directness. "And about--me?"



He gave her a chair, and took a seat himself before replying. "Yes, I

shall tell him all about it, and about you and your father and mother. He

shall know how kind you've all been to me."



He said this bravely, and at the moment he meant it; but as his father's

big, impassive face and cold, keen eyes came back to him his courage

sank, and in spite of his firm resolution some part of his secret anxiety

communicated itself to the girl, who asked many questions, with intent to

find out more particularly what kind of man the elder Norcross was.



Wayland's replies did not entirely reassure her. He admitted that his

father was harsh and domineering in character, and that he was ambitious

to have his son take up and carry forward his work. "He was willing

enough to have me go to college till he found I was specializing on wrong

lines. Then I had to fight in order to keep my place. He's glad I'm out

here, for he thinks I'm regaining my strength. But just as soon as I'm

well enough he expects me to go to Chicago and take charge of the Western

office. Of course, I don't want to do that. I'd rather work out some

problem in chemistry that interests me; but I may have to give in, for a

time at least."



"Will your mother and sisters be with your father?"



"No, indeed! You couldn't get any one of them west of the Hudson River

with a log-chain. My sisters were both born in Michigan, but they want to

forget it--they pretend they have forgotten it. They both have

New-Yorkitis. Nothing but the Plaza will do them now."



"I suppose they think we're all 'Injuns' out here?"



"Oh no, not so bad as that; but they wouldn't comprehend anything about

you except your muscle. That would catch 'em. They'd worship your

splendid health, just as I do. It's pitiful the way they both try to put

on weight. They're always testing some new food, some new tonic--they'll

do anything except exercise regularly and go to bed at ten o'clock."



All that he said of his family deepened her dismay. Their interests were

so alien to her own.



"I'm afraid to have you go even for a day," she admitted, with simple

honesty, which moved him deeply. "I don't know what I should do if you

went away. I think of nothing but you now."



Her face was pitiful, and he put his arm about her neck as if she were a

child. "You mustn't do that. You must go on with your life just as if I'd

never been. Think of your father's job--of the forest and the ranch."



"I can't do it. I've lost interest in the service. I never want to go

into the high country again, and I don't want you to go, either. It's too

savage and cruel."



"That is only a mood," he said, confidently. "It is splendid up there. I

shall certainly go back some time."



He could not divine, and she could not tell him, how poignantly she had

sensed the menace of the cold and darkness during his illness. For the

first time in her life she had realized to the full the unrelenting

enmity of the clouds, the wind, the night; and during that interminable

ride toward home, when she saw him bending lower and lower over his

saddle-bow, her allegiance to the trail, her devotion to the stirrup was

broken. His weariness and pain had changed the universe for her. Never

again would she look upon the range with the eyes of the care-free girl.

The other, the civilized, the domestic, side of her was now dominant. A

new desire, a bigger aspiration, had taken possession of her.



Little by little he realized this change in her, and was touched with the

wonder of it. He had never had any great self-love either as man or

scholar, and the thought of this fine, self-sufficient womanly soul

centering all its interests on him was humbling. Each moment his

responsibility deepened, and he heard her voice but dimly as she went

on.



"Of course we are not rich; but we are not poor, and my mother's family

is one of the oldest in Kentucky." She uttered this with a touch of her

mother's quiet dignity. "Your father need not despise us."



"So far as my father is concerned, family don't count, and neither does

money. But he confidently expects me to take up his business in Chicago,

and I suppose it is my duty to do so. If he finds me looking fit he may

order me into the ranks at once."



"I'll go there--I'll do anything you want me to do," she urged. "You can

tell your father that I'll help you in the office. I can learn. I'm ready

to use a typewriter--anything."



He was silent in the face of her naive expression of self-sacrificing

love, and after a moment she added, hesitatingly: "I wish I could meet

your father. Perhaps he'd come up here if you asked him to do so?"



He seized upon the suggestion. "By George! I believe he would. I don't

want to go to town. I just believe I'll wire him that I'm laid up here

and can't come." Then a shade of new trouble came over his face. How

would the stern, methodical old business man regard this slovenly ranch

and its primitive ways? She felt the question in his face.



