in the valleys and towns. She has her garden and I have my trees, and we are happy enough, thinking about the future, even if it is a future long beyond our time. Mines that we never heard of will be timbered from these trees, to yield gold and silver for our children's children. With these pines for masts, there will be ships that will sail to ports I never saw. There will be houses built-I can almost see the people that will be born and live and die under the roofs that my trees will make."

His eyes had been on the far distance, but he turned to fix them intently on Beatrice's. "If you live on a mountain," he said, "you can see much more than if you belong to the crowded, pushing, hurrying people that stay in the valley.

"And now," he declared, after a little pause, "here I have talked and talked, just as Miriam said I would, but I want you to have a turn. You have told us your name and that you know John Herrick, but may I hear the rest? Where are you living, and how did you happen to come to Ely? Strangers are not so common but that we backwoods people like to know all about them."

Rather to her own surprise, Beatrice found herself telling not only what she hoped he would do for her aunt, but all about why they had come to Ely, even to her own puzzle as to what Aunt Anna's special reason had been for insisting so earnestly that she would not go away. She told him of the strike, of her acquaintance with Christina, the visit of Dabney Mills, and her new-found friendship with Hester Herrick. He looked concerned over some portions of her tale and smiled over others. He laughed aloud when she described the midnight departure of Joe Ling.

"You were right to give up when he went away," he commented. "The Chinamen in these valleys seem to know everything, and just when to get out of the way of trouble. I know Joe; he has a little house and truck garden outside of Ely. He will stay there quietly until, in his own strange way, he has found out that the disturbance is over for good, and then he will come back."

He nodded with satisfaction when she spoke of the Herricks. "I am glad you know them," he said. "We we ourselves think a lot of Hester, and John Herrickthere are few men I like and admire so much."

"I like them too," agreed Beatrice. "I don't understand just how they belong to

each other; she says he is n't really her father."

"I'll not forget," Dr. Minturn began slowly, "I'll not forget in a long time the day I first saw John Herrick. I was up at the edge of the woods where you found me and he came riding down the trail-had been riding all night, or longer than that, perhaps. By the look on his face I could see that black trouble rode behind him and that he had not been able to gallop away from it. I did n't say much to him, but I brought him home,— he and the horse were dead tired, and we got him to stay with us for three days, until that strained look began to disappear from his face. I did n't know what had happened to him and I did n't dare to ask. That was ten years ago, and I know him nearly as well as I know myself, but I have never asked him yet."

"And did he have Hester with him then?" Beatrice asked.

"Bless you, no!

Hester lived with us.

She was born at our house, and her mother died there; her father had died before. They were some far kin of Miriam's, and we kept the baby when the others were gone. Our own two children were grown up and married, so we were glad enough to have her ourselves. She was five years old, a fat, merry little thing, and the way she and John took to each other would have done your heart good. He would sit on the doorstone and play with her for hours, or they would take walks together, up and down the rows of pine trees, the first ones that had been planted then. He came back to see us many times, for he rode back and forth among the mountains, looking at mines, buying up ranches. Everything he touched seemed to prosper, but he never looked happy. It was a year after, that he came one day and said he wanted Hester."

"Oh, how could you give her up?" exclaimed Beatrice.

"I thought I could n't," returned the doctor, rather glumly, "and I vowed I would n't; but Miriam said to me, 'Look at his face; can't you see how he needs her?' and of course, in the end, I had to give in. The care of a small child was really too much for Miriam. If John had not seen that, he would never have asked for her. He is better off than we; he can do a great deal for Hester that we never could. While she has been growing up she has had everything that a sensible rich man's money could give her. He built that house just

for her, and oh, he is a lonely man in it when she is away at school! She came back to stay with us when he went overseas, during the war, but they surely were glad to be together again."

"And you never knew where he came from?" the girl questioned wonderingly.

"Neither that nor what trouble drove him to our mountains. We don't go too deep into a man's past in the West; we like him and stand by him for what he is.”

It was quite dark now, and a white blot, moving through the dusk toward them, proved to be Mrs. Minturn's gown, as her quiet voice presently proved. "I am sure the doctor must have told you the history of every tree by now, even to the ones that the badgers dug up and the rows the deer nibbled."

