The Turtles of Tasman

down the valley of Isaac Travers River. First of all westering white-men, had Isaac Travers gazed on that splendid valley, its salmon-laden waters, it

en run under armed guards to keep the marauding Klamaths off while wheat was ground. Like father, like son, and what Isaac Travers had grasped, Frederick Travers had held. It had been the s

chines; and he had made pilgrimages, more than once, at his own expense, to the railroad chiefs of the East. While all the county knew how many miles of his land were crossed by the right of way, none of the county guessed nor dreamed the number of his dollars which had gone into guaranties and railroad bonds. He had done much for his county, and the railroad was his last and gr

night, a lathered horse in the stable, and Tom had appeared, the salt of the sea on his face as his mother attested. An hour only he remained, and on a fresh horse was gone, while rain squalls rattled upon the windows and the rising wind moaned through the redwoods, the memory of his visit a whiff, sharp and strong, from the wild outer world. A week later, sea-hammered and bar-bound for

rederick Travers experienced an immediate shock of distaste. He felt it vitally, yet vaguely. It was a challenge and a mock, yet he could not name nor place the source of it. It might have been the dress, of tailored linen and foreign cut, the shirtwaist, with its daring stripe, the black wilfulness of the hair, or the flaunt of pop

of the curious crowd on the station platform, she had intercepted his attempt to lead to the motor car and had ranged the brothers side by side. Tom had been laughingly acquiescent, but his younger brother was ill at ease, too conscious of the many

h sun-warm eyes that seemed to see throug

hing with her eyes. "Anybody can see it. And yet th

eagle-like, while the blue eyes were pronouncedly so. The lines of the face were deeper, the cheek-bones higher, the hollows larger, the weather-beat darker. It was a volcanic face. There had been fire there, and the fire still lingered. Around the corners of the eyes were more laughter-wrinkles and in the eyes themselves a promise of deadlier seriousness than the younger brother possessed. Frederick was bourgeois in his carriage, but in Tom's was a certain careless ease and

e I arrived on a train. And the population? T

increasing by leaps and bounds. Want to spin arou

e. The waterfront perplexed him. Where he had once anchored his sloop in a dozen feet of

locks on, looking up at a solid bu

ravers-don't

scern the anciently familiar configuration

ils over that ground, and shoot blackbirds in the brush. And there, where the bank building is, w

derick laughed, nodding to the chauffeur.

lly cried, cla

little later, indicating a mass of virgin re

zzlies there one after

Frederick went on. "Father bought the quart

yes, like that of his daughter, were unlike an

time he carried you and me on his back to Alliance, the night

he grist mill. It was a

e he nailed f

ow appeared the f

r!" she cried. "T

ut Travers Fe

e built a suspension bridge-wove the cables on the spot with sailors and materials freighted in from the coast. It cost him twenty thousand dollars. The first day it was open, eight hundred mules crossed at a dollar a head, to say not

aught by a war party of Mad River Indians. Old Jacob was killed right outside the door of the log cabin. Father dragg

d to the Reservation, and then mule-back on up the Klamath and clear in to the forks of Little Salmon. I have twelve stor

looked from brother to brother as they s

man, father was

f anxiety from her. The machine had turned into the cemetery, an

f it with my own hands. Mother wanted it. The estate was dreadfully encumbered. The best bid I

Tom murmured admiringly and

You remember-cataract-I wrote you. She was too weak to travel, and I brought the specialists up from San Francisco. Oh, my hands were full. I was just winding up the disastro

asleep. Polly, with a significant look, caught her uncle's eye. The

ight apologetic laugh. "I've been ac

the chauffeur, and