CRYDER 
 
 OF CAT.TF. LTBPMTY. LOS AHGELES
 
 Books by George C. Shedd 
 
 CRYDER 
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS 
 
 THE INCORRIGIBLE DUKANE 
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 
 
 THE IRON FURROW 
 
 THE ISLE OF STRIFE 
 
 THE LADY OF MYSTERY HOUSE 
 
 THE PRINCESS OF FORGE
 
 CRYDER 
 
 BY 
 GEORGE C. SHEDD 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1922
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
 INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 PRINTED IV THE UNITED STATES 
 
 AT 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
 First Edition
 
 CONTENTS 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. EARTH'S IRONY i 
 
 II. DOCTOR CRYDER 36 
 
 III. IN THE FOREST 69 
 
 IV. THE EGOTIST 102 
 
 V. WILD BEES 129 
 
 PART II 
 
 I. THE CELEBRATION 171 
 
 II. ENMITY 215 
 
 III. BROUGHT Low 228 
 
 IV. RISING WIND 267 
 
 V. THE HEARTS OF MEN 291 
 
 VI. THE HOLOCAUST 341 
 
 VII. THE ECHO 377 
 
 213275G
 
 PART I
 
 CRYDER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 EARTH'S IRONY 
 
 THE somnolent midday calm enthralling the millyard 
 was split by an abrupt roar from the mill siren, the one 
 o'clock whistle. The noon hour was over. 
 
 Almost at once from across the river the mountain 
 pitched back the sound in a magnificent echo; and 
 Frances HufF, embroidering a waist by a window in the 
 small office building, instantly stayed her needle. That 
 brusque and thunderous response from the height 
 opposite never failed to cause her head to lift and her 
 eyes to glow. It was the finest echo she had ever 
 heard, scornful, impressive, almighty like a shout 
 from a vast throat, like a roar from Olympus. 
 
 Not another soul about the mill, of course, would be 
 guilty of entertaining such an extravagant fancy. All 
 the others were men. And men, she was discovering, 
 were creatures of literal mind, in whose skulls hard 
 facts alone appeared to find lodgment. For example, 
 take Mr. Williams, the cashier. 
 
 Mr. Williams stood in the middle of the room ab-
 
 2 CRYDER 
 
 sently pressing with end of forefinger the dottle in his 
 pipe, pondering some matter. He was a man past 
 middle-age, of thin figure, with a longish face and pale 
 blue eyes, whose demeanour even when indulging in 
 pleasantries was one of gravity. As a youngster he 
 must have been decorous; and as a youth, sedate. He 
 affected a mild cynicism in respect to business ethics 
 and religion and politics, and an indifference for the 
 feminine sex, which last Frances did not take seriously 
 not since one noon when through the doorway leading 
 into his private office she chanced to behold him dousing 
 his head with a pinkish aromatic hair tonic and meticu- 
 lously rubbing his thin wet locks. That gave poor Mr. 
 Williams away! 
 
 "You're captivated by the echo, I see," she remarked, 
 to open up. 
 
 "Echo echo?" murmured he, vaguely. "Ah, from 
 the mountain. It is rather loud. The broad expanse 
 of rock surface intensifies the vibrations like a sound- 
 ing-board." 
 
 Dry as a bone. Exactly what she expected. 
 
 "I had in mind its inspiring quality, Mr. Williams," 
 said she. "You certainly must feel that." 
 
 "Can't say that I do." 
 
 "Then you've never thought of the echo as a tre- 
 mendous retort from the mountain?" 
 
 "A retort!" 
 
 "Just that." 
 
 He began to smile. In an impersonal way Williams 
 admired Frances Huff. She was slender, quick, fresh- 
 skinned, with brown hair full of russet shimmers, frank
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 3 
 
 brown eyes, and mobile features that suggested sen- 
 sitiveness of feeling. Her lips, nose, and round smooth 
 brow had a fine modelling which particularly pleased 
 him. He had found her mind lively and her good hu- 
 mour constant; and these qualities, together with her 
 ingenuousness, provoked in him a spirit of banter. 
 
 With great deliberation he queried, "Why is the echo 
 a tremendous retort? That implies resentment. Do 
 you imagine that the mountain feels annoyance at our 
 excellent steam siren?" 
 
 "Of course. Along with irritation at other things.'* 
 
 " Oh, there's more then. Well, well, this grows serious. 
 Irritation at what else, pray?" 
 
 "At our egotism, for one thing." 
 
 "Dear me, is it that bad?" 
 
 "It is," she affirmed. "Now suppose you had been 
 sitting there in peace for millions of years, when all at 
 once appeared a swarm of mites near by, stirring a dust 
 and tooting a whistle and assuming that the universe 
 survived by their activity, why, wouldn't you be in- 
 censed and let out a bellow of wrath ? Certainly you 
 would. Just get yourself in a poetic frame of mind and 
 you'll share the mountain's feeling." 
 
 "I can't, alas, quite spiral into it." 
 
 "But at times you have a little of the air of one en- 
 gaged in fancy." 
 
 Mr. Williams's smile grew perfunctory. "Oh, yes,'* 
 he responded. "I brood. But that's over how best 
 to dodge my bills. Unfortunately a sawmill isn't 
 exactly the environment to stimulate poetic thought; 
 at least I've never heard of a poet bursting his senti-
 
 4 CRYDER 
 
 mental cocoon in the lee of a lumber pile. Not in our 
 yard, anyway. Of course Mr. Wagner wouldn't permit 
 it in any case, but, aside from that, I venture to assert a 
 sawmill lacks proper inspirational values, as it were. 
 Doves and fountains by moonlight and melancholy 
 ladies and the like. Our stuff is too raw, nothing but 
 logs and sawdust, machinery and tobacco-chewing 
 workmen. Now, for instance, what would a poet make 
 of that racket in the mill?" 
 
 Work in the plant had begun as they talked. First 
 from the sawdust blower issued suspirations like the 
 troubled sighs of some great beast; and then from the 
 river bank came a grinding rumble as the log-hoist 
 started upward with its procession of dripping logs; and 
 finally from the mill itself there swelled forth a confused 
 din, a strident cacophony, a furious contention of sounds 
 rising from the roar of wheels, the squeal of planers, 
 and the snarl and howl and screech of saws. 
 
 Frances admitted to herself that there was assuredly 
 nothing poetic in that infernal noise. Nor, for that 
 matter, was there in the entire plant. Not a speck of 
 poetry existed in all the fenced area of ground, nothing 
 to kindle the mind or to enrich the spirit: nothing in the 
 mill with its clamour, nothing in the yard stacked high 
 with lumber, nothing in the air cloyed with an odour of 
 raw wood and of burning sawdust, no, not even in the 
 purpose which steadfastly drove saws and men. The 
 business was baldly commonplace, grimly practical, 
 deadly real. Materialism, harsh and stark, reigned 
 supreme within the high board fence enclosing the 
 plant.
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 5 
 
 And this was not all. This same hard materialism, 
 it seemed, now dominated all business, all desires, all 
 life. It was drying up the springs of noble sentiment 
 at which humanity had drunk and kept its spirit fresh. 
 In it was no place for nor recognition of the aspirations 
 of the soul. 
 
 Frances was suffering a recoil from new and dis- 
 illusionizing knowledge. Until a month previous her 
 ideas and her ideals had been untouched. During 
 childhood she dwelt in a New Hampshire village amid 
 simple natures and under kindly influences. Then she 
 had attended a small co-educational college where an 
 atmosphere of idealism prevailed, after graduation 
 from which she had accepted a place as secretary with 
 a scholarly old gentleman, a distant kinsman of her 
 mother's, who was State Librarian and with whom, too, 
 she lived. Her parents were dead; her only close 
 relation was her brother Jack. For six years she re- 
 mained in this somewhat cloistral position, losing it, 
 however, when her employer resigned and was succeeded 
 by a political appointee. 
 
 Her brother was in the Northwest, where he had gone 
 a year before to engage in the lumber business; and 
 Jack on learning that she was out of occupation urged 
 her to visit him, to rest and spend the summer in a 
 vacation. The suggestion caught her fancy. So she 
 had packed and set out for Maronville, in the State of 
 Washington, where he was working in a sawmill 
 where, lo! she, too, now was "holding down a job." 
 
 During the two weeks she had been here in the office 
 of the Hedley Lumber Company her eyes had been
 
 6 CRYDER 
 
 opened to the reality of things. The hardness of men 
 appalled her; the selfish brutality of business sometimes 
 sickened her; while present-day greed and cynicism in 
 general caused her to despair. Was the world breaking 
 down, was the earth once more to be given over to 
 human wolves and wild hogs? 
 
 On her journey westward Frances had seen from her 
 Pullman window, the first night, a vast steel manu- 
 factory with stacks aflare and furnaces gushing blood- 
 red light where workmen toiled. That glimpsed scene, 
 that chiaroscuro of sooty gloom and crimson refulgence 
 containing half-nude labouring human figures, pro- 
 foundly affected her soul. In it was an element of the 
 heroic. Brain and brawn were united in a prodigy 
 of effort to supply society. Industry as the collective 
 energy of mankind directed at production and devoted 
 to service for fellow-men seemed altogether magnificent 
 and ennobling. 
 
 But now, alas! she saw its spirit was not that, but 
 simply a sordid and soulless fury of money-making. 
 The fierce moil in plant and in factory was only the 
 clatter of machines racing in competition for markets. 
 The only spirit in industry was a mercenary spirit; 
 the sole motive behind production was gain. Wages, 
 nothing more, concerned workmen, while profits alone 
 interested owners. Here in this mill, to go no farther, 
 not a man cared for anything else; and as her thought 
 ranged forth embracing the land she grew apprehensive. 
 For this sawmill was but one of hundreds owned by 
 the great corporation which operated it; the corporation 
 was but a single unit in the vast business of manufactur-
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 7 
 
 ing lumber; and lumber was but a single article in the 
 tremendous field of industry, merely one along with 
 metal and coal and oil and cotton and grain and beef 
 and all the rest that kept the huge array of machinery 
 roaring from east to west across the continent. 
 
 To Frances the prospect was ominous. Mankind 
 seemed sinking under a sprawling, ruthless monster of 
 steel and flame whose breath withered hearts and 
 deadened souls. 
 
 ii 
 
 "By the way, you may be interested to know the 
 first of the new logs came into the boom this morning," 
 Mr. Williams said presently. 
 
 "Truly?" she answered. "I know how anxious Mr. 
 Forsythe has been over the slow progress of the drives. 
 I presume they'll arrive eventually." 
 
 "Oh, yes. They'll come along. But when the 
 water is as low as it is this season it's a job to keep them 
 on the move. Up at Tupper's Bend, for instance, where 
 the first drive's coming through just now, the river is 
 full of teeth. White water the whole channel there, 
 four miles of it. Regular log-trap." 
 
 "It must be dangerous for the men." 
 
 "Somewhat. We expect accidents and one or two 
 men drowned during the log drives, just as we figure on 
 a certain loss in logs. They're inevitable." 
 
 A sudden thought smote Frances. "Tupper's 
 Bend!" she exclaimed. "Why, that's where Jack is!" 
 
 "I know. But you can rest easy in your mind about 
 him. He's a boss; he'll be in no danger. It's the
 
 8 CRYDER 
 
 river-hogs who run the risk, not the foremen not 
 often, at any rate. And the men know the risks and 
 generally take care of themselves." He paused, with 
 his eyes turning to the entrance, and said, "Well, of 
 all things, see who's here!" 
 
 A stocky youth had sauntered in, wearing a brand- 
 new straw hat cocked over one eye. His hair above the 
 ears was newly clipped all around and upward for a 
 space of two inches, revealing an incongruous band of 
 white scalp between the tanned skin below and the mat 
 of black hair above. His bright yellow shoes were 
 snub-toed; his belted trousers were of a vivid blue 
 serge. A silk shirt patterned in awning stripes of 
 purple, saffron, and green, open at the neck, collarless, 
 and with sleeves rolled to the elbow, completed the 
 chromatic crash. 
 
 "All you need now to set the world afire, Nichols, is a 
 pint of hooch under your belt," the cashier stated. 
 
 The visitor winked. "I'll get that. Some class to 
 me, eh?" 
 
 "Well, rather! When's the wedding?" 
 
 "What wedding? I'm no goat for a wedding. You 
 get me wrong, commeesar. I'm after my time." 
 
 "Oh-h-h, I see! Quitting. Tired of driving grub 
 wagon to the drivers' camps. That explains the jazz 
 clothes." 
 
 "Yeah, I'm all fat-tigued." 
 
 Williams smiled wearily. "You Kettle Creekers all 
 get that way, able to work so long and no longer. 
 About a month. Then good-night! The hookworm 
 gets in its deadly effect."
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 9 
 
 "Yeah." 
 
 "Fortunately we know you chaps, and expect you to 
 stop when it will inconvenience us most." 
 
 "Yeah. Then you ain't disappointed none. Say, 
 what you belly-aching about? Didn't I get a man to 
 drive wagon in my place? Next time I'll let you rustle 
 your own horse-chauffeur." 
 
 "Good," said Williams. "Now give me your time- 
 slip." He received it and entered the wire cage at one 
 side of the room, where as he wrote a check he 
 continued, "You're a real scream to-day, boy. Driv- 
 ing truck with the army in France certainly rubbed the 
 moss and bark off our shy Kettle Creek laddie and left 
 him a high polish." 
 
 "You said something when you spilled them words," 
 was the answer. 
 
 "A dream, that's what you are, Nicky a circus 
 poster, an aurora borealis. If those gay little Maries 
 and Fifis could see you now, my, wouldn't they roll 
 their eyes and cry 'oh-oh-oh!" 
 
 "I'll say they would." 
 
 "I'll say they would, too and rush to smother you in 
 their adoring arms." 
 
 "Rave on, grandfather, rave on," Nichols responded, 
 calmly. "It's only the wind in the chimbly you hear, 
 not the dead wagon at the gate. Not yet. Not till 
 I tap you once behind the ear." 
 
 This exchange of amenities ended at the entry of a 
 grimy, loose-jointed workman in bibbed overalls, wear- 
 ing a black cap pulled tight on his head. His cheeks 
 were sunken, his lips filmed with tobacco, his eyes hard
 
 io CRYDER 
 
 and bright. As his look roved round it lighted on 
 Frances, at whom he smiled evilly and tossed a "Hello, 
 sweetie." Then he turned his gaze on Nichols, regard- 
 ing him in mock admiration with hands upraised. 
 
 "Regular little dearie in them clothes," he simpered. 
 "Such a pretty boy. Ought to be in the movies." 
 
 "Huh. Fired again, Joe," said Nichols. "See 
 you're carrying a piece of paper from the timekeeper." 
 
 "Fired. Sure." He approached the cashier's wicket 
 and thrust in his slip. "Here, you, gimme my time and 
 be quick about it or I'll knock your block off." 
 
 "Done with honest toil, Streeter?" 
 
 "What's it to you? You white-collared loafers make 
 me sick. Push a pen awhile and manicure your lily 
 hands the rest of the time, while we real workers have 
 to slave. Well, you just wait! What happened in 
 Russia is goin' to happen here before long, you can bet 
 your sweet life, and then you'll get yours." 
 
 "You flatter me by including me in the capitalistic 
 class," said Williams. He wrote the man's check and 
 tossed it out to him. "Here's yours, too, Nick. Don't 
 get drunk and ruin that beautiful sunset on your back." 
 
 "Give him a poke," Streeter advised the youth. And 
 then, "When you goin' up to Kettle Creek?" 
 
 "To-morrow, Joe." 
 
 "What's the rush? Stick around awhile." 
 
 "Can't. Got a job driving Doc's car and he wants 
 me quick-quick." 
 
 "Well, his car won't need no headlights if you wear 
 that shirt." He ceased speaking, with his gaze rivetted 
 on a man outside advancing toward the door. "Let's
 
 EARTH'S IRONY n 
 
 beat it, buddy; I don't associate with this gent comin' 
 in the door. Not with Mister Wagner." He raised 
 his voice so the man might hear. "I've been in jail, 
 but I'm pertic'ler, I am, what kind of jail guys I keep 
 company with. I don't mix with no low-down prison 
 skunk like this feller. Not me." 
 
 The two Kettle Creekers went out, brushing past the 
 assistant manager of the mill as he entered. 
 
 By his countenance Wagner might have been deaf 
 to Streeter's vituperative utterance. A corpulent man 
 with bronzed fleshy face covered by a short reddish 
 beard turning gray, his nose thick and blunt, his gray 
 eyes glinting under bushy brows, he crossed the floor 
 with a solid, deliberate tread. His trouser legs were 
 stuffed in laced boots. His blue flannel shirt was un- 
 fastened at the neck, revealing a growth of coppery 
 hair in the hollow of his throat. He wore no coat. 
 His vest was unbuttoned, from an upper pocket of 
 which projected a notebook and several lead pencils. 
 Over his eyes his peaked Stetson hat was drawn firmly. 
 
 "Williams," said he, "call the railroad agent about 
 our cars." 
 
 He waited in the middle of the room, gazing over 
 Frances's head out of a window at the river. 
 
 More than any other here did this man interest Fran- 
 ces HufF. Wagner had a history. Fifteen years pre- 
 vious, when the Roosevelt Administration proceeded to 
 purge the corruption in the Land Department, at that 
 time of rampant timber frauds in the Northwest, Wag- 
 ner had been taken in the catch of malefactors. Of 
 those involved in the toils of the law a few had been men
 
 12 CRYDER 
 
 of high position financiers, a Congressman or two, 
 even one United States Senator; but the greater 
 number, of course, were small fry and these a host 
 local timber dealers, surveyors, minor land officials, 
 department inspectors, fraudulent entrymen, and dum- 
 mies of various kinds. 
 
 Wagner had been instrumental in securing false 
 affidavits of proof on timber claims for the company by 
 which he was employed. Previously he had been 
 active in bringing "settlers" from Michigan, Wisconsin, 
 and elsewhere in the interest of the various lumber con- 
 cerns in Idaho or Oregon or Washington for whom he 
 worked, arranging deals with these people, the terms 
 of future sale of their claims to the companies, the ad- 
 vance of expense money and their filings and settlement. 
 For a brief period, indeed, his services had been utilized 
 by the Hedley Lumber Company, when he placed 
 claimants on Kettle Creek, though with the failure of 
 this transaction to materialize he had nothing to do. 
 His criminal prosecution grew out of another circum- 
 stance, out of the filing of the false affidavits. A hard 
 legal battle was made to save him by parties interested, 
 but the millstones of the law were for the time grinding 
 sure and fine. He was convicted, sentenced. And for 
 three years he disappeared behind the gray walls of a 
 penitentiary. 
 
 Frances had the story from her brother Jack. But 
 no stigma, it seemed, clung to the man because of his 
 prison record. To her amazement public opinion 
 treated the penal servitude of those convicted of illegal 
 acts in that lax period of misappropriation and graft as
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 13 
 
 a matter of bad luck rather than as a just retribution for 
 criminal malfeasance. It struck her as most extraor- 
 dinary. 
 
 On his discharge from prison the man had obtained 
 employment in a sawmill of the great Heidenstreit 
 corporation. Then, working now in one of its mills and 
 now in another, advancing slowly but steadily, he had 
 at last been sent to the Hedley plant at Maronville as 
 assistant manager, where twenty years earlier he had 
 made headquarters while colonizing Kettle Creek. 
 Wagner knew all about timber, its cruising, scaling, 
 and logging, and all about lumber, its sawing and 
 seasoning, its sorting and grading, pricing and shipping, 
 and his mind was an infallible register of the yard 
 supply, of the day-by-day stocks, the varying market 
 quotations, and the freight rates and shipping routes. 
 In the company's interest he was indefatigable, first at 
 the mill in the morning and at night the last to depart. 
 
 He dressed simply and lived plainly. He had no 
 intimates. He rarely smiled. He read only a Spokane 
 newspaper and lumber journals. He had never married, 
 and in fact had nothing to do with the other sex, as 
 if in his existence women were as alien and as extraneous 
 as powder-pufFs. Lumber alone appeared to engage 
 his mind and his energies. Fixed in this stolidity of 
 life, he seemed impervious to the emotions which moved 
 those about him and, in truth, almost superior to the 
 force of events. 
 
 All this invested the man in Frances's eyes with a 
 character grimly fascinating. She wondered what 
 passed in his secret mind, in his soul. He had been
 
 i 4 CRYDER 
 
 (and might yet be, who knew?) a figure moving in a 
 sombre drama. 
 
 At the wall telephone Williams had secured his con- 
 nection and made inquiry of the railway agent as in- 
 structed. His face came round toward Wagner. 
 
 "He states that the cars should be here any time 
 now," said he. 
 
 "Any time won't do," was the answer. "I want 
 fifty cars in the yard by seven o'clock to-morrow morn- 
 ing without fail." 
 
 Williams passed this word along and listened. 
 Presently he reported, "He'll do the best he can, he 
 says, but can't promise. If the empties arrive that he's 
 expecting 
 
 "Here, let me talk to him," Wagner cut in. He 
 strode forward and took the receiver. "That you, 
 Calvert? This is Wagner speaking. Listen sharp. I 
 want fifty cars get that? . . . Don't tell me you 
 haven't them; I saw plenty down there this morn- 
 ing. . . . Can't help it if they are for farmers; let 
 the farmers wait. . . . No, send the cars here 
 . . . . Send them here, I say. . . . Their 
 hay doesn't have to go out now, nor their other stuff. 
 What if they do roar their heads off? . . . Fifty 
 cars by seven o'clock. . . . By seven o'clock, I said, 
 or I'll have a man put in your place who will look after 
 our interests. . . . What's that! Say that again! 
 . . . Oh, you'll have the cars here; I thought 
 you said something else. . . . Farmers! Don't 
 keep talking farmers to me. Who gives your road 
 freight, anyway? Send those cars up here as I tell
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 15 
 
 you. . . . Watermelons watermelons! To hell 
 with their watermelons ! Let 'em rot ! . . . That's 
 better; now you're talking. . . . See that you 
 do. . . . By seven o'clock to-morrow morn- 
 ing. . . . Fifty, yes. On Track Two." 
 
 Replacing the telephone receiver on its hook Wagner 
 went out of the building. Through the doorway 
 Frances watched him move away to enter one of the 
 streets canyoned in the stacked lumber. And all at 
 once there obtruded upon her consciousness the shrill 
 and vicious clamour of the saws. The man Wagner, too, 
 was a product of realism. He was one with the saws, 
 a part of the machine, purposeful, ruthless, cutting 
 straight to his end without compunction. So much the 
 worse for whatever or whoever got in the way. 
 
 To hell with watermelons ! 
 
 in 
 
 "Where is Kettle Creek, Mr. Williams?" Frances 
 questioned, after a time. 
 
 "Up the river about fifty miles. It flows south 
 through a very fine pocket of timber and then into the 
 Furness. A quarter of a billion feet of lumber in that 
 bit of forest and we can't get it. Between the Kettle 
 Creekers and our company there's a quarrel which runs 
 back to the time they settled here and so they ask 
 preposterous prices for their claims. I don't know how 
 many people live on Kettle Creek; two or three hundred 
 in all, fifty or sixty families. You saw two specimens in 
 here in that I. W. W. scoundrel, Joe Streeter, and young 
 Nichols, who's going home to drive Doc Cryder's car."
 
 16 CRYDER 
 
 "Is this Doctor Cryder one of them?" 
 
 "Well, yes and no. He's not one of the original 
 crowd of settlers but a later acquisition, and at that he 
 doesn't stay there all the year around, going away 
 winters. While he conducts a general medical practice 
 throughout the region, he's really a surgeon a very 
 able one, indeed. Doctor Martin, our leading physician 
 here, says he does big operative cases when in the East, 
 where all the leading hospital men know him. Lectures 
 there a lot, I believe. Writes for the medical journals, 
 too." 
 
 "Why in the w r orld, if that's so, does he live at 
 Kettle Creek, of all places?" Frances exclaimed. 
 
 "Because he's the kind of man who would, you see. 
 He's a queer one, Doc. Something of a hermit and con- 
 siderable of a bear. Rough. Big as an ox. Likes to 
 bluster. First time I laid eyes on the fellow I mistook 
 him for a lumber-jack. It was up at a log-driving camp 
 and he was playing poker with a bunch of river-hogs." 
 
 "Tell me about it." 
 
 "Oh, there isn't much to relate. I had gone up to 
 check some camp accounts and arrived in the evening. 
 The men were loafing around. On one place five 
 fellows had a game going on a blanket and, as it turned 
 out, Cryder was one of them. He had come to fix a 
 chap with a mashed foot and when done had jumped 
 into the poker play. He knows everybody, log-drivers 
 along with the rest. Well, there he was sitting cross- 
 legged with a fistful of cards, laughing and slanging like 
 the toughest of them till he went away. The language 
 was lurid, for Doc was cleaning the gang of cash."
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 17 
 
 "Yet he's a good surgeon, you say." 
 
 "That's the extraordinary thing about the man. 
 Martin says he's a wonder when engaged in a difficult 
 operation. Grafts arteries, puts in glands, removes 
 diseased parts of the brain, and all that. Up there in 
 the woods he has a kind of hospital of his own, I under- 
 stand, a big log structure and several cottages, where 
 he also does operations. Shouldn't be surprised if he 
 used Kettle Creek patients for vivisection purposes, 
 having no supply of dogs and guinea pigs. I don't put 
 it past Doc. He bullies the people there until they're 
 afraid to peep, and if he took the notion to cut one of 
 them open to watch the wheels go round he would do 
 that very thing. No one would know. For that 
 matter, no one would care much. The market quo- 
 tation on Kettle Creekers is low. Ho, hum! Now I 
 must get to work on my books." And with that he 
 went slowly into his private room. 
 
 On this particular afternoon Frances had no work 
 herself, having cleaned up the letters and reports given 
 her the day before by Mr. Forsythe, the manager, before 
 he set out on a round of the camps up the river. So she 
 had brought out the georgette waist from the drawer 
 where she kept it for avail at leisure moments. 
 
 When Frances came to Maronville she had not 
 expected to work. She intended to visit Jack, nothing 
 more. But at the end of a fortnight lack of occupation 
 began to pall; she had had enough of sleeping late, of 
 reading and lying in a hammock and gazing at the 
 mountains in the east. She had digested Maronville, 
 which though it had five thousand people and was a
 
 18 CRYDER 
 
 county seat; had a main paved business street and 
 cluster lights and blocks of plate-glass fronts; had a new 
 court house and a Carnegie library building; had resi- 
 dential streets lined with bungalows and villas; had 
 industries; had below town an irrigated valley and 
 plain country where grew the finest potatoes and the 
 finest apples and the finest prunes and the finest alfalfa 
 and the finest melons in the world; had a Chamber of 
 Commerce and was going to have a Country Club; had 
 a Future especially a Future nevertheless failed to 
 hold Frances's interest. 
 
 Therefore, when the stenographer at the sawmill quit 
 her place to marry a mechanic in a garage, Frances 
 determined to ask for the position. Jack protested that 
 that would be no vacation, but finally gave in and that 
 same evening called Mr. Forsythe by telephone to tell 
 him of her desire. Next morning she went with Jack to 
 the sawmill, where she quickly convinced Mr. Forsythe 
 of her ability to fill the place. He was a bulky, smiling 
 man of fifty-five, with keen black eyes and an aggressive 
 chin, whose hair and moustache were turning gray. 
 She liked his appearance, both his face and his well- 
 tailored clothes. And he seemed pleased to have her, 
 a trained and efficient assistant, as he expressed it, and 
 spoke of his friendship for Jack, whom he considered a 
 rising man. Concluding, he said he had a lot of un- 
 dictated correspondence on his desk at this very 
 minute. When could she begin? Now? Fine. Her 
 desk was that in the outer office. 
 
 Frances was particularly happy that the manager 
 had taken an interest in her brother. Jack had been
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 19 
 
 at the Forsythe house more than once to dinner or to 
 play auction and he was always praising Mr. Forsythe's 
 ability and Mrs. Forsythe's beauty and wit. But 
 Frances had not yet met the manager's wife, as she had 
 been absent for more than a month and had returned 
 only three days before. 
 
 This afternoon Frances was, as it turned out, to make 
 her acquaintance. About four o'clock a blue sedan 
 stopped before the office building. From it a woman 
 garbed and shod in white and wearing a panama hat 
 bound about by a blue veil sprang out and entered the 
 door. Frances divined who she was, hastily pushed the 
 waist into a drawer and rose, a little flushed but smiling. 
 If she could have had but a minute before the looking- 
 glass! 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe tripped forward extending her hand. 
 
 "Jack's sister, surely," she said in greeting. "I see 
 the likeness between the two of you. And, of course, I 
 knew you were here now. I'm Mrs. Forsythe. Ever 
 since I came back to town I've been wanting to meet 
 you, Miss Huff, and as my husband's gallivanting after 
 logs and I'm alone I decided to come to-day and kidnap 
 you. Take you home with me to dinner to-night." 
 
 "Dinner! Look at me this dress 
 
 " Pooh. No one but ourselves, my dear, and besides, 
 you look wonderfully fresh. Anyway, it's too hot to 
 think of clothes. Blistering! And the dust on the 
 road here from town! I think I'll pick this window to 
 sit by where the breeze comes in from the river." 
 
 The speaker showed no evidence of heat or dust. 
 Very likely she had kept the car windows closed.
 
 20 CRYDER 
 
 Frances suspected that however much Mrs. Forsythe 
 might deprecate the importance of looks she would be 
 certain of her own smart appearance. She was fas- 
 tidiously finished from pink finger-nails to arranged 
 eyebrows, perfectly appointed from crown to sole, 
 exquisite, charming. She looked no older than Frances 
 but the latter knew she must be. Years never showed 
 themselves in that blonde type. Under the brim of 
 her panama hat her hair shone like old gold; her figure 
 was youthful, full of grace; her skin was delicate 
 and white; pink was in her cheeks; her teeth were 
 even and pearly, her features fine and her violet eyes 
 beautiful. Yes, she was lovely, Frances decided, a little 
 too "finished" perhaps, but nevertheless lovely. 
 
 The Forsythes had lived in Maronville not yet a year. 
 From the management of a lumber plant elsewhere 
 Forsythe had been transferred to the Hedley mill the 
 previous autumn; and during the time since his wife 
 had been much away on visits to Seattle, Los Angeles, 
 and Chicago. Frances fancied she would be a woman 
 who should find it difficult to be satisfied in a city as 
 small as Maronville, for she had the air of larger places. 
 
 They chatted for a time. Then Mrs. Forsythe gazed 
 toward the cashier's door. 
 
 "Mr. Williams, aren't you coming out to speak to 
 me?" she cried. "You've hid long enough. And bring 
 your glass, please; I'm dying for a drink of ice water." 
 
 Williams appeared with the glass, filled it at the tank, 
 and deferentially presented it to the visitor. 
 
 "I feared I might intrude," said he. "For all I knew 
 you were deep in the mysteries of fashions."
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 21 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe shook her head. 
 
 "No, that wasn't your reason," she accused. 
 "Doubtless you were scheming how to keep out of the 
 clutches of Miss Stone, whom, I understand, you've 
 treated with extreme cruelty." She turned to Frances. 
 "When I went away, Mr. Williams was devoted to the 
 lady lawyer here, but on my return I was horrified to 
 learn he had thrown her over for a new, visiting girl. 
 The most heartless thing I ever heard! I shouldn't 
 be surprised if Miss Stone appeared here some day 
 bringing a minister and a sheriff" and ordering him to 
 choose between matrimony and jail." 
 
 "Is there a difference?" was the bland inquiry. 
 
 "Well, that depends." 
 
 "You have the facts of my sad affair altogether 
 wrong," Mr. Williams remarked. "It was the other 
 way round. I'm the one who's in the discard, and 
 just because of a little joke I perpetrated which brought 
 her into collision with Doc Cryder." 
 
 Frances saw Mrs. Forsythe stiffen. 
 
 "Cryder!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And what was the joke?" she asked, slowly. 
 
 "Well, it was this way. Miss Stone is something of 
 a reformer, strong for the 'uplift' and all that, and 
 lately she's been circulating a petition to be presented 
 to the Governor. It asks the enactment of a law at the 
 next session of the legislature which shall prohibit the 
 sale and use of tobacco. Liquor has gone, and " 
 
 "Gone up in price she means," Mrs. Forsythe inter- 
 jected.
 
 22 CRYDER 
 
 "And tobacco must go next, she asserts. I signed 
 the petition; it's easier to sign than to argue, and the 
 Governor will pigeon-hole it, of course. In jest I told 
 her to secure Cryder's signature, as he was well known 
 up the river and here, too. I thought she knew Doc and 
 his peculiarities, but she didn't; she hasn't lived in 
 Maronville so long, remember. One day last week 
 when Doc was in town she met him on the street and 
 braced him for his name. It was before Paley's meat 
 market. Doc read the petition, it appears, and refused 
 to sign, and then Miss Stone endeavoured to convert 
 him. If you knew Doc, you'd guess the result. The 
 argument grew warm. A crowd gathered. It swelled 
 to a public debate. The subject of tobacco was 
 dragged all around the world, I'm told, and through 
 homes and churches and dens of vice and hospitals and 
 human stomachs and books of statistics, until Miss 
 Stone waxed wroth." 
 
 The narrator's eyes twinkled. 
 
 "She informed Doc that he was a disgrace to his 
 profession," Williams continued. "She said he was 
 a supporter of wide-open license and commercialized 
 iniquity. She declared he favoured the vicious indul- 
 gence of unnatural appetites and the degradation of 
 the youth of the land. She minced no words; she was 
 quite red-faced and frank. As for Doc, he steadfastly 
 argued that all the rabid reformers could be classified 
 under one or another of the four heads dyspeptics, 
 neurasthenics, hysterics, or hypocrites; and all should 
 be dealt with medically. Most of them were morons, 
 he announced. The trouble was, he said, that the
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 23 
 
 country was full of morons to-day, male and female, but 
 especially female. In the end Miss Stone lost her 
 temper completely, called him a quack and went off in a 
 rage. That night I caught the deuce from her." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe meditated. Finally she addressed 
 Frances, with a peculiar smile. 
 
 "This Doc Cryder removed my appendix." 
 
 "Did he?" Frances did not know what more to say. 
 
 "The odd part is that I didn't see him." 
 
 "Why, how could that be?" 
 
 "Oh, I was under ether. The operation occurred 
 shortly after I came here and Doctor Martin advised 
 my having the man, as my case was acute. Before I 
 saw anything of this doctor I had been given the 
 anesthetic and when I revived he had gone. It's all one 
 whom surgeons cut up, I suppose. But a queer thing 
 happened, a nurse told me. When this Cryder walked 
 into the operating room with his gown and rubber 
 gloves on, he said, 'All ready? Who's the case?' 
 Then he caught a glimpse of my face as the mask was 
 lifted for an instant and cried out, 'My God Peg!" 
 
 "He thought he knew you?" Frances exclaimed. 
 
 "Seems so. Well, he didn't say anything more, 
 but began operating very skillfully and rapidly, I was 
 given to understand. In seven minutes he was done 
 and gone. Naturally my curiosity was aroused about 
 the man. I must have a look at his face sometime. 
 There's the telephone ringing, Williams." 
 
 By a gesture the cashier checked Frances who was 
 reaching for the desk instrument and went to the wall 
 telephone, where he set the receiver against his ear.
 
 24 CRYDER 
 
 "Hedley Lumber Company, yes," said he. "Very 
 well, proceed." 
 
 IV 
 
 Casting a look about the room, Mrs. Forsythe lifted 
 her gauntlets from the desk and proposed to Frances 
 that they make a start. At the same moment Mr. 
 Williams's voice rang forth in consternation. 
 
 "What's that?" he cried. "An accident? . . . 
 I can't hear you; speak louder. Confound these 
 country wires!" 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe's eyebrows rose, remained in interro- 
 gation for a few seconds, then fell, while a resigned sigh 
 issued from her lips. 
 
 "In the lumber business something is always happen- 
 ing," said she. "Men mangled or knocked dead. A 
 pity, too. However, we mustn't allow these un- 
 pleasant occurrences to distress us or harrow our 
 feelings, as Jim says they're inevitable. Besides, if we 
 did, my dear, we'd have no looks left whatever." 
 
 All at once Williams, who had sunk into an attitude 
 of patient suffering, became animated. 
 
 "Berger, Berger? Well, I have you at last. Now 
 go on with your message. You were saying. . . . 
 Man drowned? Oh, dear me! . . . For heaven's 
 sake, Central, keep this Berger line clear so I can talk!" 
 
 Tilting his head he gazed mournfully at the two 
 women and murmured, "Awful service, awful!", 
 whereupon Mrs. Forsythe stealthily winked at Frances. 
 
 "If that were Jim," she whispered, "you would hear 
 some real talk. Williams couldn't scare 'central' into
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 25 
 
 doing anything if his life depended on it. No pep or 
 nerve. Little wonder he has never married." 
 
 The delay continued. The cashier drummed with 
 fingers on the telephone case, got out a lead pencil and 
 pocketed it again, felt his collar, sniffed angrily. But 
 at last he began to speak. 
 
 "Berger? I say, Berger, is this you? Yes, Hedley 
 Lumber Company. Now go on; I'm listening. You 
 were stating that a man had been drowned. . . . 
 What! . . . Oh, my! . . . Not one, but four? 
 Heavens, that's dreadful! A real disaster! ... In 
 the river, yes. . . . Tupper's Bend, yes. . . . 
 Submerged rock, boat smashed, men pitched out, yes, 
 yes. . . ." 
 
 Again Mrs. Forsythe's brows were elevated. The 
 accident was one of gravity, after all. 
 
 "Jack's at Tupper's Bend," Frances said, beginning 
 to tremble. 
 
 "Fiddle-dee-dee. Your brother wouldn't be in it. 
 Only loggers drown." 
 
 The speaker glanced at Williams, and observing in his 
 fixed listening no immediate prospect of further news 
 opened her purse and inspected her face in its small en- 
 cased mirror. 
 
 "Oh, oh, this is terrible!" the cashier burst out. 
 "You're sure of your information, you're quite sure you 
 have the facts right? . . . Dreadful thing, 
 yes. . . . Six in the boat and only two saved. . . 
 What! Repeat that. . . . Oh, oh! . . . Jack 
 Huff, oh, Lord! . . ." 
 
 With a stifled cry Frances came to her feet. She
 
 2 6 CRYDER 
 
 grasped the edge of the desk, holding it tight, sick, 
 horrified, with her heart turning to ice. But next in- 
 stant she heard the cashier's voice anew, still agitated 
 but exultant. 
 
 "Not drowned ? One of the two men saved ? Good, 
 good. Very good, indeed." He twisted his head about 
 to give Frances an assuring nod. Then he resumed, 
 "But his leg is broken, eh? Well, that's a whole lot 
 better than being drowned. Legs can be fixed. . . . 
 You say three of the men gone were loggers? . . . 
 Yes, yes. And the fourth ? Go on, I'm waiting. . . . 
 What! No, no! . . . Oh, my God! No no! 
 Not him! You must be mistaken, you can't have the 
 name right. ... I can't believe it! . . . Oh, 
 lord, this is awful awful! . . . Yes, go on. 
 Seeking the bodies. . . . Searching down stream, 
 yes. . . . Keep me informed, yes. Very well. 
 . Very well. Yes, terrible." 
 
 Slowly he returned the receiver to the hook. Then 
 he stood for a time with his look fastened on the instru- 
 ment. The lines in his face had suddenly grown deeper, 
 and when presently he walked from the spot the women 
 saw that he was pale. 
 
 "Jack was saved? Only his leg hurt?" Frances 
 asked, still taut with dread. 
 
 Williams nodded. She let go her grasp of the desk 
 and dropped into her seat, putting her hands over her 
 face. 
 
 "I feel thankful with all my soul," she said, with a 
 breaking voice. 
 
 The cashier cleared his throat.
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 27 
 
 "That was the operator at Berger speaking," he 
 explained with visible effort. "One of the men from 
 camp had just got there with the news. A terrible 
 disaster it was, the worst that ever happened on the 
 river. Six men were crossing the stream in a bateau 
 when a hidden rock ripped out its bottom. Occurred in 
 an instant, evidently. Right in mid-stream where the 
 current is swiftest. And that girl at Berger was so 
 rattled she could hardly tell the story straight. No 
 wonder, though. I'm badly upset myself greatly 
 affected." 
 
 "Go on," Mrs. Forsythe prompted. 
 
 "I well, I'm still so shocked I find it difficult to do 
 so. And I find it particularly hard, a most agonizing 
 duty. You see well ' 
 
 "Don't 'well' so much. Tell it." 
 
 "Well, when the boat struck, one of the men saved 
 himself by springing on a log and riding it down to a 
 point. Jack Huff was pulled out by a man at work 
 on a 'centre' who saw him and hooked him with his 
 peavey as he came along. Jack's leg was smashed, 
 however. The other four were lost." 
 
 "All of them?" Frances cried, huskily. "All four? 
 Every one of them?" 
 
 "Every one," he affirmed, sorrowfully. "Men can't 
 live in rough fast water like that. It hammers them to 
 death on the bottom. One hasn't a chance, not a 
 single chance." 
 
 "Death could be worse," Mrs. Forsythe remarked. 
 
 "But the terrible feature of this is is well, 
 that "
 
 28 CRYDER 
 
 "What are you so worked up about? Tell it." 
 
 "I am trying to tell it. The awful thing is that your 
 husband was Mr. Forsythe is 
 
 "Jim! What of my husband? Speak out, man." 
 
 "He was in the boat," Williams groaned. 
 
 "The wrecked boat!" With a slow tense move- 
 ment Mrs. Forsythe rose to her feet. "What you are 
 trying to tell me is that Jim was one of the four men 
 drowned?" she said, clenching her hands. "Good 
 God!" 
 
 Mr. Williams's look was harried. 
 
 "I was so unnerved, so agitated, that I felt myself 
 incapable of breaking the dreadful news to you," he 
 answered, hastily. "Really I was overwhelmed I 
 oh, dear, such a calamitous blow!" With a gesture of 
 despair he turned from her, shaking his head. "Some- 
 thing must be done, I don't know what. Let me think. 
 It's all so terrible. I believe I should yes, I ought to 
 tell Mr. Wagner." 
 
 He started across the floor, stopped, looked back 
 anxiously, then hurried out, dashing into a run toward 
 one of the streets among the lumber blocks. 
 
 Frances had been appalled by the cashier's dis- 
 closure, by the news of Mr. Forsythe's death. It left 
 her stunned. But at last, with tears welling up in her 
 eyes, she rose and extended her arms to comfort the 
 stricken wife, murmuring brokenly, "Oh, Mrs. For- 
 sythe, I sorrow with you! Let me '' Then 
 
 she checked herself. Mrs. Forsythe's features were 
 hard set, fixed in a frozen immobility, pallid, smooth, and 
 cold like ivory. In her eyes was a dull stony gleam and
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 29 
 
 on her lips rested a thin sharp smile. Fine lines had 
 emerged at the corners of her mouth, a pinched ex- 
 pression drew her nostrils downward, and on her neck 
 the cords stood forth. No longer did she appear youth- 
 ful and charming, but old and inflexible. As she stood 
 there, she was unconscious of her companion or her 
 surroundings. She heard not the yelling and shrieking 
 saws, the clamour from the mill. 
 
 Suddenly a chill drove into Frances's bosom at that 
 gleam of eyes and that frigid smile. She read the 
 truth. Under tremendous stress of feeling this woman 
 was exposing her heart, her secret thought; and to 
 Frances it was as if her look had chanced to fall into a 
 dim deep pit where lay coiled something loathsome and 
 sinister, where dwelt a vague scaly spirit indistinctly 
 beheld, unguessed, evil. Without intent she had sur- 
 prised the hidden thing in the woman's life. No sor- 
 row, no grief, was reflected on Mrs. Forsythe's white 
 face. Only relief. Was that not it unmistakably? 
 Relief, yes, and even satisfaction, as at an unex- 
 pected deliverance. Frances shut her eyes tight. 
 She did not wish to know more. She did not want 
 to glimpse anew what was passing in the woman's 
 soul. 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe stirred, expelled a long, repressed 
 breath, and turned her regard on Frances. 
 
 "Some other time I'll take you home with me, my 
 dear," said she. "You understand my feelings at 
 this time, of course; I want to be alone. Jim dead, 
 the tragedy, everything! Just now I'm prostrated, 
 body and mind, utterly overcome by the shock. I must
 
 3 o CRYDER 
 
 be alone with my grief. Later, when I'm a little recon- 
 ciled to my loss, you may come." 
 She went out. 
 
 When Mrs. Forsythe's car had gone Frances sat weep- 
 ing softly. 
 
 At this very hour yesterday Mr. Forsythe in his room 
 was giving her dictation. She beheld him in her mind 
 as he sat at his desk then, ruddy-faced, dominant, a 
 cigar gripped in his teeth, diffusing a sense of physical 
 strength and trenchant mental power, composing letter 
 after letter with an easy command of thought and a 
 clearness, compactness, and vigour that gave to each 
 the forceful effect of a blow. Neither of them dreamt 
 what the morrow had in store. 
 
 And now he was gone. The fierce and insatiable 
 river had snatched him along with others, had sucked 
 him down, bandied him, whipped him over its merciless 
 stones, strangled him, quenched the light in his brain 
 and beaten the life from his body. He now was a drift- 
 ing thing of broken bones and pulpy flesh somewhere 
 under the water. Frances pressed finger-tips against 
 her eyes to dull that dreadful picture. If she could, she 
 would also have sealed her ears against the ominous 
 murmur of the river. To extinguish her very thoughts 
 was her craving, for her mind was steeped in misery and 
 her heart was sick. 
 
 Mr. Williams, walking fast, came into the room. 
 She opened her eyes to gaze at him, listlessly noting 
 that he breathed rapidly from his exertion, though in
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 31 
 
 a degree he had regained his usual businesslike air. 
 He went at once to the telephone, where he put in a 
 long-distance call for the office of the Heidenstreit 
 company at Spokane. While he awaited a return on 
 this he again called Berger and plied "central" there 
 with questions, alternating his queries with remarks of 
 "I see, I see," or "Yes, I understand. Very good." 
 
 When he had ended his conversation Frances tremu- 
 lously asked, "Did you learn anything more of Jack?" 
 
 "No more," said he, "except that the telephone girl 
 got in touch with Doc Cryder and he has started for 
 camp. It's a good piece of luck she caught him at 
 home. He set off for the river at once and it won't be 
 long now until your brother's leg has attention. Rest 
 assured, Miss Huff, everything possible will be done 
 to make him comfortable." 
 
 He made a thoughtful turn across the floor, paused, 
 produced a notebook and pencilled a notation. Then 
 his look falling on the glass Mrs. Forsythe had left on 
 the desk, he lifted it and carefully wiped with handker- 
 chief the wet ring on the wood underneath. Next he 
 cast a surprised look about the room. 
 
 "Mrs. Forsythe has gone, I perceive," he said. 
 "Ah, poor Mrs. Forsythe! What a sad, sad end for 
 her husband! So lamentable. I couldn't properly 
 voice my sympathy when telling her what hap- 
 pened, so stunned and distressed was I. When again 
 I see her I shall do so. Poor woman, poor afflicted 
 woman!" 
 
 Inwardly Frances writhed. As she listened to his 
 plaint an intense irritation possessed her spirit; she
 
 32 CRYDER 
 
 wished he would have done with this babbling, for the 
 hour was too tragic for inconsequential words. 
 
 To her relief Wagner came walking into the room. 
 
 "Got 'em?" he addressed the cashier. 
 
 "Not yet, Mr. Wagner. However, I told 'central' to 
 use all expedition in securing Spokane for us." 
 
 The assistant manager wheeled about to regard 
 Frances. 
 
 "Your brother came out of the accident alive, I'm 
 glad to hear," said he. 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Wagner," was her grateful re- 
 sponse. "It's a great weight off my heart to know he's 
 safe even if injured; I've much to be thankful for. But 
 I feel like weeping when I think of the fate of those lost, 
 of Mr. Forsythe and the three workmen." 
 
 "These things happen," said he. 
 
 "Do the men in the mill and in the yard know of Mr. 
 Forsythe's death? Will you shut down the plant?" 
 
 "Shut down!" For once Frances beheld the man 
 surprised into wonderment. 
 
 "Why why, yes," she faltered. 
 
 "Shut down the mill?" he went on, staring at her. 
 "Why that?" 
 
 "I thought well, out of respect for Mr. Forsythe, 
 you see. He is " her voice ebbed to less and less under 
 his unchanging regard "is dead." 
 
 Curiosity now marked his expression. 
 
 "Lack of business may stop a mill," he stated, 
 after a considerable pause. "Sometimes a strike. 
 Nothing else I know of." The telephone burst forth in 
 a violent ringing. "See if that's Spokane, Tom."
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 33 
 
 Suddenly, as if she had received a blow on her brain, 
 Frances became conscious of the racket proceeding in 
 the mill near by, of the harsh and blatant vociferation 
 of saws and planes. It seemed to surcharge the air. 
 Like Wagner's unfeeling assertion, this outrageous 
 caterwauling agonized her spirit. In the remorseless 
 grind of industry, in the continual struggle for material, 
 and in the strife for gain, for what did human beings 
 count? Nothing, nothing at all. Lives were con- 
 sumed like particles of sawdust blown into the roaring 
 flame of the mill furnace. Company manager or 
 humble river-hog, the death of either made not the 
 slightest pause in the steady drive of belts and wheels, 
 in the relentless operation of the Machine. 
 
 Absorbed in these bitter thoughts, she failed to hear 
 Wagner's communication at the telephone, his terse 
 account of the catastrophe, and his request for orders 
 from the Heidenstreit office. Only as he ceased and 
 turned away did she again rouse herself to the fact 
 of his presence. 
 
 "Archibald makes me manager," said he to the 
 cashier. 
 
 "Ah," came from the latter's lips. 
 
 "Effective at once." 
 
 Mr. Williams began to smile, nodded his satisfaction, 
 rubbing his hands one over the other, and cleared his 
 throat. Frances perceived that he was adjusting him- 
 self, as it were, to the new situation and preparing to 
 say something. 
 
 "Accept my heartiest congratulations, Mr. Wagner," 
 he said, blandly. "You deserve the promotion, sir, if
 
 34 CRYDER 
 
 ever one did; you're entitled to the place. I ah had 
 a feeling when Mr. Forsythe was sent here last year 
 that you should have been made manager then. Really 
 did, if I may say so without impropriety. You know 
 the mill, the yard, the stock, the timber holdings, the 
 whole business, as does no one else. Everyone will be 
 delighted on learning you're the new head. Personally, 
 I'm vastly pleased to be able to serve under you, if 
 you'll permit me to say so." 
 
 Wagner gave a quick nod. 
 
 "All right. Now notify camp Number One to send 
 down the bodies when found," said he, "and have 
 a doctor from here go up to fix young HufF." 
 
 "Doctor Cryder already is on the way." 
 
 "Then one from Maronville won't be necessary. 
 Another thing, Tom. Prod the railroad agent again 
 before you leave; I want those cars at seven sharp." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Fifty empties set on Track Two." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "That's all." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 With his firm, ponderous step the new manager 
 crossed the room and left the building. Mr. Williams 
 immediately began telephoning the railway agent as 
 directed, with considerable impatience, a little import- 
 antly, and using a severe tone. When done he vanished 
 into his private office. 
 
 Once more Frances became occupied with thought 
 of the afternoon's tragic happening and with painful 
 reflections. Over and over again the face of her dead
 
 EARTH'S IRONY 35 
 
 employer emerged in her mind, while distressing 
 visions of a rushing white river where men struggled 
 constantly recurred. She could not banish them, ob- 
 literate them. 
 
 The minutes glided by. 
 
 On a sudden there came a vigorous blast from the 
 sawmill siren, dying at the end. Five o'clock. Work 
 was done; the day was over. 
 
 Unconsciously the girl tensed herself to wait, co 
 harken for the mountain's answer. Silence. Then 
 the amplified echo was hurled back in a stupendous 
 shout from the height across the river, and she trembled. 
 For now it carried a cogency not to be ignored. 
 
 A shout imperious and triumphant it was, an earth- 
 utterance comminatory and terrific which hooted the 
 spirit in men's pursuits and scorned the pettiness of 
 their passions and mocked human confusion and folly.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 
 
 ABOUT eleven o'clock next morning Doctor Cryder, 
 who had lain down for a nap, started out of his sleep 
 with a flailing of arms and stertorous gasps. He had 
 wakened with a choking sensation. When he had 
 stretched himself out on the bed he had forgotten to 
 unbutton his shirt at the throat, and evidently during 
 his snooze he had rolled over and got into a position 
 where his collar bound his windpipe. 
 
 For a time he sat as he had heaved himself up, 
 gazing at the logs of the wall across the room, but 
 finally he swung his feet down on the floor. He stared 
 at his dusty hob-nailed laced boots with a heavy- 
 lidded regard, feeling irritable, yawned, ran a hand 
 through his hair, and licked the inside of his mouth to 
 remove the disagreeable taste left from his breakfast 
 of sausage and pancakes and syrup. Whenever he 
 slept after breakfast he always woke up with a bad 
 taste, never fail. 
 
 He stood up, stretching his arms and groaning, 
 "What a life, what a hell of a life!" 
 
 Loosening his belt he began to draw his flannel shirt 
 up over his head, but when his head was enveloped the 
 
 36
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 37 
 
 shirt stuck on his shoulders. Ineffectually he sought 
 to extricate himself, until snarling a curse he gave a 
 terrific yank that brought it off and hurled it at the 
 bed. 
 
 "I'll show you!" he exploded. 
 
 He stalked to the wash-bowl and turned on the cold 
 water. When the bowl was full he thrust in his face 
 and finally his head, inundating the floor at his feet, and 
 came up dripping, blowing water, groping for a towel. 
 The icy immersion dispelled his last trace of torpidity. 
 When he had dried his head and forearms and donned 
 his shirt, he once more felt fit. 
 
 The previous night he had had no sleep. During 
 the afternoon he had gone, on a telephone summons 
 from Berger, to the log-drivers' camp at Tupper's Bend, 
 where he picked up the young fellow Huff and brought 
 him back to the hospital. He had set the chap's 
 broken leg, a compound fracture, and placed it in a cast; 
 bound his chest with adhesive tape as he appeared to 
 have a couple of cracked ribs; then cleaned the wound in 
 his scalp made by a jab of the peavey hook during his 
 rescue, painted it with iodine and sewed it up. That 
 had occupied him until dark. After a quick supper he 
 went to visit Mrs. Beeler, up Kettle Creek, a double 
 pneumonia case, and sinking. After that, as he was 
 undressing for bed, there came a call from the Pemble- 
 ton ranch thirty miles up the Furness River, where on 
 going he found one of the children with a high tempera- 
 ture and symptoms of spotted fever. Tick bite. Get- 
 ting back to Kettle at five o'clock in the morning he 
 went on to the Beeler cabin again; the woman was dy-
 
 3 8 CRYDER 
 
 ing; he administered stimulants but failed to keep her 
 heart beating long, as at about six o'clock she succumbed. 
 So by the time he reached home the sun was over the 
 eastern height, shining on the forest, and at the kitchen 
 door he was met by a smell of pancakes and sausage. 
 After a look at young HufF he had eaten breakfast and 
 then flung himself down for some sleep. 
 
 Cryder clapped on his hat and went out of his cabin, 
 knotting his tie. First of all, he must find a nurse for 
 his patient. His regular nurse, Miss Brown, had 
 chosen this particular time to go ofFon a jaunt; and old 
 Mrs. Mercer, his housekeeper, though helping in a 
 pinch, must have her rest. He himself, of course, 
 couldn't and wouldn't play nurse for anybody. Huh! 
 Not if he knew it. 
 
 Cryder was forty-one years old. In height an inch 
 over six feet, he was big and hard-muscled, hard as a 
 lumber-jack, and because of his fullness of body im- 
 pressed observers as being burly. His vitality was 
 tremendous. He could go long on little sleep. He was 
 never too played out to make any length of drive, day 
 or night, at a call for his services. He went about his 
 business with a rough energy singularly in contrast with 
 the delicacy he manifested in diagnosis and in operating. 
 When cases were few he tramped the hills during the 
 daytime and at night read or studied. Coarse black 
 hair beginning to show silver crimps covered his head; 
 his eyes reposed in deep bony sockets under over- 
 hanging brows; his nose was large and fleshy, slightly 
 aquiline, stippled with enlarged pores; his mouth was 
 large, straight, dogmatic, with the under lip projected
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 39 
 
 in an assertive thrust; and his chin was heavy and 
 notched. Long exposure to sun had given his naturally 
 sombre countenance a swart and saturnine aspect. 
 
 He received a constant stream of magazines and 
 books, which he devoured, then tossed aside. His 
 study, a room in the west end of the hospital, furnished 
 with a long table, a roller-top desk, a stand holding a 
 typewriter, a few open bookcases, a worn Morris chair, 
 two straight-backed chairs, and Navajo blankets of 
 black, white, and vermilion patterns that brightened 
 the big rude library, had stacks of books lining the walls. 
 His intellectual thirst was unslakable. He read every- 
 thing. The research and new developments in medi- 
 cine and in surgery he followed with avid interest. He 
 kept abreast of the advance in chemistry, physics, 
 astronomy, and the other natural sciences. He delved 
 in works on sociology, penology, horticulture, agrarian 
 subjects, politics, labour, capitalism, commerce, immi- 
 gration, race problems, and international affairs. He 
 read fiction, history, memoirs, essays, travels, reviews, 
 poetry. Even books on music and on art he tackled, 
 though with no relish and little understanding. 
 
 Possessing a retentive memory, this wide reading 
 gave his active and analytical mind an unlimited store 
 of information. In professional practice he always 
 had the latest and best knowledge at his finger-tips and 
 put it in use. On all subjects, in fact, it was his purpose 
 to be prepared. Loaded, if you please. If any man 
 thought to show him up as ignorant on a matter, he 
 was welcome to try. Naturally opinionated, he loved 
 argument the hotter, the better; and when so engaged
 
 40 CRYDER 
 
 he could muster an array of authorities and hurl 
 broadsides of facts that both enraged and smothered 
 adversaries. 
 
 No one loved Cryder, not even the folk of Kettle 
 Creek though they submitted to his domination. One 
 submits to a despot when there is nothing else to do. 
 One can't stand against a man with a short temper, 
 a terrific vocabulary, and a Gargantuan intellect. He 
 strode round the settlement with a hearty and pro- 
 prietory manner, patronizing, bullying, entering cabins 
 without knocking, pouring forth unsolicited advice, 
 giving counsel, uttering reprimands, kicking dogs out 
 of his way, prying into children's ears and noses and 
 into their parents' quarrels, ordering men to get to 
 work, bidding women gossip less and wash more, mak- 
 ing loans to the needy, commanding the storekeeper to 
 sweep the filth ofF his floor, interrupting school to 
 examine the ventilation or to interrogate a class in all, 
 exercising a high-handed direction of affairs that was 
 evaded when possible and obeyed when not. He 
 proposed to make something worth while out of Kettle 
 Creek, said he, if it broke his back. The Lord had sent 
 him here especially to perform the job, to lead this lazy 
 and stiff-necked people to a knowledge of the value of 
 work and water. 
 
 Cryder had arrived at Kettle Creek ten years before, in 
 the course of a fishing trip along the Bitter Root Moun- 
 tains. An epidemic of typhoid at the time gripped 
 the community, with no doctor nearer than Maron- 
 ville; wherefore Cryder had employed! his medicine 
 case instead of his fishing tackle. When the scourge
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 41 
 
 had been finally put to rout the summer was gone, 
 and the surgeon prepared to depart. All at once, un- 
 expectedly and for no apparent reason, he changed 
 his mind, adopting the little wooded valley as a place of 
 residence. On the crest of an open ridge jutting forth 
 from the range of low mountains forming a wall east of 
 the creek he had a cabin built and a year later his big 
 log hospital containing a ward of eight beds, an operat- 
 ing room, a laboratory, a study, and a kitchen, with 
 several more cabins in its rear. Here he dwelt from 
 April until November. When snow began to fly he 
 closed the buildings and vanished for the winter. 
 
 As he now walked away from the cabin that was his 
 sleeping quarters, pulling at the knot of his yellow 
 and blue tie, blinking against the sharp sunshine, he 
 perceived Mrs. Mercer, his housekeeper, a small, bent 
 old woman, step from the hospital entrance bearing a 
 wash basin. She started toward her own cabin, but on 
 catching sight of Cryder she waited for him to approach. 
 A gray lock had escaped its hairpin, giving her a haggish 
 aspect. From her expression the surgeon saw that she 
 was aggrieved by something or other. 
 
 "He said I got soap in his eyes a-washin' his face and 
 I never teched 'em," she at once complained bitterly. 
 
 Cryder pursed his lips and patted her shoulder. 
 
 "There, there, Mother! Never mind. He's prob- 
 ably feeling a bit sore this morning. There may be an 
 impingement on his crural and sciatic nerves. Run 
 along now. You need not bother about lunch for me 
 to-day." 
 
 "And that ain't all," she persisted. "He said I was
 
 42 CRYDER 
 
 starvin' him to a shadder because I gave him jest oat- 
 meal like you perscribed." 
 
 "Oho! It's his stomach that concerns him, eh? 
 Well, to-morrow I may loosen up a little on his food, as 
 he's pretty husky. Now I'm going down to Kettle 
 Creek to find someone who'll act as nurse. You can 
 sleep in the ward by him till I return." 
 
 "Don't you bring that good-for-nothin' sassy May 
 Johnson!" 
 
 "What's wrong with May? Oh, yes, I remember 
 now. You haven't a great yearning for her company." 
 
 "Yearnin 5 ! I can't bide her round me no how. 
 She's too impident for anything. Girls ain't got no 
 manners at all nowadays. A good larruppin' is what 
 she needs, that May Johnson, even if she is growed up." 
 
 The old woman, muttering to herself, went on with 
 the basin toward her cabin. She had remained all 
 night in the ward with young Huff and had had only 
 catnaps, which left her irritable. 
 
 Cryder proceeded on his quest. 
 
 II 
 
 He quit the ridge, descending by a path before the 
 hospital that at once entered the forest, cool, odorous, 
 carpeted with pine needles, which in its depth was 
 as dim and peaceful as a cathedral. A greenish dusk 
 pierced by shafts of sunshine lay under the roof of 
 boughs and filled the arcades formed by the stately 
 tree trunks. The path led westward. When he had 
 advanced a quarter of a mile he passed round a copse of 
 black jack-pine and emerged in a clearing a stone's
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 43 
 
 throw across, in the middle of which stood a dozen 
 log buildings on both sides of a hard-beaten road or 
 street one a store, one a school-house, and the rest 
 cabins. 
 
 This was Kettle. It took its name from Kettle Creek, 
 which flowed along the western edge of the clearing. 
 Ten miles north of it rose the snowy peaks, the Three 
 Sisters, where the stream had its source, and five miles 
 south the forest ceased and the creek debouched into 
 the valley of the Furness River. East and west it was 
 shut in by ranges of low mountains. Seldom visited y 
 almost unknown, buried in the virgin forest that filled 
 the vale from rim to rim, the hamlet, nevertheless, was 
 the nerve centre of Kettle Creek community life. 
 
 As Cryder came out in the clearing a cow grazing 
 near by flung up its head to stare wildly and then 
 circled off" the length of its tether. A man working 
 among potato vines in a garden patch just beyond 
 straightened up, pressing hands on the small of his back 
 to ease its stiffness. 
 
 "Now, Doc, she ain't got no confidence in you, you 
 see," he $aid, grinning. 
 
 "The feeling is mutual," Cryder answered. He 
 advanced through the potato vines and stopped by the 
 man, where he gazed at a tin can containing kerosene 
 and potato bugs. "What do you do with 'em? Use 
 'em as boot in horse trades?" 
 
 The other laughed without sound. His name was 
 Hollister and he was an "old batch," of sixty-odd years, 
 whose timber claim included the clearing. His hair 
 was iron-gray and he had a hatchet face; and he was
 
 44 CRYDER 
 
 shrewd, in a trade unscrupulous, and, it was known, 
 had money in a bank in Maronville. At times he went 
 up and down the Furness River with a string of six or 
 eight horses tied to a covered wagon, making trades. 
 When Kettle Creek was first settled he had hewn out 
 the clearing and built the log structures which he sold 
 or rented at an advantage. He affected joviality with 
 men and women alike, but he would cheat a housewife in 
 a trade of frying-pans as readily as he would swindle 
 a man in a horse deal. Still, he was liked. He was 
 a great story-teller and a fiddler, playing at Kettle 
 Creek dances, on which account his trickery was over- 
 looked. 
 
 "Reckon I could trade the bugs to some; there's 
 plenty of fools," said he. "Bad accident on the river 
 yesterday, wasn't it? Heard you brought home a 
 feller from there. Much hurt?" 
 
 "Leg fractured." 
 
 "And four was drowned, they say, and the manager 
 of the mill one of them. Didn't know him personal. 
 What d'you think, Doc, will the new manager, whoever 
 he is, be reasonable and buy our timber?" 
 
 "Probably not." 
 
 "I'm thinking he will," Hollister said. "The 
 company has to come to our terms sooner or later, and 
 it might as well be sooner. It's costin' 'em too much 
 to bring down logs from 'way up the river, as everybody 
 knows. Heard Mrs. Beeler's gone, too. So?" 
 
 "She died this morning," was the answer. "The 
 funeral will be at two o'clock to-morrow afternoon. 
 Can I count on you to act as one of the pall-bearers ? "
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 45 
 
 "Surely, surely, Doc. I was all cast down when I 
 learned the bad news. A good woman gone, a mighty 
 good woman. Our time on this earth is short and 
 troubled and awful uncertain, as the Scriptures says; 
 we never know when we'll be cut down by the Lord's 
 scythe." He paused to shout at his cow, which was 
 pulling at the pin. "There's the Beelers now, as an 
 example," he went on. "First, Sam Beeler was killed 
 accidental two years ago, and to-day it's his wife gone. 
 What will Minnie do? She ain't but seventeen, with 
 no kin leastways in these parts." 
 
 "I haven't talked with Minnie yet about her future," 
 Cryder stated. "However, we'll arrange it in some 
 way." 
 
 "It's not likely she'll want to stay," Hollister 
 pursued. "And if she goes off some'eres, some money 
 would come in handy. If she'll sell the Beeler claim for 
 a fair price, seein' it's hers now, and makin' an induce- 
 ment for cash, I'd consider buyin' it." 
 
 "Oh, you would, would you?" 
 
 "If the price was trimmed. Maybe." 
 
 "Well, you won't get it," Cryder exclaimed. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because Minnie's a minor and can't sell till she 
 comes of age. But if she were old enough, I wouldn't 
 let you do her out of that timber. I know you; you'd 
 rob her as quick as you would any one. For half a 
 cent I'd wring your neck for even thinking of it." 
 
 "Doc, I wasn't thinkin' anything of the kind." 
 
 "Don't say you didn't consider it, for you did," 
 Cryder retorted. "Lord! Scheming to defraud the
 
 46 CRYDER 
 
 girl before her dead mother's underground ! You gray- 
 headed old scoundrel 
 
 "Now, Doc now, Doc. Keep cool." 
 But by this time the surgeon was fully incensed. 
 "And another thing," he roared, his look having 
 fallen on the cow which reminded him of a complaint 
 made by Mrs. Mercer two days previous. "You de- 
 liver my full amount of milk or I'll know why. Mrs. 
 Mercer says you're systematically scrimping what you 
 bring and I won't have that. You can't put one over 
 on me." 
 
 "Doc, that woman jest can't measure right." 
 "And I'm going to cut this month's payment to you, 
 yes, sir, cut it! Twenty-five per cent. no, fifty per 
 cent.," Cryder went on fiercely. "That will teach 
 you. That will show you I'm not to be monkeyed 
 with. By heavens, you'll bring me all the milk I'm 
 entitled to or there'll be blood on the moon! Just be- 
 cause I'm good-natured and easy-going and soft, you 
 and all the rest of Kettle Creek think I'm a mark. 
 
 Yes, sir, that's it! But " 
 
 "Now, Doc, you know that isn't so." 
 " But, by the eternal, you're going to find out differ- 
 ently!" Cryder shouted. "I've stood about all of your 
 nonsense I'm going to." He shook a finger savagely 
 at the other. "You bring all my milk! All do you 
 hear? Not a spoonful short, not a drop missing. 
 That's my last word." 
 
 "Now, listen, Doc, that old woman " 
 
 "Oh, excuses again. I won't listen. I want milk, 
 not talk. And remember it."
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 47 
 
 Cryder plowed away through the vines and struck 
 off for the store, where three men stood talking. One 
 was Abie Goldberg, the little Jew who conducted the 
 place; one, old Arnold Meek, with a patriarchal white 
 beard, who lived near the head of the valley; and 
 the third, a man named Pinney, who six weeks before 
 had come to stay with the Martins, a half-brother of 
 Mrs. Martin, whom Doctor Cryder had contemptuously 
 designated a "sawmill promoter paranoiac." 
 
 As the surgeon expected, Pinney was descanting 
 on the subject of a Kettle Creek cooperative lumber 
 company with a sawmill of its own, which he was striv- 
 ing to organize. 
 
