s of purpose, heedless of the steepness of the
climb, of his blood leaping like a mountain cataract, of his muscles
moving with the ease of piston rods; heedless of all but the warmth of
the glow enveloping his outer body from the flame burning within.

He did not follow the zig-zag Ridge trail but clambered straight up the
face of the slope, following pretty much the short cut-off they had
taken the night before. He came to the crag where the spruce logs
spanned the tinkling water course. There was a gossamer scarf of cloud
hanging among the mosses of the trees. The peak came out opal fire
above belts of clouds. The sage-green moss spanning the spruces turned
to a jewel-dropped thing in a sun-bathed rain-washed world of flawless
clouds and jubilant waters. He drew a deep breath. The air was tonic
of imprisoned sunlight and resinous healing. Was each day's birth the
dawn to new being?

It was here he had met her the night before. Waves of consciousness,
tender delirious consciousness, flooded and surprised him. He had
asked for a seal of memory. He knew now it would never be a memory: it
would be consciousness, ever-living, ever present; a compulsion not to
be controlled because it was not his own; and never to be quenched
because it burned within. If he had been a weakling, the seal would
have been a seal to self; but because an elemental war for right was
winnowing the self out of him, he knew it was a seal to service.

Day-dawn marked the creation of a new world; and That had opened the
doors for him to a life that no telling could have revealed. Would it
be the same with the Nation? Would this struggle open the doors to a
new life; or would the powers that stood for law and right go on
marking time inside the firing line, while the powers that stood for
wrong and outrage held their course rampant, unchecked; straining the
law not to protect right but to extend wrong; perverting the courts;
stealing where they chose to steal; killing where they chose to kill;
deluging the land with anarchy by sweeping away law, just as surely as
the removal of the sluice gates would set loose flood waters?

He ascended the rest of the dripping Ridge trail in a swing that was
almost a run.

Below the Ranger cabin on the Homestead Slope stood the large oblong
canvas bunk house of the road gang employed by the Forest Service.

"Hi--fellows," shouted Wayland, shaking the tent flap. "All hands up!"
And he ordered the