Part 22

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE END.

* * * * * * * *

"_Oppenheim's Latest Success_"

*THE MISSIONER*

By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

Fully Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50

Action, excitement, and mystery are three ingredients always found in Mr. Oppenheim's novels. His new story, "The Missioner," is the compound of love and adventure which this author so deftly produces, and his characters have more than their usual individuality.

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

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

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

* * * * *

_An exceedingly clever volume_.--BOSTON GLOBE

*AN ORIGINAL GENTLEMAN*

_By_ ANNE WARNER

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

Frontispiece by Alice Barber Stephens. Cloth. $1.50

Merry reading indeed.--_New York Tribune_.

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

"_Unique among novels_"

*THE MAN WHO ENDED WAR*

By HOLLIS GODFREY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

*THE REJUVENATION OF AUNT MARY*

By ANNE WARNER

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

Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.30

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

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

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

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

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

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

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