 "A small mill to begin with," sounded in Cryder's 
 ears first thing, "a small sawmill that can be increased 
 in capacity as business warrants. I can demonstrate 
 to your complete satisfaction, Mr. Meek, that a 
 company like this will pay a profit from the first hour." 
 
 He twitched his shoulders and continually thrust 
 forward his chin as he talked. He was short, thin, 
 nervous, with a drooping sandy moustache and wander- 
 ing brown eyes and a worried aspect made no more 
 impressive by a suit of black, worn, shiny, celluloid 
 collar and cuffs, and a cracked derby hat exceedingly 
 dusty. For his project he had gained a few signers, 
 though not a tenth of the timber owners; but he was 
 not discouraged. He continued to go about from 
 cabin to cabin, where he explained, argued, reiterated, 
 demonstrated, and declaimed the merits of his scheme. 
 
 As Cryder joined the trio, the promoter went on 
 steadily: "Any number of retail lumber dealers will
 
 4 8 CRYDER 
 
 prefer to buy their stock from a cooperative company. 
 They desire to escape the necessity of purchasing from 
 the Trust and unquestionably, Mr. Meek, there is a 
 lumber trust. I've investigated that. Then, too, we 
 shall sell direct to the farmers of the country, who are 
 very much dissatisfied with things as they are. They 
 number ten millions an enormous market." He drew 
 forth a lead pencil and gently tapped Arnold Meek 
 on the breast to emphasize his point. "Now, for 
 instance, let us take North Dakota alone. The mem- 
 bers of the Non-Partisan League will be only too eager 
 to buy in carload lots from a cooperative mill. They 
 are hostile to the big lumber companies. They will do 
 business with us at once. So, you observe, a market 
 for our product already exists, and from the start our 
 company shall be a success. But, Mr. Meek, to assure 
 its smooth operation it's essential that we have the 
 support of all, with every owner of timber on Kettle 
 Creek in our company. When we have that, we shall 
 proceed and make millions in honest profits." 
 
 "I was waiting to hear something like that," said 
 Cryder. 
 
 "Ah, it's you, Doctor. I had not perceived that you 
 were here," Pinney returned, in surprise. "But I'm 
 quite correct quite correct, sir, in the amount stated. 
 In fact, I put it very moderately." 
 
 "Then you're certainly up in the clouds," the other 
 derided. "But what will the Hedley Lumber Com- 
 pany be doing all this time?" 
 
 "Nothing that will concern us." 
 
 "Oh, won't it! Well, I'll tell you what it will be
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 49 
 
 doing. It won't be asleep; it will undersell you and 
 outmanoeuvre you at every turn, and force you into 
 bankruptcy." 
 
 Pinney halted him with uplifted hand. 
 
 "Not at all, my dear Doctor; you don't understand 
 the matter. Our costs will be so low that we'll be the 
 ones who can undersell if necessary." 
 
 "Never," Cryder exclaimed. "Not undersell the 
 Hedley mill, which has all the Heidenstreit money and 
 power behind it. And it has no love for Kettle 
 Creekers, bear in mind. It would enjoy nothing more 
 than putting a Kettle Creek company out of business. 
 But leaving that aside, you couldn't raise the money 
 to finance your concern." 
 
 On that Pjnney began to manifest excitement, 
 jerking his shoulders and stretching his neck. 
 
 "I have I have, sir," he cried. "I've attended to 
 that; it's arranged for. We can borrow one hundred 
 thousand dollars from a Maronville bank in a one- 
 year loan, which will enable us to build the mill and 
 start business. Before the loan falls due we'll sell bonds 
 and be ready to take care of it, and our financing will be 
 accomplished. I saw about the loan last week when 
 in town.'" 
 
 "Well, all I've got to say," Cryder remarked, "is 
 that any banker who would loan you money on such 
 a crazy scheme as yours is crazy himself. What bank 
 was it?" 
 
 "At present I must keep the name of the institution 
 in confidence. The negotiations are not fully com- 
 pleted."
 
 5 o CRYDER 
 
 "Oh-h-h-h! Not fully completed. Still talking 
 about it. There's many a slip between the cup and the 
 lip. However, I'll say this: Loan or no loan, your 
 company will fail." 
 
 "On the contrary, Doctor, on the contrary. Now 
 let me demonstrate to you how 
 
 Cryder waved him off. 
 
 "Don't want to hear," he declared. "You've had 
 me by the sleeve a dozen times and it sounds wilder 
 each time. Know the whole rigmarole. And Kettle 
 Creek surely would go smash if it followed you. Come 
 along in, Abie; I want you." 
 
 in 
 
 "Vat you vant?" the little Jew asked when inside. 
 
 "Look at this floor, Goldberg." 
 
 "Veil, vat?" 
 
 "Cigarette butts, burnt matches, molasses drippings, 
 dead flies, greasy papers. Haven't I told you a 
 thousand times it's a breeding-spot for infection ? Why 
 don't you sweep out the mess? And scrub the floor 
 with soap and water?" 
 
 "But alvays it comes back." 
 
 "Which is reason enough, you think, for allowing 
 the place to remain a pig-sty. What do you imagine 
 brooms are for?" 
 
 "To sell," said Goldberg, confidently. 
 
 Cryder made a gesture of disgust. 
 
 "I'd like to saw open that thick skull of yours," said 
 he, "and find if there's anything there besides bone."
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 51 
 
 "Not a ting but bone, Doc. Yust ivory." 
 
 "You poor little bi-furnate ossification of a Hebrew 
 animalcule, you're hopeless! Well, clean up here be- 
 fore I come in again, or I'll yes, I'll quarantine you 
 for small-pox. Stick a yellow placard on your door and 
 jail you if you tear it off. Hear?" 
 
 "Ruin my pusiness! Doc, you nefer vould." 
 
 "This very day." 
 
 "To-morrow I ' 
 
 "To-day. Within an hour. Now." 
 
 "Oh, veil, den, I'll tell mamma to get pizzy." 
 
 "And see that your wife not only sweeps but scrubs 
 the floor as well," Cryder stated, with emphasis. "I'm 
 tired of wading in here through filth. Now, so much 
 for that; I came on another matter. Mrs. Beeler died 
 this morning and I appoint you, Abie, to find a couple 
 of the boys who'll go to the burying ground and dig a 
 grave. This afternoon, without fail. The funeral's 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "I'll addend to id, Doc," Goldberg answered. "I 
 been vaiting for you to come in apoud it. And how 
 apoud a gasket? Mrs. Peeler vill vant a gasket and 
 I'll subbly id for dventy dollars ferry good, ferry 
 lofely, vit fine lumber painted valnut or sherry or oak 
 and vit prittiest drimmings and lace. Lofely, so 
 lofely. And only dventy dollars!" 
 
 "All right; make it. See, too, that the paint is dry, 
 for it wasn't the last time. When you've found men to 
 dig the grave, you can start work on it at once." 
 
 "Vat colour, Doc?" 
 
 "Oh, either walnut or oak. Your cherry's a trifle
 
 52 CRYDER 
 
 too gaudy. Just the thing for a Chinaman's coffin, 
 but we want something quieter for Mrs. Heeler's 
 casket." 
 
 "But apoud de pay, de dventy dollars? Minnie 
 Peeler haf noddings pud her freckles and her appedide." 
 
 "The woman must have a decent box to lie in," the 
 surgeon replied, impatiently. "I'll stand good for 
 the amount. Have the casket at the Beeler cabin 
 not later than noon to-morrow. And remember" he 
 pointed a stern ringer at the floor "this must be 
 scoured at once." 
 
 When he stepped from the store he beheld the saw- 
 mill promoter, Pinney, and old Arnold Meek still en- 
 grossed in talk, and heard the latter say with a thought- 
 ful mien and in deliberate tones: 
 
 "I'll not decide at this moment, Mr. Pinney. I 
 understand that the manager of the Hedley Lumber 
 Company was drowned yesterday and this will mean a 
 new manager who perhaps will deal fairly with us. The 
 company will soon want our timber. It's costing it a 
 great amount of money to drive down the logs it's 
 now getting and of course those at the head of the 
 company know this. I can see no way in which the new 
 manager can avoid coming to terms with us in the near 
 future. Even if the Hedley people pay what we ask, 
 still they would make more money for themselves in 
 buying our timber, however much they dislike to do so. 
 We're all agreed that's the case." He stroked his 
 beard with a slow movement of his hand. "It will be 
 wisest to wait before signing your paper and learn what 
 the company intends to do. I don't want to act
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 53 
 
 hastily. Should I receive an offer from the new 
 manager which meets my price, I then should sell. I'm 
 asking fifteen thousand dollars for my timber claim, 
 with which I shall be perfectly satisfied. A fair price, 
 is it not, Doctor?" He turned with an inquiring look 
 to Cryder. 
 
 "You'll have to cut that figure if you ever sell, 
 Arnold," was the reply. "But personally I believe 
 Kettle Creek and the Hedley company never will get 
 together on a deal." 
 
 "Well, I think we shall," said the other. "The 
 lumber company is about at the point where it's com- 
 pelled to take this timber at our price. All we have to 
 do now is to wait." 
 
 "As you've been waiting for twenty years," Cryder 
 exclaimed. "As you'll wait another score of years. As 
 you'll still be tarrying in hope when Gabriel blows the 
 last trump." 
 
 Simple Kettle Creekers, poor deluded creatures, 
 donkey-minded devotees of a preposterous chimera! 
 As if the great Heidenstreit interests would or could be 
 forced to a purchase against their will! 
 
 Cryder had early learned the history of the settle- 
 ment and the origin of its long-protracted quarrel with 
 the Hedley Lumber Company. In respect to it he held 
 himself aloof. He considered that both parties had in 
 the beginning been equally at fault and were in main- 
 taining it equally asinine: both tarred by the same stick. 
 If they would but let commonsense enter their minds, 
 if they would only abate their ancient rancour, drop 
 their recriminations, forego their hatred, then there
 
 54 CRYDER 
 
 should be a chance for them to arrive at a fair agree- 
 ment. But they were miles apart. The settlers de- 
 manded for their claims fifteen and twenty thousand 
 dollars and the Hedley Lumber Company steadfastly 
 refused to raise its offer of one thousand per quarter, 
 made years previous. Thus they remained unalterably 
 set in their respective positions, as in granitic matrices, 
 bitter, determined, uncompromising, each resolved to 
 force the victory. 
 
 The whole business Cryder considered chargeable 
 and corrupt. It amounted to no more than this, a 
 falling out among themselves of thieves who had con- 
 spired to loot the Government a timber deal criminal 
 in its inception, illicit in its nature, and stultified by bad 
 faith. In seeds of hate fructifying from such a baneful 
 vine the surgeon saw nothing strange. Inevitably it 
 would be so. Inevitably, he believed, like produces 
 like, evil begets evil, until in the flux of time the mis- 
 chief expends itself and ceases. Kettle Creekers now 
 were paying and the Hedley Lumber Company was 
 paying in mutual distrust and enmity for their old sin 
 and would continue to pay till the score was settled, 
 till this particular moral account was closed by the 
 obscure but inflexible law governing such matters. 
 
 Once Cryder had undertaken to bring together the 
 two parties to the quarrel in an agreement whereby a 
 price for the timber should be determined by disinter- 
 ested appraisers. But naught came of it. With his 
 very first word both sides had rejected the plan as if it 
 were a nettle. 
 
 This put him in a rage. To be told to mind his own
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 55 
 
 business! Hereafter, as far as he cared, they might cut 
 each other's throats and go to the devil. He was done 
 with them in their row, Hedley company and Kettle 
 Creekers alike. Of the two the latter in his estimation 
 were the more reprehensible, for they were his own 
 neighbours, in a sense, his proteges, to whom he gave 
 advice, to whom he made loans which they forgot to 
 pay, and to whom generally he ministered. Now they 
 could wait till doomsday to sell their timber and he 
 hoped they should! It would serve them about right 
 if he shut up shop and stuck his hands in his pockets and 
 never again gave one of them a dose of oil or a "shot" 
 of serum. They weren't worth it, not one of them. A 
 pack of degenerated timber cooties. Morons, that's 
 what they were, just morons. 
 
 Eventually his ill-humour subsided, but he would 
 have nothing more to do with the dispute. As a ne- 
 gotiable case, he saw nothing for it; the feeling between 
 the parties was too bitter. 
 
 "Arnold, let this timber talk rest for a moment," 
 he addressed the old man. "You and Pinney can dis- 
 cuss it some other time. Mrs. Beeler died to-day." 
 
 "So I was informed." 
 
 "The funeral will be to-morrow at two o'clock and 
 I wish you to take charge of the service, as usual. 
 Choose a hymn or two for the women to sing, have 
 a prayer, some remarks, a benediction the customary 
 rites." 
 
 "Very well, Doctor." 
 
 "Don't make your talk too long." 
 
 "No longer than it should be for a devout observance
 
 5 6 CRYDER 
 
 and spiritual strengthening," was the grave answer. 
 "Are you walking up the street? I'll return home at 
 once to examine Scriptural passages and meditate upon 
 the best thoughts for my sermon." 
 
 Cryder groaned to himself; he knew Arnold Meek and 
 his sermons. At a cabin, the Nichols dwelling, he 
 parted from his companion. Inside he found Mrs. 
 Nichols standing over a dishpan of hot water, plucking 
 a grouse. 
 
 "Where's Myra?" he questioned. "I want her to 
 come to the hospital and nurse." 
 
 "She's up at Beelers', Doctor, comfortin' Minnie," 
 was the response. "I don't think she'll go for you, 
 though. She says the last time she helped at the hos- 
 pital she strained her back liftin'." 
 
 "Pity about her back! She's strong as an ox." 
 
 "Well, she declares she won't go no more, but if you 
 want to you can go there and talk with her about it. 
 Terrible about Mrs. Beeler, wasn't it? Gone so rapid. 
 Funeral's to-morrow, I hear. Will you have old 
 Arnold Meek conduct the buryin' instead of a regular 
 minister from somewheres? Not that Arnold can't 
 pray and preach as hard and as long as any of them 
 when he once gets settled to work, but he's so awful slow 
 gettin' warmed up to it. Besides, he ain't been or- 
 dained, neither, to say nothin' of his bein' a Dunkard 
 and always draggin' in an arg'ment for feet-washin' in 
 his sermons at funerals." 
 
 "I've already asked him." 
 
 "Well, I hope he keeps ofFn feet-washin' this time 
 for a change." She rubbed her cheek with dripping
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 57 
 
 hand. "And say. Is my boy comin' to drive for you? 
 I heard he was." 
 
 "Yes. I've hired Nick; he's to show up to-day." 
 
 "That's what I was told, and so I'm gettin' ready a 
 chicken for him. He's awful fond of chicken." 
 
 "Chicken nothing!" 
 
 "Maybe not, but he's goin' to have it anyway." 
 
 "I'll have you fined for shooting game out of season, 
 that's what." 
 
 "Get out with you, Doc, you and your nonsense. 
 Or I'll slam you with a handful of wet feathers. Don't 
 you think a mother likes to fix something special for her 
 boy when he comes home? And Nicky's such a good 
 boy, better'n most." 
 
 " So that's it," said Cryder, in a milder tone. "Guess 
 I'll overlook your little infraction of the law this time 
 and Nick's a pretty fair lad, for a fact. I'll be on my 
 way now." 
 
 At the Beeler cabin Myra, steadily chewing a wad 
 of gum, insisted that her back had been strained and 
 refused to nurse for the surgeon. Hers was a broad fat 
 back and somehow her statement was not convincing. 
 Neither would Minnie Beeler agree to undertake the 
 work to-morrow after her mother's funeral; she was 
 planning to go to Maronville since she need not stay 
 here longer, she announced, where for some time Pearl 
 Martin had been employed in the telephone exchange 
 and where she had urged by letter that Minnie also 
 come. Farther up the creek at other cabins he had no 
 better luck. The three Krause girls were visiting at 
 Porcupine Hill. The Carillons had occupation for
 
 5 8 CRYDER 
 
 their daughter. Others gave reasons. And May 
 Johnson wouldn't come because she had had enough 
 of "that old Mercer cat." So it went. 
 
 Finally, toward three o'clock, he gave over the hunt 
 as he could spare no more time, having to make his call 
 at the Pembleton ranch where the child lay sick with 
 spotted fever. Nothing remained to do but secure a 
 nurse from the outside, if necessary a trained nurse. 
 
 When he returned to the hospital he consulted his 
 patient about the matter. 
 
 "How much will a trained nurse cost?" Huff asked. 
 
 "Forty a week. I'll probably have to send to 
 Spokane for one; and they increase their charge for 
 coming out here." 
 
 "Why not have my sister? She's in Maronville." 
 
 Cryder had not been aware that the youth had a 
 sister. 
 
 "The very thing!" he exclaimed. "Where can I 
 reach her?" 
 
 "At the sawmill office." 
 
 "I'll have her here to-morrow." 
 
 Whereupon the surgeon went out of the ward and into 
 his study. He rang up Berger at his telephone and 
 asked for a connection with the office of the Hedley 
 Lumber Company, at Maronville. When he had 
 obtained this, and HufPs sister at the other end, he 
 explained his need. Could she come? 
 
 Then she should plan to stay some time, bringing 
 plenty of clothes and not forgetting stout shoes and 
 a sweater. She best had come to-morrow on the stage 
 as far as the log-drivers' camp at Tupper's Bend, alight-
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 59 
 
 ing there, where his car would pick her up and bring her 
 on. Her trunk could follow later. Was her brother's 
 condition serious? Oh, no. Nothing to worry about. 
 
 IV 
 
 The conversation finished, Cryder rose and turned 
 from his desk, ready to set out on his thirty-mile drive 
 to the Pembleton ranch. But he instantly stopped. 
 Across the room by the door his look encountered a 
 slender feminine figure a pace before the threshold, a 
 woman in a dark blue suit throwing back an azure veil. 
 
 He stared incredulously, then relaxed and con- 
 sidered her with compressed lips and cowled brows. 
 
 "May I ask the reason for this intrusion?" he said, 
 at last. 
 
 "Don't use that freezing tone, Robert," the visitor 
 responded quickly. "I wanted to see you and so I 
 came. Can't you give me a kindlier welcome than 
 this?" 
 
 Cryder folded his arms. "No," said he. 
 
 "I I need it, Bob. I'm depressed, unhappy, in low 
 spirits." She half-turned, closed the door, and ad- 
 vanced until she was before him. "I was restless at 
 home. I couldn't endure the commiseration of people 
 who were continually telephoning or sending notes or 
 knocking at the door to offer hollow condolences; I 
 wanted to escape the abominable pretense in it all. So 
 I drove to the camp at Tupper's Bend to learn what 
 was being done to recover Jim's body and there a young 
 fellow named Nichols who had come up on a freight 
 wagon and was coming here offered to drive me
 
 60 CRYDER 
 
 when I asked him the way. When we reached this 
 spot, he said that if you were at home you would be in 
 this building and probably in this room. I entered the 
 hallway. I heard you telephoning. The door was open 
 and I stepped in." 
 
 "Your coming is a case of curiosity, I presume." 
 
 "No, Bob. Please don't be bitter." 
 
 "I can't account for your presence in any other way," 
 he said. 
 
 The woman stood silent, flushing slightly under his 
 hard scrutiny. She had not anticipated any warmth 
 in her reception and yet woman-like she was vexed be- 
 cause it was lacking. 
 
 "I told you why I came," she went on, presently. 
 "I'm lonely and wretched in mind." 
 
 "Because of Forsythe's death?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you decided to come to me for solace," he 
 remarked, ironically. "To me, of all persons!" 
 
 At the biting words she was swept by a gust of anger, 
 but this she repressed. 
 
 "No, not for solace," she replied. "For relief. To 
 get away from all the ghastly falsities of sorrow that I'm 
 expected to maintain. I wanted a moment in which I 
 could be just myself, and you're the one person in the 
 world, Bob, before whom I need not play the hypocrite. 
 If I had loved Jim it would be different, but I did not. 
 And I feel no grief. How could I? When a man dies 
 who made your life a beastly hell, you don't feel grief. 
 He did that when on his periodical drunks; he was a 
 demon then and had me living in disgust and terror.
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 61 
 
 Other times he was good-natured enough and on 
 occasion even prodigal with me, imagining that that 
 made up for his brutality during sprees. But it didn't. 
 It couldn't." 
 
 "When did you marry him?" 
 
 "Five years ago." 
 
 "AndwhatofHamlin?" 
 
 "I was divorced from him six months before I 
 married Jim." 
 
 "Why?" Cryder interrogated, coldly. 
 
 "My marriage to him was a wretched mistake, too, 
 as I discovered within a month. Hamlin revealed him- 
 self so mean and petty and jealous and generally in- 
 sufferable after the first few weeks that it was all I could 
 do to bear with the man as long as I did. He was 
 forever nagging about pennies. He was forever preen- 
 ing himself as superior. Then he got into a way of 
 slurring me and was insanely jealous if another man so 
 much as lifted his hat in passing. Finally, I could stand 
 it no longer. If I had only known where you were!" 
 
 "I was here safe from seeing you. Until now," said 
 he. 
 
 At that her look travelled around the rude chamber. 
 
 "And you've lived here ever since we parted?" she 
 questioned, curiously. "In this spot? For ten 
 years?" 
 
 "Yes," said he. 
 
 "And in perfect contentment?" 
 
 "Yes. Why not?" 
 
 "But it's like exile!" she exclaimed, with a gesture of 
 repugnance.
 
 62 CRYDER 
 
 "Suits me," was his curt rejoinder. 
 
 "I can't see why you didn't go to a city where you 
 would have had opportunity compatible with your 
 ability, Robert; for Doctor Martin says you have great 
 talents in surgery and could stand at the top of the 
 profession in any place San Francisco, Chicago, New 
 York. And I believe it." 
 
 A hard smile twisted Cryder's lips. 
 
 "Your opinion of me, I recall, was different the last 
 time we conversed, painfully different in all particu- 
 lars," he remarked, dryly. 
 
 "We both spoke words then that we should erase from 
 our minds," said she. 
 
 "Not I." 
 
 "We were angry and carried away by our feelings, 
 Bob, and neither of us really meant 
 
 His hand, peremptorily uplifted, stopped her speech. 
 A dark tide of blood was coursing under the skin of his 
 face and his deep-set eyes smouldered with fire. 
 
 " Enough of your euphemisms ! " he said, harshly. " I 
 was poor and in your opinion a failure; Hamlin seemed 
 a likelier man. Deliberately and in cold blood you 
 divorced me for him, which is the whole of the matter 
 I was kind to you, loved you, was faithful, gave all that. 
 I had to give, but you craved the flesh-pots." 
 
 Turning away, he crossed to a window overlooking 
 the forest, where he stood gazing out on the sea of tree- 
 tops. 
 
 The woman's regard steadily remained fixed on him. 
 He was right: she had thought him in that other time a 
 failure, an impoverished doctor without prospects and
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 63 
 
 worse, a poor, noisy, distracted, inept fool. Well, she 
 had misjudged him. He had shown after all that some- 
 thing worth while could come from his fierce energy and 
 his heated head. And he had loved her and she had 
 loved him, yes, passionately, utterly, in the first months 
 of their marriage. 
 
 A strange trembling seized her. Through her mind 
 shot an apprehension that she had missed life's happi- 
 ness. 
 
 The log wall and window made a frame for the man. 
 She perceived that in the ten years since she had seen 
 him he had put on weight. His shoulders were thicker, 
 his bulk more pronounced, even his head seemed more 
 solid, more massive. His coarse black hair, now that 
 it was beginning to be silvered, gave him a distinguished 
 look. The lines about his large eyes and nose had 
 deepened, while the contour of his jaw was squarer. 
 A man in middle life and in the fullness of powers he had 
 become. Formerly he had appeared to her, at the 
 time she left him, a fellow who was tumultuous, vocifer- 
 ous, ridiculous; but here was a Robert Cryder on whose 
 countenance (at least when in repose) was stamped 
 intelligence and character. 
 
 Unconsciously she intertwined her fingers and 
 twisted them tight, with a sinking heart. 
 
 "Robert," she whispered. 
 
 He faced about. "Well, Peg?" 
 
 "I told you the truth when I said I was lonely. I've 
 been lonely for ten years." 
 
 "You'll have to get over that as best you can." 
 
 "Ever since I learned you were here, I "
 
 64 CRYDER 
 
 "No, I'll not listen," he cut her off. 
 
 "But " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "If you hate me so, why did you operate on me last 
 autumn?" she demanded, resentfully. "Why didn't 
 you let me die?" 
 
 "You were on the table." 
 
 "That made no difference." 
 
 "Ah, it made all the difference in the world," said he. 
 
 "But it would have been your chance for revenge," 
 she said, bitterly. 
 
 A shadowy smile hovered on Cryder's face. 
 
 "Revenge?" said he. "The word isn't in the 
 vocabulary of sane men. Not in a surgeon's, certainly. 
 You know as well as I that once I have a lance in my 
 hand and a life in my charge, I'm under a sacred 
 obligation to accomplish my task to the best of my 
 ability, no matter who the patient is and without regard 
 for my personal feelings. That's my contract with 
 society, my inviolable trust, the seal of my honour. 
 But that sounds a bit like bombast. The point is, I 
 operated you as readily as I should any one requiring an 
 operation; if need be I would do it again to-morrow, 
 and you could feel yourself perfectly safe in my hands." 
 
 "I did before, Bob, for that matter." 
 
 "Why, then, the foolish question about letting you 
 die?" he asked, impatiently. 
 
 "I was angered by the way you refused to listen. 
 You always did cause me to fly up, I don't know why, 
 as no other man could. Because I loved you, perhaps." 
 
 "Ah, indeed!" He smiled disbelief.
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 65 
 
 "For your operating, though, I'm honestly grateful; 
 you must believe that if you believe nothing else." 
 
 "My services were paid for," said he. "I didn't 
 hesitate to send Forsythe a bill, as I don't permit foolish 
 scruples or sentimental nonsense to stand in my way of 
 collecting from those who owe me money and are able 
 to pay. Like other people, I must eat." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe uttered a soft laugh. 
 
 "That pretended crustiness!" she exclaimed, af- 
 fectionately. "It makes you the old Bob, the Bob I 
 knew. And you couldn't convince even a child of your 
 moroseness with it." 
 
 The words were spoken with a tender inflection and 
 in a winsome voice, but they started no pleased thump- 
 ing of his pulses as long ago they would have done. 
 With an absent plucking of his under lip he reflected. 
 
 It was as if he regarded her from a distance, an 
 immense distance indeed. Ten years had passed since 
 their ways diverged; and time can make great chasms 
 between lives. Poor woman, she thought to bridge 
 the void by a smile and a gay word ! As well might she 
 hammer with her fists on a granite clifF as to come 
 knocking at his heart now with expectation of response. 
 
 "Why do you look at me so, Robert ? " she questioned, 
 anxiously. 
 
 "I was merely thinking." 
 
 "But your face wasn't pleasant." 
 
 "It doesn't really matter how it looks, does it?" 
 he returned, glancing about. He had begun to recall 
 his affairs. "Now, Peg, I must end our talk; I've a 
 long drive to make."
 
 66 CRYDER 
 
 She stepped near him. 
 
 "Come, shake hands with me, Bob, before I go," 
 she said. "Let me feel the clasp of your ringers, let 
 me know on leaving here that you no longer hate me. 
 It isn't in your nature to bear enmity. You can forgive 
 those who have injured you. My life's been unhappy 
 since we separated, if that's any satisfaction to you." 
 
 "Very well; here's my hand." 
 
 "But I don't want it while you still distrust me, as 
 you're doing." 
 
 His face turned grave. "Are you to be trusted, Peg? 
 Give me a straight answer." 
 
 "I'll swear to it if you wish, Bob," she answered, 
 tremulously. 
 
 "No oaths are needed. If the truth isn't in your 
 heart But never mind; I give you the benefit of 
 the doubt. Here's my hand for it, and, moreover, 
 I hope you find the happiness you've so long been 
 seeking." 
 
 "And you don't hold the past against me? You 
 forgive me? All my hard words when we parted, my 
 leaving you, everything?" 
 
 "Yes " he began, but was stopped by the woman 
 catching his hand between both of hers and holding it 
 fast while he beheld a wetness dimming her eyes. 
 
 In her breast she was feeling an emotion that con- 
 fused and exalted her like a rapture of girlhood. But on 
 a sudden she heard him continuing: 
 
 "Yes, I forgive everything on one condition." 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 "You come here no more."
 
 DOCTOR CRYDER 67 
 
 She dropped his hand and stepped back, dismayed. 
 
 "But that's just what I want to do." she exclaimed. 
 
 "I'll not permit it." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Her violet eyes, still startled and dismayed and wet 
 with tears, beseeched his. 
 
 "I desire that you remain away from me," he stated. 
 "The forgiveness you ask I give, but it includes no 
 future companionship. Ten years ago it was your 
 decision that our lives should be sundered and now it is 
 mine that they should continue apart. My irrevocable 
 decision. Any friendship we might have would be but a 
 mockery of the past, painful with memories. Therefore 
 you must keep away from Kettle. Now I must go; 
 I'm already late." 
 
 "Just the same I want to see you." 
 
 "It can't be," said Cryder. 
 
 He walked to his desk, opened a humidor and took 
 out a cigar, which he set between his teeth. Biting off 
 the end, he lit the weed and began sending forth thick 
 clouds of smoke. 
 
 "It can't be," he repeated. "Well, I'm setting off 
 on my drive. Good-bye. This is the last, remember." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe dropped her veil and walked in silence 
 to the door. 
 
 "As I entered I heard you arranging for Frances 
 Huff to come care for her brother," she said, facing 
 about. "They're good friends of mine. Certainly I 
 may visit them." 
 
 "No. And I want your promise that you will stay 
 away, stay entirely away from this olace."
 
 68 CRYDER 
 
 "Bob!" 
 
 "That and nothing less." 
 
 She meditated. Cryder removed the cigar from 
 his mouth, inspected its burning end, replaced it and 
 got a firm grip on it with his back teeth. Then he 
 directed his look at the visitor, whose gaze he perceived 
 rivetted on his countenance. 
 
 "Well, I'll not promise," she said, at last. 
 
 "Do you mean you'll come against my wishes?" 
 
 "Bob, I'm going to see you again yes, and more 
 than once." 
 
 His face darkened. "See here, none of that," he 
 warned. 
 
 "I'm coming here." 
 
 Cryder angrily made a step forward. 
 
 "No, you're not," he cried. "You keep away from 
 this spot, away from the hospital, away from Kettle 
 Creek, or, by heavens, I'll make it hot for you!" 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe gave a quick, resentful toss of her head. 
 "Oh, if you put it in that fashion, that settles k, of 
 course. Nothing shall stop me now." 
 
 And turning from him she opened the door and went 
 out. 
 
 Cryder continued to stand glaring after her, feet 
 apart and head thrust forward, his cigar gripped in his 
 teeth. But at length, uttering an oath, he cast the cigar 
 in an ash tray and walked to the window overlooking 
 the forest. He rested a hand on the edge of a log-end of 
 the sawn casement, with fingers closing harden the wood. 
 
 She had come back. After ten years, after ten 
 peaceful years this jade had returned to plague, him!
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN THE FOREST 
 
 ON A day a month later Frances Huff was gazing 
 from the entrance of the hospital along the path that 
 dipped off the ridge into the forest. Doctor Cryder, 
 who was going fishing this afternoon, had said she 
 could go along. Two o'clock was the time set for the 
 start, and it was now a quarter past the hour. If he 
 had become involved in an argument at the store, as 
 likely, and failed her, she should never forgive him. 
 She cared nothing about the fishing, but on this day of 
 intolerable heat, the worst of a scorching week, she 
 longed to plunge into the forest and rest at some spot in 
 its cool emerald dusk where damp moss was underfoot 
 and the air was full of earthy, woodsy smells and water 
 murmured at her side. 
 
 Except for a gray cloud lying on the triad of peaks 
 at the head of the valley the azure vault was clear, an 
 immensity of sky that blazed with light. Incessantly 
 the sun grilled the earth. The bare mountain tops 
 east of the hospital quivered and danced. Ledges, rock 
 outcrops, boulders, scattered stones all radiated heat; 
 and high up on a slope a fall of disintegrated quartz 
 glittered like hot diamonds. Between the two moun- 
 
 69
 
 7 o CRYDER 
 
 tain ranges the forest lay as if floating in a lake of sun- 
 light, unstirring, soundless, lethargic, in a swoon of heat. 
 
 Frances turned about and went again into the ward. 
 Besides her brother three other patients now were 
 there for treatment: a rancher whose right foot had 
 been pierced by the tine of a hay-fork, a bad case of 
 blood-poisoning; a little girl six years old from a mining 
 camp up the river, languishing under an attack of 
 sleeping sickness; and a middle-aged woman, newly 
 arrived, with protruding eyeballs, sallow and emaci- 
 ated, whose hands continually twitched and clawed, 
 undergoing examination preparatory to an operation 
 for goitre. Frances aided in the nursing of all, having 
 charge when Miss Brown, the regular nurse, was 
 asleep, usually from breakfast time until mid-afternoon. 
 The need of these afflicted persons made an appeal to 
 her heart as Cryder's diligence did to her zeal. He was 
 forever going somewhere, along with his hospital work; 
 on calls to Berger, to Smith's Ford beyond, to Gresham, 
 to the mining camp at Porcupine Hill, to the log-drivers' 
 camps, to ranches, to dwellings on Kettle Creek, to lone 
 cabins on more distant creeks, even to Maronville. How 
 could she herself remain idle and keep her self-respect ? 
 
 She had been here a month. Coming up from 
 Maronville in the dusty battered automobile stage that 
 made trips into the mountains as far as Porcupine Hill, 
 with a drowsing boot-and-shoe salesman and a fleshy 
 bearded flockmaster for travelling companions, she had 
 been set down at the camp at Tupper's Bend. Her 
 sensation during the ride had been one of overpowering 
 loneliness and homesickness, of being carried into a
 
 IN THE FOREST 71 
 
 remote region infinitely distant from everything she 
 knew and loved. The mountains oppressed her spirit, 
 the serpentine river with white rushing water now some- 
 times near and now sometimes far below fascinated 
 and terrified her; the lack of visible life, the vast spaces, 
 the bigness and immobility of the highlands filled her 
 with dread. It all had been too much to bear: she had 
 had to get out her handkerchief and furtively wipe away 
 the tears that would come. And then the hour's wait 
 at camp till young Nichols appeared in the doctor's car! 
 That had been the worst. The dark swift river against 
 a black clifF sent her soul into the depths; and then the 
 three men, unshaven, ferocious-looking creatures with 
 overalls cut off at their shoe-tops, wet to the waist, and 
 dragging peaveys, who had come suddenly upon her 
 from round a clump of brush at the water's edge where 
 she stood and who uttered oaths of amazement, gave 
 her an instant of terror; and last, the sound of the 
 cook's spoon beating batter in a big pan in the cook-tent 
 furnished the culmination in her despondency and home- 
 sickness. Ah, that sound! Never again should she hear 
 anything so full of despair for her as that brisk clatter of 
 spoon in pan. But now she was herself again and happy. 
 The region had lost its strange forbidding aspect; moun- 
 tain and wood had grown familiar; and she had settled 
 comfortably into the life and routine of the hospital. 
 
 Of its master and lord she had ever-changing opinions. 
 Doctor Cryder amazed her by his learning and annoyed 
 her by his habit of arguing; she marvelled at his energy 
 and skill and likewise at his self-complacency. One 
 must admire his ability, but one detested his blustering
 
 7 2 CRYDER 
 
 egotism. To Frances he was an enigma, a multi- 
 complex nature, repelling and fascinating a Goth with 
 the brain of a modern. It was a matter of endless 
 interest to her to speculate on whether with time the 
 big head should subdue the rough passion and bridle 
 the hasty tongue; whether the turbulent soul of him 
 should still and mount, or to the last continue in an 
 impotent self-struggle. 
 
 She remembered vividly her first view of him. 
 Nichols bringing her from the river camp had driven 
 through the hamlet and along the forest road to the 
 ascent leading up the ridge, where the car developing 
 some engine trouble had obstinately stuck. Finally, 
 the youth had led her up the roadway, until they came 
 out of the trees behind the group of buildings. They 
 went forward past the cabins and round to the front 
 of the hospital. By the entrance of the building 
 Nichols checked her, pointing toward the solitary pine 
 growing on the ridge. 
 
 "There's Doc, so I'll go on back and tinker the car," 
 he said, setting her suitcase down. " That's him 
 and Nell Boggs' idiot kid." 
 
 The surgeon sat on a flat rock in the shadow of the 
 tree. His form and face were in profile. His hands lay 
 at rest on his knees, between which stood a child, a boy 
 of six or seven years, motionless, with an air of mute 
 submissiveness, with a dumb and helpless regard of the 
 man before him profoundly touching. 
 
 But the seated man was gazing over the idiot child's 
 head out upon the top of the forest. His countenance 
 was thoughtful and grave, and his head with its tumbled
 
 IN THE FOREST 73 
 
 shock of silver-tipped black hair had in repose a large- 
 ness, an unconscious air of lofty power that approached 
 the majestic. He was oblivious to mundane things. 
 In his countenance there now was none of the vehe- 
 mency, the truculent humour, the animality, which 
 the lumber company's cashier, Mr. Williams, so insist- 
 ently had drawn in his picture of the man; but in his 
 heavy rugged face, furrowed and at the moment austere, 
 there glowed a flame as from some deep recess that was 
 like an inward illumination. It was as if his mind 
 burned fiercely in an endeavour to rive the veil of life, 
 as if his spirit strove to penetrate the cruel and un- 
 explainable facts of existence this flattened brow, this 
 misshapen cranium upon the little human body between 
 his knees, this pitiable abnormality; to find the obscure 
 purpose in dulling this brain, the gain and progression 
 in the universal scheme in embolizing this tiny stream 
 of force, the intention in the Supreme Mind in leaving 
 this soul sealed in sleep. 
 
 All at once the child stirred and, pressing closer to the 
 seated man, leaned against him as if tired, letting his 
 head sink and rest on the man's breast in an action 
 instinctive, infantile, trustful. The surgeon at this 
 nestling of the small body against his own placed an 
 arm about the child and held him close. And thus they 
 remained on the rock, quite still the idiot child and 
 the man deep in thought. 
 
 II 
 
 In the ward Frances went to her brother's bedside. 
 Jack HufF was reading a book on forestry from Cryder's
 
 74 CRYDER 
 
 library, propped up on pillows, his face fresh-shaven 
 and his pipe between his teeth. The kinship of brother 
 and sister was evident in a facial similarity, though 
 as was natural the man's features were cast in a heavier 
 mould. Brow, nose, lips, and chin all were larger and 
 more assertive. 
 
 "Well, he's nowhere in sight," she said, indignantly. 
 
 "He'll show up after a little." 
 
 "If he doesn't, I shall certainly be miffed. Raise 
 yourself, Jack; your pillows are slipping." 
 
 Frances packed them anew and her brother with a 
 mumbled word of thanks settled back to his book and 
 his pipe. 
 
 Until this summer she had seen scarcely anything of 
 Jack since she was a girl still wearing a pig-tail. He 
 had gone to college, and then into the employ of a 
 lumber company in Maine, and after that into the 
 army upon America's entrance in the war, and finally 
 on his discharge after the Armistice he had come to 
 the Northwest, to the big lumbering field, and had 
 secured a place in the Hedley plant. They were almost 
 strangers to each other, she had found; and they ought 
 to be near and dear. She intended they should be. 
 Jack was big and fine and a hard worker, now thirty 
 years old and matured. He not only worked hard but 
 studied the lumber business as well, for he was de- 
 termined to rise. He was going to the top, he said. 
 Frances had not a doubt of it. Others thought so, too. 
 Once Mr. Forsythe had told her that Jack was a fellow 
 who would climb fast and far and how proud she had 
 been !
 
 IN THE FOREST 75 
 
 Jack's eyes were glued on the book. She perceived 
 that no comfort was to be had from him in her dis- 
 appointment at the surgeon's non-appearance and 
 sighed angrily. All men were alike! 
 
 She looked around the ward. The woman with a 
 goitre was rocking in a chair with slow, regular squeaks; 
 the silent, sunburnt rancher, lying in a bed with his red 
 hands inert on the sheet, gazed through half-closed lids 
 at the ceiling; and the little girl sat on a stool, her curly 
 blonde head fallen forward. 
 
 Frances woke her. 
 
 "I wish you'd let me sleep," said the child, drowsily. 
 
 "You must try hard to keep your eyes open; the 
 doctor wants that, you know." 
 
 "But I just can't." 
 
 "Oh, but you must, Amy. How hot you are; your 
 neck and face are wet with perspiration. Come along 
 to the tank and have a big cool drink and then I'll 
 sponge you off." 
 
 The child drank, and when Frances had filled a 
 basin, climbed upon her lap. 
 
 "I'm awful tired," said she, letting her head drop 
 against the other's shoulder. "When you've sponged 
 me, won't you let me sit here just a little while ? I wish 
 you was my mamma now." 
 
 Frances winked rapidly to keep sudden tears from 
 escaping. Then she sponged Amy and held her for a 
 moment. 
 
 Would this small body continue to weaken, or would 
 Doctor Cryder defeat and banish the insidious disease? 
 She prayed that the little girl should have her bloom
 
 7 6 CRYDER 
 
 of cheek and brightness of eyes again. She had come 
 to love the child. And from thinking of Amy she was 
 led to think of the others, the multitude of little folk, 
 defective or suffering or miserable, and prayed for them, 
 too; for the sick that they might be made well, for the 
 crippled to be made whole, the dumb to speak, the 
 blind to be given sight all, all the host of children 
 in need of help and compassion and prayers. 
 
 In the hallway sounded a man's tread. Frances set 
 the child upon her feet and rose, anticipating the sur- 
 geon's appearance. But next instant she perceived that 
 the step was not Cryder's, though in its firm and 
 deliberate planting of boot it struck her as familiar. 
 Then appeared in the doorway, halting there for a look 
 inward, a man she knew. 
 
 "Why, this is a pleasant surprise for us!" she greeted, 
 advancing. "Jack, here's Mr. Wagner." 
 
 "Mountain air agrees with you, Miss Huff," the visi- 
 tor answered. "You're looking well. Doc Cryder must 
 give you all you want to eat." 
 
 "Oh, he does that. And I've gained five pounds. 
 Will you come over to the bed and see Jack?" 
 
 At the bedside the Hedley Lumber Company man- 
 ager seated himself on a chair brought by Frances and 
 deposited his hat at his feet. With palms clasping 
 his knees he gazed silently at Huff. 
 
 "How's the leg?" he asked, at last. 
 
 "It's getting in shape fast now. Won't be so very 
 long before it's right as a trivet." 
 
 "I see there's a weight still tied to your foot." 
 
 "Sand bag." Attached to a rope, it hung over the
 
 IN THE FOREST 77 
 
 end of a board. "There were half a dozen of them at 
 first, and this last one will be off soon. In fact, Doc 
 expects to strip off the cast in a couple of weeks and let 
 me hobble round on crutches." 
 
 "That's good," said Wagner. He thoughtfully 
 rubbed his fleshy bearded cheek. "I'll be glad when 
 you get back to work again. Need you." 
 
 Curt as was the speech, it meant much coming from 
 this man. Jack had been vastly surprised at Wagner's 
 stopping in to see him, and now at this added evidence 
 of interest felt himself in a glow. 
 
 "Well, I'm crazy to get back on the job, you may be 
 sure," he declared. "This lying here like a mummy has 
 about finished me off. Why, I would give ten dollars 
 to hear the saws and planers for just three minutes." 
 
 Wagner nodded. He could understand that feeling. 
 Frances, who stood at the foot of the bed, even imagined 
 that he was pleased. 
 
 "Don't doubt it," said he. 
 
 "Tell me, Mr. Wagner, how everything's going at 
 the mill and on the drives," Jack exclaimed. 
 
 "Oh, so-so." 
 
 "Where's Number One drive now? Must be well 
 down the river." 
 
 "Most of it is in the boom, in fact." 
 
 "Good work. And Number Two?" 
 
 "Just past Tupper's Bend." 
 
 "That's making good progress. I suppose crews 
 Three and Four are coming down well also, though the 
 water in the river must be low now. Which way are 
 you headed, up or down?"
 
 78 CRYDER 
 
 "Up. Decided to turn in here and see how you were. 
 Williams, of course, has phoned regularly." 
 
 "Well, I'm glad you did," said Jack. 
 
 "I've been pretty busy, or I should have come be- 
 fore." 
 
 But now Wagner began to glance about the room, as 
 if his curiosity regarding Huff's condition was satis- 
 fied. He still sat with feet apart and his hands resting 
 on his knees; his shoulders strained the seams of his 
 flannel shirt, his vest hung open, and a fine dew of 
 perspiration glistened on his forehead. His look trav- 
 elled from the rancher in his bed to the woman in 
 the rocking-chair and to the child on the stool. He 
 noted the screen before the woman's cot, the water 
 tank, the wheeled chair in a corner, and the weighing 
 scales against the wall. From an inventory of these 
 articles he apparently passed to a consideration of the 
 wall itself, the logs of which it was constructed, as if 
 estimating their lumber content. Then he remained 
 awhile in thought. 
 
 Presently he looked at HufF again. 
 
 "A fine lot of timber here on Kettle Creek," said he. 
 "Thick stand. White pine and yellow both; and a 
 simple proposition to log out. You know, I guess, that 
 we would like to get it. Haven't heard while here, have 
 you, anything of these Kettle Creekers being willing 
 to accept our offer for their claims ? " 
 
 Jack hoisted himself on an elbow. 
 
 "I should say not!" he answered "Wagner, they're 
 simply crazy when it comes to naming a price. Doc 
 knows them like a book and says they're a herd of jack-
 
 IN THE FOREST 79 
 
 asses, though, for that matter, he says we belong in the 
 herd, too." Jack grinned. "But Doc's a good deal of 
 a wild ass himself. Now, the fact is there isn't one 
 chance, not one, of getting anywhere with these fellows 
 in the purchase of their claims. You know how little 
 they love the Hedley Lumber Company and they 
 believe that its logging costs at present are so high that 
 it must give in and buy the timber here at the prices 
 they fix. In other words, they think they have us by 
 the throat. And to make the situation more fantastic, 
 there's a man named Pinney circulating about and try- 
 ing to promote among them a cooperative sawmill to be 
 built at Maronville." 
 
 "So I've heard," said Wagner. 
 
 Jack Huff went on: "He tells the settlers he can get 
 a loan at a Maronville bank to start the project, but 
 there's nothing in that, of course." 
 
 "Did he name the bank?" 
 
 "No. But Cryder learned what bank he meant. One 
 day when in town Doc made inquiries he wouldn't 
 hesitate to bull into anything in which he felt an interest, 
 you know. Well, Emmons of the Citizens' National 
 told him Pinney had been boring him to death with his 
 scheme and pleas for a loan. Emmons had listened to 
 the man, that was as far as it went. He told the 
 would-be promoter that when he produced satisfactory 
 security the bank would consider making a loan to his 
 mill company, as it would to any other business concern, 
 but good security was the first requirement, and as yet 
 he wasn't able to supply that. But Pinney's so crazy 
 he thinks a loan is as good as secured and he's working
 
 80 CRYDER 
 
 tooth and nail to get the settlers to join. On the 
 strength of his wild promises he has gained a few more 
 signers. Doc states that he has a dozen or so now.'* 
 
 "Has, eh?" 
 
 "He's a pertinacious chap." 
 
 "Know him?" 
 
 "He's been up here; I've seen him and I presume 
 you have. Crazy as they're made! He nearly talked 
 me to death telling me about his 'company.' He talks 
 to any one who'll listen and those who won't, too. 
 His bug is to be a promoter, a financier." 
 
 "Yes. He talked to me," said Wagner, drily. "And 
 I listened. Well, you think there's no sentiment what- 
 ever toward a sale to us ? " 
 
 "Not at a reasonable figure." 
 
 "Humph." Wagner sat thinking. 
 
 Jack reached for a match and lighting his pipe puffed 
 at it for a moment, then laid the briar on the stand. 
 
 "Look here, I've been considering this Kettle Creek 
 matter," said he, leaning toward the visitor and speak- 
 ing in a lowered tone, "and well, of course, it's really 
 none of my business and you may think me presump- 
 tuous to make suggestions ' 
 
 "Shoot," said Wagner. 
 
 "I believe there's a way to get this timber at some- 
 where near your figure," he asserted, dropping his 
 voice to a murmur. "I've been studying the case. 
 This Pinney, this fool promoter's talk of a loan, gave 
 me an idea that is, if you care to hear it how you 
 might obtain this timber." 
 
 Wagner became instantly alert.
 
 IN THE FOREST 81 
 
 "If you've a suggestion, let me have it," he said, with 
 a nod. "I want this timber for our mill." He paused, 
 frowning. At last he remarked, "They have played 
 the dog in the manger long enough. Go on." 
 
 Jack leaned nearer to him and explained with lowered 
 voice, "What I thought of is this: By the company 
 once more making its offer to these people and 
 He stopped short, for he remembered his sister. He 
 gazed over his shoulder at her with face glowering. 
 "Don't stand there listening; go somewhere beyond 
 hearing," he rapped out. "This isn't a matter for you 
 to know of, by any means." 
 
 Frances was dumbfounded. Never before had her 
 brother spoken to her thus. And why now? How had 
 she deserved such humiliation? With scarlet cheeks 
 she walked away from the bed and out of the ward into 
 the hall. It was as if he had unexpectedly given her 
 stripes with a lash. 
 
 in 
 
 As she stood in the hallway Doctor Cryder hove in 
 sight. He halted on the threshold. 
 
 "All ready to go?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes," she answered. "But Miss Brown isn't yet 
 here." 
 
 "Here she comes." The nurse appeared, adjusting 
 her cambric cap and giving a pull this way and that 
 to her white uniform. He addressed her: "Sometime 
 this afternoon put things in shape in the operating room 
 for to-morrow, as I'm going to operate Mrs. Stiehm. 
 Time to remove that goitre. Phone Martin also; he
 
 82 CRYDER 
 
 wants to be on hand." He beckoned Frances. "Now 
 for the trout. Best have something on your head." 
 He himself wore an old hat with a dozen trout flies 
 hooked in the ribbon. "Whose car back yonder?" 
 
 "Mr. Wagner's," Frances replied. "He's inside with 
 Jack." 
 
 "He, eh? Not a bad chap, Wagner, though forty 
 years behind the times like all the rest of the lumber- 
 men. They can't learn anything new, and don't want 
 to. They'll saw anything that will make a two-by- 
 four. Does Bohall show any higher temperature from 
 that foot? None? All right; I won't go in. Now skip 
 for your hat." 
 
 They had stepped over the threshold into the sun- 
 shine. At his last words she ran on before, round the 
 end of the hospital and to her cabin, where she snatched 
 up her tam. In a dresser drawer she rummaged about till 
 she found her collapsible drinking cup, then leaned near 
 the glass to inspect her face, rubbed about her eyes with 
 a powder rag, dabbed her nose, turned her chin right 
 then left for contemplation, knelt and tucked in the 
 ends of her boot laces, made sure she had her handker- 
 chief, patted her ear muffs, and tripped forth. 
 
 Cryder was waiting at the runabout. He had his 
 pipe between his lips and with distended cheeks was 
 blowing desperately to clear the obstructed tube. As 
 Frances joined him he ceased. 
 
 "Tight as a drum," he exclaimed, in disgust. "Well, 
 I'll ram it open later. Hop in. You're delegated to 
 hold my rod and creel. Hey, Nick! Want you!" 
 
 Nichols, who had been lolling against Wagner's
 
 IN THE FOREST 83 
 
 automobile and gossiping with the driver, came for- 
 ward. He sprang upon the running-board as Cryder 
 started the runabout. 
 
 "Battalion's formed, Captain," he said, saluting; and 
 grinned at Frances. 
 
 "Want you to fix a leak in the school-house roof. A 
 lot of water went in the last rain." 
 
 "School ain't going now." 
 
 "That makes no difference. You get some 'shakes' 
 somewhere and climb up on top and fix the leak. 
 Examine the whole roof, too, for holes. First thing you 
 know, school will be starting and the kids will be 
 without proper shelter, unless a couple of public- 
 spirited citizens like you and me attend to the matter." 
 
 "'Like you and me'," Nichols parroted. "Like me, 
 you mean. I'm the only guy getting up on the roof." 
 
 As the car went off the ridge into the forest, Frances 
 asked him why he abstained from wearing the gorgeous 
 silk shirt in which, at the Hedley company's office, she 
 first beheld him. The shirt was "ruinated," he informed 
 her. He had tangled with a fellow at Berger on the 
 Fourth of July over a girl during a dance and when they 
 were through the shirt was in strings. But they took 
 the other guy home on straw in a wagon-bed, yes, 
 indeedy. 
 
 Nick dropped off the running-board at his mother's 
 house. Cryder drove ahead to another cabin, stopping 
 when he saw a woman seated on the doorsill, who was 
 sewing a patch in a small pair of pants. At her feet 
 sat the idiot boy in his shirt. 
 
 "Nell, come here," said the surgeon.
 
 84 CRYDER 
 
 The woman rose and came forward slowly, clutching 
 in her two hands the youngster's pants. Her pink- 
 checked gingham dress, limp, faded, and soiled, was open 
 at the neck, showing the plump swell of her breast. About 
 her was an air of vacuous complacency akin to stupid- 
 ity. Her figure was growing soft and heavy with fat. 
 
 "What do you want?" she asked, stopping near the 
 automobile. 
 
 "Well, have you decided about the kid as I advise?*' 
 Cryder rejoined. 
 
 The woman's round, dull face flushed. 
 
 "I won't do it," she declared, and she began to gaze 
 at the ground. 
 
 "Here, Nell, look up at me." 
 
 "I won't." 
 
 "Yes, you will when I tell you to." 
 
 "I won't, I won't." 
 
 Cryder hitched impatiently in his seat. 
 
 "Now see here; I've talked to you a dozen times 
 about this," he exclaimed, "and there's no need to 
 argue with you again. You know Roscoe will be better 
 off in a state institution, will have better care, will 
 get- 
 
 "You shan't take him away from me, Doc." 
 
 "He'll always be a burden and an expense and a 
 worry," the surgeon continued. 
 
 "I'm goin' to keep him just the same." 
 
 "Nell, don't be obstinate. Try to look at the matter 
 sensibly. If there were the least chance of his develop- 
 ing mentally I'd not say a word of sending him off, 
 but there isn't. Not the least in the world. There-
 
 IN THE FOREST 85 
 
 fore, the right thing to do is to put him in the place the 
 state has provided for defectives like him, where there 
 are attendants who understand their care and adequate 
 facilities for keeping them in comfort. It isn't as if 
 he knew about it. He knows nothing and never will. 
 As it is now, when you go off to work at Berger or else- 
 where and he's left with a neighbour he's neglected. I 
 know that for a fact. Maybe, too, he's abused, though 
 I can't be positive in that particular. Even when 
 you're here, he wanders off. Good lord, yes. Tell me, 
 how many times have you had Kettle all excited and 
 beating the woods to find him?" 
 
 "Not more'n two or three." 
 
 "Fiddlesticks! Not less than twenty or thirty." 
 
 "I don't care if I have." 
 
 "You'd better." 
 
 "I won't any such thing." 
 
 Her face lifted and a vindictive gleam flashed from 
 her eyes. 
 
 "You must consider this thing in the proper light," 
 Cryder went on, insistently. "I could have had the 
 boy taken long ago before the county medical examiners 
 if I had wanted to, whether you agreed or not. But 
 I haven't, for I wish your consent to the action. I'm 
 going to induce you to " 
 
 A surge of murky blood suddenly darkened the 
 woman's quivering cheeks. 
 
 "I never will, Doc Cryder, I never will," she cried, 
 "and I wish you'd stop plaguin' me about it!" 
 
 "Now, now, Nell. Keep your hair on. Don't fly 
 off the handle and go to yelling."
 
 86 CRYDER 
 
 The woman flung the pants on the ground and stamped 
 her foot wildly. 
 
 "I will, I will yell every time you come around! 
 You can't stop me!" Her voice rose in shrill crescendo. 
 "You want to steal my baby Roscoe and take him 
 away and I know why! You want to carry him off 
 where you doctors can cut into his head and look inside 
 and nobody know! You want to kill him; you want to 
 'sect his brains! Everyone says so! And I won't let 
 you! You shan't have him! I don't care if he is an 
 idjet! He's my baby; I love him and don't you dare 
 come here again or touch him, for I've got a gun! I'll 
 kill you! I'll shoot your damned head off, that's what 
 I'll do! I'll murder I'll " 
 
 "All right, Nell. I won't bother you any more." 
 
 "You'd better not! I'll grab my gun and fix you! 
 You'll have a hole in you bigger'n a hat ! You great big 
 murderin' you big big thief!" 
 
 Horror ran in Frances's veins as the woman, inflamed 
 of face and wild-eyed, mouthed her frenzied words and 
 came to a sputtering end. The girl could not under- 
 stand how the surgeon could remain so calm, so un- 
 perturbed, under the blazing passion directed at his 
 head. He said nothing more, sitting quiet, regarding 
 Nell Boggs with a speculative regard. 
 
 On a sudden her fury ceased. When she spoke her 
 peevish but subdued tone was almost comical. 
 
 "Ain't I got enough trouble, Doc, without you 
 throwin' me into tantrums?" she said. "Makin' me 
 fly to pieces and squeal?" 
 
 "So you're going to shoot me, eh?"
 
 IN THE FOREST 87 
 
 The woman's head went down in shame. 
 
 "You know I ain't got a gun," she replied. 
 
 "Well, I guess there's no use at this time to try 
 to prevail upon you about the kid. We'll let the 
 matter rest for awhile. But you be thinking about 
 it." 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't ask me, Doc." 
 
 "You must come to it about Roscoe." 
 
 "He's my little baby boy and I ain't never goin* to 
 let him go 'way from me and not feel him in my arms 
 no more." She raised a hand and rubbed her nose and 
 eyes, then with a sudden exultation she exclaimed: 
 "And he's growin' real bright. Yesterday he said 
 something that sounded just like 'ma,' which shows 
 he's beginnin* to talk and know his mother and not 
 be as dumb as he was; and besides that, he hasn't 
 been lost for almost two weeks now, Doc, and he's 
 becomin' stronger except for his bowels what is startin' 
 to- 
 
 "Hold on, hold on, Nell," Cryder cut in, checking 
 her before she should ramble into embarrassing details. 
 "Give him a dose of castor oil; tablespoonful will set 
 him right. Now that's all for to-day." He turned 
 the starter. "Gid-dap, old boat; got to be sailing 
 along." 
 
 The car sped from the cabin up the street into the 
 forest road leading northward. Among the pines it 
 flew, over a log bridge spanning the creek, and once 
 more on among the stately tree-trunks, now swinging 
 near to the brawling stream, now spinning away from 
 its mossy bank.
 
 88 CRYDER 
 
 "Won't take us long till we're in the upper valley," 
 Cryder assured his companion. 
 
 IV 
 
 Kettle Creek had its source in the high gorges and 
 snowbanks of the Three Sisters, formed of innumerable 
 rills and brooks that united to rush down a canyon 
 breaking forth from the mountains' pocket. It brawled 
 out of this into the forest, where its course if less rapid 
 was still noisy; fuming about boulders and quarrelling 
 with logs, gurgling under tangles of underbrush, splash- 
 ing over stones, chuckling under tree-roots, and at times 
 falling with a musical plunk-plunk into shadowed pools. 
 
 As the car travelled northward, one after another of 
 the cabins along the road emerged to view for a moment 
 and then vanished again among the trees. Crude and 
 primitive habitations they were, dwarfed by the tower- 
 ing pines, and to Frances possessing an aspect dull, 
 sombre, and forlorn. The road at last became only a 
 mere track; the automobile engine was steaming. 
 Cryder brought the car to a stop in the lee of a huge 
 rock. 
 
 "We must walk now," said he. 
 
 They alighted and went forward through thinning 
 timber. Presently they came out from the trees upon 
 a hillside, which they ascended until Frances thought 
 her lungs should burst. A last effort took her to the 
 top of the slope. 
 
 "Phew!" said she, tumbling upon the canvas coat 
 Cryder flung down for her. She gasped with mouth 
 wide open. "Phew, phew!"
 
 IN THE FOREST 89 
 
 " But you wanted a view," said he. 
 
 "If that's a pun, it's atrocious," she panted. "But 
 this is worth coming to see!" 
 
 They were on the base of the most eastern of the 
 Three Sisters. At their right lay the dark gorge whence 
 issued Kettle Creek, with the wild rocky mountain 
 slopes about it sweeping up to the three lofty peaks, 
 now half-hidden by cloud. In the northeast there 
 stood a range of mighty mountains. Before the eye 
 spread the narrow valley up which Frances and Cryder 
 had come, filled with forest between its parallel ram- 
 parts; a trench of green extending southward to the 
 greater valley of the Furness River, far off and misty 
 blue in the sunshine. So solid seemed that floor of tree- 
 tops one might have walked down it from end to end. 
 
 Frances soon regained her breath. She followed her 
 companion down a zigzagging path into the canyon 
 until they reached the creek. There Cryder began 
 joining the sections of his fishing-rod, meanwhile giving 
 her a dissertation upon the geology of these particular 
 mountains. She held up a protesting hand. 
 
 "Enough," she cried. "Their looks are what I'm 
 interested in, not their insides." 
 
 "Knowledge is good for you, young lady," said he. 
 "If women had a little more substantial stuff in their 
 heads, there wouldn't be so much powdering of noses 
 and vamping other women's husbands and getting their 
 names in the scandal sheets." 
 
 "The idea! I never vamped any one's husband or 
 had my name in a scandal sheet,'' she announced, 
 indignantly.
 
 9 o CRYDER 
 
 "I was speaking generally." 
 
 "You were looking straight at me." 
 
 "Never knew it to fail that a woman applied person- 
 ally every broad statement about her sex," Cryder re- 
 marked. "The trouble with you ladies, of course, is 
 that your macrocosm is too subjective." 
 
 "Whatever that means." 
 
 "Whatever that means, yes. I'll leave you to find 
 out." 
 
 "I think you think you know a great deal about 
 women," Frances said, testily. "Whereas you don't. 
 Now suppose you go to fishing so that we'll move 
 toward the car. The clouds up yonder are growing 
 darker and I don't want to be rained on." 
 
 Cryder glanced at the peaks. "No rain there," said 
 he. 
 
 "I suppose you know everything about the weather 
 along with the rest." 
 
 "Oh, yes. Everything about weather, and every- 
 thing about women, and everything about everything." 
 
 Frances gazed at him helplessly. He returned her 
 look with the large calm of an elephant. One could 
 not pierce his hide of egotism with pins, she thought; 
 one needed a whale lance. 
 
 "Now for fish," he said, making a cast. "Come 
 along; we won't dawdle." 
 
 Nor did they dawdle. Frances, fearing to be lost if 
 she missed sight of him, clambered over boulders and 
 slabs until they were out of the canyon and in the forest. 
 Here she must crawl over spiny, fallen jack-pines and 
 wriggle through thickets. She had a feeling that they
 
 IN THE FOREST 91 
 
 were going deeper and deeper into an unknown jungle 
 that was not Kettle Creek forest at all. In their twist- 
 ings she lost all sense of direction. The steady rush of 
 the stream made her shiver, and she expected every 
 instant to step on a snake or meet an open-mouthed 
 beast. She did not like fishing; she wished Doctor 
 Cryder would take her home. Twice he had gone 
 entirely out of sight so that she had had to shout 
 frantically for him to wait, at which he had declared 
 he had been there close at hand all the while. He 
 plowed ahead and let her come along as best she 
 could, never helping her unhook brambles or climb 
 over difficult places. Crawling on hands and knees 
 through a tangle of underbrush, she had got two terrible 
 scratches on one of her wrists; and in edging over a 
 sloping rock after him she had slipped, slid, emitted 
 a despairing shriek and gone into the stream expecting 
 to drown, but the water came only to her shoe tops. 
 "In, are you?" the surgeon had said. "I must get you 
 some boots for next time." And he had let her wade 
 out alone. By gracious, there would be no next time! 
 
 At the end of hours, as it seemed to Frances, they 
 rested. She sat on a log by the creek and he, reclining 
 on the ground, smoked his pipe. 
 
 "Enjoying it?" he queried. 
 
 "Where's the car?" asked she. 
 
 "A mile or two back." 
 
 "What! We've passed it?" 
 
 "If you're tired, you can wait here while I " 
 
 "No, I'll go along with you." 
 
 "All right," said he, lazily. "Scratched up a bit, I
 
 92 CRYDER 
 
 see. I'll dab those marks with iodine when we reach 
 home." He looked at his watch. "Five-thirty. Lots 
 of time yet, and the fishing just growing good. Usually 
 I stay till dark." Frances's heart sank. "But I 
 won't to-day," he concluded. 
 
 "It's best to leave a few for your next excursion," 
 she responded in a languid tone. 
 
 Her muscles were stiff, the soles of her feet felt as if 
 they were blistered, she was hungry, her shoulders 
 ached. With half-shut eyes she watched the dance of 
 a cloud of gnats above the stream and listened to the 
 babble of the water among the stones. This rest was 
 like a blessing to her knees and back. 
 
 Ten minutes passed without either speaking. 
 
 "How did you happen to choose Kettle Creek for a 
 home?" she asked, at last. 
 
 He explained. At the time he came here he was 
 roving through the mountains on a summer's outing. 
 For three years previous he had lived in a small coal- 
 mining town on the Union Pacific Railway, in Wyom- 
 ing, where he was physician for the coal company. He 
 then had been not long in practice, for after his medical 
 course was finished he had spent considerable time in 
 hospitals as an interne and topped off with a year in 
 Vienna. On his return to this country he had tried 
 practice in a city, but made no go of it. He was in debt 
 and pretty desperate. Finally, he got the place in the 
 coal camp through the assistance pf a surgeon friend 
 in New York, and it was not a bad sort of job for the 
 time being. It gave him an all-around general practice, 
 medical and surgical, just what he needed then, and he
 
 IN THE FOREST 93 
 
 had the horde of Slavs and Polaks who worked in the 
 pits on his roll; dosed and patched hundreds of them a 
 month and received a dollar per man per call from the 
 company, whether the case was cramps, typhoid, ampu- 
 tating a leg, or anything else. He had had to work like 
 a Trojan, but he made money and benefitted tremen- 
 dously by the rough-and-ready professional experience. 
 A rather dreary hole to live in, yes. Certain painful 
 circumstances not necessary to relate had caused him 
 finally to terminate his contract with the coal company 
 and to seek a new location. 
 
 But before choosing another place for his labours 
 he wanted a rest, a three or four months' vacation 
 away from people. He had not had a free day in the 
 whole three years he had dwelt in the shadow of the 
 coal tipples. Besides, his soul was nearly withered. 
 And so he had come to the mountains of Idaho, camp- 
 ing up through them, and eventually wandered here to 
 Kettle Creek, where a prospector had told him the 
 fishing was excellent. 
 
 It happened that there was sickness among the people 
 when he arrived, so he had taken them in charge, 
 straightened them out and set them on their feet. A 
 notion to live here seized him and here he was. 
 
 "But why remain?" Frances asked. "You could 
 accomplish much more elsewhere, in some place com- 
 mensurate with your abilities." 
 
 The surgeon puffed his pipe thoughtfully. 
 
 "That depends," he answered. 
 
 "On what?" 
 
 "On what you mean by accomplishment. Do you
 
 94 CRYDER 
 
 mean that I could make more money? Here I have 
 sufficient for my wants. Do you refer to reputation? 
 I'm not unknown in my profession. Or do you mean I 
 should accomplish more good?" 
 
 "That, yes." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Your skill would be employed for the benefit of 
 educated people and so in consequence your services 
 would be more valuable to society." 
 
 Cryder pondered. Then he hoisted himself to his 
 feet and made a sweeping gesture. 
 
 "What of those here?" he demanded. "I'll grant 
 at once that educated people are intrinsically of more 
 worth than illiterate folk; I operate them, too, when I'm 
 in the East winters, but that's beside the point. I 
 can't admit the logic of your inference. Among the 
 ignorant, among the poor, among such people as live 
 here on Kettle Creek and in the region about there 
 exists the greatest need. Every city has an army of 
 medical men and even every hamlet has its quota, but 
 who would the poor devils in this place and on far 
 ranches up the Furness and in isolated cabins back in 
 the hills, so far away from Maronville, have without 
 me?" 
 
 He stared past her, as if seeing the remote habitations 
 of which he spoke. 
 
 "I know these people the men, the women, the 
 children, and the babes," he went on. "I know them 
 inside and out, their mental bents as well as their physi- 
 cal natures, their traits as well as their tongues. I know 
 those who are healthy and those who are ailing, those
 
 IN THE FOREST 95 
 
 decent and those sinning, the virtuous and the vicious. 
 I know them all. In each I can put my finger on the 
 person's particular strength and particular weakness. 
 How much that is worth! I can cure where another 
 would fail, for the giving of pills and the tying of sore 
 thumbs isn't the whole of it: I administer as well to 
 their minds when sick, ay, and to their souls. I cross 
 thresholds to give good counsel and to end quarrels 
 and give courage and fresh hope to broken men and 
 despairing women. Yes, I do that, have done it times 
 without number." 
 
