CHAPTER VI

“That is just what we want to know. The only thing we want to know more is how to get out by any other way than past the cliff which we almost rode over in the darkness. This is Mr. Loring, Mr. Bingham, one of the hoist engineers at Quentin. Darkness overtook us while we were riding, and I thought that I knew a short cut. I did not, it seems, and here we are.”

“Yes, and a mighty narrow escape you had if you were up by the divide yonder. It drops off a good five hundred feet. Cleverness of your horses, I suppose. Positively uncanny the instinct of those little beasts! Well, as it happens, you have been riding only a few rods from the path which you were looking for, only that winds around the divide, and not over it. I am on my way to our camp just below here. You’ll stop to supper with us, of course,” he added, as the lights of his camp suddenly twinkled from behind a spur in the hills.

“Not to-night, thank you,” Jean answered. “I am afraid that my father will be worried as it is, and would soon be scouring the mountains for us.”

“It might look a little as if you’d run off together,”Mr. Bingham chuckled with obtuse humor. Suddenly Jean, who had been all gratitude, felt that she could, with great pleasure, see him go over the cliff which they had avoided. She would have liked to reply to his remark with something either jocular or haughty; but instead she was conscious of a stiff, shy pause, broken by Loring’s query as to how the ore was running in the Bingham mine.

“Decidedly he is a gentleman,” reflected Jean, and then the scene of her talk with her father flashed over her,—the porch, the living-room, the guitar, the song “She’s o’er the border and awa’ wi’ Jock o’ Hazeldean.”

Suddenly she laughed aloud. Both men turned in their saddles to see what could have caused her sudden mirth. “Only an echo,” Jean explained. “It sounded like a girl’s voice. It is gone now. Don’t stop!”

Mr. Bingham seemed so grieved to have them pass the camp without dismounting that Jean, realizing that a neglect of his proffered hospitality would wound him unnecessarily, consented to take a cup of coffee. Mrs. Bingham brought it to them with her own hands, talking to them eagerly as they drank it. Mr.Bingham drew out his flask and offered it to Stephen; but with a glance at Jean, he declined it and the girl noted the sacrifice with satisfaction.

The coffee finished, Jean and Loring bade a hasty farewell to their hosts, who grieved over their parting with that true Western hospitality born of the desolate hills, the long reaches of sparsely populated country, and the loneliness of camp life.

The horses were tired; but their riders had no notion of sparing them, and rode as fast as the roughness of the trail permitted. Mr. Bingham’s ill-timed words had jarred upon their companionship, and the horses’ hoofs alone broke the silence which had fallen between them.

It was eleven o’clock when they reached Quentin, and Mr. Cameron was pacing the porch impatiently, peering out into the blackness where the moonlight pierced it, as they rode up to the shack.

“We are all safe, father; we merely took a wrong turning,” Jean called aloud as they drew rein.

“Yes,” observed Mr. Cameron with a stubbornring in his voice. “I was afraid that you had.”

Jean perceived her father’s frame of mind instantly, and the Cameron in her rose to meet the Cameron in him.

“We have spent a very agreeable afternoon, however,” she said in clear, determined tones; “at least I have, so I can scarcely regret our adventure, though I am sorry to have caused you anxiety.”

To Loring’s surprise, instead of slipping out of her saddle as she had done before, she waited for him to lift her down. As he did so, she felt his lips brush her sleeve. It was done after the fashion of a devotee, not of a lover, yet the girl’s pulses bounded with a sense of elation and power. She held a man’s soul in her hands. Yes, she knew now with a sense of certainty what she had only suspected before,—that Loring loved her. How she felt herself, how much response the man’s passion had power to call out in her, she took no time to think; but she resolved to use this new power for his good. It should be the beginning of better things than he had ever known. Oh, yes, love could do anything. She had always heard that.

That night Loring, too, would have sworn that the turning point in his life had come, that never again could he prove unworthy of the trust in him which had shone from Jean Cameron’s eyes and pulsed in the strong clasp of her hand. A woman’s faith had saved other men worse than he. Why could he not surely rely upon its power to save him, too?

One who knew him well might have answered: “Because you are both too strong and too weak to be saved by anything from without. Your regeneration, if it comes, will come from no such gentle approaches and soft appeals, but through the stress and storm of deep experience, through the struggle and agony of overwhelming remorse. So it must be with some men.”

From the time of their ride together, Jean’s thoughts were much more occupied with Loring than they had been before. The consciousness of her father’s opposition was an added stimulus, partly by reason of her inherited obstinacy, and partly because she felt that Loring was misunderstood, and all her loyalty was engaged in his behalf. She felt a pride in having discovered what she thought were his possibilities, and she was determined that the world should acknowledge them too. In the face of Mr. Cameron’s disapproval she did not venture to ask Loring to the house; but whenever they met in the camp or on the road she made a point of stopping to talk with him and inquiring how things were going at the hoist.

It must be set down to Loring’s credit that none of these meetings were of his planning, for as his love for her deepened, as it did day by day, he felt more and more keenly the barrierswhich he himself had raised between them. He felt how far wrong he had been in assuming that his life had been wholly his own and that his failures could touch no one but himself. He did not dare to construct the future, but clung to the present with realization of its blessings. He felt a glow of pride in Jean’s friendship for him, and a steady reliance on her faith in him. Week after week went by and the fiber within him strengthened. The belief in the worthwhileness of life came to him with a splendid rush of conviction that was not to be denied.

The depth of happiness is, unfortunately, however, no criterion of its duration. One evening the stage, after depositing at the office its load of mail and newcomers, lurched jerkily up the incline that led to Mr. Cameron’s house, instead of being driven to the corral as usual. Loring watched it and his spirits dropped like a barometer. An incident may easily depress high spirits, though it takes an event to raise low ones. The event which had raised his spirits to-day was a meeting with Jean Cameron while Mr. Cameron was inspecting Number Three shaft. Jean had accompanied her father to the hoist and Loring had been able to talk with herfor a longer time than usual. The incident that had depressed was merely a slight break in the routine. He did not usually notice the stage. Why should he do so now? What was more natural than that Mr. Cameron should have some visitor?

“Probably one of the directors of the company, or some official,” Stephen reflected. “Perhaps that was why that new saddle was sent down to the corral.”

