Under the Tonto Rim

by

Zane Grey

CHAPTER I

Lucy Watson did not leave home without regrets. For a long time she gazed at the desert scenery through tear-blurred eyes. But this sadness seemed rather for the past--the home that had been, before the death of her mother and the elopement of her younger sister with a cowboy. This escapade of Clara's had been the last straw. Lucy had clung to the home in the hope she might save her sister from following in the footsteps of others of the family. Always she had felt keenly the stigma of being the daughter of a saloon-keeper. In her school days she had suffered, under this opprobrium, and had conceived an ideal to help her rise above the circumstances of her position. Clara's deflection had left her free. And now she was speeding away from the town where she had been born, with an ache in her heart, and yet a slowly dawning consciousness of relief, of hope, of thrill. By the time she reached Oglethorpe, where she was to take a branch-line train, she was able to address all her faculties to a realisation of her adventures.

Lucy had graduated from high school and normal school with honours. Of the several opportunities open to her she had chosen one of welfare work among backwoods people. It was not exactly missionary work, as her employers belonged to a department of the state government. Her duty was to go among the poor families of the wilderness and help them to make better homes. The significance of these words had prompted Lucy to make her choice. Better homes! It had been her ideal to help make her own home better, and so long as her mother lived she had succeeded. The salary offered was small, but that did not cause her concern. The fact that she had the welfare department of the state behind her, and could use to reasonable extent funds for the betterment of these primitive people, was something of far greater importance. When she had accepted this position two remarks had been made to her, both of which had been thought-provoking. Mr. Sands, the head of the department, had said: "We would not trust every young woman with this work. It is a sort of state experiment. But we believe in the right hands it will be a great benefit to these uncultivated people of the backwoods. Tact, cleverness, and kindliness of heart will be factors in your success."

Lucy had derived gratification from this indirect compliment. The other remark had aroused only Amusement. Mrs. Larabee, also connected with the welfare work, had remarked: "You are a good-looking woman, Miss Watson. You will cause something of a stir among the young men at Cedar Ridge. I was there last summer. Such strapping young giants I never saw! I liked them, wild and uncouth as they were. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them married you."

Oglethorpe was a little way station in the desert. The branch-line train, consisting of two cars and the engine, stood waiting on a side track. Mexicans in huge sombreros and Indians with coloured blankets stolidly watched Lucy carry her heavy bags from one train to the other, A young brakeman espied her and helped her aboard, not forgetting some bold and admiring glances. The coach was only partly filled with passengers, and those whom Lucy noticed bore the stamp of the range.

Soon the train started over an uneven and uphill roadbed. Lucy began to find pleasure in gazing out of the window. The flat bare desert had given place to hills, fresh with spring greens. The air had lost the tang of the cattle range. Occasionally Lucy espied a black tableland rising in the distance, and this she guessed was timbered mountain country, whither she was bound.

At noon the train arrived at its terminal stop, San Dimas, a hamlet of flat-roofed houses. Lucy was interested only in the stage-coach that left here for her destination, Cedar Ridge. The young brakeman again came to her assistance and carried her baggage. "Goin' up in the woods, hey?" he queried curiously.

"Yes, I think they did say woods, backwoods," laughed Lucy. "I go to Cedar Ridge, and farther still."

"All alone--a pretty girl!" he exclaimed gallantly. "For two cents I'd throw up my job an' go with you."

"Thank you. Do you think I need a--a protector?" replied Lucy.

"Among those bee hunters an' white-mule drinker I reckon you do, miss."

"I imagine they will not be any more dangerous than cowboys on the range--or brakemen on trains," replied Lucy, with a smile. "Anyway, I can take care of myself."

"I'll bet you can," he said admiringly. "Good luck."

Lucy found herself the sole passenger in the stage-coach and soon bowling along a good road. The driver, a weather-beaten old man, appeared to have a grudge against his horses. Lucy wanted to climb out in front and sit beside him, so that she could see better and have opportunity to ask questions about the country and the people. The driver's language, however, was hardly conducive to nearer acquaintance; therefore Lucy restrained her inquisitive desires and interested herself in the changing nature of the foliage and the occasional vista that opened up between the hills.

It seemed impossible not to wonder about what was going to happen to her; and the clinking of the harness on the horses, the rhythmic beat of their hoofs, and the roll of wheels all augmented her sense of the departure from an old and unsatisfying life toward a new one fraught with endless hopes, dreams, possibilities. Whatever was in store for her, the worthy motive of this work she had accepted would uphold her and keep her true to the ideal she had set for herself.

The only instructions given Lucy were that she was to go among the families living in the backwoods between Cedar Ridge and what was called the Rim Rock and to use her abilities to the best advantage in teaching them to have better homes. She had not been limited to any method or restricted in any sense or hampered by any church or society. She was to use her own judgment and report her progress. Something about this work appealed tremendously to Lucy. The responsibility weighed upon her, yet stimulated her instinct for conflict. She had been given a hint of what might be expected in the way of difficulties. Her success or failure would have much to do with future development of this state welfare work. Lucy appreciated just how much these isolated and poor families might gain or lose through her. Indeed, though beset by humility and doubt, she felt that a glorious opportunity had been presented to her, and she called upon all the courage and intelligence she could summon. There was little or nothing she could plan until she got among these people. But during that long ride through the lonely hills, up and ever upward into higher country, she laboured at what she conceived to be the initial step toward success--to put into this work all her sympathy and heart.

Presently she plucked up spirit enough to address the stage driver.

"How far is it to Cedar Ridge?"

"Wal, some folks calkilate it's round twenty-five miles, then there's tothers say it's more," he drawled. "But I don't agree with nary of them."

"You would know, of course," said Lucy appreciatingly. "How far do you call it?"

"Reckon aboot twenty miles as a crow flies an' shinnyin' round forty on this uphill road."

Lucy felt rather bewildered at this reply, and did not risk incurring more confusion. She was sure of one thing, however, and it was that the road assuredly wound uphill. About the middle of the afternoon as stage reached the summit of what appeared rolling upland country, grassy in patches and brushy in others, and stretching away toward a bold black mountain level with a band of red rock shining in the sun. Lucy gazed westward across a wide depression, grey and green, to a range of ragged peaks, notched and sharp, with shaggy slopes. How wild and different they seemed to her! Farther south the desert mountains were stark and ghastly, denuded rock surfaces that glared inhospitably down upon an observer. But these mountains seemed to call in wild abandon. They stirred something buoyant and thrilling in Lucy. Gradually she lost sight of both ranges as the road began to wind down somewhat, obstructing her view. Next to interest her were clearings in the brush, fields and fences and cabins, with a few cattle and horses. Hard as she peered, however, Lucy did not see any people.

The stage driver made fast time over this rolling country, and his horses trotted swingingly along, as if home and feed were not far off. For Lucy the day had been tiring; she had exhausted herself with unusual sensation. She closed her eyes to rest them and fell into a doze. Sooner or later the stage driver awoke her.

"Say, miss, there's Cedar Ridge, an' thet green hill above is what gives the town its name," he said. "It's a good ways off yit, but I reckon we'll pull in aboot dark."

Lucy's eyes opened upon a wonderful valley, just now coloured by sunset haze. A cluster of cottages and houses nestled under a magnificent sloping ridge, billowy and soft with green foliage. The valley was pastoral and beautiful. This could not be the backwoods country into which she was going. Lucy gazed long with the most pleasing of impressions. Then her gaze shifted to the ridge from which the town derived its name. Far as she could see to east and west it extended, a wild black barrier to what hid beyond. It appeared to slope higher toward the east, where on the horizon it assumed the proportions of a mountain.

To Lucy's regret, the winding and ascending nature of the road again obscured distant views. Then the sun set; twilight appeared short; and soon darkness settled down. Lucy had never before felt mountain air, but she recognised it now. How cold and pure! Would the ride never end? She peered through the darkness, hoping to see lights of the village. At last they appeared, dim pin-points through the blackness. She heard the barking of dogs. The stage wheeled round a corner of trees, to enter a wide street, and at last to slow down before looming flap-topped houses, from which the yellow lights shone.

"Miss, anybody goin' to meet you?" queried the driver.

"No," replied Lucy.

"Wal, whar shall I set you down? Post office, store, or hotel?"

Lucy was about to answer his question when he enlightened her by drawling that she did not need to make any choice, because all three places mentioned were in the same house.

When the stage came to a halt Lucy saw a high porch upon which lounged the dark forms of men silhouetted against the yellow light of lamps. Despite the lights, she could scarcely see to gather up her belongings. To her relief, the stage driver reached in for her grips.

"Hyar we air--Cedar Ridge--last stop--all out," he drawled.

Lucy stepped down hurriedly so that she could stay close to him. The darkness, and the strangeness of the place, with those silent men so close, made her heart beat a little quicker. She followed her escort up wide rickety steps, between two lines of men, some of whom leaned closer to peer at her, and into a large room, dimly lighted by a hanging lamp.

"Bill, hyar's a party fer you," announced the driver, setting down the baggage. "An', miss, I'll thank you fer ten dollars--stage fare."

Lucy stepped under the lamp so that she could see to find the money in her purse, and when she turned to pay the driver she espied a tall man standing by him.

"Madam, do you want supper an' bed?" he asked.

"Yes. I am Lucy Watson of Felix, and I shall want room and board, perhaps for a day or two, until I find out where I'm to go," replied Lucy.

He lighted a lamp and held it up so that he could see her face.

"Glad to help you any way I can," he said. "I'm acquainted in these parts. Come this way."

He led her into a hallway, and up a stairway, into a small room, where he placed the lamp upon a washstand. "I'll fetch your baggage up. Supper will be ready in a few minutes."

When he went out Lucy looked first to see if there was a key in the lock on the door. There was not, but she found a bolt, and laughed ruefully at the instant relief it afforded.

"I'm a brave welfare worker," she whispered to herself scornfully. Then she gazed about the room. Besides the washstand before noted it contained a chair and a bed. The latter looked clean and inviting to Lucy. There would be need of the heavy roll of blankets at the foot. The cold air appeared to go right through Lucy. And the water in the pitcher was like ice. Before she had quite made herself ready to go downstairs she heard a bell ring, and then a great trampling of boots and a scraping of chairs on a bare floor.

"Those men coming in to supper!" she exclaimed. "Bee hunters and white-mule drinkers, that brakeman said!...Well, if I have to meet them I--I can stand it now, I guess."

The hall and stairway were so dark Lucy had to feel her way down to the door. She was guided by the loud voices and laughter in the dining-room. Lucy could not help hesitating at the door. Neither her courage nor her pride could prevent the rise of unfamiliar emotions. She was a girl, alone, at the threshold of new life. Catching her breath, she opened the door.

The dining-room was now brightly lighted and full of men sitting at the tables. As Lucy entered, the hubbub of voices quieted and a sea of faces seemed to confront her. There was a small table vacant. Lucy seated herself in one of the two chairs. Her feeling of strangeness was not alleviated by the attention directed toward her. Fortunately the proprietor approached at once, asking what she would have to eat. When she had given her order Lucy casually looked up and around the room. To her surprise and relief, none of the young men now appeared to be interested in her. They had lean, hard faces and wore dark, rough clothes. Lucy rather liked their appearance, and she found herself listening to the snatches of conversation.

"Jeff's rarin' to plough right off," said one. "Reckon it'll be plumb boggy," was the reply. And then others of them spoke. "My hoss piled me up this mawnin'," and "Who air you goin' to take to the dance?" and "Lefty March paid what he owed me an' I near dropped daid," and "Did you-all hear about Edd Denmeade makin' up to Sadie again, after she dished him once?" and "Edd's shore crazy fer a wife. Wants a home, I reckon."

The talk of these young men was homely and crude. It held a dominant note of humour. Probably they were as fun-loving as the riders of the low country. Lucy had expected to be approached by some of them or at least to hear witticisms at her expense. But nothing of the kind happened. She was the only woman in the room, and she might not have been there at all, for any attention she received. Something of respect was forced from Lucy, yet, woman-like, she suffered a slight pique. Soon her supper came, and being hungry she attended to that.

After supper there was nothing for her to do but to her room. It was cold and she quickly went to bed. For a while she lay there shivering between the cold sheets, but presently she grew warm and comfortable. The darkness appeared pitch-black. Distant voices penetrated from the lower part of the house, and through the open window came the sound of slow footsteps accompanied by clink of spurs. Then from somewhere far off sounded the bay of a hound, and it was followed by the wild bark of a coyote. Both bay and bark struck lonesomely upon her spirit.

Lucy realised that actually to experience loneliness, to be really cut off from family and friends, was vastly different from the thought of it. She had deliberately severed all ties. She was alone in the world, with her way to make. A terrible blank sense of uncertainty assailed her. Independence was wholly desirable, but in its first stage it seemed hard. Lucy was not above tears, and she indulged in a luxury long unfamiliar to her. Then she cried herself to sleep.

When she awoke the sun was shining in upon her. The air was crisp and cold and bore a fragrance wild and sweet, new to Lucy. With the bright daylight all her courage returned, even to the point of exhilaration. She put on a woollen dress and heavier shoes. The cold air and water had greatly accelerated her toilet. When had her cheeks glowed as rosily as now? And for that matter, when had her hair been as rebellious? But she had no time now to brush it properly, even if her hands had not been numb. She hurried down to the dining-room. A wood fire blazed and cracked in the stove, to Lucy's great satisfaction. The dining-room was empty. Presently the kitchen door opened and a stout woman entered with a pleasant greeting.