 For a little his brows knit in thought. Frances sat 
 with elbows planted on knees and chin on fists, her eyes 
 rivetted on Cryder's face. 
 
 "They may kick and grumble and rebel; I care noth- 
 ing for that," said he. "Nothing at all. I go straight 
 ahead, for however much they may mutter or sneer 
 or procrastinate or curse they need me and they're 
 aware of it. When sick, they call me. When in 
 trouble, they want me. Whatever they may pretend 
 or say, still in their hearts they trust me, in their poor 
 impoverished souls they know me not only as a phy- 
 sician but for a friend. That's the place I've come to 
 fill in this region. How, then, can it be said my service 
 here isn't the equal of any ? Where indeed among your 
 skyscrapers could I render a service as great or as 
 necessary? Well, nowhere. So you see my proper lo- 
 cation is here on Kettle Creek and nowhere else." 
 
 "But if the Kettle Creekers sell their claims and go?" 
 she asked, after a silence. 
 
 "They won't sell."
 
 96 CRYDER 
 
 "But there is/the possibility." 
 
 He shook his head. "Not even that. I tell you I 
 know the people here and I also know the Hedley 
 Lumber Company. They hate each other. There will 
 be no sale." 
 
 "Then the settlers will just remain here." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you, too." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "All your life?" 
 
 "All the rest of my life, such is my intention." 
 
 Frances rose from the log with eyes shining and with 
 arms spread wide. Egotist though the man might be, 
 the greatness of his spirit transcended his egotism. 
 
 "You have shown me something big and splendid," 
 she exclaimed. "I thought it was lost in men." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, as they were talking, Fran- 
 ces glanced overhead and said, "Should we not start 
 home? Dusk is near." 
 
 "Dusk? Oh, no. Can't be. The sun doesn't set for 
 an hour yet," he rejoined. 
 
 "But the wood is growing dark." 
 
 Cryder, who had seated himself on the log beside her 
 to converse, looked about through the boughs and 
 jumped to his feet. 
 
 "We're in for a shower," said he. 
 
 The slanting shafts of sunshine had paled, died. The 
 virescent gloom increased until among the trees it 
 was twilight, as if a giant hand had been laid over the
 
 IN THE FOREST 97 
 
 forest. Cryder hastily removed leader and reel and 
 unjointed his rod. Then they pushed through the 
 underbrush by the creek and struck eastward to the 
 road, up which they hastened. A chill breath stole 
 through the wood. Overhead sounded a mutter of 
 thunder and a sighing of treetops. The dusk thickened. 
 
 "One thing this proves," Frances panted. "You 
 don't know everything about weather, at least." 
 
 "It won't amount to much a small sprinkle, not a 
 real rain." 
 
 "Just the same, it's getting to be like night." 
 
 "Rather dim, for a fact." 
 
 "We're going to be soaked, I know." 
 
 "I hope not." 
 
 They were walking fast. At a sharp crack of thunder 
 they went faster. In ten minutes Frances was gasping 
 and Cryder breathing hard, for the valley here had a 
 marked ascent. A succession of dazzling flashes and 
 thunder claps brought the surgeon and his companion 
 to a halt. The last glimmer of light was swallowed up 
 in darkness in which the road was lost. 
 
 They listened. To their ears came a murmur like 
 that of a multitude of pigmies rushing forward between 
 the ramparts of the valley, a steady drumming like the 
 sound of innumerable tiny feet racing on the roof of the 
 forest. 
 
 "Rain, sure enough!" Cryder exclaimed. 
 
 He drew Frances from the road toward a black blot 
 in the gloom, which at a lightning flare revealed itself 
 as a heavy-boughed spruce. In among its flat, low- 
 hanging branches he forced a passage until he and Fran-
 
 98 CRYDER 
 
 ces stood close against the bole of the tree. He placed 
 rod and creel on the ground and removing his canvas 
 coat wrapped it about her head and shoulders. 
 
 "Can't see a thing in this darkness," said she. And 
 then, "My heavens, I saw that!" 
 
 The world seemed split by a blinding flash and a 
 crashing detonation at that instant, and while their 
 ears still rang there came a roar of wind and water that 
 further deafened them. 
 
 Frances pressed closer to the surgeon, who flung an 
 arm protectingly about her shoulders and held her tight 
 against his breast as the storm broke. 
 
 "I'm horribly afraid of thunder," she said, in a 
 muffled voice. 
 
 " But the lightning is the business end of the show," 
 he answered. "That last bolt struck close." 
 
 "And this isn't just a sprinkle." 
 
 "Sprinkle! It's a cloud-burst. Here's the big 
 splash now." He tightened his hold. 
 
 Rain fell in a deluge. It made a steady thunder on 
 forest and on earth. Water gushed through the boughs 
 of the spruce and soaked Cryder to the skin, but his 
 coat and his form saved Frances from the full force of 
 the flood. 
 
 Frances, with her head covered, heard only a 
 smothered roar and close by her ear the firm and regular 
 beat of Cryder 's heart within its chamber, like the 
 measured utterance of a tutelary friend indifferent to 
 nature's fury and superior to fear. Its low, calm talk 
 reassured her. Her head came just under her com- 
 panion's chin and her cheek rested against the warm
 
 IN THE FOREST 99 
 
 surface of his flannel shirt. She had a momentary 
 sensation of being a child again. She noted the rise and 
 fall of his breast with each respiration; she felt the 
 pressure of his arm that kept her safe. In her ear his 
 heart continued to murmur its soothing speech. 
 
 And all at once there welled up in her bosom a 
 strange, confused emotion of satisfaction and tenderness 
 and desire and pain which left her weak and trembling. 
 A barrier between them seemed to have fallen away. 
 In vain she strove to quiet her throbbing blood and 
 muddled thoughts, and she could not draw back from 
 him, for his arm held her fast. But did she wish to 
 do so? At the question her heart beat tumultuously 
 and her cheeks grew hot from shame and from longing. 
 At this moment she wanted, yes, his arm about her and 
 the shelter of his breast. 
 
 Naturally, Cryder knew naught of this. He was 
 peering before him, but during the periods of profound 
 darkness he could see nothing and at lightning flashes 
 perceived only the swaying, tossing branches lashed by 
 wind and rain. Through the incessant drum-roll of 
 sound made by falling water he began to distinguish 
 another and higher-keyed note, like that of an organ 
 pipe of tremendous volume. It was wind in the tree- 
 tops. A million boughs and branches and tree-trunks 
 were transformed to harps. It was the storm song of 
 the wood, the mighty diapason of the forest. 
 
 As suddenly as the storm came it passed. The rain 
 diminished and after a time altogether ceased, with the 
 wind sinking and a pale glow thinning the darkness. 
 The light steadily increased. Cryder and Frances saw
 
 ioo CRYDER 
 
 runnels and rivulets streaming down all the gutters of 
 the wood as they left their spruce tree and went once 
 more along the road. Trees were a-drip, and at last, 
 when the sun shot its beams into the timber, bough and 
 trunk were flashing with gems. A wet, heavy smell 
 of bark and pine needles and earth hung in the air. 
 Down the valley the storm banged and crashed and 
 rumbled on its course, ever more distant and ever more 
 dwarfed as it travelled away. 
 
 They reached the car. Cryder said something un- 
 complimentary of himself, for he had forgotten to turn 
 the cushions. 
 
 "Wet cushions are all the better," Frances said, 
 gayly. "We're wet ourselves." 
 
 She spoke like one for whom there were no dis- 
 comforts; her eyes had a sparkle and her chin a pro- 
 vocative tilt. With the cessation of rain and thunder 
 and the breaking forth of the sun her spirits had taken 
 a quick rebound. She felt the thrill of the adventure, 
 and a rapture of excitement yet enveloped her mind. 
 
 Cryder looked at her. 
 
 "Never saw you so lively," said he. "I'll say you 
 make a hit with me, coming out of this muss so bright 
 and shining. Up you go." He followed to the seat. 
 "And now for home and hearth and ham and eggs." 
 
 Half an hour later he brought the car to rest behind 
 the hospital, and gave Frances a hand to alight. While 
 she was yet standing on the running-board, she pointed 
 toward the north. 
 
 "Look there. How beautiful!" 
 
 The mountain ridges enclosing the valley, the peaks
 
 IN THE FOREST 101 
 
 in the north, the Three Sisters, and the great range of 
 the Bitter Roots in the northeast beyond were mellowed 
 by the sunset. The forest lay under a sea of indigo 
 haze. The mountain heights seemed melting crag, 
 scarp, and canyon fusing in planes of gold and magenta 
 and purple so that the peaks were altered, new, trans- 
 figured. Above them floated a great billowy cloud 
 shot with bands of crimson flame, like another world 
 in the building. 
 
 And even as they looked the fire on the cloud changed 
 and grew sombre and became a fierce and murky red, 
 casting a furnace glow on the valley underneath. 
 
 "Look, look!" Frances cried. "It's like a forest 
 burning!"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE EGOTIST 
 
 THE little world centring in the hospital moved for- 
 ward with the summer in a slow progression marked by 
 the arrival or departure of patients. One came, 
 presently another departed, leaving a small vacuum 
 previously filled by his personality. But the life 
 flowed on with the days. 
 
 The place in this life occupied by Doctor Cryder 
 the man stripped of idiosyncrasies and egotism, his 
 work and spirit had a profound interest for Frances. 
 Vivid recollections of him there were that should always 
 strike lightning-like across her memory pictures 
 deep-etched on her brain never to be dulled; and utter- 
 ances, laconic and great, that should ring always in her 
 mind. But against these were, alas! recurring flashes 
 of his crudeness, his fits of temper, his obstinacy and 
 bulging assurance. 
 
 She had seen the rancher Bohall, with foot saved 
 from amputation, go forth to his alfalfa fields and 
 cattle like a new man. There was her brother: Jack 
 was swinging about on crutches, soon able to depart, 
 and his leg in time should be as straight and sound as 
 ever. Little Amy had so far won against her insidious 
 
 102
 
 THE EGOTIST 103 
 
 encephalitis lethargica as now to play about, quick- 
 eyed and active. The woman with the substernal 
 thyroid enlargement, Mrs. Stiehm, had gone home 
 cured of her hideous tumefaction and relieved of con- 
 current symptoms. Ah, Mrs. Stiehm was in one of 
 the pictures burned in her mind! On the morning 
 when Doctor Cryder had operated, Frances chanced to 
 pass the door of the operating room as Miss Brown 
 stepped forth on some errand and through the doorway 
 she had had a view within. Strapped on a table in- 
 clined in operative goitre position lay the woman facing 
 her, livid from terror and her protruding eyes straining 
 in their sockets, while by her stood Doctor Martin, all 
 in white and gloved, introducing into her neck hypo- 
 dermic injections. Close by was a steel and glass cart 
 bearing trays of surgical dressings and of bright 
 nickelled instruments. And by this waited Doctor 
 Cryder, bare of arms and in a big white gown, with a 
 white cap on his head and a mask over his mouth. His 
 hands, encased in rubber gloves, were loosely clasped 
 before him and his air was serious though calm. He 
 looked to her then like a high priest, a high priest of 
 some strange religion whose mysteries were conducted 
 in the twilight of death. 
 
 Other cases he had since operated in that chamber 
 a club-foot babe whose tiny feet he had broken and 
 made straight; a woman with a fibroid tumour now 
 convalescing in the ward; a big blond Swede with a 
 mangled hand from which three fingers had been 
 taken off; two appendectomies that, according to 
 Cryder^ were no more than snaps of a thumb-nail, but
 
 io 4 CRYDER 
 
 an awful one later, a fourteen-year-old boy who had 
 been brought in at the last minute, neglected, his 
 abdomen distended with free pus and a miracle required 
 to save him and Cryder's powers not extending to 
 miracles, the boy died that night. Verily in that room 
 of ether (and, for that matter, in the whole countryside) 
 the surgeon moved and worked and lived, so it seemed 
 to Frances, in an atmosphere a-reek with suffering and 
 death. One would think it should keep him humble! 
 
 But no. When he left a bedside, or after an oper- 
 ation when he flung off his gown and lighted his pipe, 
 his vainglory of mind flared up and he stood ready to 
 dispute the first statement made about anything, 
 whether of the care of canaries or of the canals of Mars. 
 In his fine endeavours one could warm to the man; but, 
 oh, in the day-by-day intimacy of life, could one endure 
 his combativeness and egotism? 
 
 Frances was questioning herself much of that. For 
 Cryder now was showing an unmistakable liking for 
 her, taking her about with him on his drives, inventing 
 thin pretexts to gain her company, and paying no atten- 
 tion to Jack Huff's hostile looks and angry mutters. 
 She was really fond of him, or rather fond of him at 
 certain moments, particular times. She felt a thrill at 
 the prospect of being loved by a man possessing a 
 character of such extraordinary complexities and po- 
 tentialities. But would he, did he love her? The 
 actual matter of his sentiment remained hazy. They 
 discussed everything from ancient empires to modern 
 woman, but he never waxed tender. When he appeared 
 to arrive at the affectionate personal she waited breath-
 
 THE EGOTIST 105 
 
 less, then shot him an affronted glance as he swam away 
 in a sea of talk. Even if one did not want a man, one 
 did not enjoy being hung on a point of expectation and 
 left there. 
 
 One day late in August they were in the surgeon's 
 runabout coming down the highway in the Furness 
 valley on their way home from a round of calls. They 
 had left Berger. Dust was flying. The noonday sun 
 beat on their heads. Cryder, gripping in his teeth a 
 half-consumed cigar, held the steering wheel with both 
 hands, large of bulk and radiating his usual air of su- 
 preme confidence. At his side sat Frances, perspir- 
 ing, tired, for they had made an early start that morn- 
 ing. She was wondering what would be on the table 
 for dinner and hoping it would be something good and 
 plenty of it. 
 
 Cryder opened up, "I've a proposition to make you, 
 young lady." 
 
 " Fire away, Hippocrates," she returned, negligently. 
 
 "Well, it's this. Jack and you are going to Maron- 
 ville in a few days, as he'll need a doctor no longer. 
 That's the end of the first chapter; now for the next. 
 Suppose we get married?" 
 
 "Married?" 
 
 She uttered the word in a tentative tone, thinking she 
 had not heard aright. 
 
 "Married, yes. You and I." 
 
 "Ah," said she, unable to say more under the impact 
 of suddenly realized fact that this was a proposal. 
 
 "I believe you like me." He turned on her abruptly. 
 "Or don't you?"
 
 106 CRYDER 
 
 "Yes somewhat." 
 
 "Thought so. And you've sense and character and 
 spirit, which a lot of 'em haven't, and that makes a 
 hit with me. Besides, you have good humour and imagi- 
 nation. While you've been here these months I've been 
 observing you and analyzing you." 
 
 "Like a bug on a pin." 
 
 "No, no. I'm trying to explain, and I was never 
 more serious in my life. As I say, I've studied you and 
 meanwhile considered myself likewise, for I've faults, 
 no one knows better than I. Living here as I have, 
 I've grown pretty rough and backwoodsy, which must 
 be objectionable to a girl like you. Lately I've tried 
 to overcome my deficiencies by being a little less loud in 
 my talk and so on. Have you noticed it?" 
 
 Frances had difficulty restraining her laughter. Not 
 two hours gone he had been engaged in a fierce and 
 clamorous altercation with a man at Porcupine Hill who 
 refused to pay an account. Cryder had almost taken 
 the fellow by the throat. 
 
 "At times you appear more subdued," she said. 
 
 "Well, I've changed because of you; I don't want you 
 ashamed of me when we're married. With a little 
 more brushing up I'll be all right. You see I'm coming 
 straight out and telling you my shortcomings, for you 
 should know them. As for the rest, you need not worry 
 money and comforts and good times and all the 
 clothes you wish and finding me easy to get along with. 
 There'll be no trouble about them." 
 
 "But what of love? Aren't people supposed to 
 marry for love?" she inquired.
 
 THE EGOTIST 107 
 
 Cryder took a fresh grip on his cigar with his teeth. 
 
 "Supposed to, that's just the screw that's loose," he 
 answered. "There is love after marriage, perhaps. 
 If a couple are suited and unselfish and willing to work 
 together, then they will develop love for each other. 
 I know how this love business works. Being a doctor 
 I'm on the inside of things; I see all the skeletons in the 
 closets. About a third of the married couples hate 
 each other, and another third endure each other, and 
 with the last third there's real affection. Most of the 
 trouble with the unhappy ones is that they were too 
 terribly in love before they married. See? Well, they 
 were just excited, not in love at all. Love before 
 marriage is mere passion, I tell you passion, sex 
 attraction, nervous excitement, and adolescent senti- 
 mentalism. Love comes afterwards, and then only 
 when the man and the woman are adapted to each other 
 by tastes and temperaments and ideals as we are. 
 When they're thus suited they can safely marry. 
 Why, I'll bet a thousand dollars more happy marriages 
 have resulted from that than from all your romantic 
 love affairs!" 
 
 "Watch the car, or you'll go in the ditch," Frances 
 cried. 
 
 "Never went into a ditch in my life. And I say my 
 way is the right way. It's the silly novels and plays 
 and movies that are responsible for this fool notion 
 of love which most people have. Now don't mistake 
 what I mean. There is love, but a couple must get at 
 it right and not allow themselves to be tricked into 
 marriage by sex attraction. Not that sex attraction
 
 io8 CRYDER 
 
 hasn't its part in human affairs; I'm not disputing that. 
 For it has, a big part, a tremendous part. It's the most 
 powerful of nervous forces and instincts implanted in 
 bird, beast, and man for the continuation of the species. 
 Positively. Therefore it's beneficent as well as natural, 
 but among intelligent people it should be restrained and 
 properly employed. Now what was I saying before?" 
 
 "Something about marriage." 
 
 "Oh, yes. Our marrying. How about it?" 
 
 "It smacks a little of a business transaction as you 
 put it." 
 
 "Rot! You know I never meant it for anything of 
 the kind. You understand well enough that I'm not 
 cold-blooded in asking you to marry me. Don't you see 
 I'm fond of you because we are suited ? I earnestly de- 
 sire you to be my wife." 
 
 "But do you need me as well?" she demanded. 
 
 "What do you mean by need, Frances? I could 
 get along without you if I must, of course. I'm not 
 going to lie and say I'll pine away or lose my mind or 
 anything like that if you refuse. Strictly speaking 
 meaning in a material sense no man needs a woman. 
 He just wants her. And that's the explanation. So 
 you perceive that while I don't need you, yet I want 
 you. There, that's clear." 
 
 "Well, I'll think the matter over," said she. 
 
 Cryder heaved himself up, gave a jerk underneath 
 him to straighten the coat on which he sat, and yanked 
 the swerving car back on the road. 
 
 "Don't make it too long," he stated. 
 
 "I'll give you an answer before I go."
 
 THE EGOTIST 109 
 
 "All right. We'll want to make plans." 
 
 "There are things I must consider." 
 
 "Yes, I understand. Clothes the trousseau. I 
 know what stress women lay on such matters," said he. 
 
 Frances gazed at the hills across the wide valley of 
 the Furness River, at the shining loops of the stream, 
 and finally at Cryder himself. 
 
 Was there, after all, no romance in the world? Or 
 had she missed it, was she growing old? One thing, 
 anyway: of this big, blunt, tremendously proficient fel- 
 low at her side she was immensely fond in spite of all his 
 peculiarities and defects. Who knew, he might have 
 the facts pertaining to love exactly right. Perhaps if 
 they should marry they would end by being the happiest 
 lovers ever. 
 
 If only he would woo her a little! If he should stop 
 the car and enfold her in his arms, why, she 
 
 Cryder's voice broke in on her tender and receptive 
 thoughts: "Wonder what we get for chow to-day?* 
 
 Oh, man and his infallible stomach! 
 
 ii 
 
 Old man Wintroub, on lower Kettle Creek, sent word 
 that afternoon that his "misery" was worse and 
 Cryder set out to see him. The old fellow had a floating 
 kidney which the surgeon fancied he would have to get 
 hold of and sew into place one of these days. 
 
 As Cryder was driving south from Kettle he met on 
 the forest road Mrs. Forsythe, who waved a hand from 
 her sedan for him to stop. He alighted and joined her 
 at her car.
 
 i io CRYDER 
 
 "Engine trouble?" 
 
 "No. It's Cryder trouble," said she, jumping out 
 upon the ground. 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "Now don't play stupid, Bob. I want a chat with 
 you, that's all. I've been to the hospital several times, 
 as you doubtless know, but never found you at home." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 "You're aware my calls were not really for the Huff 
 family, though I made them think so. Not in a great 
 hurry at this moment, are you? Nobody dying? Well, 
 then, come over to this rock where we can sit down." 
 
 He accompanied her to a granite boulder protruding 
 from the earth by the roadside. When they were 
 seated the woman gave him a long, contemplative look 
 of her violet eyes. 
 
 "Do you find it so hard to talk to me, Bob?" she 
 inquired, at last. 
 
 "You always made conversation easy for the other 
 party, sometimes too easy," said he. 
 
 "That has a little barb, hasn't it? No matter. We 
 shall not quarrel to-day; I shall be very calm, as a 
 patient should when consulting a physician. For I'm 
 really consulting you, you perceive. Here's my trouble : 
 I don't sleep well, my mind is disturbed, and I'm both 
 anxious and restless." 
 
 "I bite," said he. "Finish." 
 
 "You're the trouble; I can't put you out of my 
 thoughts. I'm not sure that I haven't fallen in love 
 with you again. What do you think of it?" 
 
 "Pure delusion. Mild type."
 
 THE EGOTIST in 
 
 "Not so mild as you imagine," she stated, with dark 
 significance. "I wish you wouldn't fiddle with that 
 twig but would look at me." 
 
 "I'm listening if not staring at you. Go on." Then 
 he added, "I asked you not to come here, yet you per- 
 sist in your visits." 
 
 "Because I must see you. Tell me, isn't it some- 
 thing for you to consider seriously, if my love for you is 
 sincere?" 
 
 "Very if a fact," he remarked. "As an asserted 
 fact, however, it doesn't sound plausible." 
 
 "How you distrust me!" 
 
 "It's the love part," said he. 
 
 "If you believe me sterile in affection you're greatly 
 mistaken," she exclaimed, tensely. "A woman of 
 thirty-five doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve like a 
 silly flapper, but nevertheless she has a heart and is 
 capable of feeling for the right man a depth of passion 
 no mere chit of a girl can know, yes, just because she is 
 thirty-five years old and can distinguish the true from 
 the false in men, and because her heart and not only her 
 heart but her soul " 
 
 "Soul?" Cryder cut in, lifting his eyes and smiling at 
 the boughs. "Moslems would deny you had a soul, 
 Peg." 
 
 "Please don't be sardonic," she pleaded. 
 
 "Pardon me. Proceed." 
 
 "Well, I have a heart whether I've a soul or not 
 and it hurts." 
 
 "But whatever its condition it never led your head, 
 I know that much," he declared.
 
 ii2 CRYDER 
 
 "You know nothing about it." 
 
 "What! When I was your husband three years?" 
 
 "Nothing, nothing." She placed a hand on his 
 sleeve almost timidly. "Don't be like this stone to 
 me." 
 
 He swung about to regard her. A bright pink was in 
 her cheeks and her lip trembled as her look joined his. 
 In size compared to him she was small, like a girl youth- 
 ful and lovely, and he was struck by that look on her 
 face and in her eyes. 
 
 "By the lord, I wonder " he breathed. 
 
 "If it be true?" she caught him up. "It is true, 
 never doubt of it. And I think of you all the time, 
 Bob dear, all the time." 
 
 "That's bad." 
 
 "No, it's the only pleasure I have. And you must 
 see me hereafter. I yet feel the hurt of your repulse at 
 my first visit, but I come and come again. Why under 
 heaven my desire for you should well up in my breast 
 again I don't know, but it has. It's the blessed truth 
 and I think of you, think of you, think of you continu- 
 ally and passionately. I understand what you've al- 
 ways imagined of me, that I'm selfish and can love no 
 one but myself. Don't believe that any longer. I 
 loved you when I married you oh, it was after that 
 I suffered delusions which tore me away from you! 
 Now I see clearly once more the man you are. I want 
 you, I need you. You must be good to me, Bob, and 
 take me back." 
 
 "I can't do it," he said. 
 
 "Isn't it that you won't?"
 
 THE EGOTIST 113 
 
 "No, I can't, simply can't. Something in me " 
 
 He lifted a hand, but let it fall again. "I'm not able 
 to make it clear." 
 
 "You could love me if you would try. And isn't 
 there an obligation binding you to receive me back and 
 give me your love? Wasn't that in our marriage 
 vows?" 
 
 "The vows were annulled as I recall." He rose to 
 his feet and cast away the twig he held. "I feel not 
 one obligation, Peg, legal or moral, to resume you as 
 my wife. Your act of divorcement left me free and you 
 know that as well as I. If you really love me, then all 
 I can say is that it's a pity, a very great pity, for I can 
 make no return." 
 
 "You won't even try?" 
 
 "No use. Your wisest course is to go somewhere 
 and seek distraction and forget me. You see, a woman 
 can't tear a man's life across and across again into bits 
 like a piece of paper and then find it later as it was 
 before. In my case the paper was not only torn up but 
 burnt to cinder. All gone, the part you were in. I'm 
 writing on a new sheet now." 
 
 "And my name can't go on it?" 
 
 "No, Peg." 
 
 "I'm not so sure." Her lips hardened. 
 
 "No." He had found the right way to deal with 
 her. Dispassionately, firmly. 
 
 "I don't like to be ignored as a matter of pride, if 
 nothing else," said she. 
 
 "You're putting an unfortunate construction on the 
 matter," was his answer.
 
 ii 4 CRYDER 
 
 For a while she stood thinking. 
 
 "You should make a friend of me, Bob," she re- 
 marked. "That, at least, don't you think?" 
 
 "As the case stands that's impossible. People who 
 once have been married can't resume a mere friendship, 
 though there are those who believe so. You yourself 
 don't really imagine anything of the kind. The relation 
 must be either more than friendship or less, and with 
 us, as it can't be more, it must be less. My own choice 
 is that we should have a bare acquaintance." 
 
 "You'll end by making me hate you," she stated, 
 slowly. 
 
 "Why must there be any feeling?" 
 
 " It will be something, you may be sure. You're not 
 a person to whom I can remain indifferent. You ought 
 to know that from past experience." 
 
 "Well, your emotions are your own affair." 
 
 "I'm not so sure that they may not be very much 
 yours also, Robert, whether you will or no/' 
 
 "I don't want you to hate me any more than I wish 
 you to love me, of course," he said, smiling. "Now, 
 Peg, if this is all I must be getting along." 
 
 "You give me not the least hope, then?" 
 
 "Of taking you back? None." 
 
 "Or of your love?" 
 
 "Not a particle." 
 
 "You're quite sure?" 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 "And you stand there smiling as you say it," she re- 
 turned quickly, with a flash of eyes. 
 
 He spread his hands.
 
 THE EGOTIST 115 
 
 "Do you expect me to weep?" he asked, his brows 
 lifting. 
 
 Without replying Mrs. Forsythe walked to the sedan, 
 entered, and drove on. When Cryder had his runabout 
 in motion she was turning her car about to return home. 
 
 Matters with them were about where they had been, 
 he fancied. 
 
 in 
 
 A few days later two gentlemen who had telephoned 
 to learn if they could be accommodated at the hospital 
 during their outing on Kettle Creek arrived from 
 Maronville. One of them, Mr. Emmons, vice-president 
 of the Citizens' National Bank, an alert, rosy, smiling 
 man of sixty, had availed himself of Cryder's hospi- 
 tality on previous occasions; but his companion, an 
 attorney named Patterson, though acquainted with 
 the surgeon, was making his first visit to Kettle 
 Creek. 
 
 The latter's looks and manner pleased Frances Huff. 
 A man of thirty-seven or eight years of age, tall and 
 slender and wearing a Vandyke beard of a chestnut 
 colour which enhanced his intellectual look, he spoke in 
 a low, well-modulated voice and with a fine courtesy. 
 She thought him even distinguished. Mr. Patterson 
 had been in Maronville about five years, coming from 
 the East. In chatting with him the first evening she 
 discovered that they had a common interest in literature 
 and library science and that he was a member of the 
 Maronville city library board. They fell to discussing 
 books and recent tendencies in criticism, novels and new
 
 ii6 CRYDER 
 
 volumes of verse, library methods and the library in 
 Maronville. 
 
 "And you were in town two weeks and your brother 
 never gave me an opportunity to meet you!'* he ex- 
 claimed as they ended their talk, with his splendid 
 gray eyes containing a gentle reproach. Then he made 
 a gesture of recollection, "No; it was during the middle 
 of June that you were there, you say, while I was in 
 Seattle looking after legal matters. So I'll not scold 
 Jack. You are very fortunate in your brother, Miss 
 Huff, and he's a great favourite with his friends. And 
 you return soon to town? In three or four days, you 
 say? Admirable." 
 
 Frances was charmed with the evening's conver- 
 sation with the man, for until engaged in it she had not 
 realized how hungry she had been for a chat on books 
 and kindred topics with a sympathetic companion. 
 Patterson's comments were trenchant, fair, and often 
 graced with light wit, while his opinions, voiced with 
 restraint, left in her a feeling of restfulness. Inevitably 
 she contrasted them with Doctor Cryder's combative 
 or denunciatory assertions; inevitably she confronted 
 the two men for consideration in her thought. 
 
 On the evening of the visitors' second day she had 
 a concrete demonstration of the men's disparity of 
 nature. After supper Nick, at Cryder's bidding, had 
 made a log fire on the ridge before the hospital. Dark- 
 ness came earlier now; the night air was sharper, pres- 
 aging frosts soon in glen and vale; and so the leaping 
 flames were welcome. 
 
 They sat about on the earth, Frances, Patterson,
 
 THE EGOTIST 117 
 
 Emmons, Jack, Cryder with Amy on his lap, and 
 Nichols, the men talking and smoking, watching the 
 sparks shooting in the air above the flames and tossing 
 opinions back and forth lazily, while Frances listened. 
 The conversation drifted to politics. An argument 
 developed, with Cryder opposing Emmons and Patter- 
 son; and as it heightened Jack became silent, sending 
 significant looks at his sister. 
 
 Emmons and Patterson maintained their points ear- 
 nestly but with good nature. The surgeon, however, 
 was waxing vehement, for he had made a long drive 
 that day and had returned tired and in consequence 
 irritable; and at last, lifting Amy from his knees, he 
 hoisted himself to his feet for more energetic play of 
 voice and hands. 
 
 "Yes, and what if there is a change of administration 
 at next year's election?" he demanded. "It will be the 
 same old story. Democrats or Republicans, where's the 
 difference as long as the machinery of both political par- 
 ties is manipulated and controlled by the money interests 
 of the country? There isn't any. Congress is 
 
 "Doc, you're talking like an I. W. W.," Emmons 
 interrupted, with a laugh. 
 
 Cryder pointed a forefinger at the speaker. 
 
 "By the lord, there's a whole lot to be said for the 
 I. W. W. and its theories!" he vociferated. "For one 
 thing- 
 
 "And its practice also?" Patterson inquired, in 
 a quiet voice. "Its syndicalism? Its sabotage? Its 
 burnings of wheat and timber, its destroying of ma- 
 chines and flooding of mines ? Its ' direct action' ? "
 
 ii8 CRYDER 
 
 The surgeon's eyes sparkled and his thick lips set in 
 an obstinate line. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Certainly you don't countenance or indorse crime?" 
 the attorney asked, incredulous. 
 
 Cryder looked about the seated group with a satirical 
 smile. 
 
 "Crime what do you mean by crime?" he retorted. 
 "Wait. I know just what you're going to say. Break- 
 ing law. And by that you mean code law, statutory 
 law, legislated law law made in the interest of big 
 fellows and to the hurt of little ones. But moral law, 
 eh? How about that? Heh, how about that?" He 
 leaned forward, grinning maliciously at the other. 
 
 Unperturbed, Patterson smiled back at him. 
 
 "Human laws aren't perfect, I admit, but their in- 
 tent is justice," said he. " Law, like everything, is a slow 
 growth, an evolution." 
 
 "Damn slow!" 
 
 "True. But while in individual cases laws may 
 work injustice, on the whole they're beneficial and 
 beneficent." 
 
 A contemptuous gesture brushed this aside. 
 
 "You didn't answer my point and probably didn't 
 want to try," Cryder went on. "You lawyers usually 
 find yourself out of your depth when you get outside 
 of your web of laws. What of moral law, I say ? How 
 about breaking it? Is that a crime? To you chaps 
 of the bar it's a dreadful thing for a few ignorant and 
 embittered men to strike back at their masters by 
 the only means in their power, by dynamite and fire, by
 
 THE EGOTIST 119 
 
 direct action, and destroy something and maybe kill 
 somebody doing it; but it's not criminal oh, no, not 
 in the least ! if cotton-mill owners buy a legislature to 
 prevent the passage of child labour laws and grind 
 children to hacking, spitting little shadows, or the 
 beef trust levies on the pockets of the whole nation, or 
 wait a minute, let's get home, let's have something 
 concrete. How about the timber frauds in this country 
 twenty years ago? Did the big criminals suffer? The 
 lumber barons who pocketed the profits of robbing the 
 Government? Not on your life. It was the poor 
 ignorant devils." 
 
 "I'm not familiar with the circumstances of those 
 particular cases," Patterson remarked. 
 
 "Well, take the war profiteers then. What has been 
 done about them or to them? Nothing. Why? Be- 
 cause they're rich. The law isn't for the millionaire. 
 You can't put a millionaire in the penitentiary if you 
 try for fifty years. The laws are fixed with loop-holes 
 for him. And nobody knows it better than you law- 
 yers, for that's how you make your living keeping 
 wealthy men out of jail and by putting jokers in laws. 
 Isn't that so? Ho, ho! The moneyed men are the 
 wolves and the lawyers are the jackals that run with 
 them. Don't tell me. I know!" 
 
 "Isn't this discussion becoming a bit personal, Doc- 
 tor Cryder?" Patterson inquired. "Possibly we'd best 
 change the subject." 
 
 Cryder took a step forward, his big face illumined by 
 the flame, arrogant and triumphant. 
 
 "There you go, want to switch the talk when I've
 
 120 CRYDER 
 
 got you cornered," he shouted. "No, sir! We're going 
 to have it out. I'm going to show you and your rotten 
 politics up to broad light. And I don't have to go any 
 farther than Maronville! There's the Hedley Lumber 
 Company. Can you elect a county officer, a single one, 
 without it having a finger in the pudding? Not 
 one. And it's a subsidiary of the Heidenstreit concern, 
 which with other big lumber corporations corrupts our 
 legislature and our bench and intimidates the pulpit 
 and coerces commercial clubs and wrings the necks of 
 little independent companies and stifles competition 
 and forms 'rings' and controls the press and browbeats 
 the railroads, and yes, strangles, when it can, the 
 individual who owns a tract of timber, as the Hedley 
 people are trying to wring this timber from the Kettle 
 Creekers. I know! Down on the wall of the store 
 to-day a man from the mill stuck up a notice that 
 Wagner's coming up here to-morrow night to make the 
 settlers a last and final offer for their timber. After 
 that, no more dealings. What will it be? A thousand 
 a quarter, just the same as before, take it or leave it. 
 And you and I and every man who knows anything of 
 Kettle Creek knows this stand of sticks is worth not 
 less than five thousand on the stump. But will they 
 pay that? Never. The Hedley outfit, or rather the 
 Heidenstreit robbers, are going to try to garrote the 
 folks here. It's infamous. But it's no crime. Oh, 
 no! They're keeping within the law. Of course it's 
 not their fault that there's no one else to sell to and thus 
 they can fix an impossibly low price. That's only busi- 
 ness. And that's what you lawyers and you bankers
 
 THE EGOTIST 121 
 
 defend and what your Democrat and Republican parties 
 are organized for. Thank God, I'm a plain doctor! 
 Mending bones, dosing bellies." He grasped his belt 
 and gave it a savage hitch. "You fellows make me sick 
 with your sophistry and hypocrisy about the rights of 
 property and respect for the law. Lives, human rights 
 you don't care a damn for them. And right here, 
 while I'm on the subject, I'll turn prophet and tell you 
 that the time will come when you'll pay in tears and 
 blood and havoc 
 
 "If you're going to prophesy, Doc, I'm going to bed,'* 
 Emmons exclaimed with his hearty laugh, getting to 
 his feet. "I don't mind being damned by you, but I 
 swear I won't stay here and admire you in the role of a 
 Jeremiah." 
 
 The others hastily followed his example. The op- 
 portunity was one they had been awaiting. Cryder, 
 cut off in the midst of his tirade, stood yet fulminating 
 in spirit if not in speech; his hair rumpled, his figure 
 swelling, his face impassioned, his lips working with 
 stress of emotion. Hewanted to prophesy and hewanted 
 to damn. He was just getting well started. 
 
 He looked about for Frances. She was one who 
 would understand, who with him would feel the poig- 
 nant sorrows of mankind and share his righteous anger 
 at the injustice inflicted by its pride-swollen oppressors. 
 But he perceived that she also was leaving the fire. 
 She walked between Patterson and Emmons toward 
 the cabins, chatting with the men. Jack HufF was 
 swinging away on his crutches toward the hospital. 
 Nichols was going off. Only the little girl, who should
 
 122 CRYDER 
 
 have been in bed long before, remained rubbing her 
 eyes sleepily, waiting for him to take her into the ward. 
 But Cryder lingered, gazing hungrily after Frances as 
 she passed out of the fire's radiance into the shadows. 
 More to her than to Patterson, than to Emmons, than 
 to all the rest, had he been talking, his soul stirred and 
 his spirit uplifted in a prophet's fierce passion. 
 
 Frances bade her companions good-night and entered 
 her cabin. But Cryder's big figure crimsoned by fire- 
 light continued to fill her mind. He, a prophet? 
 Never. No longer she beheld him even as a rough but 
 brainy and great-hearted man who succoured the poor 
 and helpless and sick. He was now only a noisy and 
 conceited boor who insulted guests at his own fireside. 
 
 Ever the blatant, bumptious egotist! 
 
 IV 
 
 After lunch next day, as the surgeon was starting 
 off for the river, Huff informed him that Emmons had 
 invited his sister and him to go to Maronville late that 
 afternoon in his car with Patterson and himself. The 
 banker's automobile was a powerful machine with a 
 roomy tonneau and heavy springs, which would make 
 the trip comfortable for Jack. It would also save him 
 the expense of a hired car. As they had planned to 
 depart next day, or at the latest the day after, both the 
 Huffs felt that they should avail themselves of the offer. 
 The party would go about five o'clock, when the heat 
 began to diminish. 
 
 Cryder went off the ridge with an obscure resentment 
 in his breast against the youth for depriving him of a
 
 THE EGOTIST 123 
 
 last evening with Frances. Indeed, he had had no 
 evenings alone with her since that lackadaisical lawyer 
 put in an appearance, who hung round droning of 
 libraries and free verse and such rot. The first day the 
 fellow had fished a little, but yesterday he had not left 
 the hospital. If he, Cryder, went somewhere to fish 
 he would not moon around women, but fish! 
 
 In Kettle, Dave Hollister flagged him and climbed 
 into his automobile to go to Berger. 
 
 "Going to unload one of your wall-eyed, spavined 
 nags on some boob, I suppose," the surgeon growled. 
 
 "I reckon, Doc. I've got a trade on." 
 
 "Well, you haven't a clean shirt on, that's a cinch." 
 
 Hollister opened his immense mouth in silent laugh- 
 ter. "We old batches don't need to change shirts 
 
 much, Doc, do we? But say " He gave Cryder a 
 
 sly thrust of his elbow in the ribs. "Maybe you ain't 
 goin' to remain one of us long. How 'bout it?" 
 Another poke in the ribs and more laughter. "And 
 she's a good-looker, Doc. Everybody on Kettle Creek's 
 waitin' to know the day and dance at the weddin'." 
 
 Cryder turned on the speaker. 
 
 "Go to the devil, all of you!" he roared, fiercely. 
 Then he lapsed into ominous quiet. 
 
 Hollister changed the subject. 
 
 "Comin' to the meetin' to-night, I 'spose. We're 
 expectin' Wagner to get down to business at last," 
 said he. "I opine the Hedley people see the hand- 
 writin* on the wall this time and will make a deal, 
 though there will be some bluffin' at first, of course. He 
 wouldn't have posted a notice if he hadn't been in
 
 i2 4 CRYDER 
 
 earnest, would he? Everybody's comin'. A lot of the 
 boys from the drives got in last night and this mornin'. 
 Wagner's sendin' word for them to lay off and be here. 
 Looks like he wants a full meetin' and he's goin' to 
 have it. Yes, sir, it sure does appear that we've got 'em 
 by the neck now. And there's goin' to be a dance 
 afterward. If your lady friend would like to come 
 
 "Miss Huff and her brother are going home." 
 
 "To-day? Well, of course you'll be on hand at the 
 meetin' anyway, Doc." 
 
 "I won't be there." 
 
 "Pshaw, that's no way to act when Kettle Creek is 
 sellin' out," Hollister said. 
 
 "I repeat, I won't be there." 
 
 "We might need you, Doc." 
 
 "If you think Wagner's going to give you what you 
 ask, you're making a wrong bet," Cryder retorted. 
 "I don't know what his object is, but I know it isn't 
 to give you people fifteen or twenty thousand apiece 
 for your claims. No, I won't be there." 
 
 He dumped Hollister out at Berger and proceeded on 
 his way. An anxiety lest he fail to return home in time 
 to see Frances before she departed caused him to ex- 
 pedite his calls. It would not do at all for him to be late. 
 What would she think? She had agreed to give him 
 her answer before returning to Maronville and should 
 be offended if he failed to appear. 
 
 By Jove, they ought to fix the wedding date this very 
 day! No reason why it should not be settled before 
 she left. And a date not too far off. Say in two 
 months. No, in a month. Actually, there was no
 
 THE EGOTIST 125 
 
 object in putting off their marriage longer than two 
 weeks or even ten days. Frances need not go to the 
 bother of getting a lot of clothes. What did he care 
 about them? He was not marrying her for her clothes. 
 
 Her face, smiling and sweet, seemed to hover before 
 his eyes and he felt himself growing gentle with a new 
 tenderness. How honest and unspoiled she was! His 
 dwelling-place on the ridge would be a real home when 
 she was established there, with maybe some kiddies 
 tumbling about on the ground, and her smile, so win- 
 some, greeting him when he came back from calls at 
 the end of the day, and her voice sounding in his ears, 
 and why, of course! her arms going about his neck 
 and her lips lifting to his. That would be living then. 
 Hang it all, he loved her right this minute! When he 
 thought of her something gripped his heart and the road 
 was bright as with light and if that wasn't love, what 
 was it? 
 
 In spite of the haste he made he did not reach home 
 until nearly five o'clock. With an odd tremor of heart 
 he drove the runabout up the ridge road until he came 
 out on open ground behind the hospital. Before the 
 cabin occupied by Emmons and Patterson stood the 
 banker's automobile, in which the two men were stow- 
 ing their bags and traps. Jack Huff was already seated 
 in the tonneau, but his sister was nowhere in sight. 
 
 "Where's Frances?" Cryder asked of Jack. 
 
 "In the ward, I fancy. Went to make sure nothing 
 of mine was left." 
 
 The surgeon sprang down from his car and strode 
 toward the hospital, but when he rounded the building
 
 126 CRYDER 
 
 he beheld Frances standing before it under the big pine. 
 The great log structure shut off view of the men at the 
 cabin. 
 
 At the sound of his quick step Frances faced about. 
 
 "I've come for the answer," said he, joyfully, extend- 
 ing his hands. "Quick, tell me Yes." 
 
 She kept her own hands at her side. 
 
 "You take my consent for granted?" she asked, in 
 a strained voice. 
 
 He stopped short in surprise. 
 
 "Why, you mean you haven't yet decided?" he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "I've decided." 
 
 "But why this You are pale, Frances." 
 
 "I feel bad, Doctor, because I must give you pain," 
 she answered in a husky tone. "You've been very 
 good to me and my brother. I want your friendship 
 always but I can't marry you no, not that." 
 
 "But I don't understand. I supposed, well, sup- 
 posed you would," he said, still struggling with in- 
 credulity. "I've been planning all the way home 
 to-day what we would do when we were married. A 
 honeymoon in the East, a visit to your home town, a 
 trip down the St. Lawrence, then an apartment in New 
 York for the winter, and last coming back here in the 
 
 spring why why You mean you don't love 
 
 me?" 
 
 "No," said she. 
 
 "Don't you think you could learn to love me?" he 
 pleaded. 
 
 "It makes me unhappy to say it, but it must be No
 
 THE EGOTIST 127 
 
 once more. May I be frank? It's not so much a 
 question of my love as yours. You don't believe in 
 love at any rate, before marriage; I revolt from a 
 marriage without it. But more than that, I think that 
 at bottom you really could not love any one before your- 
 self. That may hurt you, and yet so it seems the case 
 stands. You can't expect love when love isn't given." 
 
 Cryder stepped close to her and fixed a burning look 
 upon her eyes. 
 
 "Is it true that you believe what you said?" he 
 questioned. "Do you imagine I love only myself? 
 Do other people really think so? I've had it said to me 
 before, but I paid no attention to the words, for people 
 say so much that isn't worth listening to. But from 
 you from you " 
 
 "I must go now," Frances said, hurriedly, anxious 
 to escape the sight of the hurt she had inflicted. 
 
 "One moment, please. I may love myself, but I love 
 you more," he declared almost with fierceness, and then 
 the fire died in him. He went on in a low voice, "More 
 than anything, more than myself if you think I love 
 myself most." 
 
 "You wouldn't admit before that love mattered." 
 
 "Ah, I was blind, Frances," he said. He lowered 
 his look to the ground, at which he gazed for a moment ; 
 when again he lifted his eyes the harsh lines of his taut 
 brow, of his big nose and mouth and jaw, had softened, 
 so that the whole expression of his face was gentle and 
 was somehow strangely sweetened. "It came to me 
 only this afternoon that I loved you. Just like a light 
 within me, just like a dawning light, as if something had
 
 128 CRYDER 
 
 occurred to my spirit. I can say no more of it than 
 that." 
 
 Frances felt her limbs trembling. There was no 
 mistaking that look on his countenance. No longer 
 could there be a doubt that from the complexities 
 of his nature, from the enigmatical turmoil forever 
 persisting in his soul, there at last had emerged this 
 love. And she did not love him in return. 
 
 She could not bear that look. 
 
 "It can't be," she faltered. A shadow of anguish 
 settled on his face. "Oh, you mustn't think of me at 
 all!" 
 
 "That I shall always do, very likely," he answered. 
 "Well, I find the dose a little bitter. Now let us say 
 good-bye." 
 
 He held her hand shut in his while his eyes dwelt 
 on hers in a long regard, then he turned away. When 
 Frances reached the corner of the hospital she stopped 
 for a last look back. 
 
 Cryder was seated on the flat rock where on the day 
 of her coming from Maronville she had beheld him with 
 the little idiot. He now was bowed in despair, his 
 elbows set on his knees and his head sunk between his 
 fists, as if cut from the stone.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 WILD BEES 
 
 WAGNER'S posted notice of a meeting at Kettle to 
 discuss a sale of the timber claims stirred the valley. 
 In every cabin there was a feeling of excitement and 
 exultation; the Hedley Lumber Company had reached 
 the point of surrender at last. Fine tidings, this! And 
 plans for moving away and living elsewhere were being 
 hastily made. 
 
 Shortly after sunset the settlers and their families 
 began to appear at the hamlet, those living near coming 
 on foot and those at a distance behind teams, two or 
 three families crowded into each wagon. The men 
 were fresh-shaven and sedate; the women wore their 
 best dresses; the children were lively as crickets; and 
 the girls and young fellows were in high spirits, for it had 
 been decided there should be an old-fashioned dance after 
 the timber sale was concluded, a last dance before the 
 dwellers here departed from Kettle Creek for all time. 
 
 In the middle of the clearing men had raised a pile 
 of logs and pine knots; and now as the dusk filled the 
 clearing this was set afire. A small flame creeping 
 among the sticks presently shot up in a blaze that 
 spread a crimson light over the ground, along the street 
 
 129
 
 i 3 o CRYDER 
 
 between the rows of cabins, and against the surrounding 
 forest. Cries and squeals from the children greeted the 
 beacon, while about it youngsters began to skip. As the 
 flames roared higher the store and the school-house were 
 revealed more distinctly, and the low-roofed dwellings 
 beyond, and all the throng of restless, jostling, laughing 
 forest folk. 
 
 At the end of half an hour the last stragglers had 
 come. All Kettle Creek was present. There were the 
 Sam and Tom McMurtries, who had claims farthest up 
 the valley; their neighbours, the Swansons with eight 
 children; old Arnold Meek, slow of speech and cautious; 
 the Failings; the Cardeys; the Finchettes; and Dick 
 Lynch; the Cole boys; the Johnsons; the Edgecombes; 
 and stout Mrs. Krause with her three buxom bouncing 
 daughters; the Browns; the Munroes; the Gillises; and 
 the Carillons, who had as many children as the Swan- 
 sons, shy as pixies; the Tregoes; the Bains; the Cas- 
 sidys; and Bill Mercer, son of old Mrs. Mercer, Cryder's 
 housekeeper; Mike Clark, who had lost a piece of one 
 ear in a fight; the Gregories; the Capunes; the Wallaces; 
 the Rainbolts; the Holmquists; the Ewings; the Mar- 
 shalls; and the Martins, two families of them, with the 
 promoter Pinney; Jim Myers Big Jim who had saved 
 Jack HufF; the Highsmiths and the Pomeroys, related; 
 the Jacksons, the Giffbrds, and the Olsens; Joe Streeter 
 and old Ma Streeter, who smoked a pipe between gums 
 as bare as a babe's; the Holsapples, the Tibbets, and 
 Mrs. Rains, a widow; the Postlewaites, who used to be 
 Holy Rollers; the Neals, with their deaf and dumb girl; 
 and the Lowrys, living just over the bridge.
 
 WILD BEES 131 
 
 From down the creek there were the Kellys, father 
 and mother and six grown boys; the Tourtillottes, of 
 French-Canadian extraction; the Hays and the Mark- 
 wells, the Osbournes and Shacklefords, the Voegels and 
 Wintroubs; the solitary and taciturn Knapp brothers, 
 who got drunk together every Christmas; the Lalleys, 
 the McGraws, and Houck, once arrested for stealing a 
 horse; the Sherwoods and the Gates and the Raapkes; 
 the Costellos, with three pairs of twins and one set of 
 triplets; the Widow Poole; the Jones family, every one 
 red-headed; the Stones and the Nordens; and the Tyler 
 boys, who would dance or fight or make love or tackle 
 a grizzly at the drop of a hat. 
 
 Those living in Kettle naturally were on hand Dave 
 Hollister, indulging in noiseless laughter; Nick and 
 Myra and Mrs. Nichols; the Goldbergs, to be sure; the 
 Wakefields, the Holmeses, the Armbursts, the Fishers, 
 and the Overtons; Jack Rogers, who had lost a foot; 
 the Yuneks and the Petersons; Dick Swift; Barney 
 Noble, who played the banjo; and last, Nell Boggs, 
 dragging her idiot boy about after her. 
 
 They were there, every soul, from one end of the 
 valley to the other; the families, the widows, the un- 
 married men, the aged and the infirm; lusty youths 
 and swishing girls, fathers, mothers, leaping children, 
 crying babes, tottering elders; twelve or fifteen score; 
 a multitude, a mob that filled the street and all the 
 space around the roaring fire. 
 
 A ceaseless babel of sound rose from the throng, 
 punctuated at moments by huge guffaws of laughter 
 from men or by frightened shrieks from girls. The
 
 i 3 2 CRYDER 
 
 firelight disclosed a dark mass of forms and heads 
 continually in motion, now slowly and now stirred by 
 sudden eddies. This was Kettle Creek coalescent and 
 vocal, expectant and eager, brought together by a 
 common interest, animated by a single purpose and 
 inspired by a single desire. Kettle Creek united the 
 community, the tribe, the clan. 
 
 Cryder, stepping from the forest, saw the crowd thus. 
 Unable to endure the solitude of the ridge for solitude 
 it seemed with Frances gone he had finally come to 
 the hamlet. He stood there at the edge of the clearing 
 for a time, thoughtfully plucking his lip and gazing 
 before him. Then he glanced about and found a stump 
 in the shadow and sat down, clasping one knee with 
 locked hands. 
 
 Half an hour went by. 
 
 Then from the road in the forest south of the clearing 
 there came intermittent flashes from an automobile's 
 headlights. They grew brighter. A horn honked. Next 
 a motor car swept into view and speeding forward 
 stopped near the fire, whereupon the crowd moved in a 
 body to the spot. Cryder rose and walked thither. 
 
 Wagner sat beside the driver. In the rear seat were 
 Williams, the company's cashier, and a Maronville 
 attorney by the name of Gersinger, who handled the 
 Hedley Lumber Company's legal business. While the 
 crowd of Kettle Creek folk were gathering before the 
 car the visitors sat curiously observing them and glanc- 
 ing about the clearing illuminated by the flames. 
 
 At last, when the stir and excitement of the people 
 died down, Wagner rose to his feet.
 
 WILD BEES 133 
 
 "I see that all of you are here," said he, with a 
 deliberative air. "In accordance with the notice I had 
 posted on the store yonder I've come prepared to make 
 for the Hedley Lumber Company a new offer, which is 
 also a final offer, for the timber in this valley. To try 
 to deal with you individually would be wasted time, so 
 I asked you to appear here to-night in a body to hear 
 this offer and to decide whether you accept it or reject 
 it. I repeat what I said, this is a new proposal, but 
 also a last one. Bear that in mind. If you refuse it, 
 there will be no more offers and no more dealings. You 
 will have to sell your timber to someone else if you 
 can." 
 
 On the last three words his voice rang out suddenly 
 as if in challenge. Then he ceased and gazed at his 
 listeners with his hands resting on his hips. Still 
 maintaining this attitude he presently resumed his 
 speech, going back in affairs, as it were, summarizing 
 the various failures at negotiations in the past, and 
 in the end arrived at the basic cause of dispute be- 
 tween the settlers and the lumber company. 
 
 "You Kettle Creekers consider yourselves under no 
 obligation to our concern," said he. 
 
 "We sure don't," Joe Streeter screeched. 
 
 "You think you can ignore what you owe it, but 
 that's not the case," Wagner went on, calmly. "You 
 were brought here I myself brought you under 
 agreement to sell these claims to the Hedley Lumber 
 Company when you had title. The company cruised 
 and located this timber. None of you knew anything 
 about it till you were delivered on the ground. Your
 
 134 CRYDER 
 
 travelling expenses were paid. Money was advanced 
 you. And those charges have been carried as an account 
 against you and to-day at a moderate rate of interest 
 they figure, after twenty years, a large sum." 
 
 Arnold Meek pressed forward and lifted a hand. 
 
 "The original agreement was unlawful, as you know, 
 Mr. Wagner," said he. "The Government decided 
 that." 
 
 "You knew very well at the time what you -were 
 doing in being a party to it," was the answer. 
 
 "We did not," said the old man, emphatically. "If 
 you remember, our dealings were with you, and you 
 gave us to understand that everything was legal." 
 
 "I said you wouldn't be interfered with, that's all 
 and you haven't." 
 
 " If you said nothing, we at least supposed a concern 
 like the Hedley Lumber Company would engage in 
 nothing unlawful," Arnold Meek returned. "We pre- 
 sumed it knew the laws; we had to depend on that, for 
 it had legal advisers while we had none. Some of us 
 would never have come to Kettle Creek if we had known 
 we were entering an agreement to defraud the Govern- 
 ment. And we don't consider that agreement binding." 
 
 "All right. We'll drop that," said Wagner. "But 
 you still owe the company for the money advanced, 
 together with interest." 
 
 "I can't view it in that light," was the old man's re- 
 joinder. "The company spent it in a dishonest busi- 
 ness, in which we were innocent parties." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me that none of you knew what 
 you were at when you came?" the manager demanded.
 
 WILD BEES 135 
 
 "I know better. I know that the majority of you, if 
 not all, were aware of the sort of enterprise you were 
 undertaking. More than one of you laughed with me 
 about it at the time. Don't try to make yourselves out 
 better than you are. Even you, Arnold Meek, said 
 you had heard that the land officials were not particular 
 about how claims were proved up." 
 
 The old man's figure straightened and his patriarchal 
 countenance grew stern, even minatory, as he solemnly 
 wagged his head and lifted a forefinger. 
 
 "I know not as to that," said he. "I know not 
 as to that, sir, for I do not recall the circumstance. 
 But if I so spoke, I had in mind no evil contemplation." 
 
 Wagner's eyes narrowed to thin slits. 
 
 "You never stated that you believed there were oc- 
 casions when a liberal interpretation should be put on 
 laws to favour poor folks?" he demanded. 
 
 "I shall neither admit nor deny it; I don't remember. 
 But in that opinion there's no wrong. I believe it a 
 right opinion. 'Deliver the poor and needy: rid them 
 out of the hand of the wicked,' saith the psalmist." 
 
 In the tonneau of the motor car Gersinger, the 
 lawyer, shut one eye at Williams in a cautious wink. 
 The cashier smiled, but at once assumed a serious ex- 
 pression and gazed straight before him at nothing. 
 
 "I can't quote the Psalms," Wagner stated, drily, 
 "but let me ask you another question. Did you ever 
 inquire of the company when you came if it would pro- 
 tect you in case of trouble with the land office?" 
 
 Arnold Meek's answer was given without hesitation: 
 
 "No, sir."
 
 136 CRYDER 
 
 "Stir your mind a little." 
 
 "I have no need," came the reply, in a tone of 
 indignation. "For I expected no trouble. I was act- 
 ing in good faith and my conscience was clear." 
 
 "You're sure?" 
 
 The manager's voice was ironical. He had folded 
 his hands over his stomach, ringers interlocked and 
 joined thumbs sticking upward. 
 
 With an effort at patience the throng of Kettle 
 Creekers was waiting for this colloquy, so little con- 
 cerned with the real business of the night, to be termi- 
 nated. Mutters and grunts and a shifting of feet 
 revealed the common feeling about such a waste of 
 time. 
 
 "I'm perfectly sure," said Arnold Meek, with the 
 emphasis of conviction. 
 
 "And you never raised the question of the Hedley 
 company paying the court costs if you should be in- 
 dicted?" 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 Wagner relinquished his composure long enough to 
 indulge in a grim, satisfied smile. 
 
 "We have in our office files," he remarked, at length, 
 "a letter dealing with those points which is signed with 
 your name." 
 
 An expression of incredulity appeared upon the 
 venerable face before the speaker, followed by a look 
 of perturbation. Lifting a hand which had begun to 
 tremble, Arnold Meek brushed it weakly across his eyes, 
 as though to remove the mists enclosing memory. 
 
 "No; it can't be," he said.
 
 WILD BEES 137 
 
 "We have it." 
 
 "I have no recollection whatever of any such letter/' 
 the old man stammered. 
 
 "It's in your handwriting. And that's not all. You 
 state in the same letter that you feel you're entitled to 
 a further advance of money because of the hazard 
 you've taken in filing on a claim which is to be sold to 
 the lumber company." 
 
 The crowd was still now with the realization that 
 something grave for the old man had happened. 
 
 "But perhaps I can explain that " Arnold 
 
 Meek began in quavering accents. 
 
 A quick and scornful gesture of the manager's hand 
 cut him off. 
 
 "Explain nothing," Wagner exclaimed, for his calm 
 had been dropped like a coat. "You old Pharisee, 
 don't try to make yourself out a saint when you're a 
 sinner! You don't fool me a minute with your long, 
 sanctimonious old face ! Twenty years ago, when you 
 took this claim of yours, you were as greedy as the next 
 to put one over on the Government. You were per- 
 fectly acquainted with the nature of the business; your 
 letter is proof of that. Quote the Scriptures to me, 
 will you? Well, I like nothing better than showing up 
 hypocrites like you. Now get back to the rear and let 
 a real man do the talking." 
 
 Under this fierce lashing the aged settler's head 
 had gone down in abasement. Slowly turning about, 
 Arnold Meek pushed through the people, unmindful of 
 their mutterings and incensed looks at the manager, 
 until he gained a spot where he could stand solitary,
 
 i 3 8 CRYDER 
 
 with bowed head, repeating over and over to himself 
 that it could not have been so, that surely he could not 
 have known he was defrauding the Government. 
 
 Cryder was mystified by Wagner's course. The 
 Kettle Creekers were already in a black mood as a result 
 of the man's harsh denunciation of one of themselves, 
 of their most respected neighbour, indeed. Wagner 
 would never succeed in securing the timber at this rate. 
 
 All at once Joe Streeter yelled, "Fine talk from you, 
 you jail-bird! Where's your striped suit?" 
 
 "Yah," bellowed Big Jim. "Why didn't you wear 
 it to-night?" 
 
 Other voices joined in the jeering, women's as well 
 as men's, until the air was thick with derisive and angry 
 exclamations. 
 
 "What d'you think you're here for? Don't he look 
 swell up there. We don't owe your thievin' company 
 anything. Managers must have been scarce when they 
 picked you. Say, what are you here for, to buy timber 
 or what? Bein' in prison didn't make him thin. 
 Robbed the Gov'ment any lately? Thought you came 
 to buy our claims. How long was you behind bars, 
 Wag? Say you, you look like a bootlegger. Anything 
 to drink in the car? Hey, make your offer. How much 
 for our claims ? " 
 
 The crowd, now swaying and surging forward, sur- 
 rounded the car except on the side nearest the fire, 
 where it was restrained by the fiery heat. Wagner 
 stood motionless and apparently unaffected under the 
 pelting jibes and hoots, his short, bulky form ruddy in 
 the flare of the burning logs.
 
 WILD BEES 139 
 
 Gradually the more prudent in the throng quieted 
 the more voluble. The cries diminished, ceased. 
 
 "If you are done, I'll go on," the speaker stated. 
 "I recalled the matter of the money advanced because 
 the company considers it a debt owed and to be paid. 
 That money was an investment. It has been com- 
 puted to earn six per cent, interest, compounded every 
 year, and now has been running twenty years." 
 
 "Yes, and it'll run a thousand years before it's paid," 
 Hollister snarled. 
 
 "We're estimating the value of your timber," 
 Wagner continued, unperturbed, "and subtracting the 
 amount of the debt and offering you the balance." 
 
 The people stared up at him in disbelief. Coming to 
 the meeting obsessed with the idea that the lumber 
 company at last was to yield to necessity, they were 
 slow to accept this announcement as a serious offer. 
 They glanced at each other and again regarded Wagner. 
 His statement was nonsensical. Then an apprehension 
 seized them. 
 
 "Of course you can't flim-flam us by any such 
 figurin'," Hollister snapped out, whose nimble wit 
 grasped something of the amount of interest thus com- 
 pounded for twenty years. 
 
 "It's a fair charge," said Wagner. 
 
 "You're not goin' to rob us by a trick," the other 
 shouted, wrathfully. 
 
 Excitement began to take possession of the assem- 
 blage. Faces were working and eyes glittering and 
 gusts of angry talk swept through the company. All 
 the fierceness in the nature of this rude folk of the
 
 140 CRYDER 
 
 wood was boiling to the surface in the menace they felt 
 to their desires and hopes. In the corpulent figure 
 elevated in the car, confronting them and defying 
 them, they beheld not only a man they hated but the 
 personification of organized lumber industry as they 
 imagined it a greedy power seeking to browbeat and 
 crush them and rob them of their all. 
 
 Wagner's shoulders were like a boulder. His fleshy 
 bearded face, half-shadowed in the firelight by the brim 
 of his Stetson hat, was hard and watchful. 
 
 "What's your offer?" a voice called out. 
 
 "Hitherto the company made you Wagner 
 began. 
 
 But cries cut him off. 
 
 "We know what it offered before. Never mind 
 that. Give us the new offer." 
 
 The manager calmly glanced about over the crowd. 
 
 "On my recommendation it decided to raise that old 
 offer," said he. 
 
 Again the shouts for him to name it. For a little 
 he regarded the impatient and angry settlers, who fell 
 silent in expectation. An infant's wail sounded, in- 
 stantly hushed by its mother. 
 
 "Two thousand dollars a quarter," Wagner suddenly 
 barked. 
 
 A profound stillness succeeded his words. The 
 faces remained gazing upward, motionless, incredulous. 
 Then a yell of rage rose from a single throat, which was 
 a signal for releasing the throng from its momentary 
 spell. A hundred voices joined in a clamour of cries, 
 of curses and imprecations; a surge of human bodies
 
 WILD BEES 141 
 
 swept the little mob forward against the automobile, 
 while a score of hands reached out as if to tear the 
 speaker from his place. 
 
 At the first movement of the crowd toward its 
 intended victim Cryder had run forward. Pushing, 
 elbowing, hauling men and women out of his way, 
 exerting the full strength of his limbs and body, he 
 succeeded in forcing a passage to the automobile. 
 There he jerked men from the car. When at last he 
 gained a place on the running-board his shirt was torn 
 open on his breast and his hat was gone. 
 
 "Keep your hands ofF the man, you fools!" he 
 shouted. "Let him go!" 
 
 A deep, savage howl answered this. The mob was 
 past reason or appeal; and its malevolent roar, swelling 
 and shrilling, became a steady, persistent baying on the 
 part of the crowd for the blood of the man shielded by 
 Cryder. 
 
 Wagner at the rush had lost footing and fallen in a 
 sitting posture on the seat. The driver beside him was 
 working frantically to start the automobile. Cryder 
 struck and kicked at the assailants striving to pull 
 him from his position of vantage, but finally Big Jim 
 Myers lunged forward and wrapping his arms about 
 the surgeon's knees dragged him off the car. 
 
 Now, however, the automobile was in motion and 
 slowly gathering speed. Those before it scattered, 
 while others clinging to its sides let go their holds or fell 
 aside. The men on the running-boards were beaten 
 down by the car's occupants. Cries and yells of dis- 
 appointment were uttered as the machine circled the
 
 142 CRYDER 
 
 fire. Then a hurled faggot sailed overhead, at which, 
 as if it had been a signal, sticks and stones and blazing 
 pine knots began to follow it. About the car Kettle 
 Creekers streamed, howling imprecations and shouting 
 derisive curses at Wagner, Williams, and Gersinger, 
 who were fighting desperately to knock off the clinging, 
 clawing attackers. At last their hands were hammered 
 free; they fell away one by one; and the motor car shot 
 ahead. 
 
 Wagner turned about, looking back. 
 
 "Saw your timber yourselves, or keep it till it rots!" 
 he shouted. 
 
 A hurtling club smote him on the head, and a roar 
 burst from the mob. Wagner sprang up and facing 
 behind lifted in the air a menacing fist at the Kettle 
 Creekers, remaining thus while his figure grew each 
 instant more indistinct as the car withdrew until swal- 
 lowed by the forest. 
 
 ii 
 
 Cryder began a search for his lost hat, which eventu- 
 ally he discovered on the ground under the foot of a 
 woman who talked passionately with half a dozen 
 others. He rescued it, beat it against his knee to re- 
 move the dust, and pushing out its crumpled crown set 
 it on his head. 
 
 "Well, you got from Wagner just what I expected," 
 he joined in. "Maybe you folks will get out of 
 your heads the crazy idea now that the Hedley company 
 has to buy you out." 
 
 "But what did he come here for, then?" asked one.
 
 WILD BEES 143 
 
 Before Cryder could answer Big Jim burst into a 
 sudden guffaw and said, "I guess we ain't goin' to move 
 away from Kettle Creek this week." 
 
 That depressing fact was uppermost in the minds 
 of all, dissipating anger and leaving a realization of 
 vanished dreams. Men gazed round them with un- 
 certain baffled expressions. On the faces of the women 
 was the strained and woebegone look worn by those 
 smitten with disaster. The stark truth at last had 
 emerged from rosy illusion. There would be no sale of 
 timber, no sound of axes or thunder of falling trees, no 
 fat bank accounts, no exodus from log cabins to bunga- 
 lows, from poverty to affluence. Kettle Creekers they 
 were and Kettle Creekers they were fated to remain. 
 
 "Guess nobody wants to dance to-night," said 
 Hollister. "None of us feels very gay, leastways I don't. 
 That Wagner! I'd like to peel his hide." 
 
 "Might as well be starting home," Failing stated. 
 "We can sleep if we can't do anything else." 
 
 Nevertheless, there was no disposition on the part 
 of the settlers to depart. Like men unexpectedly 
 rendered homeless by a thunderbolt, they hung over the 
 wreckage of their hopes, fascinated by the catastrophe 
 in which they stood. They engaged in futile specula- 
 tions, wild surmises, foolish conjectures, peppered with 
 imprecations and curses for Wagner and the Hedley 
 company and all lumber concerns. Some of the fiercer 
 spirits, led by Joe Streeter, were vociferating of dyna- 
 mite reprisals. 
 
 Pinney appeared in the midst of the throng, lifting 
 a hand for attention and calling out, "One moment,
 
 144 CRYDER 
 
 friends. You see now that my cooperative com- 
 pany 
 
 ''Oh, let up on that bunk!" young Nichols shouted 
 derisively from the edge of the crowd. 
 