Loring shortened his day by dividing it into periods. A period consisted of the time required to raise ten buckets of ore. At the end of each period he permitted himself to glance over his shoulder, where just beyond the corner of the ore cribs he could see the porch of Mr. Cameron’s house. Now and then he was rewarded by a glimpse of Jean reading or talking to her father. Loring was very honest with himself and never before the requisite amount of work was accomplished did he give himself his reward. This morning he had gone through the usual routine, lowered the day’s shift and patiently waited to hoist the first result of their labor. It had been a severe strain on his subjective integrity, when, after he had raised nine buckets of ore, the expectedtenth turned out to be merely a load of dulled drills sent up to be sharpened. Exasperated, he watched while the “nipper” boys unloaded the drills and put in the newly sharpened sets which they had brought from the blacksmith’s. One little fellow either unduly conscientious, or with a wholesome dread of the wrath of the mine foreman, laboriously counted the new drills from the short “starters” to the six- and seven-foot drills that complete the set.

“Oh, they’re all right, Ignacio,” called Stephen. “Chuck them in!’Sta ’ueno.”

The next time his hopes were fulfilled, and bucket number ten appeared on the surface. As soon as it was clear of the shaft and swung onto the waiting ore car, Stephen turned for his long-desired glance. Tied to the fence in front of Mr. Cameron’s house was another horse beside Jean’s pony, which he knew so well. As he looked, the door opened and Jean appeared. She was too far away for him to distinguish her features and yet she seemed to him to have an air of buoyancy which he had not before remarked. A man stepped out of the doorway behind her. His tan riding-boots were brilliant with a gloss that is unknown ina world where men shine their own shoes. The sunlight positively quivered upon them. Jean and the stranger mounted, and as they rode nearer to the hoist Stephen observed that the man was singularly good-looking, but “too sleek by half,” he growled vindictively, as he turned to his work again.

The stranger turned out to be a young cousin of Mr. Cameron’s, ostensibly in camp to see “western life”; but Stephen had his own opinion as to that. In a week Loring disliked the cousin, in a fortnight he loathed him, and all without ever having exchanged a word with the dapper youth. A man who by necessity is compelled to wear a flannel shirt and trousers frayed by tucking within high boots, is always prone to consider a better dressed man as dapper. For a week Stephen had not had a chance to speak with Miss Cameron. The cousin, “Archibald Iverach,” as the letters which Loring saw at the post-office indicated to be his name, may not have been intentionally responsible; but to his shadow-like attendance on Jean, Loring attributed the result and accordingly prayed for his departure. “To be sure he is her guest; but that is no reason why he should have toogood a time,” he reflected gloomily. “She must be enjoying his visit or she would not keep him so long.”

Had Loring overheard a conversation which took place at Mr. Cameron’s table the day before Iverach’s return to the East, he would have felt his affection for that gentleman still more increased. The conversation had turned upon the types of men in camp. Iverach’s estimate of them had been as disparaging as theirs of him. The only men with whom he had come in contact had annoyed him as having no place in his neatly constructed world. “Cheap independence” was the phrase that he had used to describe their manner. He had good cause to know this independence for one day he had addressed McKay in a rather lofty fashion, and what McKay had said in return could only be constructed from a careful and diligent reading of the unexpurgated parts of all the most lurid books in the world combined. The retort had been worthy of a territory where the championship swearing belt is held by one who can swear between syllables. His remarks had reflected on Iverach’s parentage on the male and female sides, it had enlarged on his past,expatiated on his probable future, dilated upon his present. The pleasantest of the places that awaited him, according to McKay, was hotter than Tombstone in August. His looks and character had been described in a way that had surpassed even McKay’s fertile imagination. Iverach had always imagined that he would fight a man for using such language to him; yet for some reason he had not hastened to express offense. He was not a coward; but he was not adventurous nor easily aroused to anger when it might have unpleasant results. Consequently to-day, when he finished his remarks about the men whom he had seen by observing that they were “the scum of the earth,” he was guilty of no conscious exaggeration.

Mr. Cameron paid no attention to his cousin’s remarks. He had rarely found them rewarding and therefore with his usual Scotch economy he declined to waste interest upon them. Jean, however, for some reason took the trouble to continue the discussion.

“Have you met a man named Loring, one of the hoist engineers?” she asked quietly.

Iverach looked up suddenly. “Loring? What is his first name?”

“Stephen.”

“I have not met him here; but if he is the man I think he is, I happen to have heard something of him in the East. A friend of his asked me to keep an eye out for him if I came to any of the camps in Arizona. In fact, he told me to keep two eyes open for him, one to find him with, and the other to look out for him after I had found him. He intimated that Loring was not a reliable character, to say the least.”

“A friend of his, did you say?”

“I judged that he had been at one time, but from the trend of his conversation his friendship must have been a thing of the dim past. Among other pleasant things about Loring he told me that—”

“Did he say anything about his ability as a hoist engineer? That, I think, is the only thing with which we are concerned here,” interrupted Jean. “You know, Archie, there is a proverb to the effect that ‘a man’s past is his own.’”

“Then all I can say is that Loring is not to be envied his ownership,” Iverach went on, ignoring the danger signal of Jean’s slightly contemptuous manner. “And as for discussinghis past, I cannot see any harm in repeating what every one knows about a man.”

Ordinarily Mr. Cameron was the most fair-minded of men, and judged people by what he knew of them, not by what he heard; but he had a particular antipathy to Loring, caused by dislike of his type, and also he was not sorry to have Jean hear a few truths about the man whose companionship he dreaded for her as much as he resented her championship of him.

“What was it you were going to say about Loring?” he asked of Iverach, as he handed him a cigar.

Iverach paused to clip it carefully with a gold cigar-cutter that hung from his watch-chain. “Of course it is only hearsay that I am repeating—” Archibald began hesitatingly.

“Then why repeat it?” asked Jean ironically.

“Oh, the most interesting things in the world are those that you accept on hearsay,” he laughed. “I forget the details of Loring’s history, but this friend intimated that Loring, when engaged to his guardian’s daughter, borrowed large sums of money from the guardian, and—well, neither the engagement nor the money ever materialized and Stephen Loringis not much sought after in that neighborhood. I met the girl once,” he went on, “and I don’t blame Loring. She was the kind of young woman whose eyes light up only over causes; but the money part of the story, if true, is rather an ugly fact. Dexterity with other people’s money is not an agreeable form of deftness.”

“Utterly contemptible,” snapped Mr. Cameron, flicking the ashes from his cigar onto the table with a prodigal gesture, only to brush them onto an envelope with the afterthought of an exact nature.

Jean rose and walked toward the door.

“At what time do you ride this afternoon?” her cousin called after her.

