Before, it had been a race-reverie; a waiting, puzzled and uncertain for the ways of life. Now, it was the joy of life, the fulfilment for which life had been created and waited expectant; and whether the ways were any plainer in the new light, there was no room for wonder in the fulness of joy. Eleanor was glad the little bundle of tawdry loquacity toddling between them kept up a constant stream of idle boastings on the road to the Mission House, about being "waal-thy" and "Faather shure bein' a gen'leman when they were waal-thy" and "herself as foine as eny loidy in th' land," and more and more of the same, all the way down the Ridge Trail; which was not so fatuous as it sounded, when it voiced the convictions of a great many more people than the little unwashed garlicky Shanty Town dancer. Eleanor wondered if the same arguments applied to the culture of horses and pigs and potatoes—size instead of sort, fulness of stomach not quality of head, area of possession not area of service.

The garrulous babble continued to the very doors of the Mission School, and through the formalities of an absurdly formal introduction to Mrs. Williams, and during the suppertime meal with the little Indian children in the big dining room. Eleanor noticed how Lizzie's lips pursed with contempt at the other children and the little stomach poked out with arrogance and fulness as the boasting waxed.

"That kind is the most hopeless of all," remarked Mrs. Williams in a low voice, amused at the amazement on the faces of the Indian children.

Yet Eleanor was glad. The babble gave her opportunity for withdrawal in her own thoughts; and when she came back to the Ranch House with Matthews, leaving Lizzie still boasting at the School, she hardly noticed that her father stopped the frontiersman on the threshold, but she passed out to the steamer chair on her own piazza. What was It? Eleanor could not have answered if she had tried. She only knew that she had drunk of the fulness of living, and that time could not rob her of that consciousness. It was there, forever with her, breathing in every breath, pulsing in the rhythm of her blood, "Closer than hands or feet," as the Pantheistic poet has sung, immanent, enveloping, possessory, obsessory, warm, living, a flooding realization of life, giving tone to every touch of existence, like the strings of the violin to the bow of the skilled musician. She wanted to sing; the long, low, jubilant chant of womanhood which no poet has yet sung. By the joy of it, she knew what the sorrow of it must be. By the purity, she realized what the poisoning of the fountain springs of life could mean. By the triumph, she realized what the defeat, the debasement could be. She thought of love as a fountain spring, a spring into which you could not both cast defilement and drink of waters undefiled; as an altar flame fed with incense lighting the darkness; and one could no more offend love with impurity, than cast the dung heap on the altar flame and not expect blastment. She wanted to clap her hands as the gay, twinkling cottonwoods were clapping theirs to the sunset; to dance and beat gypsy tambourines as the pines were throbbing and harping and clicking to the age-old melodies of Pan. She wanted—what was it? Had the Israelitish women of old timed their joy to the rhythm of the dance; or was it a later strain, the strain from the tribal woman of the plains who heard a voice in the music of the laughing leaves, and the throb of the river, and the shout of the sun-glinted cataract, and the little lispings and whisperings of the waves among the reeds? The stars came pricking out. Each hung a tiny censer flame to the altar of night and holiness and mystery. She knew she could never again see the stars come pricking through the purple dusk without feeling the stab of joy that had wakened death to life when recognition had struck fire in consciousness. She knew, then, there was no eternity long enough for the joy of It, nor heaven high enough for the reach of It, nor hell deep enough for the wrong of It.

There was a click of the mosquito wire door opening out on her piazza.
It was her father.

"Matthews and I are going to take the fast team and the light buckboard and drive down to Smelter City to-night. Will you be all right, Eleanor?"

"I? Oh, of course! Nothing wrong is there, Father?"

"Nothing, whatever!" She remembered afterwards the shine and look of lonely longing in the black eyes. "We have to be in Smelter City, tomorrow; think it best to drive down in the cool of evening! Day stage is a tiresome drive. You'll be all right, Eleanor?"

If she could only have known, how she would have spent herself in his arms; but it is, perhaps, a part of the irony of life that the best service is silent; that the loudest service, like the big drum, is the emptiest; only we never know the quality of that big drum till a specially hard knock tests it. She remembered afterwards how he half hesitated. He was not a demonstrative man, nor a handling one; only a dumb doer of things next, regardless of consequences; and we don't realize what that means till we are too old to pay tribute and they to whom tribute is due have passed our reach.

"I, oh, of course I'll be all right! Would you like a lunch or something?"

