CHAPTER XXX

*

*THE LOST PROSPECT*

Below the falls the overflow had formed a backwater through the meadow, and that Saturday morning Alice took the Jerseys from the higher ground of the home enclosure, and put them to graze on the slope. She intended to ride directly on to the Station for the mail, and made a short cut through the park to strike the trail beyond the first knoll. It was then, while the black paced slowly among the wet trees, that the sound of the landslide clashed through the hills. Colonel stopped, trembling; hoofs planted, head up, nostrils wide and quivering, then, panic driven, broke. A little later, when she had drawn him down, and still quieting him, turned again towards the trail, Stratton's horse, arrested by the washed out bridge on his way to the lodge, thundered back in the direction of the Nisqually.

There was a flash of the chestnut coat between the branches; a glimpse of the empty saddle and he was gone. But instantly Alice saw that Stratton had returned. He had, of course, taken the branch through the canyon and the thoroughbred had refused the swollen ford; he had bolted, skirting the submerged jungle to the main trail, and left his master unhorsed, perhaps hurt, at the crossing.

She turned and rode back towards the gorge, expecting to pick up the trail at the foot of the bluff, where it wound down from the tower. "It's all right, Colonel," she said, "it's all right. You ought to know a slide by this time. But I don't blame you; it was a monster; it sounded like the whole canyon wall coming down."

Dropping from the open park to the underbrush of the gorge, she turned the horse into a thinned way, evidently once blazed by some passing woodsman. Then, presently, looking up between boughs, she saw a low cloud, trailing over and blotting out the summit where the tower had stood, and below it the demolished front of the cliff. At the same moment, Colonel, pushing through a tangle of salal, stumbled to his knees. She glanced back to see what had caused the fall and her eyes rested on a weather-beaten stake, such as a surveyor or prospector uses in marking off land, driven close to alow, outcropping ledge. A few steps farther on she noticed a blaze in the bark of a hemlock, in which had been cut a small arrow, pointing downward at this rock.

The horse moved on and she lifted her eyes again to the cliff. Midway the slide had shaved off a jutting spur, and, suddenly, a shaft of sunlight filtering through the clouds, struck from this new surface a blaze of colors. Instantly she thought of the samples of ore Paul Forrest had once shown her. Here were the same blues and purples, the shine of silver, the glint of dull yellow. It was, she knew it was, the lost prospect. It was Paul who had driven that stake. It was here in this canyon, while he groped a way out of the hills, he had stumbled on his find. The mist, hanging over as it did today, had obscured the tower and given the gorge a different aspect than later, in clear weather, it had shown. But this was the place and the slide had uncovered the mother lode.

She sat for a moment, holding in her horse and looking up at that dazzling ledge. She drew full breaths with parted lips; the bloom of a wild rose was in her cheeks; a soft brightness shone in her eyes. Then she was reminded of her present duty by a voice; a man's voice calling faintly, "Help, oh--help."

A little below the broken spur the cliff began to dip outward, forming an incline to the bottom of the gorge. Trees had found hold on this pitch, and where the top created a narrow bench, the uprooted trunk of a giant fir, flanked by the stub of an old cedar, timbered a barricade of splintered rock and earth. The last soft downrush had nearly filled this rampart, and streamed out through the dip between the felled boles, covering slabs and boulders, evening the slide to the appearance of a newly graded roadway. It was there, directly under the mineral ledge, that Alice located the voice. She concluded it was Stratton's; that he had not been thrown at the ford, but on the cliff; and he had been caught in the avalanche.

She answered the call, but it was not repeated, and she quickly chose a way to reach the shelf. She saw that the trail from the ford up the bluff was lost in shifting granite; and, for a long distance, passage up the fir was obstructed by a network of boughs; but the fallen cedar, slowly dying, had lost many of its branches; those remaining were still pliable. She left her horse, and, pushing through a litter of snapped saplings and broken limbs, reached this tree.

