s throat.

"I'm glad it's over with," he said. "You've treated me like a Christian,
an' I'm thankin' you hearty for your kindness."

"Then may God receive you, a repentant sinner," she said.

"Ay," he answered, his deep voice as a response to her thin one, "may God
receive me, a repentant sinner."

"Good-by, Michael," she cried, and her voice sounded desperate.

She threw her weight against the barrel, but it did not overturn.

"Hans! Quick! Help me!" she cried faintly.

She could feel her last strength going, and the barrel resisted her. Hans
hurried to her, and the barrel went out from under Michael Dennin.

She turned her back, thrusting her fingers into her ears. Then she began
to laugh, harshly, sharply, metallically; and Hans was shocked as he had
not been shocked through the whole tragedy. Edith Nelson's break-down
had come. Even in her hysteria she knew it, and she was glad that she
had been able to hold up under the strain until everything had been
accomplished. She reeled toward Hans.

"Take me to the cabin, Hans," she managed to articulate.

"And let me rest," she added. "Just let me rest, and rest, and rest."

With Hans's arm around her, supporting her weight and directing her
helpless steps, she went off across the snow. But the Indians remained
solemnly to watch the working of the white man's law that compelled a man
to dance upon the air.

BROWN WOLF

She had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on her
overshoes, and when she emerged from the house found her waiting husband
absorbed in the wonder of a bursting almond-bud. She sent a questing
glance across the tall grass and in and out among the orchard trees.

"Where's Wolf?" she asked.

"He was here a moment ago." Walt Irvine drew himself away with a jerk
from the metaphysics and poetry of the organic miracle of blossom, and
surveyed the landscape. "He was running a rabbit the last I saw of him."

"Wolf! Wolf! Here Wolf!" she called, as they left the clearing and took
the trail that led down through the waxen-belled manzanita jungle to the
county road.

Irvine thrust between his lips the little finger of each hand and lent to
her efforts a shrill whistling.

She covered her ears hastily and made a wry grimace.

"My! for a poet, delicately attuned and all the rest of it, you can make
unlovely noises. My ear-drums are pierced. You outwhistle--"

"Orpheus."

"I was about to say a street-ara