"Miss Watson, my husband said we might find somethin' we could do for you," she said kindly.

"Yes, indeed, you may be able to give me information I need," replied Lucy.

"I'll fetch your breakfast an' then you can tell me what you want to know."

The proprietor's wife introduced herself as Mrs. Lynn, and appeared to be a motherly person, kindly and full of curiosity. Lucy frankly explained the nature of the work she was about to undertake.

"I think it's a fine idea," responded Mrs. Lynn emphatically. "If only the Denmeades an' the rest of them will have it."

"Will they be too proud or--or anything to give me a chance?" asked Lucy anxiously.

"We're all plain folks up here, an' the backwoods families keep to themselves," she replied. "I don't know as I'd call them proud. They're ignorant enough, Lord knows. But they're just backwoods. Like ground-hogs, they stay in their holes."

On the moment the woman's husband came in from the street. He appeared to be a gaunt man, pallid, and evidently suffered from a lung complaint, for he had a hoarse cough.

"Bill, come here," called his wife. "Miss Watson has what I think a wonderful mission. If it will only work!...She's been hired by the state government to go among our people up here in the backwoods an' teach them things. She has explained to me a lot of things she will do. But in few words it means better homes for those poor people. What do you think about it?"

"Wal, first off I'd say she is a plucky an' fine little girl to take such a job," replied Mr. Lynn. "Then I'd say it's good of the state. But when it comes to what the Denmeades an' the Claypools will think about it I'm up a stump."

"Bill, it's such a splendid idea," said his wife earnestly. "She can do much for the mothers an' children up there. We must help her to get a start."

"I reckon. Now let's see," returned her husband, ponderingly. "If our backwoods neighbours are only approached right they're fine an' hospitable. The women would welcome anyone who could help them. But the men ain't so easy. Miss Watson, though, bein' young an' nice-lookin', may be able to make a go of it...If she can keep Edd Denmeade or one of them bee hunters from marryin' her!"

Here Lynn laughed good-humouredly and smiled knowingly at Lucy. Mrs. Lynn took the question more seriously.

"I was goin' to tell her that myself," she said. "But we mustn't give her the wrong impression about our neighbours. These backwoodsmen are not Bluebeards or Mormons, though they are strong on gettin' wives. They are a clean, hardy, pioneer people. Edd Denmeade, for instance, now--he's a young man the like of which you won't see often. He's a queer fellow--a bee hunter, wonderful good to look at, wild like them woods he lives in, but a cleaner, finer boy I never knew. He loves his sisters. He gives his mother every dollar he earns, which, Lord knows, isn't many...Now, Miss Lucy, Edd like as not will grab you right up an' pack you off an' marry you. That would settle your welfare work."

"But, Mrs. Lynn," protested Lucy, laughing, "it takes two to make a bargain. I did not come up here to marry anyone. With all due respect to Mister Edd's manner of courting, I feel perfectly capable of taking care of myself. We can dismiss that."

"Don't you be too sure!" ejaculated Mrs. Lynn bluntly "It's better to be safe than sorry!...I ain't above tellin' you, though--if Edd Denmeade really fell in love with you--that'd be different. Edd has been tryin' to marry every single girl in the country. An' I don't believe he's been in love with any one of them. He's just woman hungry, as sometimes these backwoodsmen get. That speaks well for him bein' too clean an' fine to be like many others. An' as to that, Edd is only one of a lot of good boys."

"Thanks for telling me," replied Lucy simply. "Of course I want to know all I can find out about these people. But just now what I need to know is how to get among them."

"Mary, I've been thinkin'," spoke up Mr. Lynn, "an' I've an idea. Suppose I call in the Rim Cabin school-teacher. He's in the post office now--just rode in. I reckon he's the one to help Miss Watson."

"Fetch him in pronto," replied Mrs. Lynn with alacrity; and as her husband went out she continued: "It's Mr. Jenks, the school-teacher. First man teacher ever here. You see, the youngsters at Rim Cabin school never got much teachin', because whenever a schoolmarm did come one of the boys would up an' marry her. So they're tryin' a man. It's workin' out fine, I hear. Mr. Jenks is in this high, dry country for his health, same as my husband. I reckon he wasn't always a school-teacher. Anyway, he's a good Christian man, not young enough to have the girls makin' sheep eyes at him."

At this juncture Mr. Lynn returned with a slight, stoop-shouldered man whose thin, serious face showed both suffering and benevolence. He was introduced to Lucy, who again, somewhat more elaborately, explained the reason for her presence in Cedar Ridge.

He made her a very gallant bow, and seated himself at the table, to bend keen, kind blue eyes upon her.

"You are a courageous young woman," he said, "and if you are sincere these people will take you into their homes."

"No one could be more sincere," replied Lucy, with spirit. "I have absolutely no motive but to do good. I chose this out of a number of positions offered me. I wanted something different--and not easy."

"You have found it," he said. "The opportunity is here and it is big. There are a score or more of children who might as well belong to savages for all the civilisation they get. No doctor when they are sick, no church, no amusement, no pretty things common to children, no books or toys--nothing except what little schooling I can give them. They have no school in winter, on account of weather. I've been here a month. There are twenty-seven pupils in my school, the eldest a boy of nineteen--a man, really--and the youngest a girl of four. They are like a lot of wild Hottentots. But I really think more of them than any children I ever taught. The problem is to win them."

"It must be a problem for an outsider," replied Lucy seriously.

"I believe they will take more quickly to a girl," he went on. "At least the children and boys will. Your problem will be a different one from mine. I'll not dwell on it, lest I discourage you. What's more to the point, I can say as their teacher I've learned a good deal about their lives. At first this seemed a tragedy to me, but I am learning that a good many of our necessities are not really necessary, after all. These children and young people are really happy. They have few wants because they do not know what more civilised people have in their lives. It is not through sophistication that you will benefit them. To brighten their surroundings, change the primitive squalor, teach the children useful things--therein lies your opportunity."

"Can you advise me how to start--whom to approach first?" asked Lucy.

"Come with me," replied Mr. Jenks earnestly. "I'm driving back to-day. I live at Johnson's--five miles down from the Rim Cabin, which, by the way, is the name of my school. I'll take you up to see Lee Denmeade. He lives some miles farther on, up in the woods under the Rim Rock. He's probably the most influential man among these backwoodsmen. I rather incline to the opinion that he will like your proposition."

"It's very good of you. Thank you," replied Lucy gratefully. "I am ready now to go with you."

"I'll call for you in an hour," said Mr. Jenks, rising.

After he had gone out Lucy returned to Mrs. Lynn to ask: "I wonder--when he hinted about my problem and said he didn't want to discourage me--did he mean this--this marrying propensity you spoke of?"

"I reckon you hit it plumb," replied Mrs. Lynn gravely, yet with a smile. "It's the only problem you have. You will be a blessin' to them overworked mothers an' a godsend to the children."

"Then--I can stand anything," rejoined Lucy happily, and she ran upstairs to repack the grip she had opened. While her hands were busy her mind was preoccupied, now humorously and then thoughtfully, and again dreamily. She was indeed curious about these backwoods people--earnestly and sympathetically curious. It was impossible not to conjecture about this Edd Denmeade. She made a mental picture of him, not particularly flattering. Poor fellow! So all he wanted was a wife, any girl he could get. The thought afforded Lucy amusement, yet she felt pity for the lonesome fellow. "I hope to goodness he doesn't run after me!" soliloquised Lucy, suddenly aghast. "I certainly wouldn't marry a backwoodsman--or a cowboy...Pooer little foolish sister! I wonder how soon she'll find out her mistake. That Rex Wilcox was no good...I wish everybody wouldn't make me think of marriage. It'll be a long time until I want to--if ever."

Lucy sighed, dispelled her dreams, and finished her packing, after which she gazed out of the window.

It was considerably longer than an hour before Lucy found herself seated in an old buckboard beside Mr. Jenks, rattling along a dusty road behind the heels of two big shaggy horses.

But the brisk trot soon ended at the base of the steep ridge, up which the road zigzagged through a low-branched thick-foliaged forest, remarkable for its fragrance.

"What smells so sweet?" was one of Lucy's many questions.

"Cedar. Those gnarled trees with the grey sheafs of bark, hanging like ribbons, and the dense fine light-green foliage, are the cedars that give name to the ridge and village," replied Mr. Jenks. "They are an upland tree, an evergreen. I like them, but not so well as this more graceful tree with the chequered bark. That's a juniper. See the lilac-coloured berries. They grow ripe about every two years. And this huge round green bush with the smooth red-barked branches is manzanita. And that pale green plant with the spear-pointed leaves like a century plant--that's mescal...But perhaps you would be more interested to hear about the people."

"Yes. But I love the outdoors and all that grows," replied Lucy enthusiastically. "I've never had a chance to live in the country, let alone in the wilds."

"You may find it too wild, as I did at first," replied the teacher in grim amusement. "I walk from Johnson's to the schools--five miles. I used to see fresh bear tracks in mud or dust. I seldom see them now, as the bears have moved up higher. Almost every day I see deer and wild turkey. One night I was late leaving the cabin. It was moonlight. A big grey animal followed me half-way down to Johnson's. I didn't know what it was until next day, but anyhow my hair stood on end."

"And what was it?" queried Lucy.

"A mountain lion," replied Mr. Jenks impressively.

"A lion?" echoed Lucy incredulously. "I didn't know there were lions in this country."

"It was a panther, or cougar. But mountain lion is the proper name. I'll show you his skin. Lee Denmeade put his hounds on the track of the beast and killed it. He gave me the skin...Oh, it'll be wild enough for you. After we get on top of the ridge you won't wonder that bears and lions live there."

Lucy, being an artful questioner and inspiring listener, led Mr. Jenks to talk about the people among whom she expected to dwell.

He told how some of his child pupils rode their little burros six and eight miles to school; how a slip of a boy came on horseback from his home twelve miles away; how sometimes they were frightened by wild animals and cattle. He told of the dance that was held at the school-house once every week--how everyone for miles around attended--babies, children, young people, and grown-ups--and stayed from sundown to sunrise. All of which time the boys and girls danced! It was their one and only time to be together. Distance and hard work precluded the pleasure of company. Sometimes on a Sunday or a birthday one family would visit another. The girls spent what little leisure they had in sewing. The boys passed their spare time in hunting and fighting.

Mr. Jenks said he had at first been dreadfully concerned at the frequent fights. But as these young backwoodsmen appeared to thrive on it, and seldom were any less friendly for all their bloody battles, he had begun to get used to it.

So interesting was the talk of the school teacher that Lucy scarcely noted the tedious miles up the long ascent of the ridge, and was only reminded of distance when he informed her they were almost on top and would soon have a magnificent view. Despite his statement, however, Lucy was wholly unprepared for what suddenly burst upon her gaze from the summit.

"Oh--how glorious!" she cried.

It seemed she gazed down on an endless green slope of massed tree-tops, across a rolling basin black with forest, to a colossal wall of red rock, level and black fringed on top, but wildly broken along its face into gigantic cliffs, escarpments, points, and ledges, far as eye could see to east or west. How different from any other country Lucy had ever viewed! A strong sweet breath of pine assailed her nostrils. Almost she tasted it. In all the miles of green and black there was not a break. If homes of people existed there, they were lost in the immensity of the forest. An eagle soared far beneath her, with the sun shining on his wide-spread wings. A faint roar of running water floated up from the depths, and that was the only sound to disturb the great stillness. To one who had long been used to flat desert, the drab and yellow barrenness, how fertile and beautiful these miles and miles of rolling green! That wild grand wall of rock seemed to shut in the basin, to bar it from what lay beyond. Lastly the loneliness, the solitude, gripped Lucy's heart.

"We're on top of Cedar Ridge," the school teacher was saying. "That mountain wall is called the Red Rim Rock. It's about thirty miles in a straight line...We're looking down upon the homes of the backwoodsmen you've come to live among."

Chapter II

The road down into this forest-land contrasted markedly with the ascent on the other side of the ridge; it was no longer steep and dusty; the soil was a sandy loam; the trees that shaded it were larger and more spreading. Birds, rabbits, and squirrels made their presence known.

Some ferns and mosses appeared on the edge of the woods, and pine trees were interspersed among the cedars. Mr. Jenks was nothing if not loquacious, and he varied his talk with snatches of natural history, bits of botany, and considerable forestry. It appeared he had once been a forest ranger in one of the Northern states. Lucy had a natural thirst for knowledge, something that her situation in life had tended to develop.

They descended to a level and followed the road through pine thickets above which an occasional monarch of the forest reared itself commandingly. At length they abruptly drove out of the woods into the first clearing. Lucy's thought was--how hideous! It was a slash in the forest, a denuded square, with dead trees standing in the brown fields, a rickety fence of crooked poles surrounding a squat log cabin, with open door and dark window suggestive of vacancy.

"Family named Sprall once lived here," said Mr. Jenks. "Improvident sort of man. He has a large family, more or less addicted to white mule. They moved back in some canyon under the Rim."