 " that you have no market for your timber other 
 than what you yourselves create, namely 
 
 "We ain't no bankers to run a mill," Big Jim bellowed 
 from another quarter. 
 
 " namely, by manufacturing lumber ' 
 
 "Rats! Lock him up," came a voice. 
 
 "We've heard that till we're sick," cried another. 
 
 Immediately a confused and noisy argument de- 
 veloped between those who hooted the speaker and 
 those who demanded he should be allowed to speak. 
 Above the clamour Pinney's utterances, growing ever 
 more shrill, sounded in indistinct phrases. He had per- 
 ceived his opportunity, his chance to crystallize Kettle 
 Creek's misfortune into the cooperative project which 
 he had promulgated. He would not yield to the noise 
 of voices. With the pertinacity of a zealot he con- 
 tinued to speak, to fight for a hearing, to declaim his 
 plan, until in the end the mockers were suppressed and 
 he had an audience that for the once was ready to 
 harken to his scheme. 
 
 And for once also the small, twitching promoter, 
 inspired by the knowledge that this was his great 
 moment, his golden night, intoxicated by enthusiasm, 
 described his enterprise in concise and pursuasive terms. 
 
 "But, Mr. Pinney, we have no money with which 
 to build a mill," Arnold Meek stated, as the speaker 
 paused for breath.
 
 WILD BEES 145 
 
 "Exactly," said Cryder, with a nod and a dis- 
 crediting smile. 
 
 " But we can borrow it," Pinney yelled, triumphantly. 
 "Here is a letter given me by Mr. Emmons, vice- 
 president of the Citizens* National Bank of Maronville, 
 only yesterday, in which he agrees that his institution 
 will loan one thousand dollars a quarter section, or one 
 hundred thousand dollars in all, on your claims when 
 you organize this company. With this loan the mill 
 can be built and business begun. Then with the return 
 from the sale of an issue of bonds the debt can be paid 
 off. Here is the letter." He waved in the air the 
 folded missive which he had drawn from his breast. 
 "It is a definite promise in behalf of his bank. My 
 friends, I tell you that this night's refusal of the Hedley 
 manager to do business with you is God's own means to 
 direct you into a cooperative association!" 
 
 Cryder reached out a hand. 
 
 "Let me see if Emmons has gone crazy or not," he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Read it, read it aloud," Pinney cried, thrusting the 
 letter into the other's palm. 
 
 The surgeon unfolded the sheet and lifted it so that 
 the firelight should fall upon its surface. The page 
 carried at the top the lithographed name of the Citizens' 
 National Bank, with the names of the bank officers in a 
 row at one side and the address at the other. In pen 
 writing was a brief offer of the substance asserted by 
 Pinney, signed by Emmons. Cryder recognized the 
 green ink he himself used. The letter had been written 
 at the hospital yesterday or the day before; and some-
 
 i 4 6 CRYDER 
 
 time during his stay here on Kettle Creek the banker 
 had had a conference with the promoter at which 
 he had made known the bank's willingness to finance 
 the loan on the timber claims. 
 
 Cryder returned the sheet to its recipient. 
 
 "How about it, Doc?" eager voices asked. 
 
 "It's as he says," was the reply. "The bank will do 
 business with you if you want to, and for that matter 
 your timber is safe enough security." Cryder became 
 thoughtful. 
 
 "Then it's all right to go ahead with this com- 
 pany?" 
 
 "I didn't say that," the surgeon stated, curtly. 
 
 "But if the bank thinks it is ' 
 
 "The bank thinks of nothing beyond its loan and the 
 security," Cryder interrupted. "It cares nothing 
 about a sawmill company. Well, I'll say I am sur- 
 prised; I never thought any Maronville bank would 
 lend money on a slow asset like timber. Maybe they 
 think it's all right and it's their money! But don't 
 ask me to endorse this crazy scheme of a cooperative 
 mill. I don't. It would go bust in a week." 
 
 "On the contrary, Doctor, if you consider " 
 
 "Consider nothing! You're not the man to put 
 through such an undertaking, Pinney, even if it were 
 sound, which it isn't. It's wild as a March hare. The 
 big lumber interests would smash you coming and 
 going." 
 
 "But, Doc, we've got to do something," Hollister 
 exclaimed, snapping his artificial teeth together in a 
 protesting click.
 
 WILD BEES 147 
 
 "Yes, we must do something," Arnold Meek agreed, 
 nodding his long gray beard. "But perhaps Doctor 
 Cryder has some other plan to suggest." 
 
 "I haven't and I wouldn't suggest it if I had. Lord 
 almighty, I've enough responsibilities without attempt- 
 ing to lead the lost tribe of Kettle Creekers out of its 
 wilderness." 
 
 There now began a steady and excited discussion 
 of the merits and demerits of Pinney's company, the 
 crowd which had gravitated about the place where 
 Cryder, the promoter, Hollister, and the other talkers 
 stood breaking up into groups and knots. A strong 
 current of opinion, born of desperation, was running in 
 favour of the scheme. New champions espoused the 
 project. The women were almost solidly aligned for 
 it, quicker to snatch at hope, more optimistic, readier to 
 follow a rainbow. Pinney was everywhere, now in this 
 place, now in that, arguing, persuading, reciting his 
 "unanswerable facts," declaring the wealth that should 
 flow from the mill, trembling with eagerness, exalted, 
 voluble. With him worked his relations, the Martins, 
 and others who hitherto had supported his plan. On 
 the faces of all was the hungry and anxious expression 
 of men and women who, feeling that life was at a crisis, 
 that fate hung for them on this hour's decision, were 
 struggling with doubts, perplexities, inadequacies of 
 mind, fatal handicaps of soul. 
 
 All at once a group of women moved toward the 
 surgeon, who was furiously debating at the moment 
 with Swanson, the Swede, who lived up the creek and 
 who with a reckless light in his eyes was swearing he was
 
 i 4 8 CRYDER 
 
 ready to gamble his timber in the scheme. They pulled 
 at Cryder's sleeve and jerked at his coat. 
 
 "Here, what's the matter?" he demanded, angrily, 
 turning about. But perceiving that those who strove 
 to gain his attention were women he became mollified, 
 and remarked, "Well, excuse me; I didn't know ladies 
 were after me. You look agitated. Somebody's baby 
 got a bean up its nose?" 
 
 "Now, Doc, don't make fun of us," said one. "We 
 want to ask you something and we're in earnest it 
 means so much to us all ! And you know more than all 
 of us Kettle Creekers put together." 
 
 "I'll not be so rude as to dispute you," said he, 
 solemnly, folding his arms. "Fire away." 
 
 The women glanced at one another as if to summon 
 mutual courage. Then three of them began talking at 
 once. Cryder halted them with an uplifted hand. 
 
 "Now, now. One at a time," said he. "Suppose 
 you speak first, Mrs. Cardey." 
 
 "Well, it's this/' the woman responded, a thin worn 
 person with a wisp of hair fallen over one temple. 
 "And just forget your arguin', Doctor. We know that 
 half the time you discuss and argue just to be doin' it. 
 We've come to you because you've tended our babies 
 and ourselves when we're sick, and because you ain't 
 got no personal interest in the matter, and because 
 you've travelled and been around and know as much as 
 a lawyer if not more and 
 
 "Yes, yes. But suppose you get to the point." 
 
 "Well, we want you to tell us honest what you think 
 about this company of Pinney's."
 
 WILD BEES 149 
 
 "It's blue sky." 
 
 "But what are we goin' to do if we don't go into 
 it? Where we goin' to sell our timber?" 
 
 "I'm afraid you won't sell it." 
 
 "W T ell, what would you do if you was in our place?" 
 
 "I'm not in your place." 
 
 "But if you was? Tell us, Doctor. We're in dead 
 earnest; we got to decide something, or just figure on 
 livin' here poor folks all the rest of our days." The 
 woman's voice broke in a quaver. "And we don't 
 want to do that. We want a chance. We want our 
 kids to grow up where they can have real schoolin' and 
 be something better'n us. We want 'em to grow up and 
 be a credit. What if you were a Kettle Creeker with a 
 family and ownin' nothin' but a claim like us, what 
 would you do? Isn't there a chance for us in Pinney's 
 company? Tell us, honest. Wouldn't you join? 
 Wouldn't you go into it?" 
 
 Cryder gazed at the women's anxious faces upturned 
 to his, wasted and weary faces, faces drained by the 
 hard life here of the few traces of comeliness they once 
 possessed. Existence for these poor beings was a 
 monotonous succession of toilsome days. They swept, 
 cooked, did washings, sewed, bore children, reared them, 
 and knew few pleasures and comforts. All that 
 sweetened the soul was lacking. Yet steadily in their 
 hearts burned an ineffable hope of escape to a different 
 life, an instinctive if inarticulate desire for finer and 
 nobler things. 
 
 Ah, those poor wan faces, tremulously eager! A 
 surge of infinite pity answered in his breast as he re-
 
 ISO CRYDER 
 
 garded them, as he gazed at these sad, ignorant creatures 
 with meagre bodies and starved hearts, these half-dumb 
 souls with raised eyes. Then his look went past them, 
 ranging round the dark lofty wall of pines enclosing the 
 place. The shifting crowd, the stir of shadowy figures, 
 the hum of talk, the great beacon of logs and flame 
 and upward-drifting smoke these only subconsciously 
 stamped themselves on his mind. 
 
 What if he were one of them? What if he were in 
 their position ? 
 
 He folded his arms. 
 
 Would he go into this mad enterprise of Pin- 
 ney's? 
 
 He had never been one tamely to surrender to an 
 invidious mandate. Better risk failure in a hazardous 
 project than be content with a pittance. Better fail 
 and go down fighting than never to try at all. 
 
 His great dark eyes glowed. 
 
 "I would!" he exclaimed. "Before heaven, if I 
 had a claim I'd go in!" 
 
 in 
 
 A cry of satisfaction broke from the women. His 
 utterance was enough. At once they rushed away from 
 him to spread the news that the surgeon, did he own 
 timber, would join the company. 
 
 Cryder continued to stand on the spot, looming 
 big against the fire and speculating on the effect of his 
 words. As his fervour of the moment died, he was 
 assailed by an uneasiness of mind; he told himself he 
 had had no business giving advice in such a matter
 
 WILD BEES 151 
 
 and Pinney was a paranoiac. The project was sure to 
 go to smash. 
 
 From mouth to mouth the tidings sped of the doctor's 
 approval of the cooperative lumber company. There- 
 upon a movement of the crowd set toward the group 
 about the promoter; and Pinney, stretching his chin, 
 nervous, elated, climbed on a stump and above his head 
 held a crumpled roll of papers, ten sheets of legal cap 
 fastened with brass snaps on the front of which was 
 written a paragraph wherein the undersigned agreed to 
 join the cooperative company, which all summer its 
 bearer had been circulating for signatures. 
 
 "Here are the names of those who already have 
 signed," he shouted. "The rest of you will now affix 
 your signatures. Remember, this is a pledge. All 
 should join. There must be none holding out. The 
 bank makes it a condition of the loan that all must be a 
 party to the transaction. Sign; then we shall organize 
 a board of directors. Let us go to the store where there 
 is light and ink." 
 
 "I'll sign if I'm made a director," Dave Hollister 
 stated. 
 
 "Yeah, Dave's a horse-trader; put him in," Nick 
 called. "He'll see we ain't skinned by anybody." 
 
 "But first let us all sign," said Pinney. "Follow me 
 to the store, those who own claims and who haven't 
 affixed their signatures. The affixing of signatures is 
 the first necessary preliminary. The rest will kindly 
 remain outside the building in order that the business 
 may be transacted more speedily." 
 
 "And then will there be a dance ? " a girl's voice piped.
 
 CRYDER 
 
 "Yes, if a dance is desired," Pinney answered, hastily 
 descending from the stump while clutching and still 
 holding aloft his roll of legal cap. "This way. Fol- 
 low me to the store, those who haven't signed. We 
 must have all the names and then we can effect our 
 organization. This way, those who haven't yet affixed 
 their signatures." 
 
 His voice continued to trail back in repeated adju- 
 rations to follow. As one the throng pressed about and 
 after him, surrounding and hiding his small form, 
 moving away from the fire toward the log structure 
 that sheltered Goldberg's stock of merchandise and 
 from the door and windows of which fell yellow gleams 
 of lamplight. At the doorway confusion began as all 
 endeavoured to enter, those who had signed as well as 
 those who had not, the wives and children as well as 
 their husbands; an outburst of bickerings and laughter, 
 a struggle of dark figures to push inside. For now that 
 all had flung themselves into the new enterprise, the 
 assemblage experienced the rebound from its earlier 
 disappointment and the keen exhilaration of a new 
 hope, the excitement of a prospective thrust at fortune. 
 The people thrilled as to an adventure. And all, even 
 the children who realized nothing but the stir and their 
 parents' ferment, sought to witness the important pro- 
 ceedings within the store. 
 
 Cryder had not accompanied the crowd in its eager 
 stampede to form a rival company to that of Wagner. 
 He had watched it draw off from him, forgetting him 
 once it had obtained his declaration, suppositional but 
 sufficient to its mood. In the actual signing he had no
 
 WILD BEES 153 
 
 interest : that was a mere pantomime. Standing by the 
 fire with his hands in his trousers' pockets, he reflected 
 upon the impulse that had led him to reply to the 
 women as they had wished, to utter the word which 
 tipped the wavering scale in Pinney's direction. 
 
 The mountain chill, despite the heat of the burning 
 logs, struck his uncovered breast. Absently he drew 
 his shirt together, but found the buttons missing, 
 ripped off in the struggle around Wagner's car. This 
 seemed a night of wild folly. Wagner had acted like a 
 fool in pricking the crowd's wrath; the Kettle Creekers 
 had nearly committed a deed of rash violence and now 
 who knew? were headed on another course as mad and 
 futile; and he himself had yielded to a silly pity a few 
 minutes before which had inextricably involved him in 
 a responsibility not now to be escaped. No use to deny 
 that he had influenced the mob, or to minimize his part 
 by pretending they would have followed Pinney in any 
 case. The fact was he had swung them over, decided 
 their minds. As usual, he must meddle with what 
 wasn't his concern. 
 
 Cryder continued to brood while the minutes slipped 
 by. About the store a dark huddle of human forms 
 clung, like bees about a place where they swarm, from 
 whom came an incessant hum. Events of the past 
 summer, of the past week, of the day and evening, un- 
 related and inchoate, floated through the surgeon's 
 mind. Then he recalled the incidents of his tramps 
 and rides with Frances HufF, and her words, her tones, 
 and the very music of her voice. Ah, that started a 
 gnawing pain in his breast!
 
 CRYDER 
 
 Time and space seemed to recede until he stood no 
 longer in the clearing, but alone infinitely alone. All 
 his endeavours appeared to be thwarted and baffled by 
 some cross-grain in his nature; and he asked himself if 
 he were cursed by a supernal and hide-bound egotism 
 such as had been asserted. Was that the cause of the de- 
 feat he had suffered all his life? And yet all he desired 
 was to help others, to be worth his salt to humanity. 
 
 All at once there was an outpouring from the store 
 and a tumult of noise. Men were whooping and 
 women shrieking and youths performing antics. The 
 cooperative company was organized. A sawmill would 
 be built and the timber logged out and lumber made; 
 they should do it themselves in spite of hell and the 
 Hedley Lumber Company. A new excitement pos- 
 sessed them. All were infected by a fiery spirit of 
 certainty, by a turbulent sweep of desire and a passion- 
 ate belief in the new project. 
 
 The crowd surged toward the fire. 
 
 "Three cheers for Doc," Hollister yelled. And the 
 cheers were given. 
 
 "We've organized, Doctor," Arnold Meek announced 
 with satisfaction. "We've chosen a board of directors 
 and elected Mr. Pinney manager." 
 
 "Here's wishing you luck," the surgeon replied. 
 "But I foresee a lot of trouble for you." 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt. That's to be expected, and 
 yet I'm sure we shall be very successful, overcoming all 
 difficulties. We shall act carefully; I, for one, shall 
 favour a cautious policy." 
 
 "Are you a director, Arnold?"
 
 WILD BEES 155 
 
 "Yes, I'm one of the seven selected. Mr. Pinney is 
 another, naturally. Then there's Dave here, and 
 Swanson and Finchette and Edgecomb and 
 
 "And you, Doc," Hollister cut in. "That's what 
 we've come to tell you. You're a director on the 
 board." 
 
 "I'm not!" Cryder boomed. "Me a director? 
 "That's rich. And I don't own a stick of timber." 
 
 "Makes no difference; you're elected." 
 
 "Then just count me out again," Cryder retorted. 
 "I wouldn't take the job for a million dollars. Not 
 much. I've enough woe doctoring folks, let alone help- 
 ing run a fly-by-night sawmill company. Say, you 
 make me laugh!" 
 
 "Now, Doc, don't swell up and go to kickin' over 
 the traces. We ' 
 
 "No, sir-ee. You don't get me mixed in your infernal 
 mess." 
 
 "We need you on the board and we're jest goin' to 
 have you there," Hollister proceeded, in an obstinate 
 tone. "Everybody agreed to you unanimous." 
 
 Cryder made a violent gesture of refusal. 
 
 "Not on your life. I won't take the place. I tell 
 you, man, you'll fail, and if you're wise you all will drop 
 this crazy scheme here and now." He lifted his look 
 from Hollister to the crowd, turning his face now this 
 way and now that. "Drop it, leave it alone," he said, 
 fiercely. "You'll lose all you have. I'd like to take 
 you all by the necks and shake some sense into you." 
 
 "You said you'd go in if you were in our places," 
 shrilled a woman.
 
 156 CRYDER 
 
 "Yes. I said that, but now I retract it. I was 
 thinking of myself. Get out before it's too late, 
 for I warn you" he lifted a hand to make his words 
 more impressive "I warn you that you will be 
 destroyed." 
 
 Stillness followed this solemn prophecy of ruin. 
 Then presently Hollister spoke: 
 
 "Well, we'll ride with the Devil if that's the case. 
 We've made up our minds, we're all for it, and ain't 
 goin' to change now. What's more, you're elected a 
 director and will take the trip with us, Doc." 
 
 The tension of the crowd relaxed at this racy counter 
 and a gust of laughter swept away the last trace of 
 the Kettle Creekers' disquiet. From a score of 
 throats rose the jovial asseverations, "That's right. 
 You're elected. Goin' to hit the high spots with us, 
 Doc." 
 
 "No, sir!" said Cryder, firmly. 
 
 "I reckon you will when you've slept on the matter," 
 Hollister remarked. 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 "Anyway, we'll jest keep you a member of the 
 board." 
 
 "I won't have it!" 
 
 "Can't help yourself, can you?" 
 
 "I sure can." 
 
 "You sure can't." 
 
 "Dare to keep my name on your crazy directorate 
 and, by the Great Jumping Juggernaut, I'll teach you 
 what's what!" 
 
 "Now be calm, Doc," said Hollister, soothingly.
 
 WILD BEES 157 
 
 "I am calm, perfectly calm!" 
 
 "No, you're not, Doc. You're mad as a porcupine 
 that's been poked with a stick." 
 
 "You're an infernal liar!" 
 
 "Now, now now, now." Hollister patted him on 
 the shoulder. "Jest be reasonable." 
 
 Cryder struck off his hand. 
 
 "Here, stop that!" he roared. "I'm not one of your 
 spavined old horses." 
 
 Hollister grinned. 
 
 "Well, you're a director, anyway." 
 
 "Never! Not if you insist till my dying day! O 
 lord, what a set of ignoramuses ! You give me a pain 
 with your mountebank cooperative company! Get out 
 of the way and let me pass! I need air!" 
 
 He furiously forced a passage through the press 
 of men and women, who good-naturedly yielded to his 
 elbowing and heated objurgations. They all knew his 
 ways; all understood Doc. 
 
 Presently were heard cries to begin the dance. A 
 hubbub and jostling started a hum, laughter, whistles, 
 calls for music, whoops, screeches. 
 
 Business was finished; now for revelry. 
 
 IV 
 
 Three chairs were carried into the middle of the 
 street, where the musicians seated themselves and began 
 to tune their instruments Dave Hollister his violin, 
 Barney his banjo, and little Goldberg his brass cornet. 
 Men flung fresh fuel upon the fire and its blaze shot high
 
 158 CRYDER 
 
 into the night. The crowd's hum swelled as whines 
 came from the fiddle and thumps from the banjo and 
 toots from the horn. The laughter grew loud, the 
 gaiety was more dominant. Children raced about and 
 babies began to squawl. Throughout the throng in 
 the street there was an incessant movement of heads 
 and arms and restless figures. A quarrel broke forth 
 between two youths at one spot, whereupon the crowd 
 pressed thither demanding to know what was the 
 matter and yelling encouragement, though in the end it 
 came to nothing. Then Joe Streeter with arm locked 
 in Nell Boggs's and wearing a reptilian smile went 
 cake-walking about the musicians. 
 
 Cryder had posted himself by the store out of the way. 
 He had a heaviness of soul that all the exuberance of 
 the company could not dispel. He felt that he was 
 witnessing the mad revel of an aggregation of people 
 caught and whirled in a dizzy maze of fate. The 
 vociferous excitement, the noise, their eager and 
 confident belief in the future, their feverish nonsense 
 and exultation all were the furious passion of hatred 
 of Kettle Creek for the lumber company breaking 
 forth at last in action, in a reckless and jubilant chal- 
 lenge to forces of which they knew naught, a blind leap 
 at Destiny. Madness! 
 
 All at once the fiddle struck up, with the banjo 
 droning and the cornet emitting sharp accented toots 
 and brays. The tune was a lively rustic one. In- 
 stantly the chatter and talk ceased and the crowd 
 stood listening. 
 
 Hollister flung back his head and opening his great
 
 WILD BEES 159 
 
 mouth emitted a long-drawn ejaculation and began to 
 sing to the nimble melody: 
 
 "Oh-h-h-h-h-h 
 
 The fiddles was a-jiggin's as hard as could be 
 When a man steps up, says he to me, 
 'I think you're a lady what's fair and true 
 And I want for the pleasure of this dance with you.' 
 So I says to him, 'I reckon I may 
 
 With a man so grand and gal'ant and gay 
 
 If your heart is merry and your feet are light 
 We'll never stop dancin' till the sun shines bright.' 
 Gents step for'rard while the ladies stand still, 
 Pick your pardners for the first quadrille, 
 March to the middle and form your square, 
 And bow to your pardners right deb-bee-nair." 
 
 Abruptly the music ended and Hollister laid his 
 fiddle upon his knees. 
 
 "Pick your pardners for the first dance every- 
 body-y-y!" he shouted. 
 
 Hastily those who as yet had not secured partners 
 began to rush to and fro, crowding, elbowing, seeking 
 some favoured dancer. Wives found husbands and 
 dragged them forward to places where others were form- 
 ing sets; young fellows with girls formed "squares" and 
 impatiently waiting for the music to start engaged in 
 double-shuffles, cut capers, crowed like roosters or 
 mewed like cats; while unmarried men, "old batches," 
 sheepishly held back but presently asked some old maid 
 or widow. 
 
 Myra Nichols had seized upon Pinney and tena- 
 ciously kept him safe with her arm locked in his, while 
 he talked, smiled, made himself agreeable. Heretofore
 
 160 CRYDER 
 
 she had paid no attention to him, but this evening's 
 events had made him a good catch: he had succeeded 
 in organizing his company, he would be manager, he 
 would be a rich man, he would give a wife a social 
 position at once in Maronville after the mill was built 
 and Myra, who was twenty-seven, practical and self- 
 reliant, had made up her mind forthwith. 
 
 All up and down the street sets had formed. Con- 
 tinual laughter swept the throng as shouts and jests 
 were hurled back and forth. The fire roared and leapt 
 in its place beyond the buildings, as if to lap the stars, 
 flinging a glare about the dark forest wall. 
 
 The music struck up again and the sets of dancers 
 came to attention. Hollister's voice at once rang out 
 in a high and penetrating key that reached the length 
 of the street. 
 
 "Oh-h-h-h 
 
 You can't have bread if the corn ain't ground 
 
 You can't have meal 'less the stones go round, 
 
 Bow to your pardner, balance and swing, 
 
 Grand right and left and form a ring 
 
 If the corn is yeller, put it in a sack 
 
 March to the centre and inarch right back, 
 
 Circle to left, circle to the right 
 
 For we'll make it into licker when the moon shines bright." 
 
 On the beaten earth of the street the feet of the 
 dancers tripped and shuffled and stamped to the rol- 
 licking nimble music and shouted words, producing a 
 steady rhythmic murmur, a thumping undertone, an 
 insistent and incessant pulsing sound. Twenty sets 
 in two lines circled and swayed in unison to the calls of
 
 WILD BEES 161 
 
 the fiddler. Eighty couples bobbed and whirled and 
 pranced as one. 
 
 As the dance went on, the surgeon, too, felt the exciting 
 quality of the shrill vivacious notes of the instruments, 
 of Hollister's screeched staccato chant and of the weav- 
 ing figures. The swift and feverish strains beat into 
 one's brain; the lilt quickened one's blood; the rhythmic 
 movement of persons in harmonious involutions en- 
 tranced one's eyes. 
 
 "A long time ago, a long time ago 
 Couples to the middle and sashey in a row 
 Oh, the stuff that made us leg it 
 Now make a curtsey low 
 Was hoecake, hog, and hominy a long time ago." 
 
 The dance was in full swing. The ceaseless shuffle 
 and pound of feet in measure to the jerky strident notes 
 evoked from the earth a dull resonance, a steady and 
 persistent sound like the muffled thumping of concealed 
 drums. Above this, high-pitched and rapid, shrieked 
 the fiddle and buzzed the banjo and blared the cornet. 
 Gasps and squeals came from spinning girls, yelps from 
 youths, a hoarse breathing from the older men and 
 women. Now and again a burst of laughter rang 
 out. But ever there persisted that roll of thudding 
 feet on the beaten ground to the accompaniment of 
 Hollister's piercing sing-song declamation. 
 
 The dancers advanced and retreated and swung, 
 crossed and recrossed, jigged and skipped, enfiladed 
 and whirled; a swarm of bobbing heads and interweav- 
 ing forms, a maze of figures responding to the caller's
 
 162 CRYDER 
 
 galvanic shouts and the music's swift jamboree. In 
 the crimson light flung by the fire they appeared a 
 crowd of rhythm-intoxicated wood spirits moving in an 
 ecstatic trance. 
 
 " Third couple swing and promenade awhile 
 Oh, let the lady swing her gent all around a mile 
 Let her pardner f oiler and swing the ladies fair 
 A real janty gent will toss 'em in the air." 
 
 In one place Swanson, Armbrust, Holsapple, Tourtil- 
 lotte and their wives made up a set. In another the 
 Highsmiths and the Costellos, the Failings and the 
 Stones, balanced and circled in industrious gaiety. 
 Little Voegel was dancing like a lively manikin; tall 
 Postlewaite in solemn activity; Capune with a fixed 
 grin; Sam McMurtrie with Irish abandon. Ed Taylor 
 was slyly squeezing his partner, May Johnson, at every 
 turn and whirl. Big Jim's feet were making thunder. 
 Myra Nichols kept Pinney dizzy. The three Krause 
 girls, each in a different set, were panting and perspiring 
 and never missing a step. Sherwood had forgotten his 
 rheumatism and was as harum-scarum as a boy. Nick 
 made Jessie Rainbolt's skirts fly out straight on the 
 spins. In every set each dancer, young and old, was 
 animated by a strenuous enthusiasm. 
 
 The surgeon discovered himself keeping time with his 
 foot. Unconsciously he had yielded to the rude but 
 sprightly reiterated airs poured forth in a medley, 
 rising, falling, yet ever impinging on the brain and 
 vibrating in the nerves. He felt himself succumbing to 
 the spell of that dithyrambic chant, that accelerated
 
 WILD BEES 163 
 
 cadence, those weaving forms and treading feet, so that 
 he was moved by a wild impulse to rush forward and 
 hurl himself into the midst of the dancers and disport 
 with the wildest in a fantastic rigadoon, in an un- 
 controlled whirl of body, in the vehement and distracted 
 revel of a satyr. 
 
 "When the fiddle is a-singin' and feet a-jiggin' fast 
 Hands all around and grapevine at the last 
 You'll never be a gal'ant if you don't shake 'em down. 
 Oh, you'll never be a lady if you don't swish a gown." 
 
 Like quicksilver the music flashed in Cryder's throb- 
 bing blood. He restlessly set weight now on one foot 
 and now on the other; his breath came faster: he could 
 feel his pulses leap to the crash and stamp of boots. 
 The flushed faces and eager eyes of the girls challenged 
 him. The capricious melody more and more bedevilled 
 him, beating in his brain and causing his thoughts to 
 fume. The very drifting scent of the burning logs con- 
 tained a drugging quality which increased the febrile 
 effect of flickering firelight and flitting figures and pelt- 
 ing sound. 
 
 "And there was an old feller and his name was Brown, 
 Who came with his fiddle a-ridin' into town 
 He came all the way from Arkansaw, 
 And he fiddled up a tune called 'Turkey in the Straw' 
 
 Now straight to the front, now back once more 
 Now balance and swing and then encore 
 Ladies in the centre and gents take a walk 
 The hens stand still while the gobblers stalk. 
 Turkey in the straw, turkey in the straw 
 You can't win a hen if you shiver in awe
 
 1 64 CRYDER 
 
 Now circle to the right and cock your head 
 Now circle to the left with tail outspread 
 Turkey in the straw, turkey in the straw 
 Every turkey wants a hen that you ever saw 
 Now bow to your pardner and balance and swing 
 Now ally-man left and flap a wing 
 Ally-man left, ally-man left " 
 
 All at once Cryder experienced a revulsion of feeling 
 as his sense of loss returned, as he recalled Frances Huff. 
 In a twinkling the hypnotizing potency of music and 
 scene was gone. His foot came to rest. No longer 
 the thrumming of the banjo, the horn's rampant toot- 
 toot, and the shrill racing notes of the fiddle excited his 
 fancy and whipped his blood. With a flicker of con- 
 tempt he considered his emotion of the moment before 
 an emotion half-savage and half-silly, wherein he had 
 been in inclination at least no better than Big Jim 
 yonder who capered like a huge drunken vandal. 
 
 The caller's voice was clacking: 
 
 " Two couples forward, now swing the ladies in 
 The Devil's sure to get you if your heart is full of sin " 
 
 Tirelessly the swarm of dancers whisked and inter- 
 twined and revolved and twirled. The tempo of the 
 music had quickened, inciting them to more spasmodic 
 activity. Through the glade the screeched flying notes 
 corruscated, like the golden sparks from the fire, to 
 the accompaniment of drumming feet; the homely 
 jovial tunes ringing to the treetops, as a thousand times 
 before in bygone days they had shrilled in the forests 
 of America. They smacked of virgin woods. Thev 
 capered with the wild hilarity of spirits rude and un-
 
 WILD BEES 165 
 
 restrained. They contained a wild exaltation of hearts 
 at once sombre and unsatisfied, and savage and passion- 
 ate. Fiddles had played them in cabins of Ohio and 
 New York, in glens of Virginia and Tennessee, and in 
 the clearings of Indiana and Michigan. To their 
 strains women in linsey-woolsey and men crowned with 
 coonskin caps had gambolled; everywhere pioneers of 
 the woods had laid by axe or gun to dance to their 
 rollicking melody; on river landings rivermen had 
 roared and leapt to the well-known airs; and in logging- 
 camps or in timber settlements feet thundered when 
 fiddles scraped the glib provocative quadrilles. To 
 them now here in the depth of the forest danced the 
 Kettle Creek folk. 
 
 " Gents in the centre and ladies take a stroll 
 Canter right around and leave 'em in a hole 
 Some people are rich, some people are poor, 
 But they all got to die in the end, that's sure 
 Balance and swing, balance and swing " 
 
 In a steady rippling stream the improvisations, the 
 vernacular minstrelsy of innumerable fiddlers and dance 
 callers, poured from Hollister's great working mouth. 
 He never hesitated, he never paused for breath, and all 
 the while his fiddle was going full tilt and his foot stamp- 
 ing time on the ground. 
 
 But Cryder had grown weary of it all. His look 
 swept slowly over the scene. On the street and on the 
 cabins the fire cast its glow so that where the shifting 
 human figures moved there also passed their shadows. 
 Even on the high curtain of the forest, rosy with light,
 
 166 CRYDER 
 
 a myriad of vague and monstrous shapes soundlessly 
 flitted and tossed, mingled and vanished, in accord with 
 dancers and music and caller's cry a gigantic panto- 
 mime, a mock revelry of Brobdingnagian silhouettes. 
 He walked away, skirting the throng and moving 
 toward the wood. Behind him sounded the patter: 
 
 "Second gal for'rard and take a walk around 
 Look for a feller with a yeller-heller hound 
 If the hound is drowned then never make a sound 
 Now the lady in the middle and all hands around 
 Now circle to the left till the feller is found 
 Oh, never hunt a nigger where the chiggers do abound, 
 For you can't shoot a nigger with a chigger on the trigger 
 If you figger that it's bigger than a hound on the ground 
 For'rard and swing, for'rard and swing 
 And let the lady circle to her pardner in the ring 
 Now pardner s take and four hands make 
 And doe-see-doe for the fiddler's sake " 
 
 At the edge of the clearing Cryder paused, gazing 
 back. The music was going faster while Hollister's 
 doggerel flowed forth in a swift and tireless gabble. In 
 the firelight the dancers leapt and swung dizzily like a 
 swarm of intoxicated puppets. Nick was whirling 
 Jessie Rainbolt. Myra Nichols and Pinney were 
 bobbing furiously. Joe Streeter like an animated 
 Jack-on-a-stick, arms flopping, legs jigging, faced Nell 
 Boggs, who jumped and bounded to the vivacious notes. 
 Other youths and girls were whirling and curvetting; 
 other men and women hopped and skipped and ca- 
 vorted. Eighty couples were jerking and pitching in 
 rhythmic oscillation. To the surgeon it seemed as if 
 in this woodland glade a strange and maniacal satur-
 
 WILD BEES 167 
 
 nalia was proceeding that was as mad as the turmoil of a 
 dream. 
 
 He entered the path leading homeward. The crim- 
 son glow died away and the sounds receded. Darkness 
 was now all about him, though a faint nebulosity, 
 sufficient for his guidance, fell from the stars through the 
 boughs. The wood slept. On the soft ground his feet 
 were scarcely heard. The air he breathed was sweet 
 with balsam. He sensed as he passed them the prox- 
 imity of the great tree-trunks, so firmly rooted in the 
 earth and so steadfastly standing in the night. 
 
 Ah, back there in the clearing the wild bees hummed 
 and swirled and danced before soaring on the morrow 
 in impetuous flight, in a desperate emprise for a golden 
 store ! And this great forest which filled the valley from 
 ridge to ridge was to be utilized in the making of their 
 honey, this majestic wood, the fruition of patient dec- 
 ades and the gift of the bountiful earth. But no. It 
 would not happen. The bees would fall with broken 
 wings and crushed bodies in the impossible task. The 
 forest would survive. 
 
 "They will fail," Cryder exclaimed aloud, coming to 
 a halt. 
 
 Travelled to his ear from afar: 
 
 "Can't win a lady if you don't step light 
 Can't get to heaven if you don't live right 
 
 Balance and swing, balance and swing . . ." 
 
 Again the silence of the forest shut down like an 
 impalpable curtain. Darkness and the hush of night 
 reigned about the listening man.
 
 168 CRYDER 
 
 But the dance went on there in the clearing, he 
 knew. They danced their honey-dance in the crimson 
 firelight, with shadows a-dance on the forest screen. 
 They were humming in a welter of emotion. They 
 were spinning in an intoxication of ecstasy. They were 
 drunk with Pinney's spurious nectar. 
 
 Wild bees a-swarm!
 
 PART TWO
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE CELEBRATION 
 
 THE Maronville City Library building was a structure 
 of moderate size and plain design, still new, with a green 
 tile roof and walls of cream-coloured brick; rising in the 
 middle of a clipped lawn and approached by a cement 
 walk that led to a low flight of stone steps whose 
 parapets bore each an ornamental bronze standard 
 holding a lamp, a big globe of frosted glass illuminated 
 at night. The entrance was wide, the windows of 
 ample size, and the interior excellently arranged for 
 library purposes. Citizens in exhibiting the show- 
 points of the town to visiting guests never failed to 
 display and expatiate upon the superiority of the 
 edifice, pointing here and there at this and at that from 
 their automobiles, calling attention to the terra-cotta 
 frieze running round the walls just under the roof 
 and customarily announcing in conclusion that "it 
 would be a credit, yes, sir, a credit to any city however 
 big." 
 
 At a desk in the main room of the building sat Frances 
 Huff on a June day in the following year. She was 
 librarian an office she had held for the past nine 
 months. It was the noon hour, the dull hour. A 
 
 171
 
 172 CRYDER 
 
 single patron was in the library, a lean unshaven man 
 of foreign physiognomy whose black hair stuck straight 
 up on his crown, giving him an aspect of wildness, who 
 brooded over a volume at a table between two book- 
 stacks. Frances suspected he was an anarchist. At 
 intervals, as she pressed a rubber stamp bearing the 
 legend "Book overdue please return" alternately on a 
 red ink-pad and on postcards addressed to delinquent 
 book borrowers, she glanced to see if he was furtively 
 despoiling a book or marring the furniture. She was 
 responsible for library property. And Jack had said 
 that bolshevists and I. W. W.'s were as thick as black- 
 berries in the Northwest nowadays, which Schuyler 
 Patterson had confirmed, adding that the country 
 faced grave problems of unrest inspired by destructive 
 doctrines imported from abroad. This fellow in the 
 alcove had a disappointed dirty face and a fanatical 
 way of brushing his hair. 
 
 A warm breeze blew through the open windows, 
 bringing a smell of wet grass from outside where a 
 revolving sprinkler cast jets of water over the turf. 
 Frances paused to inhale the refreshing odour. Then 
 she finished stamping the postcards, tossed the pack 
 into a drawer, and looked at the large clock on the 
 wall. Half-past twelve. Frances stared at the clock, 
 annoyed; its hands certainly were dawdling this noon. 
 
 Through the open doorway she watched three brown 
 pigeons which padded about in the dust of the street 
 beyond the lawn. She suppressed a yawn, sighed 
 about nothing in particular, and finally, shooting a 
 vigilant glance at the anarchist, who apparently was
 
 THE CELEBRATION 173 
 
 conducting himself lawfully, she locked hands behind 
 her head and fixedly regarded a picture of Abraham 
 Lincoln hung above the entrance. 
 
 But as a matter of fact she was unaware of the grave 
 countenance on which her eyes were set. In fancy her 
 mind was disclosing future scenes, divers and pleasing, 
 wherein she and Schuyler Patterson were the central 
 figures. For they were betrothed. 
 
 Shortly after her return from Kettle Creek the previ- 
 ous summer the attorney, who during his brief holiday 
 at Cryder's wilderness abode had been favourably 
 impressed by Frances Huff's personality and her 
 library training, requested of her the privilege of 
 presenting her name to the Library Board as that of a 
 candidate for the position of librarian. The present 
 incumbent, it appeared, was retiring. She was a 
 middle-aged woman who had outgrown her usefulness; 
 her methods were old-fashioned and careless, while her 
 temper was variable; and though a change would work a 
 hardship in her individual case, yet for the general good 
 it was deemed best that she withdraw to make room for 
 a more efficient person. 
 
 At first Frances had declined to accede to Patterson's 
 request. She planned to return East. At no time had 
 she contemplated staying permanently in this part 
 of the country. To remain would involve an entire 
 readjustment of her prospective scheme of life, nebulous 
 though this was; necessitate, indeed, a snapping of all 
 those roots that held her to the soil of New England 
 the interests, the friendships, the sentiments, the very 
 provincialism of speech and thought and outlook, all
 
 1/4 CRYDER 
 
 part of herself, all so tenacious and so dear. She 
 couldn't think of it, she declared. But after a day or 
 two she did begin to think of it, more and more seriously 
 in each period of consideration. She weighed the 
 practical features against the sentimental, for Jack had 
 said this was vital. She was doing her best nowadays 
 to take a practical view of matters. Ever since her 
 return from Kettle Creek! There she had nearly been 
 wrecked by sentiment. One must see men and things 
 as they actually were in order not to be deluded by rosy 
 mists. See life as it was, too. And was not life most of 
 all a practical affair? Well, consider. At home she 
 had no definite employment in sight, but here was an 
 immediate and desirable place that she might obtain; 
 there she should be alone, but here be with Jack. In 
 the end these inducements, reinforced by her brother's 
 urgings and the attorney's discreet persuasions, won her 
 over. She consented to the submission of her name 
 before the Library Board. 
 
 This was equivalent to election she had Jack's word 
 for it. Wasn't Patterson her sponsor? Didn't he run 
 the Board? Hadn't he put the screws on the present 
 librarian until she quit? He had. And he would elect 
 Frankie. Just wait and see. Frances waited and saw. 
 At a special meeting of the Board two evenings later 
 she was chosen to succeed the retiring librarian, and 
 Schuyler Patterson had come round after adjournment 
 to bring the news. 
 
 About this time Jack had returned to work at the 
 mill. Except for a slight tenderness in his injured leg, 
 he was fully recovered; and as a result of his summer's
 
 THE CELEBRATION 175 
 
 inaction he now brought to his labour an intenser 
 energy and enthusiasm, as if determined to make up for 
 lost time. Early in December he was promoted to the 
 superintendency of the sawmill an advance that was as 
 inevitable as the sun's rising, quoth Patterson, when on 
 learning of the event he dropped in at the Huff home to 
 convey his felicitations to Jack and Frances. He had 
 got into the way of dropping in on them of evenings; no 
 other place, he had explained, was so cheery, so delight- 
 ful, so full of charm. 
 
 In the autumn the Huffs had leased a newly built 
 bungalow, which they furnished comfortably and with a 
 quiet taste that pleased the attorney. With the pass- 
 ing of the weeks his calls became like a routine fact; 
 and on those winter evenings he and Frances, when 
 Jack had withdrawn, sat before the fireplace, where a 
 log burned brightly, and engaged in talk, in discussion 
 and in those exchanged intimacies of thought that 
 quicken affection. The smell of the burning pine was 
 sweet. The play of flame about the log tranquillized 
 their mood. The low wind in the chimney deepened 
 their sense of peace. 
 
 A similarity in tastes and sympathies, as revealed in 
 their talks, was the beginning of the pleasure Frances 
 found in Patterson's companionship. She discovered 
 that he agreed with her opinions on books, on the 
 modern art tendencies, and like herself was greatly 
 interested in the social movements of the day. His 
 restrained and careful utterances had a thoughtful 
 quality which, she was sure, bespoke a deep and 
 generous mind. His smile, his tempered good humour,
 
 176 CRYDER 
 
 could arise only from a nature not only amiable but 
 animated by a strong good-will. He assured Frances 
 that he had nothing but good-will for everyone; and he 
 disclosed to her that he had been greatly hurt by the 
 criticisms of certain persons in Maronville who, un- 
 informed or prejudiced, had taken exception to the 
 action of the Library Board in getting rid of Miss 
 Harper, Frances's predecessor. He personally felt only 
 good-will for the woman. Possibly the loss of the office 
 deprived her of a means of support as was claimed but 
 should public places be made merely berths for needy 
 incompetents, must the good of the community be 
 subordinated to the necessities of individuals? If so, 
 the whole social fabric would soon deteriorate. To be 
 sure, Miss Harper's case was unfortunate; it was one 
 requiring private assistance, which was the proper 
 remedy for all such cases. He himself was giving 
 thought to her affairs. He hoped soon to find a clerk- 
 ship for her, or a housekeeping situation if nothing 
 better could be secured. Something would be done for 
 her, certainly. And Frances was touched both by the 
 pain he suffered at the unjust censure and by his 
 solicitude for the woman; and he was right, entirely 
 right, in his stand regarding protection of the public 
 interest. 
 
 Patterson had been a resident of Maronville for five 
 years, during which he had solidly established himself 
 in a legal practice and in the social life of the little city. 
 To a natural suavity of manner he added a cultivated 
 democratic air as a matter of policy, though his instincts 
 were for exclusiveness. Being a fluent speaker, he was
 
 THE CELEBRATION 177 
 
 often called upon to make public addresses; his utter- 
 ances if not forcible and eloquent at least were graceful 
 and urbane, his gestures pleasing, his statements never 
 offensive; and in consequence he was a favourite with 
 audiences on patriotic occasions. During the war he 
 had served on committees in charge of Liberty Bond, 
 Red Cross, and other "drives," and also had been a 
 prominent Four-Minute speaker. But he confided to 
 Frances that at a future day he hoped to find a wider 
 field for his services and his ambitions than could be 
 found in Maronville. Yes, he had ambitions. Very 
 modestly he confessed the fact. He had a longing 
 to unsheathe his sword, so to speak, in a larger arena, 
 where both the law cases and the political affairs were 
 of real importance. Perhaps he should find himself a 
 tyro among the gladiators of the big cities, but it must 
 be demonstrated to him; he had a certain faith in him- 
 self and his abilities, he believed he could match those 
 whom he should meet there. Where? Well, in 
 Spokane or in Seattle, possibly even in Washington or 
 New York, later. Did that sound too fantastic? 
 Still, for some time he had been building for the hour 
 when he should leave Maronville, take the important 
 step to a bigger town. How? By making friends of 
 men of prominence elsewhere in the state. By cultivat- 
 ing political leaders. By gaining the good-will of the 
 dominating minds in finance and industry. Already he 
 had made a considerable advance in the favourable 
 opinion of a number of influential gentlemen who in the 
 future would be of material assistance to him and who 
 even now were making use of his legal talents. It was
 
 iy8 CRYDER 
 
 so. And thus he was laying a secure foundation for the 
 morrow's success. 
 
 This all seemed high-minded and fine to Frances. 
 She felt, moreover, the gratification all women experi- 
 ence when men of ability reveal to them alone the secret 
 purposes of their hearts, the guarded desires of their 
 souls. In her eyes Schuyler Patterson was uplifted 
 and enhanced by his ambitions. Nor was the personal 
 element lacking; he did not conceal in his looks and in 
 his manner, at any rate the admiration he cherished 
 for her; and as she listened to his low musical speech 
 and observed his thin pale face with its neat Vandyke 
 beard, aristocratic, distinguished, she admitted to her- 
 self that her companion possessed a charm of his own. 
 His very restraint, indicative of breeding, appealed to 
 her nature. He lacked the fierce passion of Cryder, but 
 likewise his unbridled violence. Exalted moments 
 might be lacking in the love of such a man, but on the 
 other hand there would be a restful and satisfying 
 harmony of spirit. And when all was said and done, 
 was it not that which made an enduring love to bind the 
 lives of a man and a woman ? 
 
 One night he had proposed marriage, declaring his 
 profound regard and love for her, and Frances had 
 accepted him. At his fervent, gracious avowal a 
 moisture had come into her eyes and a quickened beat 
 of blood in her heart. By this response, by these signs 
 she knew that in truth she loved Schuyler Patterson. 
 His arms enfolded her, his lips pressed hers. This was 
 love ah, yes love at last! 
 
 From everyone except Jack they had kept their
 
 THE CELEBRATION 179 
 
 engagement secret. Her brother had been delighted 
 when he was told, and had kissed Frances tenderly and 
 wrung Patterson's hand for a full minute. He knew 
 Schuyler would make her happy. Then they all began 
 to talk at once. 
 
 Now on this June day the engagement was to be 
 made known publicly. Patterson was to bring her ring 
 to the house at two o'clock, a solitaire diamond in a 
 platinum mounting purchased in Spokane. She would 
 slip it on and then they would go to the celebration 
 where he was to make a speech and there, of course, 
 friends would perceive the betrothal token and buzz 
 with questions and the engagement would be out. As 
 she leaned back in her seat with fingers interlaced be- 
 hind her head and gazed at Abraham Lincoln over the 
 door and saw him not, a soft smile shaped her lips. 
 Schuyler was a dear, so fine, so lovable, so full of kind- 
 ness and nobility. This would be one of their wonder- 
 ful days. 
 
 A movement in the entrance drew her look down- 
 ward. Next instant she lowered her arms and stiffened 
 in her seat. Naturally something unpleasant had to 
 happen on this particular day! 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe, dressed in white and carrying an open 
 pink sunshade over her shoulder, was leisurely mounting 
 the library steps. 
 
 II 
 
 "I expected that here you would have the stern air 
 of a school-ma'am, at the least wearing nose glasses," 
 Mrs. Forsythe remarked, halting before the desk and
 
 i8o CRYDER 
 
 contemplating Frances, "and instead I find you out- 
 rageously youthful and pretty." She moved round the 
 desk and seated herself in an oak chair near the other. 
 
 "You always did say nice things to me," Frances 
 responded, with a slight smile. 
 
 "Well, you're the only person in Maronville I care 
 about," said the visitor. And then she began to look 
 about the room, at the walls, into the book alcoves, and 
 toward the doorways of inner rooms. "It just occurs 
 to me that this is the first time I've been in the library. 
 A pleasant place, after all. And you've been librarian 
 ever since last autumn, I understand." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe had gone away early in the previous 
 September, having returned but recently. Frances 
 had met and exchanged a few words with her on the 
 street. But already Jack had called on her on several 
 evenings; he wanted Frances to have her to dinner some 
 night soon; and he liked her, said she was "a live one." 
 
 "Have you been to Kettle Creek this summer?" 
 Mrs. Forsythe asked, after they had conversed for a 
 time. 
 
 "No. My duties in the library wouldn't have per 
 mitted it even if I had desired." 
 
 "And you had not the desire?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe smiled and nodded knowingly. 
 
 "I understand why," said she. "I presume Doctor 
 Cryder disappeared during the winter as usual." 
 
 "He was in New York, I believe," Frances rejoined. 
 "He has a young doctor look after his practice while 
 he's gone, he told me last summer, and during his
 
 THE CELEBRATION 181 
 
 absence he does charity cases in hospitals. Personally, 
 I haven't seen him since Jack and I left Kettle Creek. 
 A few weeks ago there was an item in the Gazette report- 
 ing his return home." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe twirled her sunshade. 
 
 "My dear, I feared for you a little while you were up 
 there last summer," she stated, sweetly. "I was con- 
 cerned lest you should be so foolish as to lose your heart 
 to the man. Not impossible. A woman may do silly 
 things when left alone in the company of a fellow for 
 several weeks. From boredom, if for no other reason. 
 Well, I had my fears for nothing, as it turned out. 
 Cryder's impossible. A brute. Yes, Schuyler Patter- 
 son is very, very much more desirable in every respect." 
 
 Frances flushed. The woman's nod, the look in her 
 blue eyes, the patronizing smile, all humiliated and 
 stung her. An unhappy feature of a love affair was 
 the vexatious and vulgar interest taken in it by others. 
 For months now Frances in going about had had to 
 endure significant smiles when Patterson's name was 
 mentioned; had suffered from friends' veiled inquisitive- 
 ness, pretended knowledge, and flippant impertinences. 
 Among women it appeared to be the commonly ac- 
 cepted view that men were game to be ensnared, caught, 
 bound, which to Frances was an odious conception. 
 
 "Very, very much more desirable," Mrs. Forsythe 
 repeated. "How you could endure it to spend two 
 months with Doctor Cryder is a mystery to me." 
 
 "He has many admirable qualities," Frances an- 
 swered. 
 
 "But the monstrous self-importance of the fellow!"
 
 1 82 CRYDER 
 
 "Perhaps what seems such is really the working of a 
 tremendously active mind. He has that, you know. 
 And I shouldn't in any case call him selfish, not as I 
 understand selfishness. He doesn't want things for 
 himself." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe's smile sharpened. 
 
 " I thought he wanted you." She leaned forward and 
 patted Frances's arm. "There, there. I'm in the 
 secret, too. Jack, who thinks it a great joke, told me 
 the other evening of Cryder's wanting to marry you. 
 Naturally you refused. He isn't your kind." 
 
 The pink in Frances's face deepened to scarlet. That 
 her brother had revealed to the woman the fact of 
 Cryder's proposal, making it a subject of jest, seemed 
 incredible. Yet it must be so. Her lips quivered, and 
 for a few seconds she had to wink her eyelashes rapidly 
 to keep back the wetness in her eyes. 
 
 "All I have to say is that Jack had no business to tell 
 it to you or to any one else," she said, at length. "It 
 wasn't very honourable of him to do so." 
 
 "Oh, my dear! Now you're angry," cried Mrs. For- 
 sythe. "Why, I'm your very best friend and Jack 
 knows it. You mustn't take his head off for this." 
 
 "I'll not. I'll say nothing about it, in fact." 
 
 " Best not or to Mr. Patterson. Especially to Mr. 
 Patterson. It might spoil everything if he imagined 
 you still were interested in the doctor. Of course you're 
 not, but men sometimes become suspicious over noth- 
 ing. And your friends are hoping so much that he 
 and you will arrive at an understanding." 
 
 "Kind of them," Frances murmured, coolly. "I
 
 THE CELEBRATION 183 
 
 heard from Jack that you are planning to leave Maron- 
 ville for good." 
 
 The quick change of subject left Mrs. Forsythe un- 
 ruffled. 
 
 "That's my intention," she answered. "As soon 
 as I sell my house and arrange my affairs I'm going. 
 Maronville is well enough for those who like it, but it 
 bores me to death. And by the way, Mr. Patterson is 
 considering taking my dwelling off my hands." She 
 gazed at Frances with a significant smile. "I'm not 
 going to say anything more about him and you, but it 
 does appear at least as if he's contemplating matri- 
 mony." 
 
 "Are you going to live in Los Angeles?" Frances 
 asked, desperately. 
 
 " For a while. Permanently, perhaps. I can't as yet 
 say. And you like this work?" 
 
 She looked about her once more, sitting with one 
 knee crossed over the other and viewing the interior 
 of the main room with an aloof air. 
 
 "Yes, I like it," Frances answered. 
 
 The conversation lapsed. Mrs. Forsythe's blue eyes 
 came back to Frances and scrutinized her with a 
 thoughtful regard. The woman had changed not at all, 
 so far as Frances could see, since that day nearly a year 
 before when they sat in the Hedley Lumber Company's 
 office and there came the news of Mr. Forsythe's death. 
 She appeared just as youthful and just as nonchalant in 
 the tilt of her head as when chaffing Williams, the 
 cashier. 
 
 "You are the innocent type Patterson would marry,"
 
 1 84 CRYDER 
 
 the visitor remarked eventually, her train of thought 
 concluded. "And Cryder love. That doesn't mean 
 the same thing, however.'* She smiled and rose. 
 "Are you going to the affair at the new lumber plant 
 this afternoon?" 
 
 "I expect to. Are you?" 
 
 "On a hot day like this! I'm going home and pull 
 down the shades and sleep. I had a little business to 
 look after downtown or I should not be here at all. 
 And I thought of you as I was passing in this street and 
 decided to run in for a moment as a diversion. I'm 
 almost tempted to hop in my car and run up into the 
 cool woods somewhere Kettle Creek, for instance. 
 Only I should burn to a cinder before I arrived." 
 
 "Everyone living on Kettle Creek is here to-day," 
 Frances stated. 
 
 " I suppose that's so, Doctor Cryder with the rest of 
 them. You say you haven't seen him?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I'm surprised he hasn't kept after you if he was 
 really in love, as Jack said." 
 
 Frances jumped up and gathered into her hand some 
 papers lying on the desk. "You must excuse me now, 
 Mrs. Forsythe, as I've several matters that should be 
 attended to before I go to lunch." 
 
 "Of course," was the unperturbed reply. "You're a 
 business woman, my dear, and I'm only a drone." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe went out the door and down the steps 
 swinging her parasol. Frances sat down again. In her 
 breast still lurked the misgiving always aroused by the 
 woman ever since that sinister revelation of her soul
 
 THE CELEBRATION 185 
 
 on the afternoon of the river tragedy. Between their 
 natures Frances sensed an inevitable antagonism and 
 in the other a spirit of malice that made her afraid. 
 One knew not what such a person might do if inspired by 
 enmity. 
 
 Through the broad open windows there sounded the 
 faint blowing of the sawmill siren at the Hedley Lumber 
 Company's plant up the river. Frances glanced at the 
 clock; the hands showed the hour of one. A few 
 seconds later the echo from the cliff across the stream 
 from the mill followed, an exact repetition of the siren's 
 sound, distant like the whistle, muted, scarcely notice- 
 able. 
 
 The echo, the mountain's voice! 
 
 Idly she speculated on how commonplace it had come 
 to seem, how seldom heeded. It had changed. It 
 had diminished to an insignificant note without power 
 to thrill her mind. Or was the change in her ? Was the 
 voice as thunderous, as portentous as ever, and the 
 alteration in her spirit? She reflected upon her conver- 
 sation with Williams, the cashier, that fateful afternoon 
 of the river tragedy a year before; on the poignant 
 emotions stirred in her by the catastrophe and by the 
 triumphant shout hurled back by the rock at the siren's 
 blast at the end of the day's work. A year ago! How 
 much had happened in the twelve months since! The 
 Frances Huff at the desk there in the lumber company 
 office, inexperienced, impressionable, throbbing with 
 sentiment, was in truth another girl from the Frances 
 Huff sitting here. Now she had a better understanding 
 of realities, of the relations and proportions of human
 
 1 86 CRYDER 
 
 affairs, of the inevitable inequalities in society, of the 
 value of property and the importance of industry. Mr. 
 Patterson and Jack had made it all very plain to her in 
 discussions. She had had to readjust her ideas about 
 things and reform her ideals, but now her view was 
 broader and more accurate. 
 
 Again she looked at the clock. Five minutes after 
 one. Why didn't Miss Gardner come ? She had told 
 her assistant to return particularly sharp on time to- 
 day. Schuyler was to call for her at the house at two 
 o'clock to drive her to the celebration of the opening 
 of the Kettle Creek Lumber Association's new mill at 
 the edge of town, where he was to speak. When he 
 came she was to put on her engagement ring. And she 
 yet had to eat her lunch and change her dress and do a 
 hundred other things. 
 
 Frances rose and went to the door for a look along 
 the street. At a distance she beheld Miss Gardner, her 
 assistant, strolling with a youth toward the library 
 building, laughing and chatting as if it made not a 
 particle of difference when she arrived. 
 
 "Can't think of anything but that fellow of hers!" 
 Frances exclaimed, indignantly. "I shall certainly say 
 something to make her jump!" 
 
 in 
 
 A visionary's dream had come true. 
 
 On a tract of leased ground on the river bank just 
 above the town and abutting on the railroad's right-of- 
 way there stood the new sawmill of the Kettle Creek 
 Lumber Association. A high barb-wire fence enclosed
 
 THE CELEBRATION 187 
 
 the tract, into which a railway spur had been built. 
 In the river before the plant a curving line of piling 
 connected by timbers fenced in a considerable area of 
 water and formed the log boom, where logs of the drive 
 being speeded down the stream by the settlers were 
 already beginning to amass; and from this boom a 
 chute sloped up on the bank to the long, low, unpainted 
 building that housed the machinery. By this building 
 was a small shed over which rose a single tall smoke- 
 stack. Not far from the yard gate was a little box- 
 like structure with one door and three windows, 
 painted white and carrying across its face in black 
 lettering the name, "KETTLE CREEK LUMBER ASSOCI- 
 ATION," while on the door was a sign, " OFFICE 
 J. PINNEY, MANAGER." 
 
 Early in September of the previous year the organ- 
 ization of the timber owners on Kettle Creek had been 
 effected. In exchange for deeds to their land the 
 members of the association had received shares of stock 
 in the company to the amount of the value of their re- 
 spective timber holdings as determined by a committee 
 of five "estimators," chosen from among their number. 
 Thereupon the deeds had been deposited with the 
 company's notes in the Citizens' National Bank as 
 collateral security for a loan of one hundred thousand 
 dollars running for one year, as made by the associ- 
 ation's officers on a voted resolution of the stockholders 
 and in accordance with the by-laws of the association's 
 corporation charter. Concurrently, and by similarly 
 voted authority, an issue of a quarter of a million 
 dollars in bonds was made, the money from the sale of
 
 i88 CRYDER 
 
 which was to be used in paying the bank loan and for 
 creating a reserve fund for company financing. These 
 various steps, from the incorporation of the association 
 to the drafting of the deeds, the promissory notes, and 
 the bonds, had been accomplished under the direction 
 of Patterson, whose retention as legal and fiscal adviser 
 for the new company was exacted as a condition 
 precedent by Emmons, vice-president of the bank, in 
 making the loan. 
 
 Compared to the extensive plant of the Hedley 
 Lumber Company farther up the river, that of the 
 association was small. Naturally the limited amount 
 of the loan determined the size the mill should be, 
 though, as matters turned out, it was larger than at 
 first had been considered, since Pinney had found in 
 Idaho a mill for sale and bought its machinery at a 
 bargain. Patterson had declared this a first-rate 
 stroke. Still, its purchase, transportation, and install- 
 ing, together with the first year's ground rental and the 
 creation of structures, had absorbed sixty thousand 
 dollars; the winter's logging operations another twenty 
 thousand; and the cost of the log drive was eating into 
 what was left of the company's bank balance. It was 
 essential to begin the manufacture and sale of lumber 
 at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 During the winter Patterson had negotiated with 
 various financial houses, in the East as well as in the 
 West, for the sale of the bonds. But as yet they were 
 not disposed of. The Federal Reserve Bank had 
 tightened up money rates and contracted credit. Busi- 
 ness after an unprecedented expansion had fallen into
 
 THE CELEBRATION 189 
 
 the dumps. The bond market was torpid. Neverthe- 
 less, the attorney assured the directors of the association 
 that he was confident of consummating the sale in time 
 to take care of the loan when it fell due. They need 
 feel no alarm. He was making progress; he was in 
 touch with two bond houses which were able to buy 
 irrespective of tight money conditions, though of course 
 they now would demand a larger discount; he practi- 
 cally was ready to close with one of them. A dis- 
 cussion of certain minor points, not necessarily 
 important, involved in the mortgage protecting the 
 bonds soon would be satisfactorily terminated. Then 
 the transaction could be completed. Unless some- 
 thing totally unforeseen and wholly improbable oc- 
 curred there would be no hitch, no break in the 
 negotiations. 
 
 On this avouchment the company directors were 
 forced to rely. They were seven in number: Pinney, 
 Hollister, Swanson, Meek, Finchette, Edgecombe, and 
 Cryder. The last, who had been chosen over his 
 protest and who, ignoring his selection, had gone off 
 to New York for the winter, had, on his return in the 
 spring, begun to act with the others in the direction of 
 affairs. His position on the board was singular; he 
 owned no timber, had invested no money, and held his 
 place by virtue of one share of stock recorded in his 
 favour in the stock register in order that he might 
 legally qualify. If anything were needed to testify to 
 the influence he exercised on Kettle Creek and the 
 secret respect for his abilities, this action by the com- 
 munity supplied the lack. It was at once an appeal
 
 190 CRYDER 
 
 and a tribute. It implied need of his energy and 
 brains, and asserted faith in his integrity and talent. 
 Only a man of stone could have resisted such esteem. 
 He had yielded in order to prevent the fool Pinney, if 
 for nothing else, from making hash of the business, he 
 explained and now was a leading spirit in the asso- 
 ciation's affairs. When he enlisted in an enterprise, 
 he didn't put in only one foot, he jumped in up to the 
 ears, by the lord! And he would pull this sawmill 
 scheme through to success if it were the last act of his 
 life! 
 
 He had opposed the manager when he asked the 
 board to take the sale of the bonds out of Patterson's 
 hands and authorize him to go to New York and find a 
 purchaser. As the year advanced, Pinney more and 
 more criticized the lawyer's deliberate procedure in the 
 bond matter and more and more became nervous and 
 dogmatic. He now was living in Maronville, having 
 married Myra Nichols and taken a cottage in the 
 quarter of town where the plant was located; his salary 
 as manager was three thousand dollars a year; and he 
 wore a new black suit and a new derby hat too large for 
 his head, both of which, in spite of their newness, bore a 
 film of dust from tramping about the sawmill yard. All 
 winter he had written and dispatched great quantities 
 of letters to prospective lumber dealers soliciting orders 
 for the following autumn, with nothing in particular to 
 show for his efforts. He had outlined a hundred 
 advertising schemes, but dropped them to consider 
 others. He had a mammoth plan for securing the 
 entire business of the combined farmers' organizations
 
 THE CELEBRATION 191 
 
 of the country, out of all proportion to the future out- 
 put of the plant, in every particular utterly impractical. 
 He was difficult to pin down to details and was forever 
 absorbed with big plans, gigantic campaigns for captur- 
 ing markets, vast extensions of the sawmill. And from 
 the first he had fretted that the disposal of the bonds 
 had not been in his charge, feeling himself alone compe- 
 tent to handle a large financial transaction and con- 
 stantly finding fault with Patterson's methods. 
 
 From Cryder he received only contempt. Could the 
 surgeon have had his way, Pinney would have been 
 kicked out altogether; for he steadfastly had retained 
 his first opinion of the promoter. The man lacked 
 sound business principles, was incapable of persistent 
 effort, and was afflicted by delusions of grandeur, 
 as was only too evident in his preposterous schemes 
 relating to the mill. With Cryder's return in the spring 
 and his active participation in the Kettle Creek com- 
 pany's affairs there had developed between the two men 
 a sharp difference as to policy. On Pinney's side this 
 speedily became a feeling of personal animosity. He 
 perceived in the surgeon's opposition to his magnificent 
 plans only a selfish desire to thwart him, to keep him 
 down, to render him subordinate in the association's 
 management. He believed himself being robbed of 
 rightful powers; he foresaw catastrophe for the com- 
 pany. Over Cryder's check to his demand that the 
 sale of bonds be put in his hands was he particularly 
 sore. 
 
 At a meeting of the directors in the office building a 
 few days before the date fixed for the celebration of the
 
 192 CRYDER 
 
 plant's opening his resentment flamed out when Cryder 
 refused to consider the matter anew. 
 
 "It looks to me as if you don't want our bonds sold," 
 he exclaimed, vindictively. "You know Patterson hasn't 
 disposed of them and apparently can't, while I can. Yet 
 you're determined not to let me. If our company is 
 wrecked, you and you alone will be responsible." 
 
 Cryder gave him a surprised stare. Then he removed 
 his pipe from his mouth and replied calmly: "I had 
 nothing to do with Patterson's selection as fiscal agent. 
 Emmons demanded his appointment last autumn and 
 you all agreed. What about that?" 
 
 "Patterson has failed," Pinney snapped back. "So 
 it's time to take the bonds away from him and let me 
 make the sale." 
 
 "Oh, you!" The surgeon's tone was one of dis- 
 gust. He had no great respect for Patterson's ability, 
 considering the lawyer too suave, too colourless to be a 
 man of force; but in a choice between him and Pinney he 
 did not hesitate to fling his influence in favour of the 
 attorney. And, moreover, what was to be done? Had 
 not Emmons dictated Patterson's appointment? 
 "You've a notion you're a Napoleon of finance," he 
 continued, "when in fact you're only manager of a two- 
 by-four sawmill and an infernally poor one at that. 
 Where's all the business you boasted you'd get ? Here 
 we are with the mill ready to start and no orders yet 
 booked. No, not one. If you're such a wonderful 
 captain of industry you ought to have at least one little 
 order to show us. Bah, you sell bonds! I wouldn't 
 let you try to sell an old shirt of mine."
 
 THE CELEBRATION 193 
 
 Pinney jumped to his feet and in nervous excitement 
 removed and replaced his hat. 
 
 "Who made this company and this mill?" he ques- 
 tioned, shrilly. "I did. That proves my right to sell 
 the bonds. Who made the Kettle Creek Lumber 
 Association, I say? Answer me that." 
 
 "The Hedley concern, of course," Cryder responded, 
 "by refusing to buy Kettle timber at a fair price. 
 Until it did refuse you never had a look-in. You just 
 rode in on the backwash, Pinney. And ever since that 
 time you've been slushing around in a lot of crazy 
 schemes that haven't a ghost of a chance to materialize 
 when you should have been grinding out some real 
 results. Now shut up about those bonds and tell us 
 about the arrangements for the celebration. That's 
 something to the point." 
 
 "If those bonds aren't sold ' : 
 
 "Oh, give us a rest on that." 
 I shall hold you responsible." 
 
 "All right, all right," Cryder replied, impatiently. 
 "Now get down to business." 
 
 Pinney, trembling with rage, lifted a forefinger. 
 
 "If you wreck this association 
 
 With a crash Cryder let his chair, tilted back, drop 
 upon the floor. 
 
 "Meeting's adjourned," he exclaimed. 
 
 IV 
 
 Along cement walks pedestrians were streaming and 
 in the streets automobiles whipped the dust in their 
 passage, converging on the roadway leading to the
 
 i 9 4 CRYDER 
 
 fenced enclosure of the Kettle Creek plant. Maron- 
 ville conceived itself a city, but under its pretensions 
 its spirit was yet the spirit of the small town the 
 spirit that still could quicken at the visit of a circus, 
 expand on patriotic holidays, and thrill to celebrations. 
 The settlers from Kettle Creek, except the men working 
 on the log drive, had already arrived, having made a 
 start the afternoon before, camping on the way for the 
 night, coming in crowded wagon-loads, every family, 
 every man, woman, and child down to the smallest 
 babe; the entire community, the whole settlement from 
 the upper end of the valley to the lower. For this was 
 their affair, their celebration, their big day. Kettle 
 Creek, so long scorned and derided, at last was being 
 recognized for what it was worth and acquiring im- 
 portance. Maronville was turning out in honour of the 
 forest folk. 
 
