resh horse was gone, while
rain squalls rattled upon the windows and the rising wind moaned through
the redwoods, the memory of his visit a whiff, sharp and strong, from
the wild outer world. A week later, sea-hammered and bar-bound for that
time, had arrived the revenue cutter _Bear_, and there had been a
column of conjecture in the local paper, hints of a heavy landing of
opium and of a vain quest for the mysterious schooner _Halcyon_. Only
Fred and his mother, and the several house Indians, knew of the
stiffened horse in the barn and of the devious way it was afterward
smuggled back to the fishing village on the beach.

Despite those twenty years, it was the same old Tom Travers that
alighted from the Pullman. To his brother's eyes, he did not look sick.
Older he was of course. The Panama hat did not hide the grey hair, and
though indefinably hinting of shrunkenness, the broad shoulders were
still broad and erect. As for the young woman with him, Frederick
Travers experienced an immediate shock of distaste. He felt it vitally,
yet vaguely. It was a challenge and a mock, yet he could not name nor
place the source of it. It might have been the dress, of tailored linen
and foreign cut, the shirtwaist, with its daring stripe, the black
wilfulness of the hair, or the flaunt of poppies on the large straw hat
or it might have been the flash and colour of her--the black eyes and
brows, the flame of rose in the cheeks, the white of the even teeth that
showed too readily. "A spoiled child," was his thought, but he had no
time to analyse, for his brother's hand was in his and he was making his
niece's acquaintance.

There it was again. She flashed and talked like her colour, and she
talked with her hands as well. He could not avoid noting the smallness
of them. They were absurdly small, and his eyes went to her feet to make
the same discovery. Quite oblivious of the curious crowd on the station
platform, she had intercepted his attempt to lead to the motor car and
had ranged the brothers side by side. Tom had been laughingly
acquiescent, but his younger brother was ill at ease, too conscious of
the many eyes of his townspeople. He knew only the old Puritan way.
Family displays were for the privacy of the family, not for the public.
He was glad she had not attempted to kiss him. It was remarkable she had
not. Already he apprehended anything of her.

She embraced them and penetrated them with sun-warm eyes that seemed to
see t