White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1930-06-27
CHAPTER X-Continued

Is
VI could not understand her then.
when she told me how gladly she
would give her life, were 1t not for
me, to live for single year the glOri-
GUS freedom of Molly Brant," said
Paul. "But dO-now. In that one
year she knew she would find some
thing which would more than make up
for all the other years she might live.
just as every hour here with you is
more to me than ten thousand back
there
AS he said these things, and believed
and felt them, there was in him
will to live which would not utterly
extinguish itself. Ii was scarcely
more than spark, smoldering en-
Der that was bound to die, for his
eyes, his brain, and every faculty of
reason which he possessed told him
there was no hope OF finding way
beyond the walls which shut them
in. A few minutes before, when Carla
had sat at his knees, with his fingers
feeling the warmth and sweetness of
her hair. this spark had leaped into
flame. 1t still remained DIS Carlas
yielded at last to ris demand. and
gave herself to the bed he had mad<
for her, with his coat for her pillow
1T seems almost a sin to Sleep,
she said; and If slumber were near.
or ever the necessity for it, he could
find no shadow of 1t in her face. She
might have risen from her he'd an
hour ago, so freshly clear and lovely
were her eyes, so deep their lustrous
content and happiness when she
looked at him. Yet, after a little. her
lashes dropped as If to veil the love
behind them, and lay in velvet dark
ness against the whiteness of her
cheeks. For while Paul sat close
and watched her. and with each breath
the fame in him grew stronger, the
demand that something happen.
through force of God OF man. to break
down the walls of death which en-
vironed her.
Alone, with Carla's unconscious
form lending faith and inspiration to
his thought, he fixed his attention. as
dozen times before, on the smoke
which rose from the burning wood.
Where did it go?
Hours ago he had asked himself this
question, and until he had discovered
thin fog of smoke settling over the
water, and drifting away with the
rush of it, his blood had run swiftly
with n ri1 Of iY,
spite Of the fact that he knew where
1t went, the. question remained, as If
a voice inside his head had been
trained to ask it, parrot-like. and
could not be made to stop.
He and Carla had collected pile
of Fleetwood. AS they had found
each stick they had acclaimed IT
treasure discovered. until tile thrill of
a game had become part of their en-
deavor. He chose stick heavily
weighted with pitch and lighted the
end of it in the fire. Then he walked
off into the gloom where he and t'arla
had gone many times before 1t was
rock drum which was fiat on one side
flat where the water Numbered and
raced through the mountain
When his torch burned short he re-
turned for another. Cara had not
moved in her sleep, and ne buried
himself in blackness again, following
the rock so closely that his body
touched it, trying AT every step to
pierce with his vision little farther
into the stygian pit over his head. Ii
was into this pit that the smoke
went, mounting in drifting spirals. like
smoke in an Indian tepee. Up there.
he thought. IT was taken by slowly
dragging current of air made by the
suction of the stream. and descended
rtonexit from the mountain with it
nUaS only one trAaE In the cir