He waited a moment as though expecting an interruption from his wife, but she made none, and only sat in hopeless uncertainty listening dumbly.
“For all her inexperience, Jane has an old head, Mother. This splendor we’re living in, her success in society, the flattery and compliments haven’t changed her any. And she’s not going to let anybody make a fool of her. She sees through people better than you do and she doesn’t make many mistakes. I ought to have known she wouldn’t have fallen in love with Phil Gallatin if there hadn’t been something to him. I’ll give her credit for that–”
“What makes you think he’s worthy of her?” Mrs. Loring broke in. “You talk of his future. What future can there be for a man with a habit–”
“Wait!” he commanded. “As to that—he’s quit, do you understand? Quit it altogether. I’m just as sure of that as I am that Jane’s judgment was better than mine, so sure that I’m willing to stake Jane’s future on it. You needn’t ask me why I know it, but I do. He’s made good—with me and he’s made good with himself.”
And while she listened he told her of the events of the morning which had resulted in the failure of his financial project and of Gallatin’s share in it.
“And is this a reason? You’re willing to forgive him his sins, his evil reputation, and take him into your house as the husband of your only child, because he stands in the way of your making a lot of money? I don’t understand.”
“There’s a lot you don’t understand. You and I don’t use the same kind of mental machinery. But I want you to know that any boy of his age who’s got the nerve to tackle a big game the way he did that one and win out against a man of my caliber is the kind of a young man I want on my side. He’s the kind of a young man I’ve been looking for ever since I went into the coal business, and I’m not going to let him go if I can help it.”
“But his morals! You must know what people say about him, that he’s–”
“I don’t care what they say about him,” growled Loring. “Half of the world is lying, and the other half listening. I’m glad he isn’t a willy-boy. It’s the fellow who has to fight temptations that learns the meaning of victory. There are no airholes in the steel that’s been through the blast, and that boy has been through the blast. I can read it in his face. He couldn’t square up to me the way he did if there was any weakness in him. He’s suffered, but it hasn’t hurt him any. He’s found himself. I’m going to help him. See here, Janet, I’m getting older, and so are you. I’ve been thinking about it some lately. I’m a pretty rich man and I’m going to be richer. But do you think I want to turn the money I leave over to a man like Coley Van Duyn or Dirwell De Lancey to make ducks and drakes of? Have it turned into an amusement fund for the further debauching of debauched gentility? Make a Trust Fund of it to perpetuate the Pink Tea? I reckon not. I haven’t worked all these years for nothing, and I’m going to see that Jane doesn’t make the mistakes of other rich men’s children. I don’t think she wants to anyway. I’ve always told her that she wouldn’t find the man she’s going to marry walking up and down Fifth Avenue. The man to keep my estate together has got to be made of different stuff. I’ve found him. He’s an ace that I dropped into the discard by mistake, but I’m going to play him just the same. I want him, and if Jane wants him, too, I’m going to get him for her.”
“I don’t know what to think of you. I can’t see yet–” Mrs. Loring wailed.
Loring stopped beside her and patted her on the shoulder.
“Don’t you worry, Janet. I know what I’m about. You leave this to me. Is Jane in her room? I want to see her.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Loring in tones of resignation. “She’s there, but I don’t think she’d see you, even if she knew what you wanted to talk about. To-morrow, perhaps.”
Loring shrugged his massive shoulders. “Oh, all right,” he growled, and made his way to his own dressing-room. He held the keys to the situation in his hand, and manlike wanted to use them without delay, to unlock the door that barred the way to happiness for Jane, to act at once upon the inspiration that had come to him and settle for all time the problem of the future. But he took his wife’s advice and postponed the talk with his daughter, wondering at the ways of women. He dined alone and went to his study early, sat at his desk and wrote the following note to Philip Gallatin.
Dear Mr. Gallatin:
Our meeting this morning was so brief and so public that I was prevented from speaking to you as freely as I would have liked. I’ve done you a wrong—an injustice, and I want to do what I can to set the matter right, with respect to your future relations with me and with my family. I have already done what I can and I am sure that both Mrs. Loring and my daughter will gladly welcome you as a guest to our house whenever you may call.
I hope this will be soon, Mr. Gallatin. I only wanted to put myself on record with you that you may be assured that there will be no further misunderstandings on your part of our intentions toward you.
Very sincerely yours,Henry K. Loring.
The note written, he sealed it and rang for Hastings.
