"Well!" Then having said that one word, Sandy sought about in his confused mind for another. Again he said, "Well!" and waited.

"I--I cannot be happy without her. The longer I stay away the stronger her claim seems to me. I must go back and--try again."

"Try--what?"

Sandy felt the cool, wet outer air touch his face as he leaned forward, for at last Lans Treadwell had aroused him. He was not, however, thinking of Lans and his yearnings; he was thinking of a little, unknown woman who was following the gleam of her conscience, while love, selfish love, was ready to spring upon her with its demands, before she had wrestled with and solved her own problem.

"Try--what?"

"To get her away from Spaulding; get her back to me and--happiness. We were happy, God knows we were!"

"If you--if she were happy, then her going proved something stronger than happiness called her."

"Women are like that. They hold the world back by their conventions and conservations. They ask for freedom and--and equality, and then they cling to tradition in spite of all."

"I reckon," Sandy's eyes were troubled and tender, "I reckon we-all better keep our hands off for a while and watch out to see them, the women, solve what is their business. They-all may want freedom and the rest--but it must be--as they see freedom and equality, Lans. I'm mighty sure in every woman's heart there is the beginning of a path leading--out and up, that they can find better alone. Why don't you wait until--until this little"--Sandy dropped into the sweet "lil"--"this little woman comes to you."

"She'd never come!" Lans half groaned; "you do not know how tradition would hold her there. She'd starve rather than to call me now."

Sandy was thoughtful a moment. He saw that Treadwell probably was right there, but a strange sense of protection rose in his heart. He felt he must protect that distant, strange woman from Lans in his present mood.

"Then I reckon you better stand off and watch unseen, Lans." Sandy made a bold stroke: "Are you thinking of her only? I'm mighty sure, Treadwell, in a case like this you ought not, you--dare not think of any one but her!"

The bald, rigid reasoning struck Lans Treadwell like the cold draught from the open window.

"Good God! Sand," he ejaculated, "let me shut that sash down. The cold gets into your heart as if it were driven by some infernal machine."

Sandy got up and pulled the glass down sharply, but he could not, thereby, bring comfort to Lans' conscience.

"What do you mean by a case like this, Sand? No case between man and woman can be separated that way. Her need is my need; mine is hers!"

"Is it?"

"Thunder! Sand, of course it is."

"I--I do not know. Things come so slowly, but I'm trying to learn for the sake of my people. The women and children, Lans, have got a clutch on me; they must always come first. Even when we want women happy, we want to give them happiness; give them the liberty _we_ think is good for them. Treadwell, I'm mighty sure there are times when we-all better get out and leave them alone! We only make matters worse. You do not know these hills as I do--I don't want to preach, heaven knows!

As I talk I am only feeling my own way, not pointing yours; but I know my hill people, and the women and children tug right hard at my heart.

When love--such love as our mountain men know--takes a woman into a cabin--it generally shuts God out! I know this, and the children that come into life by way of our cabins are--well! I was a cabin boy, Lans! Women need God oftener than we-all do. Love puts a claim on them that it never does on us-all. Love demands suffering of them; responsibility that man never knows. Treadwell, we men must never clog up the trail that leads woman to her God. I know I'm right there! But tell me, are women and men different, so different in the lowlands and highlands?"

Treadwell was bent over, his face hidden in his hands. He made no answer.

"That little woman--down there"--Sandy's eyes were far and away from the warm, rude comfort of the room which held him and that stricken figure by the hearth--"is battling for what she believes is right.

Something in her was strong enough to take her from you, your love, and the safety you stand for in her life. She has gone back to--what has stood for hell in her past. Do you, can you, understand her, Treadwell?"

"No!"

"Then, keep away until God, as she knows God, has had His way with her.

Stand off and watch. Be ready, but let her fight her fight and come to you, if that is the end--with clean soul!"

And now Lans Treadwell was weeping as only men and children can weep when they are defeated by a stronger will they cannot understand, and cannot resist.

The great logs crackled and the wind roared in the chimney. Above, the shambling steps of Martin Morley sounded as he made his preparations for bed. Suddenly Sandy started up and listened.

"There's a call of distress from The Way," he said, getting upon his feet. Then he stood waiting for the next sound. Treadwell pulled himself together and listened also.

No call came, but presently steps were heard outside--a tap on the door of the room which led directly to the open.

"Come!" said Sandy, and in walked Marcia Lowe and Cynthia Walden. They were rain-soaked and wind-blown. Their faces shone and their eyes danced.