"No, never mind! Keep Calamity by you! Go to bed early, have a good sleep! 'Night," he said. The mosquito door clicked and he had gone. A moment later, the yellow buck board had rattled down the River road, and her father did what he had never done before, he turned and lightly waved his hat.

If Eleanor could have known it, he was saying at that moment:

"Matthews, you can fight the world, the flesh, and the devil; but you can't fight against the stars."

The old frontiersman didn't answer for a little. When he spoke, it was very soberly:

"No, when it's that, you'll work for the stars spite o' y'rself! Why, A contrived the meetin' myself this vera afternoon; wha' d' y' think o' that for an old fool? A'll be goin' back empty handed, an' all m' own doin'!"

"And I'll have built plans for twenty years on,—on the sands," and
MacDonald flicked the bronchos up with his whip.

There was a long silence but for the crunch of the wheels through the road dust.

"MacDonald," said Matthews abruptly, "A'm goin' t' see this thing thro'. A don't mean y'r daughter's love; th' angels o' Heaven have that in their own charge! A'm referrin' t' this mine thing! There's evil brewin'! A'm goin' t' see this thing thro'; an' A make no doubt y'r goin' to do th' same! A'm no wantin' t' pry into y'r affairs, MacDonald; but—is y'r will made an' secure?"

The sheep rancher flicked his whip at the bronchos and took firmer hold of the reins.

"Copper rivetted," he said.

We call It clairvoyance; and we call It intuition; and we call It instinct; and we might as well call it x, y, z for all these terms mean. We do not know what they mean. Neither do we know what It is. We hear It and obey It; and It brings blessedness. In the din of life's insistent noise, we sometimes do not hear It. That is, we do not hear It until afterwards when the curse has come. Then, we remember that we did hear It, though we did not heed it.

It was so with Eleanor after her father passed from the Ranch House that night. Afterwards, she knew that she had noticed the wistful look on his face; but the memory of it did not come to the surface of thought till she heard the click of Calamity's door in the basement and recollected his words; "Keep Calamity by you." Also, at that very moment, a great gray racing motor car swerved out across the white bridge from the Senator's ranch buildings and went spinning down the Valley road, the twin lanterns before and behind cutting the dark in the double sword of a great search light that etched the sheathed pine needles and twinkling cottonwoods in black against a background of gold. Eleanor was perfectly certain she saw the same two hats in the back seat that had met Wayland at the Cabin that afternoon.

"Calamity," she called down over the piazza railing.

The native woman came up the piazza stairs on a pattering run.

"Why has everybody gone down to Smelter City to-night? Is anything wrong?"

The Cree woman's shawl had fallen back from her head. She stood kneading her fingers in and out of her palms. There was a strange wild look in the dark eyes and her breathing labored. "It ees Moyese," said Calamity slowly. "He 'xamin d' mine t'-morrow."

"Why, Calamity, that is perfect nonsense! Moyese won't examine the mine, at all! This young fellow from Washington is the one to examine the mine?"

Calamity continued to knit her fingers in and out. "All 'same," she said, "Messieu Waylan', he telephone Messieu MacDonal' come 'mine help him t'-morrow!"

"Telephone my father? Why, how could he? I have been right here,
Calamity?"

"You go see Missy Villam, leetle gurl," explained Calamity. "Messieu Waylan' he ride down hog back trail woods all night, 'lone! He ring ting—ling—says he go 'samin mine."

Then, the child's babble, the looks of the two at the Cabin, her father's wistful face, the quick departure of Matthews and himself, followed almost immediately by Moyese's motor, confirmed Calamity's incoherent account. Eleanor ran out to the telephone in the living room, and rang for the Ranger's Cabin. There was no answer on the local circuit, and Central at Smelter City could only say "They don't answer! Try local!"

Yet why should she feel such alarm? Had he not gone down to the Desert, and come back, and she had not known fear? Was the fear for her father? Was it her father's wistful look? What could she do? Would he wish her to do anything? This, too, was on the Firing Line, but reason how she would, she could not subdue her fears, nor keep the tremor from her hands as she ran back to the bed room dimly lighted by the candle above the desk at the head of the bed.

"Calamity, you don't think there is any danger to Father?"

Then Calamity did the strangest thing that ever Eleanor had seen her do. She had thrown off the shawl. She had drawn herself up on moccasined tip-toes, and seemed suddenly to have thrown off age and abuse and disgrace and rags and sin, with her eyes fixed stonily on the far spaces of her wrecked youth, the lids wide open, the whites glistening, a mad look in the dilated pupils shining like fire; and her fingers were knitting in and out of her palms.