"I've heard of this white mule," replied. Lucy.

"Of course it's a drink, and I gather that it kicks like a mule. But just what is it?"

"Just plain moonshine whisky without colour. It looks like alcohol. It is alcohol. I once took a taste. Fire and brimstone! I nearly choked to death...The people of this district make it to some extent. They raise a kind of cane from which they distil the liquor. But I'm bound to say that seldom indeed do I see a drunken man."

Beyond this deserted clearing the road tunnelled into a denser forest where the pungent odour of pine thickly pervaded the atmosphere. The ground was a smooth mat of pine needles, only sparsely grown over with underbrush. Live-oak trees appeared, at first stunted, but gradually developing into rugged members of the forest. Noon found the travellers halted beside the first brook, a tiny trickling rill of clear water. Lucy was grateful for a cool drink. Mr. Jenks had been thoughtful to provide a lunch, of which they partook while sitting in the shade of an oak.

Here Lucy had opportunity to observe a small reddish-brown squirrel that was the sauciest little animal she had ever beheld. It occupied a branch above her and barked in no uncertain notes its displeasure and curiosity. Presently its chatter attracted a beautiful crested blue jay that flew close and uttered high-pitched notes, wild and fierce in their intensity.

"I hope the people here are not as antagonistic as this squirrel and bird," observed Lucy.

"A few of them are--like the Spralls, for instance," replied. Mr. Jenks. "Well, we still have far to go. I call it five miles from here to Johnson's. You'll say it's five leagues."

If Lucy had not been eager and anxious to establish her position securely here in the region she would have revelled in the winding shady road through the green-canopied, sun-flecked forest. Along here it had a considerable sameness, that added to the distance. Lucy indeed found the so-called five miles almost interminable. About two o'clock Mr. Jenks drove into another clearing, somewhat less hideous than the first one, but still a crude, ragged, unpastoral kind of farm. A wide green field dotted by cows and horses was the only redeeming feature. Log corrals and pole fences led the eye to a large log cabin surrounded by shacks old and mouldy roofed, manifestly the first buildings erected.

"This is the Johnson place, where I live," said Mr. Jenks, with a smile. "That framework of boards, covered by a tent, is my humble domicile. Do you know, Miss Watson, I have actually grown to love sleeping out there?...This is Sunday, which means the Johnsons will all be home or all away visiting."

The school teacher drove through an open gate in the log fence, and past a huge flat barn, dark and odorous of horses, to draw rein at the back of the cabin. "I was wrong. Sam Johnson is home, at least. I don't know the boy with him," said Mr. Jenks as he threw the reins and got down.

"I'd like to walk a little," rejoined Lucy.

"You'll probably walk, and climb, and besides ride horseback, before you're through to-day," replied Mr. Jenks, laughing, as he reached for his parcels on the seat.

"Oh, that'll be fine!" exclaimed Lucy, delighted. And naturally she gazed over at the young men sitting on the rude porch. They might have been two of the boys she had seen in the dining-room at Cedar Ridge.

"Sam, she's a looker," drawled one of them in a perfectly audible voice.

The other stood up, disclosing a tall, lithe form clad in blue jeans. He had a shock of tousled chestnut hair and a freckled face that on the moment bore a broad grin.

"Dog-gone me!" he ejaculated. "Teacher has fetched back a wife."

Lucy met the teacher's eyes. They were twinkling. She could not restrain a laugh, yet she felt a blush rise to her face.

"Sam flatters me, Miss Watson," said Mr. Jenks in a low voice. "But that illustrates."

"They must have this wife business on the brain," retorted Lucy, half nettled.

The teacher called to the young man, Sam, who approached leisurely, a young giant somewhere over twenty years of age, clean-eyed and smooth-faced.

"Howdy, teacher!" he drawled, but his light hazel eyes were fixed on Lucy.

"This is Sam Johnson," spoke up Mr. Jenks, turning to Lucy. "Sam, meet Miss Lucy Watson of Felix. She has come to sojourn awhile with us."

"Right glad to meet you," said Sam, somewhat shyly.

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson," replied Lucy.

"Sam, will you saddle two horses for us? I'm taking Miss Watson up to Denmeade's," interposed Mr. Jenks.

"Shore will, teacher," rejoined Sam, and moved away with sidelong glance at Lucy.

"Have you any riding clothes?" inquired Mr. Jenks, as if suddenly reminded of something important.

"Yes. I was careful not to forget outdoor things," replied Lucy.

"Good! I'll carry your grips to my tent where you can change. Of course we'll have to leave your baggage here until we interview Denmeade. If all goes well it can be packed up to-night."

The interior of Mr. Jenks's abode was vastly more prepossessing than the exterior. It was such an attractive little place that Lucy decided she wanted one similar to it, for the summer at least. The furnishings included a comfortable-looking cot, a washstand with mirror above, a table, books, lamp, and pictures. Several skins, notably a long grey furry one she took to have belonged to the lion Mr. Jenks had mentioned, served as rugs for the rude board floor. A picture of a sweet, sad-looking woman occupied a prominent place. Lucy wondered if she was his wife.

It did not take her many minutes to get into her riding clothes. Fortunately they had seen a service which now appeared likely to serve her in good stead. At normal school Lucy had ridden horseback once a week, and felt that she was not altogether a tenderfoot. Finding her gauntlets, she had the forethought to pack her travelling suit, so that in case she remained at Denmeade's her baggage could be sent for. Then, with a last and not unsatisfied glance at herself in the mirror, she sallied forth from the tent, keen for this next stage of her adventure.

A glossy, spirited little bay pony stood there saddled and bridled, champing his bit. Another horse, dusty and shaggy, large in build and very bony, was haltered to the hitching rail near by. Mr. Jenks was lacing something on the saddle of the smaller horse. Sam Johnson lounged beside him and the other fellow had approached. He did not appear so tall or so lean as young Johnson.

Lucy felt uncertain how these backwoodsmen would take her rather trim and natty riding suit, but as she knew she looked well it gave her no great concern. She had made up her mind to win the liking of all these people, if possible.

"What a pretty pony!" she exclaimed. "Am I to ride him, Mr. Jenks?"

"Yes--if you can," returned the teacher dubiously as he looked up from his task. "I assure you he is no pony, but a very mettlesome mustang."

"Aw, teacher, Buster's as gentle as a lamb," protested Sam. Then, indicating his companion by a sweep of his long arm, he said, "Miss Lucy, this here is my cousin, Gerd Claypool."

Lucy had to give her hand to the brown-faced young man, for he had extended a great paw. She liked his face. It was rich and warm with healthy blood, and expressive of both eagerness and bashfulness. Lucy was not going to forget his remark, "Sam, she's a looker!" and she gazed as demurely as possible into his blue eyes. It took only one glance to convince her that he was of the type Mrs. Lynn had praised so heartily. Lucy also saw that he was quite overcome.

"Mettlesome mustang?" echoed Lucy, gazing from Mr. Jenks to Sam. "Does that mean anything terrible? I assure you I'm no cowgirl."

Sam's shrewd eyes sought her boots and then her gauntlets. "Wal, you're shore no stranger to a hoss. Buster isn't a bronc. He's never pitched with a girl yet. Talk to him some an' pat him as if you'd no idea a hoss could be mean."

Lucy did as she was bidden, successfully hiding her nervousness; and it appeared that Buster did not show any viciousness or fear. He had a keen, dark eye, somewhat fiery, but not at all fierce. As he was a small horse, Lucy mounted him easily, to her satisfaction.

"How's the length of your stirrups?" asked Mr. Jenks.

"Just right, I think," replied Lucy, standing up in them.

"Wal, I reckon they're a little long--I mean short," drawled Sam, approaching.

Lucy was quick to grasp the guile in this young gentleman of the woods. He was as clear as an inch of crystal water. She grasped just as quickly the fact that she was going to have a good deal of fun with these boys. Sam knew her stirrups were all right; what he wanted was a chance to come close to her while she was in the saddle. It was an old cowboy trick.

"Thanks, I'm very comfortable," she said, smiling at him.

Meanwhile Mr. Jenks had mounted and turned his horse toward the road.

"I never rode this nag," he said. "Come now, Miss Watson."

"Teacher, look out she doesn't run off from you," called Sam as they started. His voice was full of mirth. "An', Miss Lucy, that's shore a regular hoss you're ridin'."

Lucy turned in the saddle. "I nearly forgot to thank you, Mr. Johnson. It is good of you to let me ride him."

She found Buster rather hard to hold in. Before she had followed Mr. Jenks many paces she heard Sam blurt out to his cousin, "Gerd, by golly! it's shore worth a lot to have Edd Denmeade see that girl ridin' my best hoss."

"Haw! Haw!" roared Gerd, and then made a reply Lucy could not distinguish.

Presently she caught up with her guide and together they rode out through the corral.

"Mr. Jenks, did you hear what they said?" inquired Lucy.

"Indeed I did. They're full of the Old Nick, those boys. I'd like to be in your boots, yet again I wouldn't."

"What did he mean by saying it was worth a lot to have Edd Denmeade see me riding his horse?"

"It was a compliment to you, especially his emphasis on the qualifying adjective before girl," replied the teacher, with a chuckle. "You see, Edd Denmeade seems a superior sort of person to most of the boys. Really he is only forceful--a strong, simple, natural character. But the boys don't understand him. And the girls do still less. That is why I suspect some have refused to marry him. Sam now is tickled to have Edd see the very prettiest girl who ever came to Cedar Ridge ride up on his horse. Edd will be wild with jealousy."

"Goodness! I'm afraid most girl visitors here have been homely," replied Lucy.

"No, they haven't been, either," declared the teacher. "Now, Miss Watson, we have a mile or so of good sandy road before we cut off on the trails. Let's have a gallop. But be sure you don't do what Sam hinted--run off from me. You might get lost."

With that he urged his mount from walk to trot and from trot to gallop. Lucy's horse did not need urging; he bolted and shot down the road ahead of Mr. Jenks. Lucy was alarmed at first and found it hard to keep her feet in the stirrups. But soon she caught the swing of the mustang and then a wild impulse prompted her to let him run. How fast he sped on under the pines. His gait made the saddle seem like a rocking-chair. But she hauled hard on Buster, obedient to the resolve she had made--that she would restrain herself in all ways. Pulling him to a swinging canter, Lucy took stock of pleasant sensations. The rush through the pine-scented air was exhilarating; soon the exercise had her blood dancing all over her; low branches of pine tore at her hair; the turns of the winding road through the woods allured with their call of strange new scenes. Rabbits darted ahead of her, across the open, into the pine thickets. At length, some distance ahead she saw where the road forked, and here she brought Buster to a stand. She was tingling, pulsing with heated blood, and felt that she could have cried out with the joy of the moment.

Mr. Jenks came galloping up to halt beside her. "That was bully," he said. "Miss Watson, you need not be ashamed of your riding...We take the left-hand road. That to the right goes on to my log-cabin school. I wish we had time to see it. A little way farther we strike a trail."

Soon after that Lucy was riding behind the teacher along a narrow trail that almost at once began to lead downhill. The forest grew denser and the shade became dark and cool. Rocks and ledges cropped out of the ground, and all about her appeared to tend toward a wilder and more rugged nature. The dreamy, drowsy hum which filled Lucy's ears swelled to a roar. It came from far down through the forest. It was running water, and it thrilled Lucy. How sweet and welcome this verdant forest to eyes long used to desert glare! The trail took a decided pitch, so that Lucy had to cling to the pommel of her saddle. It led down and down, into a ravine full of mellow roar, deep, murmuring, mystical, where the great trees shut out the sky.

Only faint gleams of sunlight filtered down. They came to a rushing brook of amber water, brawling and foaming over rocks, tearing around huge mossy boulders, and gleaming on down a wild defile, gloomy with its shadows.

The horses stopped to drink and then forded the brook, crashing on the rocks, plunging on to splash the water ahead. Lucy had a touch of that sweet cold water on her face. On the other side the trail turned up this beautiful glen, and followed the brook, winding in and out among boulders that loomed high overhead. Ferns and flowers bordered the trail. Maples and birches grew thickly under the stately pines. Lucy became aware of another kind of tree, the most wonderful she had ever seen, huge-trunked, thick with drooping foliage, and lifting its proud height spear-shaped to the sky. Her guide informed her that this tree was a silver spruce, which name seemed singularly felicitous.

Again they forded the brook, to Lucy's mingled dismay and delight, and after that so many times that she forgot them and also her fears. The forest became a grand temple. Higher towered the forest patriarchs, two hundred feet and more above her head, mingling their foliage in a lacy canopy, like a green veil against the blue. She caught a glimpse of wild, sleek, grey creatures bounding as on rubber legs into the brush. Deer!

At last the trail led out of the fragrant glen and zigzagged up a slope, to the dry forest of pines, and on and upward, farther and higher until Lucy felt she had ascended to the top of a mountain. She lost the mellow roar of the brook. The woodland changed its aspect, grew hot with dusty trail and thick with manzanita, above which the yellow-barked pines reached with great gnarled arms. Open places were now frequent. Once Lucy saw a red wall of rock so high above her that she gasped in astonishment. That was the Red Rim Rock, seemingly so closer though yet far away. Lucy became conscious of aches and pains. She shifted from side to side in the saddle, and favoured this foot, then the other. Often she had to urge Buster on to catch up with her guide.

