Martin's was a typical little mountain store, containing a small sample of almost everything under the sun and built at the forks in the road. The ranchman let Bruce off at the store; then turned up the right-hand road that led to certain bunch-grass lands to the east. Bruce entered slowly, and the little group of loungers gazed at him with frank curiosity.

Only one of them was of a type sufficiently distinguished so that Bruce's own curiosity was aroused. This was a huge, dark man who stood alone almost at the rear of the building,—a veritable giant with savage, bloodhound lips and deep-sunken eyes. There was a quality in his posture that attracted Bruce's attention at once. No one could look at him and doubt that he was a power in these mountain realms. He seemed perfectly secure in his great strength and wholly cognizant of the hate and fear, and at the same time, the strange sort of admiration with which the others regarded him.

He was dressed much as the other mountain men who had assembled in the store. He wore a flannel shirt over his gorilla chest, and corduroy trousers stuffed into high, many-seamed riding boots. A dark felt hat was crushed on to his huge head. But there was an aloofness about the man; and Bruce realized at once he had taken no part in the friendly gossip that had been interrupted by his entrance.

The dark eyes were full upon Bruce's face. He felt them—just as if they had the power of actual physical impact—the instant that he was inside the door. Nor was it the ordinary look of careless speculation or friendly interest. Mountain men have not been taught it is not good manners to stare, but no traveler who falls swiftly into the spirit of the forest ordinarily resents their open inspection. But this look was different. It was such that no man, to whom self-respect is dear, could possibly disregard. It spoke clearly as words.

Bruce flushed, and his blood made a curious little leap. He slowly turned. His gaze moved until it rested full upon the man's eyes. It seemed to Bruce that the room grew instantly quiet. The merchant no longer tied up his bundles at the counter. The watching mountain men that he beheld out of the corners of his eyes all seemed to be standing in peculiar fixed attitudes, waiting for some sort of explosion. It took all of Bruce's strength to hold that gaze. The moment was charged with a mysterious suspense.

The stranger's face changed too. He did not flush, however. His lips curled ever so slightly, revealing an instant's glimpse of strong, rather well-kept teeth. His eyes were narrowing too; and they seemed to come to life with singular sparkles and glowings between the lids.

"Well?" he suddenly demanded. Every man in the room—except one—started. The one exception was Bruce himself. He was holding hard on his nerve control, and he only continued to stare coldly.

"Are you the merchant?" Bruce asked.

"No, I ain't," the other replied. "You usually look for the merchant behind the counter."

There was no smile on the faces of the waiting mountain men, usually to be expected when one of their number achieves repartee on a tenderfoot. Nevertheless, the tension was broken. Bruce turned to the merchant.

"I would like to have you tell me," he said quite clearly, "the way to Mrs. Ross's cabin."

The merchant seemed to wait a long time before replying. His eye stole to the giant's face, found the lips curled in a smile; then he flushed. "Take the left-hand road," he said with a trace of defiance in his tone. "It soon becomes a trail, but keep right on going up it. At the fork in the trail you'll find her cabin."

"How far is it, please?"

"Two hours' walk; you can make it easy by four o'clock."

"Thank you." His eyes glanced over the stock of goods and he selected a few edibles to give him strength for the walk. "I'll leave my suitcase here if I may," he said, "and will call for it later." He turned to go.

"Wait just a minute," a voice spoke behind him. It was a commanding tone—implying the expectation of obedience. Bruce half turned. "Simon wants to talk to you," the merchant explained.

"I'll walk with you a way and show you the road," Simon continued. The room seemed deathly quiet as the two men went out together.

They walked side by side until a turn of the road took them out of eye-range of the store. "This is the road," Simon said. "All you have to do is follow it. Cabins are not so many that you could mistake it. But the main thing is—whether or not you want to go."

Bruce had no misunderstanding about the man's meaning. It was simply a threat, nothing more nor less.

"I've come a long way to go to that cabin," he replied. "I'm not likely to turn off now."

"There's nothing worth seeing when you get there. Just an old hag—a wrinkled old dame that looks like a witch."

Bruce felt a deep and little understood resentment at the words. Yet since he had as yet established no relations with the woman, he had no grounds for silencing the man. "I'll have to decide that," he replied. "I'm going to see some one else, too."

"Some one named—Linda?"

"Yes. You seem quite interested."

They were standing face to face in the trail. For once Bruce was glad of his unusual height. He did not have to raise his eyes greatly to look squarely into Simon's. Both faces were flushed, both set; and the eyes of the older man brightened slowly.

"I am interested," Simon replied. "You're a tenderfoot. You're fresh from cities. You're going up there to learn things that won't be any pleasure to you. You're going into the real mountains—a man's land such as never was a place for tenderfeet. A good many things can happen up there. A good many things have happened up there. I warn you—go back!"

Bruce smiled, just the faint flicker of a smile, but Simon's eyes narrowed when he saw it. The dark face lost a little of its insolence. He knew men, this huge son of the wilderness, and he knew that no coward could smile in such a moment as this. He was accustomed to implicit obedience and was not used to seeing men smile when he uttered a threat. "I've come too far to go back," Bruce told him. "Nothing can turn me."

"Men have been turned before, on trails like this," Simon told him. "Don't misunderstand me. I advised you to go back before, and I usually don't take time or trouble to advise any one. Now I tell you to go back. This is a man's land, and we don't want any tenderfeet here."

"The trail is open," Bruce returned. It was not his usual manner to speak in quite this way. He seemed at once to have fallen into the vernacular of the wilderness of which symbolic reference has such a part. Strange as the scene was to him, it was in some way familiar too. It was as if this meeting had been ordained long ago; that it was part of an inexorable destiny that the two should be talking together, face to face, on this winding mountain road. Memories—all vague, all unrecognized—thronged through him.

Many times, during the past years, he had wakened from curious dreams that in the light of day he had tried in vain to interpret. He was never able to connect them with any remembered experience. Now it was as if one of these dreams were coming true. There was the same silence about him, the dark forests beyond, the ridges stretching ever. There was some great foe that might any instant overwhelm him.

"I guess you heard me," Simon said; "I told you to go back."

"And I hope you heard me too. I'm going on. I haven't any more time to give you."

"And I'm not going to take any more, either. But let me make one thing plain. No man, told to go back by me, ever has a chance to be told again. This ain't your cities—up here. There ain't any policeman on every corner. The woods are big, and all kinds of things can happen in them—and be swallowed up—as I swallow these leaves in my hand."

His great arm reached out with incredible power and seized a handful of leaves off a near-by shrub. It seemed to Bruce that they crushed like fruit and stained the dark skin.

"What is done up here isn't put in the newspapers down below. We're mountain men; we've lived up here as long as men have lived in the West. We have our own way of doing things, and our own law. Think once more about going back."

"I've already decided. I'm going on."

Once more they stood, eyes meeting eyes on the trail, and Simon's face was darkening with passion. Bruce knew that his hands were clenching, and his own muscles bunched and made ready to resist any kind of attack.

But Simon didn't strike. He laughed instead,—a single deep note of utter and depthless scorn. Then he drew back and let Bruce pass on up the road.

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