“Thanks,” replied Jean, without turning, “but I shall not be able to ride this afternoon, I am intending to spend the time in making a pair of curtains for this window. I do not like the view of the hoist.”

Iverach’s face fell, for he was leaving Quentin the next day, and he had counted much upon this last interview. “Can’t the curtains wait until to-morrow?” he remonstrated.

“No, they must be finished at once,” replied Jean with decision.

“Why this burst of domestic energy?” queried Mr. Cameron. “You know that you have not taken a needle in your hand since you have been in the camp.”

“I intend to change my habits in many ways,” Jean responded, pressing her lips together firmly.

“I beg of you not to change at all,” said Iverach. “It is impossible to improve a perfect person. However, since you are in the domestic mood, I wonder if you would take pity on a helpless bachelor and take a stitch in my riding-gloves for me?”

“Riding-gloves are a luxury, while curtains are a necessity,” replied Jean firmly. “However, if you will give the gloves to me, I will see that our Chinaman mends them. There is nothing that he cannot do.”

For some minutes after Jean had left the room, her cousin contemplated the end of his cigar. It was hard for him to twist her expressions into denoting a mood favorable to his complacency, so he spent an unpleasant half hour. At last, giving up all hope of her reappearance, he moodily set forth alone on his ride. He realized that in the Western setting he didnot appeal to Jean Cameron, and only hoped that when she should return to the East, his deficiencies would be less apparent, while his advantages would show more clearly. He therefore concluded to defer putting his fate to the touch until circumstances should prove more propitious.

The curtains took some time in the making. Jean sewed them with a preoccupied elaboration such as she was not accustomed to bestow upon such tasks. She had been startled by the effect of her cousin’s words upon her, and now stared at the hem of the curtains with a slight frown. She had thought her interest in Stephen to be purely abstract and impersonal, and yet it was not pleasant to think of the person in whom she was even abstractly interested as having been concerned in a dubious financial transaction. It certainly added interest to the problem of his regeneration; but nevertheless it abated the zeal for solving that problem, by making it seem not worth while.

Stephen rejoiced when the day came for Iverach to leave Quentin. He hoped that now his relations with Miss Cameron would be resumed. He was amazed to see how much hehad come to rely on his glimpses of her as the inspiration of his existence. The first time that he saw her, however, she passed him with a cool nod in which it would have been hard for any one to find encouragement or inspiration. When this coolness was repeated on several occasions he was puzzled. Then he made up his mind that the underlying reason was the cousin, and in this he was certainly correct, though not in the way he supposed. For the first time he began to realize that the work at the hoist was monotonous.

The Devil has three great allies, natural depravity, aimless activity, and ennui, and this last is his most trusted, subtle, and reliable agent, especially when coupled with depression.

For three days it had been raining in camp, and the roads were mired with brownish red ’dobe mud. In the tents the little stoves failed to dry the reeking air. The ponies looked miserable, human beings hopeless. Men tracked into the office, wet and disgusted, their dirty “slickers” dripping little pools of water wherever they stood. The rain fell with a dull rattle on the galvanized iron roofing, steady, relentless. Even the “shots” from the workings sounded dull and dejected in the heavy atmosphere. Every one was irritable and in an unpleasant frame of mind.

Rain in Arizona is rare; but when it does come it is the coldest, wettest, slimiest rain in the world. It rains from above, from below, from the side. It dissolves rubber; it takes the heat from fire. Water-tight buildings are mere sport for it. It rains in big drops that splash, in fine drizzle that penetrates, in sheetsthat drench. The soft rock melts and becomes mud. The dirt dissolves and becomes quicksand. Empty gulches become torrents; small streams become rivers. Even the “Gila monsters,” those slimy, mottled, bottle-eyed, lizard-shaped reptiles, give up in despair, while mere man has no chance at all for happiness and comfort.

Stephen came back from his work at the hoist, soaked to the skin, and sick. To add to his discouragement he found orders to work a double shift waiting for him in his tent—the engineer of the eleven o’clock, or “graveyard,” shift being incapacitated. He threw himself down on his cot, cursing the squeak of the rusty springs. His feet felt like moist lumps of clay. The dampness of his shirt sent a numb feeling through his stomach. Lynn, his tent-mate, was on shift, so there was nothing to do but stare at the one ornament of the tent, a battered tin alarm clock, which, ticking with exasperating monotony, hung from the ridge-pole of the tent. The sole reading matter at hand was an old copy of the DenverPost. Stephen knew this almost by heart; but he picked it up and began to reread it.

“Be a Booster! Get the convention for your city! Don’t go to sleep!”

The words, in flaming red and black headlines, irritated him. Throwing the paper aside, he amused himself by drawing his fingernail along the wet canvas of the tent, and watching the water ooze through the weave. Occasionally from outside he could hear the cursing of the coke wagon drivers, and the merciless crack of their whips. In his mind he could see almost as well as if he had been outside, the six quivering, straining horses, their haunches worn raw by the traces, the creaking wagon, up to its hubs in mud, and the slipping of the rusty brake shoes.

As he lay there in quiet misery, with renewed strength the utter hopelessness of his life came to him. It was not so much the thought of the present that crushed, but the knowledge that for years a life like this was all that lay before him. The ride of three odd months ago with Jean Cameron had awakened him to visions of things that lay beyond him.

He shivered with cold, and pulled the dirty red blanket up over him. Uncalled for, the thought of the saloon up on the hill came intohis mind. He imagined himself leaning against a bar, the edge fitting comfortably into his side, drinking warm drinks, and feeling that life was worth while. He tried to drive the thought away. It was useless.

Jean Cameron for months now had been his idol, had seemed to him to represent his better self. With an effort he brought her face before him. The vision was all blurred. Her eyes seemed to look away from him. She seemed intangible, unreal, compared with the comfort which he knew that drink would bring.

“What is the use, anyhow?” he murmured to himself.

He turned irresolutely upon his cot, then he jumped up and out onto the floor.

“Oh, damn it, I will!” he exclaimed.

He jammed his hat down over his eyes, struggled into his drenched “slicker,” and started out into the muddy road. As he waded down to the corral, his boots squashed in sodden resentment.

Loring for a moment wavered irresolute while he was saddling his pony.

“I won’t,” he muttered.

But even as he said it, he gave the lastturn to the cinch knot, and swung into the saddle.

Moodily he rode up the trail. It rained harder than ever. The pony slipped, slid, and scrambled. Stephen sat in the saddle, stiff as an image. His face was drawn with lines that were not pleasant to look upon. The corners of his mouth were drawn hard down, telling of tightly clenched teeth.