Suddenly she turned a corner of the brushy trail to ride out into a clearing. Bare brown earth, ghastly dead pines, like spectres, seemed to lift her gaze to where, sky-high, the red wall heaved, bold, strange, terrific, yet glorious with its zigzag face blazing in the hues of sunset, and its black-fringed crown wandering away as if to the ends of the earth.

Strangely then into her mind flashed a thought of this backwoods boy whose name had been on the lips of everyone she had met. Born under that colossal wall! All his life in this forest and rock solitude! Lucy could not help but wonder what manner of man he was. She resented an involuntary interest. The force of a personality had been thrust upon her. It was feminine intuition that caused her, unconsciously, to fortify herself by roused antagonism.

Mr. Jenks pointed to a little rough grey house, half log, half stones, that dominated the clearing. "Denmeade built it twenty-three years ago," said the teacher. "He and his wife walked up here, from no one knows where. They had a burro, a cow, a gun, and an axe, and some dogs. They homesteaded this section. He has five girls and four boys, all born in that little one-room hut. Edd is the oldest--he's twenty-two. Last year they built quite a fine log cabin, up in the woods beyond the fields. You can't see it from here."

The surroundings seemed fitting for such heroic people as these Denmeades.

"They may be backwoodsmen," declared Lucy, voicing her thought, "but I'd call them pioneers. Which is to say real Americans."

"Miss Watson, I like that," replied the teacher warmly. "You have gotten the significance. These people are great."

Over against that impulsive impression Lucy had the crudeness of the scene to oppose it. She was intelligent enough to accept crudeness as a part of pioneer life. It could not be otherwise. But she gazed over the slash cut in the forest, and found it lacking in anything she could admire. The Red Rim Rock and the encircling belt of mighty green were facts of nature. This space of bare ground with its ghastly dead trees, its ruined old hut, its uncouth shacks of boards and poles, its pigs rooting around, its utter lack of what constituted her idea of a farm, somehow did not seem to harmonise with the noble pioneer spirit. Lucy hesitated to make this impression permanent. She did not like the look of this place, but she was broad-minded enough to wait. She hoped she would not find these people lazy, shiftless, dirty, existing in squalid surroundings. Yet she feared that would be exactly what she would find.

The trail led along a patchwork fence of poles and sticks, here rotting away and there carelessly mended by the throwing of an untrimmed branch of tree. At the corner of the huge field snuggled the rude shacks she had seen from afar, all the worse for nearer view. They rode between these and a round log corral, full of pigs of all sizes, and from which came an unbearable stench. Some of the hogs were stuck in the mud. Lucy saw some tiny baby pigs, almost pink, with funny little curly tails, and sight of these gave her unexpected pleasure. So she experienced two extremes of feeling in passing that point.

From there the trail led through an uncared-for orchard of peach trees, into a narrow lane cut in the woods. The pines had been left where they had fallen, and lay brown and seared in the tangle of green. This lane was full of stumps.

"You appreciate why we needed horses to get here, don't you?" inquired Mr. Jenks.

"Indeed I do!" replied Lucy.

"Denmeade said he'd never live in a place where wheels could go. I rather sympathise with that spirit, but it is not one of a progressive farmer. I dare say you will have it to combat."

The lane descended into a ravine, where clear water ran over stones that rang hollow under the hoofs of the horses. Lucy saw cows and calves, a very old sheep, woolly and dirty, and a wicked-looking steer with wide sharp horns. Lucy was glad to get safely past him. They rode up again, into a wider lane, at the end of which showed a long cabin, somewhat obscured by more peach trees. A column of blue smoke curled up against the background of red wall. A fence of split boards surrounded the cabin. A strip of woods on the right separated this lane from the bare field. Lucy could see light through the pine foliage. The brook meandered down a shallow ravine on this side; and on the other a deep gully yawned, so choked with dead trees and green foliage and red rocks, that Lucy could not see the bottom. She heard, however, the fall of water.

A dog barked. Then rose a chorus of barks and bays, not in the least a friendly welcome. It increased to an uproar. Lucy began to be conscious of qualms when a loud sharp voice rang out. The uproar ceased.

"Hyar, you onery dawgs, shet up!" the voice continued.

Then Lucy saw a tall man emerge from the peach trees and come to the gate. His garb was dark, his face also at that distance, and they gave a sinister effect.

"That's Denmeade," whispered Mr. Jenks. "We're lucky. Now, young lady, use your wits."

They rode on the few remaining rods, and reaching the rude hitching rail in front of the fence, they halted the horses. Mr. Jenks dismounted and greeted the big man at the gate.

"Howdy, teacher!" he replied in a deep pleasant drawl.

"Fine, thank you, Denmeade," returned Mr. Jenks as he extended his hand over the fence. "I've brought a visitor to see you. This is Miss Lucy Watson of Felix."

Lucy essayed her most winning smile as she acknowledged the introduction.

"Glad to meet you, miss," responded Denmeade. "Get down an' come in."

Dismounting, Lucy approached the gate, to look up into a visage as rugged as the rock wall above. Denmeade was not old or grey, though his features showed the ravages of years. Lucy had no time to mark details. The man's eyes, grey and piercing as those of an eagle, caught and held her gaze.

"If you please, I'd like to talk to you alone before I go in," she said appealingly.

Denmeade removed the huge battered black sombrero, and ran a brawny hand through his thick dark hair. The grey eyes twinkled and a smile changed the craggy nature of his face.

"Wal, seein' as Edd ain't hyar, I reckon I can risk it," he drawled.

Mr. Jenks suggested that they sit in the shade; and presently Lucy found herself seated on a stump, facing this curious backwoodsman. He seemed a more approachable person than she had pictured, yet there was something about him, strong, raw, fierce, like the wilds in which he lived. Lucy had worried about this coming interview; had schooled herself to a deliberate diplomacy. But she forgot worry and plan. The man's simplicity made her sincere.

"Mr. Denmeade, I want a job," she announced bluntly.

It was good to see his astonishment and utter incredulity. Such a situation had never before happened in his life. He stared. His seamed visage worked into a wonderful grin.

"Wal, I reckon yo're foolin'," he said, and he turned to Jenks. "Teacher, shore you've hatched some kind of a joke."

"No, Denmeade. Miss Watson is in earnest," replied the school-teacher.

"Indeed I am," added Lucy, trying to restrain her impulsiveness.

But Denmeade still could not take her seriously. "Wal, can you chop wood, carry water, pick beans, an' hop around lively--say fer a fellar like my Edd?"

"Yes, I could, but that is not the kind of a job I want," returned Lucy.

"Wal, there ain't no other kin' of work up hyar fer a woman," he said seriously.

"Yes, there is...It's to make better homes for the children."

"Better homes! What you mean?" ejaculated Denmeade.

Briefly Lucy explained some of the ways the homes in the wilderness could be made happier for women and children. Denmeade was profoundly impressed.

"Wal now, young woman, I reckon it's good of you to think of them nice an' pretty ways fer our kids an' their mothers. But we're poor. We couldn't pay you, let alone fer them things they need so bad."

Lucy's heart throbbed with joy. She knew intuitively that she had struck the right chord in this old backwoodsman. Whereupon she produced her papers.

"It's a new thing, Mr. Denmeade," she said earnestly. "State welfare work. My salary and the expenses I incur are paid by the state. It's all here for you to read, and my references."

Denmeade took her papers in his horny hands and began to read with the laborious and intense application of one to whom reading was unfamiliar and difficult. He took long to go over the brief typed words, and longer over the personal letter from the superintendent of the state department that had engaged Lucy. Finally he absorbed the import.

"Welfare! State government! Dog-gone me!" he ejaculated, almost bewildered. "Say, Jenks, what ails them fellars down thar?"

"Perhaps they have just waked up to the needs of this north country," replied the teacher.

"Shore them papers don't read like they had an axe to grind. Reckon it ain't no politics or some trick to make us pay taxes?"

"Denmeade, they read honest to me, and my advice if you ask it is to accept their help."

"Humph! It shore took them a long time to build us a school-house an' send us a teacher. Whar did they ever get this hyar welfare idee?"

"Mr. Denmeade," spoke up Lucy, "I had something to do with this idea. It really developed out of my offer to go into welfare work in a civilised district."

"Wal, comin' from a gal like you, it ain't hard to accept," he declared, and he extended his great brown hand. His grey eyes flashed with a softened light.

Lucy placed her hand in his, and as he almost crushed it she was at considerable pains to keep from crying out. When he released it she felt that it was limp and numb.

"You--you mean it--it's all right?" she stammered. "You'll let me stay--help me get started?"

"I shore will," he replied forcefully. "You stay hyar with us as long as you want. I reckon, though, the other four families close by in this high country need you more'n us. Seth Miller's, Hank Claypool's, Ora Johnson's, an' Tom Sprall's."

"Miss Watson, the Ora Johnson he means is a brother of the Sam Johnson you met," interposed Mr. Jenks.

Lucy was too happy to express her gratitude, and for a moment lost her dignity. Her incoherent thanks brought again the broad grin to Denmeade's face.

"Jenks, come to think about it, thar's angles to this hyar job Miss Lucy is aimin' at," he remarked thoughtfully. "She can't do a lot for one family an' slight another. If she stays hyar with us she'll have to stay with the others."

"Of course. That's what I expect to do," said Lucy.

"Wal, miss, I ain't given to brag, but I reckon you'll find it different after stayin' with us," rejoined Denmeade, shaking his shaggy head.

Plain it was for Lucy to see that Mr. Jenks agreed with him.

"In just what way? queried Lucy.

"Lots of ways, but particular, say--Ora Johnson has an old cabin with one room. Countin' his wife, thar's eight in the family. All live in that one room! With one door an' no winder!"

Lucy had no ready reply for such an unexpected circumstance as this, and she gazed at Mr. Jenks in mute dismay.

"I have a tent I'll lend her," he said. "It can be erected on a frame with board floor. Very comfortable."

"Wal, I reckon that would do fer Johnson's. But how about Tom Sprall's? Thar's more in his outfit, an' only two cabins. But shore no room for her. An' the tent idee won't do--sartin not whar Bud Sprall goes rarin' around full of white mule. It wouldn't be safe."

"Denmeade, I had that very fear in mind," said Mr. Jenks earnestly. "Miss Watson will have to avoid Sprall's."

"Shore, it'd ought to be done. But I'm reckonin' that'll raise hell. Tom is a mean cuss, an' his outfit of wimmen are jealous as coyote poison. They'll all have to know Miss Lucy is hyar helpin' everybody equal. They'll all want equal favours from the state. I ain't sayin' a word ag'in' Tom, but he's a rustler. An' thar's turrible bad blood between Bud Sprall an' my boy Edd."

"You see, Miss Watson, it's not going to be as rosy as we hoped," said Mr. Jenks regretfully.

"I'm not afraid," replied Lucy resolutely. "It never looked easy. I accept it, come what may. The Spralls shall not be slighted."

"Wal, you've settled it, an' thar ain't nothin' wrong with your nerve," replied Denmeade. "Come in now an' meet my folks. Teacher, you'll eat supper with us?"

"I'm sorry, Denmeade. I must hurry back and send Sam up with her baggage," returned Jenks, rising. "Good-bye, Miss Watson. I wish you luck. Come down to school with the children. I'll see you surely at the dance Friday night."

"I'm very grateful to you, Mr. Jenks," replied Lucy. "You've helped me. I will want to see you soon. But I can't say that it will be at the dance."

"Shore she'll be thar, teacher," said Denmeade. "She can't stay hyar alone, an' if she wanted to, Edd wouldn't let her."

"Oh--indeed," murmured Lucy constrainedly, as Denmeade and the school-teacher exchanged laughs. How irrepressibly this Edd bobbed up at every turn of conversation! Right then Lucy resolved that she would certainly not go to the dance. And she realised an undue curiosity in regard to this backwoods boy.

Chapter III

Lucy followed her escort into the yard and between the blossoming peach trees to the cabin. She saw now that it was a new structure built of flat-hewn logs, long and low, with a peaked roof of split shingles covering two separate square cabins and the wide space between them. This roof also extended far out to cover a porch the whole length of the building. Each cabin had a glass window, and the door, which Lucy could not see, must have faced the middle porch. The rude solid structure made a rather good impression.

A long-eared hound stood wagging his tail at the head of the porch steps. Lucy's roving eye took in other dogs asleep in sunny spots; several little puppies with ears so long they stumbled over them as they ran pell-mell to meet Denmeade; heavy rolls of canvas, no doubt blankets or bedding, were piled along the wall; saddles and saddle blankets were ranged in similar order on the opposite side; the cabin wall on the right was studded with pegs upon which hung kitchen utensils and tools; that on the left held deer and elk antlers used as racks for hats, guns, ropes. The wide space of porch between the two cabins evidently served as an outdoor dining-room, for a rude home-carpentered table and benches occupied the centre.

At Denmeade's call a flock of children came trooping out of the door of the left cabin. They were big-eyed, dirty and ragged, and sturdy of build. A sallow, thin-faced little woman, in coarse dress and heavy shoes, followed them.

"Ma, this hyar is Miss Lucy Watson from Felix," announced Denmeade.

