LD SAM carefully closed the cabin door, and peered around him in the dim light of the dying fire.

"You here, Jack?" he asked.

"Yes, Sam," came from a shadowy bulk near the window that unfolded itself into the semblance of a man and came forward to meet the newcomer. "Wait till I strike a light," he added in a soft, drawling voice. "Did you get the papers and magazines for me?"

"I got one of every kind they had in town," replied Sam. "They ought to last you for a few days."

Jack laughed as he untied the roll of papers. In the flickering light his eyes— the deep, warm eyes of a dreamer, shone eager with anticipation.

"They told me at the store that they were going to begin work on the road along here in a day or so," announced Sam as he began puttering about the cook stove.

"That so?" asked Jack, reflectively, and he forgot the papers and fell into a brown study.

"That road has menaced my seclusion for a long time," he mused aloud.

"Never you mind," said Sam, who was always on the alert to catch the slightest sound from Jack; "you don't need to let any of those fresh city guys come around here in their automobiles pestering you. As long as I'm around I'll send them about their business in short order, and you can bet on that.”

Sam had long known that a mystery hung about this man, "Jack the Recluse." the neighbors called him. Rumors of various kinds reached his ears, and he was made the object of all sorts of questions in regard to Jack, but he always maintained a stolid indifference and pretended to know even less than he really did. Jack had taken him in, a poor old

broken-down prospector, gnarled and crippled with rheumatism and decrepit with age, and had given him not only food and shelter, but a companionship and trustfulness such as Sam had never known. What if the neighbors did say he was a counterfeiter, an escaped convict, or even a murderer in hiding? To Sam he was a paragon of learning and manly virtue, and he loved and trusted him with doglike devotion. For ten years Sam had formed the only link between Jack and civilization. Together they eked a living out of the little garden on the bank of the river. Jack did the greater part of the work, and Sam carried the fruit and vegetables to a little mining town five miles away.

"I got three dollars for the garden sass at the store to-day," announced Sam, as he deposited the money on the table.

"Well, you know where it is when you need any; just help yourself," said Jack, as he placed the money inside the clock. Sam grinned sheepishly. There had been a time when every cent he could lay his hands on went for drink, but not for worlds would he have touched that money. With his trust and kindness, Jack had bound him to himself, body and soul. After supper was over, the dishes cleared away, and the chores done, he came in and took his place beside Jack in front of the fire. "How you feeling tonight?" he asked anxiously.

"Not so very good, Sam. My arms have had that dumb feeling all day to-day again. I wonder if it can be some kind of paralysis coming on me." Sam rose and got down a bottle from the shelf.

"Let me rub it with this liniment. Last time you said you thought it did them good.' good." Jack smiled indulgently, as he bared his arm, and let Jack rub on the burning liquid.

"You ain't reading much this evening,"

commented Sam.

"No, Sam, this road business has set me thinking. I suppose you have often wondered why I lived out here like this?"

Sam was startled. In all the ten years of his life with Jack, never before had he heard him make any allusion to his past.

"Yes, sir-no, sir," he stammered in his confusion. "I don't care. I know they say all sorts of things around here, but I never took no stock in any of it." Sam was anxious to make Jack feel that he, at least, was loyal to him, whatever his crime.

"It was all on account of a woman, Sam."

Sam sniffed. His knowledge of women was exceedingly slight, and his opinion of the sex anything but flattering.

"Women is the root and branch of all evil," he announced with the air of knowledge and finality of one who knows. Clearly the matter was beyond the dispute of any sensible person.

"She was my wife," continued Jack, smiling at the interruption. "I was the superintendent of a mill down near the mouth of this very river, many miles from here. She was the daughter of one of the owners. I made up my mind the day I first saw her that she was the girl I was going to marry. She seemed to care for me, too, in those days. Her father didn't like it much, but Barbara always had her way, and so we were married. We got along all right for about a year, and then a new man came to town to take charge of the office. He was handsome and dashing and seemed to take a notion to Barbara from the start. At first she didn't seem to pay much attention to him, but I saw after awhile that she liked to talk to him and liked to have him around. Things got pretty bad. It was eating my heart out, but I didn't say anything to her for fear it would only make matters worse. Then I heard they were planning to run away together. At first all I could think of was killing them both, but I thought it all out and found that I loved her too much for that-that poor little Barbara must be happy at any cost, and if I could not make her happy, I would not stand in her way. Happiness is the best thing in the world, Sam. There is more religion in simple happiness than

all the creeds in the universe. I came to the conclusion that it was for me to do away with myself, somehow, and leave her free to marry him. That was the only thing that would save her from worse. I took a boat and went out on the river one wild night. I had thought over all the different ways, and concluded that that would cause her the least trouble. My overturned boat would be found in the morning and that would be all. I had the courage to tip the boat over, but someway I couldn't drown-it just wasn't to be. I was washed up on a little sand-bar near the shore, and waded out. Somehow I couldn't try it again. I knew they would find the overturned boat and think that my body had been swept out to sea. It wasn't right, Sam, but some way, I just couldn't try it again. I cut through the country and came up here, and I've got a little out of life, for I always have the memory of the days when Barbara and I were happy. Sometimes I think I did right, Sam, and sometimes I think I may be doing her the greatest wrong in the world. I haven't heard of her since I couldn't bear to know."

