Williams news., 1921-07-15
CHAPTER IiI-continued.

CHAPTER IIl-continued.
 -12-
 The rains fell unceasingly for seven
 days: not a downpour but a constant
 drizzle that made the distant ridges
 smoke. The parched earth seemed to . smack its lips, and little rivulets be
 gan to fall and tumble over the beds
 of the dry streams. All danger of for
 est fire was at once removed. and
 Snowbird was no longer needed as
 lookout on old Bald mountain. She
 went to her own home. her companion
 back to the valley; and now that his
 sister had taken his place as house
 keeper, Bill had gone down to the
 lower foothills with a great part of
 the live stock. Dan spent these rainy
 days in toll on the hillsides, building
 himself physically so that he might
 pay his debts.
 It was no great pleasure, these
 rainy days. He would have greatly
 liked to have fingered in the square mountain house, listening to the quiet
 murmur of the rain on the roof and watching Snowbird at her household
 tasks. She could, as her father had said, make a biscuit. She could also roll up sleeves over trim. brown arms and with entire good humor do a weeks laundry for three hard-work- ing men. He would have liked to sit with her, through the long afternoons, as she knitted beside the fireplace to watch the play of her graceful fin- gers and perhaps, now and then, to touch her hands when he held the skefhs But none of these things tran spired He drove himself from day light till dark, developing his body for the tests that were sure to come.
 The first few days nearly killed him. He over-exercised in the chill rain, and one anxious night he developed all the symptoms of pneumonia. Such a sickness would have been the one | thing needed to make the doctors come true. But with Snow | birds aid, and numerous hot drinks, | he fought it off.
 She had made him go to bed, and | no human memory could be so dull as | to forget the little, whispered message that she gave him with his last spoon full of medicine. She said she'd pray | for him, and she meant it too-literal, entreating prayer that could not go un- heard. She was a mountain girl, and | her beliefs were those of her ances- and true and wholly without affectation. But he hadn't relaxed thereafter. He knew the time ldQ COIHS lO Iudkc lu6 lcSl 1N1Shl after night he would go to bed half sick from fatigue, but the mornings would find him fresh. And after two weeks, he knew he had passed the crisis and was on the direct road to complete recovery.
 Sometimes he cut wood in the for est: first the felling of some tall pine, then the trimming and hewing into -wo-foot lengths. The blisterS came on his hands, broke and bled, but finally hardened into callosities. He earned the most effective stroke to lurl shower of chips from beneath he blade. His back and limbs hard med from the handling of heavy wood and the cough was practically gone. His frame filled out. His face became from constant exposure. He ,afned in weight.
 One cloudy afternoon in early No ,ember found Silas Lennox cutting | wood on the ridge behind his house. It vas still an open question with him whether he and his daughter would l ttempt to winter on the Divide. Dan f course wanted to remain, yet there were certain reasons, some very def lite and others extremely vague, why he prospect of the winter in the snow elds did not appeal to the noun aineer. In the first place, all signs ointed to a hard season. Although | he fall had come late, the snows were early. The duck flight ( 7as completed two weeks before its 1 sual time, and the rodents had dug ( heir burrows unusually deep. Be i ides, too many months of snow weigh 1 eavily upon the spirit. The wolf l acks sing endlessly on the ridges, | } nd many unpleasant things may hap en. On previous years, some of the I abins on the ridges below had human f ccupants; this winter the whole re- | f ion, for nearly seventy miles across 1 ne mountains to the foothills, would S e wholly deserted by human beings S ven the ranger station, twelve miles r cross steep ridge, would soon be V mpty. Of course few ranchers had [ omes a few miles beyond the river s ut the wild cataracts did not freeze l the coldest of seasons, and there a ere no bridges. Besides, most of the c ore prosperous farmers wfntered in b le valleys. Only a few more days | t ould the road be passable for his b 1T; and no time must be lost in mak- lg his decision. h Once the snows came in reality, l b lere was nothing to do but stay. Sev- | c lty miles across the uncharted ridges ] snowshoes is an undertaking for | e hich even a mountaineer has no | il .DdnpSS If r93Ohf ho ho xuiSocf +bfa- l :.