Its top was splintered and set like a brace against the trunk of a standing hemlock. Ragged boughs at first retarded her; she was forced to work on her knees, through their meshes. Sometimes she swung herself down to trudge ankle-deep, knee-deep through the soft fill around a barrier. She crawled over suspended boulders, under tilting slabs that had found lodgment on the great bole. In one of these places, where a mighty fragment of rock had struck, the bark was stripped loose in lengths. Later she remembered this.

At last she gained the end of the tree, and sinking in an accumulation of earth, found the support of a root and drew herself up, slowly, bringing her eyes to the top of the barricade. The color went from her face; her shoulders shook; her limbs; but she pulled herself higher and leaned on the rim. This man was not Stratton. His body was buried; only his head and one shoulder were uncovered; the face was turned from her. But this man was not Stratton.

She drew herself over the rampart and ran, stumbling in loose mold, to reach him. But when she saw his face a hand of iron seemed to tighten on her throat; her limbs gave under her. "Paul," she said. "Oh, Paul, Paul!"

The next moment she started up, her weakness gone. Her cheek had touched his; it was warm. A light breath had come from his lips. And he had called, he had been able to call, not long ago. She began to throw the loose earth from his chest, his breast; digging, working like a beaver with her two hands. Presently she laid her palm on his heart and caught a faint action. She felt in the pocket of his shirt for the emergency flask a timber-cruiser keeps about him in the wilderness, but it was not there. Still, the pocket was shallow, it might have dropped near, and she resumed her task, prodding at intervals for the flask. She freed his arm; his side. She had found no rocks around the upper part of his body; nothing but soft soil. To be quite sure she reached, feeling, under his back. And this brought from him a groan. A quiver swept his face, but when she had withdrawn her arm, he rested white and still as before.

The dirt had filled deeper over his abdomen, but she hurried to the rim of the rampart and selected a splinter of rock which she used as a scoop. At last his whole trunk was released, but his limbs were planted deeper yet. He seemed to have fallen feet first, and settled, afterwards, a little to one side. If only those feet had not struck rock. She was afraid--afraid--of--what she might unearth. Still she worked. And the faith of her missionary grandfather rose strong in her, and battled with her fear. "Dear God," her heart cried, "do not let him have touched rock. Show me--show me the best thing to do."

It commenced to rain heavily, and she stopped to turn his face directly to the shower, throwing off her jacket and using it to prop his head. She spread her handkerchief on a clean slab to catch the moisture, and, when it was wet, pressed the drops from it, between his lips. But they were so few. If only the slide had opened a spring in the cliff; if only she could find the flask.

She went back, fighting down her despair, to her work. A moment later she heard him sigh. Relieved of the pressure of earth, his empty lungs had slowly filled and at last expelled their first good breath. She looked at him over her shoulder, holding her own breath, kneeling still with her hands in the mold. He opened his eyes--she dared not move--and saw her, blankly at first, and then with swift intelligence. "Alice," he said, "why--Alice. See here--I'm all right. I can wait. Please don't. That's work for a--man."

Instantly she was up and at his shoulder. "Don't try to talk," she said. "Don't move; but can you remember if you had your flask?"

He knit his brows. "It was in my pocket--the coat. But," he added with second recollection, "the slide must have brought it down with me."

"All right, I'll find it. Don't say any more; don't try to think, or move, or do anything. Rest."

He smiled a little and closed his eyes, and she hurried back with fresh effort to her task. Presently she was able to run her hand down, through the loose soil, to the end of the right limb. It was straight, and not the crumpled mass she had feared. But, working her arm through a wider range, she felt, a few inches from the leg, the edge of a slab. Then, directly, while she followed its contour to satisfy herself it did not touch him anywhere, her fingers came in contact with woolen cloth. She dug faster and faster, and finally unearthed the end of a sleeve; his coat sleeve which trailed from beneath the rock. She pulled at it, tried to shift the stone, alternately strained and dragged at the garment. But it was of no use. Her glance wavered despairingly to that second, still buried, limb, then she began to uncover the slab. And while she labored tirelessly, her heart cried, "Dear God, let me be able to lift it; do not let it be very--big."