Mrs. Denmeade greeted Lucy cordially and simply, without show of curiosity or astonishment. Then Denmeade told her in his blunt speech what Lucy had come for. This information brought decided surprise and welcome to the woman's face. Lucy was quick to see what perhaps Denmeade had never known in his life. She added a few earnest words in her own behalf, calculated to strengthen Mrs. Denmeade's impression, and to say that when convenient they would talk over the work Lucy was to undertake.

"Reckon you're a new kind of teacher?" queried Mrs. Denmeade. "Sort of home-teacher?"

"Why yes, you could call me that," replied Lucy smiling.

"Shore, that'll please the kids," said Denmeade. "They sort of look up to a teacher. You see we've only had school-teachers a few years. Edd went four years, Allie three, Dick an' Joe three, Mertie two, Mary an' Dan one. Liz an' Lize, the twins hyar, five years old--they haven't started yet."

Whereupon the children were presented to Lucy, a situation rich in pleasure and interest for her. The twins were as like as two peas in a pod, chubby, rosy-cheeked little girls, fair-haired, with big eyes of grey like their father's. To Lucy's overtures they were shy, silent, yet fascinated. Dan was a dark-headed youngster, with eyes to match, dirty, mischievous, bold, and exceedingly responsive to Lucy. Mary, too, was dark, though lighter than Dan, older by a year or two, a thin overworked girl who under favourable conditions would be pretty. The several other children present were Claypools, visiting the Denmeades. When Lucy had greeted them all she was to meet Denmeade's older daughters Allie, a young woman, huge of build, with merry face, and Mertie, a girl of sixteen, quite beautiful in a wild-rose kind of way. She was the only one of the family who showed anything of colour or neatness in her attire. Manifestly she wore her Sunday dress, a coarse print affair. Her sharp dark eyes seemed more concerned with Lucy's riding habit, the way she had arranged her hair and tied her scarf, than with Lucy's presence there.

Lucy was taken into the left-hand cabin, to meet the mother and sister of the Claypool children. They, too, were hard-featured, unprepossessing, and bore the unmistakable marks of hard labour in a hard country. All these impressions of Lucy's were hasty ones that she knew might pass entirely or change. Intense as was her interest, she could not stare at or study these people. She had to confess that they put her at her ease. There was not a suspicion of inhospitality, or, for that matter, except on the part of the children, the betrayal of anything unusual about this new-corner. Lucy was given one of the few home-made chairs, a rude triangular board affair that could be set two ways. And then the conversation which no doubt her advent had interrupted was resumed by the older women.

The twins began to manifest signs of being irresistibly drawn to Lucy. They were in the toils of a new experience. Lucy had been used to children, and had taken several months of kindergarten work, which was going to be of infinite value to her here. She listened to the conversation, which turned out to be homely gossip, differing only in content from gossip anywhere. And while doing so she had a chance to gaze casually round the room.

The walls were bare, of rough-hewn logs, with the chinks between plastered with clay. There was a window on each side. A huge rough stone fire-place occupied nearly all the west end of the cabin. In a left-hand corner, next to the fire-place, was a closet of boards reaching from floor to ceiling. This ceiling appeared to be of the same kind of shingling Lucy had observed on the roof. The floor was rough clapboard, like that of the porch outside. The two corners opposite the fire-place contained built-in beds, bulky with a quilted covering. There were no other articles of furniture, not even a table or lamp.

Lucy appreciated that this living-room, despite its lack of comforts, might be far superior to the dark, clay-floored cabin rooms she had heard about. It was at least dry and light. But its bareness jarred on her. What did these people do with their leisure time, if they had any? The younger women talked of nothing save dances and boys; their elders interpolated their gossip with bits of news about the homely labours that spring had brought. Mary was the only one of the children whom Lucy could induce to talk; and she had, apparently, a limited range of subjects. School, the burro she rode, the puppies she played with, appeared to be in possession of her mind.

At length the Claypools announced that if they were to reach home by dark they must hurry.

"Come an' see us," invited the mother, addressing Lucy, and the grown daughter added: "'By. Reckon Edd'll be fetchin' you an' Mertie to the dance."

Lucy murmured something non-committal in reply, and accompanied the women and children outside. They left the porch at the far end of the cabin, and went through a side gate out into the woods, where two horses and a burro were haltered to trees. Dogs, sheep, and chickens tagged at their heels. There was a rather open clearing under the pines, trodden bare, and covered with red and white chips of wood.

Women and children talked all together, so that it was impossible for Lucy to distinguish much of what was said. She gathered, however, that Mrs. Denmeade told Mrs. Claypool something about Lucy's welfare work. Then mother and daughter, unmindful of their skirts, mounted the two horses.

The burro raised one long ear and cocked the other at the three Claypool youngsters. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie lifted them up on the back of the burro. It had a halter tied round its nose. The little boy, who could not have been more than four years old, had the foremost position astride the burro. He took up the halter. His sisters, aged, respectively, about three and two, rode behind him. The older girl got her arms round the boy, and the younger did likewise by her sister. Lucy was not only amazed and frightened for the youngsters, but also so amused she could scarcely contain herself.

"Aren't you afraid you'll fall off?" she asked, standing abreast of them.

"Naw!" said the boy. And the elder girl, with a sober smile at Lucy, added: "'Tain't nuthin' to fall off. But it's hard gettin' back on."

It required considerable beating and kicking on the part of the three to start the burro after the horses, but at last he decided to move, and trotted off.

"How far have they to go? inquired Lucy, as she watched them disappear in the woods.

"Reckon five miles or so. They'll get home about dark," replied Mrs. Denmeade. "Now, girls, there's supper to get. An', Miss Watson, you're goin' to be more one of the family than company. Make yourself to home."

Mary attached herself to Lucy and led her around the corner of the cabin to see the puppies, while the twins toddled behind. Lucy wanted to know the names of the puppies and all about them. When Mary had exhausted this subject she led Lucy to see her especial playground, which was across the ravine in a sheltered spot redolent of pine needles. She showed Lucy a nook under a large manzanita where she played with pine cones and bits of Indian pottery, which she said she had found right there. Lucy had to see the spring, and the stone steps across the brook, and the big iron kettle and tub which were used in washing. Lucy looked in vain for an outhouse of any description. There was none, not even a chicken-coop. Mary said the chickens roosted in trees, like the wild turkeys, to keep from being eaten by beasts. Lucy inquired about these beasts, and further if there were snakes and bugs.

"Rattlers, trantulars, an' scorpions in summer. That's all that's bad," said Mary.

"Goodness! That's enough!" exclaimed Lucy.

"They won't hurt nobody," added the child simply. Then she led Lucy across the clearing, where the twins tarried on an enterprise of their own, and down a trail into the deep gully. Here among the rocks and ferns, overshadowed by the pines and sycamores, they got away from the despoiled forest above. Lucy was glad to rest a little and listen to Mary's prattle. How wild and rugged this gully. Yet it was scarcely a stone's-throw from the cabin. The clear water babbled over smooth red stone and little falls and gravelly bars.

"It dries up in summer," said Mary, indicating the brook. "Sometimes the spring does, too. Then we all have to pack water from way down."

They came at length to a green bench that had been cleared of brush and small trees, yet, owing to the giant spreading pines above, did not long get direct rays of the sun. Rude boxes, some of them painted, were scattered around on little platforms of stones.

"Edd's beehives," said Mary, with grave importance. "We must be awful good. Edd doesn't mind if we behave."

"I'll be very careful, Mary. I don't want to get stung. Are they real wild bees?"

"Shore. But Edd tames them. Oh, Edd loves bees somethin' turrible," answered the child solemnly. "Bees never sting him, even when he's choppin' a new bee tree."

"Why does Edd do that? inquired Lucy.

"Didn't you ever--ever hear of Edd Denmeade's honey?" returned Mary, in great surprise. "Pa says it's the best in the world. Oh-umum! He'll shore give you some. Edd likes girls next to his bees...He's a bee hunter. Pa says Edd's the best bee liner he ever seen."

"Bee liner! What's that, Mary?"

"Why, he watches for bees, an' when they come he lines them. Bees fly straight off, you know. He lines them to their hive in a tree. Then he chops it down. Always he saves the honey, an' sometimes he saves the bees."

The child added to the interest accumulating round the name of Edd Denmeade.

"Where is Edd now?" asked Lucy.

"He went to Winbrook with the pack burros," replied Mary. "That's up over the Rim an' far off, to the railroad. Edd's promised to take me there some day. Shore he ought to be back soon. I want him awful bad. Candy! Edd always fetches us candy. He'll come by Mertie's birthday. That's next Wednesday. He's fetchin' Mertie's new dress. Her first boughten one! She's sixteen. An' Edd's givin' it to her. Oh, he'll come shore 'cause he loves Mertie."

"Of course he loves you, too? queried Lucy, winningly.

"Ma says so. But Mertie's his favourite. She's so pretty. I wish I was," replied Mary, with childish pathos.

"You will be, Mary, when you are sixteen, if you are good and learn how to take care of yourself, and have beautiful thoughts," said Lucy.

"Ma told Mrs. Claypool you was a home-teacher. Are you goin' to teach me all that?"

"Yes, and more. Won't you like to learn how to make nice dresses?"

"Oh!" cried Mary beamingly, and she burst into a babble of questions. Lucy answered. How simple! She had anticipated cudgelling her brains to satisfy these backwoods children. But Mary was already won. They remained in the gully until the sun sank, and then climbed out. Mary ran to confide her bursting news to the little twin sisters, and Lucy was left to herself for the time being. She walked down the lane, and across the strip of woodland to the open fields, and out where she could see.

Westward along the Rim vast capes jutted out, differing in shape and length, all ragged, sharp, fringed, reaching darkly for the gold and purple glory of the sunset. Shafts and rays of light streamed from the rifts in the clouds, blazing upon the bold rock faces of the wall. Eastward the Rim zigzagged endlessly into pale cold purple. Southward a vast green hollow ran like a river of the sea, to empty, it seemed, into space. Beyond that rose dim spectral shapes of mountains, remote and detached. To the north the great wall shut out what might lie beyond.

How unscalable it looked to Lucy! Points of rim ran out, narrow, broken, sloping, apparently to sheer off into the void. But the distance was far and the light deceiving. Lucy knew a trail came down the ragged cape that loomed out over Denmeade's ranch.

She had heard someone say Edd would come back that way with the pack-train. It seemed incredible for a man, let alone a burro. Just to gaze up at that steep of a thousand deceptive ridges, cracks, slants, and ascents was enough to rouse respect for these people who were conquering the rock-confined wilderness.

This lifting of Lucy's spirit gave pause to the growth of something akin to contempt that had unconsciously formed in her mind. After hearing and reading about these primitive inhabitants of the wild she had developed abstract conceptions of kindliness, sympathy, and close contact with them. They had been very noble sentiments. But she was going to find them hard to live up to. By analysing her feelings she realised that she did not like the personal intimations. Her one motive was to help these people and in so doing help herself. She had come, however, with an unconscious sense of her personal aloofness, the height to which, of course, these common people could not aspire. Yet their very first and most natural reaction, no doubt, was to imagine a sentimental attachment between her and one of these backwood boys.

From amusement Lucy passed to annoyance, and thence to concern. She had experienced her troubles with cowboys even in town, where there were ample avenues of escape. What would she encounter here? Would she find at the very outset a ridiculous obstacle to her success, to the fine record of welfare work she longed to establish?

The matter became a problem, no less because a faint accusing voice had begun to reach her conscience. She listened to it and strained at it until she heard something like doubt of her being big enough for this job. She humiliated herself. It had never occurred to her that she might be found wanting. A wonderfully stabilising though painful idea this was. After all, what excuse had she for superiority?

Standing there in the open fields, Lucy forgot the magnificent red wall and the gorgeous sunset-flushed panorama. She realised her vanity, that she had wounded it, that in all probability it would have to be killed before she could be wholly worthy of this work. Her humility, however, did not withstand the rush of resentment, eagerness, and confidence of her youth. Lucy stifled in its incipiency a thought vaguely hinting that she would have to suffer and grow before she really was what she dreamed she was.

Presently she heard the crack of hoofs on rock, and, turning, she espied two riders entering the corral at the end of the field. She decided they must be two more of the Denmeades, Dick and Joe, if she remembered rightly. They dismounted, threw their saddles, turned the horses loose. They appeared to be long, lean, rangy young men, wearing huge sombreros that made them look top-heavy. They whistled and whooped, creating sounds which clapped back in strange echo from the wall. It emphasised the stillness to Lucy. Such hilarity seemed out of place there. Lucy watched the tall figures stride out of sight up the lane toward the cabin.

"One thing sure," soliloquised Lucy, gravely, "I've got to realise I have myself to contend with up here. Myself!...It seems I don't know much about me."

She returned to the cabin, entering the yard by the side gate. Some of the hounds followed her, sniffing at her, not yet over their hostility. The Denmeades were collecting round the table on the porch. The mother espied Lucy and greeted her with a smile.

"Reckon we was about ready to put the hounds on your trail," she called, and when Lucy reached the table she added: "You set in this place...Here's Dick an' Joe. You've only one more to see, an' that's Edd. Boys, meet Miss Lucy Watson of Felix."