 Before the fence in the lower part of the grounds the 
 settlers' wagons were lined in a row with their teams tied 
 to rear wheels. The settlers and their families, in their 
 best clothes, moved restlessly about or sat in the scant 
 shade of the mill building, eating popcorn, peanuts, 
 mushy bananas, candy, ice-cream cones, purchased 
 from the pop-corn wagon just outside the gate or from 
 venders who trundled two-wheeled carts about the 
 grounds continually shouting their wares. Or they 
 wandered through the mill, gazing at the machinery, 
 at the wheels and belts and saws, at the log resting on 
 the carrier platform ready to be sent against a great 
 circular saw when the Mayor of Maronville pulled a 
 lever officially starting the machinery in motion and the
 
 THE CELEBRATION 195 
 
 plant in operation. A suppressed excitement, a nervous 
 expectation prevailed over the crowd of Kettle Creekers, 
 which manifested itself in grave exchanges of talk 
 among the men or suddenly in high-pitched raucous 
 laughter at some joke, in impatient boxing of young- 
 sters' ears by the women, and in the squalling of infants 
 who appeared to be affected by the general spirit of 
 feverishness. 
 
 By a quarter to three a mob of mingling Maronville 
 people and Kettle Creekers were flowing in and about 
 the sawmill and over the yard. At the foot of the 
 platform erected for use of the speakers, covered with 
 pine boughs hauled from the near-by mountains and 
 wrapped with red-white-and-blue bunting and deco- 
 rated with small flags, the Maronville Municipal Band, 
 of thirty pieces, wearing dark-green gold-braided uni- 
 forms, burst forth into a lively tune, thus at once at- 
 tracting the throng. 
 
 Through the blares of the horns the shouts of the 
 peanut, pop, and ice-cream venders could be heard. 
 A haze of dust rose, constantly augmented by the 
 arrival of automobiles, which took up position in rows 
 that, however, were continually being shifted as drivers 
 sought more advantageous locations. Several cars 
 became entangled, resulting in an angry altercation 
 among their occupants which could be heard even above 
 the music. Occasionally a feminine shriek sounded at 
 a prospective collision. The confusion increased, the 
 dust was steadily churned thicker, the sun beat down 
 with fiery rays on the new buildings, on the swarm of 
 automobiles, on the host of Kettle Creekers and towns-
 
 196 CRYDER 
 
 men and ranchers and farmers from the country about 
 who had driven in for the celebration. 
 
 At one place on the edge of the crowd milling about 
 the speaker's stand Doctor Cryder, wearing a palm- 
 beach suit, canvas shoes, a white silk shirt with attached 
 turn-down collar, a black knitted silk scarf, and a wide- 
 brimmed flexible straw hat, as he moved toward the 
 office building encountered Minnie Beeler clinging to 
 the arm of a dapper, blond youth of about twenty years, 
 by the name of Archie Hay, who presided at the soda 
 fountain in the Sherill Drug Store. The surgeon 
 stopped, a pleased look on his face. 
 
 "Well, well, Minnie, I haven't seen you since last 
 fall," he exclaimed, shaking hands. "How are you? 
 Hello, boy. Don't you steal this girl without letting 
 me know." He thrust the young fellow in the ribs with 
 thumb. "I'm her guardian. I'm the guardian of all 
 the orphans from Kettle Creek. Isn't that so, Min- 
 nie?" 
 
 The girl was blushing, embarrassed by his remark 
 about her being stolen and delighted by the surgeon's 
 attention. 
 
 "I guess so," said she. "Though I ain't needin' 
 any." 
 
 "Still in the telephone exchange?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Well, well, I'll bet you're the one I heard chewing 
 gum the other day when I was trying to get a number 
 here in town." 
 
 Minnie giggled. 
 
 "Wasn't, neither. Don't you try to kid me, Doctor."
 
 THE CELEBRATION 197 
 
 "All right, I withdraw the accusation," said he, 
 wiping his neck with handkerchief. "Feeling sorry, 
 I suppose, you're not of age so you can put your timber 
 claim in the company." 
 
 Of all the holders of property on Kettle Creek, Minnie 
 Beeler, being yet a minor, alone remained out of the 
 association. Cryder had more than a general interest 
 in the girl. By court action after the death of her 
 mother he had been appointed her guardian. He had 
 endeavoured to keep track of her doings and had given 
 her advice, usually ignored. 
 
 "Yes, I wish I could put it in this very day," she 
 replied. "Everybody on Kettle Creek will get rich 
 now. But I'll be eighteen next year, then I'll join." 
 She paused and exchanged a look with her escort who 
 had lighted a cigarette and waited in bored silence. 
 "Well, I guess we got to be goin' on now," she con- 
 cluded. 
 
 The girl and youth moved away. Cryder's eyes 
 followed them. Already Minnie had changed and 
 acquired a town air, the pert and superficial gayness of 
 the ignorant aspirant to swelldom. 
 
 Cryder started on toward the office, but changing his 
 mind began to saunter about on the edge of the throng. 
 He really had nothing to go to the office for. Like the 
 rest of those responsible for the outcome of the cele- 
 bration, he was apprehensive lest something go wrong, 
 lest there be a hitch in the programme, and especially 
 lest Pinney, who was to announce the speakers, should 
 lose his head and make an ass of himself. Cryder per- 
 ceived that the personages delegated to make remarks
 
 198 CRYDER 
 
 or addresses and the guests selected to occupy places 
 on the rostrum were already beginning to mount the 
 platform and settle themselves on seats in the rows 
 arranged under the screen of boughs with the usual 
 uncertainty and confusion. "Why doesn't the fool 
 take off that hat!" the surgeon growled to himself. 
 Pinney's black derby, pulled tight over his ears, could 
 be seen moving about, now here, now there, among the 
 men and women assembling on the platform. Cryder 
 was sure the fellow would place everyone in wrong 
 seats. It was planned that the board of directors 
 should sit on the front row with the speakers, but the 
 surgeon perceived that a number of Kettle Creekers who 
 should not be on the platform at all had gone up and 
 planted themselves there under Pinney's guidance 
 Pinney's relations, the Martins, and the McMurtries, 
 and the Goldbergs, and Nell Boggs with her idiot boy 
 and that, moreover, the seats for the speakers were 
 occupied, leaving the mayor, the minister of the Presby- 
 terian church who was to open the ceremonies with 
 prayer, Patterson, and the president of the Commercial 
 Club waiting for places. 
 
 "Just what might have been expected with that crazy 
 boob in charge!" he exclaimed. 
 
 He was to sit with the other directors, but now he 
 made up his mind to keep off the platform altogether. 
 It was Pinney's show and let the bungler run it. Never 
 saw such a mixed-up mess ! He'd be hanged if he would 
 have a part in it. Besides, Pinney probably had for- 
 gotten to make sure that the engineer had steam to 
 start the machinery at the proper minute when the
 
 THE CELEBRATION 199 
 
 speaking was finished and the official party went into 
 the mill for the mayor to pull the lever setting the plant 
 in operation. Very likely that part had been over- 
 looked by the manager, the paranoiac! It would be 
 exactly like him to have neglected that important 
 detail. If the machinery didn't start, if that part ended 
 in a fizzle, it was what was to be expected. And there- 
 upon Cryder went striding off toward the engine- 
 house. 
 
 By now the band had ceased playing and was sorting 
 and distributing music sheets for the next number. 
 With the cessation of the band's strains the hum of the 
 crowd, the steady murmur of voices interspersed with 
 shouts, cries, laughter, the wail of babes, the honking 
 of automobile horns, the calls of the venders and shrill 
 squeals from girls, once more swelled forth. Here and 
 there throughout the shifting mob sounded shrieked 
 complaints or yelled greetings. 
 
 "Look out, you! Who you shoving?" barked some- 
 one. 
 
 Big Jim and Joe Streeter, who had sneaked ofF from 
 the log drive to celebrate in their own fashion, flushed 
 and exhaling an odour of whisky, pushed and elbowed 
 their way through the throng, thrusting men and women 
 alike aside from their path and leaving behind them a 
 swarm of angry and remonstrating spectators. 
 
 A crowd of young fellows and girls continually kept 
 the cry going, directed at the band, "Give us another, 
 give us another." 
 
 In one place a group of Kettle Creekers were calling 
 to another group across intervening heads.
 
 200 CRYDER 
 
 "See the Goldbergs up there. Ain't that nerve?" 
 
 "Look at Myra, too, in that new dress and hat. All 
 stuck-up since she married Pinney and come to town 
 to live. Wouldn't hardly speak to us to-day." 
 
 "They say she's tryin' to be a sassiety bug, wantin' 
 to go with the swell town folks." 
 
 "Reckon she won't make it." 
 
 "They say she's spendin' Pinney 's salary like water 
 tryin' to be somebody." 
 
 A number of local business men were talking. 
 
 "Good thing for Maronville, this new mill, eh?" 
 
 "Great. Spokane best watch out. We're coming 
 fast and soon will be crowding her." 
 
 "Don't know of a city growing like ours." 
 
 "No, neither do I." 
 
 "Well, thought we'd better drop around this after- 
 noon. Believe in encouraging new industries." 
 
 "So do I." 
 
 "Yes, sure do." 
 
 "Got to do it to keep up the spirit," said another. 
 "Everybody has to help." 
 
 "That's the idea, that's what makes a city," a fourth 
 exclaimed. "When everyone's a booster, then she goes 
 ahead." 
 
 "Don't really care for the celebration part myself, 
 but feel I should turn out just the same," one stated. 
 
 "No, don't care for it, either. But it goes fine with 
 the crowd." The speaker waved a hand at the mob. 
 
 "Yes, they like it," said the third. 
 
 "Amuses 'em." 
 
 "And keeps them feeling good."
 
 THE CELEBRATION 201 
 
 "Sure. Sure thing." 
 
 The band struck up another lively air. The throng 
 stilled, then began to stir again, to talk, to shout. 
 Youths swayed and wiggled in dance movements, girls 
 hummed the tune being played and nodded their heads. 
 The sound of hundreds of voices blended in an indescrib- 
 able Babel dulled if it did not drown the quick synco- 
 pated music of the band. 
 
 Under the smelting of the sun's rays pitch was oozing 
 from the new boards of the building. The dust was hot 
 underfoot. From the congested mass of human beings 
 there issued a faint and unpleasant smell, a mingled 
 effluvia of things and people, of hot fruit and buttered 
 popcorn and dusty clothes and sweaty bodies. Now 
 and again a puff of air from the river bore a fresher, 
 purer breath, then once more the emanating odour of 
 the crowd became noticeable. 
 
 On the platform Pinney at last had succeeded in 
 establishing order and seating those who had ascended 
 to the elevated place of honour. A pine table covered 
 with the American flag, on which reposed a pitcher of 
 ice water and a glass, stood at the front near the edge. 
 The dignitaries nad been placed on the first row. In 
 the centre was the mayor of Maronville, whose name 
 was Jackson, in his private capacity owner of the Jack- 
 son Furniture Company, a short rotund man with a 
 round bald head and close-clipped gray moustache, 
 sitting with hands folded across his stomach and con- 
 versing with Patterson at his left; beyond Patterson the 
 minister, a thin tall gentleman in a black double- 
 breasted coat and wearing a straight collar and white
 
 202 CRYDER 
 
 lawn bow tie; next to him the president of the Commer- 
 cial Club, Jay Carmichael, imported from Spokane to 
 fill the position, experienced in booster campaigns, a 
 young-old man of forty, a hustler, shrewd, smiling, full 
 of "pep"; and at his left the Goldbergs, who, once 
 seated, had tenaciously refused to move back. At the 
 mayor's right was Pinney's place, at the moment empty, 
 as Pinney was nervously conferring with Hollister in a 
 whisper two rows in the rear; by Pinney's chair was 
 seated his wife in a pink dress and an immense pink hat, 
 very pink of face also because of the heat and the excite- 
 ment and exhaling a strong verbena scent (which once 
 caused Patterson to lean forward in order to trace its 
 source), and complacently talking with Arnold Meek at 
 her side. Beyond the grave, bearded old man sat 
 Swanson, Finchette, and Edgecombe. 
 
 Behind the first row were five more rows of chairs, 
 where sat some Kettle Creekers who had come up un- 
 invited and some of the townsmen, prominent for one 
 reason or another, who had been asked to sit on the 
 platform. A number of citizens arriving at the last 
 moment had found the seats all occupied, wandered 
 about the platform seeking a place, and finally had gone 
 off again, outwardly annoyed but at heart relieved at 
 escaping platform confinement. 
 
 Meanwhile the band tooted and brayed a third 
 selection. The crowd talked and laughed and sweated 
 and waited. At a quarter after three o'clock Pinney 
 resumed his seat, conferred with Arnold Meek and the 
 mayor, and removed his derby hat, placing it, on the 
 latter's suggestion, under his chair. The band con-
 
 THE CELEBRATION 203 
 
 eluded the piece it was playing. Pinney went forward 
 to the edge of the platform, where, resting on a knee, he 
 conferred with the band leader. Afterward he rose, 
 poured and drank a tumbler of water, glanced nervously 
 over the crowd which gradually grew quieter as people 
 cried "Hush, hush," craned his chin over his collar, con- 
 sulted a paper he held, and then lifted a hand for 
 attention. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen " he began, in a weak voice. 
 
 From the border of the crowd and from the occupants 
 of the automobiles beyond came cries of "Louder, 
 louder." He lifted his paper and a second time stared 
 at its contents. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, the band will play " 
 
 "Louder, louder!" 
 
 "Will play 'America' and you you will " 
 
 As he hesitated there broke from a distant group of 
 irreverent youths a shout of "'Rah for America! 'Rah 
 for Kettle Creek! H'rah for everything!" 
 
 Pinney hitched his shoulders and stared fixedly at his 
 notes. 
 
 "And you will kindly join in the music," he con- 
 cluded, "singing in unison in " 
 
 "'Rah for unison!" 
 
 "Our national anthem, our beloved battle-song, 
 'America,'" he ended. He raised his hand, signalling to 
 the band leader. 
 
 Patterson turned to the mayor with a slight apolo- 
 getic smile; the manager's error of designation in re- 
 spect to the song amused him. 
 
 The band leader lifted his baton. The first notes
 
 204 CRYDER 
 
 of the old and solemn air sounded. Those on the front 
 row immediately started to stand, and imitating them 
 those seated on the rows behind. In the crowd men re- 
 moved their hats. The hum of talk, the cries, the shouts 
 died out. As the strains came sweetly from the instru- 
 ments the throng was still, mute, with faces uplifted. 
 
 All at once a woman began to sing in a clear, high 
 soprano voice. Others joined in men's voices, 
 women's voices, youths', girls', and children's voices. 
 All were singing. All knew the tune if not the words. 
 All during the war so recently ended had been stirred 
 by the spirit of the piece. The mirth and levity for 
 a moment subsided and the hearts of the gathered 
 people answered to its lofty sentiment. Maronville 
 and Kettle Creek, the song was for both and in the soul 
 of both; for of such as they was America. 
 
 An hour later Cryder, moving in front of the auto- 
 mobiles at a sauntering pace with no particular aim, 
 exchanging greetings with parties of his acquaintance 
 seated in cars close at hand or waving a hand at others 
 more distant, pausing now and again, loitering, at 
 length came unexpectedly on Frances Huff in the 
 lawyer's runabout near one end of the front row of 
 machines. Under its low brown canvas hood she was 
 sheltered from the sun; and in her thin white dress, 
 short-sleeved and open at the neck, and wearing no hat, 
 she appeared cool, fresh, and girlish. 
 
 Their eyes met. Without deliberate rudeness he 
 could not pass by.
 
 THE CELEBRATION 205 
 
 "Well, how do you do, Miss Huff?" he said, lifting 
 his hat and inwardly cursing his luck at having stumbled 
 on the one person in the whole crowd whom he wished 
 to avoid. 
 
 Frances put out a hand. 
 
 "How do you do, Doctor," she answered. "Aren't 
 you going to stop for a moment and tell me all the news 
 of Kettle Creek ? " At the same time, by an impulse she 
 would have found difficult to explain, she dropped her 
 left hand with its new ring out of his view. 
 
 "Certainly. Wouldn't think of passing without 
 speaking," he replied, shaking hands. "However, 
 you've all the news of Kettle Creek right here before 
 your eyes. You're looking well. In charge of the 
 library, I understand. Decided to become one of us out 
 here after all instead of returning East, did you?" 
 
 "Yes. But that isn't important. Tell me what has 
 been happening up in the woods. On hot days like this 
 I wish I were up there in the timber. I can shut my 
 eyes and just smell the pines. How is Mrs. Mercer? 
 And little Amy? I haven't heard a word of either 
 since I left." 
 
 "Amy went home quite recovered. I sometimes 
 see her when I'm up at Porcupine Hill. Amy calls you 
 the 'hospital lady.'" Cryder stood with a foot resting 
 on the running-board and a hand grasping the edge of 
 the car door, while he regarded Frances with a thought- 
 ful air. "Amy was right," he added. "You're the 
 hospital lady to all of us who were there and the place 
 never has been quite the same since, if I may say so. 
 You left something and took away something."
 
 206 CRYDER 
 
 He turned from her and gazed off across the heads 
 of the crowd toward the flag-decorated stand where 
 Patterson was speaking. 
 
 Leaning back in her seat Frances studied his face 
 with its big brow and thick nose and aggressive mouth 
 about which the lines had deepened; and noted a subtle 
 change in his mien that could have come only from 
 some inward transformation. His countenance was 
 graver, less self-assured, and seemed to reflect a patience 
 of spirit that previously had been lacking. 
 
 " Kettle Creek's timber troubles appear to be solved 
 at last," she said, presently. "And everyone wishes the 
 new company good luck. You're a member of its 
 board of directors, I understand." 
 
 "They dragged me into it by the neck," he replied. 
 
 "If you thought they needed you, you wouldn't re- 
 fuse, of course. That wouldn't be like you." 
 
 "Well, with Pinney in charge they require someone 
 to act as a brake. If I had my way he'd be fired, but 
 he and his relations have enough influence among the 
 stockholders to keep him in. They claim he made the 
 company and that it would be base ingratitude to let 
 him out. There's just enough truth in their assertion 
 to give colour to their argument, and no more and 
 Kettle Creekers know nothing of business. His wild 
 talk gets by with them. So I do the next best thing 
 and keep his hands off" the bank account." 
 
 "Will you have the scientific lumbering at Kettle 
 Creek which you used to declare was necessary?" 
 Frances asked. 
 
 "I hope so. The past season's cut was made at the
 
 THE CELEBRATION 207 
 
 lower end of the valley and was no better than any 
 lumber company's. But I've been hammering the 
 idea into the directors' heads that skinning the forest 
 is killing the goose that lays the egg. I've shown them 
 that there's plenty of timber for years without cutting 
 small stuff. They've agreed to follow my plan here- 
 after." 
 
 "Then the forest will continue to stand?" 
 "Yes. Only selected trees will be felled each season, 
 though Pinney's fighting me on the matter. You 
 can't change a fool and he wants to be a lumber baron 
 and a financier. He's crazy. But I've won out on 
 the point. Yes, and I'm going to hold them to it!" 
 His eyes began to glow and his mouth to harden. "I 
 propose to have our company demonstrate what 
 lumbermen ought to have seen all along. We're going 
 to choose only the biggest trees and let the rest grow. 
 We're going to log the stuff right, avoid waste, prevent 
 fire, and keep the forest as an asset for the company and 
 as a public benefit. I've a lot of other ideas, too, which 
 I'll persuade the directors to adopt in time." 
 
 From the platform Patterson's voice floated to their 
 ears during the pause that ensued, clear and vibrant, 
 uttering well-rounded phrases and sentences in melli- 
 fluous tones. He was descanting upon the importance 
 of industry and trade to the nation, upon the significant 
 commercial role assumed by America and the benefits 
 to accrue to the world through the employment of the 
 continent's raw resources, man power, and brains. 
 Couched in felicitous form his statements were pleasing 
 to the ear and flattering to the imagination. At the
 
 208 CRYDER 
 
 end of a rhetorical passage ending in a climax he re- 
 ceived a round of hand-clapping in which the mayor and 
 the president of the Commercial Club led off. 
 
 "Why is it that public speakers always hand out a 
 lot of glittering generalities?" Cryder remarked. "All 
 that stuff he's talking is hoary with age. Here is a live 
 subject, Kettle Creek and its cooperative mill. The 
 people are poor and ignorant and they've been forced 
 to saw lumber because they had no market. Their 
 lives are wrapped up in the project now. They're 
 ready to spend sweat and blood to make it go, as shown 
 by the way they went at the logging last winter and at 
 the drive this summer. They've started out in the face 
 of a money stringency and the depression following 
 from the war. They've little money, no experience in 
 industry, no real friends; only their timber, their 
 mortgaged mill, their energy, their faith and their need. 
 Against them are powerful unscrupulous competitors, 
 whom they'll have to buck. There's something to 
 make a red-hot speech about in order to enlist the sup- 
 port of this community. If I were up there, I could tell 
 them things! And Patterson doesn't see it. He talks 
 all that bosh about America's trade and commerce as 
 useless as sand in the Sahara and as remote as the stars. 
 Words, words, words sound, sound, sound. Nothing 
 else." 
 
 "If you think so, why don't you say what ought to be 
 said?" Frances exclaimed, all at once piqued at this 
 disparagement of her fiance. 
 
 Cryder shook his head. 
 
 "I can't speak in public. On the platform looking
 
 THE CELEBRATION 209 
 
 at a crowd I'm dumb. My knees shake under me. 
 You wouldn't think it, but that's the mortal truth. 
 Stage fright bowls me over and so Kettle Creek has 
 no one to speak for her and we all come here and go 
 through this mimicry of a celebration; and Kettle 
 Creekers believe that something big is taking place 
 when nothing at all is occurring and when oh, well, 
 what's the use of talking about it?" 
 
 Patterson's voice continued to lull their ears. The 
 attorney was reciting the blessings of an America full 
 of teeming factories and mills, of farms and blossoming 
 homesteads, of prosperous villages and towns and 
 cities. He was reiterating the wonder of its yet un- 
 developed resources and the manifold opportunities 
 presented to its industrious and law-abiding citizens. 
 He emphasized the need for order, for respect for the 
 established institutions and for the traditions moulding 
 our government. He described the respective sphere 
 of labour and of capital. And suddenly Frances, 
 with a sinking heart, realized that she had heard it all 
 before a score of times, that the thought was too 
 obviously true to have individual interest and that 
 Patterson's speech for the most part consisted of only 
 pleasant platitudes. Of Kettle Creek he said nothing 
 and nothing for Kettle Creek. In vain she waited for 
 the utterance of words of fire that, like Cryder, she 
 sensed could and should have been spoken. 
 
 She gazed at the lawyer enunciating his agreeable 
 and familiar phrases, gracefully gesturing, using his 
 tones like the skillfully modulated notes of an instru- 
 ment, and sought to discover in him the force and the
 
 210 CRYDER 
 
 restrained power which hitherto she had ascribed to 
 his personality. Almost with a feeling of desperation 
 she strove to find it and every instant with an increas- 
 ing disappointment and distress of spirit. It was lack- 
 ing. The man she was to marry had graces of manner 
 and speech, but not the strength, not the vision, not the 
 clarion shout to lift hearts and to fire souls! 
 
 A man, sunburnt and unshaven, wearing an old hat, 
 a shirt stained with dust and sweat, the bleached 
 shortened overalls and high laced shoes of a log-driver, 
 came pushing through people to the spot where Cryder 
 stood. 
 
 "Doc, I been huntin' all over the place for you," he 
 exclaimed, catching the surgeon's arm. "You're 
 wanted at camp." 
 
 "What's the matter, Cardey?" 
 
 "A couple of men hurt. Our men and the Hedley 
 crew have been fighting. Their drive's come down on 
 us and now they're makin' us all the trouble they can, 
 claiming our logs." 
 
 "Anybody hurt badly?" 
 
 "One of ours, Tom McMurtrie, has a busted arm; 
 and two or three of the boys is scratched. The other 
 fellows got the worst of it. We cleaned 'em. One of 
 'em had his head caved in when Nick landed on him 
 with a peavey. I guess he's dead by now." 
 
 "One of them dead?" Cryder exclaimed. "Oh, lord! 
 It'll be a fight to a finish." 
 
 "They started it," the man declared, savagely. 
 "They been lookin' for trouble ever since their first 
 logs caught up with us Wagner give 'em orders to go
 
 THE CELEBRATION 211 
 
 right through us with their drive, we heard, and that 
 meant taking ours with theirs. They came lookin' for 
 a fight deliberate, Doc. There never was any question 
 about the logs we were working on bein' ours, for we 
 been cleaning up for a week on that stretch of river at 
 the Barnstetter ranch where the shallows is." 
 
 "Yes, I know," Cryder stated, with a nod. "There 
 wasn't a log of the Hedley drive there when I was at the 
 place day before yesterday." 
 
 "Well, their logs are comin' down now and half their 
 crew showed up this morning claimin' everything as 
 theirs and of course we called in all the boys. Then 
 they tried to drive us off and the scrap started. They 
 was the first to use peaveys, too. Two fellows were 
 tryin' to down Nick when he dropped one of 'em with 
 his pole and well, we drove 'em off." 
 
 "I'll go up at once. Where's Nick? Still there?" 
 
 "He was gettin' ready to skip out when he saw the 
 feller he hit was dyin'." 
 
 "The worst thing he could do." 
 
 "He said they'd never get him into no prison and 
 went to packin' his bed-roll." 
 
 Cryder pointed toward the stand. 
 
 "Wait till the speaking is finished and get hold of 
 Hollister and Swanson and tell them," he directed. 
 "Then go back to camp. We need every man there 
 now." 
 
 The messenger started off. Cryder looked at Frances 
 with a countenance heavy with concern. 
 
 "The Hedley people couldn't leave us in peace," he 
 said, bitterly.
 
 212 CRYDER 
 
 "But surely they wouldn't " she began. 
 
 "You heard what he said," the surgeon replied. 
 "Wagner has rushed his drive along and strung it down 
 as fast and as far as possible to make complications. 
 And now that he's stirred up bad blood he'll try to tie 
 us up by injunctions or something to cripple us and 
 break our company. You'll see. All the money and 
 influence at his command will be used to make us out 
 criminals and outlaws interfering with his legal pursuit 
 of business. It's the old game, the strong seeking to 
 crush the weak. He planned it 'deliberate,' as Cardey 
 said. He knew we were opening the plant to-day with 
 a celebration and he let loose his gang this morning for 
 that very reason. It was too much to expect that we 
 should have clear sailing, I suppose. Well, I can't 
 say any more, for your brother's in with Wagner. 
 But I tell you Kettle Creek will fight and fight hard 
 once it is stirred up. I'll do my best to hold them 
 back, but I can't do everything. There are times 
 when men must fight for their own if they're men. 
 All that Kettle Creek asked was a chance, a fair 
 chance." 
 
 Turning on heel he swung an arm toward the plat- 
 form where Patterson's figure still occupied the open 
 space and where his voice floated forth in smooth and 
 unctuous sentences. 
 
 "Up the river men fight and die, and here we have 
 this circus and this twaddle," said Cryder. "Good 
 God, is there no such thing as right and justice? Or 
 is this only a land of savages and simpletons, after 
 all?"
 
 THE CELEBRATION 213 
 
 He strode away toward the gate, where he had left 
 his car. Frances strained her eyes after his big tall 
 figure until at length it was lost in the throng. 
 
 With a constriction of heart she leaned back and 
 closed her eyes. Cryder's impassioned utterance yet 
 clanged in her ears, and through her mind passed the 
 picture of the rushing river with its logs and struggling 
 men. One was dead. Another, his slayer, was fleeing. 
 Nick, good-natured, grinning, complacent Nick, now a 
 fugitive, now a man in hiding whom before night pur- 
 suers would be seeking as dogs hunt a wild beast ! Oh, 
 the pity of it! 
 
 All at once she leaned forward to listen. From the 
 speakers' stand came a liquid and resonant voice "... 
 and it should ever be borne in mind that while all 
 due must be rendered to the great and noble working 
 division of our citizens in its participation in industry, 
 in the upbuilding of our commercial fabric, a no less 
 commendation should be given to that equally im- 
 portant portion of our citizenship comprising the 
 leaders and directors. I mean the men who plan and 
 organize, who provide brains and capital, who are the 
 officers of the great army of labour, and who, if I may 
 modestly state as much, are inspired by as unselfish, as 
 patriotic, as lofty motives in their efforts and toil, by as 
 generous sentiments in their treatment of workmen and 
 in their desires for the welfare of the public and for the 
 happiness of humanity . . ." 
 
 She sank back. Her eyes blurred and there was a 
 choking in her throat. His words were like the sound 
 of hollow brass.
 
 214 CRYDER 
 
 This throng, this celebration, this band-playing and 
 speaking, what a dreadful farce! Could not people 
 see that it was so? Could they not realize that under 
 this verbal froth violence and hatred and covetousness 
 and brutal force were stalking to a grim tragedy?
 
 CHAPTER II 
 ENMITY 
 
 THROUGH the open windows of Mrs. Nichols's cabin 
 came strains of singing from the western edge of the 
 clearing where in the afternoon shade of the forest 
 Arnold Meek conducted a Sabbath service. On the 
 bed where she lay Nick's mother heard them. Doctor 
 Cryder standing by one of the windows, shaking some 
 white tablets from a vial into his palm, heard them, too, 
 and could distinguish the shrill quavering notes of the 
 tired women there, the deeper singing tones of a few 
 men and many childish trebles. "At the cross, at the 
 cross " went the singing. 
 
 Mrs. Nichols moved restlessly on the bed and gazed 
 at the surgeon with half-closed eyes. 
 
 "... where I first saw the light, 
 And the burden of my heart rolled away. . . ." 
 
 Cryder dropped the tablets into a glass of water to 
 dissolve. 
 
 "It never rolls away," she muttered. 
 "What?" 
 
 "The burden they're singing about." 
 
 215
 
 216 CRYDER 
 
 To that he made no response, but began slowly to 
 crush the tablets in the water with a spoon. 
 
 ". . . . by faith I received my sight, 
 And now I am happy all the day!" 
 
 The outer leaf of a calendar on the wall, the July leaf, 
 fluttered a little as it was stirred by a puff of hot air that 
 entered the room. A large-bodied fly was buzzing up 
 and down the logs of one wall. From behind the store 
 sounded faintly the crowing of a rooster. 
 
 Cryder looked toward the bed, continuing his work 
 with the spoon. 
 
 "Did you hear from Myra?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes. She isn't coming." 
 
 "I hoped she would." 
 
 "She wrote me a letter, saying in it a wife's place was 
 with her husband. Guess she didn't want to come 
 away from town." 
 
 "Very likely." 
 
 "Seems like she might have come when I'm so poorly. 
 Pinney could get along awhile without her." 
 
 "Of course," said he. 
 
 " I don't know why it is children when they grow up 
 forget all their mothers have done for them. 'Pears like 
 they ought to remember. But ever since she got big 
 enough to wear long dresses Myra has been kinda 
 selfish, doing only what she made up her mind to do and 
 looking out for herself first. Now Nick's dif'rent. He 
 was always ready to help me and was good-natured 
 about it, and never sit by letting me do heavy work
 
 ENMITY 217 
 
 like Myra would, and gave me most of his money, and 
 nursed me when I was sick. And now he can't come 
 to me, my own boy, my own son. Oh, I lie awake 
 nights praying nothing will happen to him wherever he 
 is, with men hunting him through the mountains for his 
 life! I can just see him dodging from one hole to 
 another, hungry and desperate, and my heart aches. 
 It's worrying for him more'n the strain in my side that 
 has made me sick. Ain't there nothing that can be 
 done to stop this bloodthirsty hunting of him? Ain't 
 there nothing, Doctor, that you can do to get Wagner 
 to call his men off?" 
 
 Cryder approached the woman. 
 
 " Drink this," said he. "Then undress and get into 
 bed, where you must remain. You've dragged your- 
 self about at work too long as it is." 
 
 "I've got to; I'm all alone," she said, and began to 
 whimper. "Myra won't come." 
 
 "I'll send Mrs. Mercer along to nurse you." 
 
 "But can you spare her?" 
 
 "Yes. I'm going East for a short trip and she can 
 come as well as not. No one in the hospital just now. 
 Here, swallow this." 
 
 Mrs. Nichols laboriously sat up. 
 
 "What is it? Something with a bad taste?" she 
 asked. , 
 
 She drank what was in the glass and lay back on the 
 pillow. Cryder sat down on the edge of the bed, a 
 thoughtful expression upon his face. 
 
 "You can't help thinking of Nick, naturally, but I 
 want you to view the matter more hopefully," he
 
 218 CRYDER 
 
 stated. "He may have slipped over the mountains and 
 got away." 
 
 "He hasn't," she answered. 
 
 Cryder asked no questions. He suspected that Nick 
 managed to communicate with trusted friends in some 
 manner or other. 
 
 "The wisest course he could follow would be to give 
 himself up and stand trial," he remarked. "He killed 
 the man in self-defense; no jury would convict him of 
 murder. If you have the chance, pass that word along 
 to him as my advice. However, we were speaking of 
 yourself. You must stop worrying. To ease your 
 mind, I'll promise to see Wagner and endeavour to 
 persuade him to stop the hunt." 
 
 "If you only will!" 
 
 "I saw him once about the matter and I'll do so 
 again at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, you must 
 think of other things and trust that everything will 
 come out right." 
 
 He took one of her hands and pressed it, smiled 
 reassuringly and nodded. Her cheeks, once plump 
 but now bagging loosely, quivered at his kindly 
 touch. 
 
 "I wish Pinney had never started any lumber associ- 
 ation among us," she exclaimed, "and then nothing 
 would have happened to Nick. I just live in fear now 
 of hearing he's been killed and the men after him give 
 me no peace; they keep coming here and troubling me 
 and demanding I tell where he is." 
 
 "I know, I know; it's bad," he replied. "They have 
 bothered others as well. They've annoyed me too.
 
 ENMITY 219 
 
 We can only submit when it's the sheriff or his depu- 
 ties." 
 
 "And I'm all alone," she went on, querulously. "If 
 Myra was a good daughter she'd come to stay with me 
 while I'm sick. She claimed she had to be with Pinney 
 now because of you." 
 
 "Because of me!" 
 
 "Yes, saying you were fighting Pinney. You aren't 
 doing what she says, are you, Doctor?" She stared at 
 him anxiously. "She wrote a dozen pages about 
 it." 
 
 "What, according to Myra, am I doing?" 
 
 " Keeping the company from going ahead as it should. 
 She declares you won't let the bonds be sold, and won't 
 let Pinney manage the business right and start a big 
 advertising campaign over the country and put retail 
 yards in the farmer towns in the corn-belt and hire a lot 
 of salesmen and boom the business." 
 
 In this recital of alleged offences Cryder heard noth- 
 ing new. He had been charged with them over and 
 over again by Pinney at directorate meetings and each 
 time more bitterly. But he had been unmoved by 
 the flighty manager's incensed accusations in his re- 
 solve to keep the company on firm ground and within 
 practical bounds in the conduct of its affairs. So far 
 he had succeeded in directing the policy. While 
 Pinney was supported by Swanson and Finchette, he 
 himself had the backing of Hollister, Arnold Meek, and 
 Edgecombe. But recently the last had been wavering, 
 showing an inclination to yield to Pinney's demand to 
 handle the sale of bonds. Only by constant persuasions
 
 220 CRYDER 
 
 and increasing pressure of will had Cryder held him in 
 line. 
 
 " Pinney and I disagree as to the wisdom of the plans 
 he wishes to carry out," he said. "It's nonsense to say 
 that I'm fighting him; I simply refuse to accede to his 
 requests." 
 
 "What about his selling the bonds? Myra was all 
 worked up in her letter about that." 
 
 "I presume so." 
 
 "And people here are worrying about them not being 
 sold, too. There's only two months left." 
 
 "That's true." 
 
 "Some say you'd rather have your own way and lose 
 than to give in and win." 
 
 "Who says that?" he demanded, sharply. 
 
 "Quite a number have said it. Of course it isn't 
 true, Doctor. People are just worrying. And, be- 
 sides, they say you haven't anything at stake." 
 
 "Nothing at stake, eh?" 
 
 "You don't own any timber." 
 
 "I've a pride in seeing this undertaking made a 
 success, however, but I suppose those talking about me 
 can't grasp that. They'll be declaring next that I'm 
 trying to wreck the company/' he concluded. 
 
 "Some say now that you act like it. I heard one of 
 the Martins telling folks you couldn't be worse if you 
 was working in Wagner's interest." 
 
 Cryder rose, smiling indulgently. 
 
 "Pinney's a half-brother of Jack Martin's wife, which 
 explains that," said he. "Well, this medicine should 
 help you. I'm leaving some more of the tablets here on
 
 ENMITY 221 
 
 the stand; take two, morning and night, in water; keep 
 in bed a few days and, if you can, don't think of Nick. 
 I'll send Mrs. Mercer down, and when I return from 
 Chicago I'll see you again." 
 
 He went out of the house. Behind the cabins across 
 the street he could see the company of worshippers in 
 the shade near the creek listening to Arnold Meek, who 
 preached with a Bible open in his hand. The old man's 
 voice came to him in deliberate and devout sentences. 
 His beard gave him a venerable look and his tones had 
 the calm confidence of one possessing an unshakable 
 faith. 
 
 Presently he began to read a Scriptural passage to 
 corroborate an utterance: 
 
 "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them 
 likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have 
 ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good 
 to them which do good to "you, what thank have ye ? for sinners do 
 even the same." 
 
 II 
 
 When the surgeon reached the store he found a small 
 crowd -of men loafing in its shade, most of them settlers 
 who had driven their wives and children to Kettle for 
 Arnold Meek's service and who waited here for its end. 
 Cryder sat down cross-legged among them. The talk 
 had ceased upon his arrival. 
 
 "I must have been the subject of conversation, judg- 
 ing by the way you fellows shut up," he remarked. 
 
 "You was," said Sam McMurtrie, who lay full length
 
 222 CRYDER 
 
 on the ground with his head propped on a hand. He 
 regarded Cryder from under lazy lids. "We was dis- 
 cussin' you and Pinney," he went on, "and tellin' Edge- 
 combe it's time the bonds was sold by somebody." 
 
 "And somebody means Pinney with you, Sam, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I thought so." 
 
 Cryder had never liked this McMurtrie, in whom there 
 was a surly, vicious streak. 
 
 "There's a lot of 'em thinkin' the same as I do," the 
 man proceeded. "And they're askin' questions." 
 
 "Not of me." 
 
 "Well, they're askin' 'em just the same." 
 
 Cryder looked about at the others. They were 
 seated or sprawled in various attitudes of ease, and 
 though nearly all had an air of unconcern, their silence 
 revealed that they were alert to what was said. He 
 turned his attention once more to McMurtrie. 
 
 "Maybe you don't want to know what them ques- 
 tions are?" McMurtrie addressed him. 
 
 "Go ahead, ease your mind. This is a good place to 
 discuss whatever's to be discussed. You men are all 
 stockholders and have a right to know reasons why 
 things in the company are done or not done. Pinney 's 
 evidently been pulling the wool over your eyes and now 
 is a good time for me to lift it. Fire away." 
 
 "Well, we want to know why he ain't allowed to sell 
 the bonds ? " 
 
 "Because Patterson has a sale nearly effected." 
 
 "How do you know?"
 
 ENMITY 223 
 
 "He says so.'* 
 
 "Yes, he says so, but has he?" 
 
 "How do you know Pinney can sell them?" Cryder 
 countered. 
 
 "Well, he says " McMurtrie checked himself. 
 
 "He says so. Exactly. But can he? When he 
 shows me he can sell lumber, which he doesn't appear to 
 be able to do, then I'll have more faith in his ability to 
 sell bonds." 
 
 " Pinney says Patterson is engaged to marry the sister 
 of that Huff, who's working for Wagner." 
 
 "What of it?" 
 
 "Oh, nothin'." 
 
 "It amounts to nothing, that's certain." 
 
 "You was kinda sweet on that girl yourself last 
 summer, wasn't you?" McMurtrie inquired, indolently. 
 
 Cryder gave the speaker a steady look. 
 
 "That," said he, at last, "is none of your business." 
 
 The other waited for a time. 
 
 "Maybe not," said he. 
 
 From a distance behind the store travelled Arnold 
 Meek's voice raised in exhortation. One of the men 
 on the ground lifted himself, turned his face toward 
 the sound and then lowered himself into a new, more 
 comfortable position. 
 
 "Any more questions?" Cryder inquired. 
 
 "When do you think Patterson will have the bonds 
 sold?" one of the Cole boys asked. 
 
 "I can't give a definite date, of course, but shortly 
 now." 
 
 "He's been promising that right along."
 
 224 CRYDER 
 
 "Quite true," said Cryder. "But a sale isn't as easy 
 to make as it would have been a year or two ago. 
 Money is tight. The bond market has gone to smash." 
 
 "Pinney says there's plenty of money in the country 
 for investments like ours." 
 
 "Oh, he's always up in the clouds," Cryder ex- 
 claimed, contemptuously. 
 
 "A lot of us wouldn't lose no sleep if you resigned," 
 McMurtrie drawled. 
 
 At that Cryder hoisted himself to his feet and dusted 
 the seat of his trousers. 
 
 "Let me tell you fellows something," he answered, 
 with an edge of harshness. "You made me a director 
 last summer over my protest and when I didn't want 
 the place. Nothing would do but that I take it. After 
 thinking the matter over all winter I did take it and I've 
 given time and thought to the business of the company. 
 Now because Pinney can't induce me to fall in with all 
 his crazy schemes, the man, and not only the man but 
 his wife, too, are doing their best to create sentiment 
 against me. It's a good thing I am on the board to hold 
 him down. No, I won't resign, however much feeling 
 he works up against me by his talk, for that's just what 
 he would like. I know how the case stands and I know 
 the kind of man he is. He becomes the enemy of any 
 man who holds different opinions from his. He makes 
 of it a personal matter. He sees in it nothing but spite 
 work. And that's why he's endeavouring to poison 
 your minds against me. I repeat, I shall not resign 
 under any circumstances, for I consider it my duty to 
 keep him from ruining our concern by his crazy proj-
 
 ENMITY 225 
 
 ects. There's only one way to get me off the board and 
 that is for the stockholders to vote me off in a legally 
 called meeting. So much for that." 
 
 He walked away from the spot, but a few paces off 
 halted in doubt. A desire assailed him to return and 
 argue the matter at length, for on the countenances 
 of the greater number of his hearers he had perceived no 
 change of expression. Yet after a moment he started 
 on afresh, realizing the uselessness of such a course. 
 Twenty years of isolated life had made them simple- 
 minded and ignorant of financial affairs in the larger 
 sense. To them money meant something they could 
 feel and put in their pockets, no more. Not a dozen 
 men in the valley had a conception of what managing 
 a lumber business actually involved: only Hollister, 
 Arnold Meek, Edgecombe, and a few others. The rest, 
 having no understanding of it, would accept Pinney's 
 grandiose schemes as entirely practical and indeed, as 
 common with ignorant minds, be convinced by their 
 very magnificence. 
 
 It disgusted him that they so readily accepted the 
 man's ridiculous assertions. Ever since the day of 
 the celebration Pinney had been striving with his pecu- 
 liar persistence to undermine Cryder's influence, in 
 private speech and in letters, at the mill and at the 
 log-drivers' camp and at Kettle Creek to which he 
 made flying visits. The surgeon knew by report what 
 was his talk. Pinney was soliciting the aid of the 
 settlers in forcing the directors to give him more au- 
 thority. He declared Cryder was only a doctor, while 
 he himself was a practical lumberman and experienced
 
 226 CRYDER 
 
 financier; that Cryder had nothing to lose whether the 
 company succeeded or failed; that his whole opposition 
 was a result of malice; that he was under the thumb of 
 Patterson; that he did not hate Wagner and the Hedley 
 Lumber Company, but was neutral toward it, even 
 friendly; that he had been on good terms with Huff 
 Wagner's right-hand man; that he blocked every plan 
 to develop business and to sell the bonds; that he ought 
 not to be on the board of directors or in any way con- 
 nected with the association; that he was a danger to the 
 company; and that he was determined to have his own 
 head if it ruined the settlers, as ruin them he would in 
 the end. 
 
 Edgecombe overtook him. 
 
 "Doc, I don't see how we can keep voting against 
 Pinney's selling the bonds," he said. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "The people are wanting him to have the chance, 
 anyway." 
 
 "What difference does that make?" Cryder asked. 
 "We know we're right. I tell you what: Let him go 
 find a buyer and then communicate with Patterson. I 
 don't know who would look after the sawmill while he's 
 away, but never mind that. We'll shut it up for the 
 time being." 
 
 "He says Myra would look after the business." 
 
 "Myra! My-ra ! Now I know the man's incurably 
 insane." 
 
 " Pinney says he won't touch the bond sale unless he 
 has complete charge, with Patterson entirely out of it, 
 so that he can use his own discretion and methods."
 
 ENMITY 227 
 
 "That's quite in the Pinney manner." 
 
 "Folks are demanding that something be done about 
 disposing of them," Edgecombe continued. "Nobody 
 wants the notes to fall due and be unpaid and our deeds 
 forfeited." 
 
 "Of course not, nor shall they be," Cryder declared, 
 earnestly. "I'm going to town in the morning and I'll 
 see Patterson again. It's time for him to show results. 
 From Maronville I'm going on to Chicago, but I'll be 
 back shortly. Don't change, Edgecombe; stand firm 
 no matter what pressure they put on you. Hollister 
 and Arnold Meek will be standing with you. I tell you 
 if Pinney once has things his own way, we might 
 as well scratch our names off the book and shut up 
 shop." 
 
 Edgecombe went slowly back to the store, while the 
 surgeon proceeded across the clearing to the path lead- 
 ing to the hospital. 
 
 This tribe of Kettle Creekers! To lead them some- 
 times seemed beyond his strength, or that of any man. 
 
 By the creek Arnold Meek had ceased to preach and 
 the worshippers once again were singing. 
 
 "I've reached the land of corn and wine, 
 And all its riches freely mine; 
 Here shines undimmed one blissful day, 
 For all my night has passed away. 
 
 Beulah Land, Sweet Beulah Land, 
 As on thy highest mount I stand, 
 
 1 look away across the sea 
 
 Where mansions are prepared for me, 
 
 And view the shining glory-shore 
 
 My Heav'n, my home for ever more!"
 
 CHAPTER III 
 BROUGHT Low 
 
 ABOUT ten o'clock on a July morning a single cus- 
 tomer was in Sherill's Drug Store, Myra Pinney, who 
 stood before a glass case containing toilet articles, 
 attended by Archie Hay, dapper in a fresh duck jacket 
 and with his marcelled blond hair glistening with 
 shimmers of oily light. Archie was nothing if not 
 alert, breezy, full of "pep." His chief occupation was 
 dispensing soda water, but he rilled in slack periods by 
 clerking. 
 
 Myra thought him very efficient, very agreeable, as 
 he handed forth for her inspection one article after 
 another a bottle of toilet water, a red box of face 
 powder, a jar of cold cream, a lip-stick, a vial of per- 
 fume, the while glibly expatiating upon the merits of 
 each. Her cheek-bones already were heavily rouged in 
 two round carmine spots. In her social climb in 
 Maronville she was determined to utilize all the pur- 
 chasable accessories that would facilitate her progress 
 and fit her for the station she impatiently sought. 
 
 "This toilet water is used by our best customers and 
 you will find it satisfactory in every respect," Archie 
 was saying. " It has a very delicate yet lasting odour. 
 
 228
 
 BROUGHT LOW 229 
 
 Imported, Mrs. Pinney. We have it in two scents, 
 rose and violet. Only yesterday I sold two bottles to 
 Mrs. Jackson, the mayor's wife. The price is one 
 dollar a bottle. You'll find it extremely fine." On 
 a second assurance that it was the same toilet water 
 bought by Mrs. Jackson Myra selected a bottle. "And 
 this 'Versailles Rice Powder' for the complexion is our 
 best," he continued. "It's just suited to your style 
 of beauty, too, Mrs. Pinney. Imported. Our most 
 fastidious customers employ it. One box?" He 
 placed the face powder beside the toilet water. "Now 
 this cold cream is a new shipment we've just secured. 
 Softens and whitens the skin. I'm sure nothing less 
 than the best will satisfy you. Seventy-five cents a 
 jar. Removes wrinkles. But you've no wrinkles, Mrs. 
 Pinney," he added, with a smile. "One jar? Let me 
 put one of these lip-sticks with the rest. Imported. 
 When you've tried it, you'll use no other kind. All the 
 prominent society women of New York employ it, I 
 understand. Is there anything else? Nail polish? 
 Fine soap? We have some very choice scented soap. 
 Imported, Mrs. Pinney. Hair nets? Chamois skins? 
 Henna ? A touch of henna on the hair, or indeed all the 
 hair hennaed, is very fashionable nowadays. Nothing 
 more?" 
 
 "I think that's all this mornin'," said Myra, after a 
 thoughtful consideration of the glass case. "I'll see 
 about the henna later. Possibly I shall want my hair 
 fixed if it's the right thing to do." 
 
 "Anything in fine stationery? In combs or brushes? 
 In candies?" Myra's eyes wandered irresolutely to
 
 230 CRYDER 
 
 the candy boxes piled in pyramids on top of the case 
 boxes of chocolates and bonbons, and the alert Archie 
 lifted from a pile a beribboned box and presented it to 
 his customer. "These have fruit and nut centres. A 
 fresh shipment, too. I wish you would try them. 
 One-fifty a box. They will simply melt in your mouth. 
 Mrs. Petherbridge eats nothing else in the chocolate 
 line." 
 
 Myra succumbed, nodded. For candy she had a 
 weakness, and since coming to Maronville to live had 
 been unable to deny herself the luxury hitherto seldom 
 gratified. But with its enjoyment came forebodings: 
 she was growing heavier, with soft rolls of fat accumu- 
 lating on her waist and about her neck, bust, and hips. 
 
 As Archie wrapped and tied her purchased articles 
 Mrs. Forsythe entered the store. 
 
 "Why, how are you? Are you out shoppin' too, 
 Mrs. Forsythe?" Myra effusively greeted her. "Ain't 
 it warm this mornin'?" Then as the other stared at 
 her in surprise and with a pronounced coldness of 
 manner, she hastened to say, "I guess you don't re- 
 member me. I'm Mrs. Pinney. We met last week at 
 the reception." 
 
 "Reception?" 
 
 "Yes, at the reception in the court house given for 
 the visitin' congressman when he was here. I was 
 introduced to you there that eveninV 
 
 "Ah, I think I recall you now, Mrs. Pinney." 
 
 "Surely you must. A very swell affair, wasn't it?" 
 
 "Very." 
 
 "You must come and call on me some afternoon."
 
 BROUGHT LOW 231 
 
 "It's exceedingly kind of you to ask me, I'm sure," 
 Mrs. Forsythe returned, smiling. 
 
 "Well, I want all the best people to call on me and 
 Pinney, as we expect to be in society. My, isn't it 
 hot for so early in the mornin'! Terrible! I was just 
 goin' to have an ice-cream soda. Won't you eat one 
 with me? And we can have a nice little talk together." 
 
 For the smallest fraction of a minute Mrs. Forsythe 
 hesitated, then accepted the invitation and followed 
 Mrs. Pinney to one of the small round-topped tables 
 arranged in a row the length of the room between the 
 glass cases. Archie Hay appeared beside them, spread- 
 ing paper napkins on the table and setting glasses of 
 water on these. When he had received their respective 
 orders he smartly vanished behind the soda fountain. 
 
 Myra was furtively studying Mrs. Forsythe's clothes 
 a white sport hat, a pongee dress, and low-heeled 
 shoes, which surprised her by their plainness. She 
 wondered that one of Mrs. Forsythe's social position 
 should come downtown in a costume as simple as a 
 school-girl's and without a bit of stylishness. A sense 
 of satisfaction at the fact that she herself was suitably 
 attired gave Myra a glow and indeed a slight feeling 
 of superiority. She readjusted her wide-brimmed ma- 
 line hat with a border of ostrich feathers of a lavender 
 colour. She settled her white leather belt, at the same 
 time letting her look wander over her pale green 
 georgette dress that had imitation Duchess lace on 
 sleeves, on bosom, and on ruffles about the skirt. She 
 glanced down at her feet outstretched before her and 
 one crossed over the other, which were encased in gray
 
 232 CRYDER 
 
 suede slippers with pink patent leather bindings and 
 extreme French heels. One thing, thought she, Mrs. 
 Forsythe could not say she wasn't dressed right. 
 
 When she lifted her gaze she perceived her com- 
 panion's eyes dwelling on her intently. 
 
 "I heard somewhere that you weren't goin' to remain 
 in Maronville," Myra remarked, fingering negligently 
 her long necklace of red beads as she had seen done by 
 society ladies in moving pictures. 
 
 "Oh, my plans are still indefinite," was the 
 answer. "I'm waiting to sell my house, and other 
 business matters engage me. I can't say certainly. I 
 may stay on here, or I may go pretty soon; it all de- 
 pends. How do you like Maronville? And society?" 
 
 "Very, very much." 
 
 "I suspect you're going to be exceedingly popular 
 here, Mrs. Pinney. You're engaging, you know." 
 
 "Do you really think so?" 
 
 At that instant Archie Hay pattered to the table 
 with a tray bearing their drinks. Deftly he deposited 
 the glasses upon the table, presented to each woman in 
 turn the canister holding straws, dropped the check at 
 Myra's elbow and withdrew. 
 
 "Isn't he a handsome boy?" 
 
 "Who?" Mrs. Forsythe inquired. 
 
 "Mr. Hay." 
 
 "Too pretty. By the way, they haven't caught 
 your brother yet, have they?" 
 
 "No." A crimson blush suffused Myra's face. "I 
 wish he hadn't done it. Mr. Pinney says it's makin' 
 us too famous."
 
 BROUGHT LOW 233 
 
 "They're still hunting him, I suppose." 
 
 Myra was silent for a moment. 
 
 "Yes, but they won't catch him," she exclaimed, 
 with a sudden flame of anger. "And it ain't right for 
 'em to keep tryin' to run him down. He ain't a crimi- 
 nal. The other feller tried to kill him first. That 
 devil, Wagner, is makin' all the trouble!" She halted 
 abruptly, confused, dismayed. "I forgot, Mrs. For- 
 sythe, your husband used to be manager of the other 
 company; I guess I oughtn't to be speakin' this way." 
 
 "Why not?" was the answer. "The Hedley Lumber 
 Company's nothing to me. No more than these 
 straws." She sipped her lemonade, gazing at Myra. 
 
 "It's all I can do to keep my mouth shut when I 
 think of that Wagner." Myra compressed her lips and 
 then proceeded. "All this trouble of Nick's and the 
 fights about the logs and everything is worryin' Pinney 
 to a ghost. He's kinda nervous anyway, and this makes 
 it worse. Then Doc Cryder aggravates him so terrible, 
 too." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "Well, Doc wants to run our company and the mill 
 like everything else he does. Pinney Mr. Pinney, I 
 mean has such wonderful plans for the business! But 
 Cryder talks the other directors into preventin' him 
 from executin' 'em. And then there's the bonds which 
 haven't been sold. Mr. Patterson was to have sold 
 'em, but he hasn't, sayin' money is tight but that he 
 will yet. There ain't so much time left before the notes 
 are due. If the board would just let Pinney go to New 
 York, he could sell the bonds in no time. It's all
 
 234 CRYDER 
 
 worryin' him something fierce; he can't sleep nights for 
 tossin'. He has two of the directors on his side, but 
 Doc has three, and so Pinney can't go. As for that 
 Patterson, I don't take any stock in him; he's too slick 
 and smooth and besides he's engaged to that Huff girl, 
 who's a sister of Jack Huff, who's workin' for Wagner. 
 I tell Pinney I wouldn't have no lawyer for our company 
 that's sweet on the sister of the other company's 
 superintendent; and Pinney's been wantin' to get rid of 
 him this long time, but Doc won't let him, sayin' Patter- 
 son's fair and square and doin' all possible to sell the 
 bonds, and will sell 'em, and well, it worries Pinney to 
 just skin and bones and makes him so fidgety he can't 
 sit still two minutes. I wish Doc had never been in- 
 vited to go on the board." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe sucked at her pair of straws. 
 
 "But I thought Doctor Cryder was absent in Chi- 
 cago," she remarked, fixing her look on Myra's face. 
 
 " He was. For two weeks. Some operation or some- 
 thing. But he's back again. Got home yesterday." 
 
 "Then he's up at Kettle Creek?'* 
 
 "Yes. And I wish he'd stay there. Pinney's gettin' 
 so he can't bide him about." 
 
 "What's this I heard about Wagner holding some of 
 your company's logs?" 
 
 "A whole lot of 'em. He run them into his boom 
 and got out a 'junction to keep us from takin' 'em out. 
 Just another thing to pile worry on my poor dear 
 husband. Patterson says all we can do is to sue, but a 
 lot of our men want to go and show Wagner whether or 
 not they can take 'em. But we got enough to keep
 
 BROUGHT LOW 235 
 
 the mill goin' till January. After the row that my 
 brother was in Cryder sent men to brand the logs, which 
 they did and that was some more of Doc's meddlin', 
 Pinney says, for he had the men do it without consultin* 
 anybody. And Wagner says they branded a lot of 
 Hedley logs. If Doc had kept his finger out, Wagner 
 wouldn't have dared touch any of our drive." 
 
 "I imagine Mr. Wagner would have found it just as 
 easy to run logs that he claimed for his own into his 
 boom if they weren't branded," Mrs. Forsythe com- 
 mented. 
 
 "Pinney says not." 
 
 "Well, you're living in a whirl of excitement, aren't 
 you? Now I must be going." 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't; I'm enjoyin' our talk so 
 much." 
 
 "Sorry I can't stay longer," Mrs. Forsythe replied, 
 sweetly, at the same time rising. "Is Doctor Cryder 
 busy these days?" 
 
 "Not much that I know of. Ain't heard of anybody 
 special bein' sick. And he seems to have plenty of 
 time to interfere with Pinney, more'n a doctor who 
 attends to his business ought to have." 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe turned toward Archie Hay. "Give 
 me two packs of Morris cigarettes, please." 
 
 When she had gone out and stepped into her sedan 
 and driven away, Myra, who meanwhile had sat trans- 
 fixed, managed to gasp: 
 
 "Does she smoke ?" 
 
 "Oh, quite a number of ladies do," Archie responded, 
 nonchalantly.
 
 236 CRYDER 
 
 "But oh, my " 
 
 "It's the swell thing among the sporty set every- 
 where, Mrs. Pinney," the youth imparted with an air of 
 worldly wisdom, as he came forward to remove the 
 glasses and soiled paper napkins. "All the actresses 
 and millionaires' wives do it. In the East and at Los 
 Angeles, anyway. I'm thinking of going to Los 
 Angeles soon." 
 
 "Why, are you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I'm getting tired of Maronville. And I 
 may go into movies." He skillfully wiped the table. 
 
 "How grand!" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I've written to a number of producers." 
 
 "Then it's as good as settled." 
 
 "Well, nearly." Archie complacently stroked his 
 marcelle. 
 
 "How lovely!" said Myra. 
 
 As he moved away with the glasses in which he had 
 stuffed the napkins, Archie did not dissent. 
 
 II 
 
 Toward two o'clock Mrs. Forsythe passed through 
 the clearing at Kettle, and following the road that led 
 through the forest to the ridge, presently was ascending 
 the hillside behind the hospital. Her car made the 
 climb with difficulty and she suspected its supply of 
 gasoline was running low. Gaining the top of the 
 ridge, she stopped the automobile and measured the 
 contents of the tank. The latter was nearly drained. 
 
 As she was on the point of starting the machine 
 again, she perceived a man among the trees of the hill-
 
 BROUGHT LOW 237 
 
 side a little way below her mounting the slope at a 
 laboured run. His desperate exertion, his continual 
 looks backward, his torn clothes and furtive wildness 
 of manner, manifested a savage haste and purpose that 
 sent a cold ripple over Mrs. Forsythe's flesh. He was 
 hatless, his black hair ragged and matted in a filthy 
 tangle; his face bore a dark bristly beard, which empha- 
 sized the gauntness of his cheeks and the deep pits of 
 his eyes; his blue-checked shirt was a grimy cover of 
 rents and tatters, his overalls, held by a piece of rope 
 knotted about his waist, were ripped and flapping about 
 his calves, and his shoes were mere shapeless lumps of 
 leather. In his right hand he clutched a revolver. 
 
 Something in the man's stocky figure struck Mrs. 
 Forsythe as familiar. Then she recognized him as the 
 youth who a year previous had driven her from the 
 log-drivers' camp to Cryder's on her visit, Myra Pin- 
 ney's brother, young Nichols. 
 
 He slipped along the crest of the ridge from tree to tree, 
 his eyes ever on the slope below him, until he vanished 
 behind a cabin of the surgeon's group of buildings 
 partly visible through the pines. 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe now drove forward. When she 
 reached the hospital she saw no sign of the fugitive, 
 and indeed observed no one, as if the place were aban- 
 doned. A thrill of excitement had set her pulses beat- 
 ing, in the expectation of she knew not what dramatic 
 event. Somewhere below in the forest were the man- 
 hunters beating about or following on the trail. At this 
 moment she felt no fear, only an avid curiosity to 
 witness more of this chase which had continued so long
 
 238 CRYDER 
 
 and which inevitably must end in the fugitive's capture 
 or death. 
 
 But as no one else appeared and nothing happened 
 she descended from the car and went into the hospital. 
 She looked into the ward, which she found to be un- 
 occupied; the beds with their white-painted iron frames 
 all in order, each with clean linen smoothly drawn and 
 tightly tucked under at the sides, a prim pillow at the 
 head and a folded gray blanket at the foot. With his 
 passion for accuracy in hospital routine Cryder would 
 have them that way, she thought, or make a row. 
 
 A sound of someone moving in a room farther along 
 the hallway drew her thither. It was the operating 
 room and the door stood open. Into the chamber 
 through an immense window set in the north wall fell a 
 flood of clear light, where she beheld an operating table 
 in the middle of the floor, a big shiny metal sterilizer 
 against one wall, an X-ray apparatus against another, 
 several glass-topped carts, a tall cupboard and two 
 instrument cabinets, from one of which the surgeon was 
 selecting nickelled tools, wrapping them in canton flan- 
 nel strips, and placing them in a leather case. 
 
 "All alone, Bob?" she asked, sauntering into the 
 room. 
 
 Cryder faced about. 
 
 "You, Peg?" he exclaimed. "Of all people! What 
 bough did you flutter down from?" 
 
 "Just skipped up from town," said she, with an airy 
 wave of her fingers. "Thought I'd have a last look 
 at Arcadia before leaving Maronville." 
 
 "Going?"
 
 BROUGHT LOW 239 
 
 "Before long." 
 
 "For good?" 
 
 "For ever and ever, amen." She placed a hand on 
 the operating table and sprang lightly to a seat upon 
 it, where she sat swinging her feet. "Don't you want 
 to come along, too, Bob?" 
 
 Cryder put down the forceps he held and gazed at her 
 smiling face. Then he bestowed himself against the 
 sterilizer and with folded arms returned her smile with 
 a transient one of his own. 
 
 "You're not in earnest about it any more, thank 
 heavens," he said. "Last summer well, you appeared 
 quite resolved on it then." 
 
 "I did want you." 
 
 "But you see now that it didn't last." 
 
 She considered him with a speculative air. He was 
 right, as he generally was right; her strange renewal of 
 affection for him of infatuation, indeed, had after 
 a time subsided. It had been a curious resurgence of 
 feeling, which she now could explain in no other way 
 than as an emotional reaction from the shock of Jim 
 Forsythe's tragic death. 
 
 "My love might have lasted, perhaps, if it had been 
 reciprocated," she remarked. 
 
 "Not at all, Peg. For you're a true daughter of 
 that feminine deity who was born of love amid foam and 
 came up out of the sea, Aphrodite, and quite as change- 
 ful as she." 
 
 Again she meditated. It was true that she never 
 long felt passion for any man. 
 
 "Possibly," she answered.
 
 2 4 o CRYDER 
 
 "And you don't care the least particle about me at 
 this moment," he concluded. 
 
 His satisfied tone stirred her resentment. The 
 recollection of her rejection at his hands a year previous 
 caused her to feel again the sharp edge of that ignominy. 
 If he could not inspire a continuous affection, neverthe- 
 less, he could always rouse in her vindictive desires 
 she was unable to tell why, unless it was that deadly 
 assurance of his. He both irked and angered her, 
 somehow. Then, too, a consciousness of his rigid prin- 
 ciples was always jarring upon her; she detested the 
 lack of pliancy in him and absence of subtlety. Even 
 the fact that as a rule he was right made her antipa- 
 thy the stronger. 
 
 For a little her eyes dwelled on him lounging there 
 against the sterilizer, a big ungraceful figure. He was 
 wearing a gray, well-tailored suit, she observed, which 
 probably had been made in Chicago; low shoes of a 
 dark-brown colour; a soft-collared oxford shirt with 
 a narrow olive scarf; and a cap and dust coat lay on 
 a chair near by. 
 
 "Where are you going to live, may I ask?" he said. 
 
 "Oh, Los Angeles. For a time, at least." 
 
 "Departing soon?" 
 
 "When I've disposed of my house. Mr. Patterson 
 has made me an offer for it a very low one. If I 
 hadn't grown tired of waiting for a buyer, I should not 
 consider it at all. He knows I want to get rid of the 
 place and is taking advantage of that fact. Cold- 
 blooded about it. He expects to live there when he 
 marries Frances HuflF." She fixed her eyes upon her
 
 BROUGHT LOW 241 
 
 listener. "You were quite deeply in love with Frances 
 yourself when she was here last year, weren't you?" 
 
 "That's a matter not to be discussed." 
 
 "Well, if you had won her I fancy you would have 
 wearied of your bargain in time. She isn't your kind. 
 But she'll suit Patterson, who'll keep her innocent and 
 proper and whom she'll adore, never knowing what a 
 slippery gentleman she has for a husband." 
 
 "I don't care to hear of that." 
 
 "You'll think of it later, though, when you're driven 
 out of here." 
 
 The surgeon's attention was caught by this singular 
 statement. 
 
 "Driven out. What do you mean?" he demanded. 
 
 "By the Hedley Lumber Company." 
 
 "What has it to do with my going or staying?" 
 
 "This, that it has bought the notes of 
 
 Cryder cut in with, "Our company's notes?" 
 
 "Yes. I understand the Citizens' National, like 
 most other banks at this time, was pressed for cash 
 and had to sell a lot of its paper. It disposed of the 
 Kettle Creek Lumber Company's notes and collateral 
 to the Heidenstreit people in Spokane." 
 
 "Where did you hear this?" 
 
 "Never mind. I have it on the best of authority. 
 And one can see the finish of the Kettle Creek concern 
 when the notes fall due, are unpaid, and the deeds to 
 this timber are appropriated for payment. You un- 
 derstand now what I mean by being driven out. All 
 of you will go." 
 
 "Not if our bonds are sold first."
 
 242 CRYDER 
 
 "They'll not be sold, not with Mr. Patterson in 
 charge of their sale. You trust him, I suppose." 
 
 From a pocket Cryder had drawn a handkerchief 
 and was wiping a fine sweat from his forehead. His 
 face at this news of hers had grown heavy with con- 
 cern. 
 
 "Yes, I naturally trust him," he answered. "Yes, 
 of course. There can be no question of his integrity." 
 
 "I can't agree with you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because I don't. The man's a hypocrite, I tell 
 you. I saw through him the very first time." 
 
 "You see bad in people where it doesn't exist, Peg; 
 that was always one of your failings." 
 
 "And yours was to see good in everybody," she re- 
 torted. "Let me tell you something more. Patterson 
 isn't attorney only for your Kettle Creek Lumber 
 Association, but for the Hedley Lumber Company." 
 
 "Bosh!" 
 
 "He gets an annual retainer from it, though he 
 keeps the fact secret," said she, calmly. 
 
 "I can't believe that." 
 
 "Still it's the truth." 
 
 "Where did you obtain all this information?" he 
 inquired, curiously. 
 
 "From Jack Huff. He likes to come to my house 
 and drink highballs and relax, as he calls it. When he 
 has had two or three drinks, his tongue gets to wagging. 
 He let me into the secret about Patterson, though I had 
 inferred as much from something Jim once said before 
 he drowned. Jack let me into the secret of your want-
 
 BROUGHT LOW 243 
 
 ing to marry Frances, also. And he told me of the 
 notes." 
 
 Cryder was thoughtful. 
 
 "All that you say may be true and Patterson yet 
 be honest, "said he, at last. "Lawyers are frequently 
 retained thus without prejudicing their position with 
 respect to other clients. On consideration I feel no 
 reason to distrust him." 
 
 A contemptuous expression rested on her face. 
 
 "You're the blindest fool at times, Robert!" she 
 scoffed. "Can't you see through the fellow?" 
 