At last she uncovered the outer edge. A little more digging along the thin side and again under the sleeve, then she set her hands, the strength of her young arms to the rock. It eased up slightly. She put her knee to it, bracing it while she tugged at the coat. It slipped a trifle. Again a lift, a wrench, a slip, and here was a pocket exposed, and in it she found the small metal flask; jammed, flattened, leaking a little, but holding, still, brandy.

She poured it hot between his lips, and presently he again opened his eyes. "I'm all right," he repeated, "yes--I am. Don't trouble; don't stay here--in the rain. I can wait for Thornton or--Myers. I'm all--right."

To prove the point he tried to get to his elbow, but settled back, going white again to the lips.

She turned her face away. Her eyes were dry, but the dread in them was beyond tears. After a moment she compelled her glance to meet his. Her lips moved, but the iron hand again seemed to strangle the words in her throat. "Is it"--they were out at last--"is it--your--back?"

"No, oh, no." He smiled his old smile of the eyes. "It's only a dislocated shoulder. With Thornton to help me it won't take long to straighten it out."

She returned to that second limb. "Dear God," she still prayed, "I am so afraid. But--if it is hurt--don't let it be past help." Aloud she said, and steadied her voice, "Mill was to have gone to the Station this morning."

"Of course--of course--I had forgotten. I left Ketchem for him last night. But Myers is somewhere here in the hills."

"Then the noise of the slide should bring him this way." She thrust the scoop carefully along the side of the uncovered knee. "Mose," she added, "went home with his father, yesterday, to help drive the sheep to high ground. Sheep"--her voice broke--"sheep--are so foolish--in a flood."

She laid the scoop down. There was no further need of digging; the leg was doubled back from the knee, in a heap. She got to her feet and turned, meeting his look again bravely. "You see," she said and smiled, "there isn't a man; you'll have to use me. What would you have asked Mill to do?"

"Why, set this arm. You could do it--it's simple--but I don't like to ask it of you. You take it--like this"--he reached and she knelt beside him to allow him to demonstrate with hers,--"and pull it out as far as you can--so--only harder--much harder. It's going to hurt some, I'll probably make a fuss, but never mind--pull. Then let it settle back into the shoulder socket--so. You've seen the round bone that fits in a shoulder of veal. Well, just think of that."

"I understand the--movement," she said, and steadied her voice again, "and I'm--str-o-ong. I'll do my best."

It was quickly and successfully done, and he did not make a fuss. He only closed his eyes at the last and set his teeth on that pale under lip until it bled. And afterwards he rested so motionless that she gave him another draught from the flask. Then finally he was able to sit up and examine that injured leg. It was broken in two places, he said; at the ankle and midway to the knee. There was too, he noticed now, something wrong with that left side; probably a fractured rib. It was work for a good surgeon, yes, but nothing to worry over. And he would have a look at that slide, right away, and see what the possibilities were of getting down.

He worked his way to the rim of the ledge and she moved with him, watching his face; every shadow of pain that crossed it brought the anguish springing to her eyes. He raised his head, propping it on his hand, his elbow on the rocks, and his clear glance swept the fallen trees, and then more slowly the pitch stretching like smooth roadway between.

Her eyes moved from him to the incline and back to his face. "Colonel is down there in those standing alders," she said. "Could we risk him anywhere on the slide?"

"No." He shook his head. "No, my only chance is to coast."

"To coast? You mean"--and quick understanding leaped in her face--"you want a sled. There's a strip of bark down there, you can see it, where that piece of granite struck the cedar; it ought to make a good toboggan."

"The best kind," he answered, "if you can find some one to bring it up."

His glance came back from the slide while he spoke, but it moved no higher than the rim of the barricade. It had stopped raining and a shaft of sunlight, piercing the mist, flashed on a fragment of rock. He reached and took it, turning it in his hands slowly, to catch the play of colors. Then his eyes swept the splintered ore that spilled over the rampart, and he swung himself a little, starting up, though he was forced to sink back directly, in an endeavor to see the ledge overhead. Finally his gaze met hers.

"It looks like my lost prospect." His voice vibrated a little; his face had grown suddenly young, boyish, and the hope in it brought an answering light to her own. "Here are the same traces of free gold, the rarest find in the world, with this deposit of copper; and just a nice showing of silver. But I could have sworn that outcropping was at least a mile from here."