"You're afraid to have him come," she said, with the same disconcerting

penetration which had marked every moment of her interview thus far.

"You're afraid he wouldn't like me?"



With almost equal frankness he replied: "No. I think he'd like you, but

this town and the people up here would gall him. Order is a religion with

him. Then he's got a vicious slant against all this conservation

business--calls it tommy-rot. He and your father might lock horns first

crack out of the box. But I'll risk it. I'll wire him at once."



A knock at the door interrupted him, and Mrs. McFarlane's voice, filled

with new excitement, called out: "Berrie, the District office is on the

wire."



Berrie opened the door and confronted her mother, who said: "Mr. Evingham

'phones that the afternoon papers contain an account of a fight at Coal

City between Settle and one of Alec Belden's men, and that the District

Forester is coming down to investigate it."



"Let him come," answered Berrie, defiantly. "He can't do us any harm.

What was the row about?"



"I didn't hear much of it. Your father was at the 'phone."



McFarlane, with the receiver to his ear, was saying: "Don't know a thing

about it, Mr. Evingham. Settle was at the station when I left. I didn't

know he was going down to Coal City. No, that's a mistake. My daughter

was never engaged to Alec Belden. Alec Belden is the older of the

brothers, and is married. I can't go into that just now. If you come down

I'll explain fully."



He hung up the receiver and slowly turned toward his wife and daughter.

"This sure is our day of trouble," he said, with dejected countenance.



"What is it all about?" asked Berrie.



"Why, it seems that after I left yesterday Settle rode down the valley

with Belden's outfit, and they all got to drinking, ending in a row, and

Tony beat one of Belden's men almost to death. The sheriff has gone over

to get Tony, and the Beldens declare they're going to railroad him. That

means we'll all be brought into it. Belden has seized the moment to

prefer charges against me for keeping Settle in the service and for

putting a non-resident on the roll as guard. The whelp will dig up

everything he can to queer me with the office. All that kept him from

doing it before was Cliff's interest in you."



"He can't make any of his charges stick," declared Berrie.



"Of course he can't. He knows that. But he can bring us all into court.

You and Mr. Norcross will both be called as witnesses, for it seems that

Tony was defending your name. The papers call it 'a fight for a girl.'

Oh, it's a sweet mess."



For the first time Berrie betrayed alarm. "What shall we do? I can't go

on the stand! They can't make me do that, can they?" She turned to

Wayland. "Now you must go away. It is a shame to have you mixed up in

such a trial."



"I shall not run away and leave you and the Supervisor to bear all the

burden of this fight."



He anticipated in imagination--as they all did--some of the consequences

of this trial. The entire story of the camping trip would be dragged in,

distorted into a scandal, and flashed over the country as a disgraceful

episode. The country would ring with laughter and coarse jest. Berrie's

testimony would be a feast for court-room loafers.



"There's only one thing to do," said McFarlane, after a few moments of

thought. "You and Berrie and Mrs. McFarlane must get out of here before

you are subpoenaed."



"And leave you to fight it out alone?" exclaimed his wife. "I shall do

nothing of the kind. Berrie and Mr. Norcross can go."



"That won't do," retorted McFarlane, quickly. "That won't do at all. You

must go with them. I can take care of myself. I will not have you dragged

into this muck-hole. We've got to think quick and act quick. There won't



be any delay about their side of the game. I don't think they'll do

anything to-day; but you've got to fade out of the valley. You all get

ready and I'll have one of the boys hook up the surrey as if for a little

drive, and you can pull out over the old stage-road to Flume and catch

the narrow-gage morning train for Denver. You've been wanting for some

time to go down the line. Now here's a good time to start."



Berrie now argued against running away. Her blood was up. She joined her

mother. "We won't leave you to inherit all this trouble. Who will look

after the ranch? Who will keep house for you?"



McFarlane remained firm. "I'll manage. Don't worry about me. Just get out

of reach. The more I consider this thing, the more worrisome it gets.

Suppose Cliff should come back to testify?"



"He won't. If he does I'll have him arrested for trying to kill Wayland,"

retorted Berrie.



