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packages of groceries, "do you remember how that Englishman at your sorority dance talked about an affair like this as 'settling in'? Settling would n't be so hard, but settling in- Will all this stuff ever get put away in this little house?"

"I don't know," replied Beatrice. "It will have to go in somehow. Surely we need everything that is here."

She spoke absently, for the mention of the dance had brought a sudden flood of memories and of odd fancies. It had been the last one she had attended before the doctor's verdict concerning Aunt Anna's health had upset all their plans and had driven them West. It must have been in another world, she thought, that evening at the country club, with the moonlight coming in on the polished floor, with the whirling maze of colored dresses, the swinging music, and the soft sound of many sliding feet. She had been manager of the affair, and she recollected now, with curious clearness, how full the evening had been of congratulations on the success of her arrangements, but how, in the midst of it all, she had felt a vague discontent, a sudden wonder whether this were all the pleasure that life had to offer. Now, with a strange exhilaration born, perhaps, of the clearness of the thin air and the brilliance of the morning sunshine, she realized that life was offering her a new adventure, that she was embarking on a period of more intense living than she had ever known before.

Nancy, quite untroubled by any doubts or fancies, was plodding steadily ahead at the task in hand. It had been no hardship for her to rise early, explore the possibilities of the kitchen, concoct a breakfast out of such supplies as they had brought with them, and with a beaming and triumphant smile, carry it in on a tray.

Aunt Anna seemed to have suffered little harm from the midnight flitting and was sleeping late after the excitements of the night before. She had been made comfortable at once in the one room that was in tolerable order, for the girls had only to make up the couch with the bedding they had brought and build a fire out of the pine-cones that lay so thickly under the trees, when the apartment was ready for the invalid. Christina had taken charge of the place for the former occupants and had left it very clean and in order. In the dry Montana air, no house, even when closed for months, grows damp, nor, in the clean pine woods, even very

dusty. Aunt Anna had remained long awake, however, for two hours later, when it was almost dawn, Beatrice had stolen in and found her staring wide-eyed at the fire.

"Can I do anything for you? Are n't you very tired?" the girl had asked, but her aunt only smiled and shook her head.

"I am very comfortable," she said. "I think we are going to be happy in this strange little house. I am glad you had the courage to bring me here, my child."

Beatrice stood beside the bed and straightened the coverlid.

"Won't you tell me why you wanted so much to stay?" she begged. "I wish I might know.'

Her aunt did not answer for a moment. "I used to think," she said at last, "that you might never know; but since last night, I have changed my mind. Yes, whatever happens, I believe I will tell you, but not just now, for I am too weary to go through with such a thing. Move my pillow a little, my dear; I am going to sleep. The music of that waterfall would make anybody drowsy."

Before they had finished breakfast, Christina had appeared, with a heavy-laden Sam following her, bringing more of their things from the village.

"I just packed up everything that I thought you would need and had Sam fetch it up here," said Christina. "No, you can't go down to the town until things have quieted a little. There was fighting last night and Dan O'Leary has been shot."

"Just through the leg," Sam reassured them, seeing Nancy's horrified face. Then he carried in the boxes and went down the path for more.

"There's room in the shed for your horse, Miss Beatrice," he announced, when he had made his last trip. "I can bring him up, if you like, only you would have to take care of him yourself. We can haul up enough feed to keep him, and there's some grazing-land higher up the hill."

So it was settled that Buck, also, was to be a part of their establishment, although Beatrice felt a little appalled at the prospect of taking care of a horse single-handed.

"Bless you, he 's that wise he can almost take care of himself," Sam reassured her. "He's a little light on his feet when you go to saddle him, but beyond that he has n't a fault. It will be a good thing to have a horse on the place."