“Have this note delivered at once. Try the Cosmos Club and, if Mr. Gallatin is not there, find him.”
This burden off his broad shoulders, Loring smiled, turned on his reading lamp, took some newly acquired snuff boxes out of a cabinet and under his magnifying glass, proceeded to enjoy them. It was in the midst of this pleasant occupation that some time later, he was interrupted by the entrance of his daughter. She was dressed in a pale blue lounging robe, and her bedroom slippers made no sound on the heavy floor covering, but the rustle of her draperies caused him to look up.
“Hello, Jane!” he said, kissing her. “Glad to see you, child. You slipped in like a ghost. Feeling any better?”
“Oh, I’m all right,” she said wearily. “Mother said you wanted to see me.”
Loring put down his magnifying glass and turned toward her.
“Yes, I did. Natural, isn’t it? I haven’t had a chance to for a month.” He made her turn so that he could look into her face. “You’re not looking right. Your eyes are big as saucers. What’s the matter? Too much gayety?”
“Yes, I think so, Daddy. I’m a little tired, that’s all. I need a rest.”
Her father examined her in silence for a moment, and then drew her down on a chair near him.
“Jane, I’ve been thinking about you lately. We’ve all been so busy this winter, you and mother, with your dances and the opera, and I with business, that I’m afraid we’ve been drifting apart. I don’t like it. You don’t ever come in here to see me the way you used to.”
“I haven’t had time,” she evaded.
“That isn’t it, daughter. I know. It’s something else. Something has come between us. I’ve felt it and I feel it still.”
She opened her eyes wide and looked at him and then looked away.
“That’s the truth and you know it, daughter. Something has come between us. I’ve missed those talks with you. They used to keep me in touch with the gentler side of life, sort of humanized me somehow, made me a little softer, a little gentler the next day. I’ve wanted you often, Jane, but I didn’t know how to say so. And so I got along without you. You’ve never quite forgiven me, Jane?”
Jane was pulling at the laces of her tea-gown with thumb and forefinger, but she didn’t look up as she asked,
“Forgiven you for what, Daddy?”
“For coming between you and Phil Gallatin,” he said gently.
She started a trifle and then went on picking at the lace on her frock.
“Oh, that,” she said quietly. “You had to do that. I’m glad you did.”
“No,” he interrupted. “You’re not glad, Jane. Neither am I. I did what I thought was my duty, but it has made a difference with us both. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Why?”
“Because it has made you unhappy—and resentful.”
“I’m not resentful.”
“Yes. I’ve felt it. Even if I’d been justified, you would still resent it.”
“But you were justified, Daddy, weren’t you?” she asked.
She turned her gaze full on his face and the pain in her eyes hurt him. He got up and walked the length of the room before he replied.
“I did what I thought was right. I’d probably do the same thing again under similar circumstances. I—I didn’t think Mr. Gallatin the kind of man I wanted for you.”
She lay back in her chair and looked into the fire, but said nothing. Loring came close to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.
“You loved him, Jane?”
She didn’t reply.
“You still love him, daughter?”
Her head moved slowly from side to side.
“No,” she muttered, stiflingly, “no, no.”
Loring smiled down at the top of her head.
“Why should you deny it, Jane? What would you say if I acknowledged that I had made a mistake in judgment, that you were right after all, that Phil Gallatin is not the man I thought him, that he’s worthy in every way of your regard, that of all the young men I’ve met in New York in business or out of it, he is the one man I would rather have marry my daughter?”
She had risen and was leaning toward him, pale and trembling.
“What—do—you—mean?” she whispered fearfully.
He told her.
“That case you spoke of–?”
“He beat me—fairly—and he beat me badly, so badly that I can’t afford to have him against me. I’ve taken him into the business. I can’t afford to be without him.”
“Then—what you said about him–”
“I was fooled, child, completely fooled. We thought he was a joke. We laughed at him and all the while he was out West working, quietly, skillfully, diligently piling up his evidence. He’s made good, Jane, and I’ve told him so. I’ve written him a note to-night, a note of apology for my share in his unhappiness, telling him that I was sorry for what had happened and telling him that he would be a welcome visitor to my house–”
“Daddy!” Jane had straightened and now glanced fearfully toward the door as though she expected to see Phil Gallatin at any moment coming through the curtains. “You had no right to do that! I will not see him. Whatever his business relations with you, you have no right to force him on me. I have known for a long time that he was clever, that he could make his way in the world if he wanted to, but your acceptance of him changes nothing with me.”
