won't enjoy having a man with smallpox chassayin' around town. They might
rope and tie you."

Wetherford came out of his hiding-place with a grave face. "I wonder I
didn't think of that collie. They say a cat's fur will carry disease germs
like a sponge. Must be the same with a dog."

"Well, it's too late now," replied Cavanagh. "But they're right about our
staying clear of town. They'll quarantine us sure. All the same, I don't
believe the dog carried any germs of the disease."

Wetherford, now that the danger of arrest was over, was disposed to be
grimly humorous. "There's no great loss without some small gain. I don't
think we'll be troubled by any more visitors--not even by sheriffs or
doctors. I reckon you and I are in for a couple of months of the quiet
life--the kind we read about."

* * * * *

Cavanagh, now that he was definitely out of the Forest Service, perceived
the weight of every objection which his friends and relatives had made
against his going into it. It was a lonely life, and must ever be so. It
was all very well for a young unmarried man, who loved the woods and hills
beyond all things else, and who could wait for advancement, but it was a
sad place for one who desired a wife. The ranger's place was on the trail
and in the hills, and to bring a woman into these high silences, into
these lone reaches of forest and fell, would be cruel. To bring children
into them would be criminal.

All the next day, while Wetherford pottered about the cabin or the yard,
Cavanagh toiled at his papers, resolved to leave everything in the perfect
order which he loved. Whenever he looked round upon his belongings, each
and all so redolent of the wilderness--he found them very dear. His chairs
(which he had rived out of slabs), his guns, his robes, his saddles and
their accoutrements--all meant much to him. "Some of them must go with
me," he said. "And when I am settled down in the old home I'll have one
room to myself which shall be so completely of the mountain America that
when I am within it I can fancy myself back in the camp."

He thought of South Africa as a possibility, and put it aside, knowing
well that no other place could have the same indefinable charm that the
Rocky Mountains possessed, for the reason that he had come to them at his
most impressionable age. Then, too, the United States, for all their
faults, seemed merely an extension of the English form of