Part 1 (2/2)

Bill went on ”All the horses got through but Baldy, and he could have made it easy if he'd tried But what did he do but just sit back on his haunches in the s in his lap, and just give up? Quite a sight--that horse sitting in thehim out”

The others smiled, but none of them with the brilliance of the story-teller hi in the ain before his eyes; and none of the hardshi+p of the journey could cost hier just a diht showed him plain In this circle of townspeople he was a man to notice twice

The forests had done well by hiht and tall, but his forth about hier felines; the hard trails of the forest had left not a spare ounce of flesh on his powerful fraue and indistinct refine hands, was si His speech was not greatly different fro winter days in reading, are usually careless in speech but rarely ungrammatical His clothes were homely and worn He wore a blue mackinaw over a flannel shi+rt, dark trousers and rubber boots: garments that were suited to his life

But it was true that men looked twice into Bill Bronson's face His features were rugged, now his mouth and joere dark with beard, yet written all over his sunburned face was a kindliness and gentleness that could not be denied There was strength and good humor in plenty; and it was hard to reconcile these qualities with an unquestioned wistfulness and boyishness in his eyes They were dark eyes, the eyes of a htful eyes which even the deep shadows of the forest had not blinded to beauty

As he waited for his meal he crossed the dark road to the little frontier post office, there to be given his two months' accunificant anxiety There were the usual forders from fur buyers, a few advertisements and circulars, and a small batch of business mail The smile died from his eyes as he read one of these communications after another Their context was usually the saood, and no investue as his The correspondents understood that he had been grubstaked before without result They rereat hand crumpled each in turn

Only one letter remained, written in an unknown hand from a far-off city; and it dropped, for theand lifeless as he stared out the hotelinto the darkened street There was no use of appealing again to the business folk of the provincial towns; the tone of their letters was all too decisive The great plans he hadafter all

His proposition sirubstake,”--soin Clearwater for half of such gains as he should make In a feeeks more the winter would close down; the horses, essential to such a trip as this, had to be driven down to the gate of the Outside,--three hundred reat river He had time for one more dash for the rainbow's end, and no one could stake him for it He had some food supplies, but the horse-rent was an unsolved problem He could see no ray of hope as he picked up, half-heartedly, the last letter of the pile

But at once his interest returned It had been mailed in a far distant city in the United States, and the fine, clear handwriting was obviously feminine He didn't have to rub the paper between his thuer to mark its rich, heavy quality and its beauty,--the stationery of an aristocrat The ularly terse:

My Dear Mr Bronson:

I aa parties wishi+ng to hunt in the Clearwater, north of Bradleyburg I do not wish to hunt game, but I do wish to penetrate that country in search of my fiance, Mr Harold Lounsbury, of whom doubtless you have heard, and who disappeared in the Clearwater district six years ago I will be accompanied by Mr

Lounsbury's uncle, Kenly Lounsbury, and I wish you to secure the outfit and a man to cook at once You will be paid the usual outfitter's rates for thirty days We will arrive in Bradleyburg Septeinia Tremont

Bill finished the note, pocketed it carefully, and a boyish light was in his eyes as he shook fragrant tobacco into his pipe ”The way out,” he told hi the sa back to a scene of many Septembers before, of a camp he had made beside a distant stream and of a wayfarer who had eaten of his bread and journeyed on,--never to pass that way again There had been one curious circuht not have lingered so clearly in Bill's memory It had seeer on so fain the stranger's past life had offered an explanation He was a newcomer, he said,--on his first trip north Bill, on the other hand, had never gone south It had been but a trick of the iination, after all And Bill did not doubt that he was the ht

The little lines seemed to draw and deepen about the , for Clearwater,” he ets 'em I'm afraid she'll never find her lover”

He went to o, the ht he sat alone in the little lobby of the inn; all the other townsle lahts had been tireless to-night He couldn't have told why Evidently so, some word that he had not consciously noticed had been the impulse for a flood of memories They haunted him and held hihtpoint,--the tragedy and mystery of his own boyhood He knew perfectly that there was neither pleasure nor profit in dwelling upon this subject In the years that he had had his full hts, and mostly he had succeeded Self-mastery was his first law, the code by which he lived; and mostly the blue devils had lifted their curse froht In the late years soreat tranquility of the forest had reposed in hier intervals But to-night they held hie

It enty-five years past and he had been only a child when the thing had happened He had been but seven years old,--ht went hoe of life that he had missed

He had been cheated of it by a remorseless destiny; he had been a baby, and then he had been a radations between

The sober little boy had sensed at once that the responsibilities of ood After all, that was the code of his life,--to take what destiny gave and stand up under it

If the event had occurred anywhere but in the North, the outcoentle in the river bottoht unaided; even fatherless boys were not entirely cheated of their youth Besides, in these desolate wastes the code of life is a personal code, prie their dreams from day to day Constancy and steadfastness are the first impulses of their lives; neither Bill nor his ive Here was an undying ignominy and hatred; besides--for the North is a far-famed keeper of secrets--the host As a little boy he had tried to coe; and she had whispered to hiainst her; and he had proain, that when s and his own He remembered his pathetic efforts to comfort her, and it had never occurred to hi hi bravely the whole tragic weight upon his own small shoulders

The story was very si particularly unusual in the North His father had co, and he had been one of few that was accompanied by his wife,--a tender creature, scarcely old camps Then there had been Rutheford, his father's partner, a man whom neither Bill nor his ave full trust Somewhere beyond far Grizzly River, in the Clearwater, Bronson had ravel was simply laden with the yellow dust; and because they had prospected together in tiave his partner a share in it

They had worked for months at their mine, in secret, and then Rutheford had co, ostensibly for supplies He had been a guest at the Bronson cabin and had reported that all ith his generous partner And the next night he had disappeared