila had left the studio with Sylvester, she was not yet possessedof wings. Now, the shell was cracking, the dragon-fly adventure about tobegin. To a changed world, changed stars--the heavens above and the earthbeneath were strange to her that night. 

It had begun, this first piercing contact of reality, rudely enough. Mrs. Hudson had helped to split the protecting shell which had saved Sheila'sgrowing dreams. Perhaps "Momma" had her instructions, perhaps it was onlyher own disposition left by her knowing husband to do his trick for him. Sheila had not overstated the unhappiness that Mrs. Hudson's evidentdislike had caused her. In fact, she had greatly understated it. From thefirst moment at the station, when the hard eyes had looked her over andthe harsh voice had asked about "the girl's trunk, " Sheila'ssensitiveness had begun to suffer. It was not easy, even with Babe'sgood-humored help, to go down into the kitchen and submit to Mrs. Hudson's hectoring. "Momma" had all the insolence of the underdog. Of herdaughters, as of her husband, she was very much afraid. They all bulliedher, Babe with noisy, cheerful effrontery--"sass" Sylvester calledit--and Girlie with a soft, unyielding tyranny that had the smotheringpressure of a large silk pillow. Girlie was tall and serious andbeautiful, the proud possessor of what Millings called "a perfect form. "She was inexpressibly slow and untidy, vain and ignorant andself-absorbed. At this time her whole being was centered upon theattentions of Jim Greely, with whom she was "keeping company. " With JimGreely in her mind, she had looked Sheila over, thin and weary Sheila inher shabby black dress, and had decided that here no danger threatened. Nevertheless she did not take chances. Sheila had been in Millings afortnight and had not met the admirable Jim. Her attempt that morning tosend the note to Dickie by Jim was exactly the action that led to thepainful splitting of her shell. 

She had seen from her window Sylvester's departure after breakfast. Therewas something in his grim, angular figure, moving carefully over the icypavement in the direction of the hotel, that gave her a pang for Dickie. She was sure that Hudson was going to be very disagreeable in spite ofher attempt to soften his anger. And she was sorry that Dickie, with hisodd, wistful, friendly face and his eyes so wide and youthful andapologetic for their visions, should think that she was angry ordisgusted. She wrote her letter in a little glow of rescue, and was proudof the tact of that reference to his "fall down the steps"--for shereasoned that the self-esteem of any boy of nineteen must sufferpoignantly over the memory of being knocked down by his father before theeyes of a strange girl. She wrote her note and ran down the stairs, thenstopped to wonder how she could get it promptly to Dickie. It wasintended as a poultice to be applied after the "bawling-out, " and shecould not very well take it to him herself. She knew that he worked inthe hotel, and the hotel was just around the corner. All that was neededwas a messenger. 

She was standing, pink of cheek and vague of eye, fingering her apronlike a cottage child and nibbling at the corner of her envelope, thelight from a window on the stairs falling on the jewel-like polish of herhair, when Girlie opened the door of the "parlor" and came out into thehall. Girlie saw her and half-closed the door. Her lazy eyes, asreflective and receptive and inexpressive as small meadow pools under asummer sky, rested upon Sheila. In the parlor a pleasant baritone voicewas singing, "Treat me nice, Miss Mandy Jane, Treat me nice. Don't you know I'se not to blame, Lovers all act just the same, Treat me nice. . . "

Girlie's fingers tightened on the doorknob. 

"What do you want, Sheila?" she asked, and into the slow, gentle tones ofher voice something had crept, something sinuous and subtle, somethingthat slid into the world with Lilith for the eternal torment of earth'sdaughters. 

"I want to send this note to your brother, " said Sheila with thesimplicity of the aristocrat. "Is that Mr. Greely? Is he going pastthe hotel?"

She took a step toward Jim, but Girlie held out her soft long hand. 

"Give it to me. I'll ask him. "

Sheila surrendered the note. 

"You'd better get back to the dishes, " said Girlie over her shoulder. "Momma's kind of rushed this morning. She's helping Babe with her partydress. I wouldn't 'a' put in my time writing notes to Dickie to-day ifI'd 'a' been you. Sort of risky. "

She slid in through the jealous door and Sheila hurried along the hall tothe kitchen where there was an angry clash and clack of crockery. 

The kitchen was furnished almost entirely with blue-flowered oilcloth;the tables were covered with it, the floor was covered with it, theshelves were draped in it. Cold struck up through the shining, clammysurface underfoot so that while Sheila's face burned from the heat of thestove her feet were icy. The back door was warped and let in a current offrosty air over its sill, a draught that circled her ankles like coldmetal. On the table in the middle of the room, "Momma" had placed anenormous tin dish-pan piled high with dirty dishes, over which she waspouring the contents of the kettle. Steam rose in clouds, half-veilingher big, fierce face which, seen through holes in the vapor, was likethat of a handsome, vulgar witch. 

Through the steam she shot at Sheila a cruel look. "Aren't you planningto do any work to-day, Sheila?" she asked in her voice of harsh, monotonous accents. "Here it's nine o'clock and I ain't been able to do astroke to Babe's dress. I dunno what you was designed for in thishouse--an ornament on the parlor mantel, I guess. "

Sheila's heart suffered one of the terrible swift enlargements of angryyouth. It seemed to fill her chest and stop her breath, forcing waterinto her eyes. She could not speak, went quickly up and took the kettlefrom "Momma's" red hand. 

The table at which dish-washing was done, was inconveniently high. Whenthe big dishpan with its piled dishes topped it, Sheila's arms and backwere strained over her work. She usually pulled up a box on which shestood, but now she went to work blindly, her teeth clenched, her flexiblered lips set close to cover them. The Celtic fire of her Irish blood gaveher eyes a sort of phosphorescent glitter. "Momma" looked at her. 

"Don't show temper!" she said. "What were you doin'? Upstairs work?"

"I was writing a letter, " said Sheila in a low voice, beginning to washthe plates and shrinking at the pain of scalding water. 

"Hmp! Writing letters at this hour! One of your friends back East? Ithought it was about time somebody was looking you up. What do youracquaintance think of you comin' West with Sylly?"

Now that she was at liberty to put a "stroke" of work; on Babe's dress, "Momma" seemed in no particular hurry to do so. She stood in the middleof the kitchen wrapping her great bony arms in her checked apron andstaring at Sheila. Her eyes were like Girlie's turned to stone, as blankand blind as living eyes can be. 

Sheila did not answer. She was white and her hands shook. 

"Hmp!" said "Momma" again. "We aren't goin' to talk about ouracquaintance, are we? Well, some folks' acquaintance don't bear talkin'about; they're either too fine or they ain't the kind that gets intodecent conversation. " She walked away. 

Sheila did her work, holding her anger and her misery away from her, refusing to look at them, to analyze their cause. It was a very busy day. The help Babe usually gave, and "Momma's" more effectual assistance, werenot to be had. Sheila cleaned up the kitchen, swept the dining-room, setthe table and cooked the supper. Her exquisite French omelette and savorybaked tomatoes were reviled. The West knows no cooking but its own, and, like all victims of uneducated taste, it prefers the familiar bad to theunfamiliar good. 

"You've spoiled a whole can of tomatoes, " said Babe. 

Sylvester laughed good-humoredly: "Oh, well, Miss Sheila, you'll learn!"This, to Sheila, whose omelette had been taught her by Mimi Lolotte andwhose baked tomatoes, delicately flavored with onion, were something todream about. And she had toasted the bread golden brown and buttered it, and she had made a delectable vegetable soup! She had never before beenasked to cook a meal at Number 18 Cottonwood Avenue and she was eager toplease Sylvester. His comment, "You'll learn, " fairly took her breath. She would not sit down with them at the table, but hurried back into thekitchen, put her scorched cheek against some cold linoleum, and cried. 

By the time dinner was over and more dishes ready to be washed, thecook's wounded pride was under control. Her few tears had left nomarks on her face. Babe, helping her, did not even know that there hadbeen a shower. 

Babe was excited; her chewing was more energetic even than usual. Itsmacked audibly. 

"Say, Sheila, wot'll you wear to-night?" she yelled above the clatter. 

"Wear?" repeated Sheila. 

"To the dance, you silly! What did you think I meant--to bed?"

Sheila's tired pallor deepened a little. "I am not going to the dance. "

"Not going?" Babe put down a plate. "What do you mean? Of course you'regoing! You've gotta go. Say--Momma, Pap, Girlie"--she ran, at a sort ofsliding gallop across the oilcloth through the swinging door into thedining-room--"will you listen to this? Sheila says she's not going tothe dance!"

"Well, " said "Momma" audibly, "she'd better. I'm agoin' to put out thefires, and the house'll be about 12 below. "

Sylvester murmured, "Oh, we must change that. "

And Girlie said nothing. 

"Well, " vociferated Babe. "I call it too mean for words. I've just set myheart on her meeting some of the folks and getting to know Millings. She's been here a whole two weeks and she hasn't met a single fellow butDickie, and he don't count, and she hasn't even got friendly with any ofthe girls. And I wanted her to see one of our real swell affairs. Why--just for the credit of Millings, she's gotta go. "

"Why fuss her about it, if she don't want to?" Girlie's soft voice waspoured like oil on the troubled billows of Babe's outburst. 

"I'll see to her, " Sylvester's chair scraped the floor as he rose. "Iknow how to manage girls. Trust Poppa!"

He pushed through the door, followed by Babe. Sheila looked up at himhelplessly. She had her box under her feet, and so was not entirelyhidden by the dishpan. She drew up her head and faced him. 

"Mr. Hudson, " she began--"please! I can't go to a dance. You knowI can't--"

"Nonsense!" said Pap. "In the bright lexicon of youth there's no suchword as 'can't. ' Say, girl, you can and you must. I won't have Babecrying her eyes out and myself the most unpopular man in Millings. Say, leave your dishes and go up and put on your best duds. "

"That's talking, " commented Babe. 

In the dining-room "Momma" said, "Hmp!" and Girlie was silent. 

Sheila looked at her protector. "But, you see, Mr. Hudson, I--I--it wasonly a month ago--" She made a gesture with her hands to show him herblack dress, and her lips trembled. 

Pap walked round to her and patted her shoulder. "I know, " he said. "Isavvy. I get you, little girl. But, say, it won't do. You've got to beginto live again and brighten up. You're only seventeen and that's no agefor mourning, no, nor moping. You must learn to forget, at least, thatis"--for he saw the horrified pain of her eyes--"that is, to be happyagain. Yes'm. Happiness--that's got to be your middle name. Now, MissSheila, as a favor to me!"

Sheila put up both her hands and pushed his from her shoulder. She ranfrom him past Babe into the dining-room, where, as she would have spedby, "Momma" caught her by the arm. 

"If you're not aimin' to please _him_, " said "Momma" harshly, "wot areyou here for?"

Sheila looked at her unseeingly, pulled herself away, and went upstairson wings. In her room the tumult, held down all through the ugly, cluttered, drudging day, broke out and had its violent course. She flewabout the room or tossed on the bed, sobbing and whispering to herself. Her wound bled freely for the first time since it had been given her bydeath. She called to her father, and her heart writhed in the grimtalons of its loneliness. That was her first agony and then came thelesser stings of "Momma's" insults, and at last, a fear. Anincomprehensible fear. She began to doubt the wisdom of her Westernventure. She began to be terrified at her situation. All about her lay afrozen world, a wilderness, so many thousand miles from anything thatshe and her father had ever known. And in her pocket there was no pennyfor rescue or escape. Over her life brooded powerfully Sylvester Hudson, with his sallow face and gentle, contemplative eyes. He had brought herto his home. Surely that was an honorable and generous deed. He hadgiven her over to the care and protection of his wife and daughters. Butwhy didn't Mrs. Hudson like it? Why did she tighten her lips and pullher nostrils when she looked at her helper? And what was the sinister, inner meaning of those two speeches . . . About the purpose of her beingin the house at all? "An ornament on the parlor mantel" . . . "aiming toplease him. . . . " Of the existence of a sinister, inner meaning, "Momma's"voice and look left no doubt. 

Something was wrong. Something was hideously wrong. And to whom might shego for help or for advice? As though to answer her question came afoot-step on the stair. It was a slow, not very heavy step. It came toher door and there followed a sharp but gentle rap. 

"Who is it?" asked Sheila. And suddenly she felt very weak. 

"It's Pap. Open your door, girl. "

She hesitated. Her head seemed to go round. Then she obeyed hisgentle request. 

Pap walked into the room. 

CHAPTER VIII

ARTISTS

Pap closed the door carefully behind him before he looked at Sheila. Atonce his face changed to one of deep concern. 

"Why, girl! What's happened to you? You got no call to feel like that!"

He went over to her and took her limp hand. She half turned away. Hepatted the hand. 

"Why, girl! This isn't very pleasant for me. I aimed to make you happywhen I brought you out to Millings. I kind of wanted to work myself intoyour Poppa's place, kind of meant to make it up to you some way. I aimedto give you a home. 'Home, sweet home, there's no place like home'--thatwas my motto. And here you are, all pale around the gills and tears allover your face--and, say, there's a regular pool there on your pillow. Now, now--" he clicked with his tongue. "You're a bad girl, a regularbad, ungrateful girl, hanged if you aren't! You know what I'd do to youif you were as young as you are little and foolish? Smack you--good andplenty. But I'm not agoin' to do it, no, ma'am. Don't pull your handaway. Smacking's not in my line. I never smacked my own children in theirlives, except Dickie. There was no other way with him. He was ornery. You come and set down here in the big chair and I'll pull up the littleone and we'll talk things over. Put your trust in me, Miss Sheila. I'mall heart. I wasn't called 'Pap' for nothing. You know what I am? I'myour guardian. Yes'm. And you just got to make up your mind to cast yourcare upon me, as the hymn says. Nary worry must you keep to yourself. Come on now, kid, out with it. Get it off your chest. "

Sheila had let him put her into the big creaking leather chair. She satwith a handkerchief clenched in both her hands, upon which he, drawing upthe other chair, now placed one of his. She kept her head down, for shewas ashamed of the pale, stained, and distorted little face which shecould not yet control. 

"Now, then, girl . . . Well, if you won't talk to me, I'll just light upand wait. I'm a patient man, I am. Don't hurry yourself any. "

He withdrew his hand and took out a cigar. In a moment he was sitting onthe middle of his spine, his long legs sprawled half across the room, hishands in his pockets, his head on the chair-back so that his chin pointedup to the ceiling. Smoke rose from him as from a volcano. 

Sheila presently laughed uncertainly. 

"That's better, " he mumbled around his cigar. 

"I've had a dreadful day, " said Sheila. 

"You won't have any more of them, my dear, " Sylvester promised quietly. 

She looked at him with faint hope. 

"Yes'm, dish-washing's dead. "

"But what can I do, then?"

Hudson nodded his head slowly, or, rather, he sawed the air up and downwith his chin. He was still looking at the ceiling so that Sheila couldsee only the triangle beneath his jaw and the dark, stringy neck abovehis collar. 

"I've got a job for you, girl--a real one. "

He pulled out his cigar and sat up. "You remember what I told you theother night?"

"About my being a--a--beacon?" Sheila's voice was delicately tinged withmockery. So was her doubtful smile. 

"Yes'm, " he said seriously. "Well, that's it. "

"What does a beacon do?" she asked. 

"It burns. It shines. It looks bright. It wears the neatest little blackdress with a frilly apron and deep frilly cuffs. Say, do you recollectsomething else I told you?"

"I remember everything you told me. "

"Well, ma'am, I remember everything you told _me_. Somebody said shewas grateful. Somebody said she'd do anything for Pap. Somebodysaid--'Try me. '"

"I meant it, Mr. Hudson. I did mean it. "

"Do you mean it now?"

"Yes. I--I owe you so much. You're always so very kind to me. And Ibehave very badly. I was hateful to you this evening. And, when you cameto my door, just now, I was--I was _scared_. "

Pap opened his eyes at her, held his cigar away from him and laughed. The laugh was both bitter and amused. 

"Scared of Pap Hudson? _You_ scared? But, look-a-here, girl, what've Idone to deserve that?"

He sat forward, rested his chin in his hand, supported by an elbow on hiscrossed knees and fixed her with gentle and reproachful eyes. 

"Honest, you kind of make me feel bad, Miss Sheila. "

"I am dreadfully sorry. It was horrid of me. I only told you because Iwanted you to know that I'm not worth helping. I don't deserve you to beso kind to me. I--I must be disgustingly suspicious. "

"Well!" Sylvester sighed. "Very few folks get me. I'm kind ofmis-understood. I'm a real lonesome sort of man. But, honest, MissSheila, I thought you were my friend. I don't mind telling you, you'vehurt my feelings. That shot kind of got me. It's stuck into me. "

"I'm horrid!" Sheila's eyes were wounded with remorse. 

"Oh, well, I'm not expecting understanding any more. "

"Oh, but I do--I do understand!" she said eagerly and she put her handshyly on his arm. "I think I do understand you. I'm very grateful. I'mvery fond of you. "

"Ah!" said Sylvester softly. "That's a good hearing!" He lifted his armwith Sheila's hand on it and touched it with his lips. "You got me plumbstirred up, " he said with a certain huskiness. "Well!" She took away herhand and he made a great show of returning to common sense. "I reckon weare a pretty good pair of friends, after all. But you mustn't be scaredof me, Miss Sheila. That does hurt. Let's forget you told me that. "

"Yes--please!"

"Well, then--to get back to business. Do you recollect a story Itold you?"

"A story? Oh, yes--about an Englishman--?"

"Yes, ma'am. That Englishman put his foot on the rail and stuck his glassin his eye and set his tumbler down empty. And he looked round that barof mine, Miss Sheila. You savvy, he'd been all over the globe, thatfeller, and I should say his ex-perience of bars was--some--and he said, 'Hudson, it's all but perfect. It only needs one thing. '"

This time Sheila did not ask. She waited. 

"'And that's something we have in our country, ' said he. " Hudson clearedhis throat. He also moistened his lips. He was very apparently excited. He leaned even farther forward, tilting on the front legs of his chairand thrusting his face close to Sheila's "'_A pretty barmaid_!' said he. "

There was a profound silence in the small room. The runners of a sleighscraped the icy street below, its horses' hoofs cracked noisily. Themusic of a fiddle sounded in the distance. Babe's voice humming a waltztune rose from the second story. 

"A barmaid?" asked Sheila breathlessly. She got up from her chair andwalked over to the window. The moon was already high. Over there, beckoning, stood her mountain and her star. It was all so shining andpure and still. 

"That's what you want me to be--your barmaid?"

"Yes'm, " said Sylvester humbly. "Don't make up your mind in a hurry, MissSheila. Wait till I tell you more about it. It's--it's a kind of dream ofmine. I think it'd come close to breaking me up if you turned down theproposition. The Aura's not an ordin-ar-y bar and I'm not an ordin-ar-yman, and, say, Miss Sheila, you're not an ordin-ar-y girl. "

"Is that why you want me to work in your saloon?" said Sheila, staringat the star. 

"Yes'm. That's why. Let me tell you that I've searched this continent fora girl to fit my ideal. That's what it is, girl--my ideal. That bar ofmine has got to be perfect. It's near to perfect now. I want when thatEnglishman comes back to Millings to hear him say, 'It's perfect' . . . No'all but, ' you notice. Why, miss, I could 'a' got a hundred ordin-ar-ygirls, lookers too. The world's full of lookers. "

"Why didn't you offer your--'job' to Babe or Girlie?"

Sylvester laughed. "Well, girl, as a matter of fact, I did. "

"You did?" Sheila turned back and faced him. There was plenty of colorin her cheeks now. Her narrow eyes were widely opened. Astonishinglylarge and clear they were, when she so opened them. 

"Yes'm. " Sylvester glanced aside for an instant. 

"And what did they say?"

"They balked, " Sylvester admitted calmly. "They're fine girls, MissSheila. And they're lookers. But they just aren't quite fine enough. They're not artists, like your Poppa and like you--and like me. "

Sheila put a hand up to her cheek. Her eyes came back to their accustomednarrowness and a look of doubt stole into her face. 

"Artists?"

"Yes'm. " Sylvester had begun to walk about. "Artists. Why, what's anartist but a person with a dream he wants to make real? My dream's--TheAura, girl. For three years now"--he half-shut his eyes and moved his armin front of him as though he were putting in the broad first lines of apicture--"I've seen that girl there back of my bar--shining and _good_and fine--not the sort of a girl a man'd be lookin' for, mind you, just_not_ that! A girl that would sort of take your breath. Say, picture it, Sheila!" He stood by her and pointed it out as though he showed her aview. "You're a cowboy. And you come ridin' in, bone-tired, dusty, with a_thirst_. Well, sir, a thirst in your throat and a thirst in your heartand a thirst in your soul. You're wantin' re-freshment. For your bodyand your eyes and your mind. Well, ma'am, you tie your pony up there andyou push open those doors and you push 'em open and step plumb intoParadise. It's cool in there--I'm picturin' a July evenin', MissSheila--and it's quiet and it's shining clean. And there's a big man inwhite who's servin' drinks--cold drinks with a grand smell. That's my manCarthy. He keeps order. You bet you, he does keep it too. And beside himstands a girl. Well, she's the kind of girl you--the cowboy--would 'a'dreamed about, lyin' out in your blanket under the stars, if you'd 'a'knowed enough to be able to dream about her. After you've set eyes onher, you don't dream about any other kind of girl. And just seein' herthere so sweet and bright and dainty-like, makes a different fellow ofyou. Say, goin' into that bar is like goin' into church and havin' ajim-dandy time when you get there--which is something the churcheshaven't got round to offerin' yet to my way of thinkin'. Now. I want toask you, Miss Sheila, if you've got red blood in your veins and a love ofadventure and a wish to see that real entertaining show we call'life'--and mighty few females ever get a glimpse of it--and if you'veacquired a feeling of gratitude for Pap and if you've got any realreligion, or any ambition to play a part, if you're a real woman thatwants to be an in-spire-ation to men, well, ma'am, I ask you, could youturn down a chance like that?"

He stood away a pace and put his question with a lifted forefinger. 

Sheila's eyes were caught and held by his. Again her mind seemed to befastened to his will. And the blood ran quickly in her veins. Her heartbeat. She was excited, stirred. He had seen through her shell unerringlyas no one else in all her life had seen. He had mysteriously guessed thatshe had the dangerous gift of adventure, that under the shyness anduncertainty of inexperience there was no fear in her, that she was one ofthose that would rather play with fire than warm herself before it. Sheila stood there, discovered and betrayed. He had played upon her asupon a flexible young reed: that stop, her ambition, this, herromanticism, that, her vanity, the fourth, her gratitude, the fifth, heridealism, the sixth, her recklessness. And there was this added urge--shemust stay here and drudge under the lash of "Momma's" tongue or she mustaccept this strange, this unimaginable offer. Again she opened her eyeswider and wider. The pupils swallowed up the misty gray. Her lips parted. 

"I'll do it, " she said, narrowed her eyes and shut her mouth tight. Withsuch a look she might have thrown a fateful toss of dice. 

Sylvester caught her hands, pressed them up to his chest. 

"It's a promise, girl?"

"Yes. "

"God bless you!"

He let her go. He walked on air. He threw open the door. 

There on the threshold--stood "Momma. "

"I kind of see, " she drawled, "why Sheila don't take no interestin dancin'!"

"You're wrong, " said Sheila very clearly. "I have been persuaded. I amgoing to the dance. "

Sylvester laughed aloud. "One for you, Momma!" he said. "Come on down, old girl, while Miss Sheila gets into her party dress. Say, Aura, aren'tyou goin' to give me a dance to-night?"

His wife looked curiously at his red, excited face. She followed him insilence down the stairs. 

Sheila stood still listening to their descending steps, then she kneltdown beside her little trunk and opened the lid. The sound of the fiddlestole hauntingly, beseechingly, tauntingly into her consciousness. Therein the top tray of her trunk wrapped in tissue paper lay the only eveningfrock she had, a filmy French dress of white tulle, a Christmas presentfrom her father, a breath-taking, intoxicating extravagance. She had wornit only once. 

It was with the strangest feeling that she took it out. It seemed to herthat the Sheila that had worn that dress was dead. 

CHAPTER IX

A SINGEING OF WINGS

All the vitality of Millings--and whatever its deficiencies the townlacked nothing of the splendor and vigor of its youth--throbbed andstamped and shook the walls of the Town Hall that night. To understandthat dance, it is necessary to remember that it took place on a Februarynight with the thermometer at zero and with the ground five feet beneaththe surface of the snow. There were men and women and children, too, whohad come on skis and in toboggans for twenty miles from distant ranchesto do honor to the wedding-anniversary of Greely and his wife. 

A room near the ballroom was reserved for babies, and here, early in theevening, lay small bundles in helpless, more or less protesting, rows, their needs attended to between waltzes and polkas by father or motheraccording to the leisure of the parent and the nature of the need. Oneinfant, whose home discipline was not up to the requirements of thisevent, refused to accommodate himself to loneliness and so spent theevening being dandled, first by father, then by mother, in a chairimmediately beside the big drum. Whether the spot was chosen for thepurpose of smothering his cries or enlivening his spirits nobody caredto inquire. Infants in the Millings and Hidden Creek communities, wherecertified milk and scientific feeding were unknown, were treated ratherlike family parasites to be attended to only when the irritation theycaused became acute. They were not taken very seriously. That they grewup at all was largely due to their being turned out as soon as they couldwalk into an air that buoyed the entire nervous and circulatory systemsalmost above the need of any other stimulant. 

The dance began when the first guests arrived, which on this occasion wasat about six o'clock, and went on till the last guest left, at about tenthe next morning. In the meantime the Greelys' hospitality provided everyvariety of refreshment. 

When Sheila reached the Town Hall, crowded between Sylvester and joyousBabe in her turquoise blue on the front seat of the Ford, while the backseat was occupied by Girlie in scarlet and "Momma" in purple velveteen, the dance was well under way. The Hudsons came in upon the tumult of aquadrille. The directions, chanted above the din, were not very exactlyheeded; there was as much confusion as there was mirth. Sheila, standingnear Girlie's elbow, felt the exhilaration which youth does feel at theimpact of explosive noise and motion, the stamping of feet, the shouting, the loud laughter, the music, the bounding, prancing bodies: savagery ina good humor, childhood again, but without the painful intensity ofchildhood. Sheila wondered just as any _débutante_ in a city ballroomwonders, whether she would have partners, whether she would have "a goodtime. " Color came into her face. She forgot everything except theimmediate prospect of flattery and rhythmic motion. 

Babe pounced upon a young man who was shouldering his way toward Girlie. 

"Say, Jim, meet Miss Arundel! Gee! I've been wanting you two to getacquainted. "

Sheila held out her hand to Mr. James Greely, who took it with asurprised and dazzled look. 

"Pleased to meet you, " he murmured, and the dimple deepened in his ruddyright cheek. 

He turned his blushing face to Girlie. "Gee! You look great!" he said. 

She was, in fact, very beautiful--a long, firm, round body, youthful andstrong, sheathed in a skin of cream and roses, lips that looked as thoughthey had been used for nothing but the tranquil eating of ripe fruit, eyes of unfathomable serenity, and hair almost as soft and creamy as hershoulders and her finger-tips. Her beauty was not marred to Jim Greely'seyes by the fact that she was chewing gum. Amongst animals the onlysocial poise, the only true self-possession and absence of shyness isshown by the cud-chewing cow. She is diverted from fear and soothed fromself-consciousness by having her nervous attention distracted. Thesmoking man has this release, the knitting woman has it. Girlie and Babehad it from the continual labor of their jaws. Every hope and longing andambition in Girlie's heart centered upon this young man now complimentingher, but as he turned to her, she just stood there and looked up at him. Her jaws kept on moving slightly. There was in her eyes the minimum ofhuman intelligence and the maximum of unconscious animal invitation--ablank, defenseless expression of--"Here I am. Take me. " As Jim Greelyexpressed the look: "Girlie makes everything easy. She don't give afellow any discomfort like some of these skittish girls do. She's kind ofhome folks at once. "

"We can't get into the quadrille now, " said Jim, "but you'll give me thenext, won't you, Girlie?"

"Sure, Jim, " said the unsmiling, rosy mouth. 

Jim moved uneasily on his patent-leather feet. He shot a sidelong glanceat Sheila. 

"Say, Miss Arundel, may I have the next after . . . Meet Mr. Gates, " headded spasmodically, as the hand of a gigantic friend crushed his elbow. 

Sheila looked up a yard or two of youth and accepted Mr. Gates'sinvitation for "the next. "

The head at the top of the tower bent itself down to her with asnakelike motion. 

"Us fellows, " it said, "have been aiming to give you a good timeto-night. "

Sheila was relieved to find him within hearing. Her smile dawnedenchantingly. It had all the inevitability of some sweet natural event. 

"That's very good of--you fellows. I didn't know you knew that there wassuch a person as--as me in Millings. "

"You bet you, we knew. Here goes the waltz. Do you want to Castle it? Iworked in a Yellowstone Park Hotel last summer, and I'm wise on dancing. "

Sheila found herself stretched ceilingwards. She must hold one armstraight in the air, one elbow as high as she could make it go, and shemust dance on her very tip-toes. Like every girl whose life has taken herin and out of Continental hotels, she could dance, and she had the giftof intuitive rhythm and of yielding to her partner's intentions almostbefore they were muscularly expressed. Mr. Gates felt that he was dancingwith moonlight, only the figure of speech is not his own. 

Girlie in the arms of Jim spoke to him above her rigid chin. Girlie hadthe haughty manner of dancing. 

"She's not much of a looker, is she, Jim?" But the pain in her heart gavethe speech an audible edge. 

"She's not much of anything, " said Jim, who had not looked like theyoung man on the magazine cover for several busy years in vain. "She'sjust a scrap. "

But Girlie could not be deceived. Sheila's delicate, crystalline beautypierced her senses like the frosty beauty of a winter star: her dress ofwhite mist, her slender young arms, her long, slim, romantic throat, thefinish and polish of her, every detail done lovingly as if by a master'ssilver-pointed pencil, her hair so artlessly simple and shining, smoothand rippled under the lights, the strangeness of her face! Girlie toldherself again that it was an irregular face, that the chin was not right, that the eyes were not well-opened and lacked color, that the nose wasodd, defying classification; she knew, in spite of the rigid ignorance ofher ideals, that these things mysteriously spelled enchantment. Sheilawas as much more beautiful than anything Millings had ever seen as herwhite gown was more exquisite than anything Millings had ever worn. Itwas a work of art, and Sheila was, also, in some strange sense, a work ofart, something shaped and fashioned through generations, something tintedand polished and retouched by race, something mellowed and restrained, something bred. Girlie did not know why the white tulle frock, absolutelyplain, shamed her elaborate red satin with its exaggerated lines. But shedid know. She did not know why Sheila's subtle beauty was greater thanher obvious own. But she did know. And so great and bewildering a feardid this knowledge give her that, for an instant, it confused her wits. 

"She's going back East soon, " she said sharply. 

"Is she?" Jim's question was indifferent, but from that instant hisattention wandered. 

When he took the small, crushable silken partner into his arms for "thenext after, " a one-step, he was troubled by a sense of hurry, by thatdesire to make the most of his opportunity that torments the reader of a"best-seller" from the circulating library. 

"Say, Miss Arundel, " he began, looking down at the smooth, jewel-brighthead, "you haven't given Millings a square deal. "

Sheila looked at him quizzically. 

"You see, " went on Jim, "it's winter now. "

"Yes, Mr. Greely. It _is_ winter. "

"And that's not our best season. When summer comes, it's awfully prettyand it's good fun. We have all sorts of larks--us fellows and the girls. You'd like a motor ride, wouldn't you?"

"Not especially, thank you, " said Sheila, who really at times deservedthe Western condemnation of "ornery. " "I don't like motors. In fact, Ihate motors. "

Jim swallowed a nervous lump. This girl was not "home folks. " She madehim feel awkward and uncouth. He tried to remember that he was Mr. JamesGreely, of the Millings National Bank, and, remembering at the same timesomething that the girl from Cheyenne had said about his smile, he caughtSheila's eye deliberately and made use of his dimple. 

"What do you like?" he asked. "If you tell me what you like, I--I'll seethat you get it. "

"You're very powerful, aren't you? You sound like a fairy godmother. "

"You look like a fairy. That's just what you do look like. "

"I like horses much better than motors, " said Sheila. "I thought the Westwould be full of adorable little ponies. I thought you'd ride likewizards, bucking--you know. "

"Well, I can ride. But, I guess you've been going to the movies or theWild West shows. This town _must_ seem kind of dead after Noo York. "

"I hate the movies, " said Sheila sweetly. 

"Say, it would be easy to get a pony for you as soon as the snow goes. Isold my horse when Dad bought me my Ford. "

"Sold him? Sold your own special horse!"

"Well, yes, Miss Arundel. Does that make you think awfully bad of me?"

"Yes. It does. It makes me think _awfully_ 'bad' of you. If I had ahorse, I'd--I'd tie him to my bedpost at night and feed him onrose-leaves and tie ribbons in his mane. "

Jim laughed, delighted at her childishness. It brought back something ofhis own assurance. 

"I don't think Pap Hudson would quite stand for that, would he? Seems tome as if--"

But here his partner stopped short, turned against his arm, and her faceshone with a sudden friendly sweetness of surprise. "There's Dickie!"

She left Jim, she slipped across the floor. Dickie limped toward her. Hisface was white. 

"Dickie! I'm so glad you came. Somehow I didn't expect you to be here. But you're lame! Then you can't dance. What a shame. After Mr. Greely andI have finished this, could you sit one out with me?"

"Yes'm, " whispered Dickie. 

He was not as inexpressive as it might seem however. His face, a ratherstartling face here in this crowded, boisterous room, a face that seemedto have come in out of the night bringing with it a quality of eternalchildhood, of quaint, half-forgotten dreams--his face was veryexpressive. So much so, that Sheila, embarrassed, went back almostabruptly to Jim. Her smile was left to bewilder Dickie. He began todescribe it to himself. And this was the first time a woman had stirredthat mysterious trouble in his brain. 

"It's not like a smile at all, " thought Dickie, the dancing crowdinvisible to him; "it's like something--it's--what is it? It's as if thewind blew it into her face and blew it out again. It doesn't come fromanywhere, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, at least not anywhere afellow knows . . . " Here he was rudely joggled by a passing elbow and thepain of his ankle brought a sharp "Damn!" out of him. He found a niche tolean in, and he watched Sheila and Jim. He found himself not quite sooverwhelmed as usual by admiration of his friend. His mood was even veryfaintly critical. But, as the dance came to an end, Dickie fell a prey tobase anxiety. How would "Poppa" take it if he, Dickie, should be seensitting out a dance with Miss Arundel? Dickie was profoundly afraid ofhis father. It was a fear that he had never been allowed the leisure tooutgrow. Sylvester with torture of hand and foot and tongue had fosteredit. And Dickie's childhood had lingered painfully upon him. He could notoutgrow all sorts of feelings that other fellows seemed to shed withtheir short trousers. He was afraid of his father, physically andmorally; his very nerves quivered under the look of the small brown eyes. 

Nevertheless, as Sheila thanked Jim for her waltz, her elbow was touchedby a cold finger. 