Lucy smiled at the young men, waiting to sit down opposite her. Which was Dick and which Joe she could not tell yet. The younger was exceedingly tall and thin. The older, though tall and angular, too, appeared short by comparison. Both had smooth, still, shining faces, lean and brown, with intent clear eyes.

"Hod-do!" said the older boy to Lucy, as he took his seat across the table. He was nothing if not admiring.

"Joe, did you meet teacher Jenks?" asked Denmeade, from the head of the table.

"Yep. Saw him at Johnson's. He told us about Miss Watson. An' we passed Sam on the trail. He was packin' her baggage."

Before Allie and Mertie, who were carrying steaming dishes from the kitchen, had brought in all the supper, the Denmeades set about the business of eating.

"Help yourself, miss," said the father.

The table was too small for so many. They crowded close together. Lucy's seat was at one end of a bench, giving her the free use of her right hand. Mary sat on her left, happily conscious of the close proximity. The heads of the little girls and Dan just topped the level of the table. In fact, their mouths were about on a level with their tin plates. At first glance Lucy saw that the table was laden with food, with more still coming. Pans of smoking biscuits, pans of potatoes, pans of beans, pans of meat and gravy, and steaming tin cups of black coffee! Lucy noted the absence of milk, butter, sugar, green or canned vegetables. She was hungry and she filled her plate. And despite the coarseness of the food she ate heartily. Before she had finished, dusk had settled down around the cabin, and when the meal ended it was quite dark.

"I hear Sam's hoss," said Dick, as he rose, clinking his spurs. "Reckon I'll help him unpack."

Lucy sat down on the edge of the porch, peering out into the woods. The children clustered round her. Mrs. Denmeade and her older daughters were clearing off the supper table. A dim lamplight glimmered in the kitchen. Lucy was aware of the tall form of Dick Denmeade standing to one side. He had not yet spoken a word. Lucy addressed him once, but for all the answer she got he might as well have been deaf. He shifted one of his enormous boots across the other. In the dim light Lucy made out long spurs attached to them. Then Mrs. Denmeade ordered the children off to bed. One by one they vanished. Mary's pale face gleamed wistfully and was gone.

It dawned on Lucy, presently, that the air was cold. It had changed markedly in an hour. Big white stars had appeared over the tips of the pines; the sky was dark blue. The blackness of the night shadows had lighted somewhat or else her eyes had become accustomed to it. Quiet settled over the cabin, broken only by low voices and sounds from the kitchen. It struck Lucy as sad and sombre, this mantle of night descending upon the lonely cabin, yet never before had she felt such peace, such sweet solitude. By straining her ears she caught a dreamy murmur of the stream down in the gorge, and a low mourn of wind in the pines. Where were the coyotes, night hawks; whip-poor-wills, all the noisy creatures she had imagined lived in the wilderness?

Pound of hoofs and clink of spurs became audible in the lane, approaching the cabin. Lucy heard a laugh she recognised, and low voices, merry, subtle, almost hoarse whisperings. Then the gate creaked, and the musical clink of spurs advanced toward the porch. At last Lucy made out two dark forms. They approached, and one mounted the steps, while the other stopped before Lucy. She conceived an idea that this fellow could see in the dark.

"Wal, Miss Lucy, here's your bags without a scratch," said Sam Johnson's drawling voice. "Shore I bet you was worried. How'd you find my hoss Buster?"

"Just fine, thank you," replied Lucy. "Full of spirit and go. Yet he obeyed promptly. I never had a slip. Now were you not trying to frighten me a little--or was it Mr. Jenks?--telling me he was some kind of a mustang?"

"Honest, Buster's gentle with girls," protested Sam. "Shore he pitches when one of these long-legged Denmeades rake him. But don't you believe what anyone tells you."

"Very well, I won't. Buster is a dandy little horse."

"Wal, then, you're invited to ride him again," said Sam, with subtle inflection.

"Oh, thank you," replied Lucy. "I--I'll be pleased--if my work allows me any spare time."

"Howdy, Sam!" interposed Allie, from the kitchen door. "Who're you goin' to take to the dance?"

"Wal, I ain't shore, jest yet," he returned. "Reckon I know who I'd like to take."

"Sadie told me you asked her."

"Did she?...Sent her word. But she didn't send none back," protested Sam lamely.

"Sam, take a hunch from me. Don't try to shenanegin out of it now," retorted Allie, and retreated into the kitchen.

Lucy was both relieved and amused at Allie's grasp of the situation. No doubt Sam had been approaching another invitation.

Denmeade's heavy footfall sounded on the porch, accompanied by the soft pad of a dog trotting. "That you, Sam? How's yore folks?"

"Tip top," replied Sam shortly.

"Get down an' come in," drawled Denmeade as the other shuffled restlessly.

"Reckon I'll be goin'," said Sam. "I've a packhoss waitin'...Evenin', Miss Lucy. Shore I hope to see you at the dance."

"I hardly think you will," replied Lucy. "Thank you for fetching my baggage."

Sam's tall form disappeared in the gloom. The gate creaked as if opened and shut with forceful haste. Almost directly followed the sound of hoofs going off into the darkness.

"Hey, Sam!" called Joe, coming out of the cabin, where he had carried Lucy's grips.

"He's gone," said his father laconically.

"Gone! Why, the dinged galoot had somethin' of mine! Funny, him runnin' off. He shore was rarin' to get here. Never saw him make such good time on a trail. What riled him?"

"Wal, I have an idea," drawled Denmeade. "Allie give him a dig."

"I shore did," spoke up Allie, from the kitchen, where evidently she heard what was going on outside. "It's a shame the way he treats Sadie."

Lucy began to gather snatches of the complexity of life up here. After all, how like things at home! This girl Sadie had refused to marry Edd Denmeade. There was an intimation that she was attached to Sam Johnson. On his part, Sam had manifested a slight interest in a new-comer to the country.

Mrs. Denmeade came out of the kitchen carrying a lighted lamp, and she called Lucy to accompany her into the other cabin. She set the lamp on the high jutting shelf of the fire-place.

"You sleep in here with the children," she said simply.

"Yes--that will be nice," rejoined Lucy, peering around. Dan was asleep on the floor in a corner, his bed a woolly sheep skin, his covering a rag quilt. Mary and the twins were fast asleep in one of the beds. Lucy stepped close to peer down at them. Liz and Lize lay at the foot, curly fair heads close together. Their faces had been washed and now shone sweet and wan in the lamplight. Their chubby hands were locked. Mary lay at the head of the bed, and her thin face bore a smile as if she were having pleasant dreams.

"Where--shall I wash?" asked Lucy, with diffidence.

"You'll find water, basin, towel out on the porch...Good night. I reckon you're tired. Hope you sleep good."

Lucy bade her hostess good night, and turned musingly to the opening of one of her grips. She could hear the low breathing of the sleepers. Somehow, to be there with them, under such circumstances, touched her deeply. It was for the sake of such as they that she had forsaken personal comfort and better opportunities. Despite a somewhat depressed spirit, Lucy could not regret her action. If only she won their love and taught them fine, clean, wholesome ways with which to meet their hard and unlovely futures! That would transform her sacrifice into a blessing.

The room was cold. A fire in the big stone fireplace would have been much to her liking. By the time she got ready for bed she was chilled through. Before blowing out the lamp she took a last look at the slumbering children. They seemed so still, so calm, so white and sweet. Lucy trembled for them, in a vague realisation of life. Then, with some difficulty she opened one of the windows. Once in bed, she stretched out in aching relief. That long ride, especially on the horse, had cramped and chafed her. The bed was as cold and hard as ice. There were no sheets. The blankets under her did not do much to soften the feel of what she concluded was a mattress filled with corn husks. It rustled like corn husks, though it might have been coarse straw. The coverings were heavy rag quilts.

Nevertheless, Lucy had never before been so grateful for a bed. If this bed was good enough for those innocent and happy and unfortunate children, it was good enough for her. Unfortunate! She pondered. She would have to learn as much as she taught.

She heard heavy boots and the jangle of spurs on the porch, the unrolling of one of the canvas packs, faint voices from the kitchen, and then footsteps over her head in the attic. One of the boys spoke up there. Probably that was where they slept. Lucy now remembered seeing the ladder that led from the middle porch to a wide hole in the ceiling. She wondered where the rest of the Denmeades slept. No doubt she was robbing father and mother of their room and bed.

Gradually all sounds ceased, except the faint murmur of water and wind, out in the woods. Lucy grew warm and sleepy. Yet so novel and strange were her sensations that she fought off the drowsy spell. She was really there up in the backwoods. She could scarcely credit it. The blackness of the room, the silence, the unfamiliar fragrance of pine and wood smoke, were like unrealities of a dream. She lived over the whole journey and would not have changed any of it. Suddenly the stillness broke to a deep-ringing, long-drawn bay of a hound. It made her flesh creep. How it rang out the truth of her presence in the wild forest, in the hard bed of these lowly pioneers! The home that had failed her was gone for ever. The one person she had loved most--her sister Clara--had failed her. And in the lonely darkness she wept, not as on the night before, childishly and unrestrainedly, but with sorrow for loss and gratefulness for the future that promised so much.

She would be happy to face the morrow, come what might. It could only bring another kind of strife, that in itself might be good for her soul. With such hope and a prayer that it would be so she fell asleep.

Chapter IV

Lucy awakened in a half-conscious dream that she was in a place unfamiliar to her. Before she opened her eyes she smelled wood smoke. Then she saw that daylight had come, and she was looking at her open window through which blue smoke and sunlight were pouring in. Bewildered, she gazed around this strange room--bare wood and clay walls--big stone fire-place--rude ceiling of poles and shingles. Where was she?

With a start she raised on her elbow. Then the effort that cost her, the sense of sore muscles, and the rustling of the corn-husk mattress brought flashing to memory her long ride of yesterday and the backwoods home of the Denmeades.

She was surprised, and somewhat mortified, to see that the children were up and gone. On the moment Lucy heard the patter of their feet outside on the porch and the ringing strokes of an axe on hard wood. Whereupon she essayed to hop out of bed. She managed it all right, but not without awkwardness and pain.

"Oh, I'm all crippled!" she cried ruefully. "That ride!...And say, it's Greenland's icy mountains here."

The plain, substantial woollen garments that she had brought for cold weather were going to be welcome now. Lucy dressed in less time than ever before in her life. Then with soap, towel, comb, and brush she sallied out on the porch and round to the side of the cabin. The children were in the kitchen. An old man sat on a bench. He was thin, grey, with cadaverous cheeks, a pointed chin bristling with stubby beard.

"Good mawnin'," he said.

Lucy greeted him and asked where the water was.

"I jest fetched some," he said, pointing to a stand at the end of the porch. "Right pert this mawnin'. I reckon the frost won't do them peach blossoms no good."

Lucy indeed found the water pert. Her ablutions, owing to her impetuosity, turned out to be an ordeal. Evidently the old fellow had watched her with interest, for as she finished her hair and turned back he said with a huge grin, "Rosy cheeks!"

"Thanks," replied Lucy brightly. "I'm Lucy Watson. I didn't meet you last night."

"Nope. But I seen you. I'm Lee's oldest brother. Thar's four of us brothers hyar in the woods. Uncle Bill the kids call me."

Upon her way back to the room she encountered the extremely tall young Denmeade who appeared too bashful to return her greeting. Lucy hurriedly put her things away and made her bed, then presented herself at the kitchen door, to apologise for being late.

"Reckon you'd be tired, so I wouldn't let the children call you," replied Mrs. Denmeade. "Come an' eat."

They were having breakfast in the kitchen. Mary was the only one of the children to answer Lucy's greeting. Dan did not appear bashful, but his mouth was so full he could not speak. Mrs. Denmeade and Mertie were sitting at the table, while Allie stood beside the big stove. They did not seem stolid or matter-of-fact; they lacked expression of whatever they did feel. Lucy sat down to ham, eggs, biscuits, coffee. "Some of Edd's honey," indicated Mrs. Denmeade, with pride, as she placed a pan before her. Lucy was hungry. She enjoyed her breakfast, and as for the honey, she had never tasted anything so delicious, so wild and sweet of flavour.

After breakfast, Lucy was greatly interested in the brief preparations for school. Dan had to be forced away from the table. He was bareheaded and barefooted. Lucy went out to the gate with him and Mary. Dick was coming up the lane, leading two little grey lop-eared burros and a pony, all saddled. Dan climbed on one burro and Mary the other. Mertie came out carrying small tin buckets, one of which she handed to each of the children. Mary seemed reluctant to leave Lucy, but Dan rode off down the lane, mightily unconcerned. Mertie mounted the pony, and then had her brother hand up books and bucket. She smiled at Lucy. "You must get the boys to lend you a horse, so you can ride down to school with us," she said.

"That'll be fine," replied Lucy. "But the ride I had yesterday was enough for a while. I'm afraid I'm a tenderfoot."

Dick picked up a bucket and a rifle, and made ready to start.

"Do you walk to school?" queried Lucy, smiling. "Yes'm, I like walkin'," he replied.

"Look at his legs," said Mertie. "Pa says Dick can outwalk any of them, even Edd."

"He does look as if he could take long steps," returned Lucy, laughing.

