The Washington herald., 1912-06-23
CHAPTER L
The Hyacinth Letter.

steadily over the paper, as if the
mere writing of letter he might
never mail in some way lessened the
Loneliness.
e The wind is blowing a furious gale
outside From of the lake come vol
leys of sleet, like shot from guns, and
all the wild demons of this black night
in the wilderness seem bent on tearing
apart the huge end-locked logs that
form my cabin home. In truth, it is a
terrible night to be afar from human
companionSlrp, with naught but this
roaring desolation about and the air
above filed with screeching terrors.
Even through thick log walls l can
hear the surf roaring among the rocks
and beating the white driftwood like a
thousand battering rams, almost at my
door. 1t IS night to make one shiver,
and IN the lulls of the storm the tall
pines above me whistle and wall mourn
fully as they straighten their twisted
heads after the blasts.
Tomorrow this will be a desolation
OF snow. There will be snow from here
10 Hudson's Bay, from the bay to the
arctic, and where now there is all this
fury and strife of wind and sleet there
will De unending quiet-the stiffness
which breeds our tongueless people of
the North. But this is small comfort
for tonight Yesterday l caught lit
tie mouse in my -four and killed him.
! am sorry now, for surely all this trou-
bic and thunder in the night would have
e driven him out from his home in the
wall TO keep ME company.
II would not be 50 bad if it were not
for the skull Three times in the last
hall hour I have started to take It down
from its shelf over my crude stone
fireplace, where Dine logs are blazing.
But each time | have fallen back, shiv-
ering, into the bed-like chair l have
made for myself out of saplings and
caribou skin. 1t is a human skull Only
a short time ago it was a living man,
with a voice, and eyes, and brain-and
that Is what makes me uncomfortable.
If it were an old skull, it would be diff
ferent. But it IS a new skull. Almost
/ fancy at times that there is life lurk-
ing in the eyeless sockets, where the
red freight from the pitch-weighted
logs plays in grewSome flashes; and |
fancy, too, that in the brainless cavi-
ties of the skull there must still be
some of the old passion, stirred into
, spirit life by the very madness of this
night A hundred times / have been
sorry that kept the thing, but never
more so than now.
How the wind howls and the pines
screech above me! A pailful of snow,
plunging down my chimney. sends the
chills up my spine as if it were the very
devil himself. and the steam of it
surges out and upward and hides the
skull 1t is absurd to go to bed, to
make an effort to sleep, for l know
what my dreams would be. Tonight
they would be filled with this skull
and with visions of a face, woman's |
face
Thus far had Steele written, when
with a nervous laugh he sprang from |
his chair, and with something that |
sounded very near to an oath, in the |
wild tumult of the storm, crumpled |
the paper in his hand and flung it |
among the blazing logs he had describ- |
ed but few moments before.
"COnfound it, this will never dol" he |
exclaimed, falling into his own peculiar !
habit of communing with himself. q |
say it won't do, Phil Steele; deuce take
it if it will You're getting nervous, |
what beast of a night"
He turned to the rude stone fireplace |
again as another blast of snow plunged |
down the chimney
Wish Id built a FIRE in the stove in
stead of there" he went on, filling his
pipe. Thought it would be a little
more cheerful, you know. Lord pre-
serve US, listen to that"
He began walking up and down the
hewn log floor of the cabin, his hands
deep in his pockets, putting out volum-
nous clouds of smoke 1t was not often
that Philip Steele's face was unpleasant
to look upon, but tonight it wore any
thing but its natural good hunlor. II
was a strong, thin face, set off by a
square jaw. and with clear, steel-gray
eyes in which just now there shone a
strange glitter, as they rested for
moment upon the white skull over he
nre. From his scrutiny of the skull
Steele turned 10 a rough board table,
lighted by 4 twisted bit of cotton cloth,
three-quarters submerged in a shallow
TIN OF caribou grease. In the dim light
of this improvised lamp there were two
letters, opened and soiled, which an
Indian had brought up to him from
Nelson House the day before. One of
them was short and to the point. 1t
was an official note from headquarters
ordering him to join a certain Buck
Nome at Lac Balm, a hundred miles
farther north.
1t was the second letter which Steele
took in his hands for the twentieth
time since it had come to him here,
800 miles into the wilderness There
were half a dozen pages of it, written
in a wonan's hand, and from It there
rose to his nostrils the faint, sweet per-
fume of hyacinth. 1t was this odor
that troubled him-that had troubled
him since yesterday, and that made him
restless and almost homesick tonight.
1t took him back to things-to the days
of not so very long ago when he had E.
been part of the life from which the
letter came, and when the world had (
seemed to hold for him all that one {
could wish. In a retrospective fash
there passed before him a vision of '
those days, when he, Mr. Philip Steele, I
son of a multimillionaire banker, was '
one of the favored few in the social {
life of a great city; when fashionable
clubs opened their doors to him, and
beautiful women smiled upon him, and {
when, among others, this girl of the I
hyacinth letter held on to him the
tempting lure of her heart. Her heart?
Or was it the tempting of his own
wealth? Steele laughed, and his strong
white teeth cleaned in a half-con-