drive in from the railroad to Morrison's. Hite called it
eighteen good miles; the Clown put it at nineteen; what the old
dog estimated it at none knew. He had always trotted the distance
cheerfully.

From Thayor's private flag station, the main road into Big Shanty
snakes along over a flat, sparsely settled valley before it enters
the deep woods. Once in the heavy timber it crossed chattering brooks
skirting the ragged edges of wild ravines. On it goes through the
forest mile after mile, up hill and down, until it emerges abruptly
into the open country at the head of the "Deadwater," passes
Morrison's, is met half a mile farther on by the new road leading down
from Big Shanty camp, and continues straight ahead through a rough
notch out to a valley twelve miles beyond.

It was over this road that Alice Thayor went to her exile.

Thayor and Holcomb, this rare August afternoon, were at the flag
station to meet the "Wanderer"--the banker's private car, with a
spick-and-span three-seated buckboard and a fast team of bays. Aboard
the car were Alice and Margaret, Blakeman and Annette.

Alice Thayor's first meeting with Holcomb since the time when he saved
her husband's life, consisted of a slight nod of recognition and an
annoyed "How do you do?" She wore a smart travelling gown of Scotch
homespun and a becoming toque of gray straw enveloped in a filmy
dragon-green veil. Holcomb thought it strange that Thayor kissed his
daughter and simply greeted his wife with the question, "I do hope you
were comfortable, dear, coming up?"

"The heat was something frightful," she replied, lifting the
dragon-green veil wearily and binding it straight across her forehead.
"My head is splitting."

Holcomb glanced at her exquisite features. The brilliancy of her
dark eyes was enhanced by the pallor of her ivory skin. Alice Thayor
loathed travelling.

Margaret had greeted him far more graciously; she had extended her
firm little gloved hand to him, with genuine delight in her brown
eyes, and had told him how very glad indeed she was to see him--which
was the truth. During the drive in her mother scarcely opened her
lips. She sat in the middle seat beside her daughter, haughtily
gracious and inwardly bored. Margaret's enthusiasm irritated her.
The woman going to her exile was in no mood to enthuse over nature.
Holcomb drove, with Thayor on the front seat beside him; on the back
seat sat Blakeman and Annette, in respectful silence. As they