ion that greeted his eyes.
It stirred him deeply, for the town was his, he had made it, his hands
had given it life. He wondered if this could be his desolate
camping-place of two seasons before. Where was the melancholy forest?
the brooding silence? As he walked up the front street past the painted
stores the vigorous life and optimism of the place electrified him; he
heard laughter and music, the tinkle of pianos from the dance-halls, the
sounds of revelry. The air was filled with clamor, it was pungent with
smoke and with the manifold odors of a city. Everywhere was activity and
haste.

Of course the news of his return spread swiftly, for he was a personage,
but before the curious could mark him he had left for the creek that
bore his name, where a hundred men were preparing to drift out Discovery
pay-streak under his supervision. He remained there a month, during
which the first gray snows turned white and brought that peculiar
loneliness, that depression of spirit which marks the beginning of
winter.

Then one day he decided to go to town. The impulse surprised him, for he
had meant to shun the place, as always, but his summer in the world
outside had worked a change and something within him hungered for
companionship, the glare of lights, the sight of animated faces. Then,
too, he was curious to examine this town of his at closer range.

It was worth seeing, he decided proudly, during his inspection; it was a
splendid, healthy camp. He walked the front street, then prowled through
the regions behind. There were women in this part of Arcadia, and these
he regarded distrustfully, although he was more than once arrested by a
glimpse of some cozy home, and stood staring until warned by the frowns
of indignant housewives that his presence was suspicious. He remembered
another cabin like these--his own. He had never quite grown accustomed
to its white curtains and china dishes and similar delights, any more
than he had grown accustomed to the presence of that wonderful,
mysterious creature who had filled the place with light. It was all part
of another life, a bewildering dream too agreeable to last.

In the course of his wanderings, however, he came into a different
district, one which offended him sorely. Immediately behind the saloons
he found a considerable cluster of meaner shacks which were inhabited by
women and yet which were not homes. These gaudily curtained houses
huddled close together, as if for moral s