"Here I am, " said Dickie. He had a demure and startled look. "Let's sitit out in the room between the babies and the dancin'-room--two kinds ofa b-a-w-l, ain't it? But I guess we can hear ourselves speak in there. There's a sort of a bench, kind of a hard one. . . "

Sheila followed and found herself presently in a half-dark place under arow of dangling coats. An iron stove near by glowed with red sides and around red mouth. It gave a flush to Dickie's pale face. Sheila thoughtshe had never seen such a wistful and untidy lad. 

Yet, poor Dickie at the moment appeared to himself rather a dashing andheroic figure. He had certainly shown courage and had done his deed withjauntiness. Besides, he had on his only good suit of dark-blue serge, very thin serge. It was one that he had bought second-hand from Jim, andhe was sure, therefore, of its perfection. He thought, too, that he hadmastered, by the stern use of a wet brush, a cowlick which usuallydisgraced the crown of his head. He hadn't. It had long ago risen to itswispish height. 

"Jim dances fine, don't he?" Dickie said. "I kind of wish I liked todance. Seems like athletic stunts don't appeal to me some way. "

"Would you call dancing an athletic stunt?" Sheila leaned back against acoat that smelled strongly of hay and tobacco and caught up her knees inher two hands so that the small white slippers pointed daintily, clear ofthe floor. 

Dickie looked at them. It seemed to him suddenly that a giant's hand hadlaid itself upon his heart and turned it backwards as a pilot turns hiswheel to change the course of a ship. The contrary movement made himcatch his breath. He wanted to put the two white silken feet against hisbreast, to button them inside his coat, to keep them in his care. 

"Ain't it, though?" he managed to say. "Ain't it an athletic stunt?"

"I've always heard it called an accomplishment. "

"God!" said Dickie gently. "I'd 'a' never thought of that. I do likeski-ing, though. Have you tried it, Miss Arundel?"

"No. If I call you Dickie, you might call me Sheila, I think. "

Dickie lifted his eyes from the feet. "Sheila, " he said. 

He was curiously eloquent. Again Sheila felt the confusion that had senther abruptly back to Jim. She smoothed out the tulle on her knee. 

"I think I'd love to ski. Is it awfully hard to learn?"

"No, ma'am. It's just dandy. Especially on a moonlight night, like nightbefore last. And if you'd 'a' had skis on you wouldn't 'a' broke through. You go along so quiet and easy, pushing yourself a little with your pole. There's a kind of a swing to it--"

He stood up and threw his light, thin body gracefully into the skier'spose. "See? You slide on one foot, then on the other. It's as easy asdreaming, and as still. "

"It's like a gondola--" suggested Sheila. 

Dickie put his head on one side and Sheila explained. She also sang asnatch of a Gondel-lied to show him the motion. 

"Yes'm, " said Dickie. "It's like that. It kind of has a--has a--"

"Rhythm?"

"I guess that's the word. So's riding. I like to do the things thathave that. "

"Well, then, you ought to like dancing. "

"Yes'm. Maybe I would if it wasn't for havin' to pull a girl round aboutwith me. It kind of takes my mind off the pleasure. "

Sheila laughed. Then, "Did you get my note?" she asked. 

"Yes'm. " Her laughter had embarrassed him, and he had suddenly ahunted look. 

"And are you going to be my friend?"

The sliding of feet on a floor none too smooth, the music, the wailing ofa baby accompanied Dickie's silence. He was very silent and sat verystill, his hands hanging between his knees, his head bent. He stared atSheila's feet. His face, what she could see of it, was, even beyond thehelp of firelight, pale. 

"Why, Dickie, I believe you're going to say No!"

"Some fellows would say Yes, " Dickie answered. "But I sort of promisednot to be your friend. Poppa said I'd kind of disgust you. And I figurethat I would--"

Sheila hesitated. 

"You mean because you--you--?"

"Yes'm. "

"Can't you stop?"

He shook his head and gave her a tormented look. 

"Oh, Dickie! Of course you can! At your age!"

"Seems like it means more to me than anything else. "

"Dickie! Dickie!"

"Yes'm. It kind of takes the awful edge off things. "

"What _do_ you mean? I don't understand. "

"Things are so sort of--sharp to me. I mean, I don't know if I can tellyou. I feel like I had to put something between me and--and things. Oh, damn! I can't make you see--"

"No, " said Sheila, distressed. 

"It's always that-a-way, " Dickie went on. "I mean, everything's kindof--too much. I used to run miles when I was a kid. And sometimes nowwhen I can get out and walk or ski, the feeling goes. But othertimes--well, ma'am, whiskey sort of takes the edge off and lets somethingkind of slack down that gets sort of screwed up. Oh, I don't know . . . "

"Did you ever go to a doctor about it?"

Dickie looked up at her and smiled. It was the sweetest smile--so patientof this misunderstanding of hers. "No, ma'am. "

"Then you don't care to be my friend enough to--to try--"

"I wouldn't be a good friend to you, " said Dickie. And he spoke nowalmost sullenly. "Because I wouldn't want you to have any other friends. I hate it to see you with any other fellow. "

"How absurd!"

"Maybe it is absurd. I guess it seems awful foolish to you. " He moved hiscracked patent-leather pump in a sort of pattern on the floor. Again helooked up, this time with a freakish, an almost elfin flicker of hisextravagant eyelashes. "There's something I could be real well, " he said. "Only, I guess Poppa's got there ahead of me. I could be a dandy guardianto you--Sheila. "

Again Sheila laughed. But the ringing of her silver coins was not quitetrue. There was a false note. She shut her eyes involuntarily. She wasremembering that instant an hour or two before when Sylvester's look hadheld hers to his will. The thought of what she had promised crushed downupon her consciousness with the smothering, sudden weight of its reality. She could not tell Dickie. She could not--though this she did notadmit--bear that he should know. 

"Very well, " she said, in a hard and weary voice. "Be my guardian. Thatought to sober any one. I think I shall need as many guardians aspossible. And--here comes your father. I have this dance with him. "

Dickie got hurriedly to his feet. "Oh, gosh!" said he. He was obviouslyand vividly a victim of panic. Sheila's small and very expressive faceshowed a little gleam of amused contempt. "My guardian!" she seemed tomock. To shorten the embarrassment of the moment she stepped quickly intothe elder Hudson's arm. He took her hand and began to pump it up anddown, keeping time to the music and counting audibly. "One, two, three. "To Dickie he gave neither a word nor look. 

Sheila lifted her chin so that she could smile at Dickie over Pap'sshoulder. It was an indulgent and forgiving smile, but, meeting Dickie'slook, it went out. 

The boy's face was scarlet, his body rigid, his lips tight. The eyes withwhich he had overcome her smile were the hard eyes of a man. Sheila'scontempt had fallen upon him like a flame. In a few dreadful minutes ashe stood there it burnt up a part of his childishness. 

Sheila went on, dancing like a mist in Hudson's arms. She knew that shehad done something to Dickie. But she did not know what it was that shehad done. . . . 

CHAPTER X

THE BEACON LIGHT

Out of the Wyoming Bad Lands--orange, turquoise-green, and murky blue, ofoutlandish ridges, of streaked rock, of sudden, twisted cañons, a countrylike a dream of the far side of the moon--rode Cosme Hilliard in achoking cloud of alkali dust. He rode down Crazy Woman's Hill toward thesagebrush flat, where, in a half-circle of cloudless, snow-streakedmountains, lay the town of Millings on its rapid glacier river. 

Hilliard's black hair was powdered with dust; his olive face was gray;dust lay thick in the folds of his neck-handkerchief; his pony matchedthe gray-white road and plodded wearily, coughing and tossing his head inmisery from the nose-flies, the horse-flies, the mosquitoes, a swarm ofsmall, tormenting presences. His rider seemed to be charmed intopatience, and yet his aquiline face was not the face of a patient man. Itwas young in a keen, hard fashion; the mouth and eyes were those of aSpanish-American mother, golden eyes and a mouth originally beautiful, soft, and cruel, which had been tightened and straightened by a man'swill and experience. It had been used so often for careless, humoroussmiling that the cruelty had been almost worked out of it. Almost, notaltogether. His mother's blood kept its talons on him. He was Latin anddangerous to look at, for all the big white Anglo-Saxon teeth, the slow, slack, Western American carriage, the guarded and amused expression ofthe golden eyes. Here was a bundle of racial contradictions, not yetwelded, not yet attuned. Perhaps the one consistent, the one solvent, expression was that of alert restlessness. Cosme Hilliard was not happy, was not content, but he was eternally entertained. He was not uplifted bythe hopeful illusions proper to his age, but he loved adventure. It was abitter face, bitter and impatient and unschooled. It seemed to laugh, toexpect the worst from life, and not to care greatly if the worst shouldcome. But for such minor matters of dust and thirst and weariness, he hadpatience. Physically the young man was hard and well-schooled. He rodelike a cowboy and carried a cowboy's rope tied to his saddle. And therope looked as though it had been used. 

Millings, that seemed so close below there through the clear, highatmosphere, was far to reach. The sun had slipped down like a thin, bright coin back of an iron rock before the traveler rode into the town. His pony shied wearily at an automobile and tried to make up his mind tobuck, but a light pressure of the spur and a smiling word was enough tochange his mind. 

"Don't be a fool, Dusty! You know it's not worth the trouble. Rememberthat fifty miles you've come to-day!"

The occupants of the motor snapped a camera and hummed away. They had noprevision of being stuck halfway up Crazy Woman's Hill with no waterwithin fifteen miles, or they wouldn't have exclaimed so gayly at thebeauty and picturesqueness of the tired cowboy. 

"He looks like a movie hero, doesn't he?" said a girl. 

"No, ma'am, " protested the Western driver, who had been a chauffeur onlyfor a fortnight and knew considerably less about the insides of his Fordthan he did about the insides of Hilliard's cow-pony. "He ain't no show. He's the real thing. Seems like you dudes got things kinder twisted. Things ain't like shows. Shows is sometimes like things. "

"The real thing" certainly behaved as the real thing would. He rodestraight to the nearest saloon and swung out of his saddle. He licked thedust off his lips, looked wistfully at the swinging door, and turned backto his pony. 

"You first, Dusty--damn you!" and led the stumbling beast into the yardof The Aura. In an hour or more he came back. He had dined at the hoteland he had bathed. His naturally vivid coloring glowed under thestreet-light. He was shaved and brushed and sleek. He pushed quicklythrough the swinging doors of the bar and stepped into the saloon. Itwas truly a famous bar--The Aura--and it deserved its fame. It shonebright and cool and polished. There was a cheerful clink of glasses, asubdued, comfortable sound of talk. Men drank at the bar, and drank andplayed cards at the small tables. A giant in a white apron stood toserve the newcomer. 

Hilliard ordered his drink, sipped it leisurely, then wandered off to anear-by table. There he stood, watching the game. Not long after, heaccepted an invitation and joined the players. From then till midnight hewas oblivious of everything but the magic squares of pasteboard, theshifting pile of dirty silver at his elbow, the faces--vacant, clever, orrascally--of his opponents. But at about midnight, trouble came. For sometime Hilliard had been subconsciously irritated by the divided attentionof a player opposite to him across the table. This man, with a long, thinface, was constantly squinting past Cosme's shoulder, squinting andleering and stretching his great full-lipped mouth into a queerhalf-smile. At last, abruptly, the irritation came to consciousness andCosme threw an angry glance over his own shoulder. 

Beside the giant who had served him his drink a girl stood: a thin, straight girl in black and white who held herself so still that sheseemed painted there against the mirror on the wall. Her hands rested onher slight hips, the fine, pointed, ringless fingers white against theblack stuff of her dress. Her neck, too, was white and her face, the pureunpowdered whiteness of childhood. Her chin was lifted, her lips laidtogether, her eyes, brilliant and clear, of no definite color, lookedthrough her surroundings. She was very young, not more than seventeen. The mere presence of a girl was startling enough. Barmaids are unknown tothe experience of the average cowboy. But this girl was trebly startling. For her face was rare. It was not Western, not even American. It was afine-drawn, finished, Old-World face, with long, arched eyebrows, largelids, shadowed eyes, nostrils a little pinched, a sad and tender mouth. It was a face whose lines might have followed the pencil ofBotticelli--those little hollows in the cheeks, that slight exaggerationof the pointed chin, that silky, rippling brown hair. There was no touchof artifice; it was an unpainted young face; hair brushed and knottedsimply; the very carriage of the body was alien; supple, unconscious, restrained. 

Cosme Hilliard's look lasted for a minute. Returning to his opponent itmet an ugly grimace. He flushed and the game went on. 

But the incident had roused Hilliard's antagonism. He disliked thatman with the grimacing mouth. He began to watch him. An hour or twolater Cosme's thin, dark hand shot across the table and gripped thefellow's wrist. 

"Caught you that time, you tin-horn, " he said quietly. 

Instantly, almost before the speech was out, the giant in the apron hadhurled himself across the room and gripped the cheat, who stood, a handarrested on its way to his pocket, snarling helplessly. But the otherplayers, his fellow sheep-herders, fell away from Hilliard dangerously. 

"No shootin', " said the giant harshly. "No shoot-in' in The Aura. Itain't allowed. "

"No callin' names either, " growled the prisoner. "Me and my friends wouldlike to settle with the youthful stranger. "

"Settle with him, then, but somewheres else. No fightin' in The Aura. "

There was an acquiescent murmur from the other table and the sheep-herdergave in. He exchanged a look with his friends, and Carthy, seeing themdisposed to return quietly to the game, left them and took up his usualposition behind the bar. The barmaid moved a little closer to his elbow. Hilliard noticed that her eyes had widened in her pale face. He made abrief, contemptuous excuse to his opponents, settled his account withthem, and strolled over to the bar. From Carthy he ordered another drink. He saw the girl's eyes studying the hand he put out for his glass and hesmiled a little to himself. When she looked up he was ready with hisgolden eyes to catch her glance. Both pairs of eyes smiled. She came astep toward him. 

"I believe I've heard of you, miss, " he said. 

A delicate pink stained her face and throat and he wondered if she couldpossibly be shy. 

"Some fellows I met over in the Big Horn country lately told me to lookyou up if I came to Millings. They said something about Hudson's Queen. It's the Hudson Hotel isn't it?--"

A puzzled, rather worried look crept into her eyes, but she avoided hisquestion. "You were working in the Big Horn country? I hoped you werefrom Hidden Creek. "

"I'm on my way there, " he said. "I know that country well. You come fromover there?"

"No. " She smiled faintly. "But"--and here her breast lifted on a deep, spasmodic sigh--"some day I'm going there. "

"It's not like any other country, " he said, turning his glass in hissupple fingers. "It's wonderful. But wild and lonesome. You wouldn't becaring for it--not for longer than a sunny day or two, I reckon. "

He used the native phrases with sure familiarity, and yet in his speakingof them there was something unfamiliar. Evidently she was puzzled by him, and Cosme was not sorry that he had so roused her curiosity. He was verycurious himself, so much so that he had forgotten the explosive moment ofa few short minutes back. 

The occupants of the second table pushed away their chairs and came overto the bar. For a while the barmaid was busy, making their change, answering their jests, bidding them good-night. It was, "Well, good-night, Miss Arundel, and thank you. "

"See you next Saturday, Miss Arundel, if I'm alive--"

Hilliard drummed on the counter with his fingertips and frowned. Hispuzzled eyes wove a pattern of inquiry from the men to the girl and back. One of them, a ruddy-faced, town boy, lingered. He had had a drop toomuch of The Aura's hospitality. He rested rather top-heavily against thebar and stretched out his hand. 

"Aren't you going to say me a real good-night, Miss Sheila, " he besought, and a tipsy dimple cut itself into his cheek. 

"Do go home, Jim, " murmured the barmaid. "You've broken your promiseagain. It's two o'clock. "

He made great ox-eyes at her, his hand still begging, its blunt fingerscurled upward like a thirsty cup. 

His face was emptied of everything but its desire. 

It was perfectly evident that "Miss Sheila" was tormented by the look, bythe eyes, by the hand, by the very presence of the boy. She pressed herlips tight, drew her fine arched brows together, and twisted her fingers. 

"I'll go home, " he asserted obstinately, "when you tell me a propergoo'-night--not before. "

Her eyes glittered. "Shall I tell Carthy to turn you out, Jim?"

He smiled triumphantly. "Uh, " said he, "your watch-dog went out. Dickie called him to answer the telephone. Now, will you tell megood-night, Sheila?"

Cosme hoped that the girl would glance at him for help, he had his longsteel muscles braced; but, after a moment's thought--"And she can think. She's as cool as she's shy, " commented the observer--she put her hand onJim's. He grabbed it, pressed his lips upon it. 

"Goo'-night, " he said, "Goo'-night. I'll go now. " He swaggered out asthough she had given him a rose. 

The barmaid put her hand beneath her apron and rubbed it. Cosme laughed alittle at the quaint action. 

"Do they give you lots of trouble, Miss Arundel?" he asked hersympathetically. 

She looked at him. But her attitude was not so simple and friendly as ithad been. Evidently her little conflict with Jim had jarred her humor. She looked distressed, angry. Cosme felt that, unfairly enough, shelumped him with The Enemy. He wondered pitifully if she had given TheEnemy its name, if her experience had given her the knowledge of suchnames. He had a vision of the pretty, delicate little thing standingthere night after night as though divided by the bar from prowlingbeasts. And yet she was known over the whole wide, wild country as"Hudson's Queen. " Her crystal, childlike look must be one of thoseextraordinary survivals, a piteous sort of accident. Cosme called himselfa sentimentalist. Spurred by this reaction against his more romantictendencies, he leaned forward. He too was going to ask the barmaid for agood-night or a greeting or a good-bye. His hand was out, when he saw herface stiffen, her lips open to an "Oh!" of warning or of fear. He wheeledand flung up his arm against a hurricane of blows. 

His late opponents had decided to take advantage of Carthy's absence, andinflict chastisement prompt and merciless upon the "youthful stranger. "If it had not been for that small frightened "Oh" Cosme would have beendown at once. 

With that moment's advantage he fought like a tiger, his golden eyesablaze. Swift and dangerous anger was one of his gifts. He was againstthe wall, he was torn from it. One of his opponents staggered across theroom and fell, another crumpled up against the bar. Hilliard wheeled andjabbed, plunged, was down, was up, bleeding and laughing. He was whirledthis way and that, the men from whom he had struck himself free recoveredthemselves, closed in upon him. A blow between the eyes half stunned him, another on his mouth silenced his laughter. The room was getting blurred. He was forced back against the bar, fighting, but not effectively. Thesnarling laughter was not his now, but that of the cheat. 

Something gave way behind him; it was as if the bar, against which he wasbent backwards, had melted to him and hardened against his foes. For aninstant he was free from blows and tearing hands. He saw that a door inthe bar had opened and shut. There was a small pressure on his arm, apressure which he blindly obeyed. In front of him another door opened, and closed. He heard the shooting of a bolt. He was in the dark. Thesmall pressure, cold through the torn silk sleeve of his white shirt, continued to urge him swiftly along a passage. He was allowed to rest aninstant against a wall. A light was turned on with a little click abovehis head. He found himself at the end of the open hallway. Before him laythe brilliant velvet night. 

Hilliard pressed his hands upon his eyes trying to clear his vision. Hefelt sick and giddy. The little barmaid's face, all terrified and urgenteyes, danced up and down. 

"Don't waste any time!" she said. "Get out of Millings! Where'syour pony?"

At that he looked at her and smiled. 

"I'm not leaving Millings till to-morrow, " he said uncertainly withwounded lips. "Don't look like that, girl. I'm not much hurt, If I'm notmistaken, your watch-dog is back and very much on his job. I reckon thatour friends will leave Millings considerably before I do. "

In fact, behind them at the end of the passage there was a sort of roar. Carthy had returned to avenge The Aura. 

"You're sure you're not hurt? You're sure they won't try to hurtyou again?"

He shook his head. "Not they. . . " He stood looking at her and the mistslowly cleared, his vision of her steadied. "Shall I see you to-morrow?"

She drew back from him a little. "No, " she said. "I sleep all themorning. And, afterwards, I don't see any one except a few old friends. Igo riding. . . "

He puckered his eyelids inquiringly. Then, with a sudden reckless flingof his shoulders, he put out his hand boldly and caught her small pointedchin in his palm. He bent down his head. 

She stood there quite still and white, looking straight up into his face. The exquisite smoothness of her little cool chin photographed itself uponhis memory. As he bent down closer to the grave and tender lips, he wassuddenly, unaccountably frightened and ashamed. His hand dropped, soughtfor her small limp hand. His lips shifted from their course and wentlower, just brushing her fingers. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said confusedly. He was painfully embarrassed, stammered, "I--I wanted to thank you. Good-bye. . . "

She said good-bye in the smallest sweet voice he had ever heard. Itfollowed his memory like some weary, pitiful little ghost. 

CHAPTER XI

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

No sight more familiar to the corner of Main and Resident Streets thanthat of Sylvester Hudson's Ford car sliding up to the curb in front ofhis hotel at two o'clock in a summer afternoon. He would slip out fromunder his steering-wheel, his linen duster flapping about his long legs, and he would stalk through the rocking, meditative observers on thepiazza and through the lobby past Dickie's frozen stare, upstairs to thedoor of Miss Arundel's "suite. " There he was bidden to come in. A fewminutes later they would come down together, Sheila, too, passing Dickiewordlessly, and they would hum away from Millings leaving a veil ofgolden dust to smother the comments in their wake. There were days whenSheila's pony, a gift from Jim Greely, was led up earlier than the hourof Hudson's arrival, on which days Sheila, in a short skirt and a boy'sshirt and a small felt Stetson, would ride away alone toward the mountainof her dreams. Sometimes Jim rode with her. It was not always possible toforbid him. 

The day after Cosme Hilliard's spectacular passage was one of Hudson'sdays. The pony did not appear, but Sylvester did and came down with hisprize. The lobby was crowded. Sheila threaded her way amongst the medleyof tourists, paused and deliberately drew near to the desk. At sight ofher Dickie's whiteness dyed itself scarlet. He rose and with an apparenteffort lifted his eyes to her look. 

They did not smile at each other. Sheila spoke sharply, each word alittle soft lash. 

"I want to speak to you. Will you come to my sitting-room when Iget back?"

"Yes'm, " said Dickie. It was the tone of an unwincing pride. Under thedesk, hidden from sight, his hand was a white-knuckled fist. 

Sheila passed on, trailed by Hudson, who was smiling not agreeably tohimself. Over the smile he gave his son a cruel look. It was as though anenemy had said, "Hurts you, doesn't it?" Dickie returned the look withlevel eyes. 

The rockers on the piazza stopped rocking, stopped talking, stoppedbreathing, it would seem, to watch Sylvester help Sheila into his car;not that he helped her greatly--she had an appearance of meltingthrough his hands and getting into her place beside his by a sort ofsleight of body. He made a series of angular movements, smiled at her, and started the car. 

"Well, little girl, " said he, "where to this afternoon?"

When Sheila rode her pony she always rode toward The Hill. But in thatdirection she had never allowed Sylvester to take her. She looked vaguelythrough the wind-shield now and said, "Anywhere--that cañon, the one wecame home by last week. It was so queer. "

"It'll be dern dusty, I'm afraid. "

"I don't care. " Sheila wrapped her gray veil over her small hat whichfitted close about her face. "I'm getting used to the dust. Does it everrain around Millings? And does it ever stop blowing?"

"We don't like Millings to-day, do we?"

Sylvester was bending his head to peer through the gray mist of her veil. She held herself stiffly beside him, showing the profile of a smallSphinx. Suddenly it turned slightly, seemed to wince back. Girlie, at thegate of Number 18 Cottonwood Avenue, had stopped to watch them pass. Girlie did not speak. Her face looked smitten, the ripe fruit had turnedbitter upon her ruddy lips. The tranquil emptiness of her beauty hadfilled itself stormily. 

Sheila did not answer Hudson's reproachful question. She leaned back, dropped back, rather, into a tired little heap and let the country slideby--the strange, wide, broken country with its circling mesas, itssomber grays and browns and dusty greens, its bare purple hills, rocksand sand and golden dirt, and now and then, in the sudden valleybottoms, swaying groves of vivid green and ribbons of emerald meadows. The mountains shifted and opened their cañons, gave a glimpse of theirbeckoning and forbidding fastnesses and closed them again as though by awhispered Sesame. 

"What was the row last night?" asked Sylvester in his voice of crackedtenderness. "Carthy says there was a bunch of toughs. Were you scaredgood and plenty? I'm sorry. It don't happen often, believe _me. _

"I wish you could 'a' heard Carthy talkin' about you, Sheila, " went onSylvester, his eyes, filled with uneasiness, studying her silence and herhuddled smallness, hands in the pockets of her light coat, veiled faceturned a little away, "Say, that would 'a' set you up all right! Talkabout beacons!"

Here she flashed round on him, as though her whole body had beenelectrified. "Tell me all that again, " she begged in a voice that hecould not interpret except that there was in it a sound of tears. "Tellme again about a beacon . . . "

He stammered. He was confused. But stumblingly he tried to fulfill herdemand. Here was a thirst for something, and he wanted above everythingin the world to satisfy it. Sheila listened to him with unsteady, partedlips. He could see them through the veil. 

"You still think I am that?" she asked. 

He was eager to prove it to her. "Still think? Still think? Why, girl, Idon't hev to think. Don't the tillbox speak for itself? Don't Carthyhandle a crowd that's growing under his eyes? Don't we sell more booze ina week now than we used to in a--" Suddenly he realized that he was onthe wrong tack. It was his first break. He drew in a sharp breath andstopped, his face flushing deeply. 

"Yes?" questioned Sheila, melting her syllables like slivers of ice onher tongue. "Go on. "

"Er--er, don't we draw a finer lot of fellows than we ever did before?Don't they behave more decent and orderly? Don't they get civilizationjust for looking at you, Miss Sheila?"

"And--and booze? Jim Greely, for instance, Mr. James Greely, of theMillings National Bank--he never used to patronize The Aura. And now he'sthere every night till twelve and often later, for he won't obey me anymore. I wonder whether Mr. And Mrs. Greely are glad that you are gettinga better type of customer! Mrs. Greely almost stopped me on the streetthe other day--that is, she almost got up courage to speak to me. Beforenow she's cut me, just as Girlie does, just as your wife does, just asDickie does--"

"Dickie cut you?" Sylvester threw back his head and laughed uneasily, andwith a strained note of alarm. "That's a good one, Miss Sheila. I kinderfancied you did the cuttin' there. "

"Dickie hasn't spoken to me since he came to me that day when he heardwhat I was going to do and tried to talk me out of doing it. "

"Yes'm. He came to me first, " drawled Sylvester. 

They were both silent, busy with the amazing memory of Dickie, of hisdisheveled fury, of his lashing eloquence. He had burst in upon hisfamily at breakfast that April morning when Millings was humming withthe news, had advanced upon his father, stood above him. 

"Is it true that you are going to make a barmaid of Sheila?"

Sylvester, in an effort to get to his feet, had been held back byDickie's thin hand that shot out at him like a sword. 

"Sure it's true, " Sylvester had said coolly. But he had not felt cool. Hehad felt shaken and confused. The boy's entire self-forgetfulness, hisentire absence of fear, had made Hudson feel that he was talking to astranger, a not inconsiderable one. 

"It's true, then. " Dickie had drawn a big breath. "You--you"--he seemedto swallow an epithet--"you'll let that girl go into your filthy saloonand make money for you by her--by her prettiness and her--herignorance--"

"Say, Dickie, " his father had drawled, "you goin' to run for thelegislature? Such a lot of classy words!" But anger and alarm wererising in him. 

"You've fetched her away out here, " went on Dickie, "and kinder got hercornered and you've talked a lot of slush to her and you've--"

Here Girlie came to the rescue. 

"Well, anyway, she's a willing victim, Dickie, " Girlie had said. 

Dickie had flashed her one look. "Is she? I'll see about that. Where's Sheila?"

And then, there was Sheila's memory. Dickie had come upon her in aconfusion of boxes, her little trunk half-unpacked, its treasuresscattered over the chairs and floor. Sheila had lifted to him from whereshe knelt a glowing and excited face. "Oh, Dickie, " she had said, herrelief at the escape from Mrs. Hudson pouring music into her voice, "haveyou heard?"

He had sat down on one of the plush chairs of "the suite" as though hefelt weak. Then he had got up and had walked to and fro while shedescribed her dream, the beauty of her chosen mission, the glory of thesaloon whose high priestess she had become. And Dickie had listened withthe bitter and disillusioned and tender face of a father hearing theprattle of a beloved child. 

"You honest think all that, Sheila?" he had asked her patiently. 

She had started again, standing now to face him and beginning to be angryat his look. This boy whom she had lifted up to be her friend!

"Say, " Dickie had drawled, "Poppa's some guardian!" He had advanced uponher as though he wanted to shake her. "You gotta give it right up, Sheila, " he had said sternly. "Sooner than immediately. It's not to gothrough. Say, girl, you don't know much about bars. " He had drawn apicture for her, drawing partly upon experience, partly upon hisimagination, the gift of vivid metaphor descending upon him. He usedwords that bit into her memory. Sheila had listened and then she had puther hands over her ears. He pulled them down. He went on. Sheila's Irishblood had boiled up into her brain. She stormed back at him. 

"It's you, it's your use of The Aura that has been its only shame, Dickie, " was the last of all the things she had said. 

At which, Dickie standing very still, had answered, "If you go there andstand behind the bar all night with Carthy to keep hands off, I--I swearI'll never set foot inside the place again. You ain't agoin' to be _my_beacon light--"

"Well, then, " said Sheila, "I shall have done one good thing at least bybeing there. "

Dickie, going out, had passed a breathless Sylvester on his way in. Thetwo had looked at each other with a look that cut in two the tie betweenthem, and Sheila, running to Sylvester, had burst into tears. 

 * * * * *

The motor hummed evenly on its way. It began, with a change of tune, toclimb the graded side of one of the enormous mesas. Sheila, having livedthrough again that scene with Dickie, took out a small handkerchief andbusied herself with it under her veil. She laughed shakily. 

"Perhaps a beacon does more good by warning people away than byattracting them, " she said. "Dickie has certainly kept his word. I don'tbelieve he's touched a drop since I've been barmaid, Mr. Hudson. Ishould think you'd be proud of him. "

Sylvester was silent while they climbed the hill. He changed gears andsounded his horn. They passed another motor on a dangerous curve. Theybegan to drop down again. 

"Some day, " said Sylvester in a quiet voice, "I'll break every bone inDickie's body. " He murmured something more under his breath in too low atone, fortunately, for Sheila's ear. From her position behind the bar, she had become used to swearing. She had heard a strange variety oflanguage. But when Sylvester drew upon his experience and his fancy, theartist in him was at work. 

"Do you suppose, " asked his companion in an impersonal tone, "that it wasreally a hard thing for Dickie to do--to give it up, I mean?"

"By the look of him the last few months, " snarled Sylvester, "I shouldsay it had taken out of him what little real feller there ever was in. "

Sheila considered this. She remembered Dickie, as he had risen behind thedesk half an hour before. She did not contradict Sylvester. She hadlearned not to contradict him. But Dickie's face with its tight-knit lookof battle stood out very clear to refute the accusation of any loss ofmanliness. He was still a quaint and ruffled Dickie. But he was vastlyaged. From twenty to twenty-seven, he seemed to have jumped in a fewweeks. A key had turned in the formerly open door of his spirit. Theindeterminate lips had shut hard, the long-lashed eyes had definitely puta guard upon their dreams. He was shockingly thin and colorless, however. Sheila dwelt painfully upon the sort of devastation she had wrought. Girlie's face, and Dickie's, and Jim's. A grieving pressure squeezed herheart; she lifted her chest with an effort on a stifled breath. 

"God! Sheila, " said Sylvester harshly. The car wobbled a little. "Ain'tyou happy, girl?"

Sheila looked up at him. Her veil was wet against her cheeks. 

"Last night, " she said unevenly, "a man was going to kiss me on mymouth and--and he changed his mind and kissed my hand instead. He lefta smear of blood on my fingers from where those--those other men hadstruck his lips. I don't know why it f-frightens me so to think aboutthat. But it does. "

She seemed to collapse before him into a little sobbing child. 

"And every day when I wake up, " she wailed, "I t-taste whiskey on mytongue and I--I smell cigarette smoke in my hair. And I d-dream about menlooking at me--the way Jim looks. And I can't let myself think of Fatherany more. He used to hold his chin up and walk along as if he lookedabove every one and everything. I don't believe he'd ever seen a barmaidor a drunken man--not really seen them, Mr. Hudson. "

"Then he wasn't a real artist after all, " Sylvester spoke slowly andcarefully. He was pale. 

"He l-loved the stars, " sobbed Sheila, her broken reserve had let out aflood; "he told me to keep looking at the stars. "

"Well, ma'am, " Sylvester spoke again, "I never knowed the stars to turntheir backs on anything. Barmaids or drunks or kings--they all look aboutalike to the stars, I reckon. Say, Sheila, maybe you haven't got thepluck for real living. Maybe you're the kind of doll-baby girl thatcraves sheltering. I reckon I made a big mistake. "

Sheila moved slightly as though his speech had pricked her. 

"It kind of didn't occur to me, " went on Sylvester, "that you'd care awhole lot about being ig-nored by Momma and Mr. And Mrs. Greely andGirlie. Say, Girlie's got to take her chance same's anybody else. Whydon't you give Jim a jolt?"

Sheila at this began to laugh. She caught her breath. She laughed andcried together. 

Sylvester patted her shoulder. "Poor kid! You're all in. Late hours toomuch for you, I reckon. Come on now--tell Pap everything. Ease off yourheart. It's wonderful what crying does for the nervous system. I laid outon a prairie one night when I was about your age and just naturallybawled. You'd 'a' thought I was a baby steer, hanged if you wouldn't 'a'thought so. It's the fight scared you plumb to pieces. Carthy told meabout it and how you let the good-looking kid out by the back. I seen himride off toward Hidden Creek this morning. He was a real pretty boy too. Say, Sheila, wasn't you ever kissed?"

"No, " said Sheila. "And I don't want to be. " Sylvester laughed with alittle low cackle of intense pleasure and amusement. "Well, you shan'tbe. No, you shan't. Nobody shall kiss Sheila!"

His method seemed to him successful. Sheila stopped crying and stoppedlaughing, dried her eyes, murmured, "I'm all right now, thank you, Mr. Hudson, " and fell into an abysmal silence. 

He talked smoothly, soothingly, skillfully, confident of his power tomanage "gels. " Once in a while he saw her teeth gleam as though shesmiled. As they came back to Millings in the afterglow of a brief Westerntwilight, she unfastened her veil and showed a quiet, thoughtful face. 

She thanked him, gave him her hand. "Don't come up, please, Mr. Hudson, "she said with that cool composure of which at times she was surprisinglycapable. "I shall have my dinner sent up and take a little rest before Igo to work. "

"You feel O. K. ?" he asked her doubtfully. His brown eyes had an almostdoglike wistfulness. 

"Quite, thank you. " Her easy, effortless smile passed across her face andin and out of her eyes. 

Hudson stood beside his wheel tapping his teeth and staring after her. The rockers on the veranda stopped their rocking, stopped their talking, stopped their breathing to see Sheila pass. When she had gone, theyfastened their attention upon Sylvester. He was not aware of them. Hestood there a full three minutes under the glare of publicity. Then hesighed and climbed into his car. 

