lorous deeds.

As this was the last stage station on the way to Lost Trail, Mary
Carmichael was perforce obliged to content herself till Mrs. Yellett
should call or send for her. After supper, Chugg, with fresh horses to the
stage, left Rodney's, apparently for some port in that seemingly pathless
sea of foot-hills. That there should be trails and defined routes over
this vast, unvaried stretch of space seemed more wonderful to Mary than
the charted high-roads of the Atlantic. The foot-hills seemed to have
grown during the long journey till they were foot-hills no longer; they
had come to be the smaller peaks of the towering range that had formed the
spine of the desert. The air, that seemed to have lost some of its
crystalline quality on the flat stretches of the plains, was again
sparkling and heady in the clean hill country. It stirred the pulses like
some rare vintage, some subtle distillation of sun-warmed fruit that had
been mellowing for centuries.

Very lonely seemed the Rodney home among the great company of mountains. A
brooding desolation had settled on it at close of day, and all the
laughter and light footsteps and gayly ringing voices of the young folk
could not dispel the feeling of being adrift in a tiny shell on the black
waters of some unknown sea; or thus it seemed to the stranger within their
gate.

Mrs. Rodney retired within the flap of her sun-bonnet after the evening
meal, settling herself in the rocking-chair as if it were some sort of
conveyance. Her family, who might have told the hour of day or her passing
mood by the action of the chair, knew by her pacific gait that she would
lament the unbuilt bird-house no more that night. The snuff-brush, newly
replenished from the tin box, kept perfect time to the motion of the
chair. With the lady of the house it was one of the brief seasons of
passing content vouchsafed by an ample meal and a good digestion.

Warren Rodney took down a gun from the wall and began to clean it. His
hands had the fumbling, indefinite movements, the obscure action, directed
by a brain already begun to crumble. His industry with the gun was of a
part with the impotent dawdling in the garden. His eyes would seek for the
rag or the bottle of oil in a dull, glazed way, and, having found them, he
would forget the reason of his quest. Not once that evening had they
rested on his wife or any member of his family. He had shown no interest
in any of the small happenings of home,