se
you that one of these days I will present to you the very finest comedy
imaginable."

"You speak oracularly," she said; "still you are a professor, and
professors always pose. But now, to be perfectly frank with you, I do
not believe that any comedy you could arrange would be as effective as
your own."

"You have read 'Much Ado about Nothing'," I said.

"Oh, it is as good as that, is it?" she asked.

"Well, it has just as good a final situation," I answered. She seemed
puzzled, for she saw I spoke with some undercurrent of meaning. "Mrs.
Falchion," I said to her suddenly and earnestly, "I wish you to think
between now and to-morrow of what I am just going to say to you."

"It sounds like the task set an undergraduate, but go on," she said.

"I wish you to think," said I, "of the fact that I helped to save your
life."

She flushed; an indignant look shot into her face, and her voice
vibrating, she said:

"What man would have done less?" Then, almost immediately after, as
though repenting of what she had said, she continued in a lower tone and
with a kind of impulsiveness uncommon to her: "But you had courage, and
I appreciate that; still, do not ask too much. Good-night."

We parted at that, and did not meet again until the next afternoon, when
I joined her and her party at the summer hotel. Together we journeyed
down to Sunburst.

It was the height of the salmon-fishing season. Sunburst lay cloyed
among the products of field and forest and stream. At Viking one got the
impression of a strong pioneer life, vibrant, eager, and with a touch of
Arcady. But viewed from a distance Sunburst seemed Arcady itself. It was
built in green pastures, which stretched back on one side of the river,
smooth, luscious, undulating to the foot-hills. This was on one side
of the Whi-Whi River. On the other side was a narrow margin, and then a
sheer wall of hills in exquisite verdure. The houses were of wood, and
chiefly painted white, sweet and cool in the vast greenness. Cattle
wandered shoulders deep in the rich grass, and fruit of all kinds was
to be had for the picking. The population was strangely mixed. Men had
drifted here from all parts of the world, sometimes with their families,
sometimes without them. Many of them had settled here after mining
at the Caribou field and other places on the Frazer River. Mexican,
Portuguese, Canadian, Californian, Australian, Chinaman, and coolie
lived here, side by side, at ease in t