onsternation came into his face, for the links hung
loose; then as the hard hand dropped to his pocket, he looked relieved
and Helen found it judicious to watch a gray blur of shadow moving
across the snow. She had sometimes wondered what he wore at one end of
that cross-pattern chain, for rock cutters do not usually adorn
themselves with such trinkets, but, remembering Bransome's comments,
she now understood what had happened just before the explosion.
Geoffrey's quick eyes had noticed something unusual in her air, and his
old reckless spirit, breaking through all restraint, prompted him to
say:

"It will, I fancy, still bring me good fortune. I come of a
superstitious race, and nothing would tempt me to part with it. This,
as I said, is only the beginning. It appeared impossible to move the
boulder from your wagon trail, and I did it. The neighbors declared
nobody could drain Bransome's prairie, and a number of goodly acres are
drying now, while to-night I feel it may be possible to go on and on,
until----"

"Does not that sound somewhat egotistical?" interposed Helen.

"Horribly," said Thurston, with a curious smile. "But you see I am
trusting in the talisman, and some day I may ask you to admit that I
have made it good. I'm not avaricious, and desire money only as means
to an end. Dollars! If all goes well, the contract for the wagon road
rock work should bring me in a good many of them."

"You are refreshingly certain," averred Helen. "But will the end or
dominant purpose justify all this?"

Thurston answered quietly:

"I may ask you to judge that, also, some day!"

Helen was conscious of a chagrin quite unusual to her. Hitherto, she
had experienced little difficulty in making the men she knew regret
anything that resembled presumption, but with this man it was
different. What he meant she would not at the moment ask herself, but,
though she rather admired his quietly confident tone, it nettled her,
and yet, without begging an awkward question she could not resent it.
Geoffrey's reckless frankness was often more unassailable than wiser
men's diplomacy--and she was certainly pleased that he had recovered
the dollar.

"The dew is getting heavy, and I promised Jean some instruction in
netting," she told him rather unsteadily. She paused a second, and,
with an assumed carelessness, added, "isn't it useless to forecast the
future?"

CHAPTER V

THE LEGENDS OF CROSBIE GHYLL

Helen Savine