When he reached the saloon he dismounted, hastily tied his horse to a bush, and went in. In one corner of the shack a stove was burning warmly. The pine boards of the flooring were smooth and white.

The bar, which was made of packing boxes covered with oiled cloth, ran the whole length of the room on the right-hand side from the door. At the left-hand side were a couple of small green baize-covered tables. By these were seated several Mexicans, all more or less drunk. They were singing noisily. Along the wall behind the bar ran a shelf which supported a large array of bottles. Behind these, in imitation of the cheap gaudiness of a city saloon, was a long, cracked mirror. Two Colt revolvers lying grimly on the shelf gave a delicatehint to guests to behave themselves, and to pay their bills.

The Mexicans looked in a stupid, vacant way at Loring, then went on with their singing. The barkeeper was leaning against the wall, biting the end from a cigar, and at the same time whistling. This accomplishment was made possible by the fact that two front teeth were missing. It was rumored that in addition to smoking and whistling, he could curse and expectorate, all at the same time.

The possessor of these remarkable accomplishments greeted Stephen in a friendly fashion. They had often before met in the camp, when Hankins came down from the saloon for supplies.

“Well, now, Mr. Loring, I’m glad to see you. Mean weather out, ain’t it? First time you’ve been up to our diggings, I guess,” he said, while he gripped Stephen’s hand with a crushing grasp.

“Yes, this is the first time I have had a chance to drop in,” rejoined Loring.

Some one rode up to the door, and with heavy tread, and jangling of spurs, came stamping into the saloon.

“How are you stacking up, Jackie?” asked Hankins of the newcomer. “Say, Mr. Loring, I want you to know my partner; Mr. Jackson, shake hands with Mr. Loring.” The introduction accomplished, he stepped back behind the bar.

“What are you goin’ to have to drink, gents? This one is on the house.”

“Thanks! Whisky for me, please,” answered Loring.

“Whisky? All right. I have some pretty good stuff here. No more kick to it than from a little lamb. Have some too, Jackie? I thought so.”

Hankins poured the golden fluid into three gray-looking glasses.

“Regards, gents!” he said in a businesslike tone of voice, raising his glass as he spoke.

“Regards,” echoed Loring, emptying his glass at a gulp.

The whisky sent a warm glow through his frame.

“That was good,” he said, in a judicial tone of voice. “Now won’t you gentlemen take something with me?”

“Well, I don’t care if I do,” answered Hankins.

The same formula, “Regards,” was repeated.

Loring leaned in comfort against the bar. The attitude, unfortunately, was not strange to him. Time and time again, on Stephen’s invitation, the glasses were refilled, while every now and then Hankins insisted, “One on the house.” After the first two drinks, however, the latter and his partner drank only beer, while Loring continued to drink straight whisky. The other men had one by one departed, so that Loring and his companions were left alone.

Stephen’s face began to burn. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that hung behind the bar. Somehow the dull-eyed, white face which looked back at him seemed to have no connection with the radiant creature that he felt himself to be.

At this juncture Jackson made a suggestion.

“What do you say to a little game, gents?”

“By—all—means,” exclaimed Loring, emphasizing each word as if it were the last of the sentence.

Hankins, stooping behind the bar, brought up a pack of cards.

“Here’s an unopened deck,” he said. With queer little side look at his partner, he wenton. “I’ll get even with you for our last game, Jackie.”

Stephen, with footsteps that came down very hard, walked over to one of the tables. Then he stopped.

“I—haven’t—got—much—money—here,” he said. He enunciated with the heavy, precise diction of a man who knows, but will not believe that he is drunk.

“That’s all right,” said Jackson. “Your I. O. U. goes with us. We ain’t like a boardin’-house keeper I used to know in Los Angeles, who had a sign hung out over his place: ‘We only trust God.’”

Stephen and Jackson sat down at the table, and the latter began to shuffle the cards vigorously.

“Another whisky, please,” called Stephen to Hankins. He spoke as if a “whisky please” were a special sort of drink.

“A beer for me too,” called Jackson. Hankins brought the drinks on a little tin tray. Before taking each glass from it, he mechanically clicked the bottom against the edge of the tray.

Stephen fumbled in his pocket for change.

“Don’t pay now,” drawled Jackson. “Drinks is on the game. Winner shells up for the pleasure he has had.”

Hankins joined them at the table, remarking as he sat down: “What’s the chips wuth?” He nodded assent to Stephen’s rather indistinct answer.

“Freeze-out? Play till some one goes broke? Let her drive, Jackie!”

Jackson dealt with rapid precision, emphasizing each round by banging his own card down hard on the table. All looked at their hands, while the dealer drawled softly: “Kyards, gents? Kyards—three for you, Mr. Loring?”

For three hours they played. Every little while Hankins rose, and brought more drinks.

“On the game, gents, on the game!” he exclaimed each time.

Sometimes one was ahead, sometimes another, but no one had any decided advantage. Stephen played mechanically. The voices of the other men seemed to him far away, and indistinct.

Then the luck changed, and Loring began to win steadily. His success drew him on. He played recklessly, but by some sport of fate continuedto win. He had a stiff smile upon his lips, and was evidently playing blindly.

“Say, Hankie, I guess we are being bitten,” remarked Jackson dryly.

“It sure looks that way. Mr. Loring here is a great player. We didn’t know what we were up against, did we?”

In his maudlin condition these words delighted Stephen. With only a pair of threes in his hand he pulled in a stack of chips, on which the others had dropped out.

Hankins was shuffling, preparatory to his deal. As he twisted the cards in his fingers, he gave a vivid, if immoral, account of his last trip to Tucson. Loring’s head was swimming, but he caught the words: “She was the stuff all right, all right.”

Suddenly Jackson jumped to his feet, and stood as if listening intently.

“I guess yourcaballomust be loose, Mr. Loring; seems to me I hear him sort of stamping round outside. Did you hitch him tight?”

Loring staggered to the door and looked out. From the blackness came a gust of wind and rain that cooled his flushed forehead.

“I think he’s all right. Can’t see anythingat all. Must have been wind you heard. Big, big wind outside.”

During his absence from the table, Hankins had dealt. Stephen picked up his cards. At first he could not distinguish them. They seemed to be all a blur of color. Then it slowly dawned upon him that he held four kings and a jack. His head reeled with excitement.

“Any objection to raising limit?” he asked eagerly, with an unconcealed look of triumph upon his face.

