was running away. Mr. Myers said he had shot a man. But," she admitted grudgingly, "I was afraid of Pete Smith, and of the bear."

"Smith?" He changed his position a little, dropping his arm and resting his shoulder against a rock. "What of Smith? I thought he was safe in the penitentiary."

"He escaped. It was very stormy the night he came back. Trees were falling on the ridge, and after school Lem and I went home with Mose. Mr. Laramie was away with his traps, and his wife, you know, is a Yakima, the daughter of Yelm Jim. It would have been all right if the boys hadn't entertained me with stories of the rising, but they were dreadful to hear with the wind whistling, boughs soughing, rain driving on the shingles, and just the light of the backlog in the fireplace. When Lem followed Mose off to bed in the barn loft I was a little unnerved.

"There were two beds in the room; mine was curtained. But I couldn't sleep. I kept listening and waiting for something to happen. There was a rifle on the wall near the door; I began to wish I had it. Mose's mother was surely asleep, I heard her regular breathing from the other bed, and finally I crept over softly and took the gun down. It was heavy and I let the stock strike the floor. Still she didn't move, and I hurried back and stood it inside the curtains where I could reach it instantly, felt safer then and at last went to sleep."

She paused, looking off again absently to the tower. It was as though she saw that room, the sleeping squaw, she herself in the curtained bed with the rifle at hand. "It must have been nearly morning when I wakened. There was still light from the smouldering backlog, and between the curtains I saw Mose's mother standing near the door and talking to a man. His clothes were wet and torn as if he had pushed through underbrush; an old, soft hat shaded his face, and perhaps it was the shadows or the flicker of the firelight, but it seemed the most hideous face in the world. She pointed to my corner and he started towards me. My heart leaped, But she stopped him. He spoke to her in Yakima, throwing off her hand and stamping his foot. Then she came over cautiously and looked in at me. I pretended I was asleep, but the perspiration started; I could have screamed. I quite forgot the gun until I felt she had taken it and was going quickly back to the man."

She paused again to give her listener a swift look with the mounting fun in her eyes. "He took the rifle," she added, "and went out."

Her laugh was irresistible.

"And it was Smith?" he asked directly,

"Yes, it was all explained the next morning when Lem noticed the vacant place on the wall and said, 'I see Pete's out again; he's be'n fur his gun.'"

Forrest laughed again at her perfect mimicry of the boy, then he turned his face again to the gorge. He thought of a good many things, but he felt the futility of saying any of them. He only asked finally, "And what of the bear?"

"Oh, he was berrying, I suppose, and I happened to overtake him on the trail, I had been down the river making a sketch of Yelm Jim, fishing, and Lem had gone home without me. I noticed the bear moving ahead of me towards the creek, but I thought he was just a great pig until he lumbered around to look at me. And the moment I caught his profile, you may be sure I turned and went flying back to the river, on over the log where I had left the old chief—he gave me right of way—and into the midst of the Laramie barn-raising. 'Come, quick,' I said, 'I have seen a bear.' And they all came; two had guns. But he was gone; he hadn't left a track, and I found myself, suddenly, standing there under the scrutiny of the whole settlement. It was only my second week, then, and teachers, up the Nisqually, are more unusual than bears."

But the amusement went out of Forrest's face. "You should have at least the security of a good horse. You must take Colonel. I can't use him at the new mills," he explained quickly, "and I don't want to sell him. He never knew another master. Will you keep him while I stay at Freeport?"

"I keep Colonel? Oh, there's nothing I should like better; nothing. You are the best, the most generous man I ever knew." She leaned a little towards him, all delight, eagerness, charm. "I can't ever hope to repay you, Paul, but I'd be glad of the opportunity to do anything—anything in the world—for you."

"I wish I could be sure of that. See here,"—his voice deepened and shook,—"I don't ask you to come to Freeport, or anywhere, until I can offer you something worth while, only—if you care enough for me to wait for me, Alice—tell me so."

She drew back; the delight went out of her face; she rose in consternation to her feet. "You," she faltered. "You— Oh, what made you, Paul? What made you?"

"How could I help it?" He, too, rose and stood looking down into her flushed face. "I always have loved you, Alice,—don't you know it?—even when you were a small girl and I carried your books to school. Once I was late and you came up the road to meet me.—Don't you remember?—It was my last year at the Academy, when you were twelve. You were reading your first Waverley novel, and you told me that morning, some day your knight would come riding down the ridge. I never forgot. I was the better horseman for it. Long afterwards, when I bought Colonel, I thought of it. I always meant to be that knight."

He smiled, half ashamed of that boyish dream, but she drew herself straight and turned her eyes again to the tower. "You," she said, "whom I have known my whole life through."

"Yes, does that count so much against me?"

"I'm so sorry. You've been the best friend I ever had; the one I could always depend on. Oh, I wish—I wish it hadn't happened."

He laid his hand, bracing himself a little, on the bole of the fir, and turned his own face away, looking off once more down the canyon. Myers, coming back to the edge of the windfall, called, but neither of them answered. Presently she reached and broke a sprig from a lower bough and began slowly to strip it of its needles. "But I see—I see—how much I've been to blame," she said. "I can't forgive myself, ever. I never thought of you—in—that way, Paul. You never seemed—like other men. And I see—I see—I shouldn't have spoken, as I did just now, about Colonel."

"Why, it's all right." He swung around and looked at her. "It's all right. Don't let it trouble you; don't give it another thought. And, of course, you will keep Colonel."

She shook her head. "How can I?"

"Don't make me feel you hold him in the light of a bribe. Understand, it's just a favor to me. I think a good deal of my horse; it means a lot to me to be able to leave him with some one I can trust."

Her lip trembled; she brushed her hand across her eyes. "You are the best—the noblest man in the world," she said.

Eben called again and Forrest answered with a clear "Hello." He began to walk back towards the windfall. Presently he stopped to pick up a small, morocco-bound book which she had lost from her pocket in crossing a boulder on the way out to the cliff. He slipped the volume into his own pocket and turned to help her over the rock. "See here," he said, "I want you to know that I'm glad to be that best friend, the one you depend on. You needn't be afraid of me; you've