st. "Well, that's all right. But one of
the reasons I want her back is to make clear to you all the unexplained
things of last summer. There were things you should have been told--that
would have made you two better friends, would have broken down the wall
there always seemed to be between you--or nearly always. (She wouldn't
tell you, and I couldn't.) It left her always under a cloud to you, and
she felt it. Many a time, Dan, she has knelt beside me and cried over her
troubles to me--and they were troubles, too!--telling them all to me just
because I couldn't speak and tell them again. And I won't, unless she lets
me. But I don't want to go over the range and know that you two, all your
lives, will be apart and cold to each other on account of suspicions I
could clear away."

"Suspicions? No, I have no suspicions against her."

"But you have had many a troubled hour because of that man found dead in
her room, and his visit to her the night before, and that money she asked
for that he was after. All such things that you could not clear her of in
your own mind, when you cleared her of murder--they are things I want
straightened out before I leave, Dan. You have both been good friends to
me, and I don't want any bar between you."

"What does all that matter now, Joe? She is out of our lives, and in a
happier one some one else is making for her. I am not likely ever to see
her again. She won't come back here."

"I know her best; she will come if she is needed. I need her for once; and
if you don't send for her, I will, Dan. Will you send?"

But Overton got up and walked away without answering. Harris thought he
would turn back after a little while, but he did not. He watched him out
of sight, and he was still going higher up in the hills.

"Trying to walk away from his desire for her," thought Joe, sadly. "Well,
he never will. He thinks I don't know. Poor Dan!"

Then he whistled to a man down below him, and the man came and helped him
down to camp, for his feet had grown helpless again in that strange chill
of which he had spoken.

Mrs. Huzzard met him at the door of a sitting room, gorgeous as an
apartment could well be in the Northern wilderness. All the luxuries
obtainable were there; for, as Harris had to live so much of his time
indoors, Overton seemed determined that he should get benefit from his new
fortune in some way. The finest of furs and of weavings furnished the
room, and a dainty little stand held a