Williams news., 1922-10-27
CHAPTER VII

Bruce couldn't mistake the cabin. At | the end of the trail he found it-a | little shack of unpainted boards with | single door and a single window He stood a moment in the sunlight. | He could not guess what was his des- tiny behind that rude door. It was moment long waited; for one of the few times in his life he was trembling
 with excitement. He felt as if a key,
 long lost, was turning in the doorway of understanding.
 He walked nearer and tapped with
 his knuckles on the door.
 If the forests have one all-pervad- ing quality 1t is silence. What sound
 there is carries far and seems rather
 out of place. Bruce could picture the
 whole of the little drama that followed
 his knock by just the faint sounds
 fnaudible in a less silent 1and-that
 reached him from behind the door. At
 first it was just a start; then a short
 exclamation in the. hollow, half-whis-
 pering voice of old, old age. A mo-
 ment more of silence-as if a slow
 moving, aged brain were trying to
 conjecture who stood outside-then
 the creakfng of chair as some one
 rose. The last sounds were of strange hobbling toward nina rustic
 of shoes half dragged on the floor and
 the intermittent tapping Of cane.
 The face that showed so dimly in
 the shadowed room looked just as Bruce had xpected-wrfnkled past belief, lean and hawk-nosed from age. The hand that rested on the cane was like a birds claw, the skin blue and hard and dry. She stood bowed over her cane.
 <5 an inexplicable impression of being in the presence of power. He did not have the wave of pity with which one usually greets the decrepit. And at first he didn't know why. But soon he grew accustomed to the shadows and he could see the woman's eyes. Then he understood.
 They were set deep behind gr1zzled brows, but they glowed like coals. There was no other word. They were not the eyes of one whom time is about to conquer. Her bodily strength was gone; any personal beauty that | she might have had was ashes long and long ago, but some great fire burned in her yet.
 She blinked in the light. "Who is | it?" she croaked. Bruce did not answer. He had not | prepared reply for this question. But | it was not needed. The woman leaned | forward, and a vivid light began to | dawn in her dark. furrowed face.
 Even to Bruce, already succumbed | to this atmosphere of mystery into which his adventure had led him, that | light was the single most phenomenon he had ever be held. The witchlike face seemed to gfeam with a white flame. And Bruce knew that his coming was the answer to the prayer of a whole life time. It was thought to sober him. No Small passion. no weak desire, no prayer that time or despair could si- lence could effect such light as this.
 Bruce" he said simply. It did not even occur to him to use the surname of Duncan. It was name of time and sphere already forgotten. 'I don't know what my real last name s"
 "Bruce-Bruce," the woman whis- | oered She stretched a palsied hand 70 him as if it would feel his flesh to -eassure her of its reality. He saw he exultatfon in her wrinkled, lifted 'ace. "Oh, praises to His Everlasting Name !" she cried. "Oh, Glory-Glory o on High!"
 And this was not blasphemy The words came from the heart. No mat CT how terrible the passion from which they sprang, whether 1t was ,uch evil as would cast her to hell, uch a cry as this could not go un- leard. The strength seemed to go out if her as water flows. She rocked on I Ter cane, and Bruce, thinking she was bout to fall, seized her shoulders. I At last-at last" she cried. You've ome at last" '
 She gripped herself, as if trying to i md renewed strength. --Go at once," ( he said. ''ee tho end of the Pine '