Cleveland County herald., 1920-10-21

with the sun. The thought his re- turning step had brought came out in her first words.
 "They who own the old cabin might not like us to move in."
 "They can only make ns move out again." was his cheery answer. And, mother, you never saw such a view as you get from up there. And you can drink right out of the spring."
 Something came to the face of the IrOn-Gray-W Woman that had long been a stranger there. Not a smile-a rip pie, like the swath a chance breeze ruff1es across still water.
 "But you can't carry everything"
 Everything. And the first load shall be you"
 "Me !"
 "It would set you coughing to climb the slope"
 The woman dropped her eyes. After all, weakness is not pleasant fact to face. The loss of power, the inability to do accustomed things, always comes as a shock. Life had brought lO lllC IIOn-NIdN " Ollidu IllllS CuOuSb -pitifully little enough. But though life be ever so bare and gray, no one likes to sit helpless and watch it go.
 Haply the young man sensed noth- ing of this, but was already busy gathering together such of their meager stock of household goods as it would be absolutely necessary to carry up to the cabin under the cliff if the coming night was to be spent ashore.
 Nothing remained but the actual going ashore. His mother came first, as he had said. While packing, he had planned to help her up the hill to the spring and leave her there while he swept the old cabin, aired it out put up the cook stove, and otherwise made the place as sweet and inviting as possible for her occupancy.
 Just before passing through the rumpled curtain of the hOuseboat she stopped and gazed over the tiny cabin.
 "Just one look before go," she said.
 
 ness in her tones.
 "Why, mother, you can come back any minute"
 ''It has been my home for twenty years," she said as she turned away, her tone more the voicing of reflec- tion than the statement of fact.
 Across the gangplank and up the slope among the trees he led her carried her-with all the tenderness due from man to his mother; for the on-Gray-Woman had the man. ners and speech of a "lady of high degree;" and she had taught him all she knew He had brought along a cushion, which he spread for her upon a moss upholstered rock. With the spray of the waterfall in the air, with the cup in her hand, the cool spring within reach, he left her and hurried back to the houseboat.
 The sun was dipping low toward the distant bend in the river when the last of the moving was done. A purple twilight had given place to dark before he had the cabin put to rights, his mother in her easy chair, and supper on the table: bass, taken from the nets only that morning; fruit from the woods; baked pota- toes; toast, crisp and brown; and tea, which she had left her chair long enough to draw.
 Tn the contented silence that often falls after the evening meal, the man sat covertly studying her face. The fever had gone, It was face almost serene. She appeared, as he watched her, to be listening to the sound of the waterfall floating in through the open window upon the pulse of the night. The move had done her good. He thought how beautiful she. must have been-how beautiful still.
 Her words that afternoon came back to him-the only word that had ever come to him out of the past. The desire to learn more grew in him, and vet he dreaded to speak. The Iron Gray-Woman was not one to invite condolences. And yet man ought to know something of the manner of his coming into the world
 The cabin had settled to deep quiet; the lap of the waterfall had swelled to full strength upon the silence: when the cabin door banged open and a man storned in The Pearlhunter whirled up out of his chair and faced him.
 The intruder was a man of forty. possibly more. lacking somewhat of the Pearlhunters height and massive build, yet still what would be called a big man-tight and well set up smooth shaven, except for an aggres- sve mustaehe faintlw Shot with. gray He wore slouchs that. top boots. frpck, coat, and very fancy and. much-be- lowered vest. His blue eyes-the kind of blue that turns black when