As noiselessly as creeping wild things, they stole up the stair.

The door of Saranoff's room stood open as always. In the corner upon his bed of skins Saranoff slept, muttering now and then words detached, senseless, something about "blood of the Saranoffs," his "grandson."

Save for the yellow mellow light that shone from the ever-burning candles before the ikon, the room was dark.

They crept across the floor, stood within the nave. Siam reached forth his hand, withdrew it trembling. Natooka put out her hand, snatched it to her as if it had been burned.

Natooka whispered. If Siam would blow out the candles she would seize the candelabrum, flee.

Siam shook his head, gave her arm a slight jerk. No, if she would blow out the candles, why then he would seize the candelabrum.

.

known the day of my grandson's arrival, you will meet him in Sitka, you will bring him home upon his own boat. But before you sail from Sitka you will put gold in his hand, gold that he may buy whatever his fancy urges. For my grandson is a Saranoff, a gentleman. His blood is blood that once graced the throne of the greatest empire the world has ever known, the Russian Empire."

There came a day when a trim yawl, with auxiliary power, put into Saranoff tay. Ceremoniously Siam handed his passenger down the side ladder into the dinghy tender, rowed ashore.

Stanislaus Saranoff, seated in the chaise longue, reached for the old draw telescope, fell back trembling.

A step sounded upon the stair. Some one was entering the doorway. "Grandpa, it is I, Frances. You were ill, alone. So I came. Are you disappointed? If you are, I can go away. It was a mistake, careless writing. I am Frances, not Francis. I thought that you were alone, ill. I too have been ill, have been alone. I know the meaningGrandpa."

A girl, with soft brown eyes, tears upon her cheeks, red lips attempting a brave smile, knelt beside the chaise longue, timidly reached for the gnarled misshapen hand.

CHAPTER IV

stroying curse that Saranoff had put upon the hand that reached profanely to take the candelabrum, a curse that would wither the impious hand, a curse that would stop and forever stop the breath that would blow out its flickering holy

candles.

AN

N Indian paddled from Sitka to Saranoff bay with the yellow sheet of a cablegram tucked into the band of his white man's canvas hat.

The message was from Grandson Saranoff. "Will come if provide funds." Saranoff had Natooka fetch the old portmanteau. From a pocket in the thing Saranoff searched forth some Russian rubles and a dozen hand-shaped California gold slugs that in the fifties and sixties had been legal tender anywhere on the Pacific Coast. Still they were legal tender for they weighed fifty dollars each in virgin gold.

Instructing Siam to accompany the Indian back to Sitka, to seek counsel of the Russian priest how money might be sent over the thin wire that ran beneath the sea, Saranoff added still other commissions, extracted from the portmanteau more rubles and more gold slugs.

"Send the money to my grandson, ample money that he may journey in the state that befits a gentleman. Buy also for my grandson the finest rifle in Sitka. Buy for my grandson a boat, a craft that a gentleman would be proud to sail. Buy for him a hunting knife. These things, Siam, fetch here with you. When it is

timorously into the room, apologizing because she was a granddaughter and not a grandson, offering to go away again if he wished her to, felt for an instant fierce rebellion welling within him. To have fostered all these years a bitter hatred of the wife who had deserted him, hatred of her and of hers, to have relented finally, to have reluctantly forgiven, to have sent for his supposed grandson, only to be thus

mocked

He fixed the girl with a terrible glare of his hard eyes. For a moment the girl's face grew pale. A mortified flush followed. Stammeringly she was trying to tell him that she cared not at all for the inheritance be it much or little, that she had come and only come because he had written that he was ill, that he was alone.

She too had been ill. And she had been alone. She had made her living and the mother's living since she had been sixteen years old. Her mother was gone, had died five years before. Alone for five years. She knew what it meant.

The Great Pleasure of Smoking

Stanislaus Saranoff sat blinking at her from the depths of the chaise longue. This mother that was dead and gone would be the babe nestled in the arms of his wife when, faithlessly, half a century before, she had taken flight. This little girl was the daughter of the daughter of his wife, the daughter of his own daughter.

The girl was talking on rather excitedly, was confessing that the arrival of his letter had found her in a desperate mood. Life had been a struggle. Her father frankly had been a failure. Not that she blamed

him. He simply had lacked the equipment with which to wage a successful fight against obstacles. Her mother had broken down in health, had died, leaving debts, debts.

Those debts the girl had paid. But at what cost of penury, scrimping. She had

So is

Of course, smoking is a habit. eating when you're not hungry, bathing, and working more than is requisite to provide for just immediate needs.

The nations of this earth which have bred the profoundest thinkers and men with that nervous energy which accomplished great things have had the smoking habit to the Nth degree.

Carlyle, General Grant, Mark Twain, Foch-think of the long and illustrious line of thinkers and doers who have lighted the fragrant weed and watched those blue argosies of smoke tack in and out among the sunbeams, drift round the evening lamp or set sail toward the sky.

Thinkers and doers! They had their hard times, but right well they savored the great pleasure of smoking.

Of course, these great men did not be

come great merely because they smoked. But they knew the great pleasure smoking.

of

And that comes

SDGEWORTH from smoking just

what suits one's personal taste.

Perhaps you have noticed the irritation of the pipe

smoker out of his own tobacco, com

pelled to fill his pipe with another tobacco.

A smoker's satisfaction depends almost wholly upon having the tobacco that just suits him.

Have you found the pipe tobacco just suiting your individual taste, with which to enjoy the great pleasure of smoking?