 "I don't want to see through him as you do." 
 
 "Probably not." She jumped off her seat and began 
 to walk about. "I wonder from whom you inherited 
 that silly faith in people. Pity you never knew who 
 your parents were so that you could look them up and 
 learn something of them." Cryder said nothing. 
 "You're a queer mixture. It would be interesting for 
 you if by accident you ever came across your father 
 or your mother." Still the man was silent, his lips com- 
 pressed and his brow dark. "Perhaps you've even met 
 and talked with one or the other and never knew it." 
 
 "Let that subject alone if you please," said he, 
 sharply. 
 
 "We're by ourselves, aren't we? Who's to hear?" 
 
 "I don't wish to think of it." 
 
 "Well, it's nothing to boast of, certainly." 
 
 "I am what I am," he brooded. 
 
 "It must seem strange to come out of the dark with 
 nothing to look back at and take hold of in your mind, 
 no home, no mother or father, no family line."
 
 244 CRYDER 
 
 ''You uttered these taunts when you left me before," 
 he exclaimed, wrathfully, "and to repeat them now, I 
 see, is the real reason of your visit to-day. You 
 couldn't leave Maronville without flinging at my head 
 once more the unhappy circumstance of my birth." 
 
 She took a step nearer. 
 
 "How much consideration did you show me last 
 summer?" she demanded. 
 
 "All that you were entitled to." 
 
 "And that's what I'm showing you now," she ex- 
 claimed. "It's well to recall to your mind on occasion 
 that you're a man without a real name of your own and 
 with a cloud on your birth in order to explode some of 
 your pretensions." 
 
 All the bitterness, long dripping in her heart, flowed 
 forth on her lips. 
 
 "You wouldn't have me when I offered myself, over- 
 looking all this," she continued. "You believed your- 
 self superior. You trampled me underfoot. Yes, it's 
 well you should be reminded of your shameful origin." 
 
 "Do you know that it's shameful?" he asked. "No. 
 For I don 't know that myself, and you know only what 
 I know and told you." 
 
 "Neither do you know that it isn't. But you are 
 perfectly informed as to the character of the majority 
 of those births which happen under circumstances like 
 yours. I think, yes, I think we can guess the facts." 
 
 Cryder gazed at her steadily. 
 
 "Even so I should choose to be what I am than what 
 you are," he stated. 
 
 "Meaning?"
 
 BROUGHT LOW 245 
 
 "Meaning that a worm is in your soul, Peg. You 
 might have been a beautiful woman with a fine char- 
 acter, but you're only a person with a petty, malicious 
 nature, full of discontent and spite, finding your chief 
 satisfaction in making others suffer when you're crossed 
 or thwarted." He turned for his cap and coat and 
 leather case. "I think that now we've both said all 
 that we need say." 
 
 "You surely have said enough," she answered, pale 
 with rage. All she could add was, "I'm going, but I 
 must have some gasoline. If I could get home without 
 it, I'd not be asking you for any, Robert Cryder, be 
 certain of that." 
 
 "Drive your car to the pump," said he. "I'll fill 
 it." And they went out of the building in silence. 
 
 As he finished replenishing her automobile tank and 
 stood hanging the rubber tube about the pump, a figure 
 slipped round the rear of the car and clutched his arm. 
 Cryder gazed at the human scarecrow in surprise. It 
 was Nichols. 
 
 "You! What are you doing here?" he cried. 
 "Have you lost your senses?" 
 
 "Get me away, Doc. The woods is full of 'em 
 huntin' me," the other said, fiercely, tightening his grip. 
 "They know I'm somewhere about." His look darted 
 to the forest below and back again, the look of a wild 
 animal at bay. "They've turned me out of one hole 
 after another, kept me on the run for a week and I had 
 to have grub. Last night they nearly got me up by the 
 Three Sisters, but I slipped through 'em. The hell- 
 hounds! I could have shot one of 'em easy and still
 
 246 CRYDER 
 
 got away, but I didn't, though if they keep on chasin' 
 me I'll kill 'em all. At ma's house I tried to sneak 
 up for some food. A man was there watching; there's 
 always one there. He saw me and I beat it down the 
 creek, then doubled back through the brush and got up 
 here. Mrs. Mercer gave me something to eat God 
 bless her!" 
 
 His voice broke at the last words and two tears sud- 
 denly rolled down his haggard, bearded cheeks. 
 
 "Let me take you to Maronville and turn you over, 
 Nick," Cryder said. "No jury will convict you. You 
 were attacked; you hit the fellow in self-defense. Your 
 case is made only worse by hiding." 
 
 "Not on your life. They'll railroad me to a noose," 
 the fugitive exclaimed, wildly. 
 
 "I'll pledge you my honour they won't. We'll hire 
 the best lawyers in the land and fight them to a finish 
 and beat them!" 
 
 "Not by a damned sight! You don't get me behind 
 any bars. I'll take my chance in the hills." 
 
 "Trust me, Nick." 
 
 "I don't trust anybody when my neck's at stake. 
 They'd get me. They'd pack the jury and buy the 
 judge and railroad me to the gallows, I tell you. I'm 
 goin' to keep loose, if for nothing more than to get 
 Wagner." 
 
 "Don't make your hanging sure, Nick," Cryder said, 
 sharply. "Skip if you will, but throw your gun away." 
 
 A glare of fury was the answer to this. 
 
 "Not much. And say, are you goin' to help me or 
 let 'em catch me? Damn you, Doc, you got to do it.
 
 BROUGHT LOW 247 
 
 Didn't I work for you? Didn't I always treat you 
 square? They've pocketed me here, I'm saying', 
 and- 
 
 "Get in my car," the surgeon abruptly cut him off. 
 "Throw the robe over you. Wait till I get you some- 
 thing to put on instead of those rags. I'm going up to 
 the mining camp and there I'll give you some money, 
 and then you leave this part of the country. Do you 
 hear? Get over the range, head for Canada." 
 
 "I'm goin' across the river." 
 
 "You're not! You're leaving here altogether. No 
 more hiding in these hills. Now get in and cover your- 
 self." 
 
 Cryder strode to his cabin and disappeared within. 
 When he returned he carried a bundle of clothes, which 
 he tossed into his runabout beside the concealed youth. 
 As he was about to step up into the car, two panting 
 men broke from the underbrush along the edge of the 
 ridge and came forward. 
 
 "Here, you, don't you go till we've had a look in 
 your buildings," one ordered, arrogantly, a heavy- 
 jowled, moustached fellow carrying a Winchester. 
 
 "Show your warrant to search my buildings," the 
 surgeon responded, curtly. 
 
 "This is all the warrant we need with you Kettle 
 Creekers," the other exclaimed with an oath, tapping 
 his rifle. 
 
 Walking close to the man Cryder looked him up and 
 down, his thick eyebrows close-drawn and his lips shut 
 tight. 
 
 "You fellows have annoyed me about enough," said
 
 248 CRYDER 
 
 he. "Show your dirty badge." The man flung back 
 a side of his unbuttoned vest, revealing a round metal 
 disk fastened to the lining. "Not even deputies," 
 Cryder continued, contemptuously. "Just a pair of 
 private operatives. Now listen. When you come here 
 next time bring a warrant, or you're going to be filled 
 with buckshot. You may be able to intimidate some 
 of the ignorant folks down there along the creek, but 
 you can't make it go with me. I know my legal rights. 
 By the almighty, I'll do exactly as I say, give you a 
 barrel of buckshot!" 
 
 "Just for that we'll run you down to Maronville for 
 obstructing justice," the big-jowled operative retorted, 
 threateningly. "We've had our eye on you. It's 
 about time to begin arresting some of you Kettle 
 Creekers." 
 
 "Why, you big jelly-fish, you lay a hand on me and 
 I'll beat the life out of you!" Cryder thundered. 
 
 He turned about. 
 
 "Stop, or we'll shoot." 
 
 "Shoot and be damned." 
 
 The surgeon's broad back remained toward them. 
 Reaching the car Cryder stepped in, slammed the door, 
 snapped the starter. The engine began to hum. 
 
 "Say, you " cried the man with the gun. 
 
 But the big physician was talking again. 
 
 "Trying to stop me when I've an ileoproctostomy 
 to operate this afternoon. The nerve of it! For two- 
 bits I'd boot you down the hill to teach you manners." 
 He jerked back the lever, throwing the car into gear. 
 "And mind, next time if you haven't a warrant you get
 
 BROUGHT LOW 249 
 
 a charge of buckshot. Stick that in your thick head 
 and let it stay there." The car was moving; the two 
 men on the ground waving arms futilely. "But I 
 suppose you're too much of a fool. It's been my ob- 
 servation that the worst fools become, and why I don't 
 know, either private detectives or chiropractors. Fact. 
 I sawed through a private operative's head once 
 . not a drop of blood . . . solid ivory all 
 the way . . . amazing. . . ." 
 
 The words trailed off and died as the car, gathering 
 speed, moved away. It passed behind a clump of 
 bushes and reappeared, slipped among the scattered 
 pines that grew fifty yards behind the buildings and at 
 last, gliding down the hillside, vanished into the forest. 
 
 in 
 
 It had always been Schuyler Patterson's opinion 
 that women, prone as they were to act on impulse, 
 were not fitted by nature or temperament successfully 
 to manage business affairs; they were too impatient, 
 they could not play a waiting game. And therefore he 
 was not surprised when Mrs. Forsythe telephoned him 
 one day near the end of July that she would accept his 
 offer for her house and asked that the transaction be 
 immediately closed, as she was leaving Maronville. 
 He had made her a cash offer considerably below the 
 value of the property. Undoubtedly he should be able 
 to sell the dwelling later at a good margin of profit and 
 meanwhile as a home for Frances and him after their 
 marriage, until they moved away, it would be admira- 
 ble. The house was a large bungalow purchased by
 
 2 5 o CRYDER 
 
 Forsythe when he first came to Maronville, newly built 
 then, substantially constructed and "modern" in all 
 respects. 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe had stood out for the price she had 
 set on the place, refusing even to consider his offer until 
 now. In order to consummate the sale before she 
 should again change her mind he filled in a deed form 
 describing the property, arranged with Emmons of 
 the Citizens' National Bank for a loan, and drew a 
 check for the amount of the payment. Then he called 
 Mrs. Forsythe, who stated that she would come to his 
 office at once. 
 
 "You can take possession in two or three days," said 
 she, folding the check and placing it in her purse after 
 the deed had been signed, witnessed, and sealed. "I 
 shall leave town to-night, but it will take that long for 
 the packers to crate and store my furniture." 
 
 "I take it that you're leaving permanently, Mrs. 
 Forsythe," the lawyer remarked, slipping a rubber band 
 around the deed and the abstract of title which he 
 already had examined and found satisfactory. "We 
 shall miss your charming company." 
 
 "Don't let Miss Huff hear you say that," she ex- 
 claimed, with a smile slightly edged and a shake of her 
 head. "Well, this finishes the business, doesn't it? 
 You've a bargain in the house, Mr. Patterson, and it 
 will make a pretty nest for your bride. Frances is a 
 dear sweet girl, lovely and innocent. After all, there 
 probably was nothing more than idle flirtation in her 
 affair last summer with Doctor Cryder a bit of senti- 
 mental spooning."
 
 BROUGHT LOW 251 
 
 Patterson rose and bowed, indicating an end to the 
 appointment. "As you say, the business of the trans- 
 fer of the property is concluded. If hereafter I can be 
 of any service to you, Mrs. Forsythe, don't hesitate to 
 call upon me. And now" he lifted some documents 
 from his desk and gazed at them with an air of ab- 
 straction "I have a legal conference at twelve, and 
 it's nearly that now. If you will excuse me 
 
 As she descended the stair of the building to the 
 street, the woman had a lively desire to annihilate the 
 tall, thin, namby-pamby lawyer, who had regarded her 
 with glacial eyes through his pince-nez and given the 
 point of his Vandyke a little twist with finger and thumb 
 and so coolly dismissed her. For all his air, he wasn't 
 to be trusted. These men who were so prudish and 
 prim needed watching, by all she had discovered; and 
 if he was not a tricky individual then she would bob 
 her hair and roll her stockings and say she knew nothing. 
 But he would have no trouble, she supposed, in pulling 
 the wool over Frances Huff's eyes. Thank God, she 
 herself was leaving this hateful spot! 
 
 At the First National Bank, where she carried her 
 account, she deposited Patterson's check and drew a 
 quantity of cash for her railway journey. This done, 
 she proceeded to the Gaines Furniture Store, where she 
 arranged with Mr. Gaines to send a packer to her home 
 at one o'clock. She would take her linen and silver 
 with her, but the rest Mr. Gaines should look after; 
 furniture, carpets, china, pictures, books, the fittings of 
 the whole dwelling; in fact, crating and boxing them, 
 storing them, and shipping them to her on her order.
 
 252 CRYDER 
 
 Leaving a detailed list of articles in the house with him, 
 she took her departure. 
 
 But she yet had one last errand in town before re- 
 turning home, before shaking from her hem forever the 
 dust of Maronville. 
 
 In Sherill's Drug Store she sought information from 
 Archie Hay as to the whereabouts of the Pinney abode. 
 It was somewhere down near the end of Columbia 
 Street, in the direction of the sawmill, near the edge 
 of town, it appeared. The youth's vagueness was ac- 
 counted for, perhaps, by certain anxieties at the mo- 
 ment burdening him, for he seemed to be a trifle 
 nervous, less alert, less snappy than usual, even short 
 in his replies. 
 
 Going forth into the street again, Mrs. Forsythe 
 raised her sunshade and set sail for Columbia Street. 
 Walking in the heat was an annoyance, but she had 
 ordered her car overhauled preparatory to shipment 
 and it was in the garage. With a vindictive satisfaction 
 she consoled herself by the thought that she would be 
 away from the wretched town in a few hours, with its 
 pretensions of being a city, with its claptrap about 
 melons and prunes and greatness, with its village prej- 
 udices and humdrum existence. 
 
 Inquiring at a small, square white cottage near where 
 she imagined the Pinney dwelling should be, she was 
 directed by a staring girl to the second house beyond, 
 a structure identical in size, shape, and colour with the 
 one where she had knocked. It was such a place as she 
 would have guessed the Pinneys would live in. Across 
 an unfenced stretch of ground she beheld the plant
 
 BROUGHT LOW 253 
 
 of the Kettle Creek Lumber Association. Though a 
 thin trail of brown vapour floated from the smoke- 
 stack, the saws were still. It was the noon hour. 
 She wondered if Pinney came home to eat, and hoped 
 not. 
 
 Myra, in a soiled wrapper and dingy dust cap, came 
 in answer to her tap on the panel, gasped, turned a 
 bright red, and stammered: "Oh, my! I ain't dressed! 
 This is my wash-day. If I had known you was comin' 
 to call!" To Mrs. Forsythe's nostrils floated an odour 
 of soapy steam, wet clothes, and cooking cabbage. 
 
 "Don't allow your appearance to disturb you for one 
 minute, my dear," said the visitor. "We women all 
 look a fright when we're doing housework. Ordinarily 
 I shouldn't have run round to see you at this unholy 
 hour, but I simply couldn't leave town, Mrs. Pinney, 
 without saying good-bye to you after our lovely talk 
 the other day. You made such an impression on me. 
 I'm going away to-night, you know." 
 
 "For good?" 
 
 "Yes, permanently. I've sold my house and now 
 there's nothing to keep me. And then I've so many 
 unhappy memories here; my poor husband, you remem- 
 ber, who was drowned under such tragic circumstances. 
 Staying here so weighs on my mind! And I've always 
 felt, too, that the Hedley company somehow shouldn 't 
 have put Jim in danger, and ever since his death I've 
 felt a little bitter toward it. If you don't mind, I'll 
 just step in for a moment where we can talk comfort- 
 ably- 
 
 "No," said Myra, firmly. "Come round to the
 
 254 CRYDER 
 
 side of the house. There's a bench there in the shade. 
 Inside everything's just a mess. Like me. Well, no 
 matter how I look I'm tickled to pieces you come before 
 goin'. But I wish you wasn't leavin'; we was gettin' 
 to be such good friends." 
 
 She led the way to the bench, evidently of Pinney's 
 own craftsmanship. 
 
 "We are very good friends, I agree," Mrs. Forsythe 
 responded when they had seated themselves. 
 
 "I was tellin' Pinney after I saw you at the drug store 
 how swell you are, though to be sure he hardly listened. 
 He's all wrapped up in the mill, so he scarcely thinks or 
 talks of anything else. Poor man, he has an awful load 
 of troubles!" 
 
 "Doctor Cryder not the least of them, I suppose?" 
 
 "I should say not! Sometimes I just wish I had him 
 where I could wring his neck. To see him trampin' 
 round the sawmill and pokin' into things and givin' 
 orders, you'd think he was manager instead of Pinney. 
 That Doc Cryder would ruin everything if it wasn't 
 for my husband, I'm tellin' you, Mrs. Forsythe. Never 
 was such a man." 
 
 "And what about the bonds?" the visitor asked. 
 
 "They ain't sold yet, of course." 
 
 A twirl of the closed sunshade on the part of Mrs. 
 Forsythe followed Myra's vigorous assertion. She 
 gazed at the gross, fleshy young woman with steam- 
 reddened hands and heated face, who revealed in her 
 shapeless wrapper her backwoods character and origin. 
 
 "Possibly Mr. Patterson hasn't tried to sell your 
 bonds," she stated. "I'm not saying that he hasn't
 
 BROUGHT LOW 255 
 
 made an effort to do so, but, my dear girl, if I were con- 
 nected with the Kettle Creek Lumber Association I 
 should want to make certain of the fact, very certain. 
 When a man is engaged to the sister of the rival mill's 
 superintendent 
 
 "Just what I tell Pinney!" 
 
 "And in addition hired by that company," Mrs. 
 Forsythe continued in a gentle murmur, "I should be 
 inclined to view with a little suspicion 
 
 "Why why, is he workin' for Wagner, too?" Myra 
 cried, dumbfounded. 
 
 "Oh, yes. He receives pay from the Hedley com- 
 pany, though he keeps it quiet." 
 
 "The dirty cheat! Of course he doesn't want to sell 
 our bonds, of course he doesn't and I '11 bet Wagner, 
 the yellow hound, is payin' him not to! I told Pinney 
 no good would come from havin' a lawyer who was 
 engaged to that Huff girl; and he wanted to fire Patter- 
 son as our lawyer, but Doc Cryder kept him from doin* 
 it. He's at the bottom of all our trouble." Her 
 bosom rose and fell in heavy agitation. 
 
 "Why should he so strongly champion Patterson 
 when the latter is retained by the Hedley Lumber 
 Company, I wonder?" said Mrs. Forsythe, with an air 
 of reflection. "It's queer. I learned recently, more- 
 over, that the bank had sold your company's notes to 
 the Hedley company." 
 
 "Does Doc know that?" Myra asked, breathlessly. 
 
 "I'm positive he does." 
 
 "Why hasn't he told us then?" the other flared 
 forth.
 
 256 CRYDER 
 
 "If I were you I should ask him." 
 
 "We shall." 
 
 "He owns no timber himself, I understand." 
 
 "Not a stick." She sat transfixed by a sudden 
 thought, then burst out, "If he knows Patterson's 
 crooked, he's crooked himself in workin ' to keep him 
 in with us. He might as well be takin' Wagner's 
 money with his own hands. And maybe he is gettin' 
 some." 
 
 "I can't imagine Doctor Cryder being bribed." 
 
 "I can and that's just what I think now," Myra 
 cried. "I understand it all at this minute. The 
 Hedley people want to ruin us and have bought Patter- 
 son and Doc to help 'em. When we don't sell the bonds 
 and lose the mill Wagner will pay them a big roll." 
 She leapt to her feet, lifting her fists. "They ain't 
 goin' to break us, I tell you! It ain't too late yet, now 
 we know! Pinney can sell the bonds and we got to 
 get those men out! The rotten, lyin', sneakin* dogs! 
 I wish I had 'em here!" 
 
 Mrs. Forsythe caught her arm. 
 
 "But I didn't say that they had sold you out." 
 
 "You don't have to say; I know now!" Myra 
 shrilled. "All the time I felt something was wrong and 
 told Pinney, but he couldn't do anything with Doc 
 stickin' up for Patterson and sayin' he was square. 
 No wonder. They're workin' together. I s'pose 
 they'll get a big wad for their dirty work." 
 
 Her face was inflamed, almost brutal. In her eyes was 
 a smouldering glow of wrath. A tremble continually 
 shook her limbs. Mrs. Forsythe drew away from this
 
 BROUGHT LOW 257 
 
 sudden virago-like fury, this Amazonian shape quiver- 
 ing with passion. 
 
 "All the time they been pretendin', the Judases!" she 
 raged on. "Maybe, too, they're in with Wagner in 
 tryin' to catch Nick." 
 
 "No, I can say positively that Doctor Cryder isn't." 
 
 "I don't believe that!" Myra cried. "If they're 
 snakes enough to sell us out, they'd see Nick hung, too." 
 All at once she shook with heavy sobs. "Oh, my God, 
 if they catch Nick they'll hang him sure!" She ab- 
 ruptly ceased her lamentation, while she glanced ir- 
 resolutely about. "I got to tell Pinney," said she, in a 
 terrified voice. "We got to do something about this 
 thing." 
 
 "I should if I were in your place," Mrs. Forsythe 
 stated. "If you quote me, be sure to have my words 
 straight if possible. But doubtless you'll say I told 
 you the men were bribed, which wasn't the case. 
 However" she shrugged "it makes little difference." 
 
 "I got to tell Pinney right away," Myra panted. 
 
 "Run along then. I must be going home myself." 
 
 " I got to go to the office this minute," was the agitated 
 reply. Mrs. Forsythe questioned if the other were 
 aware of her at all. "We must do something," Myra 
 continued, desperately, "we just got to do something." 
 
 Turning from her visitor she went at a run along the 
 house and out into the street, her unbelted dress 
 flapping about her legs and her house cap blown awry. 
 Gaining the middle of the road she ran forward with 
 heavy clumsy strides that lessened as her breath be- 
 came exhausted, feeling the incubus of her fat, and lurch-
 
 258 CRYDER 
 
 ing ahead only by stupendous effort. Once she fell. 
 But immediately she scrambled up, frantic and shaken, 
 obsessed by a panic of fear, to stagger on again toward 
 the sawmill. 
 
 At last she gained the gate of the yard. Perspira- 
 tion was streaming down her face and an insane glare 
 shone in her eyes. The front of her dress was brown 
 with dust; her hair was undone and hung in disorder 
 about her neck; her breast moved in convulsive jerks. 
 She saw nothing of the stacks of lumber before her, 
 nothing of the workmen eating from their lunch buckets 
 by the end of the mill who gazed at her in amazement, 
 nothing except the small office building with the man- 
 ager's name on the door. 
 
 This she finally reached after infinite effort. She 
 fell half-fainting against the lintel, slumped inward 
 upon the floor, motioning feebly toward her husband, 
 who as if paralyzed at this unexpected appearance 
 gaped at her in a stupor. 
 
 "Pinney, they sold us out to Wagner," she moaned. 
 
 Dave Hollister, whittling a stick, jumped up. He 
 ran to the girl. 
 
 " Hey, you sick ? Come here, Pinney. Help me get 
 her up." 
 
 They raised her and placed her on a chair and brought 
 her water. She drank, but seemed incapable of speech. 
 
 "Those devils, Doc and Patterson, sold out to Wag- 
 ner," she shrilled suddenly. "We got to do something." 
 
 "Be ca'm, Myra, be ca'm," Hollister soothed. 
 "You're excited about something. Doc never would sell 
 out anybody. Who's been tellin ' you such a yarn ? "
 
 BROUGHT LOW 259 
 
 In passionate earnestness the young woman strove 
 to struggle to her feet, her sweaty face distorted, 
 quivering yet from her exhaustion, a sickly crimson, 
 blotched and stained. 
 
 "It's the holy truth, Dave," she said, desperately. 
 "I just learnt it. Mrs. Forsythe told me and she knows 
 because she knows all about the Hedley company, her 
 husband havin' been manager before Wagner. She 
 said Patterson and Doc was gettin' money secretly to 
 keep the bonds from bein' sold, so we'd be ruined. She 
 said Wagner had our notes, bought from the bank. She 
 said Patterson was lawyer for the Hedley people, too. 
 She said Doc knew all about it and was keepin' still 
 because he would get a big wad' when we went broke. 
 I tell you I ain't lyin'. She was just at my house and 
 told me because she doesn 't want to see us ruined. Oh, 
 I wish you'd never put Doc on the board or hired that 
 slick lawyer! I wish to God lightnin' would strike 'em 
 both dead!" She sank back on the chair, still gulping 
 for breath. "And Doc is helpin' to catch Nick," 
 she whimpered. 
 
 Neither man spoke. Pinney, in a paroxysm of ner- 
 vousness, twitched and jerked and swallowed, rendered 
 speechless by his wife's revelations. Hollister mechan- 
 ically munching tobacco stared at Myra, impressed 
 if not wholly convinced by her words. Of her sincerity 
 and her deadly earnestness there could be no doubt; her 
 very soul was vibrating under the tremendous emotion 
 of her belief. 
 
 Dave glanced at the stick he had been whittling and 
 flung it aside. Then he looked at Pinney.
 
 2 6o CRYDER 
 
 "You and me will go and see Patterson right now," 
 he announced. "And afterwards we'll see Doc if 
 necessary." For a moment longer he munched his 
 quid and stared fixedly at the wall across the room. 
 Then he shook his head. "Nope, you can't make me 
 believe Doc would ever sell us out; it just wouldn't 
 be natural." 
 
 "But he did, he did!" Myra shrilled. "Ain't he 
 always stuck up for Patterson through thick and thin 
 against us all? And if Patterson's takin' money from 
 Wagner, don't that show Doc's crooked, too? I tell 
 you, Dave, they're goin' to ruin us if they can. Nei- 
 ther of 'em are Kettle Creekers. Neither of 'em own a 
 stick of timber. Both of 'em look on us as poor, 
 ignorant, wretched people 'neath 'em. When they 
 break us and Wagner grabs our mill and timber they'll 
 be paid a big roll of money and will clear out and we'll 
 never see 'em again. And what will we be? Paupers, 
 just paupers, who were fools and let 'emselves be 
 skinned. For God's sake, Dave, can't you see? And 
 you so sharp?" 
 
 Hollister's artificial teeth snapped together in an 
 angry click. 
 
 "Nobody's skinned us yet," he growled. "Come 
 along, Pin. We'll go uptown and see Patterson. And 
 if he's holdin' out anything on us, we'll sure make him 
 talk." 
 
 IV 
 
 On the following afternoon Cryder was asleep in his 
 cabin when he was aroused by Mrs. Mercer. He
 
 BROUGHT LOW 261 
 
 grunted something unintelligible and turned over for a 
 further snooze, heaving his big body upon his side, 
 only partially awake, his mind in a semi-stupor. For 
 thirty-six hours he had been fighting for the life of a 
 boy in Berger who had been bitten in the side by a 
 rattlesnake, twice, deeply each time, sheer through the 
 little chap 's thin shirt in the flesh with each plunge of 
 the fangs. 
 
 He had kept him alive, lifted him over the crisis, and 
 had returned home only when the effect of the serpent's 
 venom had been retarded. The youngster would live. 
 Whoever said a snake-bite couldn't kill didn't know 
 what he was talking about! Cryder in his ten years' 
 sojourn at Kettle Creek had seen one man and two 
 children die from reptiles' alkaloidal poison. And now 
 he had just got to sleep when his housekeeper awakened 
 him. 
 
 "Folks to see you, folks come to see you on business, 
 Doc," she kept mumbling insistently, until at last he 
 opened his eyes wide, grunted sourly, swung himself off 
 the bed and upon his feet. 
 
 "If they're some bunch of idiots who come here be- 
 cause they've nothing else to do, I '11 break their necks," 
 he exclaimed, peevishly. 
 
 The brief nap he had had left him unrefreshed. Of 
 late he appeared to tire more quickly than of old and 
 to regain his vigour only by greater periods of sleep. 
 
 "It's Kettle Creek folks and they say it's important 
 you be waked," the old woman explained. "They's 
 a lot of 'em. Pinney and Myra ain't she gettin' fat? 
 and Dave Hollister, and old Arnold Meek, and Ole
 
 262 CRYDER 
 
 Swanson, and a raft of 'em. Regular delly-gation. 
 Guess somepin's happened. They don't look none too 
 pleasant, neither, Doc. Don't know what they want; 
 I asked 'em, knowin' you didn't want to be waked, and 
 Pinney told me real sharp to mind my business and 
 bring you out. I never took no stock in that Pinney, 
 and Myra's got so stuck up, I hear, since she married 
 him and went to town, puttin' on high-falutin' airs 
 and- 
 
 Cryder heard no more, for he stalked out of the cabin 
 and out of sound of her querulous voice. Before the 
 door he halted in surprise, staring sleepily at the group 
 of visitors. In the forefront stood Pinney, with Myra 
 by his side and directors of the lumber company close 
 about him. Behind this compact body were two or 
 three score of other Kettle Creekers, the greater number 
 men, the rest women and children. Quite as Mrs. 
 Mercer had stated, the little crowd had the look of a 
 "delly-gation." 
 
 "Well, folks, what's up?" he questioned. 
 
 Firmly Pinney drew his derby hat upon his head. 
 
 "We've come to ask you some questions," he an- 
 nounced, "and, Doctor Cryder, we demand truthful 
 answers." 
 
 "Shoot away, Pinney." 
 
 "Were you aware that Patterson was secretly re- 
 tained by the Hedley Lumber Company?" Pinney 
 asked. 
 
 "I heard it recently." 
 
 " But you said nothing about it." 
 
 "Haven't had time," Cryder responded. "I've
 
 BROUGHT LOW 263 
 
 not been to town since I learned the fact. Is that 
 what's sticking in your craw? What if he is? On 
 thinking the matter over, I decided there was nothing 
 wrong about the circumstance. Companies retain 
 half a dozen lawyers; it's a custom; we could retain 
 Gersinger, the Hedley Lumber Company's lawyer, if we 
 wished. The thing isn't important enough to discuss." 
 
 "Did you know Wagner had secured our notes?" 
 Pinney continued. 
 
 "Heard that, too, yes." 
 
 "But said nothing to the rest of us." 
 
 "Well, what difference does it make who holds them? 
 They have to be paid, or the collateral will be forfeited. 
 Our notes are negotiable; banks frequently sell the 
 paper they hold. Nothing out of the way with that. 
 As for telling you, I first thought of doing so, then con- 
 cluded it best to keep still. It would only have given 
 you a cause for worry without doing any good." 
 
 All at once Myra, with face blazing, shouted that he 
 was a liar. Pinney immediately hushed her, drew her 
 back. To the surgeon her malignant expression and 
 angry utterance, capping this unexpected inquiry, filled 
 the moment with an incredible extravagance. Was he 
 dreaming? Were these Kettle Creek folk before him? 
 
 Pinney jerked his chin over his collar, on one side and 
 then on the other, settled himself, and gave Cryder a 
 baleful glance. 
 
 "Yesterday we learned that Patterson was secretly 
 in Wagner's pay and was in consequence making no 
 effort to sell the bonds. Dave Hollister and I went 
 to him and questioned him. He did not deny that he
 
 264 CRYDER 
 
 was in the employ of the company, our competitor, 
 though he made some such an excuse as you've made. 
 He did not deny that he knew the Hedley concern had 
 our notes and collateral, the deeds to our timber. And 
 he could not show us why he had not sold the bonds, 
 only pretending there's no market for them." 
 
 "Well, money is tight, isn't it?" 
 
 "I can sell them; I. could have sold them long ago 
 if you hadn't blocked me." 
 
 "You could do a lot in your mind," Cryder retorted. 
 
 "Your sneers don't affect me, sir," Pinney stated, in a 
 gust of rage. "We have the bonds now and I shall 
 sell them. I'm leaving for New York to-night, where 
 I shall dispose of them immediately to best advantage. 
 The Hedley Lumber Company shall not squeeze us on 
 those notes or seize our property, I warn you, in spite 
 of everything you and Patterson are doing to bring 
 that about." 
 
 "I? You're crazy, man!" 
 
 "I'm perfectly sane. I ' 
 
 Impatiently Dave Hollister pushed him aside. 
 
 "Doc, it's been said you've sold us out, like Patter- 
 son did," he stated, bluntly. "A lot of 'em believe it; 
 some of us don 't. Tell us straight whether Wagner's 
 money has dirtied your fingers." 
 
 Cryder gave a start. This, then, was the maggot in 
 Kettle Creek's brain. He regarded the faces before him 
 one after another faces suspicious, faces ignorant and 
 credulous, faces cunning, faces wearing the stamp of 
 simplicity or of sharpness; and a slow wave of anger 
 began to rise in his breast.
 
 BROUGHT LOW 265 
 
 For a decade they had known him, his speech, his 
 acts, his principles. His life had been as an open book. 
 In their need he had succoured them, and in their distress 
 alleviated their pain, and in their sorrow brought them 
 comfort. For what? For this. If after ten years 
 they now could focus upon him such an outrageous sus- 
 picion, believe him capable of such dishonour, he would 
 not attempt to alter their view. 
 
 He stepped back a pace and folded his arms. He 
 said nothing. 
 
 "Look at him! He don't dare say he hasn't, for 
 he has taken Wagner's money!" Myra shrieked. 
 
 Hollister rubbed his hook nose in perplexity. 
 
 "Tell us, Doc, and shut the mouths of them sayin' 
 you did," he begged. 
 
 "Not a word, Dave." 
 
 He lifted his eyes and gazed over the heads of the 
 crowd at the forest, at the sea of treetops filling the 
 valley, basking in the golden sunlight of afternoon. 
 
 "Doctor Cryder, it would be wisest if you'd make a 
 
 statement to the effect- " Arnold Meek began in 
 
 his deliberate tones. 
 
 But Myra Pinney furiously halted him by a push. 
 
 "Ain't he as good as convictin' himself? And what 
 more do we need than the word of Mrs. Forsythe who 
 knows?" 
 
 "Whose word?" Cryder demanded. 
 
 "Mrs. Forsythe 's. And you know her; don't dare 
 say you don't," Myra flung at him, furiously. "Yes, 
 sir, it was her who showed you up. She knows all about 
 you. She told us about your tricks, yours and Patter-
 
 266 CRYDER 
 
 son's. And you can't deny 'em. Wagner told her 
 himself, not thinkin' she'd tell. He said he was payin ' 
 you and payin' Patterson so the bonds wouldn't be 
 sold. He told her you was workin' with him ever since 
 the company was organized. He said you and Patter- 
 son was laughin' behind our backs how you was knifin' 
 us. He said you'd get a lot of money when the Hedley 
 company had our timber and would move away. He 
 said you was hired to keep Pinney from 'complishin' 
 anything and to fool the board. He said you was a 
 great big black-hearted crook and just the man he could 
 use. He said a lot more, too. And you don't deny 
 it, you're afraid to deny it." 
 
 Cryder lowered his eyes to her vindictive face. 
 
 "Myra " he said, gently. 
 
 "Don't 'Myra' me!" she cried, fuming. 
 
 Again his look slowly swept the little company of 
 Kettle Creekers. Suddenly a wetness blurred his eyes. 
 
 In his way he loved these people, had devoted his life 
 to them. A sickness of soul oppressed him. Turning, 
 he reentered the cabin and closed the door, shutting out 
 the jeers and shouts of "Traitor!" cast at him by the 
 more violent Kettle Creekers. Even a few stones 
 struck on the wall. 
 
 He dropped heavily on a chair and sat with head bent. 
 
 This now the woman who once had been his wife had 
 done, destroying by a lie his good name and rousing 
 against him a flood of Kettle Creek hatred. What a 
 wreck she had made of his life! What a desert of his 
 soul!
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 RISING WIND 
 
 FRANCES HUFF, as August drifted to a close, had 
 become occupied with a new subject outdoor rec- 
 reation for vacationists, interesting herself in the mat- 
 ter with an intensity that had its origin possibly in the 
 disappointment she suffered from the annulment of 
 her plan by the board for small circulating libraries in 
 the towns up the river, in Berger, Porcupine Hill, White 
 Ford, and others. The members of the board had con- 
 sidered her proposed scheme without enthusiasm. 
 Even Schuyler Patterson had smiled rather . conde- 
 scendingly when she explained it to him and doubted 
 that it was practical. He remarked, in addition, that 
 ranchers and miners scarcely would appreciate the ser- 
 vice. Others of the board more bluntly asserted that 
 the Maronville City Library was for the city, not for 
 remote towns. In consequence, Frances, greatly cha- 
 grined at the outcome of her beneficent plan and dis- 
 gusted with the selfish attitude of the library's directors, 
 tore up the typed proposal, worked out in detail, and 
 cast it in the waste basket. Schuyler, at least, might 
 have shown more enthusiasm for the enterprise. And 
 so she had plunged into the subject of vacationing, on 
 
 267
 
 268 CRYDER 
 
 which she had read a convincing article in a magazine. 
 Its theme ran that grown-ups should avail themselves 
 of America's vast expanse of wild land as playground 
 for sane health-gaining, light study, and roughing: 
 camping, tramping, fishing, kodaking, sketching, ob- 
 serving insects, plants, and animals, exploring and moun- 
 tain climbing. Millions of Americans, the writer as- 
 serted, did not know how to play. Getting back to 
 Nature would cure innumerable social ills and dis- 
 satisfactions, therefore back to Nature. Frances 
 agreed with the essay. As she had leisure moments 
 during library hours, she began to read up on flowers, 
 national parks, game preservation, and exploration. 
 A plan to move poor people from congested quarters of 
 large cities at government expense to mountains and 
 woods for vacations began to take form in her mind. 
 It strongly appealed to her. Poor people seldom had 
 a chance to get into the real outdoors. And she felt 
 herself competent to develop such a plan, having re- 
 sided on Kettle Creek for two months. 
 
 Neither to Jack nor to Schuyler Patterson did she 
 broach this new interest; the one would scarcely give 
 it heed as simply a fad, while the other, she suspected, 
 would disapprove of it with an indulgent air or a 
 faintly ironical comment. Certain vague tremors of 
 spirit, nervous apprehensions and wonderments, almost 
 from the day of her engagement had assailed her when 
 she contemplated her approaching marriage. Her 
 fiance had revealed on the one hand a remarkable lack 
 of imagination in some directions and on the other an 
 unsuspected rigidity of mind. Perhaps, she thought,
 
 RISING WIND 269 
 
 these traits naturally were correlated. And she had 
 begun to suspect, for all his manner of gentle good na- 
 ture and of consideration for others, that he possessed 
 no actual warm sympathy where his fellows were con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Once he had described himself to her as "a moderate 
 conservative." She now had periods of speculating 
 on his character, analyzing his phrases and comments 
 and meditating upon the intimate association, the in- 
 evitable adaptation of lives which follows on marriage. 
 And she wondered if his moderate conservatism would 
 turn out in the end a narrow, stark, uncompromis- 
 ing, chilling intolerance and shivered; wondered if 
 in fact his suavity, his courtesy, was not a polish in- 
 stead of an ingrained good-will and trembled; won- 
 dered if at heart he was not concerned with appearances 
 rather than intrinsic virtues, with success rather than 
 principles and feared; wondered if shallow selfishness 
 instead of a broad understanding and a real nobility 
 constituted his nature and shuddered. To discover 
 when bound to him that he was such a man would make 
 her infinitely wretched, kill her love. Her husband 
 must be one who by his capacity for sympathy and 
 noble actions would hold her affection and esteem. 
 Egotism in one form or another appeared an innate 
 characteristic of men; all had it, Jack, Wagner, Cryder, 
 Patterson, even the humblest of the sex; it seemed to be 
 fixed in the bone, to flow in the blood, to rise with the 
 breath, a male idiosyncrasy. Woman must recognize 
 it as a stubborn and inexorable fact. But at least she 
 could choose among its various forms; and as for Frances,
 
 2 7 o CRYDER 
 
 she would take every time an egotism in a frame of big 
 qualities. One in a mere waistcoat would drive her 
 insane. 
 
 About this time, also, she discovered Patterson's 
 chin. She was amazed that she could have gazed at her 
 fiance for months and not have perceived that his chin 
 was slightly retreating and more sharply pointed than 
 she had supposed. In the fact of his Vandyke's cover- 
 ing it was a reason, perhaps, for not earlier remarking 
 its shape; the beard gave it a fullness that in reality did 
 not exist. A prize-fighter's chin was not what Frances 
 desired in a husband, a bull-dog chin, but nevertheless 
 she was sure a chin should possess a certain force. 
 Doctor Cryder, for instance, had a good chin. Some- 
 where she had read that a pointed, modified chin 
 indicated a disposition inclined to subtlety rather than 
 frankness. Of course she put no great faith in such 
 interpretations; but in the circumstance she found a 
 mixed curiosity and worry. She began to study 
 chins. 
 
 When Jack brought Mr. Wagner home one evening 
 to dinner she furtively considered at some length this 
 particular feature of his physiognomy. Wagner had a 
 chin about which there could be no two ways of think- 
 ing. It was like a log end. 
 
 ii 
 
 With expanding satisfaction Frances observed her 
 guest eating with heartiness the dinner she had pre- 
 pared. 
 
 "Somehow I don't understand how Jack has been
 
 RISING WIND 271 
 
 able to keep you as long as he has," he remarked one 
 time during the meal, smiling. "They talk of the 
 cooking of French chefs! But you put the skids under 
 all of them, Miss Huff." 
 
 "Because of that compliment you may have another 
 helping," said she. "Jack, give Mr. Wagner a chop 
 and some more potatoes and peas. No, Mr. Wagner, 
 please don't refuse; I know what you're going to say, 
 that you've been served twice already. But that's 
 nothing. I know the appetite a sawmill develops; 
 Jack brings one home every evening which he can 
 scarcely lug through the door. That's why his shoul- 
 ders are growing thick and bulgy." 
 
 A bright colour was in her cheeks, the glow of excite- 
 ment rising from entertaining an important guest. For 
 a long time Jack had endeavoured to persuade the mana- 
 ger to dine with them, unsuccessfully until this night. 
 It was like a fixed principle with Wagner to avoid all 
 company involving sociality even in a limited degree; 
 he declined invitations to Commercial Club luncheons, 
 to political or civic gatherings, to affairs of all kinds 
 which came to him now by virtue of managership of 
 the Hedley Lumber Company, Maronville's most im- 
 portant industrial concern, and to those business ac- 
 quaintances' homes where he was asked; but at last 
 he had yielded to Jack's repeated desire that he come 
 to dinner. 
 
 Frances discovered somewhat to her surprise that 
 Wagner, while reticent, was not impervious to outward 
 influences. As the meal progressed he relaxed, even 
 expanded a little in amiability; and his solid, fleshy,
 
 272 CRYDER 
 
 bearded face occasionally creased in a quizzical ex- 
 pression as he offered a bit of banter. For this visit he 
 had donned a suit of dark hard worsted, evidently his 
 best but not new, and wore a low linen collar with a 
 black bow tie. His stockiness, his solid corpulence 
 was as marked as ever in this garb; a blow of a fist, 
 Frances fancied, would meet in him resistance as heavy 
 as in a keg of nails. But his efforts to be agreeable, 
 however transient, showed that he was human. Under 
 his protective armour of customary indifference and 
 reserve, the stony shell formed as a result of his un- 
 fortunate penal experience, it was possible that he had 
 many likeable qualities and a sterling character. Jack, 
 at any rate, had declared such to be a fact. 
 
 They had finished eating and were sitting over their 
 cups of coffee when her brother spoke: 
 
 "Pinney is back from New York, I understand." 
 
 "Yes," was the reply. "He 'phoned me." Observ- 
 ing the curiosity in Jack's face he added, "About ob- 
 taining an extension on the paper." 
 
 "Had made no sale, of course?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 That seemed to be all. But presently Jack turned 
 to Frances, saying, "I hadn't told you, I recall. Pat- 
 terson resigned as fiscal agent and attorney for the 
 Kettle Creek company and Pinney is handling or 
 rather trying to handle the association's affairs, in- 
 cluding the sale of bonds. You can imagine with what 
 result." 
 
 "I hadn't heard that," she answered, reflectively. 
 "Schuyler didn't mention it."
 
 RISING WIND 273 
 
 "Oh, he wouldn't. A business matter." 
 
 "I know he was expecting to sell the bonds for them. 
 It's quite important for the company that they be sold, 
 isn't it?" she queried. 
 
 "They'll lose their property if they're not sold." 
 
 "Their mill?" 
 
 "Yes, their mill." He was rubbing the ash from his 
 cigar in an ash-tray with a slow movement of his hand, 
 gazing at the red coal uncovered. "And their timber," 
 said he. "All their property." Again a pause. "But 
 of course, that was to be expected. The company was 
 shaky from the beginning. If the men up yonder on 
 Kettle Creek had not been a lot of crazy fools they 
 would have accepted Mr. Wagner's offer last summer, 
 sold their claims and now have had something. If 
 they hadn't allowed their blind animosity to us to 
 destroy their judgment they would have perceived 
 that the Hedley concern had treated them fairly all 
 along, and particularly so in that last offer. Isn't 
 that the case, Mr. Wagner?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Jack looked at Frances, his countenance grown 
 harder. 
 
 "And what did they do?" he went on. "Stoned 
 Mr. Wagner. Acted like a lot of savages." He gave a 
 sniff of contempt and with an air of satisfaction con- 
 cluded, "Well, there's always ways of handling that 
 kind of cattle, if not in one way then in another. Pour 
 Mr. Wagner some hot coffee, Frankie." 
 
 "You're not afraid it will keep you awake?" she 
 said, smiling, and lifting his cup and saucer to set them
 
 274 CRYDER 
 
 under the faucet of the percolator. "I made it strong, 
 as most men like it." 
 
 "The minute I stretch myself in bed I'm asleep. 
 Coffee never disturbs me. This is very good," was his 
 response. 
 
 Jack also passed his cup. 
 
 "Frankie, you haven't heard the latest about Wil- 
 liams, have you?" he asked, grinning. 
 
 "Not engaged at last!" 
 
 "No. Still safe in his state of single blessedness. 
 He was roped in on a wienie fry up the river the other 
 night in a rather mixed crowd and the girl that had been 
 picked out for him didn't come. When he arrived at 
 the meeting place, someone's house, they hooked him 
 up with Mrs. Pinney. Can you imagine? She didn't 
 discover who was her escort until about the middle of 
 the feed when someone began kidding them concerning 
 the amalgamation of the Hedley and the Kettle Creek 
 companies. And Mrs. Pinney immediately went up 
 in the air. She gave Williams a push which knocked 
 him against the coffee-pot and upset the coffee over the 
 tablecloth and on his flannel trousers, and said it was 
 just another low-down Hedley company trick and 
 Pinney would settle his hash when he got back from 
 New York. And that broke up the picnic." 
 
 "Poor Mr. Williams, what a lot of bad luck he has!" 
 Frances exclaimed, laughing. "Only last month he 
 had that accident when driving a young lady in a rented 
 car and became blinded by an approaching car's head- 
 lights, upsetting in a ditch." 
 
 "He tore his trousers then and had to walk so-so,"
 
 RISING WIND 275 
 
 said Wagner, with a shadowy smile. "He should buy 
 them by the dozen, as they are what suffer in these 
 affairs." 
 
 The conversation was checked by the sound of rapid 
 steps on the porch of the house. Through the open 
 front door they could hear the low purring of an auto- 
 mobile at the curb. They sat expectant, listening, in the 
 attitudes in which at the moment they had been stilled. 
 The door-bell rang sharply at a thrust of a finger. 
 
 "I'll go, Jack," Frances said, as her brother moved 
 to rise. 
 
 She stood up, laid her napkin on the tablecloth, 
 and went from the room. The living room was un- 
 lighted, but through the small entry hall she could see on 
 the opposite side of the screen against the dim star- 
 light a man's vague, motionless form. Pausing in the 
 entry, her fingers went to the wall switch controlling 
 the porch lamp, and at its snap a flood of radiance 
 burst over the visitor, Doctor Cryder. 
 
 "Good evening. Is your brother here, Miss Huff?" 
 he questioned at once. "I've some important in- 
 formation for the Hedley company officials. Couldn't 
 locate Wagner, so I came to find Jack." 
 
 "Mr. Wagner is here, too." 
 
 "Good. May I see them immediately? I pre- 
 sume you're at dinner and I'm sorry to interrupt you, 
 but this matter is pressing." 
 
 "By all means come in." She unhooked the screen 
 and pushed it open, standing aside for him to pass. 
 "Wait. I'll turn on the living-room lights." Her 
 figure moved quickly forward, vanished, then came the
 
 276 CRYDER 
 
 click of a button and the answering illumination of the 
 room. "This way, if you please, Doctor Cryder." 
 And as they passed through the farther doorway, she 
 said, "Doctor Cryder wishes to see you and Mr. Wag- 
 ner, Jack." 
 
 Her brother rose, a flicker of annoyance twitching 
 his brows and lips. 
 
 "Sorry to break in on you at an inopportune moment, 
 Huff," the surgeon stated, brusquely, "but my visit 
 couldn't wait. Good evening, Wagner. I went to 
 your place first, but your landlady didn't know where 
 you had gone. Glad to find you here." He looked 
 from one to the other of the men with an air of serious- 
 ness. "Well, I'm bringing a warning of an attack on 
 your mill, of which I learned late this afternoon. I'll 
 name no names, but some hot-heads are planning to 
 give you a taste of 'direct action.' There are a few 
 I. W. W.'s on Kettle Creek, and- 
 
 "I don't know why you say a few," Jack grunted. 
 But Cryder ignored the sarcasm. 
 
 "They are out to make you trouble. I needn't elabo- 
 rate on the feeling that exists or on events, but those 
 chaps of whom I speak think that things have gone 
 to a point requiring a remedy and you know what 
 that means with an I. W. W." 
 
 "Dynamite?" Jack asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Wagner pushed back his chair and rose. 
 
 "When are they coming?" 
 
 "Sometime to-night. My informant didn 't know the 
 hour, however."
 
 RISING WIND 277 
 
 "You think this is certain?" 
 
 "Yes. Unless there's a change at the last minute. 
 The man who told me is to be relied on." 
 
 Cryder had no intention of revealing more than he 
 had done concerning the person by whom he had been 
 advised of the plot. The man was Arnold Meek. 
 He had come to the surgeon in much perturbation of 
 mind to reveal in confidence what he knew and to take 
 counsel on the difficult matter. Accidentally he had 
 overheard at the door of the McMurtrie cabin Mrs. 
 McMurtrie endeavouring to dissuade her husband, Sam, 
 from participating in the planned attack, a concep- 
 tion originating in Joe Streeter's malignant and law- 
 less mind. Only half a dozen men had been enlisted 
 for the secret and desperate enterprise, men who were 
 reckless, who by disposition inclined to deeds of violence 
 and by belief to hatred of established institutions, laws, 
 and capital. The bitter hatred against the Hedley 
 company in the community, the unceasing pursuit of 
 Nichols, the disputes and fights during the log-drive, 
 the seizure of Kettle Creek logs and the court's re- 
 straining order, the apparent impossibility of legally 
 maintaining the association's rights, the apparent 
 treachery of Patterson and Cryder, the failure to sell 
 the association's bonds, the prospective loss of sawmill 
 and timber, ruin all had spread a black cloud of 
 fury and despair over the dwellers in the little valley; 
 wherefore Streeter had found certain men ripe for vio- 
 lence and lost no time in starting his plot. 
 
 Arnold Meek, listening to the pleadings of the wife 
 and the sullen refusals of the husband, her arguments
 
 278 CRYDER 
 
 and his denunciations, had learned, if not all the 
 criminal project, at least enough to set him trembling. 
 And he had gone to the surgeon for advice and 
 assistance. 
 
 Cryder had heard him out. It was then four o'clock. 
 This was the night appointed for the attack and the 
 destruction of the Hedley plant. He rapidly revolved 
 in his mind the issues presented and the alternatives of 
 action, but at last he informed Arnold Meek that 
 nothing was left but to warn Wagner. The thing 
 had gone too far for any other course, though it were 
 doubtful, even had there been time, if the men could be 
 dissuaded from their lawless attempt. Not by him, in 
 any case. Probably by no one. And it was certainly 
 incumbent upon the two of them as good citizens to 
 thwart the crime. As there was no one else to do so, 
 he himself would go to Maronville to put the Hedley 
 people on guard. 
 
 "This is your chance to get square with the Kettle 
 Creekers for giving you the boot, eh?" Jack said. 
 
 Cryder 's eyes dwelt on him steadily for a moment. 
 
 "No," said he. "I don't believe in violation of law, 
 that's my reason. If law were better respected both 
 by individuals and by corporations there would be less 
 crime and less oppression and less suffering. Now that 
 you know what to expect, I'll go." 
 
 "We'll take care of them," Jack stated, promptly. 
 "Eight o'clock. I doubt if they come before midnight, 
 but we'll be ready for them whenever they do come." 
 
 Wagner had stood silent, but now he spoke. 
 
 "Much obliged to you, Cryder."
 
 RISING WIND 279 
 
 The surgeon nodded and turned to depart, then be- 
 thinking himself again faced about. 
 
 "If you consider the service worth anything, there's 
 something you might do," said he, gazing hard at the 
 manager. "I'm not trying to make you feel that 
 you're under an obligation, understand, for you're not. 
 None. But if you could see your way clear to call off 
 the hunt on Nichols 
 
 An angry gesture by Huff halted his speech and 
 brought his eyes to the youth. 
 
 "Not on your life!" the latter exclaimed, vehemently, 
 with the blood rising in his face. 
 
 Cryder's look passed from him to his sister, who was 
 biting her lip, gazing downward, and on to Wagner. 
 The manager was winding a ringer in his watch chain. 
 He was thinking. A faint perplexity like a shadow 
 appeared on his fleshy tanned countenance, as if in his 
 mind there stirred some involvement of obscure emo- 
 tions. 
 
 "If you had come a day earlier with your news I 
 might have considered it," he stated, finally, with great 
 deliberateness. 
 
 "Why that?" Cryder demanded. 
 
 "Well, I had word this evening. They got him this 
 afternoon over south of the river." 
 
 A frown settled on the surgeon 's brow. 
 
 "Then they're bringing him in?" he queried. 
 
 The manager's forefinger that was winding and 
 unwinding the watch chain suddenly ceased its 
 exercise. 
 
 "They're bringing in his body," he stated. Then
 
 zSo CRYDER 
 
 he looked round. "Jack, get your gun and our hats 
 and we'll start rounding up a bunch of men." 
 
 in 
 
 Frances had caught and held Cryder by the sleeve 
 when he was on the point of going. It had occurred to 
 her that if he had just come from Kettle Creek he could 
 have eaten nothing. A question on the point confirmed 
 this fact. Certainly to give him food and some hot 
 coffee would be little enough return for his disinterested 
 act in apprizing Wagner and Jack of danger to the mill. 
 
 "That's right; sit down and eat, Cryder," her brother 
 flung out, as he hurried to his bed-chamber for his re- 
 volver. 
 
 "I can get a bite downtown," the surgeon replied. 
 
 "If you don't remain, I shall feel hurt," Frances said. 
 
 Already she had suffered a wound at the cavalier 
 manner in which Jack had treated the visitor during the 
 brief discussion, which Cryder had met with an aston- 
 ishingly even temper. Some of the implications in her 
 brother's statements were obscure to her, but their 
 nature was openly discourteous and at once her spirit 
 leapt to make amends to the guest. 
 
 The surgeon appeared to divine something of her 
 feeling. He nodded, saying, "If you really wish," and 
 stood talking with Wagner while she hastened to pre- 
 pare a place for him at the table. 
 
 When the manager and Jack had departed he sat 
 down, refusing to permit her to go to the kitchen to heat 
 the remaining chops, stating that they would satisfy him 
 as they were and declaring that the coffee, which once
 
 RISING WIND 281 
 
 more she set bubbling in the percolator, was the only 
 hot thing he wanted. Watching jealously to see that 
 his plate was kept well-filled, she meanwhile carried on a 
 desultory conversation with him about the prospective 
 attack on the Hedley plant. 
 
 Apprehensions, slow in forming, now began to flock 
 into her mind. Vague and calamitous issues involving 
 her brother seemed unavoidable and raised an anxiety 
 she found it difficult to conceal. 
 
 "Jack will be in danger, won't he?" she questioned, 
 at length. 
 
 Cryder was spreading butter on a piece of bread. 
 
 "I think not. Not now," said he. "Wagner will 
 have guards stationed about the plant and when the 
 fellows from Kettle Creek discover this, they will 
 probably abandon their attempt for to-night, anyway. 
 They depend on secrecy for success. Without it they 
 can't hope to do much." 
 
 He was eating hungrily. The long drive had given 
 him a sharp appetite and in addition he had satisfied 
 himself with a sandwich at noon. Of late he had 
 been forced to do his own cooking and in consequence 
 had done no more than necessary, man-like, as Mrs. 
 Mercer had gone off the week before on a visit, she 
 had announced when informing him of her prospective 
 departure, but, as he suspected, in a definite with- 
 drawal. For some days previous she had been taciturn, 
 disrespectful, ill-disposed. 
 
 " Isn 't it possible somehow to prevent these attacks ? " 
 Frances asked. 
 
 "One can't argue with madmen," said he.
 
 282 CRYDER 
 
 "Is the Kettle Creek company in such straits?" 
 
 "It's as good as ruined now," said he. 
 
 "If its bonds were sold 
 
 "They'll not be sold. Money's too tight. And 
 a man like Pinney couldn't sell anything." 
 
 I thought until this evening that Mr. Patterson was 
 handling their sale," she remarked, "and I was sur- 
 prised when Jack told me during dinner that he wasn't, 
 that he had resigned his place with the association. 
 Did he have a disagreement with you and the rest of the 
 directors?" 
 
 Cryder sipped his coffee. Evidently she had been 
 kept in ignorance of what had transpired in the affairs of 
 the Kettle Creek Lumber Association, though there had 
 been plenty of gossip about it in Maronville business 
 circles. 
 
 "I'm no longer a director," he stated, finally. "I'm 
 out, booted through the door, fired. And as a conse- 
 quence I've lost my standing in Kettle Creek. You'd 
 hear of it in time, so I may as well mention the matter." 
 
 "But you worked so hard for the company!" 
 
 He leaned back in his seat and regarded her with 
 a look partly regretful, partly humorous. But all at 
 once the humour died, leaving his face marked by deep 
 lines. She saw that he was a weary man, an unhappy 
 man, in whom for a moment a spirit of indifference and 
 even of cynicism appeared uppermost. 
 
 "I am an outcast," he said. "Kettle Creek be- 
 lieves that I betrayed them to their enemy. A few 
 there are who doubt this, but so few they number no 
 more than these fingers" he held up a hand "and
 
 RISING WIND 283 
 
 in the storm of maledictions hurled at me they wisely 
 hold their peace. Ridiculous, you say? On the con- 
 trary, it's serious in its effect, not so much on me, 
 though this is bad enough, I admit, but on the Kettle 
 Creekers themselves. Hatred is bad for souls." He 
 brooded for a moment on this thought. "It devastates 
 them. That's the pity of this struggle for property, 
 for wealth. If only men could realize that it breeds 
 hate, and hate poisons and corrodes life. I" a bitter 
 note crept into his voice "I have given ten years and 
 more of service to Kettle Creek and to-day I can cross 
 no threshold there except my own." 
 
 A surge of indignation mounted in Frances. 
 
 "Why should you care?" she cried. 
 
 "But I do care, yes, I do care." 
 
 "They're ignorant and unworthy of your regard 
 if they so basely turn against you after all you've done 
 for them," she declared. "Any one who knows you 
 should be aware of your honesty." 
 
 Between his strong fingers he rolled a piece of bread 
 into a pellet, making no answer. She perceived that 
 his thoughts were following some train of their own; 
 his brows twitched, drew together, twitched anew; 
 she felt that his spirit was in distress. Once he had 
 told her that the folk of the forest, the dwellers on 
 Kettle Creek, were his people, his charge and now 
 they had foresworn him. 
 
 He laid aside the pellet. 
 
 "Well, it's time for me to be moving," he said, in a 
 matter-of-fact tone. 
 
 "If you've nothing taking you, why not remain
 
 284 CRYDER 
 
 longer?" she replied. "We'll go on the veranda where 
 it's cooler. It would please me to have you stay 
 and talk and I suspect you've been much alone 
 lately." 
 
 "As alone as an iceberg at sea." 
 
 "Then spend the evening here." 
 
 "Hanged if I don't!" he exclaimed. "I've sickened 
 of my own company. Even old Mrs. Mercer quit 
 me, and the hospital is as cheerful as a pest-house. 
 Except when I had a call outside the valley somewhere, 
 I've not had a soul to talk to; and you know me well 
 enough to understand what it means when my tongue 
 can't wag." 
 
 Frances led him forth upon the veranda and made 
 him comfortable in a cane chair, with matches and 
 cigars on a stand at his elbow. The porch light she 
 extinguished. From the street lamp at the corner a 
 soft radiance fell upon the lawn and walks before the 
 house, but a heavy vine trained up a column and falling 
 across the front in a drapery of leaves and tendrils gave 
 a dim obscurity to the place where they sat. Over the 
 roofs of the bungalows across the street a narrow hori- 
 zon of stars was visible. An automobile glare illumi- 
 nated the gravel roadway in the street, revealed Cry- 
 der's car at rest by the curb, passed, vanished. A dis- 
 tant chatter of girlish voices suddenly arose somewhere 
 and then died. 
 
 The surgeon lighted a cigar and vigorously puffed it 
 awhile. 
 
 "How does the library work go?" he asked. 
 
 "Very well. Not enough of it, though. I wish I
 
 RISING WIND 285 
 
 could reach out beyond the corporate limits. I had a 
 plan for extending the shelves into the country about, 
 little branches in towns, among them one in the store at 
 Kettle, but I was promptly sat on by the board. I 
 discovered people don't pay taxes for the benefit of 
 outsiders, not even if the books collect dust." 
 
 "You probably would have found Kettle folks using 
 the volumes to set the coffee-pot on or for some such 
 purpose," he remarked. 
 
 "But you really believe a library would benefit 
 them, don't you? Joking aside." 
 
 "Assuredly. Your idea is tiptop. Never thought 
 of it myself, or I'd have tried it out," he said. "All 
 the books I had there, too! Hundreds! By the al- 
 mighty, I wish you had put it into my head before! 
 And now it's too late, unfortunately. They wouldn't 
 touch a volume if they knew it came from me. But 
 you're on the right track, I'll swear to that." His 
 voice became vibrant; he was beginning to glow. 
 "There's only one cure for ignorance and that's edu- 
 cation, knowledge, breadth of mind through the incul- 
 cation of right ideas. Kettle is a fine example of a 
 benighted community and look at it! Of course, all 
 the ignorance isn't confined to people like the settlers 
 up there. Not by a long shot. In the so-called 'edu- 
 cated classes' there is plenty of it, too, and among the 
 wealthy men of our country who misuse their op- 
 portunity. Look at the owners of southern cotton 
 mills where child-labour is employed, look at them! 
 If I told them they were ignorant, they'd be insulted, 
 but that's the plain fact of the case. When greed or
 
 286 CRYDER 
 
 selfishness gets the best of a man, then he's ignorant 
 and lacking in a true understanding of values of life. 
 I once told a rich man that and he became as mad as a 
 hornet. He nearly had a stroke of apoplexy. But 
 it's the truth. And education is the only remedy, not 
 only education of the mind but of the heart. When 
 I gaze round I sometimes think the task is infernally 
 slow if not hopeless, but nevertheless I know that a gain 
 is being made, perhaps only in infinitesimal degrees but 
 being made just the same, slowly, surely, a little each 
 year, a step each generation, each century, each mil- 
 lennium. We of to-day are fairer and kinder than our 
 forebears of a hundred years ago, amazingly more 
 brotherly to fellow beings than men of the Middle Ages, 
 of the ancient days. From slavish and sodden crea- 
 tures the race has risen to be human, and some day, in 
 some far dawn, it may mount to a plane of unselfishness 
 and nobility. I can't doubt it. Man's history points 
 thither. We're not a race staggering forward blindly 
 and futilely without a purpose or without a destiny from 
 a creation to an extinction, a host of pitiful bipeds issuing 
 from one pit and making a mournful struggle across 
 lighted space to vanish in another abyss oblivion. 
 Never!" 
 
 Cryder flung himself back in his chair, emitted a deep 
 breath, and thrust his cigar between his teeth. In that 
 exalted declaration, uttered with earnestness, with 
 fierce conviction, there flamed forth the unquenchable 
 faith of the man. No mistake in that. Frances sat 
 rapt, caught up in the spell of his unconscious eloquence. 
 Thus might a prophet of old have come forth from his
 
 RISING WIND 287 
 
 mountain and spoken. How meaningless and empty, 
 how like tinkling brass, sounded the vague, smooth pe- 
 riods mouthed by Schuyler Patterson in his address at 
 the opening ceremony of the Kettle Creek Lumber As- 
 sociation 's sawmill! 
 
 A long silence followed. Both were thinking. 
 
 "Will you stay up there?" she ventured, at last. 
 
 "Yes." He puffed a cloud of smoke which drifted 
 under the curtain of vine into the thin light beyond. 
 "Until there is a change, at any rate." 
 
 "That may happen?" 
 
 "Very soon. The Hedley company holds the as- 
 sociation's notes and collateral security comprised of 
 deeds given by the settlers." 
 
 Amazement kept the girl dumb for a moment. 
 
 "It does! Jack's company! I never dreamed of 
 such a thing," she gasped. "How in the world did 
 it get them?" 
 
 "Bought them of the bank, I suppose." 
 
 "And the bank never told the Kettle Creekers?" 
 
 "There was no obligation on its part to do so," 
 he replied. "Except a moral one, perhaps, as the two 
 companies are competitors." 
 
 "If the notes aren't paid, then Jack's company will 
 have the Kettle Creek timber? Is that it?" 
 
 "Exactly. After certain legal formalities." 
 
 "What will become of the people living there?" 
 
 "They will have to move." 
 
 "That's why some of them are trying to blow up the 
 plant to-night?" she said, quickly. "I don't know but 
 that I should feel the same way myself." As he did not
 
 288 CRYDER 
 
 make a rejoinder, she continued: "I suppose the hunt 
 for Nick has had something to do with it, too. Poor 
 Nick!" 
 
 "All Kettle Creek is very bitter over that," he 
 stated. ''Well, they got him, Wagner's gang. It will 
 only make matters worse." 
 
 "I never thought Nick really guilty." 
 
 "He wasn't guilty of murder, only of homicide in 
 self-defense," Cryder exclaimed. "Whoever killed 
 him is the murderer, no matter how the law may look at 
 it. Well, let us not discuss it. I can't talk calmly 
 to-night of his death." 
 
 "I myself could cry," said Frances. 
 
 In her mind she was beholding Nichols as he had 
 appeared in the Hedley office on the day he gave over 
 driving the grub wagon, in his striped silk shirt and 
 gaudy attire, grinning, proud, complacent; as she had 
 seen him about the hospital, where he ran little errands 
 for her or loitered to gossip; as he went to and fro 
 driving the surgeon on his round of calls. Good- 
 natured Nick, dead! Almost she could hear, it seemed, 
 the furious screeching of saws and planes, the howling 
 of machinery in its insatiable hunger for logs. Her 
 heart quivered. The vast and ruthless thing called 
 industry had dragged into its maw another human 
 being, another life. This time, Nick. 
 
 By an effort she began to talk of other matters. 
 She made inquiry as to whether the surgeon had lately 
 seen the patients who had occupied beds in the hospital 
 ward during her attendance on Jack, the rancher whose 
 foot had been injured, the woman Cryder had operated
 
 RISING WIND 289 
 
 for goitre, and the little girl whom he had cured of 
 sleeping sickness. She asked if he had performed any 
 important operations during recent weeks. She sought 
 information about fishing this summer in Kettle Creek? 
 whether trout were abundant or scarce, and as to his 
 catches. 
 
 "And, oh, do you remember that wonderful fiery 
 sunset we watched on the ridge that evening when we 
 reached home after the thunderstorm? It made the 
 forest seem on fire/* 
 
 "It was fine," said he. 
 
 He could speak in reply only briefly. Poignant 
 emotions and painful memories had been stirred by her 
 recollections. Crush as he would his love for her, it 
 swelled anew; and now at this moment, sitting by her 
 side in the dusk of the veranda, listening to her voice, 
 beholding dimly her form, he felt an anguish of heart 
 and a desolation in his life that left him weak. He 
 dared not trust his tongue greatly at the instant. 
 In his breast the thumping blood was like rapid 
 hammers. 
 
 She continued speaking while he sat gnawing his 
 cigar or puffing at it in a kind of exasperated fury. He 
 was a fool for having stayed. He should have gone the 
 minute he delivered his message to Wagner. This 
 trial was getting to be more than he could bear. Would 
 her lips never cease dwelling on those days, that 
 wretched time last summer? 
 
 All at once a heavy detonation sounded from up the 
 river. Instantly Frances became dumb. They sat trans- 
 fixed, staring, barkening. A second dull boom followed.
 
 2 9 o CRYDER 
 
 From the mountain across the river from the sawmill 
 came a double thunderclap. 
 
 Frances's hand went out to Cryder's and clutched 
 it in fear. 
 
