Williams news., 1921-05-06
CHAPTER II-Continued.

Yes, Steele knew Bill. Bill weighed i two hundred pounds, and he would
 choose the biggest of the steers he 1 drove down to the lower levels in the
 winter and, twisting it's horns. would
 make 1t lay over on it's side. Besides
 both of the men assumed that Dan
 must be only in the first stages of his | malady.
 And even as the men talked, the train that bore Dan Failing to the home of his ancestors was entering for the first time the dark forests of pine and fir that make the eternal background of the Northwest. He was wholly unable to understand the strange feeling of familiarity that he had with them, sensation that in his dreams he had known them al- ways, and that he must never go out of the range of them again.
 
 Dan didn't see his host at first. For the first instant he was entirely en- grossed by a surging sense of disap- pointment-a feeling that he had been trfcked and had only come to another city after all. He got down onto the gravel of the station yard. and out on the gray street pavement he heard the clang of trolley car. Many au- tomobiles were parked just beside the station, some of them foreign cars of expensive makes. such as he supposed would be wholly unknown on the frontier. A man in golf clothes brushed his shoulder.
 Dan looked up to the hills, and he felt better. He couldn't see them plain iy. The faint smoke of a distant for est fire half obscured them Yet he cer Fol- fOI J 0f ,.;I peculiar blue in color, and even his untrained eyes could see that they were clothed in forests of evergreen Over the heads of the green hills Dan could see a few great peaks; Me Laughlin. even and regular as a paint ed mountain; Wagner, with queer white gaSheS where the snow still lay In its ravineS, and to the southeast the misty range of snow-covered hills that were the Sickeyous. He felt de cidedly better. And when he saw old Sllas Lennox waiting patiently beside the station, he felt he had come to the right place.
 It would be interesting to explain why Dan at once recognized the older man for the breed he was. Sflas Len nox was not dressed in way that would distinguish him. It was true that he wore a flannel shirt riding trousers and rather heavy. leathern boots. But sportsmen all over the face of the earth wear this costume at sundry times. Mountain men have a peculiar stride by which experienced persons can occasionally recognize them; but SilaS LennoX was standing still when Dan got his first glimpse of him. The case resolves itself into a simple matter of the things that could be read In Lennox's face.
 Dan disbe1ieved wholly in a book that told how to read chara cters at sight. Yet at the first glance of the lean, brOnzed face his heart gave a | curious little bound. A pair of gray eyes met hfs-two fine black points in | a rather hard gray iris. They didn't | look past him, or at either side of him. | or at his chin or his forehead. They | looked right at his own eyes. The skin | around the eyes was burned brown by | the sun, and the flesh was so lean that | the cheekbOneS showed plainly The mouth was straight; but yet it was | neither savage nor cruel. It was sim | ply determined.
 Lennox came up with a light, silent | tread and extended his hand. You're | Dan Failing's grandson, aren't youT' | he asked. I'm SilaS Lennox, who | used to know him when he lived on | the Divide You are coming to spend | the summer and fall on my ranch"
 The immediate result of these words, besides relief, was to set Dan | how the old mountaineer had recognized him. He wondered if | he had any physical resemblance to his grandfather. But this hope was | shot to earth at once. His telegram f had explained about his malady, and of course the mountainAer had picked | hfp out simply because he had the