"Well, son, it do seem triflin' to set your mind to anything but Holy Writ when you're idle, but to-day I found an ole paper up to the works with a mighty stirrin' picture on it; a real techersome picture of a man danglin' from a high cliff by his two hands, and nothin' 'twixt him an' certain death, I reckon, but the writingman's understandin' of the scene. Yo' know, Sandy, I ain't had my specs fitted yet an' so I couldn't fin' out about the picture an' it's been right upsettin' to me all day."

Sandy took the crumpled paper Martin produced from an inside pocket and began to read the hair-raising tale. Toward the end he discovered it was a serial which left the hero, at the most breathless point, still hanging. Thereupon Sandy evolved from his own imagination a fitting and lurid ending that appeased Martin's sense of crude justice and left nothing to his yearning soul unanswered.

"I call that-er-tale a mighty good one," Martin remarked when, hands upon knees, eyes staring, and chin hanging, he heard the grand finale.

"Taint allas as the ungodly gets fetched up with so cutely. It's right comfortin' to think o' that low-down trash a-festerin' in the bottom o'

the gulch."

Then Martin, the gentlest of creatures, went pattering up to bed in his stocking feet, muttering cheerfully to himself as he mounted the dark stairs, candle in outstretched hand:

"A festerin' eternally at the bottom!"

After his father departed Sandy sat by his fire alone and waited. So Lans found him, and gloomily took a chair across the hearth.

"Have you had supper, Lans?" Sandy asked after greeting him cordially.

"Yes. The storm kept me last night. I got back--not long ago. I had a bite while I waited for the horse to be seen to. The poor beast was pretty well worn out."

There did not seem to be anything more to say on that subject, so Sandy remarked:

"Smoke if you care to, Lans; don't mind me."

But Lans did not care to smoke and suddenly he jumped up, plunged his hands in his pockets and faced Sandy with crimson cheeks and wide eyes.

"Sand," he blurted out, "I'm in a devil of a hole; I've pulled about all Lost Hollow in with me. I'm a fool and worse, but you know how I am. Any big passion that seizes me--holds me! I'm not responsible while the clutch is on me. I ought to be taken out and shot. I----"

But Sandy's blank stare called a halt.

"I--I wouldn't take it that way, Treadwell," he said, thinking that some obvious villainy of Crothers' had opened Lans's eyes to facts; "I may be able to get you out of the hole."

Then, ludicrously, the story he had just read to his father came into his mind. Lans seemed to be the creature at the bottom of the gulch, and it was up to him, Sandy, to rescue the knave in spite of Martin's satisfaction in leaving him there to fester. Sandy smiled.

"Good God, Morley, what are you laughing at?" Lans cried; "this is no laughing matter."

"I beg your pardon, Lans. An idiotic thing occurred to me and you are such a tragic cuss that I never can think things are as bad with you as you imagine."

"Sand, this is a--hell of a thing! I don't know what you will say.

Fellows like you with their hands always on their tillers, fellows with cool heads and calm passions never can understand us who fly off at every spark that's set to us. All I can promise you is this--help me now and, by God! I'll let your hand rest on my tiller till I get into smooth waters again and--I've learned my lesson! What I've got to tell you sounds like a yarn, Sand. All the time I was coming up The Way I kept repeating 'it's not true!' but good Lord--it is! Morley, I'm married. I was married early this morning!"

The little woman struggling with her problem up North came to Sandy's mind. She had not been able to keep up the fight; she had followed Lans and--but no! If there had been a wedding then the husband must have died! Sandy looked puzzled.

"If it was the best, the only way, old man," he said, "I don't see why you should take it this fashion. You--loved her; you cannot have changed in so short a time."

And now it was Lans's turn to stare blankly. With his temperament, time and place had no part. He was either travelling through space at a thundering speed or stagnating in a vacuum. He had almost forgotten Marian Spaulding and his present affair took on new and more potent meanings.

"I--I married Cynthia Walden!" he gasped. "I married her--this morning. We were out alone all last night. The--storm--you--know!

She didn't understand--I tried to--to shield her--she doesn't understand--now. Good God! Morley, stop staring! Say something, for heaven's sake!"