If not, we invite you to try Edgeworth. Edgeworth doesn't suit the taste of everybody. For that very reason it may please you.

May we send you some?

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Edgeworth Plug Slice is pressed into cakes and then cut into thin, moist slices. One slice rubbed between the hands provides an average pipeful.

Edgeworth Ready-Rubbed is already rubbed for you. You pour it straight from the can into your pipe.

Both kinds pack nicely, light quickly, and burn freely and evenly to the very bottom of the pipe.

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shapely chin. The red lips closed themselves firmly.

"I'll do it, Grandpa, do my level best. I'll find a way, some way. It is a hideous thing. It must go. It must go."

The deep-set eyes of Stanislaus Saranoff actually twinkled. This girl was of the blood of the Saranoffs. He was proud of her.

He reached, struck lightly upon a copper gong. An attractive Indian girl came promptly from below stairs, stood await

ing

orders.

"Natooka," said Saranoff, "this is your mistress, my granddaughter; her orders, wishes, are mine. Show her the respect that is due her. Klatawa." (go).

The Indian girl bestowed a look of profound malevolence upon the white girl, turned, walked down the stair.

PLEASED, gratified beyond expression

by the prompt and sincere acquiescence of his granddaughter to his wishes regarding the eviction of the fish-trap, nevertheless through the day Saranoff began to entertain misgivings. What if she should fail? This crude, boorish Yankee boy who had invaded Saranoff bay, heeding not at all the warning boom of the old rifle, who had returned only insulting defiance when he had received the madroña bark order to move on, had nerve, determination. That much must be conceded. What if Frances found herself unable to cope with him?

There was a reason, to Saranoff a sufficient reason, why the heir to the Saranoff could not come into her heritage so long as any chechako interloper remained upon the Saranoff estate. The bay of Saranoff, though to that even under his ancient Russian land grant he had no title, the old man considered part and parcel of his desmesne.

Would it be safe to reveal the secret to this little brown-eyed girl? Doubts, misgivings assailed him.

A sudden inspiration came to him. It could be arranged so that even in the event of his own sudden death, the girl would not come into possession of the secret until the fish-trap had been destroyed, the white man driven out.

He reached forth to strike the copper gong to summon Natooka. He would bid the Indian maid call Siam. Siam, schooled by the Greek priests at Sitka, could read and write both English and Russian.

With the tlah stick or gong strike in his hand, he paused.

If Siam did the writing at his behest, why then the secret would be Siam's.

He would write what he had decided to write with his own tortured misshapen hand. It would be agony, the effort. But what was a moment of pain! Pain only, suffering, racking torture, these only had he known since the wreck of the Bernastoff fifty-three years before when long exposure clinging to the rigging, his perilous trip to shore upon the hatch, had left him with that dread of the strong man, rheumatism.

He would write himself what he had in mind.

He reached, struck the gong. When Natooka appeared he bade the Hydah fetch him the old portmanteau, the ink horn and the eagle quill pen. At his nod toward the curtained chapel or sanctuary, she brought forth the golden candelabrum, with its seven burning wax candles,

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placed the thing upon a table beside the chaise longue.

Sternly he ordered Natooka to go below stairs, to there remain, and to allow no one to disturb him until he again struck the gong.

He

The old man listened intently until the girl's softly shuffling footsteps had descended the stair. Then he reached, grasped the golden candelabrum. took a suspicious, apprehensive glance about him, grasped the standard of the candelabrum, gave the branches a twist. A few turns, and the heavy standard was detached from the seven spreading branches.

From the hollow base, he shook three tightly rolled bits of parchment. One, the largest, he laid aside, returning the other two to their place in the candelabrum, screwed the base of the relic back into position.

For a few moments, breathing hard after the exertion, he lay back upon the chaise longue, the larger roll of parchment clasped in his gnarled misshapen hand.

With a painful effort, he reared his body erect, unrolled the yellow paper. It was the last will and testament of Stanislaus Saranoff.

Dipping the eagle quill pen, he wrote slowly, laboriously in the fair space at the bottom of the will a codicil.

When he had done, he lay back panting, drops of sweat upon his forehead. "She is a Saranoff," he repeated to himself, "a Saranoff. She will decipher the writing, for she is a Saranoff."

Again he struck the gong. When Natooka appeared, he held up the will, called her attention to the words that he had added at the bottom of the sheet.

"Make there your mark, Natooka."

The Indian girl took the quill pen, drew alongside the codicil her attesting signature, a rude drawing of the thunderbird, the totem mark of her tribe.

Then he directed Natooka to fold over the portion of the will bearing the codicil, seal it down with fish glue.

Natooka started to carry the will below stairs, but sternly he ordered her to leave the paper, fetch the glue from below.

When the Hydah had sealed down the fold securely, Saranoff said:

"Ask my granddaughter if she will

come.

Frances appeared. The old man laid the will in her hand.

"My will," he said, "leaving you everything. But there is a condition."

He pointed to the portion of the parchment folded down.

"There is a condition. Until the fishtrap is destroyed, utterly destroyed, that portion you may not read. Swear it, your holy oath."

Frances studied the old man's stern face. He pointed a shaking finger at the golden candelabrum upon the table.

"Swear it," he commanded, "your right hand upon the base of the sacred candelabrum, swear that you will never tear down the paper, read the words that are written there, until the fish-trap is destroyed."

A little longer she remained standing before him, searching the pain-distorted face. Then she reached out her right hand, placed it upon the base of the candelabrum, and swore.

"This," he said, handing her the will, you may keep. Guard it. Let it into no