“Wa-al, of course, if you want to, we’ll come along, just to make the game interesting,” drawled Jackson; “I guess you have us stung all right. Only one card for you? Gawd, you must have a fat hand!”

Loring kept raising and raising, until he reached the limit of all that he owned in the world. Then, for drunk or sober, he was no man to bet what he did not have, he called. Throwing his cards face upwards upon the table, he reached unsteadily for the huge pile of chips.

“F-Four kings!” he shouted exultantly. “I—think—they are good.”

“‘It seems like as if you was bitten, Mr. Loring,’ said Hankins.”Page 125

“‘It seems like as if you was bitten, Mr. Loring,’ said Hankins.”Page 125

Jackson looked at Stephen’s half-shut eyes,at the heavy way his elbow rested on the table, and smiled. Then with a broad wink at Hankins, he exclaimed.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Ain’t this the luck! Here’s four aces! By Gawd!”

“It seems like as if you was bitten, Mr. Loring,” said Hankins. “Great game that was. Well, gents, have another drink now on the house.”

Stephen, in a dazed manner, took his drink, then dimly there came into his mind his orders to work night shift.

“What—whatsh the time?” he asked.

“It’s close to ten,” answered Jackson.

The faint idea kept crawling in Loring’s mind: “Night shift, hoist, must go.” He plunged out into the darkness, and tried to drag himself into the saddle.

When he had gone the two other men roared with laughter.

“That was easy,” exclaimed Jackson, “but I guess we had better look after him a bit now, or he will be in trouble.” They went out after Stephen, and found him still trying to climb into the saddle. Each time that he tried, he almost succeeded, then he swayed, and fell back ontothe muddy ground. The pony, under these unusual proceedings, was growing restive. They lifted Stephen onto the horse. He lurched, and almost fell off on the other side.

“Easy now. You’re all right,” said Jackson.

Taking the pony by the bridle he led him into the saloon. With Loring swaying in the saddle, the horse walked listlessly up to the bar, while Hankins playfully pulled his tail.

“Great pony, that, Mr. Loring; he knows a good place, all right. He’ll take you down the trail fine as can be. He’s a wise one, for sure.”

They led the pony to the door again, the hoofs creaking strangely on the wooden floor.

“Look out for your head, Mr. Loring! That’s good.Á Dios—good night!”

From the trail Loring’s voice carried back. He was singing at the top of his lungs.

“Full right up to his ears!” ejaculated Hankins. “I hope he don’t fall off and break his neck.”

Meanwhile the faithful little horse trudged steadily down the trail, carrying his helpless master. There are few Arizona horses which do not understand the symptoms indicated by a limpweight in the saddle, and meaningless tugs on the bridle.

The camp, save for the flare by the smelter, was unlit. The pony went straight to the corral, past all the dark, silent tents and shacks. The sound of the hoof-beats echoed very clearly in the stillness. At the corral Loring tried to dismount, and fell from the saddle hard. The shock roused his consciousness.

“Must be near ’leven. What, what wash I going—going to do at ’leven? Oh, yes. Hoist, extra shift.” Leaving the poor pony standing still saddled in the rain, he started up the hill for the hoist.

Reaching the steps of the desertedtienda, he sat down and supported his head with his hands.

“IguessI must be—a bit—tight,” he thought.

The world began to whirl, to drop suddenly, to rise, to twist. He bit his lips and pressed his knuckles hard against his temples.

“Must sober up!” he kept repeating to himself.

Sweat broke out all over him. He became ghastly ill. Lying at full length in the muddyroad, before the steps, he did not notice the rain that beat down upon him. Gradually he began to lose consciousness.

The whistle blew dull and discordant for the eleven o’clock shift.

As the echo of the whistle died away, Loring raised himself, and staggered to his feet. Not realizing what he did, he groped his way onward up the hill. As he passed the men hurrying home from the last shift, he noticed, as in a dream, the way in which the wet clothes clung to their skins, the heavy folds accentuated by the glare of the occasional electric light.

Hughson, in the hoist shed, was cursing volubly at his delay in coming. As soon as he saw Loring he grabbed his coat, and calling out a hurried imprecation, started down the hill.

Stephen had scarcely stepped to his place by the drum, when the indicator clanged sharply one bell. Mechanically he threw his weight against the lever, and shot the first bucket of ore mined by the shift high into the dim light, almost into the tripod framework upon which the cable hung.

Uncomprehendingly, he watched the figures outside bang down the iron coverings over the shaft, and wheel the clanking ore car onto the tracks beneath the suspended bucket. The men seemed to Loring to be possessed of magical deftness as they unshackled the full bucket, and clamped the swinging hook through the bar of the empty one. The loaded ore car bumped groaningly off on its journey down to the cribs, the iron coverings opened, and a voice called: “Lower!”

At times Stephen’s head cleared somewhat, and he noticed every detail in the hoist shed. He stared at the way the shadows from the one electric light fell on the rough boards. The water jug in the corner, the disordered tool box, the little pile of oily waste by the boiler, all photographed themselves on his eye. He noticed the great pile of beams in the back of the shed, the timbering for the new shaft, lettered with huge blue stencils, and watched with interest the flare in the furnace when the Mexican stoker threw fresh armfuls of mesquite wood upon the fire.

Then again all was whirl, and he was obliged to grip his stool to keep from falling. His handclung to the control lever with damp, clinging pressure.

Every few minutes the gong would sound, telling that another load of ore was waiting to be raised. Once he ran the “skip” so high above the shaft, that it crashed into the framework. It seemed to be some one entirely disconnected with himself who fumbled with the winch, and lowered the bucket again, until the shrill: “O. K.!’Sta ’ueno!” from the darkness outside told of the proper level. Between the striking of the bells, Stephen puzzled over the meaning of the white painted bands on the cable, which should have told him at what level the bucket was.

The time seemed to drag endlessly. Still the buckets continued to come. Just outside the door of the shed he could see the peg board that indicated the tally of buckets raised. He swore at it bitterly. “Why can’t the checker put in two pegs at a time, until the board is full, and the shift finished?” he thought.

Whenever the winch was in motion, the grating roar of the cable winding in or out seemed to be inside his own head. Steadily he became more and more bewildered. His will was rapidlylosing the desperate fight for control. Once he fell off his stool.

There was a slight delay in the work. The next bucket was slow in being signaled.

“What lazy men—what lazy men!” he murmured.

Then clear and sharp rang the signal: “Clang—Clang—Clang——Clang!” Loring was too dazed to remember that three bells before the one to hoist was the signal for “man on the bucket.” The one bell telling to raise, or two to lower, had conveyed their meaning automatically to him. The sudden change was incomprehensible.