“But you love him,” he persisted.
“No, no,” she protested. “I could never love a man who had once been faithless—never forgive him—never even in death. That a man is successful in the world is all you men care about. Oh, I know you. Because he’s matched his brain against yours and beaten you, you think he’s a demigod; but that doesn’t change the heart in him, the lips that swear love eternal while they’re kissing another–”
“Lies!” broke in Loring with a wave of his hand. “I don’t believe that story.”
Jane paused and examined him calmly, struggling for her control. When she spoke her voice had sunk to a trembling note scarcely above a whisper.
“Can you prove that story was a lie?”
“Prove it? No. But I believe it was.”
“You didn’t believe so once. Have you heard anything to make you change your opinion?” she insisted.
He was tempted to lie but thought better of it, and his hesitation cost him victory.
Jane turned toward the door. “I’m going away somewhere—abroad, if you’ll let me, away from here. I will not see Mr. Gallatin—ever. I despise him—utterly.”
She left her father standing in the middle of the room, his mouth agape, and eyes staring at the door through which she had disappeared. Keen as he was, there were still some things in the world, he discovered, about which he needed information.
The next day Mr. Loring received a polite note from Mr. Gallatin which still further mystified him. Mr. Gallatin thanked him for his kind expressions of good will and expressed the intention of studying further to deserve them; but hoped that Mr. Loring would comprehend that reasons which it were better not to mention, would make it impossible for him to take advantage of Mr. Loring’s personal kindness in his cordial invitation.
Henry Loring was on the point of tearing up the note in disgust but thought better of it. Instead, with a subtlety which showed that he had not yet lost the knack of taking advantage of the lesser lessons of life, he left it obtrusively upon the dressing table in Mrs. Loring’s boudoir, where later, in her mother’s absence, Jane found it.
XXVIII
THE LODESTAR
April dissolved in mist and rain and the flowers of May were blossoming. Nellie Pennington, who had not yet despaired, and Nina Jaffray, who had, were driving in the Park in Mrs. Pennington’s victoria. For two months Mrs. Pennington had been paying Nina more than usual attention. To begin with she liked her immensely as she had always done. Nina’s faults she believed to be the inevitable result of her education and environment, for Nina was the daughter of a Trust, and was its only indulgence. The habit of getting what she wanted was in her blood and she simply couldn’t understand being balked in anything. But Nina was beginning slowly and with some difficulty to grasp the essentials of Philip Gallatin’s character and the permanence of his reconstruction; and with the passage of time and event Nina had a glimmering of the true caliber of his mind, all of which brought out with unflattering definiteness her own frivolity and gave a touch of farce-comedy, with which she had in her heart been far from investing it, to her unconventional wooing.
Nellie Pennington understood her, and noted with no little satisfaction the evidence of the chastening of her spirit. She knew now beyond all doubt that had it not been for Nina, the reconciliation of Jane and Phil Gallatin would have been effected.
She knew, too, that Nina had not played fair, and guessed by what means Jane had been victimized. Indeed, Jane’s indifference to Nina bore all tokens of intolerance, the intolerance of the pure for the contaminated, the contemptuous pity of the innocent for the guilty. But Mrs. Pennington had not lived in vain, and a talent for living her own life according to an accepted code, had given her a kindly insight into the lives of others. Whatever Nina’s faults, she had never merited Jane’s pity or contempt. Jane was a fool, of course, but so was Nina, each in her own way—a fool; but of the two it now seemed that Nina was the lesser. Nellie Pennington had already noticed signs that Nina was tired of the game and knew that if Larry Kane played his own trumps with care, he might still win the odd trick, which was Nina. But as far as Jane was concerned, Nellie also knew that Nina was ready to die at her guns, for a dislike once born in Nina’s breast was not speedily dispelled.
Mrs. Pennington looked up at the obelisk as though in the hope that some of the wisdom of its centuries might suddenly be imparted to her. Then she asked, “Nina, why don’t you marry Larry Kane?”
Nina Jaffray smiled.
“And confess defeat? Why?”
“Better confess it now than later.”
“Why confess it at all?”
“You’ll have to some day. You’re not going to marry Phil, you know.”
“No, I’m not going to marry Phil. I know that now. I haven’t proposed to him for at least a month—and then he was quite impolite—rude, in fact.” She sighed. “Oh, I don’t care, but I don’t want Jane Loring to marry him.”