 "Lucifer reigns to-night," he said.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 
 
 ALL Maronville during the days following the night 
 attack on the Hedley plant buzzed with excitement. 
 That the damage turned out to be small, owing to the 
 prompt action of Wagner's guards in repelling the 
 invaders, in no degree lessened the general ebullition, 
 the gust of feeling, and the sizzle of talk. Kettle Creek 
 was not without its friends, nor the Hedley concern 
 without its enemies. Every phase of the antagonism 
 between the rival companies was discussed and argued : 
 the long hatred engendered years before, the refusal of 
 the Hedley company to buy at a fair price, the organ- 
 ization of the settlers' union, the building of the new 
 mill, the interference and fights on the river during 
 the log-drive, the sale of notes and collateral by the 
 Citizens' National to the Heidenstreit interests, the 
 alleged double-dealing of Cryder and Patterson, Pin- 
 ney's frantic, futile efforts to dispose of the bonds. 
 Spontaneously a knowledge of the struggle for posses- 
 sion of the tract of virgin forest somehow was general; 
 and two bodies of opinion developed one maintaining 
 that the Hedley company was in no wise to blame, that 
 throughout it had lawfully stood on its rights, that the 
 
 291
 
 292 CRYDER 
 
 Kettle Creek association failure in no respect could be 
 attributed to it, that it was a Maronville industry em- 
 ploying many men and therefore to be supported, while 
 the cooperative company was from the first impractical, 
 composed of men of no means or credit and given to 
 lawlessness; the other asserting that the Kettle Creekers 
 had been constantly pursued and harassed, deceived 
 and tricked, oppressed and brought to the verge of ruin 
 by a soulless corporation which wanted its timber 
 one more instance of how a rich and powerful con- 
 cern openly and secretly robbed the poor to satisfy its 
 greed. 
 
 On the morning following the attack Pinney had 
 issued a statement denying the association's previous 
 knowledge of or responsibility for the violence. At the 
 Hedley sawmill an exchange of shots had occurred 
 before the plotters, who apparently were divided into 
 two groups, could accomplish their design of blowing 
 up the building. In the mixed fusillade one of the de- 
 fenders had been wounded, Tom Williams, the cashier, 
 who received a bullet in the calf of his left leg from the 
 gun of one of his companions, malicious gossips declared. 
 But in this ineffectual sortie of the ruffians one man had 
 been captured, Jim Myers, called Big Jim; the fellow, 
 it was remembered, who with his peavey had hooked 
 Jack Huff out of the stream at the time of the river acci- 
 dent the previous year. He now was held in a cell in 
 the jail behind the court house. 
 
 The second group of conspirators acting simultane- 
 ously was more successful, being undetected. It had 
 set off two blasts of dynamite against the piling of the
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 293 
 
 log boom and blown out a section, releasing a quantity 
 of logs which floated down the river. Men now were 
 at work retrieving these, dragging them from the water 
 upon the bank to be hauled back later to the mill. The 
 explosion of the two charges at the boom were the 
 detonations heard over the town. 
 
 Pinney throughout the week made statements, each 
 more verbose and more nervous, explicitly assuring the 
 public of the association's innocence and deprecating 
 the outrage. Unfortunately Big Jim owned a claim and 
 was a stockholder in the company. The Hedley com- 
 pany instituted suit against the manager and his fellow- 
 directors for heavy damages. 
 
 Wagner had no statement to make. 
 
 Big Jim sat in his cell, chewed tobacco, and to the 
 county attorney's interrogations answered steadfastly 
 that he had done the job alone. Nobody had helped 
 him. No, he wasn't an I. W. W. No, other Kettle 
 Creekers had nothing to do with it. And it made no 
 difference where he got the dynamite. 
 
 Williams lay in a room in Martin's hospital, re- 
 ceiving flowers, talking languidly with visitors, and ex- 
 plaining that he wasn't in the least a hero. The 
 wound in his calf was painful but healing nicely. He 
 would soon be about. It would have been romantic 
 if he had been shot in the arm and could go round with 
 it in a sling, pale and interesting, but things always 
 happened to him in a manner baldly prosaic. He even 
 confessed that he didn't know who had shot him, 
 friend or enemy. It was dark. Bullets were flying. 
 He was trying to crawl under a lumber-pile when hit.
 
 294 CRYDER 
 
 Absolute truth. He was scared to death. No need 
 for them to attempt to make him out in a different 
 light. 
 
 One afternoon Frances Huff stopped in after closing 
 hour at the library to make inquiry of his condition and 
 to leave some novels, for which he had asked. 
 
 "With all the solicitous friends who visit you I 
 doubt that you will find time to read a single one, but I 
 brought four," she stated. 
 
 "Never fear, I'll discover time to devour them," 
 he responded. "Friends are beginning to drop away 
 from me. The gilt of heroism is wearing off and, be- 
 sides, I've a competitor. Mrs. Pinney has sent flowers 
 to Big Jim, I understand, and I expect interest to 
 swing in his direction. Have you seen the Spokane 
 papers?" 
 
 "No. Did they write up the affair?" 
 
 "Elaborately. Reporters have been here in town 
 all week. Didn't you know? Somewhere they dug 
 up a photograph of me and they snapped a picture of 
 Big Jim, and in one journal the two pictures appeared 
 side by side over the caption, 'Two of the Maronville 
 Dynamiters.' The reporter of the paper made apolo- 
 gies to me this morning, but I'm ruined. Every wag 
 in town will be uttering the joke for the rest of my life." 
 He sighed. 
 
 Frances was unable to decide whether he was only 
 amused or really distressed. 
 
 "You could have the newsoaper publish a correc- 
 tion," she suggested. 
 
 "The damage is done, I fear," said he. "Well, of
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 295 
 
 course, I can sue the owners. Do you mind if I smoke 
 my pipe ? By the way, you heard of young Nichols 's 
 fate, I suppose. Sad thing." 
 
 "Tragic," Frances exclaimed. 
 
 "Well, I trust there will soon be an end to the trouble 
 that has so long centred in the Kettle Creek timber 
 dispute. By this time you naturally know that our 
 company holds the association's obligations, which are 
 due in a short period, some ten days. If you don't 
 know it, you're the only person. And as the associa- 
 tion will be practically bankrupt when they fall due, we 
 shall forfeit the security in payment of them. A some- 
 what severe measure, it seems, but that is the way 
 business is done. And in the long run it will be bene- 
 ficial, bringing that fine body of timber into position for 
 conversion into lumber." 
 
 "The Kettle Creek company was logging and sawing 
 it," she returned. "I see no gain in our company 
 getting it, as far as the public is concerned." 
 
 A slight smile moved Williams's lips. 
 
 "We can take it out in a tenth of the time that 
 the settlers could, assuming their company had con- 
 tinued to operate." 
 
 Frances still was unconvinced. 
 
 "Would that be a gain? I don't think so. Doctor 
 Cryder told me early in the summer that the association 
 expected to log only the largest trees, year by year, in 
 order to perpetuate the forest instead of destroying it 
 and leaving the region a waste of stumps." 
 
 Williams, with a faintly cynical expression, lifted his 
 eyes to the ceiling.
 
 296 CRYDER 
 
 "That isn't practical lumbering," he remarked. 
 "After timber is cut, it will grow up again in time. 
 Cryder's a good deal of a radical in his ideas, a theorist. 
 It's to be guessed, isn't it, that lumbermen know more 
 about the business than any one else? As a surgeon, 
 Cryder's very good he took the bullet out of my leg 
 the night I was shot, when Martin got hold of him and 
 brought him here; but as an expert on lumbering, I 
 accept his notions with considerable reserve." 
 
 "I can't see what's wrong with logging a forest so 
 as to preserve it," she persisted. 
 
 "But it's impractical." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "For one thing, it would be more expensive." 
 
 "Would it be in the long run? A forest isn't like 
 a mine, its precious contents to be extracted and the 
 ground abandoned, though that's the way lumber- 
 men view it. It's a growing thing. I don't see why 
 it shouldn't be kept alive to give an annual yield, like an 
 orchard. Men don't destroy an orchard to get the 
 crop." 
 
 "Cryder must have converted you," he stated, 
 laughing. 
 
 "He did. And I've yet to hear a sound argument, 
 aside from one about quick returns, that refutes or 
 disproves the wisdom of the plan. No need to tell me 
 opinion is against me; I know it. Jack and Mr. Patter- 
 son and most men take your position, but that only 
 shows they can't break away from tradition and a 
 penny-in-the-hand policy. Alone, of all I've talked 
 with, Doctor Cryder looks into the future."
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 297 
 
 Williams a second time lighted his pipe, which had 
 gone out. After a puff he shook his head. 
 
 "Poor Doc! He's in bad all around," said he, 
 reflectively. "I'd like to know who started the canard 
 about his having sold out the Kettle Creekers to us. 
 Anyone with a thimbleful of brains would know that it 
 was a falsehood." 
 
 "Was that the reason the Kettle folk turned against 
 him and now are so bitter?" she demanded. 
 
 His brows lifted in surprise. 
 
 "Hadn't you heard? It was because of the failure 
 of the sale of the bonds. He maintained that Patter- 
 son was doing his best to sell them, you see, but here 
 a month or so ago that story started of their being paid 
 by Wagner to prevent the sale and of Patterson being in 
 our employ he is retained by us, you know and the 
 Kettle Creekers believed it and broke with both men. 
 I'm astonished you hadn't heard of it. No one pays 
 any attention to the wretched lie. Too ridiculous. 
 Men of their position and character don't do things like 
 that, naturally. I wonder if I've been indiscreet in 
 speaking of the matter, since Mr. Patterson has made 
 no mention of it to you?" 
 
 "Why shouldn't you speak of it? He probably 
 thought it too trivial, as far as he was concerned." 
 
 "It hasn't bothered him, for a fact," Williams 
 agreed. "I can safely say it hasn't affected his repu- 
 tation one particle and he's probably pleased to be 
 freed from his connection with the Kettle Creekers. 
 They must have been very distasteful to one of his 
 discriminating nature and polished manners. It was
 
 298 CRYDER 
 
 different in his case from that of Cryder's; Doc is 
 something of a Kettle Creeker himself. He could 
 endure those people without wincing. But by all 
 reports he's certainly been made their goat. They 
 have it in for him in every possible way. They openly 
 curse him now, I hear. The women spit at him, it's 
 said. The kids throw stones at him. And, it's told 
 me, he never replies or lifts a hand. Probably that's 
 gossip, however, as I can't imagine Doc playing dead 
 in a row. Must you go?" 
 
 Frances had risen from her seat. 
 
 "It's close to six," said she. "I've a hungry man 
 coming home from the sawmill." 
 
 Her desire now was to escape from his chatter and be 
 alone with her feelings. In imagination she could see 
 the surgeon walking in silence from the cursing ruffians 
 and screeching harridans at Kettle, with the stones 
 hurled by childish hands falling about him, walking 
 from them into the solitude of the forest. Yet he 
 stayed there, waiting. He had told her why. 
 
 A time might rise when they should need him. 
 
 ii 
 
 The September sunshine lay on the idle millyard 
 of the Kettle Creek Lumber Association, flooding the 
 stacks of new lumber, the engine-house from whose tall 
 black pipe no smoke gushed forth, the long building 
 holding the machinery and the fenced ground. Work 
 had been stopped by the directors "for the present." 
 The final hours in which the disaster threatening the 
 company might be averted were ebbing. In a last
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 299 
 
 desperate effort to sell the bonds and raise money to 
 save forfeiture of the deeds Pinney, Arnold Meek, and 
 Dave Hollister had gone to Seattle to make a round of 
 the bond houses, to appeal to the banks, to perform a 
 miracle at a moment when financial miracles were being 
 sought by a host of hard-pressed business concerns. 
 
 By a lumber-pile two men were loading two-by-fours 
 on a wagon, one the yard man and the other a rancher 
 who had outwitted the local lumber dealers by buying 
 at the sawmill. Each plank was let drop on the load 
 with a dull clap. The horses stood with lowered 
 heads, one with tongue protruding from a corner of his 
 mouth by the steel bit, switching their tails, occasionally 
 twitching ears or a flank to be rid of flies. 
 
 As they talked a short, corpulent man came in view 
 and moved toward them in the narrow street between 
 the rows of lumber stacks, casting appraising glances 
 upward or about. His gray Stetson hat was down- 
 drawn against the sun's rays, his unbuttoned vest 
 swung a little at each step. Reaching the wagon, he 
 gave the men a nod and went on. 
 
 "That's Wagner, the manager of the other mill, and 
 he's looking his loot over," said the yard man, when 
 Wagner had passed beyond hearing. 
 
 "How's that?" asked the rancher. 
 
 "The other sawmill bought the notes the Kettle 
 Creek association gave the bank," was the explanation, 
 "and the notes fall due to-morrow. The association 
 had to give security along with their notes." 
 
 "They'd have to, of course. If a man borrows any- 
 thing at a bank, it takes a mortgage on everything he's
 
 300 CRYDER 
 
 got includin' his shirt and his soul. Don't I know? 
 Didn't the First National make me sell my cattle a 
 while ago when the market was way off in order to pay 
 a note of mine they held? Made me take a big loss. 
 Seems like they always want their money when we 
 farmers and ranchers are in a corner. Looks to me like 
 the banks and the packing companies and grain dealers 
 are all workin' together to skin the people. What was 
 it you was sayin' about him lookin' over his loot ? " 
 
 The yard man, not loath to enjoy a moment's rest, 
 stepped into the shade of the lumber-pile and lighted a 
 cigarette. 
 
 "The bank made this Kettle Creek mill put up a 
 mortgage, you see," he stated. "Covers the whole 
 plant including the lumber not sold. Then the com- 
 pany had to put up deeds on all the timber it owns. 
 Well, the notes are due to-morrow and the company 
 can't pay. So it loses. To-morrow bright and early 
 Wagner will start foreclosure proceedings on the mill, 
 which to be sure leaves the association till next spring 
 to pay, but it never can and might as well lose it at 
 once. Shucks, it can't do nothing with its timber gone, 
 for them deeds will be grabbed first shot and put on 
 record. The other mill don't care about this one spe- 
 cial, though it will clean it up with the rest; it's the tim- 
 ber on Kettle Creek it's been after as fine a body of 
 timber as lays outdoors." 
 
 "Didn't you sell enough lumber to get the money 
 to pay the notes?" the other inquired, thoughtfully. 
 
 "Sell, nothing. We sold a carload now and then, but 
 what's that in a business like this? Between vou and
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 301 
 
 me this Pinney running the mill isn't no business man. 
 He ain't been here any of the time lately, to speak of. 
 Leaves his wife to run the office while he goes flying 
 round the country spending money, and you know 
 what a woman is like as a boss. Comes out here and 
 tries to tell me what to do, and me worked in yards 
 all over the country. Well, this is my last day." 
 
 "Quittin'?" 
 
 "Out of a job to-morrow. Have to look round for 
 another. Maybe I can get one up at the other mill, 
 though it ain't paying what it ought to. Only five 
 a day. Now when I was working in the shipyard dur- 
 ing the war, we got some real wages, and 
 
 Wagner had turned down a crossway running at 
 right angles to the one in which the two men talked, 
 and, emerging from the area of lumber, advanced 
 toward the sawmill. It was still, lifeless, no sawdust 
 belching from its blower upon the great pile close by 
 and no roar of saws filling the air with discordant sound. 
 Advancing at a deliberate pace, he saw no one. It was 
 like a deserted building. 
 
 He entered and looked about at the interior, then 
 proceeded to an inspection of the building the car- 
 riers, saws, planes, belting with an eye to its arrange- 
 ment and its capacity. Should a betterment of mar- 
 ket conditions warrant, it was his idea to recommend 
 to the Heidenstreit office in Spokane rather than to 
 junk and sell the machinery to operate the small plant 
 in connection with the larger mill, as certain rough sizes 
 of lumber could be manufactured here as economically 
 as at the larger plant, thereby increasing the output.
 
 302 CRYDER 
 
 The machinery, while not new, was still in good con- 
 dition. With certain changes in position it could be 
 improved. He began to consider these, to rearrange in 
 his mind the location of the steel frames of the saws, the 
 tracks of the carriers, and the overhead machinery. He 
 examined the log chute. Finally, he went from the build- 
 ing to the engine-house, but the door of this was closed, 
 and trying its knob he found the door locked as well. 
 
 After moving to the river bank, where he considered 
 for a time the boom and estimated the number of logs 
 it contained, he turned about and tramped toward the 
 small office building in front of the sawmill. He went 
 without haste, in his accustomed slow, firm gait, a 
 finger twisting his watch chain and the sunshine glinting 
 on his brownish-gray beard. This was the first time 
 he had ever set foot inside the association's fenced en- 
 closure, but if he felt any interest beyond that of 
 the necessities of his visit it was not evident from his 
 manner. He had come to make a cursory inventory, 
 nothing more. 
 
 At the door of the office he paused, looking within. 
 Myra Pinney sat at a roll-top desk, her round back 
 straining a crimson waist, her cheek pumping method- 
 ically to the chewing of gum. As he watched she took 
 this out of her mouth, gazed at it, stuck it on the edge of 
 the desk and drawing a box of candy toward her, lifted 
 its cover, picked forth a large chocolate, inserted it in her 
 mouth and again bent over a ledger, which she appeared 
 to study without understanding. 
 
 He stepped over the threshold into the room. At 
 the sound of his boot on the floor Myra turned her head
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 303 
 
 and because her mouth was full of the sweet succeeded 
 in making only an inarticulate gurgle of greeting. She 
 gazed fixedly at him while hastily endeavouring to 
 swallow the chocolate. 
 
 Of Wagner she had heard much. In her mind he 
 had assumed something of the character of a diabolical 
 despot, infinitely mercenary and cruel, heartless, 
 bloodthirsty, a protagonist in evil, the arch-persecutor 
 of Kettle Creek folk, and the instigator of her brother's 
 murder. The shock, the horror of Nick's killing in 
 the hills not far away and of the bringing to Maronville 
 of his lifeless, bullet-riddled body and of its mournful 
 conveyance to Kettle Creek for burial, at moments 
 still affected her thoughts and set a sickish palpitation 
 astir in her breast. She had seen Wagner the night of 
 his meeting with the settlers at Kettle a year before; 
 she had glimpsed him once or twice since; but devoted 
 as he was to his work, disinclined as he was to make him- 
 self conspicuous and remaining closely at his lodging- 
 place when not at the Hedley plant, it was not strange 
 that she now failed to recognize in him the villain she 
 imagined. 
 
 She saw a short, fleshy, bearded man, with a sug- 
 gestion of familiarity in his face and figure, in a pocket 
 of whose vest were stuck several yellow lead pencils and 
 a folding rule. She decided he must be a carpenter or a 
 contractor who had come hither with a purpose of 
 obtaining prices on lumber. In manner he was un- 
 ostentatious and in appearance commonplace. Proba- 
 bly a building contractor. 
 
 Gulping the last of her confection, she rose heavily
 
 304 CRYDER 
 
 and walking to a clay jar resting on a box by a window, 
 lifted its lid, dipped with a tin cup some water from the 
 receptacle, drank, rinsed her mouth, replaced the lid 
 upon the jar and the tin cup upon a nail, wiped her 
 hands upon a roller towel on the wall and turned about 
 ready for business She had been utilizing her stay 
 in the office, which she had eagerly undertaken to 
 manage during Pinney's absence, in peering into the 
 ledger in an effort to learn the details of the association's 
 difficulties. It had occurred to her that once she knew 
 them a brilliant idea for saving the company from ruin 
 might result. In her estimation this was not so im- 
 possible; people had not credited her with the brains 
 she knew she possessed; she was brighter than the 
 women she had met or seen in Maronville, anyway as 
 bright. But after turning the leaves of the big book 
 for half an hour and staring at incomprehensible entries 
 and figures she had been unable to make head or tail of 
 the sawmill's affairs. 
 
 However, she could sell lumber, at any rate. Pinney 
 had left her a list of prices for the various dimensions 
 and sizes of the yard stock in case purchasers should 
 appear. She already had made two sales after con- 
 sulting the yard man: one to a fellow who wanted 
 some planking for irrigation headgates and one this 
 morning to the rancher now loading his wagon. 
 
 "Good morning, did you want to buy some lumber?" 
 she questioned, using both hands as she spoke to adjust 
 her crimson waist. 
 
 A glimmer of amusement passed over Wagner's face. 
 
 "I didn't come for that," he remarked.
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 305 
 
 "Maybe to get prices on some stock?" said she. 
 
 "I've been out looking your stock over," he replied. 
 "You're Mrs. Pinney?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm Mrs. Pinney," was the complacent re- 
 sponse. " Pinney 's away in Seattle on business to-day 
 and I 'm running the office. We've got the best lumber 
 there is if you want any. Better 'n the Hedley's lum- 
 ber, all clear grain. No knots at all." 
 
 "None at all, madam? That's remarkable." 
 
 "Well, not enough to notice, anyway," said she. 
 "Pinney declares it's the best lumber sawed in this 
 part of the country and he knows." 
 
 "And he 'sin Seattle?" 
 
 "Yes. On a big business deal. He's gone to sell 
 some bonds. I'm expecting to hear any moment he's 
 sold 'em, for he's goin' to telegraph me if when 
 they're sold, so my mind will be easy." 
 
 "Then your mind isn't easy?" queried the visitor. 
 
 Myra decided to make no reply. The conversation 
 had passed a little further than she had intended. Her 
 mind, to be sure, wasn't easy; indeed, of late it had had 
 periods of distressing anxiety and depression at the 
 prospect of the company's failure and loss and at 
 thought of the future. To be cast into penury once 
 more was almost terrifying. And then, too, just about 
 this time she had discovered she was pregnant. The 
 thought of suffering financial disaster when soon she 
 should bear a child filled her with dismay, almost with 
 despair. At night she sometimes awoke and lay in an 
 agony of apprehension and beset by formless fears until 
 her flesh quivered all over. One thing, she should never
 
 306 CRYDER 
 
 live as she had before her marriage, no matter what 
 happened. Never. Pinney simply had to do some- 
 thing to avert the impending catastrophe and to save 
 the company and become wealthy as he had promised. 
 God ought to help, too. If she prayed, maybe He would. 
 Kettle Creek folks hadn't paid much attention to God 
 or done any praying and perhaps that was one reason 
 they had had so many troubles. She had decided she 
 would begin praying right away. She had done so on 
 her knees, at three o'clock in the morning, in the dark, 
 stammering worried and incoherent appeals to the 
 neglected Divinity to make someone buy the bonds, 
 to help the Kettle Creekers and keep her and Pinney 
 from being poor and their child not yet born. Then 
 she had climbed into bed. She would wait and see now 
 if it worked. . . . 
 
 "Did you say you wanted to get some prices on 
 stock?" she reiterated to the visitor. 
 
 "No, not this morning," said he. 
 
 "I'd like to sell you some lumber." 
 
 "That would be like taking coals to Newcastle," 
 he returned. Perceiving an uncomprehending light 
 in her eyes, he continued, "I'm in the business of mak- 
 ing lumber, too." 
 
 "Then why are you coming here?" 
 
 "I want a look at the plant. If we take it over, as 
 likely, I need to know what's here." 
 
 A suspicion, a fear, clutched at Myra's heart. 
 
 "Who are you?" she demanded, staring. 
 
 "Wagner's my name, Mrs. Pinney," he stated in a 
 matter-of-fact tone. "I expected to find Mr. Pinney
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 307 
 
 in the office and to go over things with him. But as 
 he's away 
 
 "Say, you've got your nerve coming here!" she cried, 
 a wave of scarlet dyeing her plump neck and cheeks. 
 
 "I've a perfect right to come, madam." 
 
 "Not if I know it. This mill ain't yours yet, nor 
 our timber, either, and won't be, I'm telling you. 
 We're going to sell those bonds yet." 
 
 "The time is short," said he. 
 
 "We'll do it just the same and you get out of this 
 office and out of the yard!" she went on, fiercely. "If 
 there were men here they would run you out quick 
 enough. You just came to be insolent." 
 
 "I came to examine the mill," he interrupted, 
 calmly. 
 
 But in the sudden anger that overpowered her Myra 
 was not to be deflected from utterance of the long- 
 collected bitterness in her heart. 
 
 "You look on our mill and our land just as if it was 
 your own already," she exclaimed. "You came to 
 gloat over me and Pinney. It isn't enough that you 
 made Kettle Creek trouble from the very start, but you 
 want to see us suffer as well. If I had a gun, I'd shoot 
 you right now. You and your company have always 
 wanted to get our timber away from us and tried every 
 way to make us sell for nothing, and ever since we 
 started our 'sociation you've fought us and tried to rob 
 us. You got your log-drivers to quarrel with us all the 
 way down the river. You took our logs. You bribed 
 that slick rascal Patterson and along with him Doc 
 Cryder. You sent men to hunt my brother Nick and
 
 3 o8 CRYDER 
 
 never let him rest and kept him hiding in rags and half 
 starved till at last you caught and killed him. Yes, 
 you killed him, just as much as if you'd shot him your- 
 self. And they never touched you for it. You go 
 free. You've got money and influence behind you, so 
 you don't hang. But you're nothing but a murderer. 
 My brother's blood is on your hands. I hope to God 
 when you die you burn forever for what you've done. 
 I hope while you're yet living that you suffer as no man 
 ever suffered before and I watch you ! I hope you rot 
 while you're still breathing and lie flat in agony for 
 years. I hope all the wickedness in your life comes 
 back to torture you. I'd almost die myself to see you 
 tasting hell." 
 
 Myra had exhausted her breath and stood panting 
 from her burst of fury. 
 
 "I judge that you dislike me," said Wagner. 
 
 The young woman's lips quivered, then the tears 
 began to roll from her eyes. Against such a man of 
 stone, against such a monster of calm, who under her 
 fiercest invective remained unaffected, she felt a sudden 
 hopelessness of achieving anything. Her rage had left 
 him untouched, as all the desperate struggles of the 
 Kettle Creekers to escape his outreaching hand had 
 left him undefeated. Nothing could beat him, nothing 
 harm him. Once during the summer he had been shot 
 at by someone in ambush, ineffectually, by whom she 
 never knew nor wanted to know. A sinister power 
 seemed in her eyes now to shield and favour him. When 
 he chose fully to exert his malevolence, as he had done 
 with her brother, it was dreadful. His short heavy
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 309 
 
 figure was a very embodiment of concentrated and de- 
 liberate power, to her ignorant imagination terrifying. 
 
 "It will do you good to cry," said he. 
 
 "I'm beginning to feel sick," she quavered. 
 
 "Perhaps you overload your stomach with candy," he 
 remarked, glancing at the box of chocolates on the desk. 
 
 She sniffled, shook her head, and wiped her eyes. 
 
 "It's it's the baby." 
 
 "Have you a baby?" 
 
 "It's not come yet; it ain't born," Myra gulped, 
 recurrent sobs still at intervals rising in her throat. 
 
 Wagner twisted his watch chain for a time. 
 
 "Babies do come," said he, at length. "You're 
 a strong and healthy young woman; I imagine it'll be a 
 strong and healthy baby." 
 
 "I I hope so," she said, thickly. 
 
 "The main things with babies, I understand, is to 
 give them pure milk." 
 
 This was the extent of his knowledge on the subject 
 and he took advantage of her silence to cast his look 
 about the office, at the furniture, the safe, the walls and 
 windows, estimating the value of the contents and the 
 size of the building. Then he drew out his watch. 
 Eleven o'clock. He could spare no more time. 
 
 Myra was powdering her eyes and nose, he saw. 
 
 "The child will be healthy, I'm sure," said he, and 
 went out. 
 
 in 
 
 At noon on this same day, as Frances Huff was about 
 to leave the library to go home for lunch, Doctor Cryder
 
 3 io CRYDER 
 
 walked into the building. He came to inquire if the 
 library could make use of the surplus books stacked in 
 his hospital study if he sent them down, or, better still, 
 if Frances could employ the volumes in carrying out 
 her extension plan in the towns up the river. He should 
 have to do something with the books. In addition to 
 contributing the latter, he would pay the small expense 
 connected with operating the branch libraries. 
 
 They were discussing the project when they went out 
 of the building together. Frances invited Cryder to ac- 
 company her home, where they could talk over details 
 while they ate a bite. Only a bite it would be, she in- 
 formed him, so he must not expect anything elaborate: 
 some salad, cold meat, and bread and butter, iced tea. 
 
 But as they were proceeding across Columbia Park, 
 a city square laid out as a municipal rest grounds, com- 
 paratively new, with green turf, young trees, gravel 
 paths, and in the centre a pagoda band-stand, they en- 
 countered a girl. She was Minnie Beeler. As she ap- 
 proached, Cryder casually glanced at her, then broke 
 off in his speech to give her a sharper regard. For an 
 instant her eyes met his, the colour rose in her face, 
 and then with quickened steps she hurried past. 
 
 But to the medical man the abdominous fullness of 
 her form, not yet great but nevertheless to him de- 
 terminative, betrayed her secret. 
 
 "Wait, please," he said to his companion. And 
 turning about he went after the girl, calling, "Minnie, 
 Minnie, I want to see you." 
 
 In fright she started to run, but Cryder overtook her, 
 caught and held her by an arm.
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 311 
 
 Curiously Frances watched the pair, but was unable 
 to hear the words of their low-toned conversation. She 
 perceived that the surgeon was asking questions and 
 making insistent assertions, to which at first the girl 
 returned angry replies. But plainly, too, she was terri- 
 fied, drawing back from the man and endeavouring to 
 pull free from his grasp. Cryder inexorably pressed her 
 with his queries and once Frances at a sharp rise in his 
 voice heard, "No, don't lie to me. You can't fool me." 
 
 Then after a palpitating and panting silence on the 
 part of the prisoner the girl began to weep. Cryder 
 continued talking to her. He drew her yet farther off 
 from the spot where Frances stood. Presently he put 
 his arm about her shoulder and the girl, hiding her face 
 in her hands, rested for a moment against his breast, 
 crying. Frances could see Minnie's shoulders shake 
 and evidently Cryder was soothing her, assuring her. 
 At last the girl's sobbing diminished; the talk was re- 
 newed Cryder's questions, Minnie's sniffled replies, 
 a low confabulation obviously serious. 
 
 Ten minutes passed. Frances wondered what was 
 the matter. She was growing hot under the noon-day 
 sun that beat directly down on the path. Fine beads of 
 perspiration dampened her brow and neck, which she 
 wiped away with her handkerchief. She glanced round 
 the park and wondered how long the slender young 
 trees must grow before they should furnish shade; 
 wondered why the park commissioner did not do some- 
 thing to the grubs making sere yellow spots in the turf; 
 wondered if there was anything as melancholy as an 
 empty band-stand.
 
 3 i2 CRYDER 
 
 Cryder and the girl came along the path toward her. 
 Minnie was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief from 
 which Frances caught a smell of strong cheap perfume 
 when they drew near. On the surgeon's face was a 
 look of gravity shadowed by hesitation. 
 
 "This girl's in trouble and I must put matters right 
 for her," he explained. "I need not state what the 
 the trouble is; perhaps you can guess. But I need your 
 help just now." 
 
 "Certainly I'll help if I can," Frances returned. 
 
 " I didn't think you would allow any over-nice scruples 
 to prevent when it's a matter of her reputation and 
 future. Now what I want is for you to take her home 
 with you and wait till I return. Will you do that?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Cryder stepped close to her. 
 
 "Don't let her get away if she grows panicky. Hold 
 on to her," said he, in a guarded voice. "I'd never 
 drag you into this kind of affair if it wasn't an emer- 
 gency." He paused, then went on, "She's a Kettle 
 Creek girl, an orphan. I feel a personal responsibility 
 for her welfare. I've tried to look after her in a general 
 
 way, but " He finished with a gesture indicating 
 
 failure. "Take her along with you now and I'll return 
 as quickly as possible." 
 
 He swung about and strode toward the main business 
 street at a rapid walk. 
 
 Frances discovered Minnie gazing at her timidly, 
 biting her lip and twisting a fold of her dress. 
 
 "Come, we'll go," Frances exclaimed, summoning a 
 smile to her lips and slipping her arm through the
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 313 
 
 other's. "I was just going home to have my lunch. 
 Perhaps you're hungry, too." She began to propel her 
 companion forward along the gravel walk. 
 
 "I had my dinner," said Minnie. "I was just 
 comin' from it and goin* to work. I go on at one 
 o'clock." 
 
 "Where do you work?" 
 
 "At the telephone exchange." 
 
 "You must know everything that's going on then," 
 Frances remarked, cheerfully. 
 
 "Oh, we do! All the news and an awful lot of scandal, 
 too. You ain't got no idea what a lot of things people 
 are doing, prom'nent people, too, until you work in an 
 exchange. There's just more scandal talked over the 
 wires " 
 
 But Minnie abruptly ceased. Appallingly it oc- 
 curred to her that she was in no position to gossip of 
 the misdoings of others. Her eyes fell to the ground. 
 Terror all at once possessed her. 
 
 "I can't do it like Doc says," she cried, halting. 
 "Archie will just kill me." 
 
 "Didn't you promise Doctor Cryder? Then you 
 must come," Frances said, firmly. "Whatever he's 
 doing, it's for your good." 
 
 "But Archie'll never speak to me again." Her 
 voice quavered. "And he's been keepin* away from 
 me as it is." 
 
 "Is your trouble with with him?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 They walked out of the park across a street and the 
 length of a block without either speaking. The truth
 
 3 i 4 CRYDER 
 
 of the girl's predicament all at once had cleaved through 
 Frances's speculations and wonderment as to Minnie's 
 case; and an aversion, a momentary sickness, had left 
 her tongueless. Her impulse was to drop the arm of 
 the wretched, offending girl and get home alone as 
 quickly as possible. To her the thing seemed horrible, 
 contaminating, vile. Then her common sense read- 
 justed itself and she braced herself to go through with 
 the disagreeable business. 
 
 "You think I'm awful wicked, don't you?" Minnie 
 ventured. "And I reckon I am." 
 
 "I think you're unfortunate and unhappy and at 
 this moment in need of friends," was the answer. 
 
 "He said he loved me," the girl whimpered. 
 
 "And do you love him?" 
 
 "I do more'n anybody in the whole world! I'm 
 just crazy about him and all the other girls are, too. 
 I guess maybe that had something to do with it. But, 
 no, it was just hisself. He has such nice hair and skin 
 and eyes and is such a dandy dancer and is so clever, 
 always havin' something on the end of his tongue to 
 make one laugh, and he can be so sweet and soft- 
 speakin' and admirin' and and everything. I loved 
 him in spite of myself." 
 
 Pitifully her eyes were ashine and her face aglow. 
 In her heart she was seeing the youth glorified by her 
 passion. To this poor ignorant girl from Kettle Creek 
 the town fellow with his dapper airs and glib wit and 
 whispered flattery must have appeared like a radiant 
 prince, Frances conceived and now she was paying 
 the penalty of her unsophistication.
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 315 
 
 A deep compassion moved in her breast for the 
 victim. Weak, not wicked, she was. The evil lay 
 elsewhere with the man, with society perhaps as a 
 whole that left a young girl unenlightened and un- 
 protected to learn for herself the pitfalls and alluring 
 quicksands of life. 
 
 At the door of the house Minnie again quailed and 
 declared herself incapable of carrying through her part, 
 seeking to disengage herself from Frances's arm, 
 trembling, declaring Archie would hate her forever. 
 Only by combined persuasion and urgence did Frances 
 finally force the girl into the dwelling. 
 
 "No, I won't take off my hat," Minnie said, at the 
 suggestion. "I ain't stayin'. Maybe after a few 
 minutes I'll be goin', after all. I don't want Archie to 
 get mad and have nothin' to do with me; he's got cold 
 lately, as it is, and talks of goin' away, and " 
 
 "Does he know about you?" 
 
 "No." Minnie shook her head. "I ain't dared 
 tell him. But sometimes I thinks he suspects, and 
 that's the reason he's quit takin' me round. Once he 
 asked me outright and I said No." She meditated. 
 "There's doctors who get girls out of trouble, I've heard, 
 but I don't know 'em, and besides I'd be afraid. 
 Oh, you don't understand how I've worried, Miss 
 Huff, lest you've been through it. You ain't, have 
 you?" 
 
 "No," said Frances. 
 
 "I didn't know. Doc gettin' you to help, I thought 
 maybe you had. A lot of 'em have nowadays, from 
 what the girls round the exchange say."
 
 3 i6 CRYDER 
 
 Their wait was much longer than either had antici- 
 pated. One o'clock was chimed by the little gilt clock 
 on the mantel in the room, then the half-hour, and 
 finally the hour of two. Minnie had alternate fits of 
 buoyancy and of depression, of talkativeness and 
 silence, of impatience and of fears. Archie would be 
 awful mad. She would lose her job, being late. And 
 people would say things when they heard. 
 
 Frances remarked that under the circumstances none 
 of these things was the chief consideration. 
 
 In her mind she was contemplating the surgeon again. 
 Would Schuyler Patterson so boldly have grasped the 
 situation to remedy it? A bitter smile came to her 
 lips. He would have passed by on the other side, care- 
 ful to avoid such an indelicate affair; she could see just 
 how distressed he would have been if he knew she were 
 a participant, how vexed, how reproachful. A feeling of 
 satisfaction rose in her bosom. For once she was flout- 
 ing and ignoring the petty conventionalities and hy- 
 pocrisies which bound one's hands from good-doing. 
 She experienced a refreshing surge of spiritual freedom. 
 Such Cryder must have when, trampling through the 
 cobwebs of silly observances and of sickish respect- 
 ability, he performed his deeds of benevolence. 
 
 Toward half-past two they heard a car halt at the 
 curb outside and through the open doorway the murmur 
 of voices, one the surgeon's. Footsteps sounded on the 
 cement walk and then on the veranda. Frances ran to 
 the door and admitted the visitors, the youth following 
 the surgeon into the house proving to be the blond 
 soda-water clerk at Sherrill's, whom Frances frequently
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 317 
 
 had seen at the store mixing sodas or sundaes but whose 
 name she had not known. 
 
 The young fellow and Minnie gazed at each other. 
 
 "Hello, Minnie," he exclaimed, with an attempt at 
 nonchalance. 
 
 " Hello, Archie. You come ? " 
 
 "Yes, I come." Then he crossed the room and 
 dropped into a stuffed chair, where he began to glance 
 round the room as if inspecting its contents. 
 
 Cryder's smile as he turned to Frances was a trifle 
 hard, bringing out the lines at the corners of his 
 mouth. 
 
 "Sorry to have kept you waiting," said he. "Archie 
 and I had to discuss matters at some length and I found 
 it necessary to exert a little moral pressure before he 
 could see my point of view, but at last he did. I told 
 him it was either a marriage license or a jail warrant 
 and wisely he concluded the former was the better. 
 Now we're going to have a wedding. I telephoned the 
 Reverend Stiles and he's waiting. Archie has the 
 license. Do you care to go along and see the finish? 
 It isn't necessary, however. We can get another wit- 
 ness. Mrs. Stiles, probably." 
 
 "I'd rather have Miss HufF," Minnie said. "She's 
 been so good a friend to me." 
 
 "I'll go," said Frances. 
 
 "All right. We can all pile into my car, I imagine." 
 
 Twenty minutes later the four walked out of the 
 Presbyterian parsonage. Archie lighted a cigarette; 
 Minnie clung to his arm, radiant, voluble, full of new 
 plans. In her left hand she held fast a small roll of
 
 3 i8 CRYDER 
 
 currency which Cryder had given her for a wedding 
 present. 
 
 The newly wed pair talked for a few minutes with 
 the surgeon and Frances and then set off toward the 
 business section. 
 
 "This has kept you from being back at the library 
 on time," Cryder stated, as he helped his companion 
 into the runabout. "I'll set you down at the building 
 in two minutes." 
 
 "No, take me home," she replied. "I haven't had 
 lunch, nor have you. The library can go hang. For 
 I feel so happy I wouldn't care if the board discharged 
 me." Tears trembled on her lashes. 
 
 " It pulled her out of an ugly place. And you've been 
 very good to assist me," Cryder remarked. "Prob- 
 ably he'll eventually desert her. I had a time bringing 
 him up to the scratch; he said it would be marrying 
 beneath him. What do you think of that? The young 
 devil! Well, he came after I told him a few things." 
 
 "You're a good man, Doctor Cryder," Frances ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "A good man with a bad name in Kettle Creek, 
 at any rate. My God, how they hate me up there 
 now!" He meditated, a frown darkening his brow. 
 "And to-morrow the smash comes." Frances con- 
 tinued silent, judging that words at this particular 
 moment were not what he wished. He took a deep 
 breath and straightening his shoulders settled back in 
 the seat. "There they go." 
 
 Archie and Minnie were hastening along, their heels
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 319 
 
 clicking on the cement walk. Frances waved a hand at 
 them and Minnie responded. 
 
 "I hope they really live happily," said she. 
 
 Cryder hoped so. 
 
 "Who was it, I wonder, who said marriages were 
 made in Heaven?" he speculated. 
 
 IV 
 
 As they ate they talked of Kettle Creek. Frances 
 had hastily made some tomato and lettuce salad, 
 sliced a platter of cold roast beef, and set the table. 
 But Cryder partook of little of the food, explaining on 
 her protests that he had had small appetite of late and 
 that he now did without meals altogether half the time. 
 
 "I haven't enough to do, I imagine," he said. "Now 
 when Kettle Creekers are sick they send for a young 
 fellow who has hung out his shingle at Berger; and 
 even people along the river and in the towns farther up 
 are beginning to drop me v Kettle Creekers have been 
 industrious in keeping the lie about me alive and a 
 host of other lies, I suppose. Here in Maronville, even, 
 I notice a change. Men are less friendly; I'm under 
 suspicion as to my probity. Though the law considers 
 a person innocent until guilty, public opinion less 
 generous harkens to the first accursed falsehood about 
 a fellow and gives him the benefit of the guilt. It's 
 strange how readily the public accepts slander as truth. 
 Well, the thing won't last long now as far as I'm con- 
 cerned." 
 
 The dispassionate tone in which he had spoken 
 marked how utterly transformed was the man whom
 
 320 CRYDER 
 
 Frances had known the year before. Gone was the hot, 
 intolerant spirit, gone the burly self-sufficiency, the 
 noisy egotism. 
 
 "You're planning to leave Kettle Creek?" she 
 questioned. 
 
 "The Hedley company will plan it for me," said he. 
 "To-morrow they will become owners of the timber 
 tract and we then may expect a prompt summons from 
 them to get out. I really have no plans at all at 
 present, but I shall go somewhere, of course. No, I'll 
 not remain in Maronville. Possibly I'll go East. 
 Then I've considered entering Red Cross work in Cen- 
 tral Europe, or the Near East, or Russia; some place 
 where my services will be of value. The best thing I 
 can do is to make a change to a spot at a great distance. 
 Not because I want to run away from the gossip about 
 me here; that's not the reason; I can stand it. My 
 usefulness, however, it seems to me, might be greater 
 in another field. I haven't given up the idea that I 
 can be useful to humanity in the broader sense, though 
 I confess my ideas have altered as to the degree of that 
 usefulness. Formerly I had a notion I was destined to 
 be nobly useful" a slight smile of deprecation ap- 
 peared on his lips as he paused and sat staring beyond 
 her at the wall, at the past lying behind him "but 
 now I shall be content if I simply can be useful in a 
 moderate way." 
 
 "Your work did have nobility," she asserted. "You 
 were more than physician, it seems to me: you were a 
 protector and guide as well, a leader of poor and un- 
 fortunate folk in the wilderness."
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 321 
 
 Frances had pushed her plate aside. She sat with 
 forearms resting on the cloth, hands clasped, her eyes 
 fastened upon his face now furrowed by deep lines 
 of care which brought into greater prominence than ever 
 the heavy bone structure of his countenance, the plain- 
 ness of his features his big forehead, shaggy brows, 
 thick fleshy nose and long solid jaws, wide mouth with 
 slightly up-thrust under-lip about which dwelt a sug- 
 gestion at the moment of tautness and of suffering. To 
 a stranger he would have given an impression of 
 ugliness at first glance, but never one of mediocrity, 
 of anything but of intellectual strength and spiritual 
 zeal. 
 
 " If I was a leader, I led badly," said he. " But I have 
 my doubts that any one really followed. During the 
 last few weeks I've had much time to think, and that's 
 my conclusion. People don't want to be led, I see now. 
 I thought to make the settlers in Kettle Creek all over 
 in a sort of general uplift of my own and it couldn't 
 be done. Sometimes I don't know what to think; the 
 morass of ignorance on the one hand and the rising tide 
 of selfishness and greed on the other seem to be compass- 
 ing a submergence of national existence, and more, 
 swallowing the whole human race slowly but surely. 
 We used to brag of our advancement, but how have we 
 advanced except in creature comforts in bathtubs 
 and saucepans, in automobiles and telephones, in 
 electric hair-curlers and push buttons? Not in toler- 
 ance of each other, certainly, nor in respect of law. 
 Great heavens, everyone breaks the law nowadays in 
 speeding, or secretly buying liquor, or in padding income
 
 322 CRYDER 
 
 tax returns, or in greater infractions. No, not in 
 respect of law, nor in morality, nor in sanity. Man- 
 kind to-day is like a satyr, half-beast, half-human, 
 dancing in muck with a sardonic smile for the vanishing 
 things once held dear. The inventions of to-day may 
 save steps, but do they save souls? Murder is almost 
 a pastime to-day, we've grown so indifferent. Money- 
 making is a religion, we've grown so avaricious. Mob 
 rule is becoming common, we've grown so callous. 
 Mockery of everything is the fashion, we've grown so 
 disrespectful. Meanness of spirit predominates, we've 
 grown so base." He leaned his head upon a hand, 
 meditating. "Did we not have to-day an example in 
 young Archie Hay of the despicable selfishness prevalent 
 throughout the land?" he went on, presently. "You 
 find it everywhere in matters pertaining to sex, to busi- 
 ness, to politics, to all the social relations, among the low 
 and among middle-class and among the high without 
 distinction. Crime no longer terrifies, and sin no 
 longer shames. Both are openly flaunted, defended, 
 excused yes, relished by a corrupted people and even 
 admired and imitated. I could name you innumerable 
 instances, but it is needless. We're becoming like 
 those fat men-about-town with rotten hearts and cyni- 
 cal souls that you see hanging around hotels in New 
 York. America is suffering from fatty degeneration of 
 heart and brain. And I say, God help her soon or it 
 will be too late!" 
 
 Frances sat stupefied. That this man who had 
 always possessed such a tremendous store of courage 
 now should be plunged into an abyss of despair was
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 323 
 
 dreadful. What torments of mind he had undergone 
 to bring him to such a pass she could only guess. 
 
 "You were more hopeful when last we talked here," 
 she stated, after a thoughtful period. 
 
 "The trouble is that I've lost faith in myself and 
 consequently in everything," said he. A faint smile 
 rested on his lips. "Perhaps I've become neurasthenic. 
 I used to have no sympathy whatever with people who 
 took a morbid view of life, but now I can understand 
 their condition of mind." 
 
 "Then you confess it's a condition of mind that 
 causes you to see the world headed for the bow-wows," 
 Frances exclaimed. 
 
 "Partly. But, too, looking at the world with im- 
 personal eyes one must see it is sick physically and 
 spiritually." 
 
 They continued to talk. A keen desire to give him 
 fresh courage, fresh hope, burned in the girl's heart. 
 During the summer he had come to bulk larger and 
 larger in her thoughts and to fill a higher and higher 
 place in her esteem. And at times she had felt a 
 passionate longing to hear his voice and to be in his 
 presence, especiaHy when a weariness of Patterson's 
 suave attendance and affable air, so lacking in real 
 vigour, took possession of her. 
 
 She wondered if she would be able for the rest of her 
 life to endure the lawyer's meticulous amiability, his 
 cautious restraint of impulses, his pains to be urbane 
 that at the bottom were largely policy, his studied 
 efforts to be popular with all classes, his obsequious 
 admiration of the wealthy and the powerful which she
 
 CRYDER 
 
 had discovered, and his milk-and-water love-making. 
 Had he but once shown that he had the energy and 
 temper to hit out from the shoulder at something at 
 anything. In a husband every woman wants a little 
 of the primitive male lion-heartedness that can be 
 provoked for a righteous cause, a battle-spirit that 
 leaps at a challenge. Frances perceived this now. 
 Seeing it not in her fiance she was gnawing at her soul 
 in disappointment and dread. 
 
 With yearning eyes she gazed at the man across the 
 table from her. Would that Schuyler Patterson had 
 more of his fervid concern with life, his restless and 
 rugged pride in vital accomplishments! What if Cry- 
 der had failed? What if he despaired? He had been 
 captain of his soul and ever would be though beaten to 
 his knees, though a hundred times humbled in the 
 dust. 
 
 Frances experienced an incomprehensible trembling 
 of her limbs and a strange dismaying weakness when 
 she considered that the surgeon might soon depart 
 from the region, perhaps to the afflicted sections of 
 Europe as he had suggested. She was just coming to 
 know him and to understand him, to perceive the fine, 
 self-abnegating character of the man, brought forth, 
 refined, as it were, by the fire of adversity to which he 
 had been subjected. A sense of imminent loss assailed 
 her. This was followed by a painful realization that 
 this was highly improper, if not actually disloyal to the 
 man to whom she was affianced; but singularly she had 
 no shame. Almost she had a desire to commit some act 
 which would shock and offend her lover to the point of
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 325 
 
 ending her troth. The prospect gave her a thrill, a lift 
 of spirits: freedom again, disentanglement from the 
 binding net of his complacent and colourless devotion. 
 
 Cryder had never spoken of her engagement or of her 
 approaching marriage to the attorney. She doubted, 
 indeed, that he thought of it, as if with the failure of his 
 own suit he were indifferent as to the disposition of her 
 love. Since that hour on the ridge, when she had given 
 him his answer, he had never again referred to the 
 matter. Curiously she pondered the fact, not without 
 dissatisfaction. Men were strange. Had he ceased to 
 love her? They were so matter of fact. Had he really 
 grown cold ? 
 
 Her thoughts continued to eddy throughout their 
 conversation about the idea of his departure. 
 
 "Wouldn't you do wisely to take up practice here?" 
 she questioned, at last. "You're known in Maronville, 
 and well, people would learn the falsity of the reports 
 circulated about you." 
 
 "I've no inclination to remain." 
 
 "Your friends would be sorry to have you go." 
 
 "Possibly that's true. I've a few friends yet left 
 me, though they're not numerous." 
 
 "I, for one, would feel badly." 
 
 "You're very good to say that," he replied. 
 
 "Your fine surgical work is really more greatly 
 appreciated than you think. You've operated people 
 who were in serious condition and who keep a warm 
 place in their hearts for you on that account. I don't 
 know of one who doesn't regard you in the highest 
 degree with one exception. Yes, there was one, I
 
 326 CRYDER 
 
 recall. She was ungrateful enough to speak slightingly 
 of you." 
 
 "Perhaps she thought I charged too much," said 
 he, ironically. 
 
 "Well, not for that reason, I think. I don't usually 
 pass on gossip, but she was such a a cat. I never 
 liked her, never from the first day, and never trusted 
 her. See, I'm taking you into my confidence. The 
 woman I mean is Mrs. Forsythe." 
 
 Cryder's hand lying on the table closed on a handful 
 of the cloth. His face turned gray. By an effort he 
 got to his feet, hastily, clumsily. Frances involun- 
 tarily shrank at the burning fury of his eyes. 
 
 "I don't know what she told you, but whatever it 
 was it's a damnable lie," he said, harshly. "It was her 
 infamous tongue that gave birth to the slander which 
 turned Kettle Creek against me and made me a pariah. 
 She did it deliberately. She did it knowing full well 
 that I should suffer. She did it to wreck me, ruin me 
 as she did once before." 
 
 "Before!" Frances echoed, in wonderment. 
 
 "Yes." He stood fiercely glowering across the 
 room, his lips twitching, beset by an emotion which 
 seemed all the more consuming from long repression. 
 "Yes, before," he repeated. "Eleven years ago, in 
 another state, in another town. She was my wife and 
 cast me aside without mercy. Divorced me in cold blood 
 because I was poor and she was mercenary. She nearly 
 broke my spirit then. She has nearly broken my life 
 now, perhaps has succeeded. And who knows, probably 
 she'll appear again to give me a last stab, a quietus."
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 327 
 
 "She was your wife?" came in an incredulous gasp. 
 
 "My evil genius, say rather." 
 
 "You didn't tell me that when you asked me to 
 marry you," she said. 
 
 "No. There I did you a great wrong; I should have 
 told you all. I thought she was out of my life and that 
 it would only perplex and pain you. And, Frances, 
 I loved you if that's any extenuation." 
 
 The sudden gentleness of his tone wrung her heart. 
 He was looking at her, too, with the face of a man who 
 has lost what is most dear and who stands a long way 
 off, wretched, sorrowful. 
 
 All at once she sprang up. 
 
 "Go, go. I can't bear this," she cried, with eyes 
 brimming. 
 
 Rushing past him she ran into the kitchen, where she 
 dropped upon a chair and sat pressing her handkerchief 
 to her eyes, with shoulders shaking with sobs. 
 
 Cryder's departing tread sounded in the next room, 
 then the faint clap of the front screen door, and lastly 
 a rattle of detonations before the house as the auto- 
 mobile exhaust exploded and the car spun away. 
 
 About five o'clock Jack Huff came home and bade 
 Frances make ready to go to dinner with him and 
 Patterson at the Country Club, and added that after- 
 ward he was taking the nine-twenty-seven to Spokane. 
 He had been summoned to the Heidenstreit office for a 
 conference, he said; it might mean another and a better 
 job, possibly working directly under the "big fellows"
 
 328 CRYDER 
 
 in executive work, what he always had aimed for. He 
 was full of repressed excitement, exultant, eager; and 
 set the hot water running furiously in the bathtub and 
 flung some shirts and collars and pajamas into his 
 travelling bag with a rattle of dresser drawers, and 
 interpolated his hasty trampings about by shouted 
 fragments of advice and information. He would be 
 gone only a day and two nights. Frankie must have 
 some girl to stay with her; she had better telephone 
 Belle Marley or someone at once about coming; and 
 would she have the plumber attend to the leaky pipe 
 in the cellar, which he had neglected; and where was his 
 heather knit-silk tie; and he had a splinter in his thumb 
 she must dig out. It was Patterson's suggestion that 
 they go to the Club. He had called Jack up during the 
 afternoon to propose it. It was a celebration. Cele- 
 brating what ? She ought to know. 
 
 Frances was in no mood for either guessing or cele- 
 brating, and indeed she would have preferred not to 
 dine away from home. In spite of the powder with 
 which she had rubbed her eyes and cheeks before return- 
 ing to the library after Cryder's departure, her face yet 
 revealed traces of redness about eyes and nose. She 
 thought of the Country Club itself with distaste, newly 
 organized, with a tract of ground beside the river below 
 the city a couple of miles, a ranch purchased the spring 
 previous and yet in a chaotic state between a farm and a 
 pleasure place; the small clubhouse built and furnished, 
 sitting among trees near the stream, but the grounds 
 not yet sodded or smoothed, in a process of change, 
 rough hummocks still crowned by clumps of greasewood
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 329 
 
 or underbrush, ditches filled with weeds, the level 
 stretches plowed but bare, flinging up clouds of yellow 
 dust in a wind, as had happened on the last occasion 
 she had been there when everyone came away looking 
 like Mongolians and even the golf fiends had been 
 driven to shelter. The dinners, too, were only fair. 
 Once a dinner party given by Mrs. Emmons, she 
 remembered, had been an utter failure because the 
 Negro chef and the two waiters had got hold of a 
 bottle of bootleg whiskey and quarrelled, and the meal 
 had burnt black during the altercation. 
 
 But if Frances had no especial desire to celebrate 
 whatever it was Jack was celebrating, neither had she 
 the spirit to oppose the arrangement. She would not 
 be lively company, but it was easier to drift to-night. 
 She need not talk much. She could pretend an in- 
 disposition, which would be only half-pretense after 
 all, for she felt a precarious uncertainty of nerves. Her 
 mind continually was occupied by reflections of a 
 depressing nature, of thoughts of the man with whom 
 she had talked that afternoon, by vague and disturbing 
 regrets. A misery of heart steadily afflicted her rising 
 from the haunting fact of her imminent marriage. 
 
 She realized that she did not love Patterson, had 
 never loved him. What monstrous illusion had led her 
 into an engagement with the man ? Her brain sickened 
 at the thought of going through with the thing; but if 
 she refused, what an unstable, vacillating creature she 
 should appear, and what a stream of hateful speculation 
 and gossip would be let loose among the people whom 
 they knew.
 
 330 CRYDER 
 
 This was still Frances's distressed state of mind when 
 Patterson called about half-past six and carried the 
 Huffs off in his car. Other cars also were making for 
 the Club, tossing up clouds of dust so that a brownish- 
 gray haze hung suspended in the air through which 
 motorists must pass. The two men jested about it. 
 Frances felt an evil temper supplanting her melancholy. 
 She had a desire to smash the Country Club and a 
 hundred other things along with it. The asinine folly 
 of a small town seeking to appear smart, citified, snob- 
 bishly metropolitan! 
 
 Most of the tables upon the dining veranda were 
 already occupied by dinner groups when they were con- 
 ducted to the place reserved for them, a table at one 
 end of the row and somewhat apart, giving a certain 
 degree of privacy in addition to a view toward the 
 river. Patterson always secured it when possible. He 
 did not play golf and did not like, he had told Frances, 
 the noisy disputes and laughter of the players while they 
 ate; and many of the tables with ladies were no better, 
 boisterousness being mistaken for gayety, frequently 
 augmented by nips from pocket flasks. Patterson did 
 not care for that sort of thing. 
 
 But on this evening he appeared animated by a spirit 
 of liveliness, of mild jubilation, in harmony with Jack's 
 excited, jovial humour. On reaching the clubhouse 
 the two men had excused themselves, leaving Frances 
 to wait, and had gone off somewhere for ten minutes. 
 Both had a higher colour on their return, and she caught 
 on their breaths a faint reek of liquor as the three of 
 them went out to their table.
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 331 
 
 "We just went to the locker room for a couple of 
 snifters," Jack explained. "This was some genuine 
 old bourbon that Emmons gave Schuyler out of his own 
 stock." 
 
 Patterson's smile was a little apologetic. 
 
 "One can't refuse whiskey that's worth its weight 
 in gold, you know," said he. 
 
 They reached the table awaiting them, where the 
 chairs had been tipped up and on the linen lay a 
 "Reserved" card with a slip of paper beside it contain- 
 ing Patterson's name scribbled in pencil. The attorney 
 drew back a seat for Frances, while one of the coloured 
 waiters whisked off the card and moved the vase holding 
 pink and purple sweet peas half an inch to the right. 
 
 Frances was speculating on the peculiar effect of the 
 prohibition law on the masculine mind. Men seemed 
 to consider it the thing to do to violate it; there were 
 constant references to liquor, furtive jests and an air of 
 bravado in the manner of those at the Club who had 
 imbibed which struck her as being at once singularly 
 silly and essentially childish. It was like the sly swag- 
 ger of boys who have robbed a melon patch. She had 
 imagined Jack and Schuyler Patterson above such 
 petty elation, but, she perceived, both now were suffer- 
 ing from a spirit of self-complacency in their insignifi- 
 cant legal infraction. 
 
 Both, too, were more loquacious and more animated 
 during the meal as a result of their potations, with faces 
 growing flushed as they ate. Jack's mind inevitably 
 dwelt on his trip to Spokane, of which Patterson ap- 
 peared already to be intimately informed.
 
 33 2 CRYDER 
 
 "It will be a big step for you to get into the main 
 office," the lawyer asserted, nodding half-a-dozen times, 
 his brown, shining vandyke beard wagging at each nod. 
 "And yet you hear people say that corporations are 
 soulless, that they don't reward individual effort. As a 
 fact, it has been my observation that big concerns are 
 the quickest of all to recognize and utilize the abilities 
 of men." 
 
 "Not a doubt of it," Jack exclaimed. "And all I 
 want are chances." 
 
 "You'll have them." 
 
 "Well, I showed the Spokane office what I could do 
 in this Kettle Creek business. Wagner never would 
 have thought of it. The idea was mine. Between our- 
 selves, Wagner's a good man but limited." 
 
 "Good but limited, quite right," Patterson agreed, 
 amiably. "As a mill manager he's satisfactory, but he 
 lacks the real executive ability that puts a man at the 
 top." 
 
 " For one thing, he's not educated," Jack said, leaning 
 back in his seat and wiping his lips with a brushing 
 movement of his napkin. 
 
 "Nor has he the necessary social instincts or training 
 to fit in higher places," Patterson remarked. "They're 
 as essential as a knowledge of the lumber business." 
 
 At this moment they were finishing the dessert, late 
 strawberries with whipped cream and black coffee. 
 
 "Mr. Wagner's penitentiary record is against him, 
 too, I presume," Frances interjected. 
 
 "Unquestionably," the attorney assented. "One's 
 record is better clean."
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 333 
 
 Jack ate a strawberry, pursed his lips. 
 
 "I've figured out what's lacking in Wagner," he ex- 
 claimed, suddenly "Imagination. Now as I said 
 before, the Kettle Creek scheme would never have 
 occurred to him. It was my plan. Once I had ex- 
 plained it he recognized its possibilities, but until I 
 had he was at sea. I'll say this for him, though, he was 
 square. When he took up the matter with Archibald 
 and the others at headquarters he told them it was 
 my suggestion. He didn't attempt to steal the 
 credit." 
 
 "Very square of him, very." 
 
 "And he has consulted me throughout." 
 
 "Naturally he should," Patterson said. 
 
 "And to-morrow the timber will be ours." 
 
 Jack's tone left no doubt about the matter, and no 
 more did his countenance, firmly set. To Frances the 
 conversation was wrapped in a veil of mystery that 
 piqued her interest, particularly as it became more and 
 more impressed upon her that it turned on affairs of the 
 Kettle Creek Lumber Association. 
 
 "Do you mean, Jack, that you had something to do 
 with your company putting the settlers' union out of 
 business?" she queried. 
 
 Her brother laughed. He glanced triumphantly at 
 Patterson, then flashed his look back upon Frances. 
 
 "Rather! That's what I meant at home when I 
 said we were celebrating to-night," he declared. "I 
 guess there's no harm in telling you now as the thing 
 is practically finished. But keep your mouth closed 
 about it."
 
 334 CRYDER 
 
 "Possibly " Patterson began in a hesitant voice. 
 A slight uneasiness marked his manner. 
 
 "Oh, Frankie can keep a secret. It's all in the 
 family." 
 
 "But perhaps she'll not care about knowing the 
 details." 
 
 Frances thought she perceived not only uneasiness 
 but a shadow of apprehension in her fiance's eyes. His 
 intuitions were more acute than Jack's; was he fearful 
 of the effects of the disclosure upon her? Well, she 
 was determined more than ever to know, if such were 
 the case. 
 
 "Of course I'll say nothing about it to any one," she 
 said, impatiently. "Go on, Jack." 
 
 Her brother was still radiant, still atingle and aglow 
 with the liquor he had drunk and the food he had eaten 
 and the exultation of his accomplishment. He leaned 
 forward smiling, speaking in a lowered voice. 
 
 "I framed the scheme to get the timber," he said, 
 impressively. "While I lay up there in Doc Cryder's 
 hospital with nothing to do but think, I figured it out. 
 We'd have been waiting for that gang of Kettle Creek 
 outlaws to be selling yet if I hadn't. It was Pinney's 
 trying to form a company and to borrow money from 
 Emmons's bank, together with the knowledge that the 
 timber-owners would never dispose of their land at a 
 reasonable price, that gave me the notion. With these 
 facts I saw how we could work it. So one day when 
 Wagner dropped in 
 
 "I remember," Frances interrupted, quickly. "It 
 was the day I went fishing with Doctor Cryder. You
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 335 
 
 asked me to step away from your bed as you had confi- 
 dential business to discuss with Mr. Wagner." 
 
 "That's the time." 
 
 "Go on." 
 
 "It began then," he continued. "When Wagner 
 heard me out, he left and went up to Spokane in a day 
 or two and put up the plan to the main office, where he 
 obtained approval. Then he saw Emmons, who would 
 never have made the loan if we hadn't agreed to take 
 the notes off his hands." 
 
 Frances was beginning to understand. Her hands 
 shut tightly on the edge of the table. 
 
 "It was all arranged, then, when Mr. Emmons and 
 Schuyler came up to the hospital ostensibly to fish." 
 
 "Yes. Emmons really came to see Pinney and to 
 give him a letter agreeing that his bank would make the 
 loan." 
 
 In her breast Frances's heart started an angry 
 pummelling. But outwardly she maintained her smiling 
 mood. 
 
 "How skillfully the plan was prepared and manipu- 
 lated!" she breathed. She turned to Patterson. 
 
 "And you knew all about it from the beginning." 
 
 "Well, I it might be said still " 
 
 "Sure thing he knew," said Jack, lighting a cigarette. 
 "We had Emmons require his appointment as the 
 Kettle Creek Lumber Association's attorney and fiscal 
 agent because he was conversant with the scheme. 
 There's only one way to handle a deal like that tie it 
 up right all around, make it a cinch." The speaker was 
 too pleased with himself to observe either Patterson's
 
 336 CRYDER 
 
 embarrassment or the enigmatical gleam in his sister's 
 eyes. He went on: "With Schuyler in where he was 
 we didn't have to worry anything would break loose. 
 We knew the Kettle Creekers' bonds wouldn't be sold." 
 
 "But Schuyler tried to sell them?" she exclaimed. 
 
 "Not very hard," was the answer. "Did you, 
 Patterson?" Again he laughed. "And the market 
 hitting the toboggan just when it did made things 
 right." 
 
 Patterson was visibly perturbed. He drew forth his 
 handkerchief, wiped his brow, and at Jack's last sentence 
 broke in: 
 
 "Don't mind his joking, my dear. I really made 
 every possible effort to dispose of the securities, I assure 
 you." 
 
 "But you were actually working in the Hedley 
 company's interest?" she demanded, in a hard voice. 
 
 "No. You must believe me. I was particular 
 . j> 
 
 "You knew of this plan to ruin the other company." 
 
 "My dear Frances, let me explain. Both companies 
 were my clients, which is permissible in legal practice, 
 and I was careful to give to each the service which my 
 situation required." 
 
 "But you were a party to the scheme to defeat the 
 Kettle Creek company." 
 
 "Not a party; I merely had a knowledge of the plan." 
 He moistened his lips by a swallow of water. "Pro- 
 fessionally, my position has been perfectly correct." 
 
 "You feel that you betrayed no trust?" 
 
 Jack leaned suddenly toward Frances.
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 337 
 
 "Say, what's got into your head all at once?" he 
 questioned, scowling. 
 
 "Do you consider your action honourable?" Fran- 
 ces addressed the attorney insistently, ignoring her 
 brother. "Does a man of honour who's in a place of 
 
 trust pretend one thing while treacherously Oh, this 
 
 is horrible! Both of you in it! Deliberately scheming 
 to defraud those poor ignorant people, setting a trap for 
 them to walk into that a great company might profit!" 
 
 Jack seized her arm in a crushing grip. 
 
 "Don't be a fool!" he hissed. "And hush. You're 
 talking too loud. People are beginning to look round 
 and listen. For God's sake be sensible and don't make 
 a scene!" 
 
 Frances drew free from his grasp. She sat rigid, 
 trying to regain her self-control, endeavouring to ap- 
 pear natural. Groups at near-by tables resumed their 
 conversation. Patterson was gazing at her with a 
 worried face, while seeking in his mind for a plausible 
 explanation that would allay her suspicion and satisfy 
 her questions. 
 
 Jack was staring at her, red with wrath, his elbows 
 on the cloth, and puffing furiously at his cigarette. 
 
 "What are you making all this fuss about?" he de- 
 manded at last. 
 
 "I feel ill; I wish to go home," she replied, in a 
 suffocated voice. 
 
 "When you've apologized to Schuyler." 
 
 "I've nothing to apologize for." 
 
 "After your rudeness? After the things you said? 
 I think you have," he said, with a significant air.
 
 33 8 CRYDER 
 
 Frances did not immediately answer. She sat with 
 teeth clenched and cheeks pallid looking past both men 
 toward the river. They had sold their honour. The 
 great god of industry had taken them and chained them 
 and corrupted their souls. One, her fiance, a man of 
 naturally fine sensibilities, it had warped and twisted 
 through an inordinate desire for position, until he had 
 betrayed the faith of a hundred simple timber-owners; 
 the other, her brother, once a fine, clean fellow, energetic 
 and if with a fault, one of over-loyalty, it had gradually 
 transformed into a hard, mercenary, heartless tool, 
 without ideals, coarsened in spirit, restless and malevo- 
 lent of mind. Out of Jack's brain had risen the evil 
 conception which had resulted in the ruin of scores of 
 families, in the embitterment of lives, in Nick's death, 
 in the criminal night attack upon the sawmill, and in 
 the terrific wave of hatred which had overwhelmed 
 Cryder. The instigator of it all, her brother! 
 
 Slowly she began to work off her engagement ring. 
 When it was free from her finger, she placed it beside 
 Patterson's coffee-cup. For an instant her eyes met 
 the man's, which were silently beseeching her; but her 
 chill face gave him no hope. 
 
