that trip down to Puget Sound, Lem?"

He dropped his head, and slipping back to his place at her heels as she resumed the climb, answered with brief emphasis, "You bet."

At the top of the ridge the trail entered the forest. The boughs of the friendly firs clasped overhead; a carpet of needles was underfoot. Moss rioted everywhere, on logs, rocks, the trunks of the living trees. Still, it was less insistent than the salal, which pushed its stiff glossy leaves through dense growths of alder and hazel, and the fern, which sent up slender stems, forming a lattice for honeysuckle and pea, and high above her head spread umbrella fronds. It was cooler and she quickened her pace. Lem began to whistle, then to answer the birds, and presently she, too, was calling, cautiously at first, taking lessons from the boy, and all the wood was full of voices.

At length there was the noise of running water and they came down to a brook. It was their half-way place. Mid-channel, Lem had built a water wheel. He had set a squirrel trap on the bank, and a larger one for mink, and had made a bench for the teacher, by rolling a short log against a trunk, securing it with stakes. She seated herself and he waded out into the stream. He plucked a leaf from an overhanging bough, and shaping a drinking-cup, brought her a draught. She laid her hat in her lap and resting her head on the trunk, idly watched him while he examined the traps, and drew from a hollow cedar his alder pole, equipped with primitive line, and baited the hook with a grasshopper. But while he tried pool and shallow ineffectually, her glance moved absently up-stream, and presently she sang in a soft undertone:

She shone in the light of de - clin -

ing day, And each sail was

set, And each heart .. was ... gay:

Music fragment

The noise of running water became the music of the sea; the bole on which she leaned was a heaving mast, and the stir of hemlock boughs above changed to the bellying of voluminous canvas. Once more the moon hung low over the Tumwater hills, silvering the cove, and on the port bow the Des Chutes plunged out of blackness and swayed, sparkling, like a curtain of roped pearls between beetling cliffs. Her sister's contralto, swelled by Kingsley's tenor, took up the chorus, but clearer, close beside her, subduing his fine baritone to her own voice, sang Paul Forrest.

At last she drew a full breath and returned to the present. She brushed her hand across her eyes and looked at Lem. The next instant she was on her feet. She ran down the bank and out upon the stepping-stones, watching the boy. "Play him, Lem," she cried softly, "play him, tire him. Don't be in a hurry."

"Gee, gee!" Lem set his teeth between the exclamations, and gripped the pole in both hands. "Oh, gee!"

He began to move down-stream, splashing ankle-deep, plunging over his knees in hollows. His steps quickened. He tripped on a sunken snag, recovered, fell sprawling across a dipping log, and was up instantly, steadying, playing the jerking line.

"That's right, Lem, slowly, tire him. Now—" She clasped her hands over an imaginary rod, lifted in unison, and as though she felt that great weight on the boy's line—"Now. Oh, you haven't, you haven't lost him?"

The chagrined sportsman stood regarding his remaining bit of string. Then he threw the pole down disgustedly and returned to the crossing, He gave the teacher one sidelong look and dropped his eyes.

"Never mind, Lem," she said. "It was fine. The gamiest I ever saw."

He lifted his head. "You kin bet on that," he answered. "Ther's jes one of him in this here creek. He's ther great Tyee. But gee, gee, I don't see how he hed water 'nough ter keep him erfloat."

The teacher laughed softly. She started on over the stream, but, lifting her glance from the dripping boy, she met suddenly the amused gaze of an auditor who had stopped on the bank. His mount, a dappled chestnut with a silver mane, the alert head, depth of chest, long, sleek body and nimble limbs of a thoroughbred, was, in that forest settlement, remarkable, but the man himself possessed a striking personality. He carried his large frame with almost military erectness and yet with the freedom of young muscles bred to the saddle. He wore cavalry boots and English-made riding-clothes, and his coat opened on an immaculate silk shirt bosom. His face, stamped with inherited fineness of living, was undeniably handsome, but his lip took a mocking curve when he smiled, his chin had length rather than breadth, and in his eyes, which were singularly light under black lashes and brows, smouldered a magnetic heat; they drew or repelled.

The rise from the brook was abrupt, the path narrow, and the teacher waited on a larger stone while the stranger rode down into the ford. He removed his hat with the usual salutation of the trail, and crushing it carelessly under his arm, would have passed directly on, but the horse, suspicious of some movement of Lem's, made a sudden détour that brought him almost upon her. She started to spring to another rock, her foot slipped, and to steady herself she threw up her hand. It came in contact with the chestnut's bridle below the bit. Instantly he reared, wheeled, and coming down, gripped the bank with his forefeet, and was off like a bird.

Lem crawled out of the pool into which he had plunged to avoid those striking hoofs, and the teacher hurried on over the crossing. But, unexpectedly, at the top of the bank she met the rider returning, and she and the boy crowded quickly into the salal to give him room. He still carried his hat under his bridle arm; a rifle in a leather case swung, undamaged, from the saddle; a small canvas-covered pack rested, unbroken, above the crupper, and the thoroughbred paced gently down into the stream and moving on slowly, trotted up the opposite side and disappeared among the firs.

"He kin ride," said Lem at last. "An' I 'low that ther chestnut kin travel. But he'd be mighty oncertain in er race. Ef it kem to it,"—he paused to follow the teacher back into the trail,—"ef it kem to it, I dunno but what I'd resk my pile on ther timber-cruiser an' ther black."

CHAPTER II

THE LEANING TOWER

Suddenly Forrest, who had taken the lead, turned and laid his hand on his horse's rein. "Back, Colonel," he said, "back. Steady, now, steady."

The trail, which ran between the edge of a windfall and the brink of a cliff, was cut off by a slide.

Presently, when there was room, the teacher slipped down from the saddle, and Forrest turned the black and led him into a small open on the level shoulder to which they had climbed. Below them they heard the voices of the settlers urging