The man had fallen into a wheedling tone as he studied their faces.

"Jest put yourselves in my place," he said.

"Then what was he after?" said Mart.

"Stealin'. But he figured he'd come again."

"He didn't like my gun much."

"Guns always skeers him when he don't know the parties shootin'.

That's his dumbness. Maybe he thought I was after him; he's jest that distrustful. Begosh! we'll have the laugh on him when he finds he run from a little girl."

"He didn't wait to see who he was running from," said Mart.

"Of course he didn't. Andy hears your gun and he don't inquire further, but hits the first hole he kin crawl into. That's Andy! That's the kind of boy I hev to work for me. All the good ones goes where you're goin', where the grain grows without irrigation and the blacktail deer comes out on the hill and asks yu' to shoot 'em for dinner. Who's ready for the bottom? If I stay talkin' the sun'll go down on us. Don't yu' let me get started agin. Just you shet me off twiced anyway each twenty-four hours."

He began to descend with his pack-horse and the first load. All afternoon they went up and down over the hot bare face of the hill, until the baggage, heavy and light, was transported and dropped piecemeal on the shore. The torn-out insides of their home littered the stones with familiar shapes and colors, and Nancy played among them, visiting each parcel and folded thing.

"There's the red table-cover!" she exclaimed, "and the big coffee-grinder. And there's our table, and the hole Mart burned in it."

She took a long look at this. "Oh, how I wish I could see our pump!" she said, and began to cry.

"You talk to her, mother," said Clallam. "She's tuckered out."

The men returned to bring the wagon. With chain-locked wheels, and tilted half over by the cross slant of the mountain, it came heavily down, reeling and sliding on the slippery yellow weeds, and grinding deep ruts across the faces of the shelving beds of gravel. Jake guided it as he could, straining back on the bits of the two hunched horses when their hoofs glanced from the stones that rolled to the bottom; and the others leaned their weight on a pole lodged between the spokes, making a balance to the wagon, for it leaned the other way so far that at any jolt the two wheels left the ground. When it was safe at the level of the stream, dusk had come and a white flat of mist lay along the river, striping its course among the gaunt hills. They slept without moving, and rose early to cut logs, which the horses dragged to the shore. The outside trunks were nailed and lashed with ropes, and sank almost below the surface with the weight of the wood fastened crosswise on top. But the whole floated dry with its cargo, and crossed clumsily on the quick-wrinkled current. Then it brought the wagon; and the six horses swam. The force of the river had landed them below the cabin, and when they had repacked there was too little left of day to go on.

Clallam suggested it was a good time to take Moon's leavings over to the Okanagon, but Wild-Goose Jake said at once that their load was heavy enough; and about this they could not change his mind. He made a journey to the cabin by himself, and returned saying that he had managed to lock the door.

"Father," said Mart, as they were harnessing next day, "I've been up there. I went awful early. There's no lock to the door, and the cabin's empty."

"I guessed that might be."

"There has been a lock pried off pretty lately. There was a lot of broken bottles around everywheres, inside and out."

"What do you make out of it?" said Mart.

"Nothing yet. He wants to get us away, and I'm with him there. I want to get up the Okanagon as soon as we can."

"Well, I'm takin' yu' the soonest way," said Wild-Goose Jake, behind them. From his casual smile there was no telling what he had heard.

"I'll put your stuff acrosst the Okanagon to-morrow mornin'. But to-night yourselves'll all be over, and the ladies kin sleep in my room."

The wagon made good time. The trail crossed easy valleys and over the yellow grass of the hills, while now and then their guide took a short-cut. He wished to get home, he said, since there could be no estimating what Leander might be doing. While the sun was still well up in the sky they came over a round knob and saw the Okanagon, blue in the bright afternoon, and the cabin on its further bank. This was a roomier building to see than common, and a hay-field was by it, and a bit of green pasture, fenced in. Saddle-horses were tied in front, heads hanging and feet knuckled askew with long waiting, and from inside an uneven, riotous din whiffled lightly across the river and intervening meadow to the hill.

"If you'll excuse me," said Jake, "I'll jest git along ahead, and see what game them folks is puttin' up on Andy. Likely as not he's weighin'

'em out flour at two cents, with it costin' me two and a half on freightin' alone. I'll hev supper ready time you ketch up."