CHAPTER XII

HUDSON'S QUEEN

The lobby, empty of its crowd when Sheila passed through it on her way upto her rooms, was filled by a wheezy, bullying voice. In front of thedesk a little barrel of a man with piggish eyes was disputing his billwith Dickie. At the sound of Sheila's entrance he turned, stopped hiscomplaint, watched her pass, and spat into a near-by receptacle. Sheilaremembered that he had visited the bar early in the evening before, andhad guzzled his whiskey and made some wheezy attempts at gallantry. Dickie, flushed, his hair at wild odds with composure, was going over thebill. In the midst of his calculations the man would interrupt him with aplump dirty forefinger pounced upon the paper. "Wassa meanin' of thisitem, f'rinstance? Highway robbery, thassa meanin' of it. My wife takebreakfast in her room? I'd like to see her try it!"

Sheila went upstairs. She took off her things, washed off the dust, andchanged into the black-and-white barmaid's costume, fastening the frillyapron, the cuffs, the delicate fichu with mechanical care. She put on thesilk stockings and the buckled shoes and the tiny cap. Then she went intoher sitting-room, chose the most dignified chair, folded her hands inher lap, and waited for Dickie. Waiting, she looked out through thewindow and saw the glow fade from the snowy crest of The Hill. Theevening star let itself delicately down through the sweeping shadows ofthe earth from some mysterious fastness of invisibility. The room was dimwhen Dickie's knock made her turn her head. 

"Come in. "

He appeared, shut the door without looking at her, then came unwillinglyacross the carpet and stopped at about three steps from her chair, standing with one hand in his pocket. He had slicked down his hair witha wet brush and changed his suit. It was the dark-blue serge he had wornat the dance five months before. What those five months had been toDickie, through what abasements and exaltations, furies and despairs hehad traveled since he had looked up from Sheila's slippered feet withhis heart turned backward like a pilot's wheel, was only faintlyindicated in his face. And yet the face gave Sheila a pang. And, unsupported by anger, he was far from formidable, a mere youth. Sheilawondered at her long and sustained persecution of him. She smiled, herlips, her eyes, and her heart. 

"Aren't you going to sit down, Dickie? This isn't a school examination. "

"If it was, " said Dickie, with an uncertain attempt at ease, "I wouldn'tpass. " He felt for a chair and got into it. He caught a knee in his handand looked about him. "You've made the room awful pretty, Sheila. "

She had spent some of the rather large pay she drew upon coverings ofFrench blue for the plush furniture, upon a dainty yellow porcelaintea-set, upon little oddments of decoration. The wall-paper and carpetwere inoffensive, the quietest probably in Millings, so that her effortshad met with some success. There was a lounge with cushions, there weresome little volumes, a picture of her father, a bowl of pink wild roses, a vase of vivid cactus flowers. Some sketches in water-color--Marcus'smost happy medium--had been tacked up. A piece of tapestry decorated theback of the chair Sheila had chosen. In the dim light it all had an airof quiet richness. It seemed a room transplanted to Millings from somefiner soil. 

Dickie looked at the tapestry because it was the nearest he dared come tolooking at Sheila. His hands and knees shook with the terrible beating ofhis heart. It was not right, thought Dickie resentfully, that any feelingshould take hold of a fellow and shake and terrify him so. He threwhimself back suddenly and folded his arms tight across his chest. 

"You wanted to see me about something?" he asked. 

"Yes. I'll give you some tea first. "

Dickie's lips fell apart. He said neither yea nor nay, but watcheddazedly her preparations, her concoctions, her advance upon him with ayellow teacup and a wafer. He did not stand up to take it and he knew toolate that this was a blunder. He tingled with shame. 

Sheila went back to her chair and sipped from her own cup. 

"I've been angry with you for three months now, Dickie. "

"Yes'm, " he said meekly. 

"That's the longest I've ever been angry with any one in my life. Once Ihated a teacher for two weeks, and it almost killed me. But what I feltabout her was--was weakness to the way I've felt about you. "

"Yes'm, " again said Dickie. His tea was terribly hot and burnt histongue, so that tears stood in his eyes. 

"And I suppose you've been angry with me. "

"No, ma'am. "

Sheila was not particularly pleased with this gentle reply. "Why, Dickie, you _know_ you have!"

"No, ma'am. "

"Then why haven't you spoken to me? Why have you looked that way at me?"

"I don't speak to folks that don't speak to me, " said Dickie, lifting thewafer as though its extreme lightness was faintly repulsive to him. 

"Well, " said Sheila bitterly, "you haven't been alone in your attitude. Very few people have been speaking to me. My only loyal friends are Mr. Hudson and Amelia Plecks and Carthy and Jim. Jim made no promises aboutbeing my guardian, but--"

"But he _is_ your guardian?" Dickie drawled the question slightly. Hisgift of faint irony and impersonal detachment flicked Sheila's temper asit had always flicked his father's. 

"Jim is my friend, " Sheila maintained in defiance of a still, smallvoice. "He has given me a pony and has taken me riding--"

"Yes'm, I've saw you--" Dickie's English was peculiarly fallible inmoments of emotion. Now he seemed determined to cut Sheila's descriptionshort. "Say, Sheila, did you send for me to tell me about this lovelyfriendship of yours with Jim?"

Sheila set her cup down on the window-sill. She did not want to lose hertemper with Dickie. She brushed a wafer crumb from her knee. 

"No, Dickie, I didn't. I sent for you because, after all, though I'vebeen so angry with you, I've known in my heart that--that--you are aloyal friend and that you tell the truth. "

This admission was an effort. Sheila's pride suffered to the point ofbringing a dim sound of tears into her voice. . . . 

Dickie did not speak. He too put down his tea-cup and his wafer side byside on the floor near his chair. He put his elbows on his knees and benthis head down as though he were examining his thin, locked hands. 

Sheila waited for a long minute; then she said angrily, "Aren't you gladI think that of you?"

"Yes'm. " Dickie's voice was indistinct. 

"You don't seem glad. "

Dickie made some sort of struggle. Sheila could not quite make out itsnature. "I'm glad. I'm so glad that it kind of--hurts, " he said. 

"Oh!" That at least was pleasant intelligence to a wounded pride. 

Fortified, Sheila began the real business of the interview. "You are notan artist, Dickie, " she said, "and you don't understand why your fatherasked me to work at The Aura nor why I wanted to work there. It was yourentire inability to understand--"

"Entire inability--" whispered Dickie as though he were taking down thephrase with an intention of looking it up later. 

This confused Sheila. "Your--your entire inability, " she repeatedrapidly, "your--your entire inability--"

"Yes'm. I've got that. "

"--To understand that made me so angry that day. " Sheila was glad to berid of that obstruction. She had planned this speech rather carefully inthe watches of the wakeful, feverish morning which had been her night. "You seemed to be trying to pull your father and me down to some lowerspiritual level of your own. "

"Lower spiritual level, " repeated Dickie. 

"Dickie, stop that, please!"

He looked up, startled by her sharpness. "Stop what, ma'am?"

"Saying things after me. It's insufferable. "

"Insufferable--oh, I suppose it is. You're usin' so many words, Sheila. Ikind of forgot there was so many words as you're makin' use of thisafternoon. "

"Oh, Dickie, Dickie! Can't you see how miserable I am! I am so unhappyand--and scared, and you--you are making fun of me. "

At that, spoken in a changed and quavering key of helplessness, Dickiehurried to her, knelt down beside her chair, and took her hands. 

"Sheila! I'll do anything!"

His presence, his boyish, quivering touch, so withheld from anything butboyishness, even the impulsive humility of his thin, kneeling body, wereinexpressibly soothing, inexpressibly comforting. She did not draw awayher hands. She let them cling to his. 

"Dickie, will you answer me, quite truthfully and simply, without anyexplaining or softening, please, if I ask you a--a dreadful question?"

"Yes, dear. "

"I'm not sure if it is a dreadful question, but--but I'm afraid it is. "

"Don't worry. Ask me. Surely, I'll answer you the truth withoutany fixin's. "

Her hands clung a little closer. She was silent, gathering courage. Hefelt her slim knees quiver. 

"What do they mean, Dickie, " she whispered with a wan look, "when theycall me--'Hudson's Queen'?"

Dickie bent from her look as though he felt a pain. He took her hands upclose to his breast. "Who told you that they called you that?" he askedbreathlessly. 

"That's what every one calls me--the men over in the Big Horncountry--they tell men that are coming to Millings to be sure to look up'Hudson's Queen. ' Do they mean the Hotel, Dickie? They _do_ mean theHotel, don't they, Dickie?--that I am _The_ Hudson's Queen?"

The truth sometimes presents itself like a withering flame. Dickie gotup, put away her hands, walked up and down, then came back to her. He hadheard the epithet and he knew its meaning. He wrestled now with hislonging to keep her from such understanding, or, at least, to soften it. She had asked for the clear truth and he had promised it to her. He stoodaway because he could not trust himself to endure the wincing of herhands and body when she heard the truth. He hoped dimly that she mightnot understand it. 

"They don't mean the Hotel, Sheila, " he said harshly. "They mean--Father. You know now what they mean--?" In her stricken and bewildered eyes hesaw that she did know. "I would like to kill them, " sobbed Dickiesuddenly. "I would like to kill--_him_. No, no, Sheila, don't you cry. Don't you. It's not worth cryin' for. It's jest ignorant folks's ignorantand stupid talk. It's not worth cryin' for. " He sat down on the arm ofher chair and fairly gathered her into his arms. He rocked and patted hershoulder and kissed her gently on her hair--all with that boyishness, that brotherliness, that vast restraint so that she could not even guessthe strange and unimaginable pangs he suffered from his self-control. 

Before Dickie's resolution was burnt away by the young inner fire, Sheilawithdrew herself gently from his arms and got up from the chair. Shewalked over to one of the two large windows--the sunset windows shecalled them, in contradistinction to the one sunrise window--and stoodcomposing herself, her hands twisted together and lifted to the top ofthe lower sash, her forehead rested on them. 

A rattle of china, a creaking step outside the door, interrupted theirtremulous silence in which who knows what mysterious currents werepassing between their young minds. 

"It's my dinner, " said Sheila, and Dickie walked over mechanically andopened the door. 

Amelia Plecks came panting into the room, set the tray down on a smalltable, and looked contempt at Dickie. 

"There now, Miss Arundel, " she said with breathless tenderness, "I'vepro-cured a dandy chop for you. You said you was kind of famished for alamb chop, and, of course, in a sheep country good mutton's real hard tocome by, and this ain't properly speaking--lamb, _but_--! Well, say, it'sjust dandy meat. "

She ignored Dickie as one might ignore the presence of some obnoxiousinsect in the reception-room of a queen. Her eyes were disgustedlyfascinated by his presence, but in her conversation she would not admitthis preoccupation of disgust. 

"I'll be going, " said Dickie. 

Amelia nodded as one who applauds the becoming move of an inferior. 

"Here's a note for you, Miss Arundel, " she said, coming over to Sheila'spost at the window, where she was trying to hide the traces of her tears. "Well, say, who's been botherin' you?" Amelia's voice went down a long, threatening octave to a sinister bass note, at the voicing of which sheturned to look at Dickie. 

"Good-night, Sheila, " he said diffidently; and Sheila coming quicklytoward him, put out her hand. The note Amelia had handed her fell. Dickieand Amelia both bent to pick it up. 

"No, you don't, " said Amelia, snatching it and accusing him, by her tone, of inexpressibly base intentions. "Say, Miss Arundel, " in a whisper ofthrilled confidence, "_Mister Jim_! Uh?"

"Thank you, Dickie, " murmured Sheila, half-embarrassed, half-amused byher adoring follower's innuendoes. "Thank you for everything. I shallhave to think what I can do . . . Good-night. "

Dickie, his eyes forcibly held away from Jim's note, murmured, "Good-night, ma'am, " and went out, closing the door with exaggeratedgentleness. The quietness of his departure seemed to spare Sheila'ssensitiveness. 

"Ain't he a worm, though!" exclaimed Amelia, sparing nobody'ssensitiveness. 

"He's nothing of the sort, " Sheila protested indignantly. "He is a dear!"

Amelia opened her prominent eyes and pursed her lips. A reassuring lightdawned on her bewilderment. "Oh, say, dearie, I wasn't speakin' of yourMister Jim. I was makin' reference to Dickie. "

Sheila thrust the note into her pocket and went over to the table tolight her lamp. "I know quite well that you meant Dickie, " she said. "Nobody in Millings would ever dream of comparing Mr. James Greely to aworm, even if he came out from the ground just in time for the early birdto peck him. I know that. "

"You're ornery to-night, dearie, " announced Amelia, and with exemplarytact she creaked and breathed herself to the door. There she had arelapse from tactfulness, however, and planted herself to stare. "Ain'tyou goin' to read your note?"

Sheila, to be rid of her, unfolded the paper and read. It was quitebeautifully penned in green ink on violet paper. Jim had written bothwisely and too well. 

"My darling--Why not permit me to call you that when it is the simple andsincere truth?" An astonished little voice in Sheila's brain here seemedto counter-question mechanically "Why not, indeed?"--"I cannot think ofanything but you and how I love you. These little notes I am going tokeep a-sending you are messengers of love. You will never meet with amore tremendous lover than me. . . . Be _my_ Queen, " Jim had written with agreat climatic splash of ink, and he had signed himself, "Your James. "

Sheila's face was crimson when she put down the note. She stared straightin front of her for an instant with very large eyes in this scarlet roseof countenance and then she crumpled into mirth. She put her face intoher hands and rocked. It seemed as though a giant of laughter had caughther about the ribs. 

Amelia stared and felt a wound. She swallowed a lump of balked sentimentas she went out. Her idol was faintly tarnished, her heroine's staturepreceptibly diminished. The sort of Madame du Barry atmosphere with whichSheila's image was surrounded in Amelia's fancy lost a little of its rosyglow. The favorite of Kings, the _amorita_ of Dukes, does not rock withlaughter over scented notes from a High Desirable. 

"She ain't just quite up to it, " was Amelia's comment, which sheprobably could not have explained even to herself. 

Sheila presently was done with laughter. She ate a nibble of dinner assoberly as Amelia could have wished, then sat back, her eyes closed witha resolve to think clearly, closely, to some determination of her life. But Jim's note, which had so roused her amusement, began to force itselfin another fashion upon her. She discovered that it was an insufferablenote. It insinuated everything, it suggested--everything. It was aboastful messenger. It swaggered male-ishly. It threw out its chest andsmacked its lips. "See what a sad dog my master is, " it said; "a regulardevil of a fellow. " Sheila found her thoughts confused by anger. Shefound that she was too disturbed for any clear decision. She was terriblyweary and full of dread for the long night before her. And a startledlook at her clock told her it was time now to go over to the saloon. 

She got up, went to her mirror, smoothed her rippled hair with twostrokes of a brush, readjusted her cap, and decided that, for once, alittle powder on the nose was a necessity. Carthy must not see that shehad been crying. As it was, her brilliant color was suspicious, and hereyes, with their deep distended look of tears. She shut them, drew abreath, put out her light, and went down the back stairs to a narrowalley. It led from the hotel to the street that ran back of The Aura . . . The street to which she had taken young Hilliard the night before. 

The alley seemed to Sheila, as she stepped into it from the glare of theelectric-lighted hotel, a stream of cool and silvery light. Above lay astrip of tender sky in which already the stars shook. In this highatmosphere they were always tremulous, dancing, beating, almost leaping, with a fullness of quick light. They seemed very near to the edges of thealley walls, to be especially visiting it with their detached regard, peering down for some small divine occasion for influence. Sheila prayedto them a desperate prayer of human helplessness. 

CHAPTER XIII

SYLVESTER CELEBRATES

"Hey, you girl there! Hi! Hey!"

These exclamations called in a resonant, deep-chested voice succeeded atlast in attracting Sheila's attention. She had lingered at the alley'smouth, shirking her entrance into the saloon, and now she saw, halfwaydown the short, wide street, a gesticulating figure. 

At first, as she obeyed the summons, she thought the summoner a man, buton near view it proved itself a woman, of broad, massive hips andshoulders, dressed in a man's flannel shirt and a pair of large corduroytrousers, their legs tucked into high cowboy boots. She wore no hat, andher hair was cut square across her neck and forehead; hair of a darkrusty red, it was, and matched eyes like dark panes of glass before afire, red-brown and very bright, ruddy eyes in a square, ruddy face, which, with its short, straight, wide-bridged nose, well-shaped lips, square chin, and brilliant teeth, made up a striking and not unattractivecountenance. 

"I've got a horse here; won't stand, " said the woman. "Will you holdhis head? Can leaking back here in my wagon, leaking all over myother stuff. "

The horse came round the corner. He moved resolutely to meet them. Hewas the boniest, small horse Sheila had ever seen--a shadow of a horse, one-eyed, morose, embittered. The harness hung loose upon his meagerness;the shafts stuck up like the points of a large collar on a small old man. 

"He's not running away, " explained the owner superfluously. "It's justthat he can't stop. You'd think, to look at him, that stopping wouldbe his favorite sport. But you'd be mistaken. Go he must. He's kind ofalways crazy to get there--Lord knows where--probably to the end ofhis life. "

Sheila held the horse, and rubbed his nose with her small and gentlehand. The creature drooped under the caress and let its lower lip, with afew stiff white hairs, hang and quiver bitterly. It half-closed its oneuseful eye, a pale eye of intense, colorless disillusionment. 

When the wagon stopped, a dog who was trotting under it stopped tooand lay down in the dust, panting. Sheila bent her head a little tosee the dog. She had a child's intense interest in animals. Throughthe dimness she made out a big, wolfish creature with a splendid, clean, gray coat, his pointed nose, short, pointed ears, deep, wildeyes, and scarlet tongue, set in a circular ruff of black. His bushytail curled up over his back. 

"What kind of dog is that?" asked Sheila, thinking the great animal underthe wagon better fitted to pull the load than the shadowy little horse infront of it. 

"Quarter wolf, " answered the woman in her casual manner of speech, herresonant voice falling pleasantly on the light coolness of the eveningair; "Malamute. This fellow was littered on the body of a dead man. "

Sheila had also the child's interest in tales. "Tell me about it, " shebegged fervently. 

The woman stopped in her business of tying down a canvas cover over herload and gave Sheila an amused and searching look. She held an iron spikebetween her teeth, but spoke around it skillfully. 

"Arctic exploration it was. My brother was one of the party. 'T was hebrought me home Berg. Berg's mother was one of the sledge dogs. Party wasshipwrecked, starved, most of the dogs eaten, one man dead. Berg's motherlittered on the body one night. Next morning they were rescued and thenew family was saved. Otherwise I guess they'd have had a puppy stew andBerg and his wife and family wouldn't be earning their living with me. "

"How do they earn their living?" asked Sheila, still peering at the heroof the tale. 

"They pull my sled about winters, Hidden Creek. "

"Oh, you live in the Hidden Creek country?"

"Yes. Got a ranch up not far from the source. Ever been over The Hill?"

She came toward Sheila, gathered the reins into her strong, broad hands, held them in her teeth, and began to pull on her canvas gloves. Shetalked with the reins between her teeth as she had with the spike, herenunciation triumphantly forceful and distinct. 

"Some day, I'm coming over The Hill, " said Sheila, less successful with acontraction in her throat. 

The woman made a few strides. Now she was looking shrewdly, close intoSheila's face. 

"You're a biscuit-shooter at the hotel?"

"No. I work in the saloon. "

"In the saloon? Oh, sure. Barmaid. I've heard of you. "

Here she put a square finger-tip under Sheila's chin and looked evencloser than before. "Not happy, are you?" she said. She moved awayabruptly. "Tired of town life. Been crying. Well, when you want to pullout, come over to my ranch. I need a girl. I'm kind of lonesome winters. It's a pretty place if you aren't looking for street-lamps andtalking-machines. You don't hear much more than coyotes and the river andthe pines and, if you're looking for high lights, you can sure see thestars . . . "

She climbed up to her seat, using the hub of her wheel for a foothold, and springing with surprising agility and strength. 

Sheila stepped aside and the horse started instantly. She made a fewhurried steps to keep up. 

"Thank you, " she said, looking up into the ruddy eyes that looked down. "I'll remember that. What is your name?"

"Christina Blake, Miss Blake. I'll make The Hill before morning ifI'm lucky. Less dust and heat by night and the horse has loafedsince morning. . . . I mean that about coming to my place. Any time. Good-bye to you. "

She smiled a smile as casual in its own way as Sheila's own. Berg, underthe wagon, trotted silently. He looked neither to right nor left. Hiswild, deep-set eyes were fastened on the heels of the small horse. Helooked as though he were trotting relentlessly toward some wolfish goalof satisfied hunger. A little cloud of dust rose up from the wheels andstood between Sheila and the wagon. She conquered an impulse to run afterit, shut her hand tight, and walked in at the back door of the saloon. 

A teamster, with a lean, fatherly face, his mouth veiled by ashaggy blond mustache, his eyes as blue as larkspur, smiled at heracross the bar. 

"Hullo, " said he. "How's your pony?"

Sheila had struck up one of her sudden friendships with this man, whovisited the saloon at regular intervals. This question warmed her heart. The little pony of Jim's giving was dear. She thought of his soft eyesand snuggling nose almost as often and as fondly as a lover thinks of theface of his lady. 

"Tuck's splendid, Mr. Thatcher, " she said, leaning her elbows on the barand cupping her chin in her hands. Her face was bright with its tender, Puckish look. "He's too cute. He can take sugar out of my apron pocket. And he'll shake hands. I'd just love you to see him. Will you be hereto-morrow afternoon?"

"No, ma'am. I'm pullin' out about sunup. Round the time you tumble intobed. Got to make The Hill. "

"How's your baby?"

A shining smile rewarded her interest in the recent invalid. "Fine anddandy. You ought to see her walk!"

"Isn't that splendid! And how's the little boy? Is he with you?"

"No, ma'am. I kind o' left him to mind the ranch. He's gettin' to be areal rancher, that boy. He was sure sorry not to make Hidden Creek thistrip, though. Say, he was set on seein' you. I told him about you. "

Sheila's face flamed and her eyes smarted. Gratitude and shame possessedher. This man, then, did not speak of her as "Hudson's Queen"--not if hetold his boy about her. She turned away to hide the flame and smart. Whenshe looked back, Sylvester himself stood at Thatcher's elbow. He veryrarely came into the saloon. At sight of him Sheila's heart leaped asthough it had been struck. 

"Say, Sheila, " he murmured, "I'm celebratin' to-night. "

She tried to dismiss from her mind its new and ugly consciousness. Shetried to smile. The result was an expression strange enough. 

Sylvester, however, missed it. He was dressed in one of the brownchecked suits, a new one, freshly creased; there was a red wild-rose budin his buttonhole. The emerald gleamed on his well-kept, sallow hand. Hewas sipping from his glass and had put a confidential hand on Thatcher'sshoulder. He grinned at Carthy. 

"Well, sir, " he said, "nobody has in-quired as to my celebration. But I'mnot proud. I'll tell you. I'm celebratin' to-night the winnin' of a bet. "

"That's sure a deservin' cause, " said Thatcher. 

"Yes, sir. Had a bet with Carthy here. Look at him blush! Carthy sure-lyhates to be wrong. And he's mostly right in his prog-nos-ti-cations. Hesure is. You bet yer. That's why I'm so festive. "

"What'd he prognosticate?" asked Thatcher obligingly. He had moved hisshoulder away from Hudson's hand. 

Sylvester wrinkled his upper lip into its smile and looked down into hisglass. He turned his emerald. 

"Carthy prophesied that about this time a little--er--dream--of minewould go bust, " said Hudson. He lifted up his eyes pensively to Sheila, first his eyes and then his glass. "Here's to my dream--you, girl, " hesaid softly. 

He drank with his eyes upon her face, drew a deep breath, and lookedabout the room. 

Thatcher glanced from him to Sheila. "Goodnight to you, ma'am, " he saidwith gentleness. "Next time I'll bring the boy. "

"Please, please do. "

Sheila put her hand in his. He looked down at it as though something hadstartled him. In fact, her touch was like a flake of snow. 

When Thatcher had gone, Sylvester leaned closer to her across the bar. Hemoved his glass around in his hand and looked up at her humbly. 

"The tables kind of turned, eh?" he said. 

"What do you mean, Mr. Hudson?" Sheila, by lifting her voice, tried todissipate the atmosphere of confidence, of secrecy. Carthy had moved awayfrom them, the other occupants of the saloon were very apparently notlistening. 

"Well, ma'am, " Sylvester explained, "six months ago I was kind of layin'claim to gratitude from you, and now it's the other way round. "

"Yes, " she said. "But I am still grateful. " The words came, however, witha certain unwillingness, a certain lack of spontaneity. 

"Are you, though?" He put his head on one side so that Sheila wasreminded of Dickie. For the first time a sort of shadowy resemblancebetween father and son was apparent to her. "Well, you've wiped thereckonin' off the slate by what you've done for me. You've given me myAura. Say, you have been my fairy godmother, all right. Talk about wishescomin' true!"

Again he looked about the room, and that wistfulness of the visionarystole into his face. His eyes came back to her with an expression thatwas almost beautiful. "If only that Englishman was here, " he sighed. "Yesma'am. I'm sure celebratin' to-night!"

It was soon very apparent that he was celebrating. For an hour he stoodevery newcomer to a drink, and then he withdrew to a table in a shadowycorner, and sitting there, tilted against the wall, he sipped from hisglass, smoked and dreamed. Hour after hour of the slow, noisy night wentby and still he sat there, watching Sheila through the smoke, seeing inher, more and more glowingly, the body of his dream. 

It was after dawn when Sheila touched Carthy's elbow. The big Irishmanlooked down at her small, drawn face. 

"Mr. Carthy, " she whispered, "would it be all right if I went home now?It's earlier than usual, but I'm so--awfully tired?"

There was so urgent an air of secrecy in her manner that Carthymuttered his permission out of the corner of his mouth. Sheila meltedfrom his side. 

The alley that had been silvery cool with dusk was now even more silverycool with morning twilight. Small sunrise clouds were winging over itlike golden doves. Sheila did not look at them. She ran breathless to herdoor, opened it, and found herself face to face with Dickie. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE LIGHT OF DAWN

There was a light of dawn in the room and through the open window blew inthe keen air of daybreak. Dickie was standing quite still in the middleof the floor. He was more neat and groomed than Sheila had ever seen him. He looked as though he had stepped from a bath; his hair was sleek andwet so that it was dark above the pure pallor of his face; his suit wascarefully put on; his cuffs and collar were clean. He did not have thelook of a man that has been awake all night, nor did he look as though hehad ever been asleep. His face and eyes were alight, his lips firm anddelicate with feeling. 

Before him Sheila felt old and stained. The smoke and fumes of the barhung about her. She was shamed by the fresh youthfulness of his slender, eager carriage and of his eyes. 

"Dickie, " she faltered, and stood against the door, drooping wearily, "what are you doing here at this hour?"

"What does the hour matter?" he asked impatiently. "Come over to thewindow. I want you to look at this big star. I've been watching it. It'salmost gone. It's like a white bird flying straight into the sun. "

He was imperative, laid his cool hand upon hers and drew her to thewindow. They stood facing the sunrise. 

"Why did you come here?" again asked Sheila. The beauty of the sky onlydeepened her misery and shame. 

"Because I couldn't wait any longer than one night. It's sure been anawful long night for me, Sheila . . . Sheila--" He drew the hand he stillheld close to him with a trembling touch and laid his other hand over it. Then she felt the terrible beating of his heart, felt that he wasshaking. "Sheila, I love you. " She had hidden her face against thecurtain, had turned from him. She felt nothing but weariness and shame. She was like a leaden weight tied coldly to his throbbing youth. Her handunder his was hot and lifeless like a scorched rose. "I want you to comeaway with me from Millings. You can't keep on a-working in that saloon. You can't a-bear to have folks saying and thinking the fool things theydo. And I can't a-bear it even if you can. I'd go loco, and kill. Sheila, I've been thinking all night, just sitting on the edge of my bed andthinking. Sheila, if you will marry me, I will promise you to take careof you. I won't let you suffer any. I will die"--his voice rocked on theword, spoken with an awful sincerity of young love--"before I let yousuffer any. If you could love me a little bit"--he stopped as though thatleaping heart had sprung up into his throat--"only a little bit, Sheila, " he whispered, "maybe--?"

"I can't, " she said. "I can't love you that way even a little bit. Ican't marry you, Dickie. I wish I could. I am so tired. "

She drew her hand away, or rather it fell from the slackening grasp ofhis, and hung at her side. She looked up from the curtain to his face. Itwas still alight and tender and pale. 

"You're real sure, Sheila, that you _never_ could?--that you'd rather goon with this--?"

She pressed all the curves and the color out of her lips, still lookingat him, and nodded her head. 

"I can't stay in Millings, " Dickie said, "and work in Poppa's hotel andwatch this, Sheila--unless, some way, I can help you. "

"Then you'd better go, " she said lifelessly, "because I can't see whatelse there is for me to do. Oh, I shan't go on with it for very long, of course--"

He came an eager half-step nearer. "Then, anyway, you'll let me go awayand work, and when I've kind of got a start, you'll let me come backand--and see if--if you feel any sort of--different from what you do now?It wouldn't be so awful long. I'd work like--like Hell!" His thin handshot into a fist. 

Sheila's lassitude was startled by his word into a faint, unwillingsmile. 

"Don't laugh at me!" he cried out. 

"Oh, Dickie, my dear, I'm not laughing. I'm so tired I can hardly stand. And truly you must go now. I'm horrid to you. I always am. And yet I dolike you so much. And you are such a dear. And I feel there's somethinggreat about you. I should be glad for you to leave Millings. There is amuch better chance for you away from Millings. I feel years old to-day. Ithink I've grown up too old all at once and missed lovely things that Iought to have had. Dickie"--she gave a dry sort of sob--"_you_ are one ofthe lovely things. "

His arms drew gently round her. "Let me kiss you, Sheila, " he pleadedwith tremulous lips. "I want just to kiss you once for good-bye. I'll beso careful. If you knowed how I feel, you'd let me. "

She lifted up her mouth like an obedient child. Then, back of Dickie, shesaw Sylvester's face. 

It was more sallow than usual; its upper lip was drawn away from theteeth and deeply wrinkled; the eyes, half-closed, were very soft; theylooked as though there was a veil across their pensiveness. He caughtDickie's elbow in his hand, twisted him about, thrusting a knee into hisback, and with his other long, bony hand he struck him brutally acrossthe face. The emerald on his finger caught the light of the rising sunand flashed like a little stream of green fire. 

Dickie, caught unawares by superior strength, was utterly defenseless. Hewrithed and struggled vainly, gasping under the blows. Sylvester forcedhim across the room, still inflicting punishment. His hand made a greatcracking sound at every slap. 

Sheila hid her face from the dreadful sight. "Oh, don't, don't, don't!"she wailed again and again. 

Then it was over. Dickie was flung out; the door was locked against himand Sylvester came back across the floor. 

His collar stood up in a half-moon back of his ears, his hair fell acrosshis forehead, his face was flushed, his lip bled. He had either bitten ithimself or Dickie had struck it. But he seemed quite calm, only a littlebreathless. He was neither snarling nor smiling now. He took Sheila verygently by the wrists, drawing her hands down from her face, and he puther arms at their full length behind her, holding them there. 

"You meet Dickie here when you're through work, dream-girl, " he saidgently. "You kiss Dickie when you leave my Aura, you little beacon light. I've kept my hands off you and my lips off you and my mind off you, because I thought you were too fine and good for anything but my ideal. And all this while you've been sneaking up here to Dickie and Jim andLord knows who else besides. Now, I am agoin' to kiss you and then yougotta get out of Millings. Do you hear? After I've kissed you, you ain'tgood enough for my purpose--not for mine. "

Gathering both her hands in one of his, he put the hard, long fingers ofhis free hand back of her head, holding it from wincing or turning andhis mouth dropped upon hers and seemed to smother out her life. Shetasted whiskey and the blood from his cut lips. 

"You won't tell _me_, anyway, that lie again, " he panted, keeping hisface close, staring into her wide eyes of a horrified childishness--"thatyou've never been kissed. "

Again his lips fastened on her mouth. He let her go, strode to the door, unlocked it, and went out. 

She had fallen to the floor, her head against the chair. She beat thechair with her hands, calling softly for her father and for her God. Shereproached them both. "You told me it was a good old world, " she sobbed. "You told me it was a good old world. "

CHAPTER XV

FLAMES

A hot, dry day followed on the cool dawn. In his room Dickie lay acrosshis bed. The sun blazed in at his single long window; the big flies thathad risen from the dirty yard buzzed and bumped against the upper paneand made aimless, endless, mazy circles above and below one another inthe stifling, odorous atmosphere. Dickie lay there like an image ofIcarus, an eternal symbol of defeated youth; one could almost see abouthis slenderness the trailing, shattered wings. He had wept out the firstshock of his anger and his shame; now he lay in a despairing stupor. Hisbruised face burned and ached; his chest felt tight with the aching andburning of his heart. Any suspicion of his father's interpretation of hispresence in Sheila's room was mercifully spared him, but the knowledgethat he had been brutally jerked back from her pure and patient lips, hadbeen ignominiously punished before her eyes and turned out like a whippedboy--this knowledge was a dreadful torture to his pride. Sheila, to besure, did not love him even a little bit; she had said so. All thelonging and the tumult of his heart during these months had made no moreimpression upon her than a frantic sea makes upon the little bird at thetop of the cliff. She had, he must think, hardly been aware of it. Andit was such a terrible and frantic actuality. He had fancied that it musthave beaten forever, day by day, night by night, at her consciousness. Can a woman live near so turbulent a thing and not even guess at itsexistence? Her hand against his heart had lain so limp and dead. Hehadn't hoped, of course, that she loved him the way he loved. Probably noone else could feel what he felt and live--so Dickie in young love'seternal fashion believed in his own miracle; but she might have loved hima little, a very little, in time--if she hadn't seen him beaten andshamed and cuffed out of her presence like a dog. Now there was no hope. No hope at all. No hope. Dickie rocked his head against his arm. He hadtold Sheila that he would take care of her, but he could not even defendhimself. He had told her that he would die to save her any suffering, but, before her, he had writhed and gasped helplessly under the weight ofanother man's hand, his open hand, not even a fist. . . . No after act ofhis could efface from Sheila's memory that picture of his ignominy. Shehad seen him twisted and bent and beaten and thrown away. His father hadtriumphantly returned to reassure and comfort her for the insult of aboy's impertinence. Would Sheila defend him? Would she understand? Orwould she not be justified in contemptuous laughter at his pretensions?

Such thoughts--less like thoughts, however, than like fiery feverfits--twisted and scorched Dickie's mind as he lay there. They burnt intohim wounds that for years throbbed slowly into scars. 

At noon the heat of his room became even more intolerable than histhoughts. His head beat with pain. He was bathed in sweat, weak andtrembling. He dragged himself up, went to his washstand, and dipped hiswincing face into the warmish, stale water. His lips felt cracked and dryand swollen. In the wavy mirror he saw a distorted image of his face, with its heavy eyes, scattered hair, and the darkening marks of hisfather's blows, punctuated by the scarlet scratches of the emerald. Hedried his face, loosened his collar, and, gasping for air, came out intothe narrow hall. 