"M' man," she whispered, "dey keel heem, dey hang heem! M' babee, dey take it away, d' pries' he sing—sing an' wave candle an' bury it in snow. Leetle Ford, d' keel heem! D' punish Indian man, d' hang heem, m' man! Moyese, he keel leetle Ford: he go free, not'ng hurt heem!" She burst out laughing, low voiced cunning laughter. "I go see," she said. "I ride down hog's back t' d' mine! I go see! Messieu MacDonal'—He help me! I help heem! I go see," and before Eleanor had grasped the import of the words, the woman had darted out into the dark; and a moment later, Eleanor heard the basement door clang. There was the pound-pound of a horse being pulled hither and thither, leaping to a wild gallop, then the figure of Calamity bare-headed, riding bareback and astride, cut the moonlight; and the ring of hoof beats echoed back from the rocks of some one going furious, heedless up the face of the Ridge towards the hog's back trail.

Eleanor called up the Mission School telephone: Mr. Williams had heard nothing; he didn't believe there was any cause for alarm; the child was patently and plainly an astounding little liar! About Calamity? Oh, yes, Eleanor was not to be alarmed! She had gone off in those mad fits ever since her baby died up on Saskatchewan. It had been very distressing; was in winter time, and she wouldn't release the dead child from her arms; they had to take it from her by force; she always came back after a week or two of wandering! Would Eleanor like some one to come over and stay in the Ranch House? And Eleanor being a true descendant of the Man with the Iron Hand flaunted personal fear; and went back to a sleepless but not unhappy night in her room. Why did the news that Calamity's child had died bring such a sense of relief?

How simply does life deck out her tragedies! There is no prelude of low-toned plaintive orchestral music tuned to expectancy. There is no thunder barrel; or if there is a thunder barrel, you may know that the tragedy is theatrical and hollow in proportion to the size of its emptiness. And there is no graceful curtain-drop between it and real life, permitting you to rise from your place and go home happy.

MacDonald was stepping into the bucket to descend the last shaft of the mine when something on the edge of the BrulÉ arrested his glance; in fact, two things: one was Calamity coming out from the trail of the hog's back through the young cottonwoods and poplars, riding bareback and looking very mad, indeed; the other, was O'Finnigan from Shanty Town on foot, staggering and mad as whiskey could make him, coming up the narrow rock trail from Smelter City.

"Go on," said MacDonald curtly to the others. "I'll keep the notes safe up here, and give Sheriff Flood a hand at the hoist!"

All had gone well, exceedingly well, in the examination of the mine. It had begun sharp at twelve o'clock when the day shift came out with their dinner pails. It will be remembered the Ridge sloped down to a burnt area, known as the BrulÉ, overgrown with young poplars and birches and yet younger pines. The BrulÉ slanted down to a roll of rock and shingle and gravel above the City known as Coal Hill. It was on the face of this hill that the mines lay. You could see the black veins coming out on the face of the cliff; and into the cliff penetrated two parallel tunnels. Up and down from these tunnels rattled the trucks on serial tramways to and from the Smelter, weaving in and out of the tunnel mouths like shuttles, run by gravitation pressure. If the mines were worthless, or worth only the five, ten, and three-hundred dollars that the Ring had paid the "dummy" homesteaders for each quarter section, these shifts of a hundred men at a time, and trucks and tramways would have offered a puzzle to any one but the downy-lipped youth, who had come to examine them.

When Wayland arrived at the mine with Matthews and MacDonald, he found the federal investigator on hand with Mr. Bat Brydges, who was out for news features, and the news editor of the "Smelter City Herald," who somehow gave the Ranger a look mingled of smothered anger and friendliness. If Mr. Bat Brydges felt any embarrassment, he did not show it. Indeed, the handy man would have felt proud of the very things of which he had accused the Ranger; and it is to be doubted if the door of decent shame remained open; if, indeed, the harboring of thoughts like the flocking of the carrion bird to putridity does not pre-suppose a kind of inner death. And as the party were donning blue overalls to descend into the mine, who should come on the scene but Mr. Sheriff Flood, "to see that ev'thing waz al' right," he explained, exhibiting a protuberant rotundity due reverse of the compass that had been most prominent when Wayland last saw him; and if the doughty defender of the law felt any embarrassment, like the handy man, he did not show it. Indeed, this mighty man of valor could truthfully be described as fat of brain, fat of chops, fat of neck, and fattest of all in the rotundity of this strutting stomach. In fact, he seemed proud of that hummocky part of his anatomy and swung it round at you and rested his hands clasped across it as he talked.