"Your stake is just down there, on a line with those alders. Colonel stumbled on it when we came through a little while ago. And, you can't see it from here, but the slide "--she paused, her lips trembling yet dimpling--"the slide has opened a great mineral vein, right above us."

He started up again, forgetting his injuries, and again sank back. "What luck," he said softly, "what luck. Strange," he added after a moment, "how I made that miscalculation."

"I think it was easy. You had broken your compass that day; you hadn't a glimpse of the sun; the whole top of this cliff must have been in cloud as it is today; the tower shut off completely. But, I'm going now." She bent to leave the flask beside him, propping it carefully to avoid loss of that remaining potion of liquor through the leak. "I may be gone a long time, but I'll hurry. I'm glad you have the prospect--to think of."

She stepped up on the edge of the rampart. "Promise you won't try to do anything," she said.

He shook his head, watching her with his smile of the eyes. "It's a safe promise. I wish it was harder to make."

She paused another moment, sitting on the edge and feeling for foothold on the root she had used in coming up; then she swung lightly off. Her eyes met his an instant across the rim. "Good-by," she said, and dipped from sight.

He raised himself a little higher, bracing his shoulder on a tilted slab, and waited for her to reappear on the bole below. She made her way quickly and surely down.

He believed she had gone for help, how uncertain and remote she had let him know, but, while he still watched that clump of alders, in which she had disappeared, she came back; and she carried a rope, presumably Colonel's lariat, coiled on her arm. Presently she put it down and began to cull out dangerous, snagged boughs from the debris at the bottom of the pitch. Where immovable rocks and stumps menaced, she heaped springy branches. And Forrest understood. She was guarding against his possible impact with the wreckage.

But at last she picked up the lariat and started back up the cedar. He saw her purpose and, also, the futility of any effort of his to stop her. "I might have guessed it," he said, and set his lips; "it was like her."

She reached the place where the slab of granite had stripped the bark, and selecting a piece, made the lariat fast, and began slowly, laboriously, to drag it up. Sometimes the soft soil banked in front of the tow, so deep she was forced to tie it to the log, while she slipped down to clear the track; and in one of these places she looked up and saw Forrest's face, showing white above the ledge, and she called an encouraging "Hello."

He answered in a soft whistle, and because she seemed to work less desperately, he repeated the note at intervals. It settled into snatches of a tune; a tune so sweet, so tender, sometimes, she could hardly endure it, and yet again so full of appeal it drew her on; the loveliest parts of Schubert's Serenade, over and over, with the variations of a flute, and the soft, full-throated cadence of a bird.

At last it came no more. She had reached the barricade. She paid out the tow-line, and with its noosed end over her arm, mounted the trunk. She halted on the root, her breath coming hard and quick, and met his look again across the rim. "What made you?" he asked, his voice shaking. "What made you? You might have slipped. You might have started the whole slide."

She did not answer; she could not; she was tired beyond speech. She climbed slowly, with great difficulty, up over the edge, struggled to her feet, stumbled, and sank down.

He could not break her fall, as he had once, long ago, in the windfall, but he moved enough to draw her head to his shoulder. "What made you?" he repeated. "I'm not worth it. What made you?" And he kissed her lips.

He relieved her arm of the dragging rope, and tried to draw the tow up between the two trunks; but she stopped him. "You mustn't," she said. "You need all your strength. You must save yourself for that ride. I--I'm very str-o-ng, Paul. Only wait--just a moment."

"Of course we'll wait." He anchored the tow by slipping the lariat noose over the jagged top of the slab on which he leaned. "It's all right. There's no hurry."

The chinook caught her loosened hair and it fell like a shaken web, over her drenched shoulders, her waist. The sunlight struck from it the best colors of his prospect; glints of copper shading through the gold. He never had seen anything as beautiful except her face.

She gathered the shining mass in her hands and tried hurriedly to divide it in a braid, but he put his arm around her again and drew her head against his breast ihe contact of her hair thrilled him; spirals of it caught and clung to his hand. His immeshed fingers lost their power. Then he felt her whole warm body tremble. "It was too hard for you," he said. "You shouldn't have tried it. But I love you for it; I love you."