The hotel was very still. He hurried through it, his face bent, and wentby the back way to the saloon. At this hour Sheila was asleep. Carthywould be alone in The Aura and there would be few, if any, customers. Dickie found the place cool and quiet and empty, shuttered from the sun, the air stirred by electric fans. Carthy dozed in his chair behind thebar. He gave Dickie his order, somnambulantly. Dickie took it off to adim corner and drank with the thirst of a wounded beast. 

Three or four hours later he staggered back to his room. A thunderstormwas rumbling and flashing down from the mountains to the north. Thewindow was purple-black, and a storm wind blew the dirty curtains, straight and steady, into the room. The cool wind tasted and smelt of hotdust. Dickie felt his dazed way to the bed and steadied himself into asitting posture. With infinite difficulty he rolled and lighted acigarette, drew at it, took it out, tried to put it again between hislips, and fell over on his back, his arm trailing over the edge of thebed. The lighted cigarette slipped from his fingers to the ragged stripof matting. Dickie lay there, breathing heavily and regularly in adrunken and exhausted sleep. 

A vivid, flickering pain in his arm woke him. He thought for an instantthat he must have died and dropped straight into Hell. The wind stillblew in upon him, but it blew fire against him. Above him there was aheavy panoply of smoke. His bedclothes were burning, his sleeve was onfire. The boards of his floor cracked and snapped in regiments of flame. He got up, still in a half stupor, plunged his arm into the waterpitcher, saw, with a startled oath, that the woodwork about his door wasblazing in long tongues of fire which leaped up into the rafters of theroof. His brain began to telegraph its messages . . . The hotel was onfire. He could not imagine what had started it. He remembered Sheila. 

He ran along the passage, the roar of that wind-driven fire followinghim as the draft from his window through his opened door gave a suddenimpulse to the flames, and he came to Sheila's sitting-room. Heknocked, had no answer, and burst in. He saw instantly that she hadgone. Her father's picture had been taken, her little books, hersketches, her work-basket, her small yellow vase. Things were scatteredabout. As he stood staring, a billow of black smoke rolled into theroom. He went quickly through the bedroom and the bath, calling"Sheila" in a low, uncertain voice, returned to the sitting-room tofind the air already pungent and hot. There was a paper pinned up onthe mantel. Sheila's writing marched across it. Dickie rubbed the smokefrom his eyes and read:

"I am going away from Millings. And I am not coming back. Amelia may havethe things I have left. I don't want them. "

This statement was addressed to no one. 

"She has gone to New York, " thought Dickie. His confused mind becamepossessed with the immediate purpose of following her. There was anEastern train in the late afternoon. Only he must have money and itwas--most of it--in his room. He dashed back. The passage was ablaze; hisroom roared like the very heart of a furnace. It was no use to think ofgetting in there. Well, he had something in his pocket, enough to starthim. He plunged, choking, into Sheila's sitting-room again. For somereason this flight of hers had brought back his hope. There was to be abeginning, a fresh start, a chance. 

He went over to the chair where Sheila had sat in the comfort, of hisarms and he touched the piece of tapestry on its back. That was hisgood-bye to Millings. Then he fastened his collar, smoothed his hair, standing close before Sheila's mirror, peering and blinking through thesmoke, and buttoned his coat painstakingly. There would be a hatdownstairs. As he turned to go he saw a little brown leather book lyingon the floor below the mantel. He picked it up. Here was something hecould take to Sheila. With an impulse of tenderness he opened it. Hiseyes were caught by a stanza--

"The blessed damozel leaned outFrom the gold bar of Heaven;Her eyes were deeper than the depthOf waters stilled at even;She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven--"

There are people, no doubt, who will not be able to believe this truthfulbit of Dickie's history. The smoke was drifting across him, the roar ofthe nearing fire was in his ears, he was at a great crisis in hisaffairs, his heart was hot with wounded love, and his brain hot withwhiskey and with hope. Nevertheless, he did now, under the spell of thoseprinted words, which did not even remotely resemble any words that he hadever read or heard before, forget the smoke, the roar, the love, thehope, and, standing below Sheila's mirror, he did read "The BlessedDamozel" from end to end. And the love of those lovers, divided by allthe space between the shaken worlds, and the beauty of her tears made agreat and mystic silence of rapture about him. "O God!" Dickie saidtwice as he read. He brushed away the smoke to see the last lines, --"Andwept--I heard her tears. " The ecstatic pain of beauty gripped him to theforgetfulness of all other pain or ecstasy. "O God!"

He came to with a start, shut the book, stuck it into his pocket, and, crooking his arm over his smarting eyes, he plunged out of the room. Millings had become aware of its disaster. Dickie, fleeing by the backway, leaping dangers and beating through fire, knew by the distantcommotion that the Fire Brigade, of which he was a member, was gatheringits men for the glory of their name. He saw, too, that with a wind likethis to aid the fire, there wasn't a chance for The Aura, and a queerpang of sympathy for his father stabbed him. "It will kill Pap, " thoughtDickie. Save for this pang, he ran along the road toward the station witha light, adventurous heart. He did not know that he had started the firehimself. The stupor of his sleep had smothered out all memory of thecigarette he had lighted and let fall. Unwittingly Dickie had killed thebeauty of his father's dream, and now, just as unwittingly, he was aboutto kill the object of his father's passion. When he looked back from thestation platform, the roof of The Aura was already in a blaze. 

PART TWO

THE STARS

CHAPTER I

THE HILL

Thatcher spoke to his horses, now fatherly, now masterly, now with aprofessorial sarcasm: "Come on, Monkey, there's a good girl! Get out ofthat, you Fox! Dern you! You call that pulling? It's my notion of layin'off for the day. " Even at its most urgent, his voice was soft, hushed bythe great loneliness of this cañon up which he slowly crept. Monkey andFox had been plodding, foot by foot, the creaking wagon at their heels, since dawn. It was now ten o'clock and they were just beginning to climb. The Hill, that looked so near to the mesa above Hudson's yard, stillstood aloof. It had towered there ahead of them as they jerked and toiledacross the interminable flat in their accompanying cloud of dust. Thegreat circle of the world had dwarfed them to a bitter insignificance: ateam of crickets, they seemed, driven by a gnome. The hushed tone ofThatcher's voice made unconscious tribute to this immensity. 

As they came to the opening of the cañon, the high mountain-topdisappeared; the immediate foothills closed down and shut it out. The airgrew headily light. Even under the blazing July sun, it came cool to thelungs, cool and intensely sweet. Thousands of wild flowers perfumed itand the sun-drawn resin of a thousand firs. All the while the rushing ofwater accompanied the creaking of Thatcher's progress. Not far from theroad, down there below in a tangle of pine branches, willows, and ferns, the frost-white stream fled toward the valley with all the seeming terrorof escape. Here the team began their tugging and their panting and theirlong pauses to get breath. Thatcher would push forward the wooden handlethat moved his brake, and at the sound and the grating of the wheel thehorses would stop automatically and stand with heaving sides. The wagonshook slightly with their breathing. At such times the stream seemed toshout in the stillness. Below, there began to be an extraordinary view ofthe golden country with its orange mesas and its dark, purple rim ofmountains. Millings was a tiny circle of square pebbles, something builtup by children in their play. The awful impersonalities of sky and earthswept away its small human importance. Thatcher's larkspur-colored eyesabsorbed serenity. They had drawn their color and their far-sightedclearness from such long contemplations of distant horizon lines. 

Now and again, however, Thatcher would glance back and down from his highseat at his load. It consisted, for the most part, of boxes of cannedgoods, but near the front there was a sort of nest, made from bags ofIndian meal. In the middle of the nest lay another bundle of slim, irregular outline. It was covered with a thin blanket and a piece ofsacking protected it from the sun. A large, clumsy parcel lay beside it. Each time Thatcher looked at this portion of his load he pulled moreanxiously at his mustache. At last, when the noon sun stood straightabove the pass and he stopped to water his horses at a trough whichcaught a trickle of spring water, he bent down and softly raised thepiece of sacking, suspended like a tent from one fat sack to anotherabove the object of his uneasiness. There, in the complete relaxation ofexhausted sleep, lay Sheila, no child more limp and innocent of aspect;her hair damp and ringed on her smooth forehead, her lips mournful andsweet, sedately closed, her expression at once proud and innocent andwistful, as is the sleeping face of a little, little girl. There was thatlook of a broken flower, that look of lovely death, that stops the heartof a mother sometimes when she bends over a crib and sees damp curls in ahalo about a strange, familiar face. 

Thatcher, looking at Sheila, had some of these thoughts. A teamster iseither philosopher or clown. One cannot move, day after day, all day fora thousand days, under a changeless, changeful sky, inch by inch, acrossthe surface of a changeless, changeful earth and not come very near tosome of the locked doors of the temple where clowns sleep and wise menmeditate. And Thatcher was a father, one of the wise and reasonablefathers of the West, whose seven-year-old sons are friends and helpmatesand toward whom six-year-old daughters are moved to little acts ofmotherliness. 

The sun blazed for a minute on Sheila's face. She opened her eyes, lookedvaguely from some immense distance at Thatcher, and then sat up. 

"Oh, gracious!" said Sheila, woman and sprite and adventurer again. "Where the dickens is my hat? Did it fall out?"

"No, ma'am, " Thatcher smiled in a relieved fashion. "I put it underthe seat. "

Sheila scrambled to a perch on one of the sacks and faced the surface ofhalf a world. 

"Oh, Mr. Thatcher, isn't it too wonderful! How high are we? Is this theother side? Oh, no, I can see Millings. Poor tiny, tiny Millings! It _is_small, isn't it? How very small it is! What air!" She shut her eyes, drawing in the perfumed tonic. The altitude had intoxicated her. Herheart was beating fast, her blood tingling, her brain electrified. Everysense seemed to be sharpened. She saw and smelt and heard with abnormalvividness. 

"The flowers are awfully bright up here, aren't they?" she said. "What'sthat coral-colored bushy one?"

"Indian paint-brush. "

"And that blue one? It _is_ blue! I don't believe I ever knew whatblueness meant before. "

"Lupine. And over yonder's monkshead. That other's larkspur, thatpoisons cattle in the spring. On the other side you'll see a whole lotmore--wild hollyhock and fireweed and columbine--well, say, I learned allthem names from a dude I drove over one summer. "

"And such a sky!" said Sheila, lifting her head, "and such big pines!"She lost herself for a minute in the azure immensity above. A vast mosqueof cloud, dome bubbles great and small, stood ahead of them, dwarfingevery human experience of height. "Mr. Thatcher, there isn't any air uphere. What is it we're trying to breathe, anyway?"

He smiled patiently, sympathetically, and handed her a tin mug of icywater from the little trickling spring. The bruise of Hudson's kiss achedat the cold touch of the water and a shadow fell over her excitement. Shethanked the driver gravely. 

"What time is it now?" she asked. 

"Past noon. Better eat your sandwich. "

She took one from its wrapping pensively, but ate it with absent-mindedeagerness. Thatcher's blue eyes twinkled. 

"Seems like I recollect a lady that didn't want no food to be putin for her. "

"I remember her, too, " said Sheila, between bites, "but very, veryvaguely. "

She stood up after a third sandwich, shook crumbs from her skirt, andstretched her arms. "What a great sleep I've had! Since six o'clock!"She stared down at the lower world. "I've left somebody at Millings. "

"Who's that?" asked Thatcher, drawling the words a trifle as a Westernerdoes when he is conscious of a double meaning. 

"Me. "

Thatcher laughed. "You're a real funny girl, Miss Arundel, " he said. 

"Yes, I left one Me when I decided to go into the saloon, and now I'veleft another Me. I believe people shed their skins like snakes. "

"Yes'm, I've had that notion myself. But as you get older, your skin kindof peels off easy and gradual--you don't get them shocks when you sort ofcome out all new and shiny and admirin' of yourself. "

Sheila blushed faintly and looked at him. His face was serene and emptyof intention. But she felt that she had been guilty of egotism, as indeedshe had. She asked rather meekly for her hat, and having put it on like ashadow above her fairness, she climbed up to Thatcher's side on thedriver's seat. The hat was her felt Stetson, and, for the rest, she wasclad in her riding-clothes, the boy's shirt, the short corduroy skirt, the high-laced boots. Her youthfulness, rather than her strange beauty, was accentuated by this dress. She had the look of a super-delicate boy, a sort of rose-leaf fairy prince. 

"Are we on the road?" asked Sheila presently. 

Thatcher gave way to mirth. "Don't it seem like a road to you?"

She lurched against him, then saved herself from falling out at the otherside by a frantic clutch. 

"Is it a road?" She looked down a dizzy slope of which the horse'sfoothold seemed to her the most precarious part. 

"Yes'm--all the road there is. We call it that. We're kind of po-lite tothese little efforts of the Government--kind of want to encourage 'em. Congressmen kind of needs coaxin' and flat'ry. They're right ornerycritters. I heard an argyment atween a feller with a hoss and a fellerwith a mule onct. The mule feller was kind of uppish about hosses; saidhe didn't see the advantage of the critter. A mule now was steady andeasy fed and strong. Well, ma'am, the hoss feller got kind of hot aftersome of this, so he says, 'Well, sir, ' he says, 'there's this about it. When you got a hoss, you got a hoss. You know what you got. He's goin' toact like a hoss. But when you got a mule, why, you can't never tell. Allof a sudden one of these days, he's like as not to turn into aCongressman. ' Well, ma'am, that's the way we feel about Congressmen. --Ho, there, Monkey! Keep up! I'll just get out an' hang on the wheel while wemake this corner. That'll keep us from turnin' over, I reckon. "

Sheila sat and held on with both hands. Her eyes were wide and verybright. She held her breath till Thatcher got in again, the cornersafely made. For the next creeping, lurching mile, Sheila found thatevery muscle in her body had its use in keeping her on that seat. Thenthey reached the snow and matters grew definitely worse. Here, half theroad was four feet of dirty, icy drift and half of abysmal mud. Theyslipped from drift to mire with awful perils and rackings of the wagonand painful struggles of the team. Sometimes the snow softened and letthe horses in up to their necks when Thatcher plied whip and tongue withnecessary cruelty. At last there came disaster. They were making one ofthose heart-stopping turns. Sheila had got out and was adding hermosquito weight to Thatcher's on the upper side, half-walking, half-hanging to the wagon. The outer wheels were deep in mud, the innerwheels hung clear. The horses strained--and slipped. 

"Let go!" shouted Thatcher. 

Sheila fell back into the snow, and the wagon turned quietly over andbegan to slide down the slope. Thatcher sprang to his horses' heads. Foran instant it seemed that they would be dragged over the edge. Then thewagon stopped, and Thatcher, grim and pale, unhitched his team. He sworefluently under his breath during this entire operation. Afterwards, heturned to the scarlet and astounded passenger and gave her one of hisshining smiles. 

"Well, ma'am, " he said, beginning to roll a cigarette, "what do youthink of that?"

"Whatever shall we do now?" asked Sheila. She had identified herselfutterly with this team, this load, this driver. She brushed the snow fromher skirt, climbed down from the drift to the edge of the mire byThatcher's elbow. The team stood with hanging heads, panting andsteaming, glad of the rest and the release. 

"Well, ma'am, " said Thatcher, looking down at the loyal, anxious facewith a certain tenderness, "I'm agoin' to do one of two things. I'magoin' to lead my team over The Hill and come back with two more horsesand a hand to help me or I'm agoin' to set here and wait for the stage. "

"How long will it be before the stage comes?"

"Matter of four or five hours. "

"Oh, dear! Then I can't possibly overtake my--my friend, Miss Blake!"

"No, ma'am. But you can walk on a quarter-mile; take a rest at Duff'splace top of The Hill. I can pick you up when I come by; like as not I'llspend the night at Duff's. By the time I get my load together it'll bealong dark--Hullo!" He interrupted himself, lifting his chin. "I hearhosses now. "

They both listened. "No wagon, " said Thatcher. 

Five minutes later, a slouching horseman, cigarette in mouth, shaggychaps on long legs, spurred and booted and decorated with a redneck-scarf came picturesquely into view. His pony dug sturdy feet intothe steep roadside, avoiding the mud of the road itself. The man led twoother horses, saddled, but empty of riders. He stopped and between himand Thatcher took place one of the immensely tranquil, meditative, anddeliberate conversations of the Far West. 

Sheila's quick, Celtic nerves tormented her. At last she broke in with aninspiration. "Couldn't I hire one of your horses?" she asked, rising froman overturned sack of which she had made a resting-place. 

The man looked down at her with grave, considerate eyes. 

"Why, yes, ma'am. I reckon you could, " he said gently. "They're rightgentle ponies, " he added. 

"Are they yours?"

"One of 'em is. The other belongs to Kearney, dude-wrangler up thevalley. But, say, if you're goin' to Rusty you c'd leave my hoss atLander's and I c'd get him when I come along. I am stoppin' here to helpwith the load. It would cost you nothin', lady. The hoss has got to goover to Rusty and I'd be pleased to let you ride him. You're no weight. "

"How good of you!" said Sheila. "I'll take the best care of him I knowhow to take. Could I find my way? How far is it?"

"All downhill after a half-mile, lady. You c'd make Rusty afore dark. It's a whole lot easier on hoofs than it is on wheels. You can't miss theroad on account of it bein' the only road there is. And Lander's is theonly one hotel in Rusty. You'd best stop the night there. "

He evidently wanted to ask her her destination, but his courtesyforbade. 

Sheila volunteered, "I am going to Miss Blake's ranch up Hidden Creek. "

A sort of flash of surprise passed across the reserved, brown, youngface. "Yes, ma'am, " he said with no expression. "Well, you better leavethe rest of your trip until to-morrow. "

He slipped from his horse with an effortless ripple, untied a tawnylittle pony with a thick neck, a round body, and a mild, intelligentface, and led him to Sheila who mounted from her sack. Thatcher carefullyadjusted the stirrups, a primitive process that involved the wearisomelacing and unlacing of leather thongs. Sheila bade him a bright andadventurous "Good-bye. " thanked the unknown owner of the horse, andstarted. The pony showed some unwillingness to leave his companions, fretted and tossed his head, and made a few attempts at a right-aboutface, but Sheila dug in her small spurred heels and spoke beguilingly. Atlast he settled down to sober climbing. Sheila looked back and waved herhand. The two tall, lean men were gazing after her. They took off theirhats and waved. She felt a warmth that was almost loving for theirgracefulness and gravity and kindness. Here was another breed of man thanthat produced by Millings. A few minutes later she came to the top of ThePass and looked down into Hidden Creek. 

CHAPTER II

ADVENTURE

Sheila stood and drew breath. The shadow of the high peak, in the lap ofwhich she stood, poured itself eastward across the warm, lush, narrowland. This was different from the hard, dull gold and alkali dust of theMillings country: here were silvery-green miles of range, andpurple-green miles of pine forest, and lovely lighter fringes and grovesof cottonwood and aspen trees. Here and there were little dots ofranches, visible more by their vivid oat and alfalfa fields than by theirsmall log cabins. Down the valley the river flickered, lifted by itsbrightness above the hollow that held it, till it seemed just hung therelike a string of jewels. Beyond it the land rose slowly in noble sweepsto the opposite ranges, two chains that sloped across each other in aglorious confusion of heads, round and soft as velvet against the bluesky or blunt and broken with a thundery look of extinct craters. To thenorth Sheila saw a further serenity of mountains, lying low and soft onthe horizon, of another and more wistful blue. Over it all was a sort ofmagical haze, soft and brilliant as though the air were a meltedsapphire. There was still blessedness such as Sheila had never felt. Shewas filled with a longing to ride on and on until her spirit should passinto the wide, tranquil, glowing spirit of the lonely land. It seemed toher that some forgotten medicine man sat cross-legged in a hollow of thehills, blowing, from a great peace pipe, the blue smoke of peace down andalong the hollows and the cañons and the level lengths of range. In themighty breast of the blower there was not even a memory of trouble, onlya noble savage serenity too deep for prayer. 

She rode for a long while--no sound but her pony's hoofs--her eyes liftedacross the valley until a sudden fragrance drew her attention earthwards. She was going through an open glade of aspens and the ground was whitewith columbine, enormous flowers snowy and crisp as though freshlystarched by fairy laundresses. With a cry of delight Sheila jumped offher horse, tied him by his reins to a tree, and began gathering flowerswith all the eager concentration of a six-year-old. And, like all theflower-gatherers of fable from Proserpina down, she found herself thevictim of disaster. When she came back to the road with a useless, already perishing mass of white, the pony had disappeared. Her knot hadbeen unfaithful. Quietly that mild-nosed, pensive-eyed, round-bodiedanimal had pulled himself free and tiptoed back to join his friends. 

Sheila hurried up the road toward the summit she had so recently crossed, till the altitude forced her to stop with no breath in her body and apounding redness before her eyes. She stamped her feet with vexation. She longed to cry. She remembered confusedly, but with a certainsatisfaction, some of the things Thatcher had said to his team. An entireand sudden lenience toward the gentle art of swearing was born in her. She threw her columbine angrily away. She had come so far on her journeythat she could never be able to get back to Thatcher nor even to Duff'sshanty before dark. And how far down still the valley lay with thatshadow widening and lengthening across it!

Her sudden loneliness descended upon her with an almost audible rush. Dusk at this height--dusk with a keen smell of glaciers and wind-stungpines--dusk with the world nine thousand feet below; and about her thisfalling-away of mountain-side, where the trees seemed to slant and thevery flowers to be outrun by a mysterious sort of flight of rebel earthtoward space! The great and heady height was informed with a presencewhich if not hostile was terrifyingly ignorant of man. There was some onenot far away, she felt, just above there behind the rocky ridge, justback there in the confusion of purplish darkness streaked by pine-treecolumns, just below in the thicket of the stream--some one to meet whoselook meant death. 

Her first instinct was to keep to the road. She walked on down towardthe valley very rapidly. But going down meant meeting darkness. Shebegan to be unreasonably afraid of the night. She was afflicted by anold, old childish, immemorial dread of bears. In spite of the chill, she was very warm, her tongue dry with rapid breathing of the thin air. She was intolerably thirsty. The sound of water called to her in alisping, inhuman voice. She resisted till she was ashamed of hercowardice, stepped furtively off the track, scrambled down a slope, parted some branches, and found herself on a rock above a littleswirling pool. On the other side a man kneeling over the water lifted awhite and startled face. 

Through the eerie green twilight up into which the pool threw a shiftyleaden brightness, the two stared at each other for a moment. Then theman rose to his feet and smiled. Sheila noticed that he had been bathinga bloody wrist round which he was now wrapping clumsily a handkerchief. 

"Don't be frightened, " he said in a rather uncertain voice; "I'm not nearso desperate as I look. Do you want a drink? Hand me down your cup if youhave one and I'll fill it for you. "

"I'm not afraid now, " Sheila quavered, and drew a big breath. "But Iwas startled for a minute. I haven't any cup. I--I suppose, in away--I 'm lost. "

He was peering at her now, and when she took off her hat and rubbed herdamp forehead with a weary, worried gesture, he gave a littleexclamation and swung himself across the stream by a branch, and up toher side on the rock. 

"The barmaid!" he said. "And I was coming to see you!"

Sheila laughed in the relieved surprise of recognition. "Why, you are thecowboy--the one that fought so--so terribly. Have you been fightingagain? Your wrist is hurt. May I tie it up for you?"

He held out his arm silently and she tied the handkerchief--a large, clean, coarse one--neatly about it. What with weariness and the shock ofher fright, her fingers were not very steady. He looked down at herduring the operation with a contented expression. It seemed that themoment was filled for him with satisfaction to a complete forgetfulnessof past or present annoyances. 

"This is a big piece of luck for me, " he said. "But"--with a suddenthundery change of countenance--"you're not going over to HiddenCreek, are you?"

"I'm trying to go there, " said Sheila; "I've been trying ever since fiveo'clock this morning. But I don't seem to be getting there very fast. Iwanted to make Rusty before dark. And my pony got away from me and wentback. I know he went back because I saw the marks of his feet and hewould have gone back. Wouldn't he? Do you think I could get to Rusty onfoot to-night?"

"No, ma'am. I know you couldn't. You could make it easy on horseback, though. " He stared meditatively above her head and then said in a tone ofresignation: "I believe I better go back myself. I'll take you. "

She had finished her bandage. She looked up at him. "Go back? But youmust have just started from there a few hours ago. "

"Well, ma'am, I didn't come very direct. I kind of shifted round. But Ican go back straight. And I'd really rather. I think I'd better. It wasall foolishness my coming over. I can put you up back of me on my horse, if you don't mind, and we'll get to Rusty before it's lit up. I'd rather. You don't mind riding that way, do you? You see, if I put you up andwalked, it'd take lots more time. "

"I don't mind, " said Sheila, but she said it rather proudly so thatHilliard smiled. 

"Well, ma'am, we can try it, anyway. If you go back to the road, I'll getmy horse. "

He seemed to have hidden his horse in a density of trees a mile from theroad. Sheila waited till she thought she must have dreamed her meetingwith him. He came back, looking a trifle sheepish. 

"You see, " he said, "I didn't come by the road, ma'am. "

The horse was a large, bony animal with a mean eye. 

"That isn't the pony you rode when you came to Millings, " said Sheila. 

He bent to examine his saddle-girth. "No, ma'am, " he said gently. "I'vebeen riding quite a variety of horse-flesh lately. I'll get on first ifyou don't mind and give you a hand up. You put your foot on mine. Thehorse will stand. "

Sheila obeyed, pressing her lips tight, for she was afraid. However, hislong, supple fingers closed over her wrist like steel and she got quicklyand easily to her perch and clung nervously to him. 

"That's right. Put your arms round tight. Are you all fixed?"

"Y--yes. "

"And comfortable?"

"Y--yes, I think so. "

"We're off, then. "

They started on a quick, steady walk down the road. Once, Cosme loosenedthe six-shooter on his hip. He whistled incessantly through his teeth. Except for this, they were both silent. 

"Were you coming to Millings?" asked Sheila at last. She was of the worldwhere silence has a certain oppressive significance. She was getting usedto her peculiar physical position and found she did not have to cling sodesperately. But in a social sense she was embarrassed. He was quiteimpersonal about the situation, which made matters easier for her. Nowand then she suppressed a frantic impulse to giggle. 

"Yes, ma'am. To see you, " he answered. "I never rightly thanked you. " Shesaw the back of his neck flush and she blushed too, remembering hisquickly diverted kiss which had left a smear of blood across herfingers. That had happened only a few days before, but they were longdays. He too must have been well occupied. There was still a bruise onhis temple. "I--I wasn't quite right in the head after those fellows hadbeat me up, and I kind of wanted to show you that I am something like agentleman. "

"Have you been in Hidden Creek?"

"Yes, ma'am. I was thinking of prospecting around. I meant to homesteadover there. I like the country. But when it comes to settling down I getkind of restless. And usually I get into a mix-up that changes myintentions. So I'd about decided to go back down Arizona way andwork. --Where are you going to stay in Hidden Creek?" he asked. "Where'syour stuff?"

"Mr. Thatcher has it in his wagon. I'm going to Miss Blake's ranch. Sheinvited me. "

"Miss Blake? You mean the lady that wears pants? You don't mean it! Well, that's right amusing. " He laughed. 

Sheila stirred angrily. "I can't see why it's amusing. "

He sobered at once. "Well, ma'am, maybe it isn't. No, I reckon it isn't. How long will you stay?"

Sheila gave a big, sobbing sigh. "I don't know. If she likes me and ifI'm happy, I'll stay there always. " She added with a queer, dazedrealization of the truth: "I've nowhere else to go. "

"Haven't you any--folks?" he asked. 

"No. "

"Got tired of Millings?"

"Yes--very. "

"I don't blame you! It's not much of a town. You'll like Hidden Creek. And Miss Blake's ranch is a mighty pretty place, lonesome but wonderfullypretty. Right on a bend of the creek, 'way up the valley, close under themountains. But can you stand loneliness, Miss--What _is_ your name?"

There were curious breaks in his manner of a Western cowboy, breaks thatstartled Sheila like little echoes from her life abroad and in the East. There was a quickness of voice and manner, an impatience, a hot andnervous something, and his voice and accent suggested training. Theabrupt question, for instance, was not in the least characteristic of aWesterner. 

"My name is Sheila Arundel. I don't know yours either. "

"Do you come from the East?"

"Yes. From New York. " He gave an infinitesimal jerk. "But I've livedabroad nearly all my life. I think it would be politer if you wouldanswer my question now. "

She felt that he controlled an anxious breath. "My name is Hilliard, " hesaid, and he pronounced the name with a queer bitter accent as though thetaste of it was unpleasant to his tongue. "Cosme Hilliard. Don't youthink it's a--_nice_ name?"

For half a second she was silent; then she spoke with carefulunconsciousness. "Yes. Very nice and very unusual. Hilliard is an Englishname, isn't it? Where did the Cosme come from?"

It was well done, so well that she felt a certain tightening of his bodyrelax and his voice sounded fuller. "That's Spanish. I've some Spanishblood. Here's Buffin's ranch. We're getting down. "

Sheila was remembering vividly; Sylvester had come into her compartment. She could see the rolling Nebraskan country slipping by the window of thetrain. She could see his sallow fingers folding the paper so that shecould conveniently read a paragraph. She remembered his gentle, pensivespeech. "Ain't it funny, though, those things happen in the slums andthey happen in the smart set, but they don't happen near so often to justmiddling folks like you and me! Don't it sound like a Tenderloin tale, though, South American wife and American husband and her getting jealousand up and shooting him? Money sure makes love popular. Now, if it hadbeen poor folks, why, they'd have hardly missed a day's work, but justbecause these Hilliards have got spondulix they'll run a paragraph about'em in the papers for a month. "--Sheila began to make comparisons: aSouth American wife and an American husband, and here, this young manwith the Spanish-American name and the Spanish-Saxon physique, and avoice that showed training and faltered over the pronouncing of the"Hilliard" as though he expected it to be too well remembered. Had therebeen some mention in the paper of a son?--a son in the West?--a son undera cloud of some sort? But--she checked her spinning of romance--thisyouth was too genuine a cowboy, the way he rode, the way he moved, heldhimself, his phrases, his turn of speech! With all that wealth behind himhow had he been allowed to grow up like this? No, her notion wasunreasonable, almost impossible. Although dismissed, it hung about hermental presentment of him, however, like a rather baleful aura, notwithout fascination to a seventeen-year-old imagination. So busy was shewith her fabrications that several miles of road slipped by unnoticed. There came a strange confusion in her thoughts. It seemed to her that shewas arguing the Hilliard case with some one. Then with a horrible startshe saw that the face of her opponent was Sylvester's and she pushed itviolently away. . . . 

"Don't you go to sleep, " said Hilliard softly, laughing a little. "Youmight fall off. "

"I--I was asleep, " Sheila confessed, in confusion at discovering that herhead had dropped against him. "How dark it's getting! We're in thevalley, aren't we?"

"Yes, ma'am, we're most there. " He hesitated. "Miss Arundel, I think I'dbest let you get down just before we get to Rusty. "

"Get down? Why?"

He cleared his throat, half-turning to her. In the dusky twilight, thatwas now very nearly darkness, his face was troubled and ashamed, like theface of a boy who tries to make little of a scrape. "Well, ma'am, yesterday, the folks in Rusty kind of lost their heads. They had a badcase of Sherlock Holmes. I bought a horse up the valley from a chap whowas all-fired anxious to sell him, and before I knew it I was playing thetitle part in a man-hunt. It seems that I was riding one of a string thischap had rustled from several of the natives. They knew the horse andthat was enough for their nervous system. They had never set eyes on mebefore and they wouldn't take my word for my blameless past. They told meto keep my story for trial when they took me over to the court. Meanwhilethey gave me a free lodging in their pen. Miss Arundel--" Hilliarddropped his ironic tone and spoke in a low, tense voice of child-likehorror. His face stiffened and paled. "That was awful. To be locked in. Not to be able to get fresh breath in your lungs. Not to be able to gowhere you please, when you please. I can't tell you what it's like . . . Ican't stand it! I can't stand a minute of it! I was in that pen sixhours. I felt I'd go loco if I was there all night. I guess I am a kindof fool. I broke jail early in the morning and caught up the sheriff'shorse. They got a shot or two at me, hit my wrist, but I made my getaway. This horse is not much on looks, but he sure can get over the sagebrush. I was coming over to see you. "

There was that in his voice when he said this that touched Sheila'sheart, profoundly. This restless, violent young adventurer, homeless, foot-loose, without discipline or duty, had turned to her in his troubleas instinctively as though she had been his mother. This, because she hadonce served him. Something stirred in Sheila's heart. 

"And then, " Hilliard went on, "I was going to get down to Arizona. Butwhen I heard you were coming over into Hidden Creek, it seemed likefoolishness to cut myself off from the country by running away fromnothing. Of course there are ways to prove my identity with thosefellows. It only means putting up with a few days of pen. " He gave asigh. "But you can understand, ma'am, that this isn't just the horse thatwill give you quietest entrance into Rusty and that I'm not just one ofthe First Citizens. "

"But, " said Sheila, "if they see you riding in with me, they certainlywon't shoot. "

He laughed admiringly. "You're game!" he said. "But, Miss Arundel, they're not likely to do any more shooting. It's not a man riding intoRusty that they're after. It's a man riding out of Rusty. They'll knowI'm coming to give myself up. "

"I'll just stay here, " said Sheila firmly. 

"I can't let you. "

"I'm too tired to walk. I'm too sleepy. It'll be all right. "

"Then I'll walk. " He pulled in his horse, but at the instant stiffened inhis saddle and wheeled about on the road. A rattle of galloping hoofsstruck the ground behind them; two riders wheeled and stopped. One drewclose and held out his hand. 

"Say, stranger, shake, " he said. "We've been kickin' up the dust to begyour pardon. We got the real rustler this mornin' shortly after you left. I'm plumb disgusted and disheartened with young Tommins for losin' hishead an' shootin' off his gun. He's a dern fool, that kid, a regulartenderfoot. Nothin' won't ever cure him short of growin' up. Come fromChicago, anyway. One of them Eastern towns. I see he got you, too. "

"Winged me, " smiled Hilliard. "Well, I'm right pleased I won't have tospend another night in your pen. "

"You're entered for drinks. The sheriff stands 'em. " Here he bowed toSheila, removing his hat. 

"This lady"--Hilliard performed the introduction--"lost her horse on TheHill. She's aiming to stop at Rusty for to-night. "

The man who had spoken turned to his silent companion. "Ride ahead, Shorty, why don't you?" he said indignantly, "and tell Mrs. Landerthere's a lady that'll want to sleep in Number Five. "

The other horseman, after a swift, searching look at Sheila, said"Sure, " in a very mild, almost cooing, voice and was off. It looked toSheila like a runaway. But the men showed no concern. 

They jogged companionably on their way. Fifteen minutes later theycrossed a bridge and pulled up before a picket fence and a gate. 

They were in Rusty. 