"This is the end of our holiday," Marcia said with a laugh. Neither she nor Cynthia paid attention to the man in the chair; he was hardly visible behind the high back. "Tod Greeley's shaft broke just as we were coming into The Way from the cross cut. We called and called, but finally we decided to find where we were--it is as black as a pocket out of doors--we were all completely lost. Cynthia and I felt our way along, while Greeley stayed with the horse--the beast acted like a fiend--and then we saw a light: your light! No other man in The Hollow wastes oil like you--and here we are!"

At this Treadwell made himself evident. Turning sharply, he met the big, lovely eyes of the girl beside the talkative little woman. The fair, damp face was inframed by tendrils of light hair under a hood of dullish red; the long, coarse, brown coat clung to the slim figure, and the mouth of the girl was smiling. Treadwell had never seen a mouth smile so before.

Sandy introduced his friend and then said: "Lans, make the ladies comfortable; I'll lend Greeley a hand."

CHAPTER XXI

Lance Treadwell did not leave the mountains the next day. The storm poured, and Sandy's words sunk deep in his light mind.

"Yes," he thought to himself virtuously, "I'll let Marian have it out with her conscience or whatever it was that took her from me. I'll write and tell her I'm waiting up here!"

In the meanwhile Treadwell took a new interest in the mountains, especially in that part of them known as Trouble Neck. Marcia Lowe and her "charm" appealed to him hugely.

"Why, it's been introduced in many other places," he said to the little doctor; "why can't you get your representative at Washington to get an appropriation for you?"

Marcia Lowe laughed long and merrily at this. "I really do not know who represents us at Washington," she replied; "it is some distant man, like as not, with axes galore of his own to grind, with these mystic votes of the mountains to help along. Doubtless he has a soul above names, and if a petticoat doctor should go to him and plead her cause for these people he would probably have me shut up as a maniac. The Forge doctor is making himself very unpleasant. He told me the other day that if I persisted in working my charm on many more people he would have me--investigated! Just fancy! investigating me! He used to laugh at me; it's got past the laughing stage now. When professional people step on each other's toes the atmosphere is apt to be electric.

The Forge doctor has at last concluded that I am not a joke. A woman, to that sort of man, is either a joke or a menace."

Treadwell laughed gayly. Marcia Lowe was a delight to him; besides, Cynthia Walden was always present when he visited Trouble Neck, and Cynthia was bewitching. Treadwell did not talk of the girl to Sandy.

He had no special reason for not doing so, but, having posed as a tragic creature--a man confronting a great soul-problem--he did not like to come down from his pedestal and stand revealed as a human being interested in a mountain girl.

"Her smile," he said to Marcia Lowe one day when Cynthia had left the room for a moment--"how do you account for that?"

"I never account for Cynthia," the little doctor replied. "I just take her and thank God. She and I live our beautiful little life with mists all about us. It's very fascinating and inspiring. She is such a child, and until there is some call to do otherwise, I am going to play with her. We actually have dolls! Of course there are all sorts of bones in the cupboard to pass out to the darling, but I'm waiting until she is hungry."

And so Cynthia played her part and smiled and dreamed. Things just were! There was no perspective, no contrast--the sun was always flooding her hours with the one small, white cloud of Sandy's marked passage in the "Pilgrim's Progress," to sail across her sky now and then. Treadwell did not surprise or shock her. He seemed a big, splendid happening from the world beyond the mountains. He was strong and pleasant and made one laugh, but he would go presently and they would talk about him as they talked about Sheridan's raid and Smith Crothers' fire--he was not part of Lost Mountain!

Cynthia, nevertheless, walked with Lans Treadwell through the trails, and once they had followed the Branch and come upon the new factory near The Forge. The girl told Treadwell of the fire, but she eliminated herself utterly from the story. She understood better now than she once had--her part in that snowy night. Then they spoke of Sandy and his hopes.

It was a gray, still day when they so freely discussed Sandy, and they were strolling up from Trouble Neck to the Morley cabin; Miss Lowe and Sandy were to meet them there later, coming from an opposite direction.

"Yes, Sandy is right noble," Cynthia said softly; "he was born, I reckon, to do a mighty big thing. When he was little it seemed like God said, 'Sandy Morley, I choose you!' There never was any one like Sandy."

Treadwell scanned the face near him, but saw only admiration and pride, detached and pure.

"We-all just waited like we were holding our breaths till he came marching up The Way. I can laugh now, Mr. Lans, but the morning I saw him first I was standing right there"--she pointed to the tree by the road where she had listened to Sandy's bird call--"and he came along, and when I knew that that big man was--my Sandy that went all raggedy down The Way years before--I expect I hated him! It seemed like he had stolen the nice boy, eaten him up and swallowed him! But no one hates Sandy. We-all want to do something big and fine. Why, every time I look at him, Mr. Lans, I feel like I must show him how glad I am he--well, he didn't swallow the old Sandy whole!"