“She’s not likely to. She’s as hopelessly stubborn as you are.”
Nellie Pennington waited a moment, and then with a laugh, “Nina, you’ve enjoyed yourself immensely, haven’t you? Jane is such an innocent. I’d give worlds to know what you said to her!”
Nina laughed. “Would you?”
“Yes, do tell me.”
“I will. It’s very amusing. She expected me to lie, of course. So I simply told her the truth.”
“And she believed–”
“The opposite.”
“Of course.”
Nellie Pennington laughed up at the passing tree tops.
“How clever of you, Nina! You’re wasting your time single. A girl of your talents needs an atmosphere in which to display them.”
“And you suggest matrimony,” said Nina scornfully.
“There’s always your husband, you know.”
“But Larry isn’t an atmosphere. He’s too tangible.”
“All men are. It’s their chief charm.”
“H-m. I’ve never thought so. I shouldn’t have wanted to marry Phil if he had been tangible.”
“Then suppose he had—er—accepted you?”
Nina shrugged and crossed her knees.
“I should probably have hated him cordially.”
The conversation changed, then lagged, and by the time Nina’s home was reached both women were silent, Nina because she was bored, Nellie because she was thinking.
“Good-by, dear,” laughed Nina, as she got down at her door. “Don’t be surprised at anything you hear. I’m quite desperate, so desperate that I may even take your advice. You’ll see me off at the pier, won’t you?”
Nellie Pennington nodded. She was quite sure that it was better for everybody that Miss Jaffray should be upon the other side of the water.
The week following, quite by chance she met Henry K. Loring one afternoon in the gallery at the Metropolitan where the ceramics were. An emissary from the office was opening the cases for him and with rare delight he was examining their contents with a pocket glass. She watched him for a while and when the great man relinquished the last piece of Lang-Yao sang de bœuf and the case was closed and locked, she intercepted him and led him off to a bench in a quiet corner where she laid before him the result of a week of deliberation. He had begun by being bored, for there was a case of the tea-dust glazes which he had still planned to look over, but in a moment he had warmed to her proposals and was discussing them with animation.
Yes, he had already planned to go to the Canadian woods again this summer. Mrs. Loring wanted to go abroad this year. Mrs. Loring didn’t like the woods unless he rented a permanent camp, the kind of place that he and Jane despised. The plan had been discussed and Jane had expressed a willingness to go. But at Mrs. Loring’s opposition the matter had been dropped. But Loring had not given up the idea. It would do Jane a lot of good, he admitted. Mrs. Pennington’s was a great plan, a brave plan, a beautiful plan, one that did credit to her sympathies and one that must in the end be successful. He would manage it. He would take the matter up at once and arrange for the same guides and outfit he had had last year. Would Mr. and Mrs. Pennington come as his guests? Of course. Who else—Mr. Worthington and Colonel Broadhurst? But could Mr. Kenyon be relied upon to do his share? Very well. He would leave that to Mrs. Pennington.
The next afternoon, at Mrs. Pennington’s request, John Kenyon called at her house in Stuyvesant Square, and his share in the arrangement was explained to him. He was willing to do anything for Phil Gallatin’s happiness that he could, of course, but it amused him to learn how the agreeable lady had taken that willingness for granted, and how she waved aside the difficulties which, as Kenyon suggested, might be encountered. Phil might have other plans. He could be obstinate at times. It might not be easy, either, to get Phil’s old guide for the pilgrimage. He needed a rest himself, and would go with Phil himself, if by doing so he could be of any assistance. It was now the first week in May. He would see Phil and report in a few days.
It was the next morning at the office when Kenyon broached the matter to his young partner. He was surprised that Phil fell in with the plan at once.
“Funny,” said Phil. “I was thinking of that yesterday. I am tired. The woods will do me a lot of good, but do you think that Hood can get along without us until August?”
“We’ll manage in some way. You deserve a rest, and I’m going to take one whether I deserve it or not. Could you get that guide you had last year, what’s his name—Joe–?”
“Keegón. I could try. We’d need two, but Joe can get another man. I have the address. I’ll write to-day.”
Gallatin got up and walked across the room to the door, where he stopped.
“I suppose I can fix matters with Mr. Loring–”
“Yes, I think so,” replied Kenyon guardedly. “But you’d better be sure of it. He’s coming here to-morrow, isn’t he?”