CHAPTER III

JOURNEY'S END

The social life of Rusty, already complicated by the necessity it wasunder to atone for a mistake, was almost unbearably discomposed by thearrival of a strange lady. This was no light matter, be it understood. Hidden Creek was not a resort for ladies: and so signal an event as theappearance of a lady, a young lady, a pretty young lady, demandedconsiderable effort. But Rusty had five minutes for preparation. By thetime Hilliard rode up to Lander's gate a representative group of citizenshad gathered there. One contingent took charge of Hilliard--married men, a little unwilling, and a few even more reluctant elders, and led him tothe bowl of reparation which was to wash away all memory of his wrongs. The others, far the larger group, escorted Sheila up the twelve feet ofboard walk to the porch of hospitality filled by the massive person ofMrs. Lander. On that brief walk Sheila was fathered, brothered, grandfathered, husbanded, and befriended and on the porch, all in theperson of Mrs. Lander, she was mothered, sistered, and grandmothered. Upthe stairs to Number Five she was "eased"--there is no other word toexpress the process--and down again she was eased to supper, where in adaze of fatigue she ate with surprising relish tough fried meat andlarge wet potatoes, a bowl of raw canned tomatoes and a huge piece ofheavy-crusted preserved-peach pie. She also drank, with no effect uponher drowsiness, an enormous thick cupful of strong coffee, slightlytempered by canned milk. She sat at the foot of the long table, oppositeMr. Lander, a fat, sly-looking man whose eyes twinkled with a look ofmysterious inner amusement, caused, probably, by astonishment at his ownrespectability. He had behind him a career of unprecedented villainy, andthat he should end here at Rusty as the solid and well-considered keeperof the roadhouse was, no doubt, a perpetual tickle to his consciousness. Down either side of the table were silent and impressive figures busywith their food. Courteous and quiet they were and beautifullyuninquiring, except in the matter of her supplies. The yellow lamplightshone on brown bearded and brown clean-shaven faces, rugged and strongand clean-cut. These bared throats and thickly thatched heads, thesefaces, lighted by extraordinary, far-seeing brilliant, brooding eyes, reminded Sheila of a master's painting of The Last Supper--so did theircoarse clothing melt into the gold-brown shadows of the room and so didtheir hands and throats and faces pick themselves out in mellow lightsand darknesses. 

After the meal she dragged herself upstairs to Number Five, made scantuse of nicked basin, spoutless pitcher, and rough clean towel, blew outher little shadeless lamp, and crept in under an immense, elephantine, grateful weight of blankets and patchwork quilts, none too fresh, probably, though the sheet blankets were evidently newly washed. Ofmuslin sheeting there was none. The pillow was flat and musty. Sheilacuddled into it as though it had been a mother's shoulder. That instantshe was asleep. Once in the night she woke. A dream waked her. It seemedto her that a great white flower had blossomed in the window of her roomand that in the heart of it was Dickie's face, tender and as pale as apetal. It drew near to her and bent over her wistfully. She held out herarms with a piteous longing to comfort his wistfulness and woke. Her facewas wet with the mystery of dream tears. The flower dwindled to a smallwhite moon standing high in the upper pane of one of the uncurtainedwindows. The room was full of eager mountain air. She could hear awater-wheel turning with a soft splash in the stream below. There was noother sound. The room smelt of snowy heights and brilliant stars. Shebreathed deep and, quite as though she had breathed a narcotic, sleptsuddenly again. This, before any memory of Hudson burned herconsciousness. 

The next morning she found that her journey had been carefully arranged. Thatcher had come and gone. The responsibility for her further progresshad been shifted to the shoulders of a teamster, whose bearded face, except for the immense humor and gallantry of his gray eyes, wasstartlingly like one of Albrecht Dürer's apostles. Her bundle was in hiswagon, half of his front seat was cushioned for her. After breakfast shewas again escorted down the board walk to the gate. Mrs. Lander fasteneda huge bunch of sweet peas to her coat and kissed her cheek. Sheila badeinnumerable good-byes, expressed innumerable thanks. For Hilliard'sabsence Rusty offered its apologies. They said that he had been muchentertained and, after the hurt he had suffered to his wrist, late sleepwas a necessity. Sheila understood. The bowl of reparation had beenemptied to its last atoning dregs. She mounted to the side of "SaintMark, " she bowed and smiled, made promises, gave thanks again, and wavedherself out of Rusty at last. She had never felt so flattered and sowarmed at heart. 

"I'm agoin', " quoth Saint Mark, "right clost to Miss Blake's. If we don'tovertake her--and that hoss of hers sure travels wonderful fast, somethin' wonderful, yes, ma'am, by God--excuse me, lady--it's suresurprisin' the way that skinny little hoss of hers will travel--why, Ic'n take you acrost the ford. There ain't no way of gettin' into MissBlake's exceptin' by the ford. And then I c'n take my team back to theroad. From the ford it's a quarter-mile walk to Miss Blake's house. Youc'n cache your bundle and she'll likely get it for you in the mornin'. We had ought to be there by sundown. Her trail from the ford's clearenough. I'm a-takin' this lumber to the Gover'ment bridge forty mile up. Yes, by God--excuse _me_, lady--it's agoin' to be jest a dandy bridgeuntil the river takes it out next spring, by God--you'll have to excuseme again, lady. "

He seemed rather mournfully surprised by the frequent need for theseapologies. "It was my raisin', lady, " he explained. "My father was aMethody preacher. Yes'm, he sure was, by God, yes--excuse me again, lady. He was always a-prayin'. It kinder got me into bad habits. Yes, ma'am. Those words you learn when you're a kid they do stick in your mind. ByGod, yes, they do--excuse _me_, lady. That's why I run away. I couldn'tstand so much prayin' all the time. And bein' licked when I wasn't bein'prayed at. He sure licked me, that dern son of a--Oh, by God, lady, you'll just hev to excuse me, please. " He wiped his forehead. "I reckon Ibetter keep still. "

Sheila struggled, then gave way to mirth. Her companion, after a doubtfullook, relaxed into his wide, bearded smile. After that matters were on aneasy footing between them and the "excuse me, lady, " was, for the mostpart, left to her understanding. 

They drifted like a lurching vessel through the long crystal day. Neverbefore this journey into Hidden Creek had time meant anything to Sheilabut a series of incidents, occupations, or emotions; now first sheunderstood the Greek impersonation of the dancing hours. She had watchedthe varying faces the day turns to those who fold their hands and stilltheir minds to watch its progress. She had seen the gradual heighteningof brilliance from dawn to noon, and then the fading-out from that high, white-hot glare, through gold and rose and salmon and purple, to the ashylavenders of twilight and so into gray and the metallic, glitteringcoldness of the mountain night. It was the purple hour when she saidgood-bye to Saint Mark on the far side of a swift and perilous ford. Shewas left standing in the shadow of a near-by mountain-side while he rodeaway into the still golden expanse of valley beyond the leafy course ofthe stream. Hidden Creek had narrowed and deepened. It ran past Sheilanow with a loud clapping and knocking at its cobbled bed and with anover-current of noisy murmurs. The hurrying water was purple, with flecksof lavender and gold. The trees on its banks were topped with emeraldfire where they caught the light of the sun. The trail to Miss Blake'sranch ran along the river on the edge of a forest of pines. At this hourthey looked like a wall into which some magic permitted the wanderer towalk interminably. Sheila was glad that she did not have to make use ofthis wizard invitation. She "cached" her bundle, as Saint Mark hadadvised, in a thicket near the stream and walked resolutely forwardalong the trail. Not even when her pony had left her on The Hill had shefelt so desolate or so afraid. 

She could not understand why she was here on her way to the ranch of thisstrange woman. She felt astonished by her loneliness, by her rashness, bythe dreadful lack in her life of all the usual protections. Was youthmeant so to venture itself? This was what young men had done since thebeginning of time. She thought of Hilliard. His life must have been justsuch a series of disconnected experiments. Danger was in the very patternof such freedom. But she was a girl, _only_ a girl as the familiar phraseexpresses it--a seventeen-year-old girl. She was reminded of a patheticand familiar line, "A woman naturally born to fears . . . " A wholesomereaction to pride followed and, suddenly, an amusing memory of MissBlake, of her corduroy trousers stuffed into boots, of her broad, strongbody, her square face with its firm lips and masterful red-brown eyes; avery heartening memory for such a moment. Here was a woman that hadadventured without fear and had quite evidently met with no disaster. 

Sheila came to a little tumbling tributary and crossed it on a log. Onthe farther side the trail broadened, grew more distinct; through anopening in tall, gray, misty cottonwoods she saw the corner of a loghouse. At the same instant a dreadful tumult broke out. The sound sentSheila's blood in a slapping wave back upon her heart. All of her bodyturned cold. She was fastened by stone feet to the ground. It was thelaughter of a mob of damned souls, an inhuman, despairing mockery ofGod. It tore the quiet evening into shreds of fear. This house was amadhouse holding revelry. No--of course, they were wolves, a pack ofwolves. Then, with a warmth of returning circulation, Sheila rememberedMiss Blake's dogs, the descendants of the wolf-dog that had littered onthe body of a dead man. Quarter-wolf, was it? These voices had no hintof the homely barking of a watchdog, the friend of man's loneliness! ButSheila braced her courage. Miss Blake made good use of her pack. Theypulled her sled, winters, in Hidden Creek. They must then be partlycivilized by service. If only--she smiled a desperate smile at theuncertainty--they didn't tear her to pieces when she came out from theshelter of the trees. There was very great courage in Sheila's short, lonely march through the little grove of cottonwood trees. She was aswhite as the mountain columbine. She walked slowly and held her headhigh. She had taken up a stone for comfort. 

At the end of the trees she saw a house, a three-sided, one-storiedbuilding of logs very pleasantly set in a circle of aspen trees, backed by taller firs, toppling over which stood a great sharp crestof rocky ledges, nine thousand feet high, edged with the fire ofsunset. At one side of the house eight big dogs were leaping at theends of their chains. They were tied to trees or to small kennels atthe foot of trees. And, God be thanked! Sheila let fall herstone--they were _all_ tied. 

The door at the end of the nearest wing of the house opened and MissBlake stood on the threshold and held up her hands. At sight of her thedogs stopped their howling instantly and cringed on their bellies or satyawning on their bushy haunches. Miss Blake's resonant, deep voice seemedto pounce upon Sheila above the chatter of the stream which, runningabout three sides of the glade, was now, at the silence of the dogs, incessantly audible. 

"Well, if it isn't the little barmaid!" cried Miss Blake, and advanced, wiping her hand on a white apron tied absurdly over the corduroytrousers and cowboy boots. "Well, if you aren't as welcome as theflowers in May! So you thought you'd leave the street-lamps and cometake a look at the stars?"

They met and Sheila took the strong, square hand. She was afflicted by asudden dizziness. 

"That's it, " she faltered; "this time I thought I'd try--the stars. "

With that she fell against Miss Blake and felt, just before she droppedinto blackness, that she had been saved by firm arms from falling tothe ground. 

CHAPTER IV

BEASTS

The city rippled into light. It bloomed, blossom on blossom, like someenchanted jungle under the heavy summer sky. Dickie sat on a bench inWashington Square. He sat forward, his hands hanging between his knees, his lips parted, and he watched the night. It seemed to him that it wasfilled with the clamor of iron-throated beasts running to and fro aftertheir prey. The heat was a humid, solid, breathless weight--a heatunknown to Millings. Dickie wore his threadbare blue serge suit. It feltlike a garment of lead. 

There were other people on the benches--limp and sodden outlines. Dickiehad glanced at them and had glanced away. He did not want to think thathe looked like one of these--half-crushed insects, --bruised intoimmobility. A bus swept round the corner and moved with a sort oftopheavy, tipsy dignity under the white arch. It was loaded withhumanity, its top black with heads. "It ain't a crowd, " thought Dickie;"it's a swarm. " His eyes followed the ragged sky-line. "Why is it sohorrible?" he asked himself--"horrible and beautiful and sort ofpoisonous--it plumb scares a fellow--" A diminished moon, battered anddim like a trodden silver coin, stood up above him. By tilting his headhe could look directly at it through an opening in the dusty, electric-brightened boughs. The stars were pin-pricks here and there inthe dense sky. The city flaunted its easy splendor triumphantly beforetheir pallid insignificance. Tarnished purities, forgotten ecstasies, burned-out inspirations--so the city shouted raucously to its fadedfirmament. 

Dickie's fingers slid into his pocket. The moon had reminded him of hisone remaining dime. He might have bought a night's lodging with it, butafter one experience of such lodgings he preferred his present quarters. In Dickie's mind there was no association of shame or ignominy with anight spent under the sky. But fear and ignominy tainted and clung tohis memory of that other night. He had saved his dime deliberately, going hungry rather than admit to himself that he was absolutely at theend of his resources. To-morrow he would not especially need that dime. He had a job. He would begin to draw pay. In his own phrasing he would"buy him a square meal and rent him a room somewhere. " Upon these twoprospects his brain fastened with a leech-like persistency. And yetabove anything he had faced in his life he dreaded the job and the room. The inspiration of his flight, the impulse that had sped him out ofMillings like a fire-tipped arrow, that determination to find Sheila, torehabilitate himself in her esteem, to serve her, to make a fresh start, had fallen from him like a dead flame. The arrow-flight was spent. Hehad not found Sheila. He had no way of finding her. She was not at herold address. Her father's friend, the Mr. Hazeldean that had broughtSylvester to Marcus's studio, knew nothing of her. Mrs. Halligan, herformer landlady, knew nothing of her. Dickie, having summoned Mrs. Halligan to her doorsill, had looked past her up the narrow, steepstaircase. "Did she live away up there?" he had asked. "Yes, sorr. And't was a climb for the poor little crayture, but there was days whenshe'd come down it like a burrd to meet her Pa. " Dickie had faltered, white and empty-hearted, before the kindly Irishwoman who remembered sovividly Sheila's downward, winged rush of welcome. For several hoursafter his visit to the studio building he had wandered aimlessly about, then his hunger had bitten at him and he had begun to look for work. Itwas not difficult to find. A small restaurant displayed a need ofwaiters. Dickie applied. He had often "helped out" in that capacity, asin most others, at The Aura. He cited his experience, referred to Mr. Hazeldean, and was engaged. The pay seemed to him sufficient to maintainlife. So much for that! Then he went to his bench and watched the daypant itself into the night. His loneliness was a pitiful thing; hisutter lack of hope or inspiration was a terrible thing. 

But as the night went slowly by, he faced this desolation withextraordinary fortitude. It was part of that curious detachment, thatstrange gift of impersonal observation. Dickie bore no grudges againstlife. His spirit had a fashion of standing away, tiptoe, on wings. Itstood so now like a presence above the miserable, half-starved body thatoccupied the bench and suffered the sultriness of August and the pains ofabstinence. Dickie's wide eyes, that watched the city and found ithorrible and beautiful and frightening, were entirely empty of bitternessand of self-pity. They had a sort of wistful patience. 

There came at last a cool little wind and under its ministration Dickielet fall his head on his arms and slept. He was blessed by a dream:shallow water clapping over a cobbled bed, the sharp rustle of wind-edgedaspen leaves, and two stars, tender and misty, that bent close andsmiled. He woke up and stared at the city. He got up and walked about. Hewas faint now and felt chilled, although the asphalt was still softunderfoot and smelled of hot tar. As he moved listlessly along thepavement, a girl brushed against him, looked up, and murmured to him. Shewas small and slight. His heart seemed to leap away from the contact andthen to leap almost irresistibly to meet it. He turned away and went backquickly toward the Square. It seemed to him that he was followed. Helooked over his shoulder furtively. But the girl had disappeared andthere was no one in sight but a man who walked unsteadily. Dickiesuddenly knew why he had saved that dime. The energy of a definitepurpose came to him. He remembered a swinging door back there around acorner, but when he reached the saloon, it was closed. Dickie had ahumiliating struggle with tears. He went back to his bench and sat there, trembling and swearing softly to himself. He had not the strength to lookfarther. He was no longer the Dickie of Millings, a creature possessed ofloneliness and vacancy and wandering fancies, he was no longer Sheila'slover, he was a prey to strong desires. In truth, thought Dickie, seekingeven now with his deprecatory smile for likenesses and words, the citywas full of beasts, silent and stealthy and fanged. That spirit, aloof, maintained its sweet detachment. Beneath its observation Dickie foughtwith a grim, unreasoning panic that was very like the fear of a manpursued by wolves. 

CHAPTER V

NEIGHBOR NEIGHBOR

Even in the shadow of after events, those first two months at MissBlake's ranch swam like a golden galleon through Sheila's memory. Neverhad she felt such well-being of body, mind, and soul. Never had she knownsuch dawns and days, such dusks, such sapphire nights. Sleep came like ahighwayman to hold up an eager traveler, but came irresistibly. It caughther up out of life as it catches up a healthy child. Never before had sheworked so heartily: out of doors in the vegetable garden; indoors in thesunny kitchen, its windows and door open to the tonic air; never beforehad she eaten so heartily. Nothing had tasted like the trout they caughtin Hidden Creek, like the juicy, sweet vegetables they picked from theirown laborious rows, like the berries they gathered in nervousanticipation of that rival berryer, the brown bear. And Miss Blake'scasual treatment of her, half-bluff, half-mocking, her curt, good-humoredcommands, her cordial bullying, were a rest to nerves more raveled thanSheila knew from her experience in Millings. She grew rosy brown; herhair seemed to sparkle along its crisp ripples; her little throat filleditself out, round and firm; she walked with a spring and a swing; shesang and whistled, no Mrs. Hudson near to scowl at her. Dish-washing wasnot drudgery, cooking was a positive pleasure. Everything smelt so good. She was always shutting her eyes to enjoy the smell of things, forgettingto listen in order to taste thoroughly, forgetting to look in the delightof listening to such musical silences, and forgetting even to breathe inthe rapture of sight . . . Miss Blake and she put up preserves, and Sheilahad to invent jests to find some pretext for her laughter, so ridiculouswas the look of that broad square back, its hair short above the man'sflannel collar, and the apron-strings tied pertly above the very wide, slightly worn corduroy breeches and the big boots. Sheila was alwaysthinking of a certain famous Puss of fairy-tale memory, and biting hertongue to keep it from the epithet. After Hilliard gave her the blackhorse and she began to explore the mountain game trails, her life seemedas full of pleasantness as it could hold. And yet . . . With just that giftof Hilliard's, the overshadowing of her joy began. No, really beforethat, with his first visit. 

That was in late September when the nights were frosty and Miss Blake hadbegun to cut and stack her wood for winter, and to use it for a cracklinghearth-fire after supper. They were sitting before such a fire whenHilliard came. 

Miss Blake sat man-fashion on the middle of her spine, her legs crossed, a magazine in her hands, and on her blunt nose a pair of large, black-rimmed spectacles. Her feet and hands and her cropped head, thoughbig for a woman's, looked absurdly small in comparison to the breadth ofher hips and shoulders. She was reading the "Popular Science Monthly. "This and the "Geographic" and "Current Events" were regularly taken byher and most thoroughly digested. She read with keen intelligence; hercomments were as shrewd as a knife-edge. The chair she sat in was madefrom elk-horns and looked like the throne of some Norse chieftain. Behindher on the wall hung the stuffed head of a huge walrus, his tusksgleaming, the gift of that exploring brother who seemed to be her onlyliving relative. There were other tokens of his wanderings, a polar-bearskin, an ivory Eskimo spear. As a more homelike trophy Miss Blake hadhung an elk head which she herself had laid low, a very creditable shot, though out of season. She had been short of meat. In the corner was apianola topped by piles of record-boxes. At her feet lay Berg, the dog, snoring faintly and as cozy as a kitten. 

The firelight made Miss Blake's face and hair ruddier than usual; hereyes, when she raised them for a glance at Sheila, looked as though theywere full of red sparks which might at any instant break into flame. Sheila was wearing one of her flimsy little black frocks, recovered fromthe wrinkles of its journey, and she had decorated her square-cut neckwith some yellow flowers. On these Miss Blake's eyes rested every nowand then with a sardonic gleam. 

Outside Hidden Creek told its interminable chattering tale, centurieslong, the little skinny horse cropped getting his difficult meal withhis few remaining teeth. They could hear the dogs move with a faintrattle of chains. Sometimes there would be a distant rushing sound, asnow-slide thousands of feet above their heads on the mountain. Abovethese familiar sounds there came, at about eight o'clock that evening, the rattle of horse's hoofs through the little stream and at the instantbroke out the hideous clamor of the dogs, a noise that never failed towhiten Sheila's cheeks. 

Miss Blake sat up straight and snatched off her spectacles. She looked atSheila with a hard look. 

"Have you been sending out invitations, Sheila?" she asked. 

"No, of course not, " Sheila had flushed. She could guess whose horse'shoofs were trotting across the little clearing. 

A man's voice spoke to the dogs commandingly. Miss Blake's eyebrows camedown over her eyes. A man's step struck the porch. A man's knock rappedsharply at the door. 

"Come in!" said Miss Blake. She spoke it like a sentry's challenge. 

The door opened and there stood Cosme Hilliard, hat in hand, his smilingLatin mouth showing the big white Saxon teeth. 

Sheila had not before quite realized his good looks. Now, all his lithe, long gracefulness was painted for her against a square of purple night. The clean white silk shirt fitted his broad shoulders, the wide rider'sbelt clung to his supple waist, the leather chaps were shaped to hisGreek hips and thighs. No civilized man's costume could so have revealedand enhanced his beautiful strength. And above the long body his faceglowed with its vivid coloring, the liquid golden eyes that moved easilyunder their lids, the polished black hair sleekly brushed, the red-browncheeks, the bright lips, flexible and curved, of his Spanish mother. 

"Who in God's name are you?" demanded Miss Blake in her deepest voice. 

"This is Mr. Hilliard, " Sheila came forward. "He is the man that broughtme over The Hill, Miss Blake--after I'd lost my horse, you know. " Therewas some urgency in Sheila's tone, a sort of prod to courtesy. Miss Blakesettled back on her spine and recrossed her legs. 

"Well, come in, " she said, "and shut the door. No use frosting us all, isthere?" She resumed her spectacles and her reading of the "PopularScience Monthly. "

Hilliard, still smiling, bowed to her, took Sheila's hand for an instant, then moved easily across the room and settled on his heels at one cornerof the hearth. He had been riding, it would seem, in the thin silk shirtand had found the night air crisp. He rolled a cigarette with the handsthat had first drawn Sheila's notice as they held his glass on the bar;gentleman's hands, clever, sensitive, carefully kept. From hisoccupation, he looked up at Miss Blake audaciously. 

"You'd better make friends with me, ma'am, " he said, "because we're goingto be neighbors. "

"How's that?"

"I'm taking up my homestead right down here below you on Hidden Creek aways. About six miles below your ford. "

Miss Blake's face filled with dark blood. She said nothing, put upher magazine. 

Sheila, however, exclaimed delightedly, "Taken up a homestead?"

"Yes, ma'am. " He turned his floating, glowing look to her and there itstayed almost without deviation during the rest of his visit. "I've builtme a log house--a dandy. I had a man up from Rusty to help me. I'vebought me a cow. I'm getting my furnishings ready. That's what I've beendoing these two months. "

"And never rode up to call on us?" Sheila reproached him. 

"No, ma'am. I'll tell you the reason for that. I wasn't sure of myself. "She opened rather puzzled and astonished eyes at this, but for an instanthis look went beyond her and remembered troubling things. "You see, MissArundel, I'm not used to settling down. That's something that I've had nopractice in. I'm impatient. I get tired quickly. Damn quickly. I changemy mind. It's the worst thing in me--a sort of devil-horse always thirstyfor new things. It's touch and go with him. He runs with me. You see, I've always given him his head. " His look had come back to her face anddwelt there speaking for him a language headier than that of his tongue. "I thought I'd tie the dern fool down to some good tough work and testhim out. Well, ma'am, he hasn't quit on me this time. I think he won't. I've got a ball and chain round about that cloven foot. " He drew at hiscigarette, half-veiling in smoke the ardor of his look. "I'd like to showyou my house, Miss Arundel. It's fine. I worked with a builder one seasonwhen I was a lad. I've got it peeled inside. The logs shine and I've gota fireplace twice the size of this in my living-room"--he made gracefulgestures with the hand that held the cigarette. "Yes, ma'am, aliving-room, and a kitchen, and, " with a whimsical smile, "a butler'spantry. And, oh, a great big bedroom that gets the morning sun. " Hepaused an instant and flushed from chin to brow, an Anglo-Saxon flush itwas, but the bold Latin eyes did not fall. "I've made some furnishingsalready. And I've sent out an order for kitchen stuff. "

Here Miss Blake changed the crossing of her legs. Sheila was angry withherself because she was consumed with the contagion of his blush. Shewished that he would not look as if he had seen the blush and was pleasedby it. She wished that his clean young strength and beauty and the ardorof his eyes did not speak quite so eloquently. 

"I bought a little black horse about so high"--he held his hand an absurddistance from the floor and laughed--"just the size for a little girland--do you know who I'm going to give him to?"

Here Miss Blake got up, strode to the pianola, adjusted it, and sat down, broad and solid and unabashed by absence of feminine draperies, upon thestool. She played a comic song. 

"I don't like your _fam_ily--"

in some such dreadful way it expressed itself--

"They do _not_ look good to me. I don't think your _Unc_le JohnEver _had_ a collar on . . . "

She played it very loud. 

Hilliard stood up and came close to Sheila. 

"She's mad as a March hare, " he whispered, "and she doesn't like me alittle bit. Come out while I patch up Dusty, won't you, please? It'smoonlight. I'll be going. " He repeated this very loud for Miss Blake'sbenefit with no apparent effect upon her enjoyment of the song. She wasrocking to its rhythm. 

Hilliard was overwhelmed suddenly by the appearance of her. He put hishand to his mouth and bolted. Sheila, following, found him around thecorner of the house rocking and gasping with mirth. He looked at herthrough tears. 

"Puss-in-Boots, " he gasped, and Sheila ran to the edge of the clearing tobe safe in a mighty self-indulgence. 

There they crouched like two children till their laughter spent itself. Hilliard was serious first. 

"You're a bad, ungrateful girl, " he said weakly, "to laugh at a sweet oldlady like that. "

"Oh, I am!" Sheila took it almost seriously. "She's been wonderful tome. "

"I bet she works you, " he said jealously. 

"Oh, no. Not a bit too hard. I love it. "

"Well, " he admitted, "you do look pretty fine, that's a fact. Better thanyou did at Hudson's. What did you quit for?"

Sheila was sober enough now. The moonlight let some of its silver, uncaught by the twinkling aspen leaves, splash down on her face. Itseemed to flicker and quiver like the leaves. She shook her head. 

He looked a trifle sullen. "Oh, you won't tell me. . . . Funny idea, youbeing a barmaid. Hudson's notion, wasn't it?"

Sheila lifted her clear eyes. "I thought asking questions wasn't goodmanners in the West. "

"Damn!" he said. "Don't you make me angry! I've got a right to ask youquestions. "

She put her hand up against the smooth white trunk of the tree nearwhich she stood. She seemed to grow a little taller. 

"Oh, have you? I don't think I quite understand how you got any suchright. And you like to be questioned yourself?"

She had him there, had him rather cruelly, though he was not aware of theweapon of her suspicion. She felt a little ashamed when she saw himwince. He slapped his gloves against his leather chaps, looking at herwith hot, sulky eyes. 

"Oh, well. . . I beg your pardon. . . . Listen--" He flung his ill-humor asideand was sweet and cool again like the night. "Are you going to take thelittle horse?"

"I don't know. "

His face shadowed and fell so expressively, so utterly, that she melted. 

"Oh, " he stammered, half-turning from her, "I was sure. I brought himup. "

This completed the melting process. "Of course I'll take him!" she cried. "Where is he?"

She inspected the beautiful little animal by the moonlight. She even letHilliard mount her on the shining glossy back and rode slowly aboutclinging to his mane, ecstatic over the rippling movement under her. 

"He's like a rocking-chair, " said Cosme. "You can ride him all day andnot feel it. " He looked about the silver meadow. "Good feed here, isn'tthere? I bet he'll stay. If not, I'll get him for you. "

Sheila slipped down. They left the horse to graze. 

"Yes, it's first-rate feed. Do you think Miss Blake will let mekeep him?"

His answer was entirely lost by a sudden outbreak from the dogs. 

"Good Lord!" said Cosme, making himself heard, "what a breed! Isn't thatawful! Why does she keep the brutes? Isn't she scared they'll eat her?"

Sheila shook her head. Presently the tumult quieted down. "They're afraidof her, " she said. "She has a dreadful whip. She likes to bully them. Ithink she's rather cruel. But she does love Berg; she says he's the onlyreal dog in the pack. "

"Was Berg the one on the bearskin inside?"

"Yes. "

"He's sure a beauty. But I don't like him. He has wolf eyes. Seehere--you're shivering. I've kept you out here in the cold. I'll go. Good-night. Thank you for keeping the horse. Will you come down to see myhouse? I built it"--he drawled the words--"for you"--and added after atingling moment--"to see, ma'am. "

This experiment in words sent Sheila to the house, her hand crushed andaching with his good-bye grasp, her heart jumping with a queer fright. 

Miss Blake stood astraddle on the hearth, her hands behind her back. 

"You better go to bed, Sheila, " she said; "it's eleven o'clock andto-morrow's wash-day. "

Her voice was pleasant enough, but its bluffness had a new edge. Sheilafound it easy to obey. She climbed up the ladder to the little gabledloft which was her bedroom. Halfway up she paused to assert a belatedindependence of spirit. "Good-night, " she said, "how do you like ourneighbor?"

Miss Blake stared up. Her lips were set tight. She made no answer. Afteran instant she sauntered across the room and out of the door. The whipwith which she beat the dogs swung in her hand. A moment later a fearfulhowling and yelping showed that some culprit had been chosen for condignpunishment. 

Sheila set down her candle, sat on the edge of her cot, and covered herears with her hands. When it was over she crept into bed. She felt, though she chided herself for the absurdity, like a naughty child who hasbeen forcibly reminded of the consequences of rebellion. 

CHAPTER VI

A HISTORY AND A LETTER

The next morning, it seemed Miss Blake's humor had completely changed. Itshowed something like an apologetic softness. She patted Sheila'sshoulder when she passed the girl at work. When Hilliard next appeared, amorning visit this time, he was bidden to share their dinner; he was evensmiled upon. 

"She's not such a bad old girl, is she?" he admitted when Sheila had beengiven a half-holiday and was riding on the black horse beside Hilliard onhis Dusty across one of the mountain meadows. 

"_I_ think she's a dear, " said Sheila, pink with gratitude; then, shadowing, "If only she wouldn't beat the dogs and would give uptrapping. "

"Why in thunder shouldn't she trap?"

"I loathe trapping. Do you remember how you felt in the pen? It's badenough to shoot down splendid wild things for food, but, to trapthem!--small furry things or even big furry things like bears, why, it'scruel! It's hideously cruel! When a woman does it--"

"Come, now, don't call _her_ a woman!"

"Yes, she is. Think of the aprons! And she is so tidy. "

"That's not just a woman's virtue. "

"Maybe not. I'm not sure. But I've a feeling that it was Eve who firstdiscovered dust. "

"Very bad job if she did. Think of all the bother we've been goingthrough ever since. "

"There!" Sheila triumphed. "To you it's just bother. You're a man. To meit's a form of sport. . . . I wonder what Miss Blake's story is. "

"You mean--?" He turned in his saddle to stare wonderingly at her. "Youdon't know?"

"No. " Sheila blushed confusedly. "I--I don't know anything about her--"

"Good Lord!" He whistled softly. "Sometimes those ventures turn out allright. " He looked dubious. "I'm glad I'm here!"

Sheila's smile slipped sweetly across her mouth and eyes. "So am I. But, "she added after a thoughtful moment, "I don't know much about your storyeither, do I?"

"I might say something about asking questions, " began Cosme withgrimness, but changed his tone quickly with a light, apologetic touch onher arm, "but--but I won't. I ran away from school when I was fourteenand I've been knocking around the West ever since. "

"What school?" asked Sheila. 

He did not answer for several minutes. They had come to the end of themeadow and were mounting a slope on a narrow trail where the poniesseemed to nose their way among the trees. Now and then Sheila had to putout her hand to push her knee away from a threatening trunk. Below werethe vivid paintbrush flowers and the blue mountain lupine and all aboutthe nymph-white aspens with leaves turning to restless gold against thesky. The horses moved quietly with a slight creaking of saddles. Therewas a feeling of stealth, of mystery--that tiptoe breathless expectationof Pan pipes. . . . At last Cosme turned in his saddle, rested his hand onthe cantle, and looked at Sheila from a bent face with troubled eyes. 

"It was an Eastern school, " he said. "No doubt you've heard of it. Itwas Groton. "

The name here in these Wyoming woods brought a picture as foreign as theartificiality of a drawing-room. 

"Groton? You ran away?"

"Yes, ma'am. "

Sheila's suspicions were returning forcibly. "I'll have to ask questions, Mr. Hilliard, because it seems so strange--what you are now, and yourrunning away and never having been brought back to the East by--bywhoever it was that sent you to Groton. "

"I want you to ask questions, " he said rather wistfully. "You havethe right. "

This forced her into something of a dilemma. She ignored it and waited, looking away from him. He would not leave her this loophole, however. 

"Why don't you look at me?" he demanded crossly. 

She did, and smiled again. 

"You have the prettiest smile I ever saw!" he cried; then went onquickly, "I ran away because of something that happened. I'll tell you. My mother"--he flushed and his eyes fell--"came up to see me at schoolone day. My mother was very beautiful. . . . I was mad about her. " Curiouslyenough, every trace of the Western cowboy had gone out of his voice andmanner, which were an echo of the voice and manner of the Grotonschoolboy whose experience he told. "I was proud of her--you know how akid is. I kind of paraded her round and showed her off to the otherfellows. No other fellow had such a beautiful mother. Then, as we weresaying good-bye, a crowd of the boys all round, I did something--trod onher foot or something, I don't quite know what--and she lifted up herhand and slapped me across the face. " He was white at the shockingmemory. "Right there before them all, when I--I was adoring her. She hadthe temper of a devil, a sudden Spanish temper--the kind I have, too--andshe never made the slightest effort to hold it down. She hit me and shelaughed as though it was funny and she got into her carriage. I cut offto my room. I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't face any one. I wantednever to see her again. I guess I was a queer sort of kid. . . . I don'tknow . . . " He drew a big breath, dropped back to the present and hisvivid color returned. "That's why I ran away from school, Miss Arundel. "

"And they never brought you back?"

He laughed. "They never found me. I had quite a lot of money and Ilost myself pretty cleverly. . . A boy of fourteen can, you know. It'sa very common history. Well, I suppose they didn't break their necksover me either, after the first panic. They were busy people--myparents--remarkably busy going to the devil. . . . And they were eternallyhard-up. You see, my grandfather had the money--still has it--and he'sremarkably tight. I wrote to them after six years, when I was twenty. They wrote back; at least their lawyer did. They tried, not verysincerely, though, I think, to coax me East again. . . Told me they'ddouble my allowance if I did--they've sent me a pittance--" He shudderedsuddenly, a violent, primitive shiver. "I'm glad I didn't go, " he said. 

There was a long stillness. That dreadful climax to the special"business" of the Hilliards was relived in both their memories. But itwas something of which neither could speak. Sheila wondered if thebeautiful mother was that instant wearing the hideous prison dress. Shewished that she had read the result of the trial. She wouldn't for theworld question this pale and silent young man. The rest of their ride wasquiet and rather mournful. They rode back at sunset and Hilliard bade hera troubled good-bye. 