"Reckon it'd be nice if you could teach us at home," said Dick shyly.

"Yes, it would, and I shall teach you a good deal," replied Lucy. "But I'm not a regular school teacher."

Lucy watched them go down the lane after Dan and was unexpectedly stirred at sight of the little procession. When she turned back up the path, Mrs. Denmeade met her.

"They're gone. It was fun to see the little burros," said Lucy. "How far do they have to ride, and why does Dick carry the gun?"

"It's five miles. Woods all the way. An' Dick doesn't pack that gun for fun. There's bears an' cats. An' hydrophobia skunks. I'm afraid of them, But when Dick's with the children I don't worry."

"What in the world are hydrophobia skunks?" queried Lucy.

"Nothin' but polecats with hydrophobia," replied the other. "Lee reckons the skunks get bitten by coyotes that have hydrophobia. It makes the skunks crazy. They come right for you. If you ever run across a pretty white-an'-black cat with a bushy tail--you run!"

"I will indeed," declared Lucy. "An ordinary skunk is bad enough. But this kind you tell of must be dreadful."

"Wal, Miss Lucy, this is wash-day for us," said Mrs. Denmeade. "An' we never seem to have time enough to do all the work. But I want to help you get started. Now if you'll tell me--"

"Mrs. Denmeade, don't you worry one minute," interrupted Lucy. "I'm here to help you. And I shall lend a hand whenever I can. As for my work, all I want is your permission to plan for what I think necessary--to buy things and make things for the house."

"Reckon I'm glad to agree on anythin' you want," replied Mrs. Denmeade. "Just call on me, an' Lee or the boys."

As they walked up the patch to the cabin Lucy was telling Mrs. Denmeade how it had been the decision of the welfare board to endeavour to teach the people living in remote districts to make things that would further easier and better living.

Denmeade, coming from the fields, apparently, met them and could not help but hear something of what Lucy said. It brought the broad grin to his weather-beaten face.

"Wife," he said, as he surveyed Lucy from head to foot, "this hyar city girl has got sense. An' she looks like she might grow into a strappin' fine young woman. 'To work with their hands,' she says. She's hit it plumb. That's all we ever done in our lives. That's why we never learned new tricks...All the same, if Miss Lucy teaches us somethin', we can do the same for her."

"I certainly expect you to," said Lucy gladly. "I'd like to learn to take care of a horse, chop wood, and line bees."

Denmeade let out a hearty laugh.

"Wal, now, listen to her," he ejaculated. "Take care, young woman, an' don't let my boy Edd hear you say you want to line bees. 'Cause if you do he'll shore take you. An' say, mebbe hangin' to that long legged boy when he's on a bee line, mebbe it ain't work!"

"All the same, I shall ask him to take Mertie and me sometime," declared Lucy.

"You couldn't hire Mertie to tramp up an' down these woods all day for anythin', let alone bees," replied Mrs. Denmeade with scorn. "Mertie sews clothes for herself or me all day, an' shore she dances all night. But she's not like the rest of the Denmeades. I reckon Dick would be the best one to go with you an' Edd."

"Wal, how'd you like to help me an' Uncle Bill plough to-day?" asked Denmeade quizzingly.

"Plough! Oh, that would be a little too much for me just yet!" laughed Lucy. "Why, that ride yesterday knocked me out! I'm stiff and sore this morning."

"Shore. That's no easy trail to anyone new to hosses," said Denmeade.

"Mr. Denmeade, I'd like to accept the loan of that tent the school-teacher offered," rejoined Lucy. "I think I could make myself very comfortable and I would not be depriving you and your wife of your room."

"Shore. Anythin' you like. Reckon the boys could make a tent tight enough to keep out bugs, snakes, dogs, wild cats, lions an' bears--an' mebbe hydrophobia skunks."

"Goodness!...Mr. Denmeade, you're teasing me," exclaimed Lucy.

"Wal, reckon I was," he replied. "Fact is, though, it ain't a bad idee. Summer is comin' an' the weather will soon get fine fer sleepin' outdoors. I seen the way Jenks had his tent fixed. Reckon me an' the boys can do it. But to-day we want to get through ploughin' before the rain...See them clouds comin' up out of the south-west? That means storm. Mebbe to-night or to-morrow or next day--but storm shore an' sartin."

"I hope Edd gets in before the rain," said Mrs. Denmeade. "Mertie would be sick if her new dress got spoiled."

"Ahuh! I reckon," returned Denmeade gruffly. Then as Lucy mounted the steps to the porch he said to her, "You have the run of the place now, Miss Lucy, an' you can call on me or the boys any time."

"Who's the best carpenter?" queried Lucy.

"Wal, I reckon Dick is shore handy with tools," replied Denmeade. "An' he has time before an' after school. But tools is all-fired scarce about hyar."

"Can we buy them at Cedar Ridge?"

"Shore. An' I reckon someone will be ridin' down after the dance."

Lucy did not need to spend much more time looking around the cabins, inside or outside. The possessions of the Denmeades were so few that a glance had sufficed to enumerate them. Manifestly also their wants were few. But the comfort and health of a home did not depend upon how little was necessary. The children of pioneers should have some of the conveniences of civilisation. Lucy did not under-estimate the problem on her hands.

She found that Mrs. Denmeade had removed from the closet whatever had been there, leaving it for Lucy's use. This enabled Lucy to unpack most of her belongings. When that was done she took pencil and pad and went outdoors to find a place to sit down and think and plan.

One of the old black hounds, a dignified and solemn dog, looked at Lucy as if he realised she should have company, and he went with her. How amused Lucy was to see the hound walk along with her, manifesting no evidence of friendliness other than his accompanying her.

Lucy crossed the strip of woods to the edge of the field, and then walked along under the pines toward the slope. Through the green and black of the forest she could see the looming red wall. At the end of the field she halted. Deep dark woodland merged upon the edge of the clearing. She sat down under a huge pine, from which position she could see out across the open.

"Oh, I'll never be able to concentrate on anything here!" murmured Lucy, thrilled with the wildness and splendour of the forest. Birds and squirrels were boisterous, as if rejoicing at the spring. The wind moaned through the tree-tops, a new sound to Lucy, stirring her blood. Most striking of all was the fragrance of pine. Lucy revelled a few moments in this sweet wild solitude, then made a valiant effort to put her mind on her work. At the very outset she made notes on her pad. The fact that expenditure of funds for the betterment of living conditions up here had been trusted to her common sense and discretion made Lucy extremely conscientious. She would purchase only what was absolutely necessary, and superintend the making of many useful things for the Denmeades. To this end she applied herself to the task of choosing the articles she must buy and those she must make.

It turned out to be a fascinating task, made easy by the course of manual training she had taken at normal school. Prominent among the articles selected to buy were tools and a sewing-machine. Tools meant the constructing of chairs, tables, closets, shelves, and many other household articles; a sewing-machine meant the making of sheets, pillows, towels, curtains, table-covers, and wearing apparel.

Lucy pictured in her mind what the inside of that cabin would look like in a couple of months. It filled her with joy for them and pride for herself. The expense would be little; the labour great. She had already convinced Denmeade that this welfare work was not charity; in the long run it must be for the good of the state.

Between such dreams and calculations Lucy mapped out the letters and orders she would write that afternoon. Then she would have to wait so long until the things arrived. Still, she reflected, a number of necessities could be obtained at the store in Cedar Ridge. She would persuade Denmeade to go or send someone at once.

At length Lucy discovered that without thinking about it she had changed her position several times to get out of the shade into the sun. The air had grown chill. Then she became aware of the moan of wind in the pines. How loud, mournful, strange! Clouds were scudding up from the south-west. They were still broken, but much heavier and darker than they had been in the early morning. They made great dark shadows sail along the rolling green crest of the forest. Gazing upward, Lucy was amazed to see that the clouds obscured the Rim at the high points. From up there drifted down a low, steady roar. Wind in the pines! It was a different sound from the sough in the near-by tree-tops. Birds and squirrels had ceased song and chatter.

Once more Lucy applied herself diligently to her task, and for a while forgot herself. The wind increased to a gale, intermittent, but steadily growing less broken. She heard it and thrilled, yet went on with her figuring. Suddenly a heavy crash somewhere in the woods close at hand thoroughly frightened her. No doubt a dead tree had blown over. Nervously Lucy gazed about her to see if there were other dead trees. She espied several and many bleached gnarled branches shaking in the wind. A great primeval forest like this seemed to be a dangerous place.

"I always imagined it would be wonderful to live like an Indian--wild in the woods," soliloquised Lucy. "But I guess it might be fearful on occasions."

She became prey then to conflicting impulses--one to run back to the cabin, the other to stay out in this roaring forest. For a moment the latter dominated her. She stepped out from under the pine into a glade and threw back her head. How the wind whipped her hair! The odour of pine was now so strong that it was not far from suffocating. Yet its sweetness seemed intoxicating. The cold air was exhilarating, in spite of its increasing chill. Against the background of blue sky and grey cloud the pine crests waved wildly and thin streams of brown pine needles flew before the gale.

Lucy's daring did not extend beyond a moment or so. Then the old black dog appeared, to eye her solemnly and trot off. She followed as fast as she could walk, sometimes breaking into a little run. Soon she was breathless and light-headed. Such little exertion to tire her! Lucy recollected that high altitudes affected some persons thus. Her heart pounded in her breast. It became absolutely imperative that she go slower, or give out completely. Even then, when she reached the cabin porch she was glad to sink upon it with a gasp.

The golden sunshine was gone. A grey mantle appeared to be creeping over the forest world. The roar of the wind now seemed behind and above the cabin. Presently Mrs. Denmeade, coming out for a pail of water, espied Lucy sitting there.

"Storm comin'," she said. "It'll blow for a while, then rain."

"Oh--I'm--so--out of--breath!" panted Lucy. "It was--wonderful, but--scared me...The children! Will they stay at school?"

"Not much. They'll come home, rain or shine. Edd is goin' to catch it good. Dave Claypool just rode by an' stopped to tell me he met Edd up on the mountain."

"Met E--your son! When?"

"This mornin'. Dave was ridin' through. He lets his hosses range up there. Said he'd run across Edd about fifteen miles back down the Winbrook trail. Shore now Edd can drive a pack-train of burros. But they're loaded heavy, an' Edd will spare the burros before himself. I reckon he'll hit the Rim just about dark. An' if the storm breaks before then he'll have somethin' tough. Rain down here will be snow up there. But he'll come in to-night shore."

Her matter-of-factness over what seemed exceedingly serious and her confidence in the return of her son through gale and darkness awakened in Lucy a first appreciation of the elemental strength of these backwoods people. Lucy respected strength to endure above all virtues. How infinitely she herself had been found wanting! She hurried to her room, conscious that again this Edd Denmeade had been forced upon her attention.

Lucy got out her writing materials and set herself to the important task of the letters she had planned. At intervals she found her mind wandering, a thing not habitual with her. Yet the circumstances here were extenuating. And all the time she was aware of the gale. It swooped down the chimney with hollow roar. She was able to think and write consistently through the hours. The Denmeades ate whenever some of them came in hungry, a bad and labour-consuming habit, Lucy thought, which she would endeavour to break. She was glad, however, that there was no midday meal except Sundays. She grew cramped and cold from sitting so long on the uncomfortable chair, writing on her lap. But she accomplished the task of a dozen letters, and an enlarging and copying of her notes.

This accomplishment afforded her great satisfaction. Putting on a heavy coat, she went outside to walk off the chill in her blood. She found Mrs. Denmeade and Allie carrying the day's wash up from the brook down in the gully. Lucy promptly lent her assistance, and when she had made four trips, carrying a heavy burden, she was both out of breath and hot from the effort.

The grey mantle overhead had darkened. Only occasional rifts showed a glimpse of blue sky. The air was perceptibly damper. And the roar of wind now had no break.

Lucy rested a little, trying the while to win Liz and Lize to talk to her. They did not sidle away from her any longer, but had not yet reached the communicative stage.

Lucy was conscious of worry, of dread, and not until she saw Mary and Dan, with Mertie behind them, coming up the lane, did she realise the significance of her feelings. They were safe. And by the time they reached the gate the tall form of Dick came stalking into sight.

Manifestly for them the journey home through the forest, under the threshing boughs of the trees, was merely an incident of school days. However, when Mertie heard from her mother that Edd had been seen back up on the Rim and would surely be caught in the storm, she gave vent to an excited concern. Not for her brother's safety and comfort, but for her birthday present of the new dress! Mrs. Denmeade petted and soothed her. "Don't worry, Mertie," she concluded. "Reckon you ought to know Edd. There's sacks of flour on them pack-burros. It ain't likely he'll see that flour spoiled, let alone your new dress."

"But, ma!" protested Mertie, miserably, "Edd's only human! An' you know how terrible storms are up there."

"Wal, it was your fault Edd packed to Winbrook," retorted her mother. "He could of got the flour at Cedar Ridge, only one day's pack. But you had to have a city dress."

Mertie subsided into sullen restless silence, and took no part in the preparations for supper. The children gravitated to Lucy, who essayed to play with them on the windy porch. The afternoon darkened. Presently the men returned from their labours, loud-voiced and cheery, smelling of horses and newly ploughed earth. At the wash-bench they made much splashing.

