e fire we'll smoke and you can tell me all about
your journeys. I assure you they are epic to me."

Dr. Brent, a little later, put in a private word to Bertie. "Now you're
going back into the high country and you'll find it necessary to watch
the Captain pretty closely. I suspect he'll find his heart thumping
briskly when he reaches the Springs. He may stand that altitude all
right, but don't let him go higher. He will be taking chances if he goes
above six thousand feet. You'd better have Steel of Denver come down and
examine him to see how he stands the first few days. I mention Steel
because I know him--I've no doubt there are plenty of good men in the
Springs."

"What'll I do if he's worse?"

"Bring him back here or go to sea level--only beware of high passes."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS

The forces that really move most men are the small, concrete, individual
experiences of life. The death of a child is of more account to its
parents than the fall of a republic. Napoleon did not forget Josephine
in his Italian campaigns, and Grant, inflexible commander of a
half-million men, never failed, even in the Wilderness, to remember the
plain little woman whose fireside fortunes were so closely interwoven
with his epoch-making wars.

As Ben Fordyce lost interest in the question of labor and capital and
the political struggles of the state (because they were of less account
than his own combat with the powers of darkness), so Bertha had little
thought of the abstract, the sociologic, in her uneasiness--the strife
was individual, the problems personal--and at last, weary of question,
of doubt, she yielded once more to the protecting power which lay in
Haney's gold and permitted herself to enjoy its use, its command of men.
There was something like intoxication in this sense of supremacy, this
freedom from ceaseless calculation, and to rise above the doubt in which
she had been plunged was like suddenly acquiring wings.

She accepted any chance to penetrate the city's life, determined to
secure all that she could of its light and luxury, and in return
intrusted Lucius with plans for luncheons and dinners, which he carried
out with lavish hand.

Mart seconded all her resolutions with hearty voice. "There's nothing
too good for the Haneys!" he repeatedly chuckled.

In the midst of other gayeties she had the McArdles over to mid-day
dinner one Saturday, and afterwards took them all, a noisy