He was gone at once, getting away at a sharp pace, till presently they could see him swimming the stream. When he was in the cabin the sounds changed, dropping off to one at a time, and expired. But when the riders came out into the air, they leaned and collided at random, whirled their arms, and, screaming till they gathered heart, charged with wavering menace at the door. The foremost was flung from the sill, and he shot along toppling and scraped his length in the dust, while the owner of the cabin stood in the entrance. The Indian picked himself up, and at some word of Jake's which the emigrants could half follow by the fierce lift of his arm, all got on their horses and set up a wailing, like vultures driven off. They went up the river a little and crossed, but did not come down this side, and Mrs. Clallam was thankful when their evil noise had died away up the valley. They had seen the wagon coming, but gave it no attention. A man soon came over the river from the cabin, and was lounging against a tree when the emigrants drew up at the margin.

"I don't know what you know," he whined defiantly from the tree, "but I'm goin' to Cornwall, Connecticut, and I don't care who knows it." He sent a cowed look at the cabin across the river.

"Get out of the wagon, Nancy," said Clallam. "Mart, help her down."

"I'm going back," said the man, blinking like a scolded dog. "I ain't stayin' here for nobody. You can tell him I said so, too." Again his eye slunk sidewise towards the cabin, and instantly back.

"While you're staying," said Mart, "you might as well give a hand here."

He came with alacrity, and made a shift of unhitching the horses. "I was better off coupling freight cars on the Housatonic," he soon remarked.

His voice came shallow, from no deeper than his throat, and a peevish apprehension rattled through it. "That was a good job. And I've had better, too; forty, fifty, sixty dollars better."

"Shall we unpack the wagon?" Clallam inquired.

"I don't know. You ever been to New Milford? I sold shoes there.

Thirty-five dollars and board."

The emigrants attended to their affairs, watering the horses and driving picket stakes. Leander uselessly followed behind them with conversation, blinking and with lower lip sagged, showing a couple of teeth. "My brother's in business in Pittsfield, Massachusetts," said he, "and I can get a salary in Bridgeport any day I say so. That a Marlin?"

"No," said Mart. "It's a Winchester."

"I had a Marlin. He's took it from me. I'll bet you never got shot at."

"Anybody want to shoot you?" Mart inquired.

"Well and I guess you'll believe they did day before yesterday"

"If you're talking about up at that cabin, it was me."

Leander gave Mart a leer. "That won't do," said he. "He's put you up to telling me that, and I'm going to Cornwall, Connecticut. I know what's good for me, I guess."

"I tell you we were looking for the ferry, and I signalled you across the river."

"No, no," said Leander. "I never seen you in my life. Don't you be like him and take me for a fool."

"All right. Why did they want to murder you?"

"Why?" said the man, shrilly. "Why? Hadn't they broke in and filled themselves up on his piah-chuck till they were crazy-drunk? And when I came along didn't they--"

"When you came along they were nowhere near there," said Mart.

"Now you're going to claim it was me drunk it and scattered all them bottles of his," screamed Leander, backing away. "I tell you I didn't.

I told him I didn't, and he knowed it well, too. But he's just that mean when he's mad he likes to put a thing on me whether or no, when he never seen me touch a drop of whiskey, nor any one else, neither. They were riding and shooting loose over the country like they always do on a drunk. And I'm glad they stole his stuff. What business had he to keep it at Billy Moon's old cabin and send me away up there to see it was all right? Let him do his own dirty work. I ain't going to break the laws on the salary he pays me."

The Clallam family had gathered round Leander, who was stricken with volubility. "It ain't once in a while, but it's every day and every week," he went on, always in a woolly scream. "And the longer he ain't caught the bolder he gets, and puts everything that goes wrong on to me.

Was it me traded them for that liquor this afternoon? It was his squaw, Big Tracks, and he knowed it well. He lets that mud-faced baboon run the house when he's off, and I don't have the keys nor nothing, and never did have. But of course he had to come in and say it was me just because he was mad about having you see them Siwashes hollering around. And he come and shook me where I was sittin', and oh, my, he knowed well the lie he was acting. I bet I've got the marks on my neck now. See any red marks?" Leander exhibited the back of his head, but the violence done him had evidently been fleeting. "He'll be awful good to you, for he's that scared--"

Leander stood tremulously straight in silence, his lip sagging, as Wild-Goose Jake called pleasantly from the other bank. "Come to supper, you folks," said he. "Why, Andy, I told you to bring them across, and you've let them picket their horses. Was you expectin' Mrs. Clallam to take your arm and ford six feet of water?" For some reason his voice sounded kind as he spoke to his assistant.

"Well, mother?" said Clallam.

"If it was not for Nancy, John--"

"I know, I know. Out on the shore here on this side would be a pleasanter bedroom for you, but" (he looked up the valley) "I guess our friend's plan is more sensible to-night."