"Wal, ma, we got the field ploughed, an' now let her rain," announced Denmeade.

"Let her rain!" cried Mertie shrilly, as if driven. "That's all anybody cares. Storm--rain--snow! For Edd to be caught out!"

"Aw, so thet's what ails you," returned her father. "Wal, don't you worry none about him."

During supper Denmeade again silenced his unhappy daughter, and though he drawled the reprimand in cool, easy words, there was a note in them that gave Lucy an idea of the iron nature of these backwoodsmen. This was the only instance so far in which the slightest discord or evidence of authority had appeared in the Denmeade family. To Lucy they seemed so tranquil, so set in their rugged simplicity.

After supper the grey twilight deepened and a misty rain blew in Lucy's face as she stood on the porch. Above the sound of the wind she heard a patter of rain on the roof.

"Reckon she'll bust directly," said Denmeade, as he passed Lucy, his arms full of wood. "I'm buildin' a fire fer you. It's shore goin' to storm."

By turning her ear to the north and attending keenly Lucy was able to distinguish between the two main sounds of the storm--the rush and gusty violence of the wind around the cabin, and the deep mighty roar of the gale up on the Rim. She shivered with more than cold. At dark the fury of the storm burst. Torrents of rain fell, drowning all other sounds. Lucy was forced back against the wall, but the rain, driving under the porch roof in sheets, sent her indoors.

A bright log fire blazed and cracked in the open fire-place of the room she occupied. The children were sitting on the floor, talking, and such was the roar on the roof and the bellow down the chimney that Lucy could not hear a word they said. Evidently, however, something in the fire attracted them. Mary was looking at it, too, thoughtfully, even dreamily, her thin face and large eyes expressive of a childish hunger for something.

The hour seemed a restless, uncertain one for Lucy. How the storm raged and lashed! She had an almost irresistible desire to run out into it, a sensation at once overcome by abject fear. Even the porch, with its two open doors of lighted rooms, was as black as pitch. Lucy knew she could not have gone a rod from the cabin without being lost. The gale outside would howl and shriek accompaniments to the roar on the roof; now and then a gust of wind sent a volley of raindrops, thick as a stream, against the windowpanes. The red fire hissed with the water that dripped down the chimney. Lucy walked from window to window, from the fire-place to the door; she sat down to gaze with the children at the opalescent embers settling on the hearth; and she rose to pace the floor. Her thoughts were wholly dominated by the sensations of the storm. At last Lucy put on her long heavy coat and braved the porch. But this time she went to the back, where in the lee of the cabin she was out of the fury of wind and rain. There she stood against the wall, peering out into the blackness, feeling the whip of wind, the cold wet sting of flying hail.

It had grown colder. The rain was lessening in volume and some of it was freezing to sleet. While she cowered there the roar on the roof subsided, and gradually the strife of the elements around the cabin slowed and softened. Presently Lucy became aware of the terrific roar of the storm up on the Rim. It shook her heart. It seemed a continuous thunder and it roused in her unaccustomed feelings. How strange to realise that she both feared and loved the black wild roaring void out there.

She seemed thousands of miles from her home, from the desert where she had lived always, the hot glaring little city, with its sun-baked streets winter and summer, its throng of people, intent upon money-making, marrying, living. What a contrast they presented to these few hardy families of the mountains! Lucy wondered if a race of people in their gregarious instincts, their despoliation and destruction of the wilderness, could not lose something great and beautiful. She felt it vaguely. How had men lived in the long ages before there were cities or settlements?

How was it possible for this Edd Denmeade to find his way home, in this ebony blackness, under the roaring and cracking pines, down over a two-thousand foot mountain wall? The thing was incredible. Yet his father and his mother expected him as a matter of course. He had done it before. They trusted him. Even the vain Mertie, despite her fears and doubts, knew he would come. Then considering all this, what manner of Man was Edd Denmeade? Lucy no longer repudiated her interest. In her heart there was a vague longing for she knew not what, but in this case she imagined it due to her disappointment at home, with Clara and her suitors, with the type of young men that had the good will of her father. They had received scant courtesy from Lucy. No understanding of sentiment stirred in Lucy. What could a boy of the backwoods be to her? But this wild-bee hunter was surely pretty much of a man, and Lucy was curious to see him.

She remained out on the porch until she was thoroughly cold and wet, and still longer, until she had convinced herself that she had a faint realisation of what a storm was in this high timbered country. Then she went in.

All the family, including Uncle Bill, had assembled in her room. Denmeade, his brother, and Dick and Joe, were grouped near the fire-place. Denmeade knelt on one knee, in what Lucy later discovered was his characteristic resting position, his dark face in the light, his big black hat pushed back on his head. The others were sitting on the floor, backs to the wall, listening to what he was saying. The mother and Allie were seated, silent, on the children's bed. Mertie, crouched on one of the chairs, stared sombrely into the fire. Mary was bent over, so that she could catch the light on a book. The children played as before.

As Lucy went in, it was Mary who got up to offer her chair. Lucy, as she advanced to the blazing logs, was astonished to see how wet her coat had become. She held it to the fire, most gratefully conscious of the warmth. Then at the moment Joe interrupted his father's talk.

"I hear bells. Reckon some of the burros got in. Edd won't be far."

"Wal, he'll be with the pack outfit. Rustle out thar," replied his father.

While Denmeade replenished the fire the others stamped out, their spurs clanking. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie went into the kitchen. Mertie's apathy vanished and she rushed out into the darkness of the porch. Her voice pealed out, calling to Edd. Likewise the children responded to the home-coming of their brother.

Lucy felt happy for all of them. Hanging up her coat, she wiped the raindrops from her face and gave a touch here and there to her dishevelled hair. Then she stood, back to the fire, palms turned to the genial heat, and, watching the door, she waited with sustained interest, with something of amusement, yet conscious of a vague unformed emotion.

Presently clamour of childish voices, pitched high above the deeper ones of men, and the thump of heavy boots, and jingle of spurs, moved across the porch to the door of the cabin. Lucy stepped aside into the shadow. Then the light of the fire streamed out of the door.

"In thar, all of you," boomed Denmeade. "Let Edd get to the fire."

It seemed to Lucy that a tall dark form emerged from the gloom into the light, and entered the door With the children and girls. For a moment there was a hubbub. The older members of the household came in, somewhat quieting the melee.

"Mertie, here's your present," said the new-corner. His voice seemed rather drawling and deep. Disengaging himself from clinging hands, he laid a large parcel, wrapped in a wet slicker, upon a vacant chair. Mertie let out a squeal, and pouncing upon the package, dropped to her knees and began to tear it open.

"Oh, Edd!...If you got it--wet!" she panted.

"No fear. It's wrapped in paper an' oilskin, under the slicker," he said. Then he drew another package from the inside of his huge fur-collared coat. "Liz! Lize! Danny!"

"Candy!" screamed the children in unison. And straightway pandemonium broke loose.

When the young man threw his wet sombrero on the floor near the hearth, and removed his rain-soaked coat, Lucy had a better chance to see what he looked like. Certainly his face was not handsome, but she could not say how much of its dark, haggard rawness was due to exposure. He did not change expression as he gazed down upon those whom he had made happy. But Lucy's keen sight and power to read divined the fact that he worshipped Mertie and loved the children. He untied a wet scarf from his neck and threw that beside his sombrero. All the older members of the family were silently gazing down upon the fortunate one. Mary seemed to be revelling in Mertie's excitement, yet, as she gazed up at Edd, her large eyes questioned him.

"Mary, reckon I have somethin' for you in my pack," he said. "Wait till I warm my hands. I'm near froze."

With that he strode to the fire and knelt before it, one knee on the floor, in a posture Lucy had descried as characteristic of his father. Edd extended big, strong, capable-looking hands to the blaze. They were actually stiff and blue. Seen nearer, his face, with the firelight shining directly upon it, was an open one, lean, smooth, with prominent nose and large firm-lipped mouth and square chin. His eyes were larger than those of the other Denmeades, light in colour, intent in gaze. Still, Lucy could not be certain she liked his face. It looked bruised, pinched, blackened. His hands, too, were grimy. Water dripped from him and ran in little streams over the hearth to sizzle on the hot ashes. He seemed to bring with him the breath of the open, cold and damp, the smell of the pines and burros, odorous, rank.

Gasps of delight emanated from those surrounding Mertie as she held up a white beribboned dress, and many were the mingled exclamations that followed. It was the mother who first recovered from the spell. Peering into the shadow, she at last espied Lucy.

"There you are," she said. "I was wonderin' if you was seein' the circus...This is my oldest boy. Edd, meet Miss Lucy Watson from Felix. She's our home-teacher, come to live with us for a spell."

Lucy spoke from the shadow. Edd peered out of the firelight, as if locating her with difficulty. She did not see the slightest indication that he was surprised or interested. What had she expected from this much-talked-of wild-bee hunter?

"Can't see you, but hod-do just the same," he drawled.

Then Denmeade advanced to lean his tall form Against the mantel.

"Dave rode down early--said he'd seen you, an' figgered you'd hit the Rim trail before the storm busted."

"Wind held us back all afternoon," replied the son. "An' some of the packs slipped. Reckon I'd made it shore but for that. The storm hit us just back from the Rim. I'll be dog-goned if I didn't think we'd never get to where the trail starts down. Hard wind an' snow right in our faces. Shore was lucky to hit the trail down before it got plumb dark. I led my hoss an' held on to Jennie's tail. Honest I couldn't see an inch in front of my nose. I couldn't hear the bells. For a while I wasn't shore of anythin'. But when we got down out of the snow I reckoned we might get home. All the burros but Baldy made it. I didn't miss him till we got here. He mighty have slipped over the cliff on that narrow place. It shore was wet. Reckon, though, he'll come in. He was packin' my camp outfit."

"Edd, come an' eat, if you're hungry," called his mother from the kitchen.

"Nary a bite since sun-up. An' I'm a-rarin' to feed," he replied, and gathering up his smoking coat, scarf, and sombrero, he rose.

"Boy, did Blake buy yore honey?" queried his father, accompanying him toward the door.

"I reckon. Every bucket, an' I whooped it up to a dollar a gallon."

"Whew! Dog-gone me! Why, Edd, you'll make a bizness of your bee huntin'!" ejaculated Denmeade.

"Shore I will. I always meant to," asserted the son. "Pa, if I can find an' raise as much as five hundred gallons this summer, I'll sell every pint of it."

"No!" Denmeade's exclamation was one of mingled doubt, amaze, and wondering appreciation of a fortune. They crossed the porch into the kitchen, from which Lucy heard them but indistinctly. Then Mrs. Denmeade appeared at the farther door.

"Lucy, take the candy away from the children an' put it where they can't reach it," she called. "Else they'll gorge themselves an' be sick."

Lucy approached this dubious task with infinite tact, kindliness, and persuasion. Liz and Lize were presently prevailed upon, but Dan was a different proposition. He would not listen to reason. When he found Lucy was firm he attempted to compromise, and failing of that, he gave in ungraciously. Flouncing down on his sheepskin rug, he pulled the rag coverlet over him. Lucy could see his eyes glaring in the firelight.

"Danny, don't you undress when you go to bed?" asked Lucy gently.

"Naw!" he growled.

"Don't you ever?" she went on.

"Not any more. The kids do, but not me."

"Why not you?" demanded Lucy. "It's not healthy to sleep in your clothes. Tell me, Danny. I'm your home-teacher, you know."

"Nobody ever said nuthin' to me," retorted the lad. "Pa an' Joe an' Dick sleep in their clothes. An' Edd--why, I've sleeped with him up in the loft when he never took off nuthin'. Went to bed right in his boots an' spurs."

"Oh, indeed!" murmured Lucy constrainedly, somewhat taken aback. "Well, Danny, all the same it's not a healthy thing to do, and I shall teach you not to."

"Teacher, you'd make me sleep naked?" he protested. "Aw, it'd be cold in winter, an' I never have enough covers nohow."

"Danny, I shall make you night-clothes to sleep in. Nice soft warm woolly stuff."

"No long white thing like Mertie sleeps in," he asserted belligerently.

"Any way you want. Shirt and pants, if you like," said Lucy.

"Then I can wear them all day, too," he rejoined with interest, and lay down.

Lucy turned her attention to the twins, very pleased to find them growing less shy with her.

"Can we have some, too?" asked Lize timidly.

"Have what, my dear?" queried Lucy, as she drew the children to her.

"Them Danny'll have to sleep in."

"Indeed you shall! Long white nightgowns, like the little princess in the fairy story."

The twins had never heard of princesses or fairies but they manifested the most human trait of children--love of stories. Lucy held them entranced while she undressed them and put them to bed. She was quick to realise her power over them. Her victory was assured.

Then Denmeade entered, carrying some sticks of wood.

"Reckon you can put them on, if you want to keep up the fire," he said. "Wal, you've put the kids to bed. Now, Miss Lucy, shore that will please ma."

When Mrs. Denmeade came in with towel and basin she appeared astounded to find the children undressed and in bed.

"You rascals never did it all by your lonesome," she averred. "Teacher has been takin' you in hand. But she forgot your dirty faces an' hands."

"Teacher telled us stories," whispered Liz rapturously.

"Candy an' stories all at once!" exclaimed the mo