The Mena weekly star., 1918-01-17
SYNOPSIS

Esteila Benton, left @ penniiess orphan gees to join her brother Charlie, who if logging lumber in British Columbia.
 Charlie tells Stella of his prospects and describes his primitive manner of living He introduces neighbor Paul Abbey.
 Charlie and Stella proceed to his logging camp on Roaring lake. Stella Is aghast at the baroness of 1t and is repelled by the mcouthness of ths lumberJacks.
 The cook has been discharged and Stella Goes the cooking. In need of more men. Charlie borrows a crew from Jack ryfe
 Fyfs pays a visit Stella is repelisd by him. although she feels the force of his personality. Stella wants to quit, but her brother dissuades her. He takes the gang back to Fyfes camp
 Stella visits Fyfe's camp while her broth. CT is there. It is an Improvement over Gsarlie's. Fyfe visits the Bentons and Guells drunken riot among the loggers
 Charlie gets intoxicated and Stella be- comes all the more disgusted with her sur roundings. Fyfe proposes marriage as g way out. but is rejected.
 Winter sets in. bringing more drunken ness and trouble. Stella is sorely tried, and when Fyfe proposes again she mar ries him immediately.
 Tn spring the Fyfes return from honey. saoon. and Stella is pleased with her new home.
 5ut Vancouver was Fyfe's nome town. It had been hers. Many people knew her. The local papers would fea- spre her. She did not know how Fyfe would take it. She did not even know if there had been any open talk of their separation. Money. she felt. was q small thing beside opening old sores. For herself. she was tolerably indiffer- ent to Vancouvers social estimate of her or her acts. Nevertheless so long as she bore Fyfe's name she did not feel free to make herself a public fig ure there without his sanction. So she wrote to him in some detail con serning the offer and asked point blank K 1t mattered to him.
 His answer came with uncanny promptness, as if every mail connec- tion had been made on the minute. He wrote:
 If 1t is to your advantage to sing here by all means accept Why should 1t mat ter to me7 I would even be glad to come and hear you sing if could do so without stirring up vain longings and useless re- grets. As for the other considerations you mention. they are of no weight at all. never wanted to keep you in a glass case. Even if all were well between us wouldn't have any feeling about your singing in public other than pride in your ability to =crssnand public favor with your voice. It's wonderful voice, too big and fine a thing to remain obscure. JACK.
 Stella sat thoughtfully gazing at the letter for a long time.
 T wonder?" she said aloud, and the sound of her own voice galvanized her Into action. She put on a coat and went out into the mellow spring sun shine and walked till the aimless stray ing of her feet carried her to q little park that overlooked the far reach of the sound and gave westward on the snowy Olympics, thrusting hoary and aloof to a pesfect sky, like their broth CT peaks that ringed Roaring lake. And all the time her mind kept turning on l. question whose asking was rooted neither in fact nor necessity, an inquiry born ol a sentiment she had never ex- pected to feel.
 Should she go back to Jack Fyfei
 She shook her head impatiently when she faced that squarely. Why tread she same bitter road again? But she put that self interested phase of 1t aside and asked herself candidly if she could