ergy, and it was strange to see him unable to move. Yet,
while very pitiful, she felt a vague satisfaction because she could help
him and he needed her.

When it was getting dark she went to the door and looked out. The
evening was calm and belts of pale-yellow broke the soft gray clouds.
The eastern peaks were touched with an orange glow, but the snow lower
down faded through shades of blue and purple into gloom. To the west,
the pines were black and sharp, with white smears on their lower
branches, and a thin haze rose from the river. The coloring of the
landscape was harmoniously subdued, but its rugged grandeur of outline
caught Helen's eye, and she stood for a few minutes, looking about with
half-awed admiration.

"Do you feel the cold, Stephen?" she asked.

"No," said Festing. "Wonderful view, isn't it? But what's it like
outside?"

"Very still. Everything has a soft look; the harsh glitter's gone and
the air has not the sting it had. Somehow the calm's majestic. The
pictures one sees of the mountains hardly give a hint; one feels this is
the grandest country in the world, but it looks strangely unfinished."

Festing laughed. "A few ranches, roads, and cornfields would make a
difference? Well, they follow the Steel in Canada and it's my job to
clear the way. But the soft look promises warmer weather, and Bob will
get ahead if a Chinook wind begins to blow. I imagine he hasn't done
very much the last few days."

"You mustn't bother about what Bob is doing," Helen said firmly.

"Very well. Light the lamp and sit where I can see you. There's
something I want to say."

Helen did so and waited until Festing resumed: "To begin with, I've been
a short-sighted, censorious fool about Bob. I'm ashamed to remember that
I said he was a shiftless wastrel. The worst is I can't apologize; it
wouldn't make things better to tell him what I thought."

"That's obvious," said Helen, with a smile. "Still, in a way perhaps,
you were not so very wrong. Bob was something of a wastrel; his wife has
made him a useful man."

"Another thing I was mistaken about! I rather despised Sadie. Now I
want to take off my hat when I think of her. But it's puzzling. A girl
without polish, taste, or accomplishments marries a man who has them
all. She has no particular talents; nothing, in fact, except some
beauty, rude integrity, and native shrewdness. Yet she, so to speak,
works wonders. Puts Bob on his feet and leads him on, when nobody el