But Sandy could not speak, and his brain whirled so dizzily that he dared not shut his eyes for fear of falling. Like a man facing death with only a moment in which to speak volumes, he groped among the staggering mass of facts that were hurtling around him, for one, one only, that would save the hour. He remembered vividly the old story of Cynthia's mother which Ann Walden had proclaimed, but he remembered, also, the hideous belief that lay low in Lost Hollow. Dead and buried was the doubt, but now it rose grim and commanding. Sandy tried to form the words: "She is your sister!" But the words would not come through the stiff, parted lips. Honesty held them in check; they must not become a living thought unless absolute proof were there to substantiate them.

The two men confronted each other helplessly, silently, and then Lans Treadwell, overcome by sudden remorse, and a kind of fear, strove to propitiate the sternness that found no expression in words.

"I've been devilishly wrong, Sand, and returned your hospitality and friendship with bad grace, old fellow, but I drifted into it and when it was too late--I did what seemed the only decent thing. I know I couldn't have explained, and she turned my senses by her sweetness.

She's like a baby, Morley, and I mean to--to do the right by her, as God hears me!"

Treadwell used the name of God so frequently and ardently that it sickened Sandy.

"Yes," he groaned, "you will do right by her or----" the dark eyes flashed dangerously; "and you'll do right by her--in my way!"

This was unfortunate and Sandy saw his mistake. Lans Treadwell's shoulders straightened and his jaw set in ugly lines.

"If it's going to be man to man, Sand," he muttered, "I reckon I've got the whip hand. She's my wife, you know, and the laws of this nice little state are pretty explicit along certain lines. When all's said and done--what are you, as a man, mind you, going to do about it?"

Again the staggering doubt was like a weapon for Sandy's use, but he hesitated still.

"I--I wonder if you know what you have done?" he groaned again.

"When you talk like that, Sand," Lans whispered, his face softening, "I don't! And I implore you to help me."

"You don't know our South, our Hollow," Sandy went on, with a pitiful tone in his unsteady voice. "It takes us so long to--wake up! It's something in the air, the sun, the winters--the life. Cynthia has not roused--she is only dreaming in her sleep. She's a child, a little girl, and you have dragged her into----"

"Hold on, Sand!" Lans warned once more.

"I have been waiting"--Sandy did not seem to heed the caution--"I've been waiting and watching for the hour when she would realize that she was a woman. I've loved her all my life, worshipped her, but I would not have startled her before her time to have saved my soul from death!

Had she realized, Treadwell--had things been open and fair, I would have taken my chance--but--you!"

Again the blaze darted to Treadwell's eyes.

"And what do you insinuate?" he asked--but he got no farther. There was the sound of quick, approaching steps outside and a moment later a sharp knock on the door; Sandy strode forward and opened it, then closed it upon Marcia Lowe and Cynthia.

Quickened by spiritual insight Sandy saw that the girl was awake to the reality of things. Shock had shattered her childishness forever, but she was not afraid. Uncertainty and ignorance were there, but no sense of danger in the clear, wonderful eyes.

"Oh! Sandy," she panted, going close to him and holding her hands out, "Sandy, you know?"

"Yes."

"I wanted to be here with you-all after she"--the sweet eyes turned to Marcia Lowe--"told me. I--I thought maybe he"--she glanced toward Treadwell--"might not tell you, till morning. Poor dear!"

This last was to Sandy, for the look in his eyes wrung the tender heart with divine pity.

"Sit down," Sandy urged, placing chairs near the hearth and bending to lay on more wood, "there is much to say."

Then it was that the little doctor took command. She did not sit down as the others had; she stood by the table with some loose papers in her hand.

"I feel as if it were all my fault," she began. "Things lie so still here; we seem so shut in. Cynthia has been like a child to me--I haven't thought ahead and I just played with her and worked out--my puzzle piece by piece. It was only a week ago that I felt sure; I meant to tell Cynthia slowly and little by little--and then this happened!"

Marcia Lowe's face was fixed and white. No one spoke. Then she went on again.

"I have always believed Cynthia's father was--my uncle, Theodore Starr!

I came to Lost Hollow because I believed that, but I had no absolute proof and Ann Walden denied me support. But look at her--look at Cynthia and me! Of course I am old, old, and she's a baby, but can't you read God's handwriting in our faces? See the colour, form--expression----"