"Jis' thought I'd happen along! Wife didn't want me to: women are all skeery that way; but I jis' thought I'd happen along an' nut let her know!"

"All sorts o' things might chance in a mine, mightn't they?" cut in
Matthews with a twinkle of his eye more merry than good natured.

The Sheriff smiled a sickly smile and ''lowed they could'; and everybody walked into the lowest tunnel leaving the fire guard lanterns outside; for this tunnel was lighted by electricity. As they all walked in, the Sheriff was to the rear.

"Here, you, Mr. Sheriff," Matthews blurted out, going to the rear of the procession, "seems to me my place is kind o' back o' behind o' you."

The Sheriff smiled a sickly smile and ''lowed it waz.'

Wayland took the record of the mine's output per day. (It averaged a net return of forty per cent. dividend on a capitalization of ninety million.) Then, he took the record of what the Smelter could consume per day. The difference must be used for shipment or storage. Wayland did the counting and measuring. MacDonald jotted down the notes. The downy-lipped youth proceeded along the tunnel with an air of supreme contempt. It was as they were about to enter the second tunnel that his superiority expressed itself. Matthews afterwards said it was because the black water drip or coal sweat was seeping through the overalls.

"I don't see what we're delaying to take all these specific measurements for anyway," he said.

"Don't you?" asked Wayland. "Then I'll tell you! I have the affidavit of the most of the 'dummies' that the homestead entries were fraudulent! You could see that if you knew that men can't farm at an angle of ninety! In case that fails, I want proof that this coal is so valuable it is being shipped out. I want exact proofs of the exact profits being made on the fraudulently acquired mines."

"What's your idea? Shut 'em up from development for ever?" asked
Brydges belligerently.

"Brydges," said Wayland, "when you find you can't throw your pursuer off the trail by the skunk's peculiar trick of defence, I'd advise you to try kicking sand in the public's eyes and drawing a rotten herring across the trail! This time, I think you'll find, the public won't go off the trail after the rotten herring. They'll keep on after the thief."

It was at that stage, Bat fell back abreast of the Sheriff, and Matthews behind heard one of the two say, "Damn him, then, let him go on and examine his bellyfull! It's his funeral; not ours!"

Wayland not only examined the second tunnel above the first, but he insisted on descending a shaft that had been sunk almost vertically from the crest of Coal Hill to get a measurement of the veins, for stoping, or cross cutting, or drifting or some such technical work, I forget what; but the vertical shaft afforded estimates of the depth of the veins. Because it was not a regular avenue of work but only of examination, it had not been equipped with steam hoist and electric light, but was furnished only with such old fashioned hand winch as the stage driver had described to Eleanor. A huge bucket depended by cable from the hand hoist. It was as they were all lighting lanterns and stepping in, that MacDonald took a look at the hoist and noticed that the Sheriff was to give a hand at the winch.

"Not coming Brydges?" asked Matthews, who was already in the bucket.

"Oh, I guess I'm a pretty heavy man to go in that."

"Then, A guess you're afraid of what's goin' t' happen! We're not goin' down, without you, m' boy."

Bat winked at the Sheriff and clambered in. It was then something on the edge of the BrulÉ arrested MacDonald's glance; Calamity coming through the cottonwoods mad and dishevelled, O'Finnigan reeling up from the Smelter City trail mad with whiskey, waving a bottle and shouting—"What's th' use o' anything? Nothing! I'm Uncle Sam! Hoorah!"

"Go on," ordered MacDonald curtly. "I'll keep the notes safe up here, in my pocket, Wayland! I'll stay and give Sheriff Flood a hand at the hoist!"

The Sheriff looked for directions to Brydges.

"Let her go," ordered Brydges with a glance back over his shoulder towards the trail from Smelter City; and the winch creaked and groaned; and the bucket fell with a bump; then a steady drop to the first vein. When Matthews looked up, the slant of the shaft had cut off the sky. Brydges didn't bother clambering out of the bucket. He was silent and kept hold of the dependent cable. Suddenly, there was a rumble as of the hoist flying backward, then the whip lash of a taut rope snapping, and the cable whirled down in a coil round Brydges' head.

"Gee whiz! This is a pretty mess! The cable's broke; and we can't get up!"

"What's that?" called Mathews. Wayland and the others were examining the black wall of the shaft.

Matthews flashed his hand lantern in Brydges' face. It was ashen doughy, with sagged lips. "Wayland, have y' on y'r mountaineerin' boots, the boots pegged wi' handspikes?" cried the old frontiersman. "The cable's broken; and A like t' see y' shin for th' top soon as possible!"