"I don't know how I ever could have doubted it." She lifted her head and looked at him. A flush rose in her face; she saw him through sudden mist. "I did doubt; I heard a monstrous story and I--believed it.

"Was it about Louise?"

"Yes," her voice was almost a whisper,--"Louise and--you."

His arm fell from her shoulder. He turned his face to the gorge, knitting his brows. "I want to explain that story," he said. "I want to explain it now before we start down. I was to blame, I should have looked ahead, and yet I don't see how it could have been avoided; not while she stayed alone there, and I kept my position at the mills. But--I never saw her in the same light as other women; she was so far above reproach, so spotless, so nearly--well--a saint. And it was so evident, always, she couldn't give a thought to any man but Philip. Then, too, I had known her all my life, and she was your sister; like you in so many ways. And she was so solitary, so unhappy, troubled. I was so sorry for her, and that life there under the Head was so miserably dull for us both. We came to depend on each other to tide over those slow evenings." He paused, resting a moment, then went on. "You must see what it meant to me, a homeless fellow who is pretty fond of a home. I liked those hundred comfortable little turns she gave to a room. And I thought a lot of young Silas; he had a way of claiming me. Then, there was the music; it was her inspiration and mine. After all I can't hope to make it clear to you. I don't excuse myself, I don't want to, but--well--I had just given up you. She was a kind, sweet friend, in trouble, and sometimes, at the most, a very nice reproduction, call it a picture, of you. If I stumbled, anywhere, it was the weakness of a man who has been desperately hurt, crippled, and is trying his best to get on his feet again."

"I understand," she said, "oh, I understand; but tell me this, in the end, if there had been no Philip, would it have made a difference?"

"No." His look returned to her face; his voice deepened and shook. "You ought to know that. You ought to know there never can be a living woman so dear to me as just the memory of you. It came to that, a memory, the day Judge Kingsley told me--how much he thought of you. I saw you were meant for that future he had to offer; and I promised--I promised not to stand in his way."

The furrow deepened between his brows, and he moved a little and laid his hand on the rope. She rose, gathering her hair swiftly into that braid, and hurried to relieve him of the strain. And, presently, when the improvised sled was drawn close up between the trees, and he had dragged himself aboard, and stored the useless leg, he gave the word and she cast off the line.

She propelled him with a careful shove out between the trunks, and gathering momentum, he moved more and more swiftly, ploughing a trail through the soft mold, drawing small avalanches behind him that might at any instant result in the fresh start of the whole slide. She followed down the cedar. It was impossible to overtake him on the higher and sharper portion of the pitch, but midway the sled entered a deeper fill. The incline lessened there, and the bark clogged with accumulations, which taxed Forrest's strength to clear. At last he could do no more. The toboggan stopped, crept on, and stopped again, fixed.

Instantly she was down from the log and making her way out to him. She gave him the remaining draught from the flask, and, clearing the track, started the sled with a long push, that carried it into the sharper pitch below. The next moment, while she turned to regain the cedar, she knew that the danger, which had been so imminent above, had overtaken them. The slide was in motion.

She ran with it, yet contrived to shift her course diagonally, back to the log. Crowding rock underneath began to lift points and edges through the soft fill. They tripped her, cut through her shoes. Still she kept her footing. A bough heaved up and, for a moment, its meshes entrapped her; but she held herself erect, and, like a river man, going with a swift and riffled current, swung alertly on. Presently she noticed that the avalanche did not gain impetus; then that it lost a little, and finally, almost as suddenly as it had started, it came to a halt. Looking down, while she finished the remaining steps to the cedar, she saw that Forrest had been carried before this upheaval. The sled was slowing at the end of the slope. A good yard short of the wreckage it came to a stop.