She wanted to say something comforting, reassuring. She watched himhelplessly from where she stood on the porch as he walked across theclearing to his horse. Suddenly he slapped the pocket of his chaps andturned back. "Thunder!" he cried, "I'd forgotten the mail. A fellow leftit at the ford. A paper for Miss Blake and a letter for you. "

Sheila held out her hand. "A letter for me?" She took it. It was astrange hand, small and rather unsteady. The envelope was fat, thepostmark Millings. Her flush of surprise ebbed. She knew whose letter itwas--Sylvester Hudson's. He had found her out. 

She did not even notice Cosme's departure. She went up to her loft, satdown on her cot and read. 

"MY DEAR MISS SHEILA:

"I don't rightly know how to express myself in this letter because I knowwhat your feelings toward Pap must be like, and they are fierce. But Ihave got to try to write you a letter just the same, for there are somethings that need explaining. At first, when my hotel and my Aura wereburned down [here the writing was especially shaky] and I found that youand Dickie had both vamoosed, I thought that you had paid me out and goneoff together. You can't blame me for that thought, Miss Sheila, for Ihad found him in your room at that time of night or morning and Icouldn't help but see that he was aiming to kiss you and you were waitingfor his kiss. So I was angry and I had been drinking and I kissed youmyself, taking advantage of you in a way that no gentleman would do. ButI thought you were different from the Sheila I had brought to be mybarmaid. 

"Well, ma'am, for a while after the fire, I was pretty near crazy. I wasabout loco. Then I was sick. When I got well again, a fellow who comeover from Hidden Creek told me you had gone over to be at a ranch thereand that you had come in alone. That sort of got me to thinking about youmore and more and studying you out, and I begun to see that I had made abad mistake. Whatsoever reason brought that damn fool Dickie to your roomthat morning, it wasn't your doings, and the way you was waiting for hiskiss was more a mother's way. I have had some hard moments with myself, Miss Sheila, and I have come to this that I have got to write and tellyou how I feel. And ask your forgiveness. You see you were something inmy life, different from anything that had ever been there. I don'trightly know--I likely never will know--what you meant in my life. Ihandled you in my heart like a flower. Before God, I had a religion foryou. And that was just why, when I thought you was bad, that it drove mecrazy. I wonder if you will understand this. You are awful young andawful ignorant. And I have hurt your pride. You are terrible proud foryour years, Miss Sheila. I ache all over when I think that I hurt yourpretty mouth. I hope it is smiling now. I am moving out of Millings, --Meand Momma and Babe. But Girlie is agoing to marry Jim. He run right backto her like a little lost lamb the second you was gone. Likely, he'llnever touch liquor again. I haven't heard from Dickie. I guess he's gonewhere the saloons are bigger and where you can get oysters with yourdrinks. He always was a damn fool. I would dearly like to go over toHidden Creek and see you, but I feel like I'd better not. It would hurtme if I got a turn-down from you like it will hurt me if you don'tanswer this letter, which is a mighty poor attempt to tell you my badreasons for behaving like I did. I am not sorry I thrashed Dickie. He hadought to be thrashed good and plenty. And he has sure paid me off byburning down my Aura. That was a saloon in a million, Miss Sheila, andthe picture of you standing there back of my bar, looking so dainty andsweet and fine in your black dress and your frills--well, ma'am, I'llsure try to be thinking of that when I cash in. 

"Well, Miss Sheila, I wish you good fortune in whatever you do, and Ihope that if you ever need a friend you will overlook my bad break andremember the artist that tried to put you in his big work and--failed. "

This extraordinary document was signed--"Sylvester. " Sheila was leftbewildered with strange tears in her throat. 

CHAPTER VII

SANCTUARY

There came to the restaurant where Dickie worked, a certain sallow andirritable man, no longer in his early youth. He came daily for one of histhree meals: it might be lunch or dinner or even breakfast, Dickie wasalways in haste to serve him. For some reason, the man's clever andnervous personality intrigued his interest. And this, although hiscustomer never threw him a glance, scowled at a newspaper, barked out anorder, gulped his food, stuck a fair-sized tip under the edge of hisplate, and jerked himself away. 

On a certain sluggish noon hour in August, Dickie, as far as thekitchen door with a tray balanced on his palm, realized that he hadforgotten this man's order. He hesitated to go back. "Like as not, "reasoned Dickie, "he didn't rightly know what the order was. He neverdoes look at his food. I'll fetch him a Spanish omelette and a saladand a glass of iced tea. It's a whole lot better order than he'd havethought of himself. "

Nevertheless, it was with some trepidation that he set the omelette downbefore that lined and averted countenance. Its owner was screwed into hischair as usual, eyes, with a sharp cleft between their brows, bent on hisfolded newspaper, and he put his right hand blindly on the fork. But asit pricked the contents of the plate a savory fragrance rose and thereader looked. 

"Here, you damn fool--that's not my order, " he snapped out. 

Dickie tasted a homely memory--"Dickie damn fool. " He stood silent amoment looking down with one of his quaint, impersonal looks. 

"Well, sir, " then he said slowly, "it ain't your order, but you look awhole lot more like a feller that would order Spanish omelette than likea feller that would order Hamburger steak. "

For the first time the man turned about, flung his arm over hischair-back, and looked up at Dickie. In fact, he stared. His thin lips, enclosed in an ill-tempered parenthesis of double lines, twistedthemselves slightly. 

"I'll be derned!" he said. "But, look here, my man, I didn't orderHamburger steak; I ordered chicken. "

Dickie deliberately smoothed down the cowlick on his head. He wore hislook of a seven-year-old with which he was wont to face the extremity ofSylvester's exasperation. 

"I reckon I clean forgot your order, sir, " he said. "I figured out thatyou wouldn't be caring what was on your plate. This heat, " he added, "sure puts a blinder on a feller's memory. "

The man laughed shortly. "It's all right, " he said. "This'll go down. "

He ate in silence. Then he glanced up again. "What are you waitingfor, anyway?"

Dickie flushed faintly. "I was sort of wishful to see how it would godown. "

"Oh, I don't mean that kind of waiting. I mean--why are you a waiter inthis--hash-hole?"

Dickie meditated. "There ain't no answer to that, " he said. "I don't knowwhy--" He added--"Why anything. It's a sort of extry word in thedictionary--don't mean much any way you look at it. "

He gathered up the dishes. The man watched him, tilting back a little inhis chair, his eyes twinkling under brows drawn together. A momentafterwards he left the restaurant. 

It was a few nights later when Dickie saw him again--or rather whenDickie was again seen by him. This time Dickie was not in the restaurant. He was at a table in a small Free Library near Greenwich Avenue, and hewas copying painstakingly with one hand from a fat volume which he helddown with the other. The strong, heavily-shaded light made a circle ofbrilliance about him; his fair hair shone silvery bright, his face had asort of seraphic pallor. The orderer of chicken, striding away from thedesk with a hastily obtained book of reference, stopped short and staredat him; then came close and touched the thin, shiny shoulder of the blueserge coat. 

"This the way you take your pleasure?" he asked abruptly. 

Dickie looked up slowly, and his consciousness seemed to travel even moreslowly back from the fairy doings of a midsummer night. Under theobservant eyes bent upon it, his face changed extraordinarily from theface of untroubled, almost immortal childhood to the face of strugglingand reserved manhood. 

"Hullo, " he said with a smile of recognition. "Well--yes--not always. "

"What are you reading?" The man slipped into the chair beside Dickie, puton his glasses, and looked at the fat book. "Poetry? Hmp! What are youcopying it for?--letter to your girl?"

Dickie had all the Westerner's prejudice against questions, but he feltdrawn to this patron of the "hash-hole, " so, though he drawled his answerslightly, it was an honest answer. 

"It ain't my book, " he said. "That's why I'm copying it. "

"Why in thunder don't you take it out, you young idiot?"

Dickie colored. "Well, sir, I don't rightly understand the workings ofthis place. I come by it on the way home and I kep' a-seein' folks goin'in with books and comin' out with books. I figured it was a kind ofexchange proposition. I've only got one book--and that ain't rightlymine--" the man looking at him wondered why his face flamed--"so, when Icame in, I just watched and I figured you could read here if you had thenotion to take down a book and fetch it over to the table and copy fromit and return it. So I've been doin' that. "

"Why didn't you go to the desk, youngster, and ask questions?"

"Where I come from"--Dickie was drawling again--"folks don't deal so muchin questions as they do here. "

"Where you came from! You came from Mars! Come along to the desk andI'll fix you up with a card and you can take an armful of poetry homewith you. "

Dickie went to the desk and signed his name. The stranger signedhis--Augustus Lorrimer. The librarian stamped a bit of cardboard andstuck it into the fat volume. She handed it to Dickie wearily. 

"Thank _you_, ma'am, " he said with such respectful fervor that she lookedup at him and smiled. 

"Now, where's your diggings, " asked Lorrimer, who had taken no hintsabout asking questions, "east or west?" He was a newspaper reporter. 

"Would you be carin' to walk home with me?" asked Dickie. There was agreat deal of dignity in his tone, more in his carriage. 

"Yes. I'd be caring to! Lead on, Martian!" And Lorrimer felt, afterhe said that, that he was a vulgarian--a long-forgotten sensation. "In Mars, " he commented to himself, "this young man was some kind ofa prince. "

"What do you look over your shoulder that way for, Dick?" he asked aloud, a few blocks on their way. "Scared the police will take away your book?"

Dickie blinked at him with a startled air. "Did I? I reckon a fellergets into queer ways when he's alone a whole lot. I get kind of feelin'like somebody was following me in this town--so many folks goin' to andfro does it to me most likely. "

"Yes, a fellow does get into queer ways when he's alone a whole lot, "said Lorrimer slowly. His mind went back a dozen years to his own firstwinter in New York. He looked with keenness at Dickie's face. It was acuriously charming face, he thought, but it was tight-knit with aharried, struggling sort of look, and this in spite of its quaintdetachment. 

"Know any one in this city?"

"No, sir, not rightly. I've made acquaintance with some of the waiters. They've asked me to join a club. But I haven't got the cash. "

"What pay do you draw?"

Dickie named a sum. 

"Not much, eh? But you've got your tips. "

"Yes, sir. I pay my board with my pay and live on the tips. "

"Must be uncertain kind of living! Where do you live, anyway?What? Here?"

They had crossed Washington Square and were entering a tall studiobuilding to the south and east. Dickie climbed lightly up the stairs. Lorrimer followed with a feeling of bewilderment. On the top landing, dimly lighted, Dickie unlocked a door and stood aside. 

"Just step in and look up, " he said, "afore I light the light. You'llsee something. "

Lorrimer obeyed. A swarm of golden bees glimmered before his eyes. 

"Stars, " said Dickie. "Down below you wouldn't hardly know you had 'em, would you?"

Lorrimer did not answer. A moment later an asthmatic gas-jet caught itsbreath and he saw a bare studio room almost vacant of furniture. Therewas a bed and a screen and a few chairs, one window facing an alley wall. The stars had vanished. 

"Pretty palatial quarters for a fellow on your job, " Lorrimer remarked. "How did you happen to get here?"

"Some--people I knowed of once lived here. " Dickie's voice had taken on acertain remoteness, and even Lorrimer knew that here questions stopped. He accepted a chair, declined "the makings, " proffered a cigarette. During these amenities his eyes flew about the room. 

"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, "is all that stuff your copying?"

There was a pile of loose and scattered manuscript upon the table underthe gas-jet. 

"Yes, sir, " Dickie smiled. "I was plumb foolish to go to all that labor. "

Lorrimer drew near to the table and coolly looked over the papers. Dickie watched him with rather a startled air and a flush that mighthave seemed one of resentment if his eyes had not worn theirimpersonal, observing look. 

"All poetry, " muttered Lorrimer. "But some of it only a line--or aword. " He read aloud, --"'Close to the sun in lonely lands--' what's thatfrom, anyway?"

"A poem about an eagle by a man named Alfred Tennyson. Ain't it the way afeller feels, though, up on the top of a rocky peak?"

"Never been on the top of a rocky peak--kind of a sky-scraper sensation, isn't it? What's all this--'An' I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, after my fashion'?"

Dickie's face again flamed in spite of himself. "It's a love poem. Thefeller couldn't forget. He couldn't keep himself from loving that-awaybecause he loved so much the other way--well, sir, you better read it foryourself. It's a mighty real sort of a poem--if you were that sort of afeller, I mean. "

"And this is 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' And here's a sonnet, 'It wasnot like your great and gracious ways'--? Coventry Patmore. Well, youngman, you've a catholic taste. "

"I don't rightly belong to any church, " said Dickie gravely. "My motheris a Methodist. "

Lorrimer moved; abruptly away and moved abruptly back. 

"Where were you educated, Dick?"

"I was raised in Millings"--Dickie named the Western State--"I didn'tget only to grammar school. My father needed me to work in his hotel. "

"Too bad!" sighed Lorrimer. "Well, I'll bid you good-night. And manythanks. You've got a fine place here. " Again he sighed. "I dare say--oneof these days--"

He was absent and irritable again. Dickie accompanied him down the threelong, narrow flights and climbed back to his loneliness. He was, however, very much excited by his adventure, excited and disturbed. He feltrestless. He walked about and whistled to himself. 

Until now he had had but one companion--the thought of Sheila. It wasextraordinary how immediate she was. During the first dreadful weeks ofhis drudgery in the stifling confusions of the restaurant, when even thememory of Sylvester's tongue-lashings faded under the acute reality ofthe head waiter's sarcasms, that love of his for Sheila had fled away andleft him dull and leaden and empty of his soul. And his tiny third-storybedroom had seemed like a coffin when he laid himself down in it andtried to remember her. It had come to him like a mountain wind, overwhelmingly, irresistibly, the desire to live where she lived: thefirst wish he had had since he had learned that she was not to be foundby him. And the miracle had accomplished itself. Mrs. Halligan had beeninstructed to get a lodger at almost any price for the long-vacant studioroom. She lowered the rent to the exact limit of Dickie's wages. She hadnever bargained with so bright-eyed a hungry-looking applicant forlodgings. And that night he lay awake under Sheila's stars. From then onhe lived always in her presence. And here in the room that had known herhe kept himself fastidious and clean. He shut out the wolf-pack of hisshrewd desires. The room was sanctuary. It was to rescue Sheila ratherthan himself that Dickie fled up to the stars. So deeply, so intimatelyhad she become a part of him that he seemed to carry her soul in hishands. So had the young dreamer wedded his dream. He lived with Sheila astruly, as loyally, as though he knew that she would welcome him with oneof those downward rushes or give him Godspeed on sultry, feverish dawnswith a cool kiss. Dickie lay sometimes across his bed and drew her cheekin trembling fancy close to his until the anguish wet his pillow withmute tears. 

Now to this dual loneliness Lorrimer had climbed, and Dickie felt, rathergratefully, that life had reached up to the aching unrealities of hisexistence. His tight and painful life had opened like the first fold of afan. He built upon the promise of a friendship with this questioning, impertinent, mocking, keenly sympathetic visitor. 

But a fortnight passed without Lorrimer's appearing at the restaurantand, when at last he did come, Dickie, flying to his chair, was greetedby a cold, unsmiling word, and a businesslike quotation from the menu. He felt as though he had been struck. His face burned. In the West, afellow couldn't do that and get away with it! He tightened an impotent, thin fist. He filled the order and kept his distance, and, absurdlyenough, gave Lorrimer's tip to another waiter and went without his owndinner. For the first time in his life a sense of social inferiority, ofhumiliation concerning the nature of his work, came to him. He felt thepang of servitude, a pang unknown to the inhabitants of frontier towns. When Sheila washed dishes for Mrs. Hudson she was "the young lady fromNoo York who helps round at Hudson's house. " Dickie fought this shamesturdily, but it seemed to cling, to have a sticky pervasiveness. Try ashe might he couldn't brush it off his mind. Nevertheless, it was on thevery heels of this embittering experience that life plucked him up fromhis slough. One of the leveling public catastrophes came to Dickie'said--not that he knew he was a dumb prayer for aid. He knew only thatevery day was harder to face than the last, that every night the stars upthere through Sheila's skylight seemed to glimmer more dully with lessinspiration on his fagged spirit. 

The sluggish monotony of the restaurant's existence was stirred thatSeptember night by a big neighboring fire. Waiters and guests tumbled outto the call of fire-engines and running feet. Dickie found himselfbeside Lorrimer, who caught him by the elbow. 

"Keep by me, kid, " he said, and there was something in his tonethat softened injury. "If you want a good look-in, I can getthrough the ropes. "

He showed his card to a policeman, pulled Dickie after him, and theyfound themselves in an inner circle of the inferno. Before them a tall, hideous warehouse broke forth into a horrible beauty. It was as though atortured soul had burst bars. It roared and glowed and sent up petals ofsmoky rose and seeds of fire against the blue-black sky. The crowdspressed against the ropes and turned up their faces to drink in theterror of the spectacle. 

Lorrimer had out his notebook. "Damn fires!" he said. "They bore me. Doesall this look like anything to you? That fire and those people and theirsilly faces all tilted up and turned red and blue and purple--"

He was talking to himself, and so, really, was Dickie when he made hisown statement in a queer tone of frightened awe. "They look like a flowergarden in Hell, " he whispered. 

Lorrimer threw up his chin. "Say that again, will you?" he snapped out. "Go on! Don't stop! Tell me everything that comes into your damn younghead of a wandering Martian! Fly at it! I'll take you down. "

"You mean, " said Dickie, "tell you what I think this looks like?"

"That's what I mean, do. "

Dickie smiled a queer sort of smile. He had found a listener at last. Amoment later Lorrimer's pencil was in rapid motion. And the reporter'seyes shot little stabbing looks at Dickie's unselfconscious face. Whenit was over he snapped an elastic round his notebook, returned it to hispocket, and laid his hand on Dickie's thin, tense arm. 

"Come along with me, Dick, " said Lorrimer. "You've won. I've beenfighting you and my duty to my neighbor for a fortnight. Your waiter daysare over. I've adopted you. I'm my brother's keeper all right. We'll bothgo hungry now and then probably, but what's the odds! I need you. Ihaven't been able to hand in a story like that for years. I'm a burnt-outcandle and you're the divine fire. I'm going to educate the life out ofyou. I'm going to train you till you wish you'd died young andungrammatical in Millings. I may not be much good myself, " he addedsolemnly, "but God gave me the sense to know the real thing when I seeit. I've been fighting you, calling myself a fool for weeks. Come along, young fellow, don't hang back, and for your credit's sake close your lipsso you won't look like a case of arrested development. First we'll saygood-bye to the hash-hole and the white apron and then I'll take you upto your sky parlor and we'll talk things over. "

"God!" said Dickie faintly. It was a prayer for some enlightenment. 

CHAPTER VIII

DESERTION

Hilliard rode up along Hidden Creek on a frosty October morning. Everywhere now the aspens were torches of gold, the cottonwood treessmoky and gaunt, the ground bright with fallen leaves. He had the look ofa man who has swept his heart clean of devils. . . His face was keen withhis desire. He sang as he rode--sweetly an old sentimental Spanish song, something his mother had taught him; but it was not of his mother hethought, or only, perhaps, deep down in his subconsciousness, of thatearly mother-worship, age-old and most mysterious, which now he hadtranslated and transferred. 

"Sweet, sweet is the jasmine flower--Let its stars guide thee. Sweet is the heart of a rose. . . Sweet is the thought of thee. . . Deep in my heart. . . "

The dogs were off coursing the woods that afternoon, and the littleclearing lay as still as a green lake under the threatening crest of themountain. Cosme slipped from his horse, pulled the reins over his head, and left him to graze at will. 

Miss Blake opened the ranch-house door at his knock. She greeted him witha sardonic smile. "I don't know whether you'll see your girl or not, "she said. "Give her time to get over her tantrums. "

Cosme turned a lightning look upon her. "Tantrums? Sheila?"

"Oh, my friend, she has a devil of her own, that little angel-face! Makeyourself comfortable. " Miss Blake pointed him to a chair. "I'll tell heryou're here. "

She went to the foot of the ladder, which rose from the middle of theliving-room floor, and called heartily, an indulgent laugh in her voice, "You, Sheila! Better come down! Here's your beau. "

There was no answer. 

"Hear me, Sheila? Mis-ter Cos-me Hill-iard. "

This time some brief and muffled answer was returned. Miss Blake smiledand went over to her elk-horn throne. There she sat and sewed--anincongruous occupation it looked. 

Cosme was leaning forward, elbows on knees, his face a study ofimpatience, anger, and suspicion. 

"What made her mad?" he asked bluntly. 

"O-oh! She'll get over it. She'll be down. Sheila can't resist a youngman. You'll see. "

"What did you do?" insisted the stern, crisp, un-western voice. WhenCosme was angry he reverted rapidly to type. 

"Why, " drawled Miss Blake, "I crept up when she was drying her hair and Icut it off. " She laughed loudly at his fierce start. 

"Cut off her hair! What right--?"

"No right at all, my friend, but common sense. What's the good of allthat fluffy stuff hanging about and taking hours of her time to brushand wash and what-not. Besides"--she shot a look at him--"it's part ofthe cure. "

"By the Lord, " said Cosme, "I'd like you to explain. "

The woman crossed her legs calmly. She was still indulgently amused. 

"Don't lose your head, young man, " she advised. "Better smoke. "

After an instant Cosme rolled and lighted a cigarette and leaned back inhis chair. His anger had settled to a sort of patient contempt. 

"I've put her into breeches, too, " said Miss Blake. 

"What the devil! What do you mean? She has a will of her own, hasn't she?"

"Oh, yes. But you see I've got Miss Sheila just about where I want her. She's grateful enough for her food and the roof over her head and for thechance I'm giving her. "

"Chance?" He laughed shortly. "Chance to do all your heavy work?"

"Why not say _honest_ work? It's something new to her. "

There was a brief, thunderous silence. Cosme's cigarette burned betweenhis stiff fingers. "What do you mean?" he asked, hoarse with the effortof his self-control. 

She looked at him sharply now. "Are you Paul Carey Hilliard's son--theson of Roxana Hilliard?" she asked. She pointed a finger at him. 

"Yes, " he answered with thin lips. His eyes narrowed. His face was allLatin, all cruel. 

"Well"--Miss Blake slid her hands reflectively back and forth on the bonearms of her chair. She had put down her work. "I was just thinking, " shesaid slowly and kindly, "that the son of your mother would be ratherextra careful in choosing the mother of his sons. "

"I shall be very careful, " he answered between the thin lips. "I _am_being careful. "

She fell back with an air of relief. "Oh, " she said, as thoughilluminated. "O-oh! I understand. Then it's all right. I didn't readyour game. "

His face caught fire at her apparent misunderstanding. 

"I don't read yours, " he said. 

"Game? Bless you, I've no game to play. I'm giving Sheila her chance. ButI'm not going to give her a chance at the cost of your happiness. You'retoo good a lad for that. I thought you were going to ask her to be yourwife. And I wasn't going to allow you to do it--blind. I was going toadvise you to come back three years from now and see her again. Maybethis fine clean air and this life and this honest work and the trainingshe gets from me will make her straight. My God! Cosme Hilliard, have youset eyes on Hudson? What kind of girl travels West from New York atSylvester Hudson's expense and in his company and queens it in the suiteat his hotel?"

"Miss Blake, " he muttered, "do you _know_ this?"

The cigarette had burnt itself out. Cosme's face was no longer cruel. Itwas dazed. 

She laughed shortly. "Why, of course, I know Sheila. I know her wholehistory--and it's some history! She's twice the age she looks. Do youthink I'd have her here with me this way without knowing the girl? I tellyou, I want to give her a chance. I don't care if you try to test herout. I'd like to see if two months has done anything for her. She wasreal set on being a good girl when she quit Hudson. I don't _know_, butI'm willing to bet that she'll turn you down. "

From far away up the mountain-side came the fierce baying of the dogpack. Cosme pulled himself together and stood up. His face had anignorant, baffled look, the look of an unskilled and simple mindcaught in a web. 

"I reckon she--she isn't coming down, " he said slowly, without liftinghis eyes from the floor. "I reckon I'll be going. I won't wait. "

He walked to the door, his steps falling without spring, and went out andso across the porch and the clearing to his horse. 

At the sound of the closing door there came a flurry of movement in theloft. The trap was raised. Sheila came quickly down the ladder. She wasdressed in a pair of riding-breeches and her hair was cropped like MissBlake's just below the ears. The quaintest rose-leaf of a Rosalind shelooked, just a wisp of grace, utterly unlike a boy. All the soft, slimlitheness with its quick turns revealed--a little figure of unconscioussweet enchantment. But the face was flushed and tear-stained, the eyesdistressed. She stood, hands on her belt, at the foot of the ladder. 

"Why has he gone? Why didn't he wait?"

Miss Blake turned a frank, indulgent face. But it was deeplyflushed. "Oh, shucks!" she said, "I suppose he got tired. Why didn'tyou come down?"

Sheila sent a look down her slim legs. "Oh, because I _am_ a fool. MissBlake--did you _really_ burn my two frocks--both of them?" Her eyescoaxed and filled. 

"It's all they're fit for, my dear. You can make yourself new ones. Youknow it's more sensible and comfortable, too, to work and ride inbreeches. I know what I'm doing, child. --I've lived this way quite anumber of years. You look real nice. I can't abide female floppery, anyhow. What's it a sign of? Rotten slavery. " She set her very even teethtogether hard as she said this. 

But Sheila was neither looking nor listening. She had heard horse'shoofs. Her cheeks flamed. She ran to the door. She stood on the porchand called. 

"Cosme Hilliard! Come back!"

There was no answer. A few minutes later she came in, pale and puzzled. 

"He didn't even wave, " she said. "He turned back in his saddle and staredat me. He rode away staring at me. Miss Blake--what did you say to him?You were talking a long time. "

"We were talking, " said Miss Blake, "about dogs and how to raise 'em. Andthen he up and said goodbye. Oh, Sheila, it's all right. He'll be backwhen he's got over being miffed. Why, he expected you to come tumblin'down the ladder head over heels to see him--a handsome fellow like that!Shucks! Haven't you ever dealt with the vanity of a young male before?It's as jumpy as a rabbit. Get to work. "

And, as though to justify Miss Blake's prophecy, just ten days later, Hilliard did come again. It was a Sunday and Sheila had packed herlunch and gone off on "Nigger Baby" for the day. The ostensible objectof her ride was a visit to the source of Hidden Creek. Really she wasclimbing away from a hurt. She felt Hilliard's wordless departure andprolonged absence keenly. She had not--to put it euphemistically--manyfriends. Her remedy was successful. Impossible, on such a ride, tocherish minor or major pangs. She rode into the smoky dimness ofpine-woods where the sunlight burned in flecks and out again across thelittle open mountain meadows, jeweled with white and gold, blue andcoral-colored flowers, a stained-glass window scattered across theground. From these glades she could see the forest, an army of tallpilgrims, very grave, going up, with long staves in their hands, toworship at a high shrine. The rocks above were very grave, too, andgrim and still against the even blue sky. Across their purplish gray awaterfall streaked down struck crystal by the sun. An eagle turned ingreat, swinging circles. Sheila had an exquisite lifting of heart, asense of entire fusion, body blessed by spirit, spirit blessed by body. She felt a distinct pleasure in the flapping of her short, sun-filledhair against her neck, at the pony's motion between her unhamperedlegs, at the moist warmth of his neck under her hand--and this physicalpleasure seemed akin to the ecstasy of prayer. 

She came at last to a difficult, narrow, cañon trail, where the ponyhopped skillfully over fallen trees, until, for very weariness of hischoppy, determined efforts, she dismounted, tied him securely, and madethe rest of her climb on foot. Hidden Creek tumbled near her and itsvoice swelled. All at once, round the corner of a great wall of rock, shecame upon the head. It gushed out of the mountain-side in a tumult oflife, not in a single stream, but in many frothy, writhing earth-snakesof foam. She sat for an hour and watched this mysterious birth from themountain-side, watched till the pretty confusion of the water, with itshalf-interpreted voices, had dizzied and dazed her to the point ofcomplete forgetfulness of self. She had entered into a sort of a trance, a Nirvana . . . She shook herself out of it, ate her lunch and scrambledquickly back to "Nigger Baby. " It was late afternoon when she crossed themountain glades. Their look had mysteriously changed. There was somethingalmost uncanny now about their brilliance in the sunset light, and whenshe rode into the streaked darkness of the woods, they were full ofghostly, unintelligible sounds. To rest her muscles she was riding withher right leg thrown over the horn as though on a side saddle--a greatmass of flowers was tied in front of her. She had opened her shirt at theneck and her head was bare. She was singing to keep up her heart. Then, suddenly, she had no more need of singing. She saw Cosme walking towardher up the trail. 

His face lacked all its vivid color. It was rather haggard and stern. Thedevils he had swept out of his heart a fortnight earlier had, since then, been violently entertained. He stepped out of the path and waited forher, his hands on his hips. But, as she rode down, she saw this lookmelt. The blood crept up to his cheeks, the light to his eyes. It waslike a rock taking the sun. She had smiled at him with all the usualexquisite grace and simplicity. When she came beside him, she drew rein, and at the same instant he put his hand on the pony's bridle. He lookedup at her dumbly, and for some reason she, too, found it impossible tospeak. She could see that he was breathing fast through parted lips andthat the lips were both cruel and sensitive. His hand slid back along"Nigger Baby's" neck, paused, and rested on her knee. Then, suddenly, hecame a big step closer, threw both his arms, tightening with a python'sstrength, about her and hid his face against her knees. 

"Sheila, " he said thickly. He looked up with a sort of anguish into herface. "Sheila, if you are not fit to be the mother of my children, youare _sure_ fit for any man to love. "

Her soft, slim body hardened against him even before her face. Theystared at each other for a minute. 

"Let me get down, " said Sheila. 

He stepped back, not quite understanding. She dropped off the horse, dragging her flowers with her, and faced him. She did not feel small orslender. She felt as high as a hill, although she had to look up at himso far. Her anger had its head against the sky. 

"Why do you talk about a man's love?" she asked him with a queer sortof patience. "I think--I hope--that you don't know anything about aman's love, oh, the _way_ men love!" She thought with swift pain ofJim, of Sylvester; "Oh, the _way_ they love!" And she found that, under her breath, she was sobbing, "Dickie! Dickie!" as though herheart had called. 

"Will you take back your horse, please?" she said, choking over thesesobs which hurt her more at the moment than he had hurt her. "I'll neverride on him again. Don't come back here. Don't try to see me any more. Isuppose it--it--the way you love me--is because I was a barmaid, becauseyou heard people speak of me as 'Hudson's Queen. '" She conquered one ofthe sobs. "I thought that after you'd looked into my face so hard thatnight and stopped yourself from--from--my lips, that you had understood. "She shook her head from side to side so violently, so childishly, thatthe short hair lashed across her eyes. "No one ever will understand!" Sheran away from him and cried under her breath, "Dickie! Dickie!"

She ran straight into the living-room and stopped in the middle of thefloor. Her arms were full of the flowers she had pulled down from "NiggerBaby's" neck. 

"What did you want to bring in all that truck--?" Miss Blake began, rising from the pianola, then stopped. "What's the matter with you?" sheasked. "Did your young man find you? I sent him up the trail. " Her redeyes sparkled. 

"He insulted me!" gasped Sheila. "He dared to insult me!" She wasdramatic with her helpless young rage. "He said I wasn't fit to--to bethe mother of his children. And"--she laughed angrily, handling behindCosme's back the weapon that she had been too merciful to use--"and _his_mother is a murderess, found guilty of murder--and of worse!"

A sort of ripple of sound behind made her turn. 

Cosme had followed her, was standing in the open door, and had heard herspeech. The weapon had struck home, and she saw how it had poisoned allhis blood. 

He vanished without a word. Sheila turned back to Miss Blake a palerface. She let fall all her flowers. 

"Now he'll never come back, " she said. 

She climbed up the ladder to her loft. 

There she sat for an hour, listening to the silence. Her mind busieditself with trivial memories. She thought of Amelia Plecks. . . . It wouldhave comforted her to hear that knock and the rattle of her dinner tray. The little sitting-room at Hudson's Hotel, with its bit of tapestry andits yellow tea-set and its vases filled with flowers, seemed to hermemory as elaborate and artificial as the boudoir of a French princess. Farther than Millings had seemed from her old life did this dark littlegabled attic seem from Millings. What was to be the end of this strangewandering, this withdrawing of herself farther and farther into thelonely places! She longed for the noise of Babe's hearty, irrepressiblevoice with its smack of chewing, of her step coming up the stairs to thatlittle bedroom under Hudson's gaudy roof. Could it be possible that shewas homesick for Millings? For the bar with its lights and its visitorsand its big-aproned guardian? Her lids were actually smarting with tearsat the recollection of Carthy's big Irish face. . . . He had been such agood, faithful watch-dog. Were men always like that--either watch-dogsor wolves? The simile brought her back to Hidden Creek. It grew darkerand darker, a heavy darkness; the night had a new soft weight. Therebegan to be a sort of whisper in the stillness--not the motion of pines, for there was no wind. Perhaps it was more a sensation than a sound, ofinnumerable soft numb fingers working against the silence . . . Sheila gotup, shivering, lighted her candle, and went over to the small, four-panedwindow under the eaves. She pressed her face against it and started back. Things were flying toward her. She opened the sash and a whirling scarfof stars flung itself into the room. It was snowing. The night was blindwith snow. 

CHAPTER IX

WORK AND A SONG

On the studio skylight the misty autumn rain fell that night, as the snowfell against Sheila's window-panes, with a light tapping. Below it Dickieworked. He had very little leisure now for stars or dreams. For the firsttime in his neglected and mismanaged life he knew the pleasure ofcongenial work; and this, although Lorrimer worked him like a slave. Hedragged him over the city and set his picture-painting faculty to laborin dark corners. Dickie, every sense keen and clean, was not allowed toflinch. No, his freshness was his value. And the power that was in him, driven with whip and spur, throve and grew and fairly took the bit in itsteeth and ran away with its trainer. 

"Look here, my lad, " Lorrimer had said that morning, "you keep on layinghands on the English language the way you've been doing lately and I'llhave to get a job for you on the staff. Then my plagiarism that has beenpaying us both so well comes to an end. I won't have the face to editstuff like this much longer. " Lorrimer did not realize in his amazementthat Dickie's mind had always busied itself with this exciting andnerve-racking matter of choosing words. From his childhood, in the faceof ridicule and outrage, he had fumbled with the tools of Lorrimer'strade. No wonder that now knowledge and practice, and the sort ofintensive training he was under, magically fitted all the jumbled oddsand ends into place. Dickie had stopped looking over his shoulder. Thepursuing pack, the stealthy-footed beasts of the city, had droppedutterly from his flying imagination. There was only one that remainedfaithful--that craving for beauty--half-god, half-beast. Against himDickie still pressed his door shut. Lorrimer's gift of work had notquieted the leader of the pack. But it had brought Dickie something thatwas nearly happiness. The very look of him had changed; he looked drivenrather than harried, keen rather than harassed, eager instead of vague, hungry rather than wistful. Only, sometimes, Dickie's brain wouldsuddenly turn blank and blind from sheer exhaustion. This happened to himnow. The printed lines he was studying lost all their meaning. He put hisforehead on his hands. Then he heard that eerie, light tapping above himon the skylight. But he was too tired to look up. 

