she whispered, "but--oh, John--I
love to hear you say them!"

Then she went into the hotel, and Harley wisely did not seek to follow.

XIX

AN IDAHO STORM

Among the mountains of Idaho, a dark storm-cloud, ribbed with flashes of
steel-edged lightning, was growing. For thirty years "King" Plummer had
lived a life after his own mind, and it had been a very free life. In
four or five states he was a real monarch, and there was nothing at all
derisive about his nickname. At fifty he was at his mental and physical
zenith, never before had he felt so strong, both in body and mind, so
capable of doing great deeds, and with so keen a zest in life. The blood
flowed in a rich, red tide through his veins, and he breathed the breath
of morning like a youth.

To this big, strong man, rioting in the very fulness of life, came Mrs.
Grayson's letter. He was not in Boise when it arrived there, but it was
forwarded to him at a mining-camp in the very highest mountains. He read
it early one morning sitting on a big rock at the edge of a valley that
dropped off three thousand feet below, and first there was a shade of
annoyance on his face, to be followed by a frown, which gave way in its
turn to an angry red flush.

But while the shade of annoyance was still on his face the "King" asked,
"What is she driving at?" and then, when it was replaced by the frown,
he muttered, "Why does she waste so much time on Harley and a marriage
for him?" and then, when the red flush came, he exclaimed, "Damn the
Eastern kid!" In the mind of "King" Plummer everybody who did not live
west of the Missouri River was Eastern.

He read the letter over four or five times, and it sank deeper and
deeper into his soul, and as it sank it burned like fire. All that he
had feared, but which he had refused to believe when he came away, was
true. Sylvia did not love him, but she loved that raw youngster Harley.
And here was Mrs. Grayson, the wife of a man who was under obligations
to him, whom he could ruin, hinting that he give her up, and she a woman
whom he had supposed to be endowed with at least ordinary intelligence.

In his wrath, which was mighty, "King" Plummer swore at the whole tribe
of women as fickle, heartless creatures. Then he rose to his feet,
clinched his fist, shook it at the opposite mountain across the valley,
and swore aloud at all creation. And "King" Plummer knew how to swear;
he was no mealy-mouthed man; his had been a wild and t