“Clang—Clang—Clang——Clang!” again the indicator rang. This time with a sharp, insistent sound.

“Perhaps they want it to come up fast. Oh, very, very fast,” was the thought that came to him, and he threw the lever all the way over. Fascinated, he watched the cable tearing past him on the drum.

“Funny—they—should—signal—that—way,” he spoke aloud. “Perhaps—they—are—drunk—too.”

Faster and faster whirled the reel. The mark for the four hundred level flashed by. Almostin an instant the marking for the three hundred followed. The blur of white upon the cable, telling that the bucket was only two hundred feet below the surface seemed to come within a second. He did not see the marking for the last hundred feet.

Suddenly, out of the bowels of the earth shot the bucket. For a sixtieth of a second two figures, standing on the edge, were outlined. Loring heard a shriek, half drowned in a crash and roar, as the bucket, with its human freight, was hurled against the overhead supports.

He smiled foolishly, and hopelessly fingered the lever.

Outside, by the shaft mouth, all was in wild confusion. Shouts, curses, hoarse whispers, all were intermingled. Then came the sound of feet, tramping in unison, and men entered the shed carrying a—thing—its head driven into its shoulders. Loring looked—stared—then he knew.

Like a knife cutting into the mist of dizziness came realization. The truth burned its way into his mind, and sobered him.

“My God!” he sobbed. “The signal was for men on the bucket.” It flashed upon himwhat had happened. The men, standing upon the edge of the bucket, holding onto the cable, had been dashed into the tripod framework, which overhung the shaft mouth, a scant ten feet above the ground.

Shaking, as with ague, he stepped outside to the shaft.

A crowd of Mexicans were jabbering. The voices of several Americans carried above the soft slur of the Spanish. Some one was holding lantern over the mouth of the shaft, and cautiously peering down. Up the hill came the sound of running feet.

“Here’s the Doc, now!” called some one.

They showed Dr. Kline the body on the floor of the hoist box. He merely glanced at it, then picking up a burlap sack laid it over the head.

“Where is the other man?” he asked curtly.

Some one, with a quick gesture, pointed towards the shaft. “Down there.”

A small, close set ladder, for use in case of emergency, ran down the shaft. Down this two of the Americans started to climb. The group by the edge watched breathlessly, while the light of their lantern dropped—dropped—dropped.

For the first twenty feet the lantern illuminated the greasy sides of the shaft, bringing out clearly the knots and chinks in the boards. Then the light shrank into the darkness, became a mere dot. After a long minute the dot began to sway back and forth. But so far down was it that it seemed to have a radius only of inches.

“They have found him,” breathed McKay, who had reached the scene. On the iron piping of the shaft pump tapped dully the signal to lower slowly. Loring started for his place at the engine.

“Get to hell out of here! You’ve done enough harm for one night.”

Hughson, with his white night-shirt half out of his trousers, his boots unlaced, and his eyes still heavy from sleep, shoved him aside and took hold of the lever. Slowly he lowered the “skip.” It seemed to Loring an hour before it reached the bottom.

Then again on the pipe, for the bellrope was broken, was rapped the signal. “One—one—one——one.” In the night air the clank of the taps on the metal sounded ghostly.

Slowly the bucket came to the surface. The two men who had descended were holding in it a swaying figure. Many hands lifted the figure gently to the ground. The doctor bent over it, then shook his head.

“Nothing doing,” he said dryly, and they laid the body beside the other.

A commanding voice echoed through the group. It was Mr. Cameron’s.

“Where is Loring?” he asked decisively.

Stephen, in the background, turned away, and, with a face like chalk etched with acid, stumbled down the hill. Complete agony possessed him. Hitherto, when he had failed, he had hurt himself alone. Now he was little better than a murderer. Drunk on duty, when men’s lives were dependent upon him!

By some blind instinct he found his way to his tent, pulled back the flap, and entered. Lynn was snoring quietly in his corner. His boots lay on the floor, strange shapes in the dark. The alarm clock standing on the table close by his head ticked softly and monotonously.

Loring gasped for breath, swayed, and fell unconscious upon his cot.

The bodies of the two miners had been carried to the hospital, and with Hughson in charge of the hoist, the ore buckets were again coming up, when Mr. Cameron and McKay left the scene of the accident and through the darkness groped their way down the hill.

“Some one told me that he’d seen Loring drinking this evening,” said McKay.

“That explains all,” answered Mr. Cameron gruffly. “I should have known! I should have known! After the experience with men that I have had, to put a man like Loring in a position of responsibility! I am the one who is to blame for this. And yet he did seem to have pulled himself together. This will finish him, though. Mark me, McKay, before this he has been going to hell with the brakes on. Now he will run wild. Two men dead! That is a rather heavy reckoning for Mr. Stephen Loring to settle with himself. If I did not owe so much to him, I would have him in prison for to-night’s work.”

McKay nodded solemnly.

“I liked him a lot. I thought that he had different stuff in him. As you say, this will probably finish his chances; but it may,” hehesitated, “it may make a man out of him. If this don’t, God himself can’t help him.”

“What were the names of the men?” asked Mr. Cameron.

“Marques was one. He used to work for me. The other was a new man, Duran, or Doran, some one said was his name.”

“Were they married?” queried Mr. Cameron.

“No.”

“That is a blessing. Well, good night, McKay. I shall see Loring in the morning.”

“Good night,” answered McKay, and he added under his breath: “I think I’d rather not be Loring in the morning. Too bad! Too bad!”

There was a light in Mr. Cameron’s house. As her father tramped up the steps Jean threw open the door and came towards him. Her hair fell in waves over her dressing-gown. The candle in her hand threw its light into eyes which asked an anxious question from beneath their arching brows.

“Father, what is the matter?” Jean exclaimed, as Mr. Cameron advanced.

“There has been an accident at Number Three hoist,” answered Mr. Cameron.

Jean drew a quick sharp breath. “Is Mr. Loring hurt?” she asked, bending forward to look into her father’s face.

Mr. Cameron looked at her hard. Then a grim humor glinted in his eyes as he answered: “Loring hurt? Well—not—exactly.”

Without a word Jean turned and led the way into the living-room, where the hastily lighted lamp flared high, leaving a smooch of smut on the chimney and casting bright reflections on the rough planks of the board wall. The girl walked calmly to the table and lowered the wick of the lamp. Then she tossed back the masses of her hair, and turning sharply to her father she uttered one word: “Well?”