At the same time Eben Myers, coming up the canyon, skirted the standing alders, and stopped to look at the demolished cliff. The cloud was lifting from the summit; it parted in trailing ends, showing where the granite bastion had stood. "Kingdom Come!" he said slowly; "it was ther tower. Thundered like--"

He paused in astonishment, for, his glance moving down the pitch, rested on the teacher, making her way through the boughs of the fallen cedar. "Well, I be durned," he added, and, seeing the figure stretched on the improvised toboggan, he repeated profoundly, "I be durned."

He was the first to reach the sled. Forrest stirred and looked up at him with a faint smile. "Hello Eben," he said weakly. "How's the petrified man?"

Myers laughed, half in relief, half in embarrassment, and lifted his hand to part his black whiskers. "I dunno," he said. "I'd orter o' got ter his dum head by now, but I ain't lit on it this trip, an' my rations is plumb give out. I dug, you kin bet on that, I dug ter satisfy that ther blame Gov'ment dep'ty, Bates. You see he's b'en ter Washington, an' let on he knew er sight 'bout museums, an' mummies, an' stuffed animals, an' bones, so's I showed him them ther legs an' arms. An' he 'lowed they wa'n't nothin' but petrified trees."

"No? Well, that's too bad, Eben. I always wanted to have a look at your find; I know a little about the subject, and I might have saved you trouble and time. I don't like to believe you've thrown away these two years."

Eben lifted his eyes again to the cliff. "Kingdom Come!" he said once more. "But where was you?"

"Up there, at the top. You see, Eben,--don't you?--what that landslide did for me. That's it; that streak of mineral, shining up there, is my lost prospect. A dynamite blast couldn't have been surer. It opened my mine."

"'Pears that erway," Eben answered slowly, "an' I 'low that ther vein shows up all o' twelve feet. But," and his look returned to Forrest, "'pears, too, like ther Almighty teched off that ther blast er little too quick."

"Oh, I'm all right. It's only a broken bone or two; nothing a surgeon can't fix. I came down in that last layer of soft earth, and Miss Hunter," he steadied his voice, "found me and helped me out."

But if Forrest's light mention of his injuries had deceived Eben, the teacher's manner quickly convinced him there was little time to waste. She brought the horse from the alders, and despatched the settler with her saddle cup to fill at the stream which flowed through the gorge. And when Paul had taken a long draught, and she had covered his chilled shoulders with her raincoat, which she had carried strapped behind the saddle, she found in one of the pockets a pencil, with which, on the blank page of a letter, she wrote a telegram to the Judge.

Eben, who was converting his blanket into a sling for Forrest's injured limb, promised to take the message straight to Yelm Station, and she could trust Judge Kingsley to send a surgeon, the best in Olympia, without delay. But her heart sank at the long and unavoidable interval he must spend on the road. "Dear God," she cried, under her breath, "hurry them; hurry them; let him come in time."

At last the saddle sling was ready, and Myers tucked the folded paper carefully into his pocket, weighing it down with his small prospector's mallet and a ragged plug of tobacco. Forrest's eyes moved from the mineral ledge and rested an instant on the place where the tower had stood. "You may meet a runaway horse somewhere on the trail, Eben," he said. "If you do, don't try to take the bridle close under the bit. He has been taught a mean trick."

"Oh," said Alice, "you mean Sir Donald. I had forgotten. Mr. Myers, you came down-stream. Did you see Mr. Stratton near the ford?"

"Did I see him?" Eben smiled his wide smile. "Well, no. Ef I had, I jedge I'd er took him."

"I saw him." Forrest's brows contracted; the line between them grew black. "He was up there at the tower, but the slide left him safe."

"And you," she exclaimed, "you tried to stop Sir Donald."

"Yes. Stratton was unhorsed; that's all. Now, Eben," he added, turning a little and reaching for the settler's hand, "now, your shoulder, please; here, at the armpit. So."

Alice ran to the black's head. It was miserable. Miserable. He closed his teeth hard over that white nether lip, but the groan would out. And, up in the saddle, his shoulders sagged forward. He could have buried his face on those old familiar withers, and cried. But he pulled himself together; for the sake of this brave girl, who had worked so tirelessly for him, who moved, now, ahead of him, pushing down the encroaching salal, smoothing the way through tangles of hazel and fern, he must hold himself in check. And presently the agony eased a little. He could look about him; he was able to identify that stake, to which Alice called his attention, while she led the horse carefully by. Then, after another moment, he assured Eben that he could ride well enough, and urged him to go on to the Station and hurry that telegram through. Afterwards he could come back with Thornton and beat the timber for Stratton. Mill would be the one to take that chestnut; he was a good man with a horse.