Sam rubbed the arm, and there was a hint of tears in his watery old eyes. He was full of resentment at that woman for spoiling a life as good as Jack's. How could a woman not care for him!-and yet, that was the way of women-vampires, all of them. He tried to think of something to say-something that would comfort the man he worshipped, but he could think of nothing but maledictions against his wife, and so both were silent, gazing into the fire.

Soon the road through the gap was completed and became a very popular route for tourists going by automobile from Juniper to Canon City, and Jack, though at first in a constant state of suspense, became accustomed to the huge machines speeding past his very door, and found much amusement in sitting by the window watching them.

One afternoon, sitting alone in the gathering dusk-Sam had gone to town. and would not be home until late-Jack was thrown into a panic at the sight of a woman and little girl coming up the path toward the house. When they

knocked, he was still undecided as to whether he would let them in or keep still and make them think that there was no one at home. The temptation was too strong, however-it had been ten years since Jack had talked to a woman, and then, too, they might be in want. With the impulse strong upon him, he threw open the door and stood face to face with his wife. He shrank back into the gloom of the doorway, but there was no recognition on her face, and he soon recovered himself. Of course she would not know him, thinking him dead, and with those ragged clothes, and with such a growth of shaggy hair all over his face.

"Could you give my little girl a cup of hot milk?" asked the lady sweetly. "Our machine has broken down, and it will take the men some time to fix it. The little girl is so tired and cold."

"Come in," said Jack, in a voice strangely unlike his own. "We're all out of oil," he murmured apologetically. He was afraid of the light, afraid, too, that this dream might fade, "but I guess you can manage to see by the firelight."

"Yes," returned the woman, "it seems so cozy just as it is." She tossed aside her rich fur coat and seated herself in Jack's chair. She was a handsome, middle-aged woman, but with much of the charm and sweetness of her girlhood still clinging about her.

With fingers that trembled, Jack heated the milk for the little girl, who had seated herself demurely in a chair opposite her mother.

"I'm sorry I haven't got a bite of cake or something like that to offer you," said he. "Won't you have some milk, too," he asked, half-timidly, as he held the glass toward his wife.

"Yes," she said, "I think it would rest me, too."

Jack seated himself on a box in the shadows and watched her gloatingly as she sipped the milk.

"I hate to hear that river," cried the woman, turning toward him suddenly.

"It does make quite a noise by here," he admitted; "but I am used to it-I don't even hear it any more. But why should you hate to hear it?" he asked, after a pause, during which he had turned her words over and over in his mind.

"It stole my husband from me," she answered sadly.

"Is that so?" said Jack, with a catch in his voice. The conversation was taking a turn that alarmed him. "I knew a man that was drowned in the river, too, down near the mouth," he ventured, unable to resist the temptation to draw her on. "Did you? What was his name?" "James McDonald," he said, watching her closely.

"James McDonald," she cried, "that was my husband. Did you know him?" "He was a friend of mine."

The little girl put down her cup and came over to where he was sitting.

"Did you know my papa?" she asked, looking up at him with serious eyes that he saw were like his own.

Her papa! For an instant Jack did not take in the full import of the words. He put his arm around her and drew her close.

"Is this Jim McDonald's child?" he demanded of his wife.

The woman nodded. A mist was in her eyes.

"What's her name?" he asked in a tense whisper.

"Nancy!" Nancy was his mother's

name.

In an ecstacy of tenderness he hugged the child close to him. "Tell me about papa," she pleaded, her head pillowed against his ragged jumper.

"Nancy," broke in her mother, seeing that the man was confused, "you must not bother this man after he has been so kind to us. I have alwavs taught her to love her father," she explained. "I could not do otherwise, loving him so myself."

Jack trembled with the intensity of his feelings. Had his sacrifice, then, been vain? Had Barbara not won the happiness he had sought for her at such a cost? Had these withered, fruitless years been for nothing, and most of all, did Barbara love him still? He longed to tell her all, to confess everything, but he looked at the marks of luxury and refinement so evident on her and on the child, and glanced around his bare, crude little home, and refrained. Could he ask her to come back to this? Could he take away the advantages and comforts of life from his child? He was an old man, now, almost penniless,

and his chance in the world was gone. Then, too, he thought of the scandal and talk the affair would create and probably cling to them all the rest of their lives. No, he would not tell her. Besides, she had formed other ties. At the thought his heart grew cold within him. Had he wronged this woman that he loved better than anything on earth-was he wronging her now?

"You-you married again?" he asked, after a long pause.

"Yes," she answered. "Tom LeRoy?"

"No," she answered quickly. "Why did you ask that ?"

