dusk without feeling the stab of
joy that had wakened death to life when recognition had struck fire in
consciousness. She knew, then, there was no eternity long enough for
the joy of _It_, nor heaven high enough for the reach of _It_, nor hell
deep enough for the wrong of _It_.

There was a click of the mosquito wire door opening out on her piazza.
It was her father.

"Matthews and I are going to take the fast team and the light buckboard
and drive down to Smelter City to-night. Will you be all right,
Eleanor?"

"I? Oh, of course! Nothing wrong is there, Father?"

"Nothing, whatever!" She remembered afterwards the shine and look of
lonely longing in the black eyes. "We have to be in Smelter City,
tomorrow; think it best to drive down in the cool of evening! Day
stage is a tiresome drive. You'll be all right, Eleanor?"

If she could only have known, how she would have spent herself in his
arms; but it is, perhaps, a part of the irony of life that the best
service is silent; that the loudest service, like the big drum, is the
emptiest; only we never know the quality of that big drum till a
specially hard knock tests it. She remembered afterwards how he half
hesitated. He was not a demonstrative man, nor a handling one; only a
dumb doer of things next, regardless of consequences; and we don't
realize what that means till we are too old to pay tribute and they to
whom tribute is due have passed our reach.

"I, oh, of course I'll be all right! Would you like a lunch or
something?"

"No, never mind! Keep Calamity by you! Go to bed early, have a good
sleep! 'Night," he said. The mosquito door clicked and he had gone.
A moment later, the yellow buck board had rattled down the River road,
and her father did what he had never done before, he turned and lightly
waved his hat.

If Eleanor could have known it, he was saying at that moment:

"Matthews, you can fight the world, the flesh, and the devil; but you
can't fight against the stars."

The old frontiersman didn't answer for a little. When he spoke, it was
very soberly:

"No, when it's that, you'll work for the stars spite o' y'rself! Why,
A contrived the meetin' myself this vera afternoon; wha' d' y' think o'
that for an old fool? A'll be goin' back empty handed, an' all m' own
doin'!"

"And I'll have built plans for twenty years on,--on the sands," and
MacDonald flicked the bronchos up with his whip.

There was a long silence but for the