It was on that very afternoon when Sheila rode down the trail with herflowers tied before her on the saddle, singing to keep up her heart. Itwas that very afternoon when she had cried out half-consciously for"Dickie--Dickie--Dickie"--and now it was, as though the cry had traveled, that a memory of her leapt upon his mind; a memory of Sheila singing. She had come into the chocolate-colored lobby from one of her rides withJim Greely. She had held a handful of cactus flowers. She had stoppedover there by one of the windows to put them in a glass. And to showDickie, a prisoner at his desk, that she did not consider hispresence--it was during the period of their estrangement--she had sungsoftly as a girl sings when she knows herself to be alone: a littletender, sad chanting song, that seemed made to fit her mouth. The painher singing had given him that afternoon had cut a picture of her onDickie's brain. Just because he had tried so hard not to look at her. Nowit jumped out at him against his closed, wet lids. The very motions ofher mouth came back, the positive dear curve of her chin, thethroat there slim against the light. Hard work had driven herimage a little from his mind lately; it returned now to revengehis self-absorption--returned with a song. 

Dickie got up and wandered about the room. He tried to hum the air, buthis throat contracted. He tried to whistle, but his lips turned stiff. Hebent over his book--no use, she still sang. All night he was tormented bythat chanting, hurting song. He sobbed with the hurt of it. He tossedabout on his bed. He could not but remember how little she had loved him. All at once there came to him a mysterious and beautiful release. Itseemed that the cool spirit, detached, winged, drew him to itself orbecame itself entirely possessed of him. He was taken out of his painand yet he understood it. And he began suddenly, easily, to put it intowords. The misery was ecstasy, the hurt was inspiration, the song sangsweetly as though it had been sung to soothe and not to make him suffer. 

"Oh, little song you sang to me"--

Ah, yes, at heart she had been singing to him--

"A hundred, hundred days ago, Oh, little song, whose melody Walks in my heart and stumbles so; I cannot bear the level nights, And all the days are over-long, And all the hours from dark to dark Turn to a little song . . . "

Dickie, not knowing how he got there, was at his table again. He waswriting. He was happy beyond any conception he had ever had of happiness. That there was agony in his happiness only intensified it. The leader ofthe wolf-pack, beast with a god's face, the noblest of man's desires, that passionate and humble craving for beauty, had him by the throat. 

So it was that Dickie wrote his first poem. 

CHAPTER X

WINTER

Winter snapped at Hidden Creek as a wolf snaps, but held its grip as abulldog holds his. There came a few November days when all the air andsky and tree-tops were filled with summer again, but the snow that hadpoured itself down so steadily in that October storm did not give way. Itsank a trifle at noon and covered itself at night with a glare of ice. Itwas impossible to go anywhere except on snow-shoes. Sheila quicklylearned the trick and plodded with bent knees, limber ankles, andwide-apart feet through the winter miracle of the woods. It was anotherrevelation of pure beauty, but her heart was too sore to hold thesplendor as it had held the gentler beauty of summer and autumn. Besides, little by little she was aware of a vague, encompassing uneasiness. Sincethe winter jaws had snapped them in, setting its teeth between them andall other life, Miss Blake had subtly and gradually changed. It was asthough her stature had increased, her color deepened. Sometimes to Sheilathat square, strong body seemed to fill the world. She was more and moremasterful, quicker with her orders, charier of her smiles, shorter ofspeech and temper. Her eyes seemed to grow redder, the sparks closer toflame, as though the intense cold fanned them. 

Once they harnessed the dogs to the sled and rode down the country forthe mail. The trip they made together. Sheila sat wrapped in furs infront of the broad figure of her companion, who stood at the back of thesledge, used a long whip, and shouted to the dogs by name in her greatmusical voice of which the mountain echo made fine use. They sped closeto the frozen whiteness of the world, streaked down the slopes, and weredrawn soundlessly through the columned vistas of the woods. Here, there, and everywhere were tracks, of coyotes, fox, rabbit, martin, and thelittle pointed patteran of winter birds, yet they saw nothing living. "What's got the elk and moose this season?" muttered Miss Blake. Nothingstirred except the soft plop of shaken snow or the little flurry ofdrifting flakes. These frost-flakes lay two inches deep on the surface ofthe snow, dry and distinct all day in the cold so that they could beblown apart at a breath. Miss Blake was cheerful on this journey. Shesang songs, she told brief stories of other sled trips. At thepost-office an old, lonely man delivered them some parcels and a vastbagful of magazines. There was a brief passage of arms between him andMiss Blake. She accused him of withholding a box of cartridges, and wouldnot be content till she had poked about his office in dark corners. Shecame out swearing at the failure of her search. "I needed that shot, "she said. "My supply is short. I made sure it'd be here to-day. " Therewere no letters for either of them, and Sheila felt again that queershiver of her loneliness. But, on the whole, it was a wonderful day, and, under a world of most amazing stars, the small, valiant ranch-house, withits glowing stove and its hot mess of supper, felt like home. . . . Not longafter that came the first stroke of fate. 

The little old horse left them and, though they shoed patiently for milesfollowing his track, it was only to find his bones gnawed clean bycoyotes or by wolves. Sheila's tears froze to her lashes, but MissBlake's face went a little pale. She said nothing, and in her stepsSheila plodded home in silence. That evening Miss Blake laid hands onher. . . . They had washed up their dishes. Sheila was putting a log on thefire. It rolled out of her grasp to the bearskin rug and struck MissBlake's foot. Before Sheila could even say her quick "I'm sorry, " thewoman had come at her with a sort of spring, had gripped her by theshoulders, had shaken her with ferocity, and let her go. Sheila fellback, her own hands raised to her bruised shoulders, her eyesphosphorescent in a pale face. 

"Miss Blake, how dare you touch me!"

The woman kicked back the log, turned a red face, and laughed. 

"Dare! You little silly! What's to scare me of you?"

An awful conviction of helplessness depressed Sheila's heart, but shekept her eyes leveled on Miss Blake's. 

"Do you suppose I will stay here with you one hour, if you treat melike this?"

That brought another laugh. But Miss Blake was evidently trying to makelight of her outbreak. "Scared you, didn't I?" she said. "I guess younever got much training, eh!"

"I am not a dog, " said Sheila shortly. 

"Well, if you aren't"--Miss Blake returned to her chair and took up amagazine. She put the spectacles on her nose with shaking hands. "You'remy girl, aren't you? You can't expect to get nothing but petting fromme, Sheila. "

If she had not been icy with rage, Sheila might have smiled at this. "Idon't know what you mean, Miss Blake, by my being your girl. I work foryou, to be sure. I know that. But I know, too, that you will have toapologize to me for this. "

Miss Blake swung one leg across the other and stared above her glasses. 

"Apologize to _you_!"

"Yes. I will allow nobody to touch me. "

"Shucks! Go tell that to the marines! You've never been touched, haveyou? Sweet sixteen!"

Hudson's kiss again scorched Sheila's mouth and her whole body burned. Miss Blake watched that fire consume her, and again she laughed. 

"I'm waiting for you to apologize, " said Sheila again, this time betweensmall set teeth. 

"Well, my girl, wait. That'll cool you off. "

Sheila stood and felt the violent beating of her heart. A log in the wallsnapped from the bitter frost. 

"Miss Blake, " she said presently, a pitiful young quaver in her voice, "if you don't beg my pardon I'll go to-morrow. "

Miss Blake flung her book down with a gesture of impatience. "Oh, quityour nonsense, Sheila!" she said. "What's a shaking! You know you can'tget out of here. It'd take you a week to get anywhere at all except intoa frozen supper for the coyotes. Your beau's left the country--Maddertold me at the post-office. Make the best of it, Sheila. Lucky if youdon't get worse than that before spring. You'll get used to me in time, get broken in and learn my ways. I'm not half bad, but I've got to beobeyed. I've got to be master. That's me. What do you think I've come'way out here to the wilderness for, if not because I can't standanything less than being master? Here I've got my place and my dogs and aworld that don't talk back. And now I've got you for company and to do mywork. You've got to fall into line, Sheila, right in the ranks. Once, some one out there in the world"--she made a gesture, dropped her chin onher big chest, and looked out under her short, dense, rust-coloredeyelashes--"tried to break _me_. I won't tell you what he got. That'swhere I quit the ways of women--yes, ma'am, and the ways of men. " Shestood up and walked over to the window and looked out. The dogs weresleeping in their kennels, but a chain rattled. "I've broke thewolf-pack. You've seen them wriggle on their bellies for me, haven't you?Well, my girl, do you think I can't break you?" She wheeled back andstood with her hands on her hips. It was at that moment that she seemedto fill the world. Her ruddy eyes glowed like blood. They were not quitesane. That was it. Sheila went suddenly weak. They were not _quite_sane--those red eyes filled with sparks. 

The girl stepped back and sat down in her chair. She bent forward, pressed her hands flat together, palm to palm between her knees, andstared fixedly down at them. She made no secret of her desperatepreoccupation. 

Miss Blake's face softened a little at this withdrawal. She came back toher place and resumed her spectacles. 

"I'll tell you why I'm snappy, " she said presently. "I'm scared. "

This startled Sheila into a look. Miss Blake was moistening her lips. "That horse--you know--the coyotes got him. I guess he went down and theyfell upon him. Well, he was to feed the dogs with until I could get mywinter meat. "

"What do you mean?"

"That's what I buy 'em for. Little old horses, for a couple of bits, and work 'em out and shoot 'em for dog-feed. Well, Sheila, when they'refed, they're dogs. But when they're starved--they're wolves . . . And Ican't think what's come to the elk this year. To-morrow I'll take out mylittle old gun. "

To-morrow and the next day and the next she took her gun and strapped onher shoes and went out for all day long into the cold. Each time she cameback more exhausted and more fierce. Sheila would have her supper readyand waiting sometimes for hours. 

"The dogs have scared 'em off, " said Miss Blake. "That must be thetruth. " She let the pack hunt for itself at night, and they came backsometimes with bloody jaws. But the prey must have been small, for theywere not satisfied. They grew more and more gaunt and wolfish. They wouldhowl for hours, wailing and yelping in ragged cadence to the stars. Table-scraps and brews of Indian meal vanished and left their belliesalmost as empty as before. 

"And, " said Miss Blake, "we got to eat, ourselves. "

"Hadn't we better go down to the post-office or to Rusty?" Sheila askednervously. 

Miss Blake snapped at her. "Harness that team now? As much as your lifeis worth, Sheila! And we can't make it on foot. We'd drop in our tracksand freeze. If it comes to the worst we may have to try it, but--oh, I'llget something to-morrow. "

But to-morrow brought no better luck. During the hunting the dogs wereleft on their chains, and Sheila, through the lonely hours, would watchthem through the window and could almost see the wolfishness grow intheir deep, wild eyes. She would try to talk to them, pat them, coax theminto doggy-ness. But day by day they responded more unwillingly. All butBerg: Berg stayed with her in the house, lay on her feet, leaned againsther knee. He shared her meals. He was beginning to swing his heart fromMiss Blake to her, and this was the second cause for strife. 

Since that one outbreak, Sheila had gone carefully. She was dignified, aloof, very still. She obeyed and slaved as she had never done in thesummer days. The dread of physical violence hung on her brain like acloud. She encouraged Berg's affection, and wondered, if it came to astruggle, whether he would side with her. She was given the opportunityto put this matter to the test. 

Miss Blake was very late that night. It was midnight, a stark midnight ofstars and biting cold, when Berg stood up from his sleep and barked hislow, short bark of welcome. Outside the other dogs broke into theirclamor, drowning all other sound, and in the midst of it the door flewrudely open. Miss Blake stood and clung to the side of the door. Her facewas bluish-white. She put out her hand toward Sheila, clutching the air. Sheila ran over to her. 

"You're hurt?"

"Twisted my blamed ankle. God!" She hobbled over, a heavy arm roundSheila, to her chair and sat there while the girl gave her some brandy, removed the snowshoes, and cut away the boot from a swollen anddiscolored leg. 

"That's the end of my hunting, " grunted the patient, who bore the agonyof rubbing and bathing stoically. "And, I reckon, I couldn't have stoodmuch more. " She clenched her hand in Berg's mane. "God! Those dogs! I'llhave to shoot them--next. " Sheila looked up to her with a sort ofhorrified hope. There was then a way out from that fear. 

"I'd rather die, I think, " said the woman hoarsely. "I love those dogs. "Sheila looked up into a tender and quivering face--the face of a mother. "They mean something to me--those brutes. I guess I kind of centered myheart on 'em--out here alone. I raised 'em up, from puppies, all but Bergand the mother. They were the cutest little fellows. I remember whenWreck got porcupine quills in his nose and came to me and lay on his backand whined to me. It was as if he said, 'Help me, momma. ' Sure it was. And he pretty near died. Oh, damn! If I have to shoot 'em I might just aswell shoot myself and be done with it. . . Thanks, Sheila. I'll eat mysupper here and then you can help me to bed. When my ankle's all well, wecan have a try for the post-office, perhaps. " She leaned back and drewBerg roughly up against her. She caressed him. He made little soft, throaty sounds of tenderness. 

Sheila came back with a tray and, as she came, Berg pulled himself awayfrom his mistress and went wagging over to greet her. 

"Come here!" snapped Miss Blake. Berg hesitated, cuddled close to Sheila, and kept step beside her. 

Miss Blake's eyes went red. "Come here!" she said again. Berg did notcringe or hasten. He reached Miss Blake's chair at the same instant asSheila, not a moment earlier. 

Miss Blake pulled herself up. The tray went shattering to the floor. Shehobbled over to the fire, white with the anguish, took down the whip fromits nail. At that Berg cringed and whined. The woman fell upon him withher terrible lash. She held herself with one hand on the mantel-shelf, while with the other she scored the howling victim. His fur came off hisback under the dreadful, knife-edge blows. 

"Oh, stop!" cried Sheila. "Stop! You're killing him!" She ran over andcaught Miss Blake's arm. 

"Damn you!" said the woman fiercely. She stood breathing fast. Sweatof pain and rage and exertion stood out on her face. "Do _you_ wantthat whip?"

She half-turned, lifting her lash, and at that, with a snarl, Bergcrouched himself and bared his teeth. 

Miss Blake started and stared at him. Suddenly she gave in. Pain andanger twisted her spirit. 

"You'd turn my Berg against me!" she choked, and fell heavily down on therug in a dead faint. 

When she came to she was grim and silent. She got herself with scanthelp to bed, her big bed in the corner of the living-room, and for a weekshe was kept there with fever and much pain. Berg lay beside her orfollowed Sheila about her work, and the woman watched them both withruddy eyes. 

CHAPTER XI

THE PACK

In January a wind blew steadily from the east and snow came as if tobury them alive. The cabin turned to a cave, a small square of warmthunder a mountain of impenetrable white; one door and one window only, opening to a space of sun. Against the others the blank white lids ofwinter pressed. Sheila shoveled this space out sometimes twice a day. The dog kennels were moved into it, and stood against the side of asnow-bank eight feet high, up which, when they were unchained, thegaunt, wolfish animals leapt in a loosely formed pack, the great mother, Brenda, at their head, and padded off into the silent woods in theirhungry search for food. 

But, one day, they refused to go. Miss Blake, her whip in her hand, limped out. The snow had stopped. The day was still and bright againabove the snowy firs, the mountain scraped against the blue sky like acliff of broken ice. The dogs had crept out of their houses and weresquatted or huddled in the sun. As she came out they rose and strained attheir tethers. One of them whined. Brenda, the mother, bared her teeth. One by one, as they were freed, they slunk close to Miss Blake, lookingup into her face. They crowded close at her heels as she went back to thehouse. She had to push the door to in their very jaws and they pressedagainst it, their heads hung low, sniffing the odor of food. Presently along-drawn, hideous howling rose from them. Time and again Miss Blakedrove them away with lash and voice. Time and again they came back. Theyscratched at the threshold, whimpered, and whined. 

Sheila and Miss Blake gave them what food they would have eatenthemselves that day. It served only to excite their restlessness, to holdthem there at the crack of the door, snuffling and slobbering. The outercircle slept, the inner watched. Then they would shift, like sentries. They had a horrible sort of system. Most of that dreadful afternoon MissBlake paced the floor, trying to strengthen her ankle for the trip to thepost-office. At sunset, when the small snow-banked room was nearly dark, she stopped, threw up her head, and looked at Sheila. The girl wassitting on the lowest step of the ladder washing some dried apples. Herface had thinned to a silvery wedge between the thick square masses ofher hair. There was a haunted look in her clear eyes. The soft mouth hadtightened. 

"How in God's name, " said Miss Blake, "shall I get 'em on theirchains again?"

Sheila stopped her work, and her lips fell helplessly apart. She lookedup at the older woman and shook her head. 

Miss Blake's fear snapped into a sort of frenzy. She gritted her teethand stamped. "You simpleton!" she said. "You never have a notion inyour head. "

Sheila stood up quickly. Something told her that she had better be on herfeet. She kept very still. "You will know better than I could what to doabout the dogs, " she said quietly. "They'll go back on their chains foryou, I should think. They're afraid of you. "

"Aren't you?" Miss Blake asked roughly. 

"No. Of course not. "

"You little liar! You're scared half out of your wits. You're scared ofthe whole thing--scared of the snow, scared of the cold, scared of thedogs, and scared sick of me. Come, now. Tell me the truth. "

It was almost her old bluff, bullying tone, but back of it was adisorder of stretched nerves. Sheila weighed her words and tried toweigh her thoughts. 

"I don't think I am afraid, Miss Blake. Why should I be afraid of thedogs, if you aren't? And why should I be afraid of you? You have beengood to me. You are a good woman. "

At this Miss Blake threw back her head and laughed. She was terribly likeone of the dogs howling. There was something wild and wolfish in herbroad neck and in the sound she made. And she snapped back into silencewith wolfish suddenness. 

"If you're not scared, then, " she scoffed, "go and chain up the dogsyourself. "

For an instant Sheila quite calmly balanced the danger out of doorsagainst the danger within. 

"I think, " she said--and managed one of her drifting smiles--"I think Iam a great deal more afraid of the dogs than I am of you, Miss Blake. "

The woman studied her for a minute in silence, then she walked over toher elk-horn throne and sat down on it. 

She leaned back in a royal way and spread her dark broad hands across thearms. 

"Well, " she said coolly, "did you hear what I said? Go out and chain upthe dogs!"

Sheila held herself like a slim little cavalier. "If I go out, " she saidcoolly, "I will not take a whip. I'll take a gun. "

"And shoot my dogs?"

"Miss Blake, what else is left for us to do? We can't let them claw downthe door and tear us into bits, can we?"

"You'd shoot my dogs?"

"You said yourself that we might have to shoot them. "

Miss Blake gave her a stealthy and cunning look. "Take my gun, then"--hervoice rose to a key that was both crafty and triumphant--"and much goodit will do you! There's shot enough to kill one if you are a first-rateshot. I lost what was left of my ammunition the day I hurt my ankle. Thenew stuff is down at the post-office by now, I guess. "

The long silence was filled by the shifting of the dog-watch outside thedoor. 

"We must chain them up at any cost, " said Sheila. Her lips were dry andfelt cold to her tongue. 

"Go out and do it, then. " The mistress of the house leaned back andcrossed her ankles. 

"Miss Blake, be reasonable. You have a great deal of control over thedogs and I have none. I _am_ afraid of them and they will know it. Animals always know when you're afraid. . . " Again she managed a smile. "I shall begin to think you are a coward, " she said. 

At that Miss Blake stood up from her chair. Her face was red with aviolent rush of blood and the sparks in her eyes seemed to have brokeninto flame. 

"Very good, Miss, " she said brutally. "I'll go out and chain 'em up andthen I'll come back and thrash you to a frazzle. Then you'll know how toobey my orders next time. "

She caught up her whip, swung it in her hand, and strode to the door. 

"And mind you, Sheila, you won't be able to hide yourself from me. Normake a getaway. I'll lock this door outside and winter's locked theother. You wait. You'll see what you'll get for calling me a coward. Yourfriend Berg's gone off on a long hunt . . . He's left his friends outsidethere and he's left you. . . . Understand?"

She shouted roughly to the dogs, snapped her whip, threw open the door, and stepped out boldly. She shut the door behind her and shot a bolt. Itcreaked as though it had grown rusty with disuse. 

In the stillness--for, except for a quick shuffling of paws, there was nosound at first--Sheila chose her weapon of defense. She took down fromits place the Eskimo ivory spear, and, holding it short in her hand, sheput herself behind the great elk-horn chair. Her Celtic blood waspounding gloriously now. She was not afraid; though if there had beentime to notice it, she would have confessed to an abysmal sense of horrorand despair. And again she wondered at her own loneliness and youth andthe astounding danger that she faced. Yes, it was more astonishment thanany other emotion that possessed her consciousness. The horror was belowthe threshold practicing its part. 

Then anger, astonishment, horror itself were suddenly thrown out of her. She was left like an empty vessel waiting to be filled with fear. MissBlake had cried aloud, "Help, Sheila! Help!" This was followed by adreadful screaming. Sheila dropped her spear and leapt to the door. Onit, outside, Miss Blake beat and screamed, "Open, for God's sake!"

Sheila shouted in as dreadful a key. "On your side--the bolt! MissBlake--the bolt!"

Fingers clawed at the bolt, but it would not slip. Through all thehorrible sounds the woman made, Sheila could hear the snarling andleaping and snapping of the dogs. She dashed to the small, tight window, broke a pane with her fist, and thrust out her arm. She meant to reachthe bolt, but what she saw took the warm life out of her. Miss Blake hadgone down under the whirling, slobbering pack. The screaming had stopped. In that one awful look the poor child saw that no human help could save. She dropped down on the floor and lay there moaning, her hands pressedover her ears. . . . 

So she lay, shuddering and gasping, the great part of the night. At lastthe intense cold drove her to the fire. She heaped up the logs high andhung close above them. Her very heart was cold. Liquid ice movedsluggishly along her veins. The morning brought no comfort or courage toher, only a freshening of horror and of fear. The dogs had gone, and allthe winter world lay still about the house. 

She was shaken by a regular pulse of nervous sobbing. But, driven by asort of restlessness, she made herself coffee and forced some food downher contracted throat. Then she put on her coat, took down Miss Blake'ssix-shooter and cartridge belt, and saw, with a slight relaxing of thecramp about her heart, that there were four shots in the chamber. Fourshots and eight dogs, but--at least--she could save herself from _that_death! She strapped the gun round her slim hips, filled her pockets withsupplies--a box of dried raisins, some hard bread, a cake of chocolate, some matches--pulled her cap down over her ears, and took her snowshoesfrom the wall. With closed eyes she put her arm out through the brokenpane, and, after a short struggle, slipped the rusty bolt. Then she wentover to the door and, leaning against it, prayed. Even with themysterious strength she drew from that sense of kinship with a superhumanPower, it was a long time before she could force herself to open. Atlast, with a big gasp, she flung the door wide, skirted the house, herhands against the logs, her eyes shut, ran across the open space, scrambled up the drift, tied on her snowshoes, and fled away under thesnow-laden pines. There moved in all the wilderness that day no morehunted and fearful a thing. 

The fresh snow sunk a little under her webs, but she was a featherweightof girlhood, and made quicker and easier progress than would have beenpossible to any one else but a child. And her fear gave her both strengthand speed. Sometimes she looked back over her shoulder; always shestrained her ears for the pad of following feet. It was a day of rainbowsand of diamond spray, where the sun struck the shaken snow sifted fromoverweighted branches. Sheila remembered well enough the route to thepost-office. It meant miles of weary plodding, but she thought that shecould do it before night. If not, she would travel by starlight and thewan reflection of the snow. There was no darkness in these clear, keennights. She would not tell herself what gave her strength such impetus. She thought resolutely of the post-office, of the old, friendly man, ofhis stove, of his chairs and his picture of the President, of his gunlaid across two nails against his kitchen wall--all this, not more thaneighteen miles away! And she thought of Hilliard, too; of his youngstrength and the bold young glitter of his eyes. 

She stopped for a minute at noon to drink some water from Hidden Creekand to eat a bite or so of bread. She was pulling on her gloves againwhen a distant baying first reached her ears. She turned faint, seemed tostand in a mist; then, with her teeth set defiantly, she started again, faster and steadier, her body bent forward, her head turned back. Beforeher now lay a great stretch of undulating, unbroken white. At its fartheredge the line of blue-black pines began again. She strained her steps toreach this shelter. The baying had been very faint and far away--it mighthave been sounded for some other hunting. She would make the woods, takeoff her webs, climb up into a tree and, perhaps, attracted by those fourshots--no, three, she must save one--some trapper, some unimaginablewanderer in the winter forest, would come to her and rescue her beforethe end. So her mind twisted itself with hope. But, an hour later, withthe pines not very far away, the baying rose so close behind that itstopped her heart. Twenty minutes had passed when above a rise of groundshe saw the shaggy, trotting black-gray body of Brenda, the leader of thepack. She was running slowly, her nose close to the snow, casting alittle right and left over the tracks. Sheila counted eight--Berg, then, had joined them. She thought that she could distinguish him in the rear. It was now late afternoon, and the sun slanted driving back the shadowsof the nearing trees, of Sheila, of the dogs. It all seemedfantastic--the weird beauty of the scene, the weird horror of it. Sheilareckoned the distance before her, reckoned the speed of the dogs. Sheknew now that there was no hope. Ahead of her rose a sharp, suddenslope--she could never make it. There came to her quite suddenly, like agift, a complete release from fear. She stopped and wheeled. It seemedthat the brutes had not yet seen her. They were nose down at the scent. One by one they vanished in a little dip of ground, one by one theyreappeared, two yards away. Sheila pulled out her gun, deliberately aimedand fired. 

A spurt of snow showed that she had aimed short. But the loud, suddenreport made Brenda swerve. All the dogs stopped and slunk togethercircling, their haunches lowered. Wreck squatted, threw up his head, andhowled. Sheila spoke to them, clear and loud, her young voice ringing outinto that loneliness. 

"You Berg! Good dog! Come here. "

One of the shaggy animals moved toward her timidly, looking back, pausing. Brenda snarled. 

"Berg, come here, boy!"

Sheila patted her knee. At this the big dog whined, cringed, and beganto swarm up the slope toward her on his belly. His eyes shifted, thestruggle of his mind was pitifully visible--pack-law, pack-power, thewolf-heart and the wolf-belly, and against them that queer hunger for thelove and the touch of man. Sheila could not tell if it were hunger orloyalty that was creeping up to her in the body of the beast. She kepther gun leveled on him. When he had come to within two feet of her, hepaused. Then, from behind him rose the starved baying of his brothers. Sheila looked up. They were bounding toward her, all wolf these--but moredangerous after their taste of human blood than wolves--to the bristlinghair along their backs and the bared fangs. Again she fired. This timeshe struck Wreck's paw. He lifted it and howled. She fired again. Brendasnapped sideways at her shoulder, but was not checked. There was one shotleft. Sheila knew how it must be used. Quickly she turned the muzzle uptoward her own head. 

Then behind her came a sharp, loud explosion. Brenda leapt high intothe air and fell at Sheila's feet. At that first rifle-shot, Berg fledwith shadow swiftness through the trees. For the rest, it was as thougha magic wall had stopped them, as though, at a certain point, they fellupon death. Crack, crack, crack--one after another, they came up, leapt, and dropped, choking and bleeding on the snow. At the end Sheilaturned blindly. A yard behind her and slightly above her there underthe pines stood Hilliard, very pale, his gun tucked under his arm, thesmoking muzzle lowered. Weakly she felt her way up toward him, gropingwith her hands. 

He slid down noiselessly on his long skis and she stood clinging to hisarm, looking up dumbly into his strained face. 

"I heard your shots, " he said breathlessly. "You're within a hundredyards of my house. . . . For months I've been trying to make up my mind tocome to you. God forgive me, Sheila, for not coming before!"

Swinging his gun on its strap across his shoulder, he lifted her in hisarms, and, like a child, she was carried through the silence of thewoods, all barred with blood-red glimmers from a setting sun. 

CHAPTER XII

THE GOOD OLD WORLD AGAIN

Hilliard carried Sheila into the house that he had built for her and laidher down in that big bedroom that "got the morning sun. " For a while itseemed to him that she would never open her eyes again, and when she didregain consciousness she was so prostrate with her long fear and theshock of Miss Blake's death that she lay there too weak to smile orspeak, too weak almost to breathe. Hilliard turned nurse, a puzzled, anxious nurse. He would sit up in his living-room half the night, andwhen sleep overpowered his anxiety he would fall prone on the elk-hiderug before his fire. 

At last Sheila pulled herself up and crept about the house. She spenta day in the big log chair before Hilliard's hearth, looking very wan, shrinking from speech, her soft mouth gray and drawn. 

"Aren't you ever going to smile for me again?" he asked her, after a longhalf-hour during which he had stood as still as stone, his arm along thepine mantelshelf, looking at her from the shelter of a propping hand. 

She lifted her face to him and made a pitiful effort enough. But itbrought tears. They ran down her cheeks, and she leaned back and closedher lids, but the crystal drops forced themselves out, clung to herlashes, and fell down on her clenched hands. Hilliard went over to herand took the small, cold hands in both of his. 

"Tell me about what happened, Sheila, " he begged her. "It will help. "

Word by difficult word, he still holding fast to her hands, she sobbedand gasped out her story, to which he listened with a whitening face. Hegripped her hands tighter, then, toward the end, he rose with a sharpoath, lit his cigarette, paced to and fro. 

"God!" he said at the last. "And she told you I had gone from thecountry! The devil! I can't help saying it, Sheila--she tortured you. Shedeserved what God sent her. "

"Oh, no!"--Sheila rocked to and fro--"no one could deserve such dreadfulterror and pain. She--she wasn't sane. I was--foolish to trust her . . . Iam so foolish--I think I must be too young or too stupid for--for allthis. I thought the world would be a much safer place. " She looked upagain, and speech had given her tormented nerves relief, for her eyeswere much more like her own, clear and young again. "Mr. Hilliard--whatshall I do with my life, I wonder? I've lost my faith and trustingness. I'm horribly afraid. "

He stood before her and spoke in a gentle and reasonable tone. "I'll tellyou the answer to that, ma'am, " he said. "I've thought that all outwhile I've been taking care of you. "

She waited anxiously with parted lips. 

"Well, ma'am, you see--it's like this. I'm plumb ashamed of myselfthrough and through for the way I have acted toward you. I was a fool tolisten to that dern lunatic. She told me--lies about you. "

"Miss Blake did?"

"Yes, ma'am. " His face crimsoned under her look. 

Sheila closed her eyes and frowned. A faint pink stole up into her face. She lifted her lids again and he saw the brightness of anger. "And, ofcourse, you took her lies for the truth?"

"Oh, damn! Now you're mad with me and you won't listen to my plan!"

He was so childish in this outbreak that Sheila was moved to dimamusement. "I'm too beaten to be angry at anything, " she said. "Just tellme your plan. "

"No, " he said sullenly. "I'll wait. I'm scared to tell you now!"

She did not urge him, and it was not till the next morning that he spokeabout his plan. She had got out to her chair again and had made apretense of eating an ill-cooked mess of canned stuff which he hadbrought to her on a tray. It was after he had taken this breakfast awaythat he broke out as though his excitement had forced a lock. 

"I'm going down to Rusty to-day, " he said. His eyes were shining. Helooked at her boldly enough now. 

"And take me?" Sheila half-started up. "And take me?"

"No, ma'am. You're to stay here safe and snug. " She dropped back. "I'llleave everything handy for you. There's enough food here for an armyand enough fuel. . . . You're as safe here as though you were at the footof God's throne. Don't look like that, girl. I can't take you. You'renot strong enough to make the journey in this cold, even on a sled. Andwe can't"--his voice sunk and his eyes fell--"we can't go on like this, I reckon. "

"N-no. " Sheila's forehead was puckered. Her fingers trembled on the armsof her chair. "N-no. . . . " Then, with a sort of quaver, she added, "Oh, whycan't we go on like this?--till the snow goes and I can travel with you!"

"Because, " he said roughly, "we can't. You take my word for it. " After apause he went on in his former decisive tone. "I'll be back in two orthree days. I'll fetch the parson. "

Sheila sat up straight. 

His eyes held hers. "Yes, ma'am. The parson. I'm going to marryyou, Sheila. "

She repeated this like a lesson. "You are going to marry me. . . . "

"Yes, ma'am. You'll have three days to think it over. If you don't wantto marry me when the parson comes, why, you can just go back to Rustywith him. " He laughed a little, came over to her, put a hand on each armof her chair, and bent down. She shrank back before him. His eyes had theglitter of a hawk's, and his red and beautiful lips were soft and eagerand--again--a little cruel. 

"No, " he said, "I won't kiss you till I come back--not even for good-bye. Then you'll know how I feel about you. You'll know that I believe thatyou're a good girl and, Sheila"--here he seemed to melt and falterbefore her: he slipped down with one of his graceful Latin movements andhid his forehead on her knees--"Sheila, my _darling_--that I know you arefit--oh, so much more than fit--to be the mother of my children . . . "

In half an hour, during which they were both profoundly silent, he cameto her again. He was ready for his journey. She was sitting far back inher chair, her slim legs stretched out. She raised inscrutable eyeswide to his. 

"Good-bye, " he said softly. "It's hard to leave you. Good-bye. "

She said good-bye even more softly with no change in her look. And hewent out, looking at her over his shoulder till the last second. Sheheard the voice of his skis, hissing across the hard crust of the snow. She sat there stiff and still till the great, wordless silence settleddown again. Then she started up from her chair, ran across to the window, and saw that he was indeed gone. She came storming back and threwherself down upon the hide. She cried like a deserted child. 

"Oh, Cosme, I'm afraid to be alone! I'm afraid! Why did I let you go?Come back! Oh, please come back!"

 * * * * *

It was late that night when Hilliard reached Rusty, traveling with allhis young strength across the easy, polished surface of the world. He wasdog-tired. He went first to the saloon. Then to the post-office. To hisastonishment he found a letter. It was postmarked New York and herecognized the small, cramped hand of the family lawyer. He took theletter up to his bedroom in the Lander Hotel and sat on the bed, turningthe square envelope about in his hands. At last, he opened it. 

"MY DEAR COSME [the lawyer had written . . . He had known Hilliard as achild], It is my strong hope that this letter will reach you promptly andsafely at the address you sent me. Your grandfather's death, on thefifteenth instant, leaves you, as you are no doubt aware, heir to hisfortune, reckoned at about thirty millions. If you will wire on receiptof this and follow wire in person as soon as convenient, it will greatlyfacilitate arrangements. It is extremely important that you should comeat once. Every day makes things more complicated . . . In the managementof the estate. I remain, with congratulations, "Sincerely your friend, . . . "

The young man sat there, dazed. 

He had always known about those millions; the expectation of them hadalways vaguely dazzled his imagination, tampered more than he was awarewith the sincerity of his feelings, with the reality of his life; but nowthe shower of gold had fallen all about him and his fancy stretched itseyes to take in the immediate glitter. 

