d in spots as if
something had passed that way. The women seized upon this clue and
eagerly followed the signs.

Where the land sloped upward toward the hill they came upon a grave.
It was old, so old that the Greek cross at the head was moss-grown,
broken and decayed. Once before Ellen and her son had stood there,
touched with the gentle speculative melancholy that a wilderness grave
always brings. Before leaving they had placed a cluster of flowers
upon it in memory of the bold Russian sailor of long ago, whose body
lay beneath. Now there was a fresh bunch of blossoms at the foot of
the cross. . . . At the sight of them quick, hot tears welled up in
Ellen's eyes. It hurt her to remember Loll's quaint way of talking to
the flowers he had picked.

Boreland, rifle in hand, overtook them just as they entered the gully
that ran upward to the flat top of the Island.

During the rainy season the gulch undoubtedly cradled a small stream of
water but now it was only slightly damp, and on each side, untouched
yet by frost, grew a golden profusion of flowers. Here and there
freshly broken stems indicated that Ellen had not been amiss in her
surmise as to the boy's route.

Halfway up they came upon Loll's cap swinging from a dried celery
blossom. With a cry Ellen caught at it and clasped it to her breast
while she called his name again and again. Jean joined her; then
Boreland took up the name. . . .

There was no answer.

When the voices died away at last it seemed strangely, ominously still
in the sunny, flower-scented hollow. . . . With a sickening fear that
she might never hear her boy's call again Ellen continued to stand
straining her ears for the sound of it. On either side of her a wall
of yellow bloom arose, shutting her in. A breath of air stirred the
fragrance of it,--clean, sweet. Suddenly, on its scent, there flashed
before her baby-pictures from the realm of her mother-memories--Loll,
curly-headed, grey-eyed and laughing, holding out chubby arms as he
took his first unsteady steps; Loll's plump, diminutive legs, dancing
"tippy-toe" with comical baby joyousness before he would consent to be
buttoned into his nightie; Loll asleep, his little tousled head on the
pillow beside that of "Shut-eye" an absurd and dilapidated doll dear to
his infant heart. . . . And once, when she had impatiently slapped his
fat little hand as it closed on a forbidden object, Loll's baby face
looking up at her with hurt