Gallatin nodded gravely, and then thoughtfully went out.
That night John Kenyon dutifully reported in Stuyvesant Square. Mr. Loring also dutifully reported there, and the three persons completed the details of the conspiracy.
So it happened that toward the middle of June, Phil Gallatin and John Kenyon reached the “jumping-off place” in the Canadian wilds. No two “jumping-off places” are alike, but this one consisted of three or four frame dwellings and a store, all squatted on the high bank of a small river, which came crystal-clear from the mystery of the deep woods above. John Kenyon got down from the stage that had driven them the ten miles from the nearest railroad station and stood on the plank walk in front of the store, a touch of color in his yellow cheeks, sniffing eagerly at the smell of the pine balsam. Gallatin glanced around at the familiar scene. Nothing was changed—the canoes drawn up along the bank, the black setter dog, the Indian packers lounging in the shade, the smell of their black tobacco, and the cool welcome of the trader who came out of the store to greet them.
Joe Keegón and another Indian, whose name turned out to be Charlie Knapp, got the valises out of the wagon. Gallatin offered Joe his hand, and the Indian took it with the steady-eyed taciturnity of the wilderness people. Joe was no waster of words or of emotion. He led the way into the store of the trader, and they went over the outfit together—blankets, ammunition, tea, pork, flour, tents, and all the rest of it, while John Kenyon sat on a flour barrel, swinging his legs, smoking a corncob pipe and listening.
That night, after Phil had turned in, he sent a letter and a telegram to a Canadian address and gave them to the teamster with some money. Then he, too, went to bed—dreaming of Arcadia.
They had been in the woods for three weeks now. They weren’t traveling as light as Phil had done the year before and the outfit included two canoes, well loaded. So they went slowly northward by easy stages, fishing the small streams and camping early. Gallatin had at first been in some doubt as to his partner’s physical fitness for severe work, but he soon found that he need have given himself no concern, for with every day a year seemed to be slipping away from John Kenyon, who insisted on taking his share of the burdens with a will that set Phil Gallatin’s mind at rest. And as they went farther into the wilderness, they made almost camp for camp the ones that Phil had made the year before. John Kenyon had hoped that Phil would take him into the Kawagama country. He wanted very much to see that waterfall on the south fork of the Birch River that Phil had spoken of. Kenyon had an eye for the beautiful.
For some time he had been wondering what course of action he would take if Phil refused to fall in with his plans, and had already begun to think that it was time to take Joe into his confidence; but he soon found that subterfuge was unnecessary, for Gallatin was directing their course with an unerring definiteness to his own farthest camp among the hills. John Kenyon guessed something of what was passing in the mind of the younger man, and over the camp-fire watched him furtively. The sun and wind had tanned him and the vigorous exercise had brought an appetite that had filled the hollows of his cheeks; but in spite of the glow of health and youth and the delight of their old friendship, a shadow still hung in Phil Gallatin’s eyes, which even the joy of the present could not dispel. Kenyon smoked quietly and asked subtle questions about their further pilgrimage.
“To-morrow we’ll reach the permanent camp, eh, Joe?” said Gallatin.
Keegón nodded.
“We’ll stay there for a while—fish and explore.”
As the time approached for his dénouement, Kenyon had a guilty sense of intrusion which tempered his delight in the possible success of the venture. But he remembered that he had had little to do in shaping the course of events or the direction of their voyage, except to modify the speed of their journeys so that Phil might reach the spot intended at the appointed time. Phil seemed drawn forward as though by a lodestar to his destination, as though some force greater than his own will was impelling him.
Kenyon had taken pains to keep a record by the calendar. It was the twenty-eighth of June. The next day Kenyon changed places with Phil and went in Joe’s canoe, when he took the old Indian into his confidence.
“We will camp to-night. To-morrow Phil will want to go fishing alone. You must keep him in camp until the next day. Then you must go with him in the morning, and lead him to the camp in the hills where the deer was killed. Comprenez?”
Joe had learned to understand this grave, quiet man from the city, who did his share of the work and who never complained, and he recognized, by its contrast to this docility and willingness, the sudden voice of authority. He nodded.
“A’right,” he said, with a nod. “I take heem.”
Joe’s loquacity was flattering. It was the first time on their pilgrimage that Kenyon had heard Joe utter more than one word at a time.