"And make the whole thing worse! No. You are all going to cross the

range. You can start out as if for a little turn round the valley, and

just naturally keep going. It can't do any harm, and it may save a nasty

time in court."



"One would think we were a lot of criminals," remarked Wayland.



"That's the way you'll be treated," retorted McFarlane. "Belden has

retained old Whitby, the foulest old brute in the business, and he'll

bring you all into it if he can."



"But running away from it will not prevent talk," argued his wife.



"Not entirely; but talk and testimony are two different things. Suppose

they call daughter to the stand? Do you want her cross-examined as to

what basis there was for this gossip? They know something of Cliff's

being let out, and that will inflame them. He may be at the mill this

minute."



"I guess you're right," said Norcross, sadly. "Our delightful excursion

into the forest has led us into a predicament from which there is only

one way of escape, and that is flight."



Back of all this talk, this argument, there remained still unanswered the

most vital, most important question: "Shall I speak of marriage at this

time? Would it be a source of comfort to them as well as a joy to her?"

At the moment he was ready to speak, for he felt himself to be the direct

cause of all their embarrassment. But closer thought made it clear that a

hasty ceremony would only be considered a cloak to cover something

illicit. "I'll leave it to the future," he decided.



McFarlane was again called to the telephone. Landon, with characteristic

brevity, conveyed to him the fact that Mrs. Belden was at home and busily

'phoning scandalous stories about the country. "If you don't stop her

she's going to poison every ear in the valley," ended the ranger.



"You'd think they'd all know my daughter well enough not to believe

anything Mrs. Belden says," responded McFarlane, bitterly.



"All the boys are ready to do what Tony did. But nobody can stop this old

fool's mouth but you. Cliff has disappeared, and that adds to the

excitement."



"Thank the boys for me," said McFarlane, "and tell them not to fight.

Tell 'em to keep cool. It will all be cleared up soon."



As McFarlane went out to order the horses hooked up, Wayland followed him

as far as the bars. "I'm conscience-smitten over this thing, Supervisor,

for I am aware that I am the cause of all your trouble."



"Don't let that worry you," responded the older man. But he spoke with

effort. "It can't be helped. It was all unavoidable."



"The most appalling thing to me is the fact that not even your daughter's

popularity can neutralize the gossip of a woman like Mrs. Belden. My

being an outsider counts against Berrie, and I'm ready to do

anything--anything," he repeated, earnestly. "I love your daughter, Mr.

McFarlane, and I'm ready to marry her at once if you think best. She's a

noble girl, and I cannot bear to be the cause of her calumniation."



There was mist in the Supervisor's eyes as he turned them on the young

man. "I'm right glad to hear you say that, my boy." He reached out his

hand, and Wayland took it. "I knew you'd say the word when the time came.

I didn't know how strongly she felt toward you till to-day. I knew she

liked you, of course, for she said so, but I didn't know that she had

plum set her heart on you. I didn't expect her to marry a city man;

but--I like you and--well, she's the doctor! What suits her suits me.

Don't you be afraid of her not meeting all comers." He went on after a

pause, "She's never seen much of city life, but she'll hold her own

anywhere, you can gamble on that."



"She has wonderful adaptability, I know," answered Wayland, slowly. "But

I don't like to take her away from here--from you."



"If you hadn't come she would have married Cliff--and what kind of a life

would she have led with him?" demanded McFarlane. "I knew Cliff was

rough, but I couldn't convince her that he was cheap. I live only for her

happiness, my boy, and, though I know you will take her away from me, I

believe you can make her happy, and so--I give her over to you. As to

time and place, arrange that--with--her mother." He turned and walked

away, unable to utter another word.



Wayland's throat was aching also, and he went back into the house with a

sense of responsibility which exalted him into sturdier manhood.



Berea met him in a pretty gown, a dress he had never seen her wear, a

costume which transformed her into something entirely feminine.



She seemed to have put away the self-reliant manner of the trail, and in

its stead presented the lambent gaze, the tremulous lips of the bride. As

he looked at her thus transfigured his heart cast out its hesitancy and

he entered upon his new adventure without further question or regret.