 "If you haven't time to take me home, Jack, I'll 
 go alone," said she. 
 
 "I'm hanged if I shall now," he answered, sullenly. 
 "You're acting like a child." Turning to Patterson 
 he added: "This is just a case of nerves. I've noticed 
 lately she hasn't been herself. When I get back from 
 Spokane I'll straighten matters out and everything will 
 be right."
 
 THE HEARTS OF MEN 339 
 
 Frances had risen. She looked down at the pair with 
 a feeling of aloofness, with a calm which all at once had 
 replaced her agitated feelings. Jack continued to talk 
 to the attorney, apologizing, explaining; and the 
 lawyer with his gaze on the ring lying on the cloth kept 
 nodding a mournful assent to each reiterated amends or 
 assertion. How incredibly stupid they were not to 
 recognize the chasm which divided her from them! 
 She moved slowly away across the veranda to the door- 
 way and passing through the building went out into the 
 night. 
 
 A coolness from the mountains was descending. On 
 the air was the scent of alfalfa from fields adjoining the 
 club grounds. Overhead a host of stars gleamed and 
 quivered. Only behind her was there sound, the mur- 
 mur of voices and the lively strains of a victrola from the 
 dancing room where some young couples already had 
 begun to move to a fox trot. From the building and 
 from the parked automobiles near by came a yellow 
 glow of light. All that at the moment was hateful; she 
 was glad to be out in the open, in the darkness, in the 
 gratefully cool scented night. The distance to town 
 was only two miles; she would walk it; she wanted 
 to be alone with her thoughts, alone under the stars 
 and alone with the wind blowing softly from the 
 hills. 
 
 Something had happened within her a decision, a 
 change, a breaking apart from things she held to be 
 wrong; a clearing of her vision and an irrevocable judg- 
 ment of her mind; a return to old ideals, to the loved 
 penates. With evil there could be no compromise or
 
 34 o CRYDER 
 
 fellowship, no matter what the degree or form. By 
 that she should live if she went in rags. Her soul 
 should be her own if she went bare of feet. She should 
 never bow down to the Moloch of steel and gold that 
 sprawled over the land.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE HOLOCAUST 
 
 ON AN afternoon early in October Cryder stood be- 
 fore the hospital, smoking a pipe and gazing at a woman 
 leading a child by the hand, a small boy with misshapen 
 head, who had just come into view on the ridge, having 
 ascended by the forest path. A wagon bearing a load 
 of his effects trunks, cases of instruments and dis- 
 mantled paraphernalia from the operating room, and 
 boxes of medical volumes had just creaked off out of 
 sight behind the buildings on its way to Maronville. 
 Inside the hospital and the cabins the rest of the furni- 
 ture, books, medicines, cooking utensils, and supplies 
 of all kinds hitherto necessary for the conduct of his 
 establishment awaited removal. A freighter with a 
 six-horse outfit, living in Berger, had been hired by the 
 surgeon to haul the property away. Cryder had been 
 packing for a week; everything now was boxed or crated 
 or wrapped in burlap, properly labelled with his name; 
 and he himself was taking his departure from the spot 
 this afternoon, leaving it to the freighter to empty the 
 log buildings of the piles of goods resting within. 
 
 For the inevitable had come to pass: The Hedley 
 company by virtue of its newly acquired title to the 
 
 34i
 
 342 CRYDER 
 
 timber land along Kettle Creek had given notice of 
 eviction to the dwellers in the forest, setting this as the 
 date by which they should be off the claims. In the 
 course they should follow to enforce their rights one was 
 left in no uncertainty; the sheriff had posted individual 
 notices on the cabin of each property owner; and it was 
 known that if necessary he should be prepared to expel 
 the settlers by overwhelming force. 
 
 In a spirit of sullen submission, the exodus of the 
 Kettle Creekers from the forest to a camping-place 
 beside the river proceeded in ramshackle wagons heaped 
 with wretched furniture and family belongings driven 
 by the men and in troups of women and children bear- 
 ing bundles. No concerted movement, but a silent 
 departure of individuals and families, it yet amounted 
 to a common migration, a dejected hegira of a clan, with 
 a day-by-day addition of new groups to the camp and 
 a raising of more shelters of canvas or of tattered blank- 
 ets, until at this dawn the whole number of Kettle 
 Creekers were assembled in the valley by the river 
 listlessly considering the future and wondering whither 
 they should go; a colony suddenly uprooted from their 
 wood and rendered homeless, wrathful, bitter. 
 
 Of all the dwellers in the forest Cryder now alone had 
 not yet departed, save, it seemed, the woman, Nell 
 Boggs, emerging from the trees and undergrowth with 
 her idiot child fast clasped by the hand. 
 
 The surgeon smoked and watched her advance. 
 
 "Well, Doc, I've come to see you," she greeted. 
 
 Evidently her hair had been long uncombed; vagrant 
 locks fell over her ears and before her face. She was
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 343 
 
 breathing hurriedly from the exertion of the climb and 
 a flush was in her face. Since he last had seen her, 
 which was some months as she had been cooking for a 
 crew of miners at Porcupine Hill, she had grown fat and 
 soft. 
 
 "Sick, Nell? Or is it the boy?" he asked. 
 
 "We ain't neither of us sick," she replied. "I came 
 to tell you that you can take Roscoe to the place for 
 boys like him you used to talk about." 
 
 "Fine time to come now!" he grunted. "Why 
 didn't you let me know before?" 
 
 "I just come down from Porcupine this week and 
 have been movin' my things out of the cabin." 
 
 "From the way you used to talk nothing could sepa- 
 rate you from the boy." 
 
 "I changed my mind." 
 
 "You take him back to camp with you till next 
 week," he rejoined. "I can't attend to his case now. 
 When I'm ready for him I'll let you know and you can 
 send him down to me by someone coming to Maron- 
 ville." 
 
 An irritated and sulky expression for an instant 
 hardened Nell's flabby face. 
 
 "You just got to take him now. Anton said I had 
 to be rid of him right away. And I'm goin' back to 
 Porcupine to-day." 
 
 Cryder puffed at his pipe. 
 
 "There's an 'Anton' in it, eh? Who is he? Miner? 
 One of the Polaks there, I suppose. Been living with 
 him?" 
 
 "We're goin' to be married as soon as I get back,"
 
 344 CRYDER 
 
 she answered. "He's been after me for a long time 
 to marry him, as he says I'm such a fine cook. No, 
 I ain't been livin' with him and it ain't any of your 
 business if I had. He says he won't marry me if I 
 keep Roscoe, so I brought the kid here. Anyway, I 'm 
 gettin' tired of him; he's so pesky dumb." 
 
 "Leave him with someone at the camp till I can 
 have him brought down to me," said Cryder. 
 
 "They won't take him." 
 
 "You'll have to wait there then yourself." 
 
 A blaze of anger shot from her eyes. 
 
 "Well, I just won't," she cried. "I ain't goin' to 
 put ofF my gettin' married. If you don't take him I'll 
 leave him somewhere in the woods and if he dies it'll 
 be your fault, Doc Cryder. You've done so much 
 wickedness to Kettle Creekers, gettin' 'em to go into the 
 'sociation last summer when they didn't want to and 
 then sellin' 'em out, bein' in Wagner's pay all the time, 
 I guess you'd just enjoy seein' Roscoe starve in the 
 woods or beholdin' him swallowed by wild beasts. A 
 sorry day for Kettle Creek when you come! That's 
 what everyone says and that's what everyone believes. 
 Maybe I ain't so smart as some, but I 'm thankin' God 
 I wasn't born with all the bad in my heart that's in 
 them of some what are smarter. If you can sleep easy 
 nights after all the harm you done, then you ain't got no 
 soul at all that's what they all say. A reg'lar Judas 
 you are, they say. And now you're just keepin' on in 
 your meanness by not takin' Roscoe and preventin' me 
 from bein' married. Well, you ain't goin' to do it. I 
 brought him here and I'm goin' to leave him here, and
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 345 
 
 if you don't mind him and let him die, you'll just be a 
 murderer. A poor little boy like him!" She stooped 
 and embraced the empty-faced child, kissed him, and 
 rose again, wiping her eyes. "You can keep him and 
 put him in the Home like you always said without 
 no trouble to you. Anyway, I'm goin' to leave him 
 and be married." 
 
 "Married, huh!" the surgeon exclaimed, in disgust. 
 "And breed more idiots." 
 
 But already she had turned and was hurrying away. 
 By his knee stood the small boy, in a soiled blue check- 
 ered shirt and a pair of little pants, hatless, barefoot, 
 with the pathetically submissive air of the imbecile. 
 
 H 
 
 About half-past three the surgeon, carrying his 
 leather medical case and leading the boy by the hand, 
 bade his hospital farewell. He had made a final circuit 
 of the buildings, gazing at their rough logs with affec- 
 tion and feeling the poignant emotions one suffers on 
 abandoning a spot that has been a home. But it was 
 of no use to delay his departure and he was desirous of 
 being away before four o'clock, the hour set by the 
 Hedley company for evacuation by occupants. By 
 telephone he had explained to Wagner about his goods 
 and received permission to leave them till they could 
 be hauled off by the freighter. 
 
 He set his feet on the path leading down into the 
 forest for the last time. Three nights previous his 
 automobile had vanished, stolen from where it stood 
 behind the hospital, evidently pushed without noise
 
 34 6 CRYDER 
 
 along the ridge and down into the wood where it might 
 be started out of earshot. He could only guess who 
 had seized it. Now he must walk to Berger and go 
 to Maronville by stage. 
 
 In the theft he perceived a desire on the part of some 
 embittered Kettle Creeker to work him a last injury, 
 but it did not matter greatly in the sum total of his 
 misfortunes. A catastrophe had overwhelmed this 
 poor ignorant people of the wood. Some wrathful and 
 dishonest fellow had thought to salvage something 
 from the wreckage at Cryder's expense; and, who knew, 
 perhaps the man with the burden of a family to trans- 
 port to an abode in a distant and as yet undetermined 
 spot needed it worse than he. No, it did not matter. 
 He had two legs to carry him. And in this, his final 
 advance among the great noble trees and out of the for- 
 est, he was rather glad that it should be a tramp on foot. 
 
 He wanted no quick progress. As long as possible 
 he desired the companionship of the stately trunks, 
 the blessed roof of the boughs, the sweet incense of 
 pines which filled the air. Never until now had these 
 strong and lofty trees seemed so dear or so much a part 
 of himself, with their roots wrapped about his heart. 
 He should miss them. He should miss, too, the music 
 of Kettle Creek among its stones and logs. He should 
 miss the soothing peace when, weary, he cast himself on 
 the bank of the stream beside some giant conifer. 
 
 At the foot of the hill he seated himself on a log, 
 placing the child beside him and gazing off through the 
 open spaces into which sifted slanting beams of sun- 
 light. Another year and Wagner's axes would be mak-
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 347 
 
 ing a deep inroad into this magnificent body of timber; 
 another decade and there would be no timber at all 
 except small stuff, no forest, only a hollow in the hills 
 lying naked to the sun. The forest was doomed. The 
 blind and insensate lumbermen were doing the same 
 all over the timbered hills wherever they could get their 
 clutch on a mountain, on a ridge, on a valley. The 
 masters said Cut! and the axes rang that dollars might 
 continue to flow into their ever-swelling money-bags. 
 Why were the men who directed the policy of the great 
 Heidenstreit corporation so utterly indurated to reason ? 
 Why could they not see they were spending the nation's 
 timber capital? Was there not one single brain among 
 them possessing vision? 
 
 He discovered the small boy posted at his side re- 
 garding him with a wistful gaze. The wistfulness 
 meant nothing, of course; or in that poor misshapen 
 head was there some feeble, struggling thought seeking 
 expression? Cryder had seen idiots aplenty. He 
 could view them with pity but with proper understand- 
 ing of their blighted brains. They did not distress him. 
 But now, strangely, he felt for the little fellow on 
 the log a profound and fervid compassion stir in his 
 breast. 
 
 Presently the boy's eyes lifted from him to the 
 boughs, where they dwelt as if in contemplation and 
 wonder. After a time he looked at Cryder and uttered 
 an animal-like sound. The surgeon took from his poc- 
 ket a piece of buttered bread folded in the form of a 
 sandwich and wrapped in a fragment of newspaper; 
 tearing off the paper he gave the bread to the youngster,
 
 34 8 CRYDER 
 
 who began to eat ravenously. Doubtless in her de- 
 sire to be rid of him the mether had forgotten to give 
 him food at noon. Cryder now perceived for the first 
 time that the child appeared fatigued as well as hungry; 
 and he surmised the woman had walked the boy the 
 whole five miles from Kettle Creek camp by the river. 
 
 On his large face with its thick brows, deep-set eyes, 
 ponderous nose, and prominent firm lips came a shadow 
 of wrath. He knew better than to allow what a slack, 
 muddle-brained wench like Nell Boggs did to give him 
 concern, but nevertheless the brutality of the act filled 
 him with anger. The trustfulness, the defenselessness 
 of children always evoked in him a spring of tenderness; 
 their small faces brightening under kind or merry words 
 were like flowers to him; their fairy spirits glowing at 
 elders' sympathy were like candle-flames. Violence to 
 them by grown people made his blood boil. To the 
 mites hampered by physical defects, the little cripples 
 with twisted limbs or bodies, the mutes, the sightless, the 
 sick, the weak of mind, especial gentleness was deserving; 
 and when he beheld them suffering from the indifference 
 or acerbity of elders, not infrequent among the ignorant, 
 he furiously desired the good old whipping-post. And 
 now in Nell Boggs 's dragging this poor helpless child all 
 the long miles from the river camp to the hospital he 
 perceived the ruthlessness of a stupid and selfish nature 
 in a degree that made him hot. 
 
 The boy apathetically licked his lips and sat quiet. 
 He had eaten all the bread and butter. For the moment 
 his hunger was appeased. 
 
 Cryder rose and they again went forward on the path.
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 349 
 
 At the nearer trees as he passed he gazed in a last re- 
 gard of their brown scaly trunks, so often seen, so famil- 
 iar, so like silent constant friends, so like tall-standing 
 and loyal kinsmen. And there, too, on either side, were 
 the well-known clumps of bushes, coverts for rabbit or 
 grouse. For eleven years he had walked this path. In 
 his mind, but never more in the flesh, he often would 
 tread it again, recalling the individual pines, the bough- 
 arched arcades filled with bluish light, the protruding 
 mossy boulders, the needle-littered ground, the tiny 
 seedling pines no bigger than his finger upthrust through 
 the odorous mat, the shrubs, the young saplings, the 
 cedar copse at one spot on the right and the fallen 
 dead trees rotting into powder all this footpath wind- 
 ing through the forest to the clearing at Kettle. 
 
 At a rivulet that seeped down a narrow bed of sand 
 and crossed the path the idiot boy once more uttered 
 a squawk. Cryder regarded him. Then he set down 
 his medical case and brought from a pocket a drinking- 
 cup. Kneeling, he scooped with his palm a hollow in 
 the bottom of the rill, which he allowed to fill and 
 clear. Into the diminutive pool he dipped the cup. 
 Afterward he lifted it brimming to the small boy's 
 mouth. His charge drank feverishly. A second time 
 the surgeon gave him water. When the boy's thirst 
 was satisfied Cryder rinsed the cup and himself 
 drank. 
 
 A gurgle in the throat of the youngster caused him 
 to look about as he finished. Thereupon the little 
 fellow placed his hands on Cryder 's knee and leaned 
 against his leg and looked up into his face, water drip-
 
 350 CRYDER 
 
 ping from his chin and his open mouth. Cryder con- 
 sidered him, surprised, interested. 
 
 Gratitude! That's what the little fellow felt and 
 strove to express gratitude, by heavens! 
 
 The man's heart quivered. He had given years of 
 labour to Kettle Creek and it had returned hate and 
 obloquy. But here was a voluntary and touching 
 gift of thankfulness, small but wonderful. 
 
 in 
 
 At Kettle he was surprised to see Joe Streeter stand- 
 ing before the deserted store, gazing intently at the 
 road leading from the river. Of Streeter he had seen 
 little or nothing since the attack on the Hedley plant; 
 and Cryder had supposed him now gone with other 
 Kettle Creekers. 
 
 " Thought you had pulled out before this, Doc," 
 he greeted, when the surgeon joined him. 
 
 "I thought the same about you, Joe," was the reply. 
 "I'm on the march now, however." 
 
 Streeter made no inquiry as to the absence of Cry- 
 der's car, for which reason the other suspected that 
 he might know something of its disappearance. Singu- 
 larly the fellow, in spite of a naturally malevolent dis- 
 position and rancorous temper, had been one of the 
 few who had taken no stock in the common belief of the 
 surgeon's betrayal of the association. He scoffed at 
 the story; he said that he knew Cryder was square and 
 that was enough for him; that that boob of a lawyer 
 was crooked, of course all lawyers were; and that the 
 Kettle Creekers would have been busted anyway by
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 351 
 
 the capitalists, if not one time then another. They 
 owned all the money in the country, and the courts, 
 and the legislatures, and the people, and could do 
 what they pleased. Until the proletariat rose and 
 wiped them out as had been done in Russia it would be 
 just the same. The I. W. W. would start things one 
 of these days. Dynamite and torches and bullets 
 and a river of blood, that was the only cure. He hoped 
 Kettle Creekers would see it now and in the dis- 
 orderly camp by the river he was not without converts 
 to his desperate social doctrine. 
 
 "What you doing with the kid?" he questioned. 
 
 "Nell brought him to me this afternoon to put in 
 the state institution for feeble minded. She's going to 
 marry some 'hunkie' at Porcupine." 
 
 "Well, the state ought to look after kids like that. 
 After all kids, like in Russia now," Streeter announced. 
 He gave the child a thoughtful scrutiny, while he 
 munched the quid in his cheek. "Never knew whether 
 that kid was mine or not. Nell used to say it was, 
 but she told others the same. Didn't know herself, 
 I reckon. And she's marryin', eh?" He exhibited 
 his yellow teeth in a mirthless grin. "I guess that 
 don't fit in with your ideas o' breedin', Doc." 
 
 "As long as our marriage laws are what they are, 
 that sort of thing's what we can expect. Going out 
 now, Joe?" 
 
 "Nope." Streeter cast a glance toward the road 
 which he previously had been watching. "Not quite 
 ready yet. What's the time? My watch has 
 stopped." Cryder looked at his timepiece.
 
 352 CRYDER 
 
 "Nearly four o'clock." 
 
 "Then suppose you amble along." He gazed at 
 the surgeon with a steady, unblinking, inscrutable look. 
 "If you ain't here, you won't know nothing. See?" 
 
 To this the surgeon made no response. He glanced 
 round at the buildings, at the forest surrounding the 
 clearing, and finally back at Streeter, whom he con- 
 templated in silence. The man's presence here in 
 this place and the profound stillness of the wood all at 
 once seemed a portent of evil. This was not by acci- 
 dent that the fellow waited at the store; some deviltry 
 was on foot. 
 
 "Joe, I don't know what you're up to," Cryder said, 
 "but I can surmise that it's nothing good. I warn 
 you, one of these days you're going to slip." 
 
 "I kin look after myself," Streeter growled. 
 
 "I suppose it's no use for me to say more." 
 
 "Not a bit. And don't you think you're goin' to 
 interfere now. Beat it and beat it quick, I'm tellin' 
 you." He waved toward the south. "I'd hate to 
 harm you, Doc, but I'll put a bullet through you if 
 you stick a finger in my business." 
 
 The aspect of the speaker's face revealed that he 
 would not halt at half-way measures. Cryder swung 
 the idiot boy upon his shoulder. 
 
 "All right, Joe," said he. 
 
 Carrying his medicine case and bearing the boy 
 aloft he set ofF. He could not guess on what particular 
 villainy Streeter was bent except that it would be di- 
 rected at the force of men arriving from Maronville to 
 take possession of the property; nor determine whether
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 353 
 
 the fellow would act alone or with accomplices at 
 present out of sight, equally reckless, equally vindic- 
 tive, equally revengeful. With a heavy heart he 
 tramped forward out of the clearing into the forest 
 road, casting a last look backward as he entered among 
 the trees. Streeter no longer was in sight. To all ap- 
 pearance Kettle was lifeless and abandoned. 
 
 Cryder went but a little way before halting. He set 
 down his case and lowered the child to his feet. Anx- 
 ieties pressed thick upon him. Of the fierce hate of 
 the Kettle Creekers for the Hedley company, fanned 
 by the latter's triumph and arbitrary order of ex- 
 pulsion, he knew only too well; and it seemed now about 
 to culminate in some wild act of the more lawless men. 
 With Streeter it would be useless to argue or plead. 
 With the men travelling here to see that the order had 
 been carried out it likewise would be futile to ask for- 
 bearance or delay. Two human forces would collide 
 in this little spot in the heart of the forest in a shock 
 of terrible passion. 
 
 His thoughts would not flow. In this emergency when 
 he needed all his quickness of brain and astuteness of 
 invention his mind moved but sluggishly, as moves 
 a current laden with alluvium. He was inexplicably 
 tired, incapable of response to the suggestion of im- 
 pending tragedy. Inspiration was dead in him. It 
 was as if inexorable facts at last had borne him down 
 and drained his spirit and left him empty, without re- 
 source and without command of his will. 
 
 As he stood knitting his brows in perplexity, an auto- 
 mobile lurched into view round a bend in the road a
 
 354 CRYDER 
 
 short distance in front, followed by a second car. 
 Both, he perceived, carried men. Rifle barrels pro- 
 truded from the sides of the machines in different po- 
 sitions of careless possession. Altogether there were 
 twelve or fifteen men in the party. 
 
 Cryder hastily seized his black case and led the child 
 out of their track. He waited, watching the first car 
 approach and endeavouring to distinguish its occupants, 
 but found his view cut off by the windshield which 
 flashed and danced as it smote successive bars of slant- 
 ing sunlight. At all hazards he must halt and warn the 
 men. As the car drew near he stepped into the road- 
 way lifting a hand, and then he saw that the boy, the 
 senseless child, automatically had accompanied him. 
 He motioned it back; but the small imbecile simply 
 stared at him agape. Finally, with the car showing no 
 diminishment of speed, he swept up the child and sprang 
 aside. 
 
 The cursed brigands would have run him down! 
 One face among those in the automobile he had recog- 
 nized, Jack Huff's, indifferent, coldly observant of him 
 in his danger, scornful, arrogant. The meaning of the 
 act crashed into Cryder 's brain in a lightning flash of 
 understanding. This was now a Hedley company 
 road, Hedley company ground; Kettle Creekers were 
 trespassers, Cryder was a trespasser; and young Huff 
 was teaching him the fact. He proposed to impress it 
 on him if necessary by running the wheels over Cryder 's 
 body. 
 
 The second car whirled by. In it he glimpsed Wag- 
 ner and the county sheriff among the other men.
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 355 
 
 Once again the surgeon by an instinctive impulse flung 
 up his hand, but as the automobile passed on let it fall, 
 a feeling of futility pervading his breast. He was but 
 a straw, brushed aside. The forces that through all 
 the years had been developing in antagonism now were 
 not to be stayed by any gesture or cry of his. For this 
 day, for this hour all the human passions of the actors 
 had been rising, all the deeds been accumulating, all the 
 events been building. Out of the lives of those in- 
 volved, from a seed of dishonesty and evil this thing 
 had budded and swelled and leafed and flowered in a 
 black blossom named Destiny. 
 
 Cryder set the child on the ground at the foot of a 
 tree. Beside him he placed the medicine case. Then 
 he cast a hurried glance toward the clearing. The 
 automobiles had arrived before the deserted store, 
 halted, and the occupants were alighting, stretching 
 themselves, indolently gazing round the open space, and 
 making themselves at home. He perceived Wagner 
 separate himself from the others and walk away from 
 the cars, moving with slow and planted steps while 
 searching the ground as if seeking the spot where a 
 year before on the night of his visit the bonfire had 
 burned; as if indeed at this moment he desired the 
 satisfaction of treading the place of his rout and ig- 
 nominy. 
 
 The surgeon waited no longer. The party was in 
 danger and the affront he had received must not weigh 
 in the scales. Even at the risk of his own life he must 
 give them warning. He began to run toward the clearing. 
 On the carpet of pine needles his boot soles slipped and
 
 356 CRYDER 
 
 refused footing. He turned out into the road, taking 
 deep breath and keeping his eyes fixed on the figures 
 before the store. In what form the peril lay he could 
 not divine, but whatever its nature it must be averted. 
 At last he ran forth from the forest into the clearing. 
 
 IV 
 
 From the black thicket of jack-pine east of the clear- 
 ing suddenly burst a crackle of rifle fire, the sharp stac- 
 cato of an irregular volley, half-a-dozen reports in a 
 vicious and startling rattle of explosions. The men 
 about the two automobiles, for an instant frozen in 
 surprise, made no response, standing rigid, staring; then 
 as if released by a spring they began to seize their guns 
 which leaned against the cars and to jump behind the 
 latter or to dart into the vacated store. 
 
 One of the force had pitched forward upon his face 
 and lay in the dust of the street with his hat fallen from 
 his head. Another had sunk to a sitting position on 
 the ground beside the running-board of one of the cars, 
 grasping at his stomach with both hands, doubled over 
 as if with cramps and uttering angry groans. A third, 
 clutching his left knee, limped after others into the log 
 structure. 
 
 At the discharge Wagner had halted. For a few 
 seconds he remained planted upon his feet with the 
 same solidity that always had characterized his erect 
 posture, after which his knees weakened and yielded 
 and slowly, as if with an air of deliberate forethought, 
 he fell full length. Not a cry, not a sound escaped his 
 lips; no convulsive jerking of his limbs followed his
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 357 
 
 toppling over. He had gone down like a log. When 
 Cryder reached him he was dead. Perforations, three 
 ragged holes, showed in the back of his coat, and when 
 the kneeling surgeon turned him over the man's breast 
 was a welter of blood; the concealed woodsmen who had 
 directed their fire at him, unerring shots all, had planted 
 their bullets squarely in his heart. 
 
 The silence which had ensued upon the deadly volley 
 was now broken by a resumption of fighting among 
 those in the thicket and the sheriff's men hiding behind 
 the cars or in the store. The firing was without order, 
 singly, a persistent but scattered exchange of shots, on 
 the one side from the jack-pines and on the other from 
 the automobile bodies and the store windows and door. 
 The wounded man continued to double over and groan, 
 until struck in the head he rolled down and was still. 
 In the open space between the contestants Wagner's 
 body lay outstretched with Cryder kneeling over it, gaz- 
 ing at the dead man's crimsoned shirt. 
 
 All at once he flung up a hand. 
 
 "Stop firing, you fools!" he yelled. "You've killed 
 him you've done enough! Stop this murder!" 
 
 A blow like that from a club smote his raised hand, 
 knocking it backward and wrenching his arm sharply. 
 He lowered the latter and stared in astonishment at his 
 shattered hand, which felt as if paralyzed and down the 
 fingers of which blood was streaming, dripping from the 
 ends upon the green grass blades. Either a stray shot 
 or a bullet aimed by design had smashed its way through 
 flesh and bones from the base of the little finger to that 
 of the thumb and out.
 
 358 CRYDER 
 
 His wrath burst all bounds. 
 
 "You crazy idiots!" he shouted, springing up. 
 "You've ruined my operating hand! Of all outrageous 
 tricks 
 
 Streeter's voice came to him shrill and penetrating: 
 
 "Beat it, Doc. This is your last chance." 
 
 Like a douche of snow water the strident warning 
 cooled the surgeon's rage and brought him full reali- 
 zation of the perilous place where he stood. One could 
 not reason with madmen. Yes, there were madmen on 
 both sides, insane with a lust to kill. 
 
 He swung round and ran through the grass and among 
 the stumps toward the place where he had left the 
 idiot child and his medicine case. He went at top 
 speed, fearing now that one of the maniacs in the thicket 
 or in the store would shoot him in the back. Behind 
 him the popping of the guns persisted in sputters of 
 sound that quickened and diminished. 
 
 He gained the wood. Breathing heavily and op- 
 pressed by the savage and senseless fight in the clearing, 
 by the misfortune which had befallen his right hand, 
 he dropped to a walk, striding forward among the trees, 
 until he came to the spot where sat the child barkening 
 to the rifle shots and their reverberations in the hills. 
 Cryder went down on his knees and opened his medicine 
 case with his left hand, awkwardly holding the leather 
 bag firmly on the smooth needles under one leg. 
 
 The wounded hand was helpless, still bleeding though 
 beginning to puff, while a sharp throb now asserted 
 itself among the lacerated muscles when he moved the 
 arm. He stripped off his necktie and knotted it in a
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 359 
 
 loop which he slipped over his right wrist. This done 
 he inserted a lead pencil and twisted the silken band, 
 and by use of this rude tourniquet checked the flow of 
 blood. By pressing an end of the pencil under the scarf 
 about his wrist he kept the ligature tight. 
 
 An examination of the injured hand increased his fore- 
 bodings. What if a Dupuytren contracture resulted 
 and he were left with a withered, useless hook instead of 
 a flexible member? If the cursed scoundrels back yon- 
 der had permanently incapacitated his hand But 
 
 at the possibility of such a catastrophe he shuddered. 
 He did not allow his mind to dwell on it; he refused in- 
 deed to consider such a result. By an effort of will he 
 pulled himself together, calmed his perturbed thoughts, 
 and getting the case under his arm led the boy through 
 the wood till they reached the creek. 
 
 In the clearing the conflict gave evidence of an 
 intercession if not a stop. The shots were fewer 
 and more spasmodic, with longer intervals of silence. 
 Whether this indicated the withdrawal of one of the 
 parties or merely was an interlude to a fiercer outburst, 
 Cryder was unable to determine. In the savage and 
 primitive warfare being conducted Streeter and his 
 companions, whoever they were, had a handicap in 
 numbers but a compensating advantage in an intimate 
 knowledge of the forest of the underbrush, the copses, 
 the ravines, and the creek. It would be the height of 
 rashness for the Hedley force to seek to beat them out, 
 thought he, a bloody and almost hopeless task. 
 
 At the stream he washed his broken hand, laving it in 
 the clear cool water and paddling it about until it was
 
 360 CRYDER 
 
 clean of blood. The application of the tourniquet had 
 effected a compression of the arteries in the lower fore- 
 arm so that bleeding had stopped. There was little he 
 could do to repair the broken bones and his first measure 
 must be to prevent infection; later an X-ray photograph 
 would disclose the extent and full nature of the damage. 
 
 From his case he extracted a bottle of iodine and as 
 completely as possible saturated the wound. His hand 
 was quite covered by the blackish-saffron drug and the 
 torn nerves set up a frightful anguish, fiery, torturing, as 
 the disinfectant permeated the flesh. To Cryder this was 
 a matter of no importance. He had the will to endure, 
 the strength to suffer, and the knowledge of the dangers 
 of septicemia to support the pain. If blood-poisoning 
 started in a wound like this, his whole arm would 
 speedily be involved and have to come off. When he 
 had emptied the vial he flung it away and began to 
 bandage the hand with rolls of gauze, tightly, with skill 
 despite the fact that he worked with his left hand; 
 as high up his fore-arm as the tourniquet, layer after 
 layer, until his right hand was completely swathed and 
 padded, having the appearance of being encased in a 
 great white mitt. 
 
 He rose from his knees and inspected the job, turning 
 the hand over and back. Rough surgery this, for a fact, 
 but the dressing would hold. Slowly, a little at a time, 
 taking minutes in the process, he lessened the tightness 
 of the tourniquet, permitting a gradual resumption of 
 the flow of blood through his wrist. In the end he al- 
 together ceased the pressure and drew off the looped 
 necktie.
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 361 
 
 So absorbed had he been in this self-treatment that 
 he had lost all consciousness of strife in the clearing, but 
 now remembered it. Though he could see nothing of 
 the spot, he stood gazing thither, speculating on what 
 might be going on. The firing had ceased. A pro- 
 found and breathless quiet now commanded the forest. 
 In the bough-vaulted spaces the sunshine sifted through 
 in golden oblique spears wherein tiny insects danced or 
 pine needles twirled earthward. 
 
 Cryder let his case lie after dropping into his pockets 
 such of its contents as he could bear; it would have to 
 be abandoned, for he must carry the fatigued child. 
 Raising the boy to his left shoulder he set out on his 
 tramp, slanting away from the creek until he gained the 
 road. Along this he proceeded, along the well-known 
 and beloved way leading out of the forest and the 
 valley. In his ears was the musical rush of Kettle 
 Creek. About him were the silent and solemn pines 
 which he was leaving forever. The hour was nearing 
 five and already a greenish dusk was thickening in the 
 deeper hollows. 
 
 When he had gone forward a mile, he once more 
 turned asid$ to the stream. He was thirsty, and the 
 throbbing pain in his bandaged hand had increased. 
 First giving the boy a drink, he lay down on a flat rock 
 and put his lips to the gushing water and drank deeply, 
 for his wound seemed to have left his whole body 
 parched. 
 
 But before he went on he sat for a time. Somewhere 
 near a cricket was chirping and from a bush a green 
 worm had suspended itself by a thread. A mountain
 
 362 CRYDER 
 
 woodpecker flew before him over a pool, vanishing 
 among a clump of larches. A coolness rose from the 
 surface of the creek. Glints and shimmers played 
 among the bushes and boulders where the water spouted 
 through small channels or whirled in eddies. It was all 
 peaceful, all infinitely steeped in a spirit of serenity. It 
 ignored the petty passions of men. It bespoke the calm 
 and salutary progression of natural forces in their way 
 and season, in their particular degree and direction, in 
 their special accomplishment and in their inevitable 
 evolution. 
 
 Into the soul of the surgeon entered something of 
 that calm. The green shoot pushing aside the earth by 
 his foot and uncurling its pale green head, tender, easily 
 to be crushed, contained an impulse of life and a 
 manifestation of purpose from some obscure source as 
 surely as that in the breast of man; germination was 
 persistent, growth undeviating, fruition certain on the 
 broad land expanses of the earth, perhaps checked in 
 one spot, perhaps retarded in another, but in the large 
 continued as by a supreme dictate. Individual plants 
 suffered injury or were destroyed before their season, 
 and not only individuals but whole companies, yet in 
 the earth's husbandry magnificent, in the swinging 
 cycles of the years and the centuries, there was an 
 ascension and noble fulfilment of design. Was it not 
 so with the human race, with mankind? For all the 
 accidents and misfortunes amid which it moved, despite 
 suffering and misery by individuals and the seeming 
 checks and driftings and decay of peoples, yet was it not 
 so? Was not the race mounting, slowly, painfully, in
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 363 
 
 suffocating vapours of passion, with myopic eyes and 
 dragging feet and groping hands, in turmoil and travail, 
 but nevertheless rising to the hilltops, to the table- 
 land where its eyes would be cleared and its soul up- 
 lifted? 
 
 So, as he pondered, it seemed to Cryder. The faith 
 dying in him once more felt an assuring comfort, as a 
 withering tree feels in the parched earth cooling drops 
 of moisture touch its roots. 
 
 Perhaps some of his acts had worked for the good of 
 others; his efforts been not wholly vain even when in all 
 appearance most fatally misdirected. At any rate, he 
 had had no selfish motive, God knew! That, if nothing 
 else, redeemed his tragic life. Into his mind floated old 
 and precious words, " Who shall ascend into the hill of the 
 Lord ? or who shall stand in his holy place ? He that 
 hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted 
 up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." 
 
 He got upon his feet. 
 
 Come what might, by those principles he should con- 
 tinue to stand, act, hold, and live. . . 
 
 The sounds of explosions startled him. But at once 
 he recognized them as detonations not of rifles but of 
 automobile exhausts. The cars were coming toward 
 him along the road from the clearing and presently he 
 distinguished them flitting through the trees, the first 
 evidently bearing the bodies of the dead, the second the 
 sheriff and his deputies, who crammed the tonneau and 
 filled the running-board on either side. The machines 
 swept by and presently were out of sight. 
 
 It was a retreat. With the withdrawal of Joe Stree-
 
 364 CRYDER 
 
 ter's force, Cryder inferred, Huff and the sheriff had 
 availed themselves of the opportunity to take up the 
 slain and to depart, perceiving the futility of an attempt 
 to overcome the lurking enemy. But their departure 
 would be only temporary; chagrin and rage must burn in 
 their breasts; and they would return with an over- 
 whelming force to crush the culprits, sweep the forest 
 clean of them, and take possession. 
 
 Cryder decided to start on his way. He discovered 
 that the little boy had lain down on the earth and now 
 was sleeping, so the surgeon knelt and slipping his left 
 arm under the child swung him up over his shoulder. 
 
 When he had regained the road a faint smell of wood 
 smoke greeted his nostrils, like supper smoke from a 
 cabin chimney drifting among the pines. Strange. 
 And now as he looked back along the road he perceived 
 a thin bluish haze underneath the boughs. He went 
 forward and once more halted to stare over his shoulder, 
 while a vague uneasiness grew in his mind. On a sud- 
 den he uttered a startled exclamation, for the smoke in 
 the trees had thickened even as he looked and its smell 
 was stronger. A steady, murmurous sound, new and 
 ominous in the forest, came to his ears. A bright glow- 
 ing ember fell through the air upon the dusty road 
 directly before him and he looked down at it in in- 
 credulous dismay. 
 
 Coming to himself, he set off along the road with long, 
 swinging strides, carrying on his shoulder the limp, 
 sleeping idiot boy. The moment when he must break 
 into a run had not yet arrived and for that he must 
 husband his strength. This was not sufficient, he
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 365 
 
 knew, to scale one or the other of the valley ridges if he 
 left the road, as he was weakened by his wound and 
 loss of blood. 
 
 Overhead he beheld the sky white with smoke 
 illuminated with a glow. At the end of the second mile 
 the air was growing hot and he was breathing heavily. 
 
 He glimpsed two men off among the trees at his left 
 carrying rifles and running forward. Before they 
 passed from sight they stopped. One with a sweep 
 of his foot gathered a heap of pine needles, by which 
 he knelt for a few seconds. Cryder saw that the man 
 was Joe Streeter and his companion Barney Noble. 
 Streeter leapt up and they ran on, disappearing. A 
 stream of smoke was funnelling upward from the sheaf 
 of dry needles. 
 
 Cryder strode on. In the wood behind a pinkish 
 light was driving away the dusk in the forest arcades 
 and the murmur had swelled to a dull muted roar. 
 Birds were flying past. A deer broke from the under- 
 brush by the creek and bounded out of view. Through 
 the lofty treetops went a sighing of wind, and a billow 
 of smoke rolled along the road, obscuring the light. 
 
 Where the stream rushed close beside the roadway the 
 surgeon shook the boy awake, dipped himself a drink, 
 and lifted the filled cup to the child's lips. Then 
 he wet his handkerchief and spread it over the small 
 face and again lifted the little body to his shoulder. 
 He hastened on southward. Soon the sweat was 
 running on his cheeks and neck; the smoke smarted in 
 his lungs; his heart was pumping hard, his head ached, 
 and sharp, stabbing pains from time to time shot up his
 
 366 CRYDER 
 
 right arm, while a reddish stain was slowly growing 
 on the bandage about his injured hand. And he had 
 not yet gone half the distance to come out of the timber. 
 
 He passed a fire burning briskly at the left of the road. 
 Its blaze scorched his cheek when he went by. The 
 crimson light steadily increased behind him and the air 
 was filled with a sonorous rushing as if the trees were 
 shaken by a mighty wind. 
 
 All the animal folk of the valley were now in agitated 
 flight. Birds fluttered by. A porcupine wallowed from 
 a heap of stones and wriggled off. Chipmunks flashed 
 along logs and were gone. Squirrels raced in the boughs 
 overhead. Deer darted past. The very insects were 
 speeding southward before the wall of flame roaring 
 down the mountain trough. 
 
 Thus had the forest been fired. 
 
 A column of white smoke ascending from behind the 
 low mountains north of the Furness River had caught 
 the eye of someone in the evicted settlers' camp and 
 become a matter of general interest and discussion. 
 From its position the people knew it rose from a point 
 on Kettle Creek. As it rapidly grew denser the excite- 
 ment increased, until at last there was a sudden hurry- 
 ing forward of everyone except babes and the aged, the 
 mob of them legging it for the hill east of the ravine 
 whence Kettle Creek issued into the greater valley of 
 the Furness. 
 
 First the boys and men reached the hilltop, then 
 came the women and girls and children climbing up in
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 367 
 
 scattered groups, until the whole company, two hun- 
 dred and more, lined the ridge, where they could gaze 
 northward over the forest toward the fire. 
 
 A bluish fog lay above the wood between the parallel 
 ramparts of mountains confining the valley, out of the 
 middle of which rose huge clouds of white smoke that 
 hid the peaks of the Three Sisters at the head of the 
 creek. They saw that the conflagration was then 
 three or four miles distant. On the clouds was a ruby 
 tinge, cast upward by the line of dancing fire; and it 
 was apparent that the timber was burning fiercely and 
 the flames travelling fast. All the heart of the forest was 
 like a furnace. Sheets of fire seemed to sail up and 
 expire in the air. Immense billows of sparks and 
 embers unfurled and spread in the sky. Nearer to the 
 watchers than the great fire were other fires, as indicated 
 by new and slender columns of smoke rising from the 
 trees, which quickly grew in size. It was only a matter 
 of time, however, when these should be engulfed in the 
 sea of flame sweeping southward. 
 
 They observed a six-horse freight wagon emerge from 
 the forest into the cleared part of the valley just before 
 them where the winter before the timber had been 
 felled and logged out for the Kettle Creek Lumber 
 Association's sawmill. A woman sat beside the driver, 
 whose whip could be seen swinging and whose shouts 
 rose faintly to the hilltop. The clearing would not 
 escape the fury of the fire, for in it were small pines un- 
 cut and heaps of brush never burned after the logging 
 operations. 
 
 Reaching the hill, where the road mounted over
 
 3 68 CRYDER 
 
 the point of the ridge to avoid the ravine, the horses 
 dug their hoofs into the hard earth and strained terrifi- 
 cally at their load under continual shouts, until finally 
 they made the ascent, whereupon they stood with heav- 
 ing flanks and slavering mouths. 
 
 Several men and boys from the crowd above ran 
 down to the place. The driver was looking back at 
 the burning forest, while the woman, Nell Boggs, was 
 climbing down over a wagon wheel to the ground. 
 
 "Well, it's sure burnin' up," the driver remarked to 
 his audience, "with the blaze comin' this way fast. 
 Smelled the smoke first about a mile back. Those 
 fellows I passed who went in in autos better be lookin' 
 to themselves. Doc Cryder was in there, too, at the 
 hospital when I came away with this load of his stuff, 
 but he's probably gone out over the ridge." 
 
 A man spoke to Nell Boggs. 
 
 "Where's the kid? Thought you had him with 
 you?" 
 
 Her flaccid cheeks were quivering and in her eyes was 
 a hunted look. 
 
 "Left him with a woman in Berger," she answered, 
 hastily. "Coin' there now to get him and take him 
 with me to Porcupine." She at once set off down the 
 slope before the horses toward the highway in the 
 river valley, by turns running and walking. 
 
 "Scared of the fire," said the driver. "She's been 
 nervous ever since the smoke settled among the trees. 
 Well, I must be travelling along myself. Want to 
 reach the Smith ranch before dark." He looked once 
 more over his shoulder at the flames and smoke. "It's
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 369 
 
 good-bye woods, I'm thinkin'. No stoppin' that," he 
 concluded, and gathered the six reins into his hands. 
 
 The wagon went on down the outer hillside with 
 brakes squealing on the steep pitches. The men and 
 boys climbed the slope again to where the rest of the 
 Kettle Creekers stood. 
 
 Five minutes later two automobiles shot out of the 
 forest and across the clearing and up the ascent, coming 
 to rest where the freighter had stopped. Men alighted. 
 But the first motor car, in which the occupants of the 
 tonneau were curiously slumped down as if asleep, 
 presently went on, descending to the highway along 
 which it sped toward Maronville. 
 
 The men left came climbing up to the crest of the 
 ridge, eight of them, all carrying rifles. In the lead 
 were the sheriff and Jack HufF. 
 
 The former addressed the company of watchers. 
 
 "Who were the men at Kettle when we went in? 
 You people know." The women glanced appre- 
 hensively at his nickel badge and then at one another; 
 the men munched their tobacco stolidly. "Speak up, 
 if you know what's best for you." Still there was 
 silence. He singled out the horse-trader. " You know, 
 Hollister." 
 
 "Nope." 
 
 "Don't lie to me," was the harsh response. 
 
 Hollister leaned forward, his head drawn down be- 
 tween his hunched shoulders, and looked up through his 
 eyelashes with his big mouth shut in a tight smile. 
 
 "We're peaceable folks, Graham," said he. "But 
 just the same you can't bulldoze us. Are you looking
 
 370 CRYDER 
 
 for trouble?" The Kettle Creek men began to edge 
 closer about the armed party, two or three score of 
 them. "Because you'll sure get it if you start any- 
 thing with us," Hollister continued. "And your guns 
 don't scare us none." 
 
 The sheriff glanced about the ring of Hollister's 
 friends. 
 
 "I'm not trying to bulldoze you; I want information," 
 he said, firmly. "The names of the fellows who hid 
 in the brush at the clearing and shot some of our 
 party." 
 
 "Don't know who was there. Who was shot?" 
 
 "Five men, three of them killed. One was Wagner 
 himself." 
 
 "Wagner?" 
 
 "Yes. Some of your scoundrels are going to swing 
 for this day's work." 
 
 He turned away as a deputy pulled his arm and 
 pointed at the forest where near the foot of the ridge 
 and scarcely half a mile away a thin smoke had begun 
 to float upward from the wood. The sheriff and his 
 men ran northward on the ridge. They disappeared 
 in a hollow and came into sight on an ascent beyond and 
 broke into chase when through the thin drifting 
 smoke they beheld on another height in front three 
 men cross over eastward and drop into a wooded 
 gulch. 
 
 Jack Huff had remained. 
 
 "Will you men help fight this fire?" he demanded. 
 "I'll pay you well." 
 
 "Fight your own fires," half a dozen chorused.
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 371 
 
 "We've got to stop it," he exclaimed, "or all the 
 timber will be wiped out." 
 
 "Timber stolen from us, so let it burn," said Hollister, 
 in a tone of finality. 
 
 With an angry face Huff glared about at the crowd. 
 It was a sin for men to stand by with hands in pockets 
 while valuable property like this forest went up in 
 smoke. But there they stood, grinning at him. 
 
 "You're a fine lot of curs, you are!" he grated out. 
 And with his rifle in the crook of his arm he started 
 away in the direction his party had gone. 
 
 The smoke was beginning to blow more thickly over 
 the ridge, for a wind was rising. Women were coughing 
 and children rubbed their eyes. Light ashes sifted 
 down through the air from the white gloom darkening 
 the heavens, in which the low western sun appeared like 
 a copper plate. A steady sound was making itself 
 heard, the distant roar of the fire coming down the 
 valley. 
 
 As he moved northward Jack Huff heard it more 
 and more plainly, while a corresponding chagrin and 
 wrath grew in his heart. The wanton destruction of 
 the timber coming hard on the successful finish of his 
 coup was a crushing blow; and he realized that the 
 fire's sweep of the wood would be clean. Before he 
 could go to Berger or elsewhere and bring a force of 
 fire-fighters the whole forest would be burning. All 
 that was left for him was to assist the sheriff in captur- 
 ing the dastards who had committed the crime. 
 
 The smoke rolling over the ridge made it impossible 
 to see except for a short distance in any direction. Of
 
 CRYDER 
 
 the sheriff and his deputies he neither perceived nor 
 heard anything. However, he continued to go forward 
 along the slopes, until descending into a wooded hollow 
 he halted to listen. 
 
 The air was now hot and sparks were flying in the 
 smoke blowing about him. As he stood trying to decide 
 whether to go forward or to return to the car two men 
 burst out of the underbrush in front of him, both 
 carrying guns. Instantly he knew them for enemies, 
 for one, Joe Streeter, he recognized. 
 
 The men stopped short, Streeter uttering an oath. 
 His companion, Barney Noble, swung up his rifle, but 
 Huff was the quicker to shoot and the banjo player 
 fell dead among the bushes. Next instant Streeter's 
 gun sounded and Jack Huff pitched forward on his face. 
 
 Streeter went on up the ravine in the cloud of smoke 
 and over the ridge and away. 
 
 VI 
 
 The watchers on the hill had been driven down to the 
 highway as the fire came near. The air had grown hot; 
 sparks and embers and even blazing brands were falling 
 on the ridge, and the smoke was too thick to endure. 
 
 They knew that Kettle had gone, that Cryder's 
 hospital was a heap of ashes, that the cabins in which 
 they so long had lived had vanished, and that the flames 
 rushing both northward and southward in the valley 
 would make the holocaust complete. 
 
 As dusk settled down the Kettle Creekers were still 
 observing from the highway what could be seen of the 
 conflagration by gazing up the creek. The whole wood
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 373 
 
 was now afire and over the Furness River valley smoke 
 was drifting in a fog. A group of women stood on the 
 bridge gazing upstream at the ruddy glow of the 
 inferno, while on the road to the north the men were 
 gathered in small companies where children hung about, 
 watching and discussing the fight at the Kettle clearing 
 and the forest's destruction. 
 
 All at once a woman on the bridge uttered a startled 
 word, drawing the attention of her companions by 
 pointing a finger at a man who had come in sight round 
 a clump of bushes in a bend of the creek just before 
 them. The man carried a child in his arms and his 
 right hand was wrapped in a bloody bandage; he was 
 hatless, coatless, and he was dripping wet; and he was 
 bowed with his chin on his breast, as if utterly ex- 
 hausted, staggering ahead in the water one step at a 
 time, planting a foot among the stones with infinite 
 effort and then moving forward the other while the 
 current rippled about his legs. 
 
 The women watched that laborious advance in pro- 
 found silence, dumb with amazement. For the man 
 had come out of the inferno. They could now hear his 
 whistling breath and see the rise and fall of his chest as 
 he gasped. He did not look up; he did not know they 
 were there; he moved with but one blind purpose, they 
 perceived, and that to maintain his slow and painful 
 progress. 
 
 A murmur of awe ran among the women. 
 
 "Doc Cryder!" someone exclaimed. 
 
 He stopped at the utterance. With a hesitating air 
 he turned his head to the left and to the right in a peer-
 
 374 CRYDER 
 
 ing look and at last lifted his face to gaze upward at the 
 women, a face gray and hard set and drawn from suffer- 
 ing. Finally he staggered to the bank, up which he 
 painfully climbed and thence gained the road. 
 
 A few of the women were calling excitedly to the 
 Kettle Creek men, who hastened toward the spot. As 
 they came up, Cryder let the child he bore, Nell Boggs's 
 idiot boy, slide to the ground. He stood swaying 
 dizzily and once brushed with his blood-soaked band- 
 aged hand at his eyes as a swirl of smoke enveloped him. 
 
 Hollister and Arnold Meek went to him to give him 
 support. 
 
 "I'm sick," he said, thickly. 
 
 "And hurt," Arnold Meek rejoined. "Come to our 
 camp." 
 
 By an effort of will he shook the old man's arm from 
 his shoulder. He looked slowly about at the crowd 
 gathered before him, his big body swinging unsteadily. 
 
 "Not on your life!" he said. 
 
 "Now, Doc, now, Doc " Hollister began. 
 
 " I don't want help from people whom I cared for for 
 years and who turned against me at the first lie," he 
 went on. "Not from people who believe me a traitor!" 
 
 "Some of us never believed that," said Arnold Meek. 
 
 "A few of you, yes, thank God! You, Arnold, you, 
 Dave, and three or four more. But the rest the 
 others who " He could not continue. 
 
 "They'll not think so now since you saved this child, 
 for if your heart wasn't right you would never have 
 brought him out of that raging fire." The old man 
 faced about to the silent crowd, his aspect stern and
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 375 
 
 his very white beard trembling with indignation. "Till 
 now you would not heed me," he exclaimed. "But at 
 this instant I bid you drive from your breasts the wrong- 
 ful hatred you've held against Doctor Cryder, who 
 always has been your best friend. If he had betrayed 
 you as you in your passion thought, would he have 
 troubled to bear through the flames this small unfortu- 
 nate, this poor benighted little fellow? I tell you, this 
 child is a witness unto his righteousness!" 
 
 Those before him, listening to the speaker's solemn 
 declaration and beholding in the dusk the figure of the 
 surgeon with the idiot child clinging to his knee, both 
 thrown into strong relief by the crimson glare in the 
 ravine beyond them, were stirred by an unaccountable 
 emotion. 
 
 A woman took a step forward and caught Cryder's 
 left hand in hers, while her look strained up to his face. 
 
 "You used to be good to us, Doctor," she quavered, 
 "curin' us and our kids. You never sold us out like 
 they said, did you? Just tell me you didn't is all I ask." 
 
 Into the surgeon's pale knotted countenance came a 
 shadow of the good humour they all used to know in 
 years past. 
 
 "No, I didn't," said he. "Of course not. You be- 
 longed to me. Hadn't I been giving you all pills and 
 painkiller for ten years and more ? " His eyes shut and 
 he swayed while a score of hands reached out instinc- 
 tively to support him. " I only wanted to to help " 
 
 His last strength was ebbing. 
 
 "Look out, don't let him fall!" shouted a man. 
 
 Cryder by an effort held himself upright.
 
 37 6 CRYDER 
 
 "To help you," he mumbled, "but you're such : 
 
 He groped blindly in the air with his red-stained 
 bundle of a hand. 
 
 "Such infernal mo morons 
 
 His big body fell forward with the final muttered 
 word. Before he struck the ground he was caught by 
 the eager arms of men and women. Kettle Creek folk 
 had again taken him to themselves.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE ECHO 
 
 ON A Sunday afternoon, nearly two weeks after 
 the tragical occurrence in the mountains, Mr. Williams 
 was walking briskly across Columbia Park carrying a 
 large bundle loosely tied in a brown paper under one arm 
 when he overtook Frances Huff. She had felt a need of 
 fresh air, she told him, and the tonic of exercise. Mr. 
 Williams heartily approved of this course. 
 
 "I've been concerned about your health," said he, 
 as they moved forward together. "Your face has 
 become a little thin and I want to see you your old self 
 again. A great deal of walking in the open will be the 
 very thing to put colour in your cheeks and give you 
 an appetite and make you sleep. Besides, it will keep 
 you from thinking too much about what has happened." 
 
 His friendly smile and tone warmed Frances's heart. 
 Mr. Williams had proved to be a wonderful helper dur- 
 ing the dark and unhappy days through which she had 
 been passing There had been other kind friends, too, 
 but he it was who at once had taken upon himself the 
 burden of her cares. He had superintended the re- 
 covery of Jack's body; he had arranged the funeral 
 service; he had managed her business affairs and looked 
 
 377
 
 378 CRYDER 
 
 after her comfort; and even now he was aiding her in the 
 disposal of her house lease. 
 
 "I intended to run around this evening and call,'* 
 he continued, "but I can tell you my news as well now. 
 Yesterday I mentioned to Mr. Black, our new manager, 
 who wants a dwelling, that you wished to sell your 
 house furnishings and turn over the lease to someone. 
 He was interested immediately. The only question in 
 his mind is whether the place is large enough; there are 
 four of them his wife, himself, and two children. 
 Will it be convenient for you to have him come to- 
 morrow noon to examine the house and its contents?" 
 
 "Entirely convenient." 
 
 "Then I'll tell him in the morning." 
 
 "I don't know what I should have done without 
 such a friend as you, Mr. Williams," she exclaimed, 
 earnestly. 
 
 He answered in a deprecating tone, "It's very little 
 I've done, and I couldn't have done less." He smiled 
 at her again. In her small brown turban and her 
 straight coat with black fur collar and cuffs she ap- 
 peared slender and very young and very much in need 
 of friends. That was his thought. He believed it best, 
 however, to keep her mind moving and so said, "Do 
 you know what they have done to me? I was apprised 
 of it last night by Mr. Black. Made me superintendent. 
 I kept things running along, you know, till he arrived 
 and the 'authorities that be' gave me the boost. De- 
 cided, evidently, I might as well keep my hand in." 
 
 "That makes me happy," Frances said. 
 
 "I'm pleased, naturally."
 
 THE ECHO 379 
 
 "The company suffered a very serious loss farther 
 up the river, too, I was told." 
 
 "Yes. The fellows who fired the Kettle Creek 
 timber went on up to other tracts of ours and likewise 
 set them ablaze. They had stolen Doctor Cryder's 
 automobile and hidden it somewhere near Berger and 
 used it to escape the sheriff. They cut the wires in 
 several places on the road so no alarm could be given. 
 That same night half-a-dozen forest fires were raging 
 and our men fighting them. Joe Streeter was cornered 
 and killed next day; the other men got away. But 
 there is much timber left." 
 
 "None in Kettle Creek valley, though, is there?" 
 
 "No. Nothing there but blackened stumps, some 
 of them still smouldering." 
 
 "It seems as if somehow all the destruction and 
 bloodshed there ought to have been avoided." 
 
 "Ah, yes," said he. "When one looks back at it, one 
 sees the game isn't worth the candle." He shook his 
 head sadly. After a time he remarked in a lighter 
 tone, "You can't guess what I have in this package and 
 where it's going." 
 
 "I hear a scraping and rattling in the paper." 
 
 "Cedar sprigs," said he. "I'm on my way to the 
 hospital with them for Doctor Cryder, as he told me 
 a couple of evenings ago that he should like nothing 
 better than to smell them. He has had a lot of flowers 
 in his room, of course, but he craved something from the 
 woods; and early this morning I drove up the valley a 
 short distance till I found some pines and cedars in a 
 gulch. People have changed their minds about Doc,
 
 3 8o CRYDER 
 
 though some of us didn't have to change them. Even 
 the Kettle Creekers appear to respect him again; at any 
 rate, a considerable number call at the hospital to see 
 him, Martin tells me. Something happened up there 
 in their camp by the river at the time of the fire which 
 made them think better of him. He was caught in the 
 forest when it was burning, you know." 
 
 "He was? I had not heard that." 
 
 "I've told you none of the particulars of what oc- 
 curred and I suppose no one else has," Williams stated. 
 "There was no occasion to add to your distress by re- 
 lating details." 
 
 "I knew Doctor Cryder had suffered a hurt and was 
 in the hospital, that's all. His hand, wasn't it?" 
 
 "His right hand, yes. Quite disabled. He'll never 
 use it to operate with again. There was a fight in the 
 clearing before the wood burned and a bullet from one 
 of the fellows in the underbrush smashed his hand. 
 He was weakened by loss of blood, he told me, and be- 
 sides had a child to carry, a small imbecile boy whose 
 mother had left him with Cryder that day. Well, he 
 didn't say anything about the ordeal he had getting out 
 of the forest while it was burning, but I imagine it was 
 pretty bad. When he came out something happened 
 among the Kettle Creekers, as I said, to change their 
 attitude toward him. Perhaps it was his saving the 
 boy, perhaps for other reasons. They brought him 
 down in a wagon that night and he has been a sick man 
 since, but he's improving nicely. Sitting up the last 
 time I was there. All the Kettle Creekers have come 
 down, too, camping by the river. They 're beginning to
 
 THE ECHO 381 
 
 go away, to scatter. One feels rather sorry for them, 
 after all. And it's a satisfaction to know that they 
 along with others feel friendly again to Cryder, for he 
 certainly suffered under a lot of unjust criticism." 
 
 Frances gazed before her without speaking. She 
 was thinking of the man of whom Mr. Williams talked. 
 
 "Would you mind if I went with you to see him?" 
 she asked, at last. 
 
 "Why, I shall be very glad if you will and I'm sure 
 Doctor Cryder will be pleased." 
 
 At the hospital the office attendant nodded in re- 
 sponse to Williams's request for permission to see Cryder 
 and bade them go ahead. The room was at the west 
 end of the hallway on the floor above, on the door of 
 which Frances's companion lightly knocked. On re- 
 ceiving an answer they went in. 
 
 Cryder was propped up in bed. To Frances his eyes 
 appeared deeply sunken in their sockets and his face 
 pale and worn, marked by several recently healed burns, 
 but his manner was calm and even cheerful. When he 
 perceived her his countenance brightened. His band- 
 aged right hand remained on the coverlet, but he 
 reached out his left in an eager greeting. 
 
 "I have wondered often of you and wished I might 
 see you," he said. "You have had heavy trouble and 
 sad days. When I thought of you, my heart was full." 
 
 Frances sank into the seat Mr. Williams placed 
 for her by the bed, still clasping Cryder 's hand. Her 
 emotion left her unable to speak, while tears stood in 
 her eyes as she regarded him. 
 
 Mr. Williams untied his bundle. He gestured
 
 382 CRYDER 
 
 toward the vases filled with asters and yellow chrysan- 
 themums, saying, "You have flowers; I imagined you 
 would like something from the hills." And he showed 
 the cedar cuttings. 
 
 "I do. How good they smell! Put them here on 
 the bed within reach. Ah, Frances." 
 
 She was crying now, her handkerchief held to her 
 eyes, and her head bent. 
 
 "I can't help weeping," she said, brokenly, "when I 
 remember everything." 
 
 Mr. Williams nodded to Cryder in comprehension 
 of her grief and went from the room, gently closing 
 the door after him. 
 
 II 
 
 Frances was on her knees now and sobbing against 
 Cryder's shoulder, held fast by his left arm. Neither 
 had spoken for a long time. On the man's face was the 
 light of an ineffable happiness. 
 
 "We need each other," he said at last, when her 
 crying ceased. 
 
 "I knew months ago that I loved you. I think in- 
 deed that I loved you even when I was in the forest 
 there the forest that is gone," she murmured. "We 
 both have suffered hurts, but our love will heal them. 
 Yes, we need each other." 
 
 They began to talk of the future, and now and again 
 as they talked Frances lightly caressed his injured hand. 
 He would never operate again, he told her; that knowl- 
 edge at first had nearly broken his spirit. He thought 
 he was done for. But after a time his courage had
 
 THE ECHO 383 
 
 returned and he began to canvass the medical field for 
 a new specialized use of his abilities. And he believed 
 he had hit on the practice to which he could best adapt 
 himself in his maimed condition children. He loved 
 the little ones. He liked nothing better than to pull 
 them out of sickness and set them running about their 
 play. He had grown enthusiastic over the idea of 
 specializing in children's diseases and was confident 
 that with a fresh start somewhere, possibly in the East, 
 where he had professional friends to help him at the out- 
 set, he would make a go of it. There was no reason 
 now for remaining here; and many for not remaining. 
 Unless she desired to stay. 
 
 "I would rather not," she answered. 
 
 "We should be happier elsewhere, I think," he said. 
 She had informed him of her break with Patterson late 
 in the summer and of the coldness which existed be- 
 tween Jack and her as a result, even to the day of his 
 death; and he had understood. "We should be happier 
 in leaving Maronville and this region and in living our 
 life in a new home. I don't believe I could stay here 
 knowing my forest and my Kettle Creekers were gone." 
 A whimsical smile glimmered on his rugged face. 
 "They have forgiven me, you know at least, the most 
 of them." 
 
 'They were the ones to be forgiven," she exclaimed. 
 
 "Well, it comes to the same thing." He pondered 
 for a moment. "I don't remember exactly what took 
 place to restore me in their good graces; I'm a bit hazy 
 as to events during my escape from the burning wood. 
 But whatever it was, it sufficed. I'm greatly pleased
 
 384 CRYDER 
 
 over it, too. Possibly down in their hearts they never 
 really believed I had betrayed them. A few of them 
 always maintained their faith in me. And now they'll 
 be wanderers, though I'm not sure but that this shaking 
 them out of the timber may prove the very best thing 
 for them in the end. Transplanting is sometimes as good 
 for people as for plants. New soil means new energy." 
 
 A bar of sunshine slanted upon the cedar sprigs lying 
 on the coverlet. From them emanated the sweet odour 
 reminiscent of forests. 
 
 "Your hospital burned with the rest, didn't it?" 
 Frances asked. She had wiped her eyes and was grow- 
 ing cheerful. 
 
 "They tell me so. Fortunately my apparatus had 
 gone out on a wagon." 
 
 "I shall always remember things there as I saw 
 them," she said. "The little valley must be quite 
 desolate now; I shouldn't care to see it." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Do you remember the evening when we came home 
 after the cloud-burst and saw the angry light reflected 
 from a cloud upon the forest? I said it was as if the 
 woods were burning. That was the same afternoon on 
 which Mr. Wagner came to see Jack and the plan was 
 made to secure the timber. I've thought of that a 
 number of times during the past two weeks. Could it 
 have been only coincidence?" 
 
 "Nothing else." 
 
 "I suppose so, and yet " She shook her head 
 
 vigorously, saying, "No, I'm not superstitious. I 
 know, of course, that's an absurd way to look at the
 
 THE ECHO 385 
 
 matter. It's always easy to read a meaning into past 
 events. But it was strange, wasn't it ? " 
 
 "So strange as to be impressive," he agreed. "And 
 yet I had seen the same thing half-a-dozen times before 
 during my residence there." 
 
 "That shows then there was nothing in the co- 
 incidence." 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Mr. Williams used to smile at my imagination when 
 I was in the lumber company office," she went on. "I 
 told him the echo of the sawmill whistle thundering 
 from the mountain across the river was a condemnation 
 of men's ways." 
 
 "Perhaps it was," said he. His smile was one of 
 understanding. 
 
 "Before we go from here I'll take you to hear it." 
 
 "That should not be long. Two or three weeks 
 more. I'm picking up my strength fast now." 
 
 Their talk once more ran into the future, away from 
 the past and away from Maronville. Frances sat on 
 the side of the bed holding his left hand in both of hers. 
 They gazed at each other with shining eyes. They 
 were designing a new morrow and a new life, lifting their 
 souls above the fatality of the old. 
 
 in 
 
 Late on a November day Doctor Cryder and Frances 
 Huff had gone for a walk along the river above the 
 town. Coming to a granite boulder half-buried in the 
 earth, a quarter of a mile below the Hedley Lumber! 
 Company's plant, they seated themselves on it to rest
 
 386 CRYDER 
 
 and to gaze at the river. Though Cryder's hand was 
 almost healed, he still wore it bandaged and Frances 
 now wrapped it in a yarn scarf she carried, for the air 
 was turning sharp. 
 
 This was their last day in Maronville. On the 
 morrow they were to be married and depart for the 
 East. 
 
 From the slender black smokestacks of the sawmill 
 a thin smoke was rising and near the base of these wisps 
 of vapour escaped from a steam pipe. To their ears 
 came a hum of noise, lessened by distance, in which they 
 could distinguish, high-keyed, the intermittent screech- 
 ing of saws and planers. Work was proceeding full- 
 blast in the sawmill. Downstream Cryder and Frances 
 could see also the plant of the Kettle Creek Lumber 
 Association, a mile below them, and just against the 
 town over which a red sun was setting; but that mill was 
 inactive, lifeless. 
 
 "The trouble isn't with industry itself, as I see it," 
 Cryder said, presently, in answer to some words of his 
 companion. " Modern industry is an inevitable develop- 
 ment of the age. What's wrong is that it has come to 
 be considered the chief end of life." 
 
 "I see that," Frances returned. "What, however, 
 can be done about it?" 
 
 He meditated awhile. 
 
 "We need a renaissance of the heart," he stated, 
 "for we're still in the Dark Ages so far as the social 
 spirit is concerned. Our minds have run ahead of our 
 souls. And what is the result ? There's selfishness and 
 greed among the wealthy and passion and ignorance
 
 THE ECHO 387 
 
 among the poor; and between these millstones, if there 
 be not a change, this people of ours some day will be 
 ground fine." 
 
 "And that means education is necessary, doesn't it?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Education in the true values of things and in un- 
 selfishness. Look at this." He lifted his bandaged 
 hand. "It was caught between the millstones. So 
 were Nick and Streeter and Wagner and your brother 
 Jack and others. So was our beautiful forest. So will 
 be the nation if the thing isn't stopped. And the 
 change must be in the hearts of men; that's the only 
 remedy. For the paradoxical feature of the human 
 spirit is that it withers when it takes from another 
 wrongfully and seems to have most, but really grows 
 by giving to others. All that is necessary to make the 
 world well is for men to be kind and just." 
 
 As he stopped speaking there came from the Hedley 
 Lumber Company's sawmill a loud blowing of the 
 whistle, dying at the end. Five o'clock. Work was 
 done. The day was over. 
 
 Frances dropped her hand on Cryder's arm, saying, 
 "Listen!" Thus they sat, with eyes lifted to the 
 mountain across the river, listening. 
 
 A few seconds of time passed. 
 
 Then the echo was suddenly hurled back in a long- 
 drawn, thunderous shout. It was like a voice, a living 
 and portentous voice that travelled over the stream and 
 over the listeners on the rock, over the town, over the 
 ranches, over the hills, and over all the broad land 
 beyond to the teeming millions of men everywhere. . . .
 
 388 CRYDER 
 
 A voice that acclaimed the radiance of valley and 
 plain, the dignity of field and forest, the inviolability of 
 rivers, the might of tides and seasons, the fullness of the 
 earth, the grandeur of the hills everlasting. . . . 
 
 A voice invoking nobility in life and extolling the 
 glory of the world. 
 
 THE END
 
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