ination, Bruce said nothing; but in a dozen
commonplace sentences described physical sufferings sufficient for a
lifetime--which is the western way.

He walked to the desk, where the gifted tenor, clerk and post-master
stood pleased and expectant, pen in hand, waiting for him to register.

"Is there any mail for me?" He tried to speak casually but, to himself
the eager note in his voice seemed to shriek and vibrate. Making every
allowance for delays and changed addresses he had calculated that by now
he should have an answer from Slim's mother or sister. He did not
realize how positively he had counted on a letter until the clerk shook
his head.

"Nothing?" Bruce looked at him blankly.

"Nothing." The answer seemed to take the last scrap of his vitality. He
moved to the nearest chair and sat down heavily.

The thought of assuming Slim's responsibilities, of making up for his
own futile years, and bringing to pass at least a few of his mother's
dreams for him, had become a kind of obsession since that first night of
horror after his quarrel with Slim. It had kept him going, hanging on
doggedly, when, as he since believed, he might have given up. It seemed
to have needed the ghastly, unexpected happening in the lonely cabin to
have aroused in him the ambition which was his inheritance from his
mother. But it was awake at last, the stronger perhaps for having lain
so long dormant.

Failures, humiliating moments, hasty, ungenerous words, heartless deeds,
have a way of coming back with startling vividness in the still solitude
of mountains, and out of the passing of painful panoramas had grown
Bruce's desire to "make good." Now, in the first shock of his intense
disappointment he felt that without a tangible incentive he was done
before he had started.

"Mistah Bruce, if you'll jest step out and take what they is," announced
Ma Snow from the doorway. "And watch out foah yoah laig in this hole
heah." She called over her shoulder: "Mistah Hinds, I want you should
get to work and fix that place to-morrow or I'll turn yoah ol' hotel back
on yoah hands. You heah me?"

The threat always made Old Man Hinds jump like the close explosion of a
stick of giant powder.

Bruce looked at the "light" bread and the Oregon-grape "jell," the
steaming coffee and the first butter he had seen in months, while before
his plate on the white tablecloth at the "transient" end of the table,
sat a slice of ham with an egg! like a jewel--its