ncouver, made Ashcroft by
C. P. R., blind baggage mostly, then hit the road afoot. I thought I'd
take my departure from the Fifty-Nine."

"The old bush trail?"

"Hard goin', but then I expected, of course, mother'd be there at the
ranch, and you, mum, an' Jesse, of course, and--"

"Jones?"

Dreading his news, I fought for this one little respite before he came
to all I feared. If Jesse lived, if he only lived! But at thought of the
old ranch life, Billy lapsed to a sheepish grin with one quaint glint of
mischief. Then with the utmost gravity he asked me if Patsy, my
nursemaid, "was claimed".

"There's many a little craft dips her colors for one who wants me to
stand by, but still--"

"Patsy is free."

"Faix! Can't help it, I backed my tawps'l."

"Proposed?"

"Save us! It's time to offer a tow when they're union down, and a danger
to navigation. Um. I'm off my course."

"You must have found things changed when you got to the ranch."

"Didn't get there. I'd news at Hat Creek, and kep' the road main north.
Mother wasn't at the ranch any more. She'd poisoned Jesse's bear. Oh,
mum, I don't want to hurt."

"Go on, dear lad."

"Mother'd took up with Polly at Spite House."

"Spite House?"

"It's the Ninety-Nine Mile House. There's a sign-board right across the
road:--

THE NINETY-NINE
MRS. JESSE SMITH
HOTEL, STORE, LIVERY.

"She did that to spite Jesse, and they call the place Spite House."

Just then the maid brought in the tea things, so, cowardly as usual, I
played hostess, delaying all the news I dared not face. We gossiped of
Captain Taylor's half-bred child, Wee James at school down East, of
Tearful George married to that dreadful young person at Eighty Mile
House who scratched herself at meals, so Jesse said. At the
Hundred-and-Four, where Hundred Mile Hill casts its tremendous shadow on
the lowlands northward, Pete Mathson and his wife were making new
harness for the Star Pack-train. There a shadow fell on our attempt at
gossip--why does the conversation always stop at twenty minutes past?
Billy began to tell me about Spite House.

Spite House! How right Father Jared was. "Sword versus dragon," he told
us, "is heroic: sword versus cockroach is heroics. Don't draw your sword
on a cockroach."

This much I tried to explain to young O'Flynn, whose Irish blood has a
fine sense of humor. But the smile he gave me was one of pity, turning
my heart to ice. "Jesse," he said, "made that mi