“Well!” echoed Mr. Cameron, throwing himself into a chair by the fireplace. “Well! I should say that was a curious word to describe to-night’s doings.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mean? I mean that your Mr. Loring is a damned scoundrel.”

“I do not believe it. You speak too harshly. You are angry.”

“Hum! Perhaps.”

Jean stood with downcast eyes. Suddenlyshe raised them like a condemned man about to receive his sentence.

“What has he done?”

“He has murdered two Mexicans.”

Jean shivered and drew the folds of her dressing gown closer about her. “Mr. Loring murderer! Impossible!”

“Nothing is impossible to a man when he is drunk.”

“Oh, he was drunk, was he? At the shaft, suppose.”

The note of relief in Jean’s tone seemed to add the last touch to Mr. Cameron’s exasperation.

“Do you think it was any excuse that Loring was drunk on duty with men’s lives in his hands? You women have a queer code.”

“No,” observed Jean, “it is not an excuse. It is an explanation. That I can understand. The other I could not.”

“Yes, and I can understand it, too. It means that I was a fool for trusting him. I should never have done it, never!”

Jean Cameron stole around to the back of her father’s chair and leaned over till her face almost touched his. “Remember,” she saidin a low tone, “if he has lost two lives, he saved one.”

“Damn me! Am I likely to forget it?” Mr. Cameron answered, shaking off his daughter’s hands which had been laid lightly on his shoulders. “Why else did I take him on as hoist engineer? It was paying a debt, so I thought. But I had no right to pay at other men’s risk; and after all I had done for him he could not have the decency to keep sober on duty—well, it is too late to think of that now.”

Jean turned away and twisted the curling ends of her hair slowly about her finger ends. “Tell me just what happened,” she said unsteadily.

“It is a short story,” her father answered gruffly. “Two men in the cage at the bottom of the mine signaled to raise—engineer, drunk, sets lever at top speed. If you cannot imagine what happened, you may take a lantern and go over yonder to see.”

Jean sank shuddering on the window-seat and buried her head in the cushions. Her silence calmed her father’s wrath as her speech had stirred it. “There, there!” Mr. Cameron said soothingly, as he walked across to thewindow and stroked the bowed head. “It is nothing for you to be so downhearted about, my lass. You had nothing to do with it.”

Still the girl lay motionless.

“Come, come, Jean! It is all over now for those poor fellows, and as for Loring, you will never see him again.”

The figure on the window-seat stirred slightly, and from the pillows a muffled voice asked tremulously, “What will be done to him?”

“That depends,” answered Mr. Cameron, “on whether the Mexicans decide on a demonstration between now and to-morrow morning.”

“Oh!” cried Jean, suddenly sitting up and wheeling about with pale cheeks and flashing eyes, “they dare not. You would never allow it. Why are there no men guarding him? It is as bad as murder.”

“Not quite,” her father replied slowly. “Besides, if the Mexicans were drunk, you could not hold them responsible. That would be—what is it?—‘Not an excuse, but an explanation.’ However, Loring is safe enough for to-night, and I promise you he will be far away by to-morrow.”

With these words Mr. Cameron thrust hishands into his pockets, and rising, strode up and down the room, the boards creaking under his slow tread. His daughter leaned against the window, staring out into the night.

“Oh!” she whispered, as if to some presence palpable though invisible, “how could you? How could you do it after what you promised me?” Then she turned her head and caught sight of her father’s resolute back.

“He is rather a lovable person,” she said, with a little catch in her voice. “Don’t you think he will feel badly enough without much being said to him about—about the accident?” Her father laughed a short, uncompromising laugh.

The next morning Stephen awoke with a start, conscious that some one was standing beside his cot, as he lay fully dressed outside the blankets. Mr. Cameron was looking down upon him. When he struggled to his feet, Loring’s mind was all confused. He ran his hand through his matted hair.

“Where am I?” he murmured.

Mr. Cameron’s face was set decisively. It was easy to see from which parent Jean had inherited the modeling of the lower portion of her face.

“Come outside, Loring!” There was a chill incisiveness in the words which shocked Stephen into recollection. He followed Mr. Cameron out of the tent.

The bright, early morning sunlight made his hot eyeballs water, and he blinked uncomfortably. His knees shook from weakness so that he leaned against the fence beside his tent. Such absolute misery possessed him that hecould not think. His brain was numb. His mouth felt as if all the moisture had been baked out of it.

Mr. Cameron looked him over carefully and contemptuously, then fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and produced a cigar. Eyeing Loring all the while, he slowly bit off the end, and lighted the cigar. Before he spoke, he took several deliberate puffs. It was a good cigar; but the rich smell of the fumes made Loring turn a shade whiter.

“Well, Loring, I suppose you know what this means for you?” began Mr. Cameron slowly. “A rather nice piece of work of yours, on the whole. Two men killed by your efficiency! I do not suppose that there is any use in asking you if you were drunk?” There was very little of the question in Mr. Cameron’s voice.

Stephen gripped the fence hard, then shook his head.

“I do not like to dismiss you, Loring, for I am in your debt for saving my daughter’s life.” Judging from his expression as he said this, the thought of the debt did not greatly please Mr. Cameron.

Stephen looked out over the mountains. His eyes were glistening with moisture—and this time it was not caused by the glare. It cut him to the quick that the man who was so righteously dismissing him should be the father of the girl whom he loved. In a bitter moment there flashed before his mind the vision of all his broken resolutions, of his now useless plans for success. The whole fabric, which in the past months he had woven for himself, he suddenly saw torn to shreds.

Mr. Cameron’s next words were lost to Stephen. It was some seconds before he could again focus his attention. When he caught up the thread, Mr. Cameron was saying: “I had hoped better things from you, Loring. I should have known better, that when a man is a drifter, such as you are, there is no hope. Still I had hoped! Well, I was wrong. Here is your pay check, for what is due to you. That is all.”

Mr. Cameron turned and walked towards the office. Stephen stood looking dumbly after him, with the check fluttering loosely in his fingers. McKay, going by on his way to work, saw him, and came up to him. He held out his hand in sympathy.

“Damn it, Steve, I’m sorry for you! You ain’t worth a damn; but I like you.”

Stephen looked at him in silence. His only conscious thought, as he gripped McKay’s hand, was the mental reiteration: “I am worth a damn, I am worth a damn.”

McKay went on in friendly solicitude: “Of course, it ain’t none of my business, Steve, but if I was you I’d beat it pretty quick. Just at present the friends of those men ain’t losing any love on you. I think if I was in your boots the Dominion trail would look pretty good to me. It’s about up to you tovamos.”