"Only think, she lives in the cabin where you planted the pansies!" her husband returned as he raised his long length from the bank where they had been sitting.

"Oh, did you plant them?" asked Beatrice. "I believe they were what made me love the place the first time I saw it."

"Yes, it was I who put them there. We had been over to see Hester and I had bought a basketful of the plants in Ely, though the doctor laughed at me and said I had no room for them in the crowded garden. He was quite right; so when Hester and I took a walk while he was talking business with John, we happened to go by that cabin and it looked so lonely that we just stopped and planted the pansies by the steps. I am glad they are growing. And now you must come in, for you need sleep, I know. As I say, the doctor loves to talk of his trees, but I feel sure he has told you everything."

"All but one thing," Dr. Minturn said as he tucked Miriam's arm under his and turned toward the house; "that is that Christmas-tree Hill is to belong to Hester some day when you and I can't enjoy it any more."

CHAPTER VIII

OLAF

SPED by the kindly farewells of Miriam, Beatrice and Dr. Minturn set out next day on their return ride across the pass and reached the cabin without undue adventure. During the doctor's long interview with Aunt Anna, the two girls sat beside the fire, holding each other's hands tightly, neither speaking a word to voice her hopes or fears. When

the doctor came out, however, one glimpse of his smiling face was enough to cheer them both.

"Nothing seriously wrong," was his verdict, "and you have brought her to just the climate and just the sort of life to make her well." He gave them long and careful directions as to what they were to do, and then got up to say good-by. "I am going over to John Herrick's to spend the night, and I will see you again before I go back."

He visited the village before his departure, for he seemed interested in the progress of the trouble there, and he had a long talk the next morning with Nancy and Beatrice, out under the pines beside the stream.

"Your aunt will get well," he assured them. "She is anxious and unhappy and troubled, besides her illness. You say that you don't understand why, but in time she may tell you."

"Did she tell you?" Nancy asked him suddenly, for he was the sort of person to invite confidences.

"No, she told me very little; but old doctors guess a great deal. She will tell you herself some day."

He went on to explain that a porch must be added to the cabin, since it was imperative that the invalid should sleep out-of-doors.

"I spoke about it to John Herrick, and he can send some one over to build it for you," he said. "Old Tim, who works for him, is a carpenter of sorts, though his work rather seems to drag. Now I believe that is all."

"I wish I could tell you-" Beatrice began as he got up. She wanted to thank him for breaking out of his long retirement and rendering services for which he would accept no fee. He cut short her halting words.

"I don't want to hear anything about that," he declared. "Just be careful of your aunt and get her confidence if you can. I will be here again before so very long. That situation in the village bears watching and I want to see how it turns out. I never saw anything quite like it-all the idle men wrangling and quarreling, since there is no one outside to quarrel with. The fellow that got away with the money and shut down the works, he is the one they are after; but since neither they nor the sheriff nor that clever reporter fellow can find him, they have to take out their bad humor on one another. It is a dangerous place, a town full of ugly-tempered men, especially when they have some one like that Thorvik to keep the agitation boiling."

"But who could have taken the money?" asked Nancy.

"Blest if I know," returned the doctor. "Well, I must be getting back to Miriam. Good-by."

He clambered, with his awkward length,

that he worked very slowly and that at the end of ten days the porch was not finished; but his efforts to make everything as comfortable as possible were so earnest that the girls could not grow impatient with him. At the end of that time he appeared one morning with a helper,

into the saddle, and set off, leaving the girls much lighter of heart than they had been before his visit. It would be hard to measure the extent of their gratitude.

Next day old Tim, with his tools over his shoulder and a creaking wagon-load of lumber following him up to the gate, came to begin on the sleeping-porch. It was quite true

a broad-shouldered boy of about eighteen, with tow-colored hair and the widest and most bashful smile that Beatrice had ever seen.