But all this did not deceive Alice. Her eyes were too accustomed to every light and shade of Forrest's face; she knew each fluctuation of his voice. Still, though she understood, she made no sign. She talked sometimes, to carry her part, but oftener she moved in silence her hand on Colonel's bridle, watching his steps. And so they passed out of the park and into the trail above the knoll.

Then, suddenly, his strength reached low ebb. He dipped forward to the black's neck. She sprang to support him. "Paul, Paul," she encouraged, and raised herself a-tiptoe on a bit of higher ground, to bring her shoulder against him in a bracing lift; "you mustn't let yourself go! It's only a little farther; don't you hear the falls? Paul, Paul, we're almost--home."

He roused himself a little, and looked at her. "Paul Forrest," she said sharply, "_be a--man_."

He flushed, catching the taunt, and with a mighty effort, both hands on the saddle horn, forced himself erect. Her eyes, dark with entreaty, across her shoulder met his. "You see, Paul--dear," her lip trembled, "if you should fall--I--could never put you up--alone."

"I won't fall." He gripped the bridle. "Don't be afraid--I won't. But I hear a stream somewhere--close--and I'm--thirsty."

"It's here, the tiniest rill, at the bend. Hold Colonel, if you can, just a moment."

She caught the water in the flask, rinsing it quickly to get the last of the brandy, and poured it into the cup. The slight stimulant and the brief halt helped him to gather himself once more. They moved on around the bend.

Somewhere, down the wet, sunlit trail, a meadow lark started a soft, deep-throated prelude; and was it not

"All things--all things--come round to him--to him--who will but wait."

Alice laid her hand on the rein; the horse stopped. And there below them, at the foot of the knoll, its shadowy eaves and roomy balcony clear against that background of old trees, rose the cabin of his dreams.

The trail narrowed and dipped from the curve, skirting a spur of rock, and she stepped on this ledge to give the horse room. It brought her nearer Forrest's level, and she waited, her hand still on the bridle, watching his face. She saw his surprised glance linger on the cottage, and move slowly to the clump of cedars she had saved from the slashing to shade the western wall, and on towards the meadow, seeking between the group of alders and the other of maples, now turned scarlet, the old gnarled trunk with chairlike arms.

That was her crowning hour, the thought of which had buoyed her through days of weariness and made toil possible. "Paul," she said at last, and her voice vibrated its contralto note, "you understand. I did it--I filed on the homestead--to hold it--_for you_."

He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not believing. "You--did it, to hold it--for me?"

"At first," she went on hurriedly, "I planned it in payment for the use of Colonel. I meant to commute it, when you were ready to take it, or else relinquish my right. But I knew you would oppose me, Paul; I dared not tell you. And, afterwards, I learned to love it. You don't know how I love it. It would be hard to give it up."

"I understand," he answered slowly. "But don't let it trouble you. I have the mining claim; that's enough. Hold your homestead, Alice. It's yours; you worked--how you must have worked--for it. The Judge--will find it a great country place."

"Dear Uncle Silas. It shall always be his resting place. You have seen him, haven't you, Paul? He has told you that--he knows?"

Forrest did not answer. His face was very white. She believed his strength, once more, was going, and she moved closer, raising herself a-tiptoe on the rock, to brace her shoulder again to his weight. "Oh," she said, "we shouldn't have stopped here; we should have hurried straight down."

"Why, I'm all right." He leaned a little in spite of himself, and the arm on her shoulder shook. "Yes, I'm all right. But see here--see here--what does the Judge--know?"

She waited a moment, and the lark, nearer now, repeated his prelude,

"All things--all things---come round to him--to him--who will but wait."

Then she answered, almost in a whisper, with her lashes fallen and a soft brightness in her face, "That I--love you--Paul."