Toward noon the two girls, with Christina's assistance, began to bring some order out of

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"THINGS HAVE BROKEN LOOSE QUICKER THAN WE THOUGHT'

the confusion. The cabin possessed four rooms downstairs, the large living-room into which the front door opened, the bedroom off it, the lean-to kitchen and, wonder of wonders, a tiny bathroom with a shining white porcelain tub.

"Those engineers that used the place just settled down to make themselves comfortable," Christina explained. "They put in the water-pipes themselves, and I'll never forget the day they brought up that tub, packed on a mule. He bucked it off once, and it slid down the hill until it caught between two pine-trees."

The enterprising former tenants had also introduced electricity from the power-plant of the nearest mine, so that the two most difficult housekeeping problems of water and light were thus already solved.

"Now," said Nancy, at last, "we have everything we need except milk and eggs."

"I believe," said Christina, who was scrubbing the big table, "that over at John Herrick's he's your nearest neighbor they could spare you what milk and eggs you want. I know they have a cow, and that his girl, Hester, makes a great deal of her chickens."

Neighbors! Beatrice had forgotten that house, nearly hidden by the shoulder of the mountain, but visible from the trail below. There was a girl there, too, perhaps of nearly

their own age. She was eager to go and investigate at once and scarcely waited to hear how to find the way.

It was a long walk down to the road beyond the bars and then up the hill to the next house. Beatrice realized, as she tramped along, that distances are deceitful in high altitudes, and that the presence of Buck would be a great convenience. The house,

when she reached it, was even larger than she had thought a long, low dwelling, with a row of sheds and stables and an enclosed corral. She had just reached the front steps when she saw the door fly open and a brown-haired girl, with very bright, dancing eyes, come running out in a flutter of dark curls and flying blue-and-white skirts.

"Oh, oh!" cried Hester Herrick, grasping Beatrice's hand in her cordial brown one, "I thought there was smoke in your chimney, and I could n't wait to know who was living in the cabin. To have neighbors you can't think what it means on this mountain! Come in, come in."

To Beatrice, who had observed with some distaste the flimsy houses of the village, the

sagging board-walks, and streets full of ruts and boulders, this place was a delightful surprise, with its air of spruce neatness and picturesque charm. She liked the outside of the building, the pointed gables and wide eaves; but as Hester conducted her within, she gave a little gasp of wonder, for the interior of the house was really beautiful. Beauty in a house, to her, had always meant shining white woodwork, softly colored rugs, and polished mahogany, but there was nothing of all that here. The low room, with its windows opening toward the distant mountains, was full of rich colors, the dull red of the unceiled pine walls and bookcases, the odd browns and yellows in the bear-skin rugs, the clear flame-color of the bowl of wild lilies that stood on the broad windowsill. Hester seated her guest in the corner of a huge comfortable couch and sat down beside her with a smile of broad satisfaction.

It was difficult to bring up such a prosaic subject as milk and eggs in such pleasant surroundings, but that having been disposed of, the two were soon chattering away as though they had known each other for years.

"Yes," commented Hester, nodding sagely, as she heard the tale of their departure for the cabin on the hill, "there is going to be real trouble in Ely, so Roddy says, and he won't let me go down there just now. glad I am that you did n't go away!"

How

Beatrice's eyes had been roving about the room, observing the white-birch log on the hearth, the tawny-orange shade of the homespun curtains, and the pictures on the wall.

"Why," she exclaimed, her glance arrested by a photograph hanging near the window, "we have that same picture at home in my father's study! It is of the school where he used to go."

Hester looked up at the vine-covered archway, showing a tree-lined walk beyond.

"I don't know where Roddy got it," she said. "It has always been there, over his desk, for as long as I can remember."

"Who is Roddy your brother?" Beatrice asked.

"No, he is my-my sort of father, but not really. He is too young to be my father, I suppose. He adopted me when I was little. His name is John Rodman Herrick, so, as he's only fifteen years older, I call him Roddy. I can hardly remember when I did n't live in this house with him, and with old Julia and her husband Tim to do the work for us. There is Roddy now."