Did

"Who is he? he come from the village?" she asked; but old Tim answered evasively. He was just some one staying at John Herrick's for a while; he thought he would come over and help. Beyond that, she could learn nothing, although she noticed that when supplies were wanted from Ely it was always old Tim who went for them, never his young helper. The boy worked hard and was as shy of speech as Tim was fluent. After his coming, the building went on rapidly. All sorts of improvements were made besides the porch, cupboards in the kitchen had been demanded by Nancy, but the two girls had not dreamed of dormer-windows for their little rooms under the roof, high-backed settles for the fireplace, and a palatial box-stall for Buck. Nancy's

request "for a few shelves for pots and kettles," had materialized into a spacious pantry rich in cupboards, shelves, drawers, and pegs for the hanging of each utensil, and into a transformed kitchen with everything rearranged, to the great increase of comfort and convenience.

"We wanted John Herrick to come over

and see what we had done," Tim said one day; "but somehow he does n't do it, though he is always asking about the work. A lot of the things we have done were his suggestion; those sliding shutters on the porch were his special idea. There could n't be anything better to keep out the rain and snow." "Snow!" echoed Nancy, who was standing beside him to admire his work, as he loved to have her do. "Why, we are only going to be here for the summer."

"It can snow any day it wants to, in these mountains," Tim returned. "There's more in January than in June, to be sure, but you may wake up any morning and find the ground white. It can snow just as easy as rain hereabouts."

Beatrice had been watching Tim's helper keenly, from day to day, with a growing suspicion lurking within her mind. BeBesides giving assistance with the building, he came to the house daily with the milk and eggs that Hester supplied. One morning, when she was astir early, she saw him meet Christina on the path below the house, and watched him take from her the basket in which she was bringing their marketing. In the thin quiet air, their voices came up to her window more clearly than they seemed to realize.

"Is n't it too heavy?" he questioned. "And you 're looking pale and tired. Thatthat Thorvik has been abusing you again. I'd like to get my hands on him."

"No, no!" cried Christina, in terror; "you must not let him or any one in the village see you. You promised John Herrick you would not go near the town until he found out how things stood for you. He said it was safer and easier that no one at all should know you were here. Thorvik does not harm me; it is only the the things he says about my so good friends."

"I can't stand by and see him make you miserable," protested the boy, hotly.

"You promised," repeated Christina, obstinately. "You can't break the word you gave."

"Then some day I will be giving John Herrick the promise back again," he returned, his voice rising louder. "Thorvik will find-"

Christina, glancing anxiously at the windows, warned him to silence. They went together into the kitchen, leaving Beatrice to ponder what she had heard.

"That letter to Olaf got such a quick answer that it must have found him just

I

back from a voyage," she was reflecting. "And we never read what he wrote in that letter that Thorvik destroyed; it must have been to say that he was coming home. suppose they kept his being here a secret even from us, so that if any one asked us, we should not know. There is always that Dabney Mills hanging about, trying to find out things."

The day was so full that she had little time to talk of the matter with Nancy until they sat by the fire late that evening. The blaze was always a grateful one on these nights that grew so chilly the moment the sun was gone. Aunt Anna had finally gone to bed on the new sleeping-porch. Nancy sat on one of Tim's settles by the hearth, knitting busily, while Beatrice, openly idle and dreaming, sat opposite, gazing into the changing flames. Her mind was running afar upon such various things that even now she did not come immediately to the question of Christina's son.

"Nancy," she said, "don't you begin to feel like an entirely different person from the one you were when you came here?"

Her sister nodded in quick assent. “I never knew before that I could do so-so much thinking," she agreed rather vaguely. "I am busy every minute, but there is time to turn things over in my mind, ever so many things about you and Aunt Anna and Dad and about myself and oh-just about living. When I look back at last winter and all the time before, it seems as though we were always in a crowd of people-people who were all talking at once and all wanting me to do something with them in a hurry. I liked it, but I never had time to think about anything at all."

"Yes," returned Beatrice, slowly, "there was always something to do and somewhere to go, and that seemed all there was to living. Think of my head being so full of things that I forgot about our having an uncle! I must have seen him and have heard Dad and Aunt Anna talk of him, but I never noticed it when he never came any more and was never mentioned. But I think about him now. I think about him moreand more."

Nancy laid down her knitting and leaned forward.

"Do you?" she questioned. "So do I. Do you think it could be because of him that Aunt Anna wanted to come here?"

"It may be," said Beatrice, "but if so, where is he?"