Why, thought Hilliard, this turns life upside down . . . I can begin tolive . . . I can go East. He saw that the world and its gifts were as trulyhis as though he were a fairy prince. A sort of confusion of highlycolored pictures danced through his quick and ignorant brain. The bloodpounded in his ears. He got up and prowled about the little room. It wasoppressively small. He felt caged. The widest prairie would have givenhim scant elbow-room. He was planning his trip to the East when thethought of Sheila first struck him like a cold wave . . . Or rather it wasas if the wave of his selfish excitement had crashed against the wave ofhis desire for her. All was foam and confusion in his spirit. He wasquite incapable of self-sacrifice--a virtue in which his free life andhis temperament had given him little training. It was simply a war ofimpulses. His instinct was to give up nothing--to keep hold of everygift. He wanted, as he had never in his life wanted anything before, tohave his fling. He wanted his birthright of experience. He had cuthimself off from all the gentle ways of his inheritance and lived like avery Ishmael through no fault of his own. Now, it seemed to him thatbefore he settled down to the soberness of marriage, he must take onehasty, heady, compensating draft of life, of the sort of life he mighthave had. He would go East, go at once; he would fling himself into atumultuous bath of pleasure, and then he would come back to Sheila andlay a great gift of gold at her feet. He thought over his plans, reconstructing them. He got pen and ink and wrote a letter to Sheila. Hewrote badly--a schoolboy's inexpressive letter. But he told his story andhis astounding news and drew a vivid enough picture of the havoc it hadwrought in his simplicity. He used a lover's language, but his letter wasas cold and lumpish as a golden ingot. And yet the writer was not cold. He was throbbing and distraught, confused and overthrown, a boy offourteen beside himself at the prospect of a holiday . . . It was a stolenholiday, to be sure, a sort of truancy from manliness, but none the lessintoxicating for that. Cosme's Latin nature was on top; Saxon loyalty andconscience overthrown. He was an egoist to his finger-tips that night. Hedid not sleep a wink, did not even try, but lay on his back across thebed, hands locked over his hair while "visions of sugar plums dancedthrough his head. " In the morning he went down and made his arrangementsfor Sheila, a little less complete, perhaps, than he had intended, for hemet a worthy citizen of Rusty starting up the country with a sled tovisit his traps and to him he gave the letter and confided hisperplexities. It was a hasty interview, for the stage was about to start. 

"My wife will sure take your girl and welcome; don't even have to askher, " the kind-eyed old fellow assured Hilliard. "We'll be glad to haveher for a couple of months. She'll like the kids. It'll be home for her. Yes, sir"--he patted the excited traveler on the shoulder--"you pileinto the stage and don't you worry any. I'll be up at your place beforenight and bring the lady down on my sled. Yes, sir. Pile in and don'tyou worry any. "

Cosme wrung his hand, avoided his clear eye, and climbed up beside thedriver on the stage. He did not look after the trapper. He staredahead beyond the horses to the high white hill against a low and heavysky of clouds. 

"There's a big snowstorm a comin' down, " growled the driver. "Lucky if wemake The Hill to-day. A reg'lar oldtimer it's agoin' to be. Andcold--ugh!"

Cosme hardly heard this speech. The gray world was a golden ball for himto spin at his will. Midas had touched the snow. The sleigh started witha jerk and a jingle. In a moment it was running lightly with a crisp, cutting noise. Cosme's thoughts outran it, leaping toward their gaudygoal . . . A journey out to life and a journey back to love--no wonder hisgolden eyes shone and his cheeks flushed. 

"You look almighty glad to be going out of here, " the driver madecomment. 

Hilliard laughed an explosive and excited laugh. "No almighty gladderthan I shall be to be coming back again, " he prophesied. 

But to prophesy is a mistake. One should leave the future humbly on theknees of the gods. That night, when Hilliard was lying wakeful in hisberth listening to the click of rails, the old trapper lay under thedriving snow. But he was not wakeful. He slept with no visions of gold orlove, a frozen and untroubled sleep. He had caught his foot in a trap, and the blizzard had found him there and had taken mercy on his pain. They did not find his body until spring, and then Cosme's letter toSheila lay wet and withered in his pocket. 

CHAPTER XIII

LONELINESS

The first misery of loneliness takes the form of a restless inability toconcentrate. It is as if the victim wanted to escape from himself. AfterCosme's departure Sheila prowled about the silent cabin, began this bitof work and that, dropped it, found herself staring vaguely, listening, waiting, and nervously shook herself into activity again. She tried towhistle, but it seemed like somebody else's music and frightened herears. At dusk she fastened sacking across the uncurtained windows, lighted both Cosme's lamps, bringing the second from her bedroom, andheaped up a dancing and jubilant fire upon the hearth. In the midst ofthis illumination she sat, very stiff and still, in the angularelk-hide-covered chair, and knitted her hands together on her knee. Hermind was now intensely active; memories, thoughts, plans, fancies racingfast and furious like screen pictures across her brain. And they seemedto describe themselves in loud whispers. She had difficulty in keepingthese voices from taking possession of her tongue. 

"I don't want to talk to myself, " she murmured, and glanced overher shoulder. 

A man has need of his fellows for a shield. Man is man's shelter fromall the storm of unanswered questions. Where am I? What am I? Why amI?--No reply. No reassuring double to take away the ghost-sense of self, that unseen, intangible aura of personality in which each of us moves asin a cloud. In the souls of some there is an ever-present Man God whowill forever save them from this supreme experience. Sheila's religion, vague, conventional, childish, faltered away from her soul. Except forher fire, which had a sort of sympathy of life and warmth and motion, shewas unutterably alone. And she was beginning to suffer from the secondmisery of solitude--a sense of being many personalities instead of one. She seemed to be entertaining a little crowd of confused andargumentative Sheilas. To silence them she fixed her mind on herimmediate problem. 

She tried to draw Hilliard close to her heart. She had an honest hungerfor his warm and graceful beauty, for his young strength, but thisnatural hunger continually shocked her. She tried not to remember thesmoothness of his neck as her half-conscious hands had slipped away fromit that afternoon when he raised her from the snow. It seemed to her thather desire for him was centered somewhere in her body. Her mind remainedcool, detached, critical, even hostile. She disliked the manner of hiswooing--not that there should have been any insult to the pride of anameless little adventurer, Hudson's barmaid, a waif, in being told thatshe was a "good girl" and fit to be the mother of this young man'schildren. But Sheila knew instinctively that these things could not besaid, could not even be thought of by such a man as Marcus Arundel. Sheremembered his words about her mother. . . . Sheila wanted with a greatlonging to be loved like that, to be so spoken of, so exquisitelyentreated. A phrase in Hudson's letter came to her mind, "I handled youin my heart like a flower" . . . Unconsciously she pressed her hand againsther lips, remembered the taste of whiskey and of blood. If only it hadbeen Dickie's lips that had first touched her own. Blinding tears fell. The memory of Dickie's comfort, of Dickie's tremulous restraint, had astrange poignancy. . . . Why was he so different from all the rest? So muchmore like her father? What was there in this pale little hotel clerk whodrank too much that lifted him out and up into a sort of radiance? Hermemory of Dickie was always white--the whiteness of that moonlight oftheir first, of that dawn of their last, meeting. He had had no chance inhis short, unhappy, and restricted life--not half the chance that youngHilliard's life had given him--to learn such delicate appreciations, suchtenderness, such reserves. Where had he got his delightful, gentlewhimsicalities, that sweet, impersonal detachment that refused to yieldto stupid angers and disgusts? He was like--in Dickie's own fashion shefumbled for a simile. But there was no word. She thought of a star, thatmorning star he had drawn her over to look at from the window of hersitting-room. Perhaps the artist in Sylvester had expressed itself inthis son he so despised; perhaps Dickie was, after all, Hudson's greatwork . . . All sorts of meanings and symbols pelted Sheila's brain as shesat there, exciting and fevering her nerves. 

In three days Hilliard would be coming back. His warm youth wouldagain fill the house, pour itself over her heart. After the silence, his voice would be terribly persuasive, after the loneliness, his eager, golden eyes would be terribly compelling! He was going to "fetch theparson" . . . Sheila actually wrung her hands. Only three days for thisdecision and, without a decision, that awful, helpless wandering, thosedangers, those rash confidences of hers. "O God, where are you? Why don'tyou help me now?" That was Sheila's prayer. It gave her little comfort, but she did fall asleep from the mental exhaustion to which it brought atleast the relief of expression. 

When she woke, she found the world a horrible confusion of storm. Itcould hardly be called morning--a heavy, flying darkness of drift, a windfilled with icy edges that stung the face and cut the eyes, a wind withthe voice of a driven saw. The little cabin was caught in the whirlingheart of a snow spout twenty feet high. The firs bent and groaned. Thereis a storm-fear, one of the inherited instinctive fears. Sheila's littleface looked out of the whipped windows with a pinched and shrinkingstare. She went from window to hearth, looking and listening, all day. Adrift was blown in under the door and hardly melted for all the blazingfire. That night she couldn't go to bed. She wrapped herself in blanketsand curled herself up in the chair, nodding and starting in the circle ofthe firelight. 

For three terrible days the world was lost in snow. Before the end ofthat time Sheila was talking to herself and glad of the sound of her ownhurried little voice. Then, like God, came a beautiful stillness and thesun. She opened the door on the fourth morning and saw, above the fresh, soft, ascending dazzle of the drift, a sky that laughed in azure, thegreen, snow-laden firs, a white and purple peak. She spread out her handsto feel the sun and found it warm. She held it like a friendly hand. Sheforced herself that day to shovel, to sweep, even to eat. Perhaps Cosmewould be back before night. He and the parson would have waited for thestorm to be over before they made their start. She believed in her ownexcuses for five uneasy days, and then she believed in the worst of allher fears. She had a hundred to choose from--Cosme's desertion, Cosme'sdeath. . . . One day she spent walking to and fro with her nails driven intoher palms. 

 * * * * *

Late that night the white world dipped into the still influence of a fullwhite moon. Before Hilliard's cabin the great firs caught the light witha deepening flush of green, their shadows fell in even lavender tracerydelicate and soft across the snow, across the drifted roof. The smokefrom the half-buried chimney turned to a moving silver plume across theblue of the winter night sky--intense and warm as though it reflected anAugust lake. 

The door of the cabin opened with a sharp thrust and Sheila steppedout. She walked quickly through the firs and stood on the edge of theopen range-land, beyond and below which began the dark ridge of theprimeval woods. She stood perfectly still and lifted her face to thesky. For all the blaze of the moon the greater stars danced inradiance. Their constellations sloped nobly across her dazzled vision. She had come very close to madness, and now her brain was dumb anddark as though it had been shut into a blank-walled cell. She stoodwith her hands hanging. She had no will nor wish to pray. The knowledgehad come to her that if she went out and looked this winter Pan in theface, her brain would snap, either to life or death. It would burst itsprison . . . She stared, wide-eyed, dry-eyed, through the immense coldheight of air up at the stars. 

All at once a door flew open in her soul and she knew God . . . No visiblepresence and yet an enveloping reality, the God of the savage earth, ofthe immense sky, of the stars, the God unsullied and untempted by man'sworship, no God that she had ever known, had ever dreamed of, had everprayed to before. She did not pray to Him now. She let her soul standopen till it was filled as were the stars and the earth with light. . . . 

The next day Sheila found her voice and sang at her work. She gaveherself an overwhelming task of cleaning and scrubbing. She was on herknees like a charwoman, sniffing the strong reek of suds, when there camea knocking at her door. She leapt up with pounding heart. But theknocking was more like a scraping and it was followed by a low whine. Fora second Sheila's head filled with a fog of terror and then came a homelylittle begging bark, just the throaty, snuffling sob of a homeless puppy. Sheila took Cosme's six-shooter, saw that it was loaded, and, standing inthe shelter of the door, she slowly opened it. A few moments later thegun lay a yard away on the soapy, steaming floor and Berg was held tightin her arms. His ecstasy of greeting was no greater than her ecstasy ofwelcome. She cried and laughed and hugged and kissed him. That night, after a mighty supper, he slept on her bed across her feet. Two or threetimes she woke and reached her hand down to caress his rough thick coat. The warmth of his body mounted from her feet to her heart. She thoughtthat he had been sent to her by that new God. As for Berg, he had foundhis God again, the taming touch of a small human hand. 

 * * * * *

It was in May, one morning in May--she had long ago lost count of herdays--when Sheila stepped across her sill and saw the ground. Just apatch it was, no bigger than a tablecloth, but it made her catch herbreath. She knelt down and ran her hands across it, sifted some gravelthrough her fingers. How strange and various and colorful were the atomsof stone, rare as jewels to her eyes so long used to the white and violetmonotony of snow. Beyond the gravel, at the very edge of the drift, aslender crescent of green startled her eyes and--yes--there were a dozenvalorous little golden flowers, as flat and round as fairy doubloons. 

Attracted by her cry, Berg came out, threw up his nose, and snuffed. Spring spoke loudly to his nostrils. There was sap, rabbits wereabout--all of it no news to him. Sheila sat down on the sill and huggedhim close. The sun was warm on his back, on her hands, on the boardsbeneath her. 

"May--May--May--" she whispered, and up in the firs quite suddenly, asthough he had thrown reserve to the four winds, a bluebird repeated her"May--May--May" on three notes, high, low, and high again, a littlemusical stumble of delight. It had begun again--that whistling-away ofwinter fear and winter hopelessness. 

The birds sang and built and the May flies crept up through the snow andspun silver in the air for a brief dazzle of life. 

The sun was so warm that Berg and Sheila dozed on their doorsill. Theydid little else, these days, but dream and doze and wait. 

The snow melted from underneath, sinking with audible groans ofcollapse and running off across the frozen ground to swell HiddenCreek. The river roared into a yellow flood, tripped its trees, slicedat its banks. Sheila snowshoed down twice a day to look at it. It was asufficient barrier, she thought, between her and the world. And now, she had attained to the savage joy of loneliness. She dreaded change. Above all she dreaded Hilliard. That warmth of his beauty had fadedutterly from her senses. It seemed as faint as a fresco on along-buried wall. Intrusion must bring anxiety and pain, it might bringfear. She had had long communion with her stars and the God whose namethey signaled. She, with her dog friend under her hand, had come tosomething very like content. 

The roar of Hidden Creek swelled and swelled. After the snow had shrunkinto patches here and there under the pines and against hilly slopes, there was still the melting of the mountain glaciers. 

"Nobody can possibly cross!" Sheila exulted. "A man would have to riskhis life. " And it was in one of those very moments of her savageself-congratulation when there came the sound of nearing hoofs. 

She was sitting on her threshold, watching the slow darkness, asifting-down of ashes through the still air. It was so very still thatthe little new moon hung there above the firs like faint music. Silverand gray, and silver and green, and violet--Sheila named the delicaciesof dappled light. The stars had begun to shake little shivers of radiancethrough the firs. They were softer than the winter stars--their keennessmelted by the warm blue of the air. Sheila sat and held her knees andsmiled. The distant, increasing tumult of the river, so part of thesilence that it seemed no sound at all, lulled her--Then--above it--thebeat of horse's hoofs. 

At first she just sat empty of sensation except for the shock of thosefaint thuds of sound. Then her heart began to beat to bursting; withdread, with a suffocation of suspense. She got up, quiet as a thief. Thehorse stopped. There came a step, rapid and eager. She fled like afurtive shadow into the house, fell on her knees there by the hearth, andhid her face against the big hide-covered chair. Her eyes were full ofcold tears. Her finger-tips were ice. She was shaking--shuddering, rather--from head to foot. The steps had come close, had struck thethreshold. There they stopped. After a pause, which her pulses filledwith shaken rhythm, her name was spoken--So long it had been since shehad heard it that it fell on her ear like a foreign speech. 

"Sheila! Sheila!"

She lifted her head sharply. It was not Hilliard's voice. 

"Sheila--" There was such an agony of fear in the softly spokensyllables, there was such a weight of dread on the breath of the speaker, that, for very pity, Sheila forgot herself. She got up from the floor andmoved dazedly to meet the figure on the threshold. It was dimly outlinedagainst the violet evening light. Sheila came up quite close and put herhands on the tense, hanging arms. They caught her. Then she sobbed andlaughed aloud, calling out in her astonishment again and again, softly, incredulously--

"_You_, Dickie? Oh, Dickie, Dickie, it's--_you_?"

CHAPTER XIV

SHEILA AND THE STARS

Hilliard's first messenger had been hindered by death. Several times itseemed that his second messenger would suffer the same grim prevention. But this second messenger was young and set like steel to his purpose. Heleft the railroad at Millings, hired a horse, crossed the great plainabove the town and braved the Pass, dangerous with overbalanced weightsof melting snow. There, on the lonely Hill, he had his first encounterwith that Arch-Hinderer. A snow-slide caught him and he left his horseburied, struggling out himself from the cold smother like a maimed insectto lie for hours by the road till breath and life came back to him. Hegot himself on foot to the nearest ranch, and there he hired a freshhorse and reached Rusty, at the end of the third day. 

Rusty was overshadowed by a tragedy. The body of the trapper, Hilliard'sfirst messenger, had been found under the melting snow, a few daysbefore, and to the white-faced young stranger was given that stained andwithered letter in which Hilliard had excused and explained hisdesertion. 

Nothing, at Rusty, had been heard of Sheila. No one knew even that shehad ever left Miss Blake's ranch--the history of such lonely places is asealed book from snowfall until spring. Their tragedies are as dumb asthe tragedies of animal life. No one had ever connected Sheila's namewith Hilliard's. No one knew of his plans for her. The trapper had setoff without delay, not even going back to his house, some little distanceoutside of Rusty, to tell his wife that he would be bringing home alodger with him. There was, to be sure, at the office a small bundle ofletters all in the same hand addressed to Miss Arundel. They had to wait, perforce, till the snow-bound country was released. 

"It's not likely even now, " sly and twinkling Lander of the hotel toldDickie, "that you can make it to Miss Blake's place. No, sir, nor toHilliard's neither. Hidden Creek's up. She's sure some flood this time ofthe year. It's as much as your life's good for, stranger. "

But Dickie merely smiled and got for himself a horse that was "good indeep water. " And he rode away from Rusty without looking back. 

He rode along a lush, wet land of roaring streams, and, on the bank ofHidden Creek, there was a roaring that drowned even the beating of hisheart. The flood straddled across his path like Apollyon. 

A dozen times the horse refused the ford--at last with a desperate tossof his head he made a plunge for it. Almost at once he was swept from thecobbled bed. He swam sturdily, but the current whirled him down like astraw--Dickie slipped from the saddle on the upper side so that thewater pressed him close to the horse, and, even when they both wentunder, he held to the animal with hands like iron. This saved his life. Five blind, black, gasping minutes later, the horse pulled him up on thefarther bank and they stood trembling together, dazed by life and thewarmth of the air. 

It was growing dark. The heavy shadow of the mountain fell across themand across the swollen yellow river they had just escaped. There began tobe a dappling light--the faint shining of that slim young moon. She wasjust a silver curl there above the edge of the hill. In an hour she wouldset. Her brightness was as shy and subtle as the brightness of a smile. The messenger pulled his trembling body to the wet saddle and, lookingabout for landmarks that had been described to him, he found the fainttrail to Hilliard's ranch. Presently he made out the low building underits firs. He dropped down, freed the good swimmer and turned him loose, then moved rapidly across the little clearing. It was all so still. Hidden Creek alone made a threatening tumult. Dickie stopped before hecame to the door. He stood with his hands clenched at his sides and hischin lifted. He seemed to be speaking to the sky. Then he stumbled to thedoor and called, "Sheila--"

She seemed to rise up from the floor and stand before him and put herhands on his arms. 

A sort of insanity of joy, of childish excitement came upon Sheila whenshe had recognized her visitor. She flitted about the room, she laughed, she talked half-wildly--it had been such a long silence--in broken, ejaculatory sentences. It was Dickie's dumbness, as he leaned against thedoor, looking at her, that sobered her at last. She came close to himagain and saw that he was shivering and that streams of water wererunning from his clothes to the floor. 

"Why, Dickie! How wet you are!"--Again she put her hands on his arms--hewas indeed drenched. She looked up into his face. It was gray and drawnin the uncertain light. 

"That dreadful river! How did you cross it!"

Dickie smiled. 

"It would have taken more than a river to stop me, " he said in his old, half-demure, half-ironical fashion. And that was all Sheila ever heard ofthat brief epic of his journey. He drew away from her now and went overto the fire. 

"Dickie"--she followed him--"tell me how you came here. How youknew where I was. Wait--I'll get you some of Cosme's clothes--and acup of tea. "

This time, exhausted as he was, Dickie did not fail to stand up to takethe cup she brought him. He shook his head at the dry clothes. He didn'twant Hilliard's things, thank you; he was drying out nicely by the fire. He wasn't a bit cold. He sat and drank the tea, leaning forward, hiselbows on his knees. He was, after all, just the same, she decided--onlymore so. His Dickie-ness had increased a hundredfold. There was stillthat quaint look of having come in from the fairy doings of a midsummernight. Only, now that his color had come back and the light of her lampshone on him, he had a firmer and more vital look. His sickly pallor hadgone, and the blue marks under his eyes--the eyes were fuller, deeper, more brilliant. He was steadier, firmer. He had definitely shed thepitifulness of his childhood. And Sheila did not remember that his mouthhad so sweet a firm line from sensitive end to end of the lips. 

Her impatience was driving her heart faster at every beat. 

"You _must_, please, tell me everything now, Dickie, " she pleaded, sitting on the arm of Hilliard's second chair. Her cheeks burned; herhair, grown to an awkward length, had come loose from a ribbon and fallenabout her face and shoulders. She had made herself a frock oforange-colored cotton stuff--something that Hilliard had bought forcurtains. It was a startling color enough, but it could not dim her gypsybeauty of wild dark hair and browned skin with which the misty andspiritual eyes and the slightly straightened and saddened lips madeexquisite disharmony. 

Dickie looked up at her a minute. He put down his cup and got to hisfeet. He went to stand by the shelf, half-turned from her. 

"Tell me, at least, " she begged in a cracked key of suspense, "do youknow anything about--_Hilliard_?"

At that Dickie was vividly a victim of remorse. 

"Oh--Sheila--damn! I _am_ a beast. Of course--he's all right. Only, yousee, he's been hurt and is in the hospital. That's why I came. "

"You?--Hilliard?--Dickie. I can't really understand. " She pushed back herhair with the same gesture she had used in the studio when SylvesterHudson's offer of "a job" had set her brain whirling. 

"No, of course. You wouldn't. " Dickie spoke slowly again, looking at therug. "I went East--"

"But--Hilliard?"

He looked up at her and flashed a queer, pained sort of smile. "I amcoming to him, Sheila. I've got to tell you _some_ about myself before Iget around to him or else you wouldn't savvy--"

"Oh. " She couldn't meet the look that went with the queer smile, for itwas even queerer and more pained, and was, somehow, too old a look forDickie. So she said, "Oh, " again, childishly, and waited, staring ather fingers. 

"I went to New York because I thought I'd find you there, Sheila. Pap'shotel was on fire. "

"Did you really burn it down, Dickie?"

He started violently. "_I_ burned it down? Good Lord! No. What made youthink such a thing?"

"Never mind. Your father thought so. "

Dickie's face flushed. "I suppose he would. " He thought it over, thenshrugged his shoulders. "I didn't. I don't know how it started . . . I wentto New York and to that place you used to live in--the garret. I had theaddress from the man who took Pap there. "

"The studio? _Our_ studio?--_You_ there, Dickie?"

"Yes, ma'am. I lived there. I thought, at first, you mightcome . . . Well"--Dickie hurried as though he wanted to pass quickly overthis necessary history of his own experience--"I got a job at a hotel. "He smiled faintly. "I was a waiter. One night I went to look at a fire. It was a big fire. I was trying to think out what it was like--you knowthe way I always did. It used to drive Pap loco--I must have been talkingto myself. Anyway, there was a fellow standing near me with a notebookand a pencil and he spoke up suddenly--kind of sharp, and said: 'Say thatagain, will you?'--He was a newspaper reporter, Sheila . . . That's how Igot into the job. But I'm only telling you because--"

Sheila hit the rung of her chair with an impatient foot. "Oh, Dickie! Howsilly you are! As if I weren't _dying_ to hear all about it. How did youget 'into the job'? What job?"

"Reporting, " said Dickie. He was troubled by this urgency of hers. Hebegan to stammer a little. "Of course, the--the fellow helped me a lot. He got me on the staff. He went round with me. He--he took down what Isaid and later he--he kind of edited my copy before I handed it in. He--he was almighty good to me. And I--I worked awfully hard. Like Hell. Night classes when I wasn't on night duty, and books. Then, Sheila, Ibegan to get kind of crazy over words. " His eyes kindled. And his face. He straightened. He forgot himself, whatever it was that weighed uponhim. "Aren't they wonderful? They're like polished stones--each one adifferent shape and color and feel. You fit 'em this way and that andturn 'em and--all at once, they shine and sing. God! I never knowed whatwas the matter with me till I began to work with words--and that _is_work. Sheila! Lord! How you hate them, and love them, and curse them, andworship them. I used to think I wanted _whiskey_. " He laughed scorn atthat old desire; then came to self-consciousness again and wasshamefaced--"I guess you think I am plumb out of my head, " he apologized. "You see, it was because I was a--a reporter, Sheila, that I happened tobe there when Hilliard was hurt. I was coming home from the night courts. It was downtown. At a street-corner there was a crowd. Somebody told me;'Young Hilliard's car ran into a milk cart; turned turtle. He's hurt. 'Well, of course, I knew it'd be a good story--all that about Hilliard andhis millions and his coming from the West to get his inheritance--it hadjust come out a couple of months before. . . . "

"His millions?" repeated Sheila. She slipped off the arm of her chairwithout turning her wide look from Dickie and sat down with an air ofdeliberate sobriety. "His inheritance?" she repeated. 

"Yes, ma'am. That's what took him East. He had news at Rusty. He wroteyou a letter and sent it by a man who was to fetch you to Rusty. You wereto stay there with his wife till Hilliard would be coming back for you. But, Sheila, the man was caught in a trap and buried by a blizzard. Theyfound him only about a week ago--with Hilliard's letter in his pocket. "Dickie fumbled in his own steaming coat. "Here it is. I've got it. "

"Don't give it to me yet, " she said. "Go on. "

"Well, " Dickie turned the shriveled and stained paper lightly in restlessfingers. "That morning in New York I got up close to the car and had mynotebook out. Hilliard was waiting for the ambulance. His ribs weresmashed and his arm broken. He was conscious. He was laughing and talkingand smoking cigarettes. I asked him some questions and he took a notionto question _me_. 'You're from the West, ' he said; and when I told him'Millings, ' he kind of gasped and sat up. That turned him faint. But whenthey were carrying him off, he got a-holt of my hand and whispered, 'Comesee me at the hospital. ' I was willing enough--I went. And they took meto him--private room. And a nice-looking nurse. And flowers. He has lotsof friends in New York--Hilliard, you bet you--" It was irony again andSheila stirred nervously. That changed his tone. He moved abruptly andcame and sat down near her, locking his hands and bending his head tostudy them in the old way. "He found out who I was and he told me aboutyou, Sheila, and, because he was too much hurt to travel or even towrite, he asked me to go out and carry a message for him. Nothing wouldhave kept me from going, anyway, " Dickie added quaintly. "When I learnedwhat had been happening and how you were left and no letters coming fromRusty to answer his--well, sir, I could hardly sit still to hear aboutall that, Sheila. But, anyway--" Dickie moved his hands. They sought thearms of his chair and the fingers tightened. He looked past Sheila. "Hetold me then how it was with you and him. That you were planning to bemarried. And I promised to find you and tell you what he said. "

"What did he say?"

Dickie spoke carefully, using his strange gift. With every word hisface grew a trifle whiter, but that had no effect upon his eloquence. He painted a vivid and touching picture of the shattered and wistfulyouth. He repeated the shaken words of remorse and love. "I want her tocome East and marry me. I love her. Tell her I love her. Tell her I cangive her everything she wants in all the world. Tell her to come--" Andfar more skillfully than ever Hilliard himself could have done, Dickiepleaded the intoxication of that sudden shower of gold, thebewildering change in the young waif's life, the necessity he was underto go and see and touch the miracle. There was a long silence afterDickie had delivered himself of the burden of his promise. The fireleapt and crackled on Hilliard's forsaken hearth. It threw shadows andgleams across Dickie's thin, exhausted face and Sheila's inscrutablythoughtful one. 

She held out her hand. 

"Give me the letters now, Dickie. "

He handed her the bundle that had accumulated in Rusty and the littlewithered one taken from the body of the trapper. Sheila took them andheld them on her knee. She pressed both her hands against her eyes; then, leaning toward the fire, she read the letters, beginning with that onethat had spent so many months under the dumb snow. 

Berg, who had investigated Dickie, leaned against her knee while sheread, his eyes fixed upon her. She read and laid the pile by on the tablebehind her. She sat for a long while, elbows on the arms of her chair, fingers laced beneath her chin. She seemed to be looking at the fire, butshe was watching Dickie through her eyelashes. There was no ease in hisattitude. He had his arms folded, his hands gripped the damp sleeves ofhis coat. When she spoke, he jumped as though she had fired a gun. 

"It is not true, Dickie, that things were--were that way between Cosmeand me . . . We had not settled to be married . . . " She paused and saw thathe forced himself to sit quiet. "Do you really think, " she said, "thatthe man that wrote those letters, loves me?" Dickie was silent. He wouldnot meet her look. "So you promised Hilliard that you would take me backto marry him?" There was an edge to her voice. 

Dickie's face burned cruelly. "No, " he said with shortness. "I was goingto take you to the train and then come back here. I am going to take upthis claim of Hilliard's--he's through with it. He likes the East. Yousee, Sheila, he's got the whole world to play with. It's quite true. " Hesaid this gravely, insistently. "He can give you everything--"

"And you?"

Dickie stared at her with parted lips. He seemed afraid to breathe lesthe startle away some hesitant hope. "I?" he whispered. 

"I mean--_you_ don't like the East?--You will give up your work?"

"Oh--" He dropped back. The hope had flown and he was able to breatheagain, though breathing seemed to hurt. "Yes, ma'am. I'll give upnewspaper reporting. I don't like New York. "

"But, Dickie--your--words? I'd like to see something you've written. "

Dickie's hand went to an inner pocket. 

"I wanted you to see this, Sheila, " His eyes were lowered to hide aflaming pride. "My _poems_. "

Sheila felt a shock of dread. Dickie's _poems_! She was afraid to readthem. She could not help but think of his life at Millings, of thatsordid hotel lobby . . . Newspaper stories--yes--that was imaginable. But--poetry? Sheila had been brought up on verse. There was hardly abeautiful line that had not sung itself into the fabric of her brain. 

"Poems?" she repeated, just a trifle blankly; then, seeing the hurt inhis face, about the sensitive and delicate lips, she put out a quick, penitent hand. "Let me see them--at once!"

He handed a few folded papers to her. They were damp. He put his facedown to his hands and looked at the floor as though he could not bear towatch her face. Sheila saw that he was shaking. It meant so much to him, then--? She unfolded the papers shrinkingly and read. As she read, theblood rushed to her checks for shame. She ought never to have doubtedhim. Never after the first look into his face, never after hearing himspeak of the "cold, white flame" of an unforgotten winter night. Dickie'swords, so greatly loved and groped for, so tirelessly pursued in the faceof his world's scorn and injury, came to him, when they did come, onwings. In the four short poems, there was not a word outside of his innerexperience, and yet she felt that those words had blown through himmysteriously on a wind--the wind that fans such flame--

"Oh, little song you sang to meA hundred, hundred days ago, Oh, little song whose melodyWalks in my heart and stumbles so;I cannot bear the level nights, And all the days are over-long, And all the hours from dark to darkTurn to a little song--"

"Like the beat of the falling rain, Until there seems no roof at all, And my heart is washed with pain--"

"Why is a woman's throat a bird, White in the thicket of the years?--"

Sheila suddenly thrust back the leaves at him, hid her face and fell tocrying bitterly. Dickie let fall his poems; he hovered over her, utterlybewildered, utterly distressed. 

"Sheila--h-how could they possibly hurt you so? It was your song--yoursong--Are you angry with me--? I couldn't help it. It kept singing inme--It--it hurt. "

She thrust his hand away. 

"Don't be kind to me! Oh--I am ashamed! I've treated you _so_! And--andsnubbed you. And--and condescended to you, Dickie. And shamed you. You--! And you can write such lines--and you are great--you will be verygreat--a poet! Dickie, why couldn't I see? Father would have seen. Don'ttouch me, please! I can't bear it. Oh, my dear, you must have beenthrough such long, long misery--there in Millings, behind that desk--allstifled and cramped and shut in. And when I came, I might have helpedyou. I might have understood . . . But I hurt you more. "

"Please don't, Sheila--it isn't true. Oh, --_damn_ my poems!"

This made her laugh a little, and she got up and dried her eyes and satbefore him like a humbled child. It was quite terrible for Dickie. Hisface was drawn with the discomfort of it. He moved about the room, miserable and restless. 

Sheila recovered herself and looked up at him with a sort of wanresolution. 

"And you will stay here and work the ranch and write, Dickie?"

"Yes, ma'am. " He managed a smile. "If you think a fellow can push aplough and write poetry with the same hand. "

"It's been done before. And--and you will send me back to Hilliardand--the good old world?"

Dickie's artificial smile left him. He stood, white and stiff, lookingdown at her. He tried to speak and put his hand to his throat. 

"And I must leave you here, " Sheila went on softly, "with my stars?"

She got up and walked over to the door and stood, half-turned from him, her fingers playing with the latch. 

Dickie found part of his voice. 

"What do you mean, Sheila, about your stars?"

"You told me, " she said carefully, "that you would go and work and thencome back--But, I suppose--"

That was as far as she got. Dickie flung himself across the room. A chaircrashed. He had his arms about her. He was shaking. That pale and tenderlight was in his face. The whiteness of a full moon, the whiteness of adawn seemed to fall over Sheila. 

"He--he can give you everything--" Dickie said shakily. 

"I've been waiting"--she said--"I didn't know it until lately. But I'vebeen waiting, so long now, for--for--" She closed her eyes and lifted hersoft sad mouth. It was no longer patient. 

That night Dickie and Berg lay together on the hide before the fire, wrapped in a blanket. Dickie did not sleep. He looked through theuncurtained, horizontal window, at the stars. 

"You've got everything else, Hilliard, " he muttered. "You've got thewhole world to play with. After all, it was your own choice. I told youhow it was with me. I promised I'd play fair. I did play fair. " He sigheddeeply and turned with his head on his arm and looked toward the door ofthe inner room. "It's like sleeping just outside the gate of Heaven, Berg, " he said. "I never thought I'd get as close as that--" He listenedto the roar of Hidden Creek. "It won't be long, old fellow, before wetake her down to Rusty and bring her back. " Tears stood on Dickie'seye-lashes. "Then we'll walk straight into Heaven. " He played with thedog's rough mane. "She'll keep on looking at the stars, " he murmured. "But I'll keep on looking at her--_Sheila_. "

But Sheila, having made her choice, had shut her eyes to the world and tothe stars and slept like a good and happy child.