kly at him with a question in her
eyes. What that question might be, Hollister refused even to consider.
She never again made any remark to Doris about her first husband,
about the similarity of name. But now and then she would speak of
something that happened when she was a girl, some casual reference to
the first days of the war, to her life in London, and her eyes would
turn to Hollister. But he was always on his guard, always on the
alert against these pitfalls of speech. He was never sure whether they
were deliberate traps, or merely the half-regretful, backward looking
of a woman to whom life lately had not been kind.

Nevertheless it kept his nerves on edge. For he valued his peace and
his home that was in the making. There was a restfulness and a
satisfaction in Doris Cleveland which he dreaded to imperil because he
had the feeling that he would never find its like again. He felt that
Myra's mere presence was like a sword swinging over his head. There
was no armor he could put on against that weapon if it were decreed it
should fall.

Hollister soon perceived that if he were not to lose ground he must
have labor. Men would not come seeking work so far out of the beaten
track. In addition, there were matters afoot that required attention.
So he took Doris with him and went down to Vancouver. Almost the first
man he met on Cordova Street, when he went about in search of bolt
cutters, was Bill Hayes, sober and unshaven and a little crestfallen.

"Why didn't you come back?" Hollister asked.

Hayes grinned sheepishly.

"Kinda hated to," he admitted. "Pulled the same old stuff--dry town,
too. Shot the roll. Dang it, I'd ought to had more sense. Well, that's
the way she goes. You want men?"

"Sure I want men," Hollister said. "Look here, if you can rustle five
or six men, I'll make it easier for you all. I'll take up a cook for
the bolt camp. And I won't shut down for anything but snow too deep to
work in."

"You're on. I think I can rustle some men. Try it, anyhow."

Hayes got a crew together in twenty-four hours. Doris attended to her
business, which required the help of her married cousin and a round of
certain shops. Almost the last article they bought was a piano, the
one luxury Doris longed for, a treat they had promised themselves as
soon as the cedar got them out of the financial doldrums.

"I suppose it's extravagance," Doris said, her fingers caressing the
smooth mahogany, feeling the black and ivo