The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1939-11-30
CHAPTER I-COntinued

SLnuSSGO uGT SIlOUIOSTS as II 10 OlS-
miss the subject.
Hector took the bell from her
hands and held it thoughtfully on
his palm, stroking the satiny tex
ture of its semi-spherical upper half
with his eloquent fingers. 1.-The OdeIl
women" he said slowly, had small
respect for hearts,"
Autumn leaned back, resting her
elbows on the manteIpiece behind
her, and glanced up at him diff
IDENTIFY from beneath her lashes.
Even mother?" she asked.
He swung the bell just percepti-
bly,, and the eerie threne of it, a
vanishing wrath of sound, caught at
her throat. It might be the mingled
tears and laughter of a ghost heard
from infnity. Hector did not reply
at once.
You knew mother very well,
didn't your" she prompted him.
''She couldn't have been more than
ten years younger than you"
''Millicent OdeIl-" It might have
been the wine he had had, Autumn
thought, but it seemed to her that
for an instant he was quite oblivious
of her presence. His narrow, brown
face with its myriad fine seams
glowed as though he were listening
ardently to the music of that name,
the name of her mother, twenty
years dead. Then he glanced down
at the bell once more. 81 have
fashioned a little conceit about this
bell, Autumn. Perhaps you would
like to know what it is"
do tell me, Hector"
He smiled boyishly. 'It is like
the OdeQ women. Its beauty casts
spell over a vast distance. It's nu-
sic echoes and re-echoes into eter-
nity-and haunts you forever. It
as an elfn soul, my dear, and its
power is blacklist magic"
Autumn clasped her hands and
laughed with delight, although an in
comprehensive tremor stirred with
in her. 'You were meant to be
poet, Hector-not a collector of an
tiques," she said gayly.
The doorbel rang and Hector went
quickly to answer it. Autunn's lug
gage had arrived.
Autumn Dean refined in where the
road curved out to a steep incline
above the town, and looked back
down upon the diamond-studded val
ley she had left. When she was a
little girl she had thought of the
town Of Kamloops by night as jew
eled brooch lying on bed of black
velvet, the river ribbon Of dim
silver festooned about it.
The miles slipped away behind
her, and now she recognized the fea-
lures Of her fathers land, the be-
ginning of those thirty thousand
acres that led sheer up into the dusk
Of the southern mountains, and
spread fan-wise to the river on the
north. There on one side of the trail
was the somber promontory now,
that Jutted out like a monks cowl
above the abandoned copper mine,
and on her right the grassy trail
that he'd through ghost-gray hum
mocks of sage up steep hillside
and down again to the sheltered val
ley where the lambing corrals were.
She paused to listen for a moment,
and across the dim solitude came
the lonely tinkle of a sheep bell.
The sound carried her poignantly
back 10 her childhood, when she had
ridden her pony on spring evenings
such as this-the Laird's disapprov-
al Observation-Disclosures visit old Alb
solom Peek, the faithful herder,
where he tended the Landing ewes.
At the sweet thrust of memory her
eyes filed with tears. She shook
the reins and followed the trail west
ward along the valley.
Here, at last, was the little school,
house, with its pile of seasoned fire.
wood, its pathetic little outhouses,
and its elfin host of memories that
lurked IN every shadow and danced
before her under the pale light of
the stars. What had become of that
troop of boys and girls with whom
she had romped In the days when
she herself had been one of them?
The Careys and the Cornwalls, the
Lloyds and the Murrays? Just there,
under that dark pine, young Larry
Sutherland had washed her face with
a handful of the first snow of the
year. And here young Sandy Cam
eron had fought with Bruce Lander
who had elected himself her cham
pion-though she had been a mere
slip of eight or nine years at the
time, and Bruce had been five years
her senior-Bruce Lander, whose
father had shot himself down there
In the little ravine that ran through
the northern end of the Dean acres.
She had often thought of Bruce, the
wistful-eyed young dreamer, always
q little sad because of the tragedy
that had befallen him, and of his
spirited mother, who had struggled
along somehow and ruled the Lam
dor ranch with a fierce viii that
had won the respect of the country
side. 1t was ten years since he
had babe her a rather lofty and
grown-up good-by when, at eight
cen, he went away to college. She
had been thirteen then, and had
wept respondent, ittle-girl tears at
the departure of her hero who had
outgrown her. Before his return for
the summer vacation, she herself
had been despatched, protesting, to
England