The Silver Horde

oom. One thing only staggered him-a piano. The bear-skins on the floor, the big, sleepy chairs, the reading-table littered with magazines, the shelves

love it, and I have so little to do. I read an

can survive, and recognizing himself as a failure, her calm assurance and self-certainty offended him vaguely. It seemed as if she were succeeding where he had failed, which rather jarred his sense of

ent from the listless hang of his hands and the distant light in his eyes that he had even become unconscious of her presence in t

to hang for murder at dawn, and he set just like that for hours." She raised her brows inquiringly,

he other man's anecdotes, which had long ceased to be amusing, a

r remark was aimed at Emers

nut o

, and cast another ques

Again the adventurer outran

the Maple Leaf Rag. L

Emerson stirred uneasily as if the musical interruption disturbed him; but when

fond of that coon clatter." And realizing that his pleasure was genuine, she played on and on for him, to the muffled thump of his feet, now and then fe

nder her deft fingers the instrument became a medium for musical speech. Gay roundelays, swift, passionate Hungarian dances, bold

upon the sweet chords of Bartlett's A Dream, a half-forgotten thing, the tenderness of which had lived with her from girlhood. She heard Emerson rise, then knew he was standing at her shoulder. Could he sing, she wondered, as he began to take

ng she wheeled abruptly, her face flushed, her ripe lips smiling, her eyes moist, and looked up to find him marvelously transformed. His even teeth gleamed forth fro

you," she

or it. I've sat in my cabin at night longing for it until my soul fairly ached with the silence. I've frozen beneath the Northern

s," she

in the whispering spruce groves and tried to sing contentment back into my heart, bu

ng at dinner that those eyes were of too light and hard a blue for tend

, and while I was in the Kougarok I walked ten miles to hear a nigger play a harmonica. I did all sorts of things to coax music into this c

erpowering force of his strong nature swept her out of herself, while her ready sympathy took fire and caught at his half-expressed ideas and stumbling words, stimulating him with her warm understanding. Her quick wit rallied him and awoke

hosis. But restraint and silence were impossible to him for long, and in time he ambled clumsily into the conversation. It jarred, of course, but he could not

this mood became the young man! Suddenly the smile of amusement that lurked about his lip corners and gave him a pleasing look hardened in a queer fashion-he started, then stared a

read this

. It came in

one page out of it

." He produced a knife, and with one quick stroke cut a single leaf out

she had seen something of his true self. She was painfully conscious of a sense of betrayal at having yielded so easily to his pleasant mood, only to be shut out on an instant's whim, while a girlish curiosity to know the cause of

ing beyond her and holding aloof-"a very gre

he would make her a less listless adieu. She assured herself that he was a selfish, sullen boor, who needed to be taught a lesson in manners for his own good if for nothing else; that a woman's curiosity had aught to do with her exasperation she would have denied. She abhorred curiosity. As a matter of fact, she told

devoted to the photographs of prominent actresses and society women, most of whom she had never heard of, though here and there she saw a name that was familiar. In the centre was that tantalizingly clean-cut edge which had subtracted a face from the gallery-a face which she wanted very much to see. She paused and ra

nd I don't care what she looks like." She shrugged her shoulders carelessly; then, in a sudd

and the little bunk-room they occupied adjoined the main building and was dark. When they ca

r mistress?"

he child ill with measles. "She all the time give medicine to Aleut babies," Chaka

Bountiful to these b

e in yonder?" Boyd aske

Then, as if realizing that her hasty tongue had betrayed some secret of moment

on in pa

ed, but she was not to be put off easily, and, with characteristic guile, annou

rson; then, as if that name had some powerful effect upon their inf

wooden face held a mingled express

rom his plate. "Don't look at me li

w him in San F

r heard of him u

miled at them wheedlingl

n't know h

for you spe

told us about

O

d of a looking feller

id Chakawana. "Nice fat man.

-headed, eh? He m

the girl, ra

e mar

aybe he lie. May

f horse-thieves with this dame," Fraser remarke

akawana continued,

to the 'outside,

h, sure thing. He lives t

ch space in the United States that we will meet him," laughed Emerson; but even yet the

s. What

peak m

, certai

erless" Fraser, banteringly; but Chakawana's light-hue

man. You no speak, please! Chak

e room. Outside, Fraser said: "This cannery guy has certainly buffaloed these savages. He must be a slav

so?" li

dn't she

I suppo

oor burst open to admit Cherry, who came with a rush of youth and health as fresh as the bracing air that followed her. The cold ha

d teeth. "Oh, but it's a glorious morning! If you want to feel your blood leap and your lungs tingle, just let

measley patient

y hurried around from the other house, and now came in, bareheaded and heedless of the col

the stove, where she knelt to lift

"I never had no measles." But Chakawana went on cuddling the

the little fellow's flushed fair skin. The kneeling girl tur

im Aleu

d entered unnoticed; and a moment later, in obedience to an order f