The stride of heavy boots sounded along

the veranda, and a man came in, a handsome, vigorous person who, as Hester had said, was evidently far too young to be her father. Nor were they in the least alike in appearance, since he was very fair, with thick light hair and blue eyes that contrasted oddly with his very sunburned skin. He wore ordinary riding-clothes, but seemed to carry an air of distinction in his clear-cut profile and straight shoulders.

He listened to Hester's rather confused account of the visitor's arrival, and gravely shook hands wtih Beatrice.

"Are you going to be comfortable in the cabin?" he asked. "Who is helping you to get settled?"

Beatrice began to tell him in what good hands they were, and the three stood talking until, glancing at the clock, she was horrified to see how long she had stayed, and quickly turned to go. Both her new friends came to

the door with her. "By the way," said John Herrick, as Beatrice stood on the step below, "my Hester is too informal a person for introductions, and she has not even told me your name. Indeed, I doubt if she has asked it herself. Won't you tell us who you are and who is at the cabin with you?"

What a cordial, friendly smile he had, Beatrice thought, as she looked up at him, and how it lighted his brown face!

"The

"My Aunt Anna and my sister Nancy are at the cottage with me," she said. place is mine-my father gave it to me. My name is Beatrice Deems."

Never had she seen a face change so abruptly as did John Herrick's, and he turned suddenly and went into the house, leaving Hester to say her good-bys alone.

It was at the end of a very laborious, but satisfactory, day that Nancy came up to her sister's room to find Beatrice writing at the rough pine table.

"We have everything in order, and Christina and Sam are just gone," said Nancy. "There was n't anything more you wanted them to do, was there?"

"Oh, I wanted them to mail my letters!" exclaimed Beatrice, sealing her envelop and jumping up. "It took me so long to write everything to Dad that I only just finished this one that I promised Christina for her boy Olaf. Perhaps I can catch Sam at the gate."

She sped down the path through the pines and was able to overtake Sam and Christina where they had lingered to put up the bars.

She was just explaining to the Finnish woman what she had written when a heavy, slouching figure came up the road through the shadows, and Thorvik, in his broken English, spoke roughly to his sister.

"You spend the whole day here spend the night too? I have not yet my supper."

It was evident that he wished Beatrice, also, to know of his displeasure, or he would have spoken in his own tongue. He grasped Christina angrily by the arm and shot the girl a scowl of such fierce enmity that involuntarily she shrank back behind the gate. It was difficult, under that frowning scrutiny, to hand the two letters to Sam, the more so since Christina eyed one of the envelops with such nervous apprehension. Even a duller eye than Thorvik's might have noted that the letter was of special importance to her.

The sullen animosity deepen on Thorvik's

face.

"You make nothing more with my sistersee?" he said fiercely to Beatrice as he led Christina away.

Sam nodded a subdued good-night, clucked low-spiritedly to his horses, and drove slowly after them.

Beatrice stood looking down between the giant red trunks of the pines-down upon the gray thread of road winding to the valley, upon the huddle of boxlike houses below, with the slow smoke still rising from the ruins in the midst. What strange place was this to which they had come, the place where she had decided that they must stay? For the responsibility of the choice had, in the end, rested upon her. It would be her part to make life possible in the mountain cabin, to hold her own in this new world of rugged, lonely peaks, pine-forested mountain-sides, and narrow valleys filled with hostile, rioting men. The depths below her grew darker, the lights of Herrick's house shone out-friendly, but distant- at the summit of the road.

There, holding to the rough bars of the gate and staring across at the great yellow moon rising through the twilight above the mountains opposite, Beatrice vowed to herself that she would see this adventure through, no matter what happened. But what would happen? It was the unknown future that filled her with apprehension. Through all her life she had known, at least vaguely, what she would probably be doing the next week, the next month, the next year. And now she had not the ghost of an idea of what even the next day might bring forth.

(To be continued)

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