es and litter
of harvesting those hoary old cedars had been neatly cleared from a
small level space. And on this space, bold against the white carpet of
snow, stood a small log house.

Hollister pushed open the latched door and stepped into the musty
desolation of long abandoned rooms. It was neatly made, floored with
split cedar, covered by a tight roof of cedar shakes. Its tiny-paned
windows were still intact. Within, it was divided into two rooms.
There was no stove and there had never been a stove. A rough fireplace
of stone served for cooking. An iron bar crossed the fireplace and on
this bar still hung the fire-blackened pothooks. On nails and shelves
against the wall pans still hung and dishes stood thick with dust. On
a homemade bunk in one corner lay a mattress which the rats had
converted to their own uses, just as they had played havoc with papers
scattered about the floor and the oilcloth on the table.

Hollister passed into the other room. This had been a bedroom, a
woman's bedroom. He guessed that by the remnants of fabric hanging
over the windows, as well as by a skirt and sunbonnet which still hung
from a nail. Here, too, was a bedstead with a rat-ruined mattress. And
upon a shelf over the bed was ranged a row of books, perhaps two dozen
volumes, which the rats had somehow respected,--except for sundry
gnawing at the bindings.

Hollister took one down. He smiled; that is to say, his eyes smiled
and his features moved a little out of their rigid cast. Fancy finding
the _contes_ of August Strindberg, the dramatist, that genius of
subtle perception and abysmal gloom, here in this forsaken place.
Hollister fluttered the pages. Writing on the flyleaf caught his eye.
There was a date and below that:

DORIS CLEVELAND--HER BOOK

He took down the others, one by one,--an Iliad, a Hardy novel, "The
Way of All Flesh" between "Kim" and "The Pilgrim Fathers", a volume of
Swinburne rubbing shoulders with a California poet who sang of gibbous
moons, "The Ancient Lowly" cheek by jowl with "Two Years Before the
Mast." A catholic collection, with strong meat sandwiched between some
of the rat-gnawed covers. And each bore on the flyleaf the inscription
of the first, written in a clear firm hand: Doris Cleveland--Her Book.

Hollister put the last volume back in place and stood staring at the
row. Who was Doris Cleveland and why had she left her books to the
rats?

He gave over his wonder at the patently unanswer