ment I turned to Mrs. Falchion, and said: "It
is beautiful, is it not?"

She drew in a long breath, her eyes lighted up, and she said, with a
strange abandon of gaiety: "Yes, it is delightful to live."

It seemed so, in spite of the forebodings of my friend and my own
uneasiness concerning him, Ruth Devlin, and Mrs. Falchion. The place
was all peace: a very monotony of toil and pleasure. The heat drained
through the valley back and forth in visible palpitations upon the roofs
of the houses, the mills, and the vast piles of lumber: all these seemed
breathing. It looked a busy Arcady. From beneath us life vibrated with
the regularity of a pulse: distance gave a kind of delighted ease to
toil. Event appeared asleep.

But when I look back now, after some years, at the experiences of
that day, I am astonished by the running fire of events, which,
unfortunately, were not all joy.

As I write I can hear that keen wild singing of the saw come to us
distantly, with a pleasant, weird elation. The big mill hung above the
river, its sides all open, humming with labour, as I had seen it many a
time during my visit to Roscoe. The sun beat in upon it, making a
broad piazza of light about its sides. Beyond it were pleasant shadows,
through which men passed and repassed at their work. Life was busy all
about it. Yet the picture was bold, open, and strong. Great iron hands
reached down into the water, clamped a massive log or huge timber,
lightly drew it up the slide from the water, where, guided by the
hand-spikes of the men, it was laid upon its cradle and carried slowly
to the devouring teeth of the saws: there to be sliced through rib and
bone in moist sandwiched layers, oozing the sweet sap of its fibre; and
carried out again into the open to be drained to dry bones under the
exhaust-pipes of the sun: piles upon piles; houses with wide chinks
through which the winds wandered, looking for tenants and finding none.

To the north were booms of logs, swilling in the current, waiting for
their devourer. Here and there were groups of river-drivers and their
foremen, prying twisted heaps of logs from the rocks or the shore into
the water. Other groups of river-drivers were scattered upon the banks,
lifting their huge red canoes high up on the platforms, the spring's
and summer's work of river-driving done; while others lounged upon
the grass, or wandered lazily through the village, sporting with the
Chinamen, or chaffing the Indian id