a thrill of pleasure.

"So you are the newest missionary to Lone Moose?" she said. "I wish you
luck."

Although her voice was full, throaty like a meadow lark's, her tone
carried the same sardonic inflection he had noticed in her father's
comment on his mission. It pained Thompson. He had no available weapon
against that sort of attack. But the girl did not pursue the matter. She
said to her father:

"Crooked Tree's oldest son is in the kitchen and wants to speak to you,
Dad."

Carr rose. So did Thompson. He wanted to get away, to think, to fortify
himself somehow against this siren call in his blood. He was sadly
perplexed. Measured by his own standards, even to harbor such thoughts
as welled up in his mind was a sinful weakness of the flesh. He was in
as much anxiety to get away from Carr's as he had been to find a welcome
there.

"I think I shall be moving along," he said to Carr. "I'll say good-day,
sir."

Carr thrust out a brown sinewy hand with the first trace of heartiness
he had shown.

"Come again when you feel like it," he invited. "When you have time and
inclination we'll match our theories of the human problem, maybe. Of
course we'll disagree. But my bark is worse than my bite, no matter what
you've heard."

He strode off. Sophie bowed to Thompson, nodded to Tommy Ashe, and
followed her father. Ashe got up, stretched his sturdy young arms above
his fair, curly head. He was perhaps a year or two older than Thompson,
a little thicker through the chest, and not quite so tall. One imagined
rightly that he was very strong, that he could be swift and purposeful
in his movements, despite an apparent deliberation. His face was
boyishly expressive. He had a way of smiling at trifles. And one did not
have to puzzle over his nationality. He was English. His accent and
certain intonations established that.

He picked up a gun now from where it stood against the wall, whistled
shrilly, and a brown dog appeared hastily from somewhere in the grass,
wagging his tail in anticipation.

"Mind if I poke along with you," he said to Thompson. "There's a slough
over beyond your diggin's where I go now and then to pick up a duck or
two."

They fell into step across the meadow.

"Our host," Thompson observed, "is not quite the type one expects to
find here--permanently. I understand he has been here a long time."

"Fifteen years," Tommy supplied cheerfully. "Deuce of a time to be
buried alive, eh? Carr hasn't got