e springing up under the urge of the warm spring sun. Twenty
minutes brought her to the clearing. The grass sprang lush there, and
the air was pleasant with odors of pine and balsam wafted down from the
mountain height behind. But the breath of the woods was now a matter
of small moment, for Silk and Satin and Nigger loafing at the sunny end
of the stable pricked up their ears at her approach, and she knew that
Roaring Bill was home again. She tied her horse to a sapling and drew
nearer. The cabin door stood wide.

A brief panic seized her. She felt a sudden shrinking, a wild desire
for headlong flight. But it passed. She knew that for good or ill she
would never turn back. And so, with her heart thumping tremendously
and a tentative smile curving her lips, she ran lightly across to the
open door.

On the soft turf her footsteps gave forth no sound. She gained the
doorway as silently as a shadow. Roaring Bill faced the end of the
long room, but he did not see her, for he was slumped in the big chair
before the fireplace, his chin sunk on his breast, staring straight
ahead with absent eyes.

In all the days she had been with him she had never seen him look like
that. It had been his habit, his defense, to cover sadness with a
smile, to joke when he was hurt. That weary, hopeless expression, the
wry twist of his lips, wrung her heart and drew from her a yearning
little whisper:

"Bill!"

He came out of his chair like a panther. And when his eyes beheld her
in the doorway he stiffened in his tracks, staring, seeing, yet
reluctant to believe the evidence of his vision. His brows wrinkled.
He put up one hand and absently ran it over his cheek.

"I wonder if I've got to the point of seeing things," he said slowly.
"Say, little person, is it your astral body, or is it really you?"

"Of course it's me," she cried tremulously, and with fine disregard for
her habitual preciseness of speech.

He came up close to her and pinched her arm with a gentle pressure, as
if he had to feel the material substance of her before he could
believe. And then he put his hands on her shoulders, as he had done on
the steamer that day at Bella Coola, and looked long and earnestly at
her--looked till a crimson wave rose from her neck to the roots of her
dark, glossy hair. And with that Roaring Bill took her in his arms,
cuddled her up close to him, and kissed her, not once but many times.

"You really and truly came back, l