“I will go,” said Loring. “It isn’t that I fear what these Mexicans may do, because I don’t care. But I can’t stand it here. Good-bye, Mac! You have been a good friend to me. I know I deserved to be fired. Deserved a lot worse; but Mac,” he added desperately, “I will make good somewhere!”

McKay almost imperceptibly shook his head, then smiled and again extended his hand.

“Well, anyhow, buck up, Steve! I’ve got to get down to work now. Good-bye, and good luck!”

“Wait just a minute!” Loring called after him.

McKay turned, and Stephen held out his newly received pay check.

“Will you be kind enough to give this to Hankins up at the saloon, when you get time? I owe it to him, and to his partner.”

“You certainly did do things up in great shape last night, Steve,” said McKay, as he took the check, after Stephen had endorsed it with a shaking hand. “Got cheated, I suppose?”

“Rather,” answered Loring.

“It is strange,” thought McKay to himself, as he walked away, “with fellows like these saloon keepers. You could give them everything that you have, and no matter what happened they would keep it safely for you. But play cards and they’ll stick it into you for keeps.”

Re-entering his tent, Stephen began to put his few belongings into a saddle-bag. His packing was not a long operation. He looked rather wistfully about the little tent, which had grown to seem to him almost a home. Then, slinging the bag over his shoulder, he started for the corral.

It was still very early, and few people were about. One or two of the Mexican teamsters were at the corral, sleepily kicking their horses into the traces. These looked at Stephen blackly, for in a mining camp news travels very fast.

Stephen’s hands shook so that he had great difficulty in forcing the bit into the restive jaws of his pony. At last, however, “Muy Bueno” was saddled, and led out into the road. As Loring was putting up the corral bars again, a bare-footed little Mexican girl came pattering past. Stephen had often befriended her in small ways, so now she greeted him with shy warmth.

“Buenos dies, amigo!” she chattered.

The little child’s greeting started the tears to his eyes. Fumbling in his pocket, from among his few coins, he brought out a quarter. With a dismal attempt at a smile, he tossed it to her.

“Eh, Señorita Rosa, here is two bits for you,dos reales, buy candy with big pink stripes.”

The child ran up to him and gratefully seized his hand with both of her grimy little paws. He cut short her repeated thanks with a quick “No hay de que,” and swung into the saddle.

“Á Dios,” he called to her. Then slowly he rode to the watering-trough. “Muy Bueno”buried his nose deep in the cool water, and drank with great gulps. Stephen could feel the barrel of the pony swell beneath the cinch. When he could hold no more, “Muy Bueno” raised his head from the trough questioningly, the drops of water about the gray muzzle glistening in the sun. Stephen pressed the reins against the horse’s neck, and turned him towards the Dominion trail, which showed as a ribbon of white upon the hills to the eastward.

Close behind him he heard a familiar voice singing an old song: “La, la, boom, boom. La, la, boom, boom.” The last word was sung with unusual emphasis, serving as a salutation and hail.

Wah, beaming with his usual joyousness, was trotting towards him.

“Hey, me bludder, me bludder. You gettee canned! Oh, me bludder, you allee samee fool gettee drunk. You beat it to Dominion? Me bludder welly wise! La, la, boom, boom!” Wah concluded his outburst with a peal of laughter.

Stephen looked down solemnly at him.

“Damned funny, isn’t it, Wah?”

“Oh, me bludder, me bludder!”—Wahcould get no further, before another paroxysm of laughter overcame him. Recovering somewhat, he produced from his blouse a greasy looking package.

“Me bludder get nothing to eat before he come to Dominion. Wah bring him pie, oh, lubbly, lubbly pie.”

Stephen was deeply touched by the Chinaman’s kindness. He shook his hand warmly.

“I had forgotten all about food. Good-bye, Wah, and thank you a lot.”

“Oh, me bludder, wait one minnie moming. I have note. Missee Cameron, she send me bludder a note!”

Wah, with some labor, produced from his pocket a little envelope, and handed it to Loring.

“Oh, lubbly, lubbly note! Oh, lubbly—”

“Shut up, Wah!” flared Stephen. White as death, he took the note from Wah, and slipped it inside his shirt. He could not trust himself to read it.

“Please thank her, Wah, and—” He could say no more. Slowly he turned his horse, and rode towards the hills.

Wah walked away, murmuring beneath hisbreath: “La, la, boom, boom, me poor bludder. He must habee hellee headache. La, la, boom, boom.”

Stephen soon reached the place on the trail where was situated the old deserted “Q” ranch. A rusty iron tank by the shanty bore the crudely painted sign: “Water, Cattle 10 cts. per head. Horses 25 cts.” Beside the tank, however, in what had evidently formerly been an empty bed, gushed a clear stream of water. Stephen smiled when he saw how nature had thwarted the primitive monopoly.

Dismounting, he lifted the saddle from his horse’s back. Then he deftly hobbled him, and left him to eat what grass there was by the rocky stream bed, within a radius which he could cover with his fore legs tied together. Stephen then seated himself on the ground, propped the saddle behind his back, and proceeded to light a pipe, and to think. All the events of the past few hours had come upon him with such rapidity that he had had no time for reflection.

Seated there in the open, beneath the vivid blue sky, with no sound but that of the softly, coolly running water near, all the scene of the accident loomed clearly before him, far moreclearly than it had done in the morning when he had still been in the camp, and surrounded by the routine of life there. The very warmth of the sunlight, which should have made a man’s heart bound with the joy of living, merely added to the blackness of his mood.

He was very nervous, and smoked with quick, hard puffs. Once his pony started at something. The sound brought Loring to his feet, all of a quiver. He sat down again, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with an excited gesture. Gripping his hands together hard, he thought the situation over and over. The more he thought of it, the worse it seemed. This was not a case which could be called the result of negligence, or drifting. It came very close to crime, and he knew it. Stephen Loring was a man who, when he sat in judgment upon himself, was unflinching. He weakened only when it came to carrying out the sentence which the court imposed. He thought of Miss Cameron, as she had been on the ride which they had taken together; then of what she must think of him now. This brought a flush of shame to his cheeks.

Suddenly he recalled the note which Wah had brought to him, and he took it reverently fromhis blouse. It was the first time that he had ever seen her handwriting. His name was written upon the envelope in clear, decided letters, which coincided well with the character of the writer. Stephen looked at the writing, with an infinite tenderness softening the lines on his face. He started to tear open the envelope, then suddenly he stopped.

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