Something in the voice must have caught the ear of the news editor; for he turned back and flooded his lantern, first on Matthews' face, then on Brydges'.

"You'll climb easier if you pull off y'r overalls and fasten y'r lantern in y'r hat, Wayland," he said in the same cutting voice he used in the hurry and rush of the composing room.

If Mr. Bat Brydges had been after a feature story, he had it then and there; the tenebrous thick coal darkness; the drip-drip-drip of the water-soak through the rock walls; Matthews' eyes blazing like coals of fire in the dark, his lantern shining full on Brydges; the news editor hatchet-faced, white of skin, with pistol point eyes, his lantern full on Brydges; the downy-lipped youth white, terrified, chattering of jaws, unable to speak a word, clutching to the edge of the bucket to hide his trembling, his hat had fallen off, his lantern had fallen out of his hand, and a great blob of black coal drip trickled from his yellow hair down his cheek in front of his ear; and the handy man still standing in the barrel, his face chalky and soggy like dough, with a show of bluff, but unable to look a man in the face, gazing at his feet in the bottom of the barrel:

"Gawd, Wayland! Don't risk it! Don't climb! Wait a little! They'll wind her up and drop another rope down to us and—"

The Ranger had begun climbing. They could see the shine of the lantern in his hat against the black moist rock wall; up and up, slow, sure and light of foot, swinging from side to side for hand grip; hands first finding foot hold; then a leg up; and another foot hold.

"Look out fellows," he warned once. "I might knock some of these small rocks loose!"

Then, the light of the lantern disappeared at a bend in the shaft.

"It's a darned dangerous thing to do," pronounced the handy man thickly.

Not one of the men answered a word, and the silence grew impressive by what it didn't say.

Once Wayland had turned the bend of the shaft, the rest of the way up was easy. Daylight was above, and the climb was a gradual slant over uneven ridged rock; and with the grip of the pegs in his mountaineering boots, he ascended almost at a run on all fours.

"Hullo up-there," he called, "what's wrong?"

There was no answer. He ascended the rest of the way winged and came out hoisting himself from his elbows to his knees with a deep breath of pure air above the surface. At first, daylight blinded him. He threw the lantern from his hat and blinked the darkness out of his eyes.

"It's all right fellows," he roared down the shaft, funnelling his hands.

Then he looked.

Sheriff Flood was not to be seen. Neither was MacDonald. There seemed to be no one. The day shift were going back in the tunnels below. The windlass handle hung prone as a disused well. It had not flown back broken. The cable had been cut. Then, he heard a groan. It was Calamity lying on her face at the foot of the windlass, weeping and reaving her hair. Stretched on the grass a few paces back from the windlass with two bloody bullet holes full in the soft of the temple, lay MacDonald, the sheep rancher, beyond recall.

Wayland stooped and felt for the heart.

It was motionless. The body was chilling and stiffening. He looked back at the face. There was almost a smile on the lips; and one hand hung as if fallen from the windlass handle. A suspicion flashed through Wayland's mind. He could hardly give it credence. It was preposterous, unbelievable, like a page from the lawlessness of the frontier a hundred years ago! Yet hadn't this thing happened in California, and happened in Alaska? They would never dare to murder a man conducting an investigation ordered by the great Government of the greatest Nation on earth! Yet had they not tried to assassinate representatives of the great Federal Government down in San Francisco, and shot to death in Colorado a federal officer sent straight from Washington? And these murders had not been committed by the rabble, by the demagogues, by the anarchists. They had been pre-planned and carried out by the vested-righter, in defiance of law, in defiance of the strongest Government on earth and up to the present, in defiance of retribution.

Wayland tore open the coat and felt for the notes. They were gone. He looked at Calamity. A darker suspicion came. Then, he caught the Cree woman by the shoulder and threw her to her feet.

"Calamity who did this?"

"Th' trunk man, O'Finnigan! Flood, he lead heem up; an' t' trunk man shoot, shoot quick close—lak dat," she said snapping her fingers round behind Wayland's ear against the soft of his temple.

Wayland's suspicions became a certainty.

"They will blame you," he said, "do you understand me? They will prove you did it; and hang you! Ride for your life! Ride for Canada; and hide!"

Was he thinking of Calamity or Eleanor? But where was Flood; and where was the drunken man?

He fastened a stone to the end of the cut cable, and with a shout began dropping it down and down from the windlass.