The woods had seemed so vast, so interminable that Kenyon had often wondered whether it would be possible to find a spot so lacking in identity as the one they were seeking. But Joe’s nod and smile completely reassured him. In his unfamiliarity with the wilderness he had forgotten that here was Joe Keegón’s city, its trails, portages and streams as clearly mapped in his mind as the streets of John Kenyon’s New York. The Indian would find the place where the deer was killed. Kenyon breathed a sigh of relief. The wheel of Destiny was spinning now and Kenyon had nothing to do but sit and watch. He had done his share.
That night there was much to do, but Keegón seemed in no hurry. When Gallatin, who seemed tireless was for making a permanent camp at once, Joe shook his head and went on cleaning fish.
“To-morrow,” he said.
When the morrow came, Gallatin was off in the underbrush hunting firewood before the others were awake. From his place by the fire Joe watched him lazily.
“Aren’t you going to get to work, Joe?”
“Soon,” the Indian grunted, but made no movement to get up.
“I want to fish.”
“To-morrow.”
“Why not to-day?”
“Make camp.”
“It won’t take all day to make camp.”
“Rest,” said Joe. And that was all that Gallatin could get out of him, so he said no more, for he knew by experience that when Joe’s mind had decided a question of policy, mere words made no impression on him.
John Kenyon listened from the flap of the tent, with a sleepy eye on the rising sun.
“Don’t try to combat the forces of nature, my son,” he laughed. “Joe’s right! I for one am going to take things easy.” And he rolled himself in his blanket, sank back on his balsam couch and closed his eyes again.
There was nothing for Phil but to bow to the inevitable. That day he worked harder even than the guides and it seemed to John Kenyon that some inward force was driving him at the top of his bent. He spoke little, laughed not at all and late in the afternoon went off upstream alone with his rod and creel, returning later gloomy and morose.
“No fish,” said Joe, looking at the empty creel. “Fish to-morrow!”
Joe actually smiled and Gallatin laughed in spite of himself.
“Beeg fish—to-morrow,” repeated Joe. “I show—um.”
The next day Kenyon stayed in camp with Charlie Knapp, and watched Phil’s departure upstream. Joe had full instructions and as he followed Gallatin’s broad shoulders into the brush he turned toward the fire and nodded to Kenyon. There was a pact between them and Kenyon understood.
The sun was high before Joe left the stream and cut into the underbrush. His employer hadn’t even taken his rod from its case, and his creel was empty. Early in the morning he had asked his guide to take him to the little stream where the deer was killed, and he followed the swift noiseless steps of the old Indian, his shoulders bent, his eyes peering through the thicket in search of landmarks. It was midday before the two men reached the familiar water and Phil identified the two bowlders above his old camping-place. Here Keegón halted, eying the pool below.
“Fish,” said he.
Gallatin fingered at the fastenings of his rod case, looking downstream, while Joe sat on a rock and munched a biscuit.
“I’m going downstream, Joe. You follow.”
The Indian nodded and Gallatin moved down among the rocks in the bed of the stream. Pools invited him, but he did not fish. He had not even jointed his rod. He was moving rapidly now, like a man with a mission, a mission with which fishing had nothing in common, splashing through the shallow water, jumping from rock to rock, or where the going was good along the shore, through the underbrush. There was a trail to follow now, a faint trail scarcely defined, but in which he saw the faint marks of last year’s footprints. His own they must be, heavy from the weight of the deer he had carried through the mud and wet. They were the symbols of his regeneration. Since then he had brought other burdens to camp and had thrown them at her feet, for what?
Later on, in a moist spot, he stopped and peered at the ground curiously. Other footprints had emerged from somewhere and joined his own, fresh footprints, one made by the in-turned toe of an Indian, the other smaller, the heel of which cut deep into the mud and moss. He bent forward following them eagerly. What could a woman be doing here?
Suddenly Gallatin straightened and sniffed the air. The smoke of a camp fire! The smell of cooking fish! Some one had preceded him. He moved forward cautiously, his heart beating with suppressed excitement, his mind for the first time aware that unusual impulses had dominated him all the morning. He also knew that the smell of those cooking fish was delicious.
In a moment he recognized the glade, the two beech trees and the rock, saw the bulk of the shack that he had built, the glow of the fire and a small figure sitting on a log before it, cooking fish on a spit. He stopped and passed a hand before his eyes. Had a year passed? Or was it—yesterday? Who was the girl that sat familiarly at his fire, hatless, her brown hair tawny in the sunlight, her slender neck bent forward?