"Heard something to the effect once," replied Jack.

"Did-did James tell you-did he think anything like that," she cried breathlessly. "I can't just remember where I heard it."

I was

"Oh, if James ever thought anything like that!" she cried. "My foolishness has hung over my head all these years. pleased and flattered to see how jealous I was making him-but I never cared for any one but him-I can never forget."

"Your husband," asked Jack, "hasn't he helped you forget?"

"My husband; yes, he is good to us. We have everything we want-but what we want most."

"But we must go," she added, rising. "It has seemed good to talk to some one who knew Jim. I would like to stay I would like to stay longer, but my husband would be impatient if he had to wait for us." The little girl came, and putting her arms about his neck, kissed him good-by. "I love you," she said, "because you knew my papa." He turned quickly back into the room so that they might not see his blinding tears. Twice he started to call

her back, then he staggered to the fire and sank reeling into the chair she had just vacated. He had let them go unknowing -but he must tell her, he must let her be the judge, that was the only reparation in his power.

Three hours afterwards, Sam, returning from town, found him still in his chair. Something unusual in his quietness alarmed Sam, and he spoke to him. He shook him, and Jack opened his eyes and looked at him beseechingly. Then Sam knew that the fear that had haunted him so long had come true-Jack was hopelessly paralyzed.

For days, Sam tended him with the gentle patience of a woman. Jack recovered so that he could sit by the window once more, but he never spoke again. He would sit for hours with a look of dumb agony in his eyes. At last he made it known to Sam that he wished pencil and paper. After that, for a long time, every day he would make pathetic efforts to use his useless hands. Then he would give it up, and the tears would course down his withered cheeks. Sam knew that there was something on his mind, that he wanted to write a letter, but he knew no way to help him. He never knew what the shock had been that brought on the stroke, never knew of his wife's visit or the agony that Jack was suffering every hour of the day.

When at last the end came, and the long, silent anguish was over, Sam found among his things a paper leaving everything to him, but aside from that, there was nothing to give the slightest clue to his identity or to that of his people.

Just "Jack the Recluse" was written on the headboard where they buried him in the little graveyard overlooking the river -with only Sam to mourn.

T

HE COLONEL'S paper dropped by a scant inch, but enough so that he could glance over its top.

Irene's head was still bent over her book. In her green dress she made him think of freshly unfolded ferns in a shaded nook by the side of a rock. When she stirred it was as if a passing breeze had stopped to caress them with a soft touch.

Tony, raking on the lawn from underneath his downcast lids, cast long and sympathetic gleams of light from his dark eyes, but Tony when he loved a maid poured out his soul in the burning language of his native land. The big fellow on the porch sat helpless, stricken dumb, fluctuating between his desire to lay his heart at the feet of this calm, self-contained young woman and his unconquerable fear lest some manifestation of his feeling betray his carefully guarded secret.

The Colonel, distinctly the outcome of his big, forceful, out-door life, was not habitually vacillating. As a poor boy, he had wrestled with crude nature, pitted his brains against others, and had won out. He had promised himself to be a power in his community and had made good. Wealthy, distinguished above his fellows, when the necessity for struggle no longer existed, he found himself solitary. He determined on a holiday. As his battlefield had been the broad, new, unworked portions of his own land, he turned to the Old World as affording the greatest contrast and entertainment.

It was in Paris that Irene floated out of space into the line of his vision. Since then, life had been measured by the length of time between her appearances.

He nursed the slender relationship between himself and her Lady Mother till it assumed gigantic proportions. He followed the two ladies over Europe, making

himself indispensable as courier, guide, and, on occasion, porter.

Irene's frank acceptance of cousinhood charmed him in Paris; through Germany the delightful comradeship it afforded was intoxicating; in the Alps it was now winsome, now tantalizing. By the time they reached Rome it had become a detested barrier. Under the level gaze of her gray eyes his nascent loverlike demonstrations slunk back abashed.

"Cousin, damn it, damn it!" he would exclaim after a particularly trying season when beyond the reach of feminine ears.

The Colonel was an honorable man, a man of his word, and he had an innate feeling that he was bound to stand by the pact of kinship he had established. Had she failed to keep it by but the flicker of her dark lashes, he would have realized his opportunity. The slightest bit of coquetry would have released him and put him on a footing with other men. would have become at once a suitor.

He

He writhed helplessly in his bondage, all the while conscious that his schemes and maneuvres were of no avail, that he was being out-flanked, out-generaled; that if he disposed his forces in open conflict he would be completely routed. A man of energy and decision he became a man of straw in all that concerned Irene. The slightest breath of her displeasure would have bowled him over.

Finally he persuaded the two ladies to return to America and pass a winter in California. In the place of his simple. bachelor housekeeping, he set up an elaborate establishment for their entertainment. At the present moment between his studies of the stock market he was working out a new plan of attack. He pulled at his mustache, ran his fingers through his hair, cleared his throat, cast a furtive glance at the bowed head and fell back on the stock market with precipitate haste.