nd threshing branches.

The morning, breaking late and grey and cold, appeared equally difficult,
barren, in vain. The kitchen stove, continually neglected, went
continually out, the grate became clogged with ashes, the chimney refused
to draw. He relit it, on his knees, the dog patiently at his side; he
fanned the kindling into flames, poured on the coal, the shining black
dust coruscating in instant, gold tracery. He bedded the horse more
warmly, fed him in a species of mechanical, inattentive regularity.

Finally the list of timber options he possessed was completed with the
names of their original owners and the amounts for which they had been
bought. A deep sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment, took the place of
his late anxiety. Even the weather changed, became complacent--the valley
was filled with the blue mirage of Indian summer, the apparent return of a
warm, beneficent season. The decline of the year seemed to halt, relent,
in still, sunny hours. It was as though nature, death, decay, had been
arrested, set at naught; that man might dwell forever amid peaceful
memories, slumberous vistas, lost in that valley hidden by shimmering
veils from all the implacable forces that bring the alternation of cause
and effect upon subservient worlds and men.

XVI

As customary on Saturday noon Gordon found his copy of the weekly _Bugle_
projecting from his numbered compartment at the post-office. There were no
letters. He thrust the paper into his pocket, and returned to the village
street. The day was warm, but the mists that had enveloped the peaks were
dissolving, the sky was sparkling, clear. By evening, Gordon decided, it
would be cold again, and then the long, rigorous winter would close upon
the valley and mountains.

He looked forward to it with relief, as a period of somnolence and
prolonged rest--the mental stress and labor of the past days had wearied
him of the active contact with men and events. He was glad that they were,
practically, solved, at an end--the towering columns of figures, the
perplexing problems of equity, the far-reaching decisions.

In rehearsing his course it seemed impossible to have hit upon a better, a
more comprehensive, plan. There was hardly a family he knew of in the
valley of which some member might not now have his chance. That, an
opportunity for all, was what Gordon was providing.

A number of horses were already hitched along the rail outside Valentine
Simmons' s