Colonel started, for the old madame, seeing them on the knoll, had crossed the yard to open the gate. Then, suddenly, as they went down, breaking the cello interlude of the falls, the voice of the lark, full, tender, impassioned, rose in full song.

THE END.

* * * * * * * *

"_Oppenheim's Latest Success_"

*THE MISSIONER*

By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

Fully Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50

## Action, excitement, and mystery are three ingredients always found in

Mr. Oppenheim's novels. His new story, "The Missioner," is the compound of love and adventure which this author so deftly produces, and his characters have more than their usual individuality.

"The Missioner's" heroine is a beautiful English woman, of the aristocratic class, rich, frivolous, and worldly. The hero is a young man of great personal magnetism, high ideals, and unused to the insincerities of society. Her fashionable amusements and his work in the slums are the antipodes from which they both move to meet on the common ground made possible by their mutual interest and appreciation. But the lady has a mystery, and the suitor has an arduous task in clearing away the complications.

The book has more the air of verisimilitude than have some of Mr. Oppenheim's previous works, and it gains in strength from the very likelihood of its happenings. It moves at a breathless rate from the country to London, to Paris and back again, and the reader's interest keeps pace.

Those who read "The Missioner" in serial form pronounced it the best story that this master of romance has yet written.

* * * * *

_An exceedingly clever volume_.--BOSTON GLOBE

*AN ORIGINAL GENTLEMAN*

_By_ ANNE WARNER

Author of "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," the "Susan Clegg" books, etc.

Frontispiece by Alice Barber Stephens. Cloth. $1.50

Merry reading indeed.--_New York Tribune_.

All are humorous.... In none is dialect used.--_New York Sun_.

The book brings out new possibilities in the author's work and will add much to her popularity.--_Springfield Republican_.

Humor and novelty of plot characterize most of the stories, and they are entirely worthy of the creator of "Susan Clegg" and "Aunt Mary."--_Syracuse Herald_.

Crisply told, quaintly humorous.... Only a woman with discernment and tenderness, and only an artist could make characters live and breathe as hers do.--_Boston Transcript_.

Exhibits her cleverness and her sense of humor.... Show much of that humor in the conception and that skill in droll delineation of character which first brought Anne Warner into notice with her "Susan Clegg" stories.--_New York Times_.

* * * * *

"_Unique among novels_"

*THE MAN WHO ENDED WAR*

By HOLLIS GODFREY

Illustrated by Ch. Grunwald. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50

Only anticipates events a few years.--_Chicago Tribune_.

Holds the reader's interest relentlessly.--_Chicago Record-Herald_.

Vigor and imagination lend vitality to the plot.--_New York Times_.

A reincarnation of an improved Jules Verne.--_Portland Oregonian_.

A pretty love story adds zest to the narrative.--_St. Louis Globe-Democrat_.

Hollis Godfrey has taken a stupendous theme and written a most amazing story.--_Boston Globe_.

The handling of the various scenes is most excellent and even masterly.--_Boston Transcript_.

Those who like their fiction full of mystery will revel in this galloping narrative.--_New York Evening Sun_.

Shows uncommon skill in utilization of the gigantic possibilities of modern discovery.--_Boston Advertiser_.

* * * * *

*THE REJUVENATION OF AUNT MARY*

By ANNE WARNER

_Author of "Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop," "A Woman's Will" etc._

Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.30

Always amusing and ends in a burst of sunshine.--_Philadelphia Ledger_.

Impossible to read without laughing. A sparkling, hilarious tale.--_Chicago Record-Herald_.

The love story is as wholesome and satisfactory as the fun. In its class this book must be accorded the first place.--_Baltimore Sun_.

The humor is simply delicious.--_Albany Times-Union_.

Every one that remembers Susan Clegg will wish also to make the acquaintance of Aunt Mary. Her "imperious will and impervious eardrums" furnish matter for uproarious merriment.... A book to drive away the blues and make one well content with the worst weather.--_Pittsburg Gazette_.

Cheerful, crisp, and bright. The comedy is sweetened by a satisfying love tale.--_Boston Herald_.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON