am in his
nostrils, and as he rolled through dark coverts the scent of the growing
things in the hidden places in the coolth and damp of the sandy loam. He
saw, too, tea-colored streams idling among the sedges and charred
wildernesses of trees appealing mutely with their blackened stumps like
wounded creatures in pain, a bit of war-torn Galicia in the midst of
peace. Miles and miles of dead forest land, forgotten and uncared for.
There was need here for his services.

With a wheeze of steam and a loud crackling of woodwork and creaking of
brakes the train came to a stop and the conductor shouted the name of
the station. Rather stiffly the traveler descended with his bag and
stood upon the small platform looking about him curiously. The baggage
man tossed out a bundle of newspapers and a pouch of mail and the train
moved off. Apparently Peter Nichols was the only passenger with Pickerel
River as a destination.

And as the panting train went around a curve, at last disappearing, it
seemed fairly reasonable to Peter Nichols that no one with the slightest
chance of stopping off anywhere else would wish to get off here. The
station was small, of but one room and a tiny office containing, as he
could see, a telegraph instrument, a broken chair with a leather
cushion, a shelf and a rack containing a few soiled slips of paper, but
the office had no occupant and the door was locked. This perhaps
explained the absence of the automobile which Mr. Sheldon had informed
him would meet him in obedience to his telegram announcing the hour of
his arrival. Neither within the building nor without was there any
person or animate thing in sight, except some small birds fluttering and
quarreling along the telegraph wires.

There was but one road, a sandy one, wearing marks of travel, which
emerged from the scrub oak and pine and definitely concluded at the
railroad track. This, then, was his direction, and after reassuring
himself that there was no other means of egress, he took up his black
suitcase and set forth into the wood, aware of a sense of beckoning
adventure. The road wound in and out, up and down, over what at one time
must have been the floor of the ocean, which could not be far distant.
Had it not been for the weight of his bag Peter would have enjoyed the
experience of this complete isolation, the fragrant silences broken only
by the whisper of the leaves and the scurrying of tiny wild things among
the dead tree branches. Bu