It is a long drive in from the railroad to Morrison\'s. Hite called it eighteen good miles; the Clown put it at nineteen; what the old dog estimated it at none knew. He had always trotted the distance cheerfully.

From Thayor\'s private flag station, the main road into Big Shanty snakes along over a flat, sparsely settled valley before it enters the deep woods. Once in the heavy timber it crossed chattering brooks skirting the ragged edges of wild ravines. On it goes through the forest mile after mile, up hill and down, until it emerges abruptly into the open country at the head of the "Deadwater," passes Morrison\'s, is met half a mile farther on by the new road leading down from Big Shanty camp, and continues straight ahead through a rough notch out to a valley twelve miles beyond.

It was over this road that Alice Thayor went to her exile.

Thayor and Holcomb, this rare August afternoon, were at the flag station to meet the "Wanderer"—the banker\'s private car, with a spick-and-span three-seated buckboard and a fast team of bays. Aboard the car were Alice and Margaret, Blakeman and Annette.

Alice Thayor\'s first meeting with Holcomb since the time when he saved her husband\'s life, consisted of a slight nod of recognition and an annoyed "How do you do?" She wore a smart travelling gown of Scotch homespun and a becoming toque of gray straw enveloped in a filmy dragon-green veil. Holcomb thought it strange that Thayor kissed his daughter and simply greeted his wife with the question, "I do hope you were comfortable, dear, coming up?"

"The heat was something frightful," she replied, lifting the dragon-green veil wearily and binding it straight across her forehead. "My head is splitting."

Holcomb glanced at her exquisite features. The brilliancy of her dark eyes was enhanced by the pallor of her ivory skin. Alice Thayor loathed travelling.

Margaret had greeted him far more graciously; she had extended her firm little gloved hand to him, with genuine delight in her brown eyes, and had told him how very glad indeed she was to see him—which was the truth. During the drive in her mother scarcely opened her lips. She sat in the middle seat beside her daughter, haughtily gracious and inwardly bored. Margaret\'s enthusiasm irritated her. The woman going to her exile was in no mood to enthuse over nature. Holcomb drove, with Thayor on the front seat beside him; on the back seat sat Blakeman and Annette, in respectful silence. As they entered the deep woods at a smart trot, Margaret half closed her eyes in sheer ecstasy and drew in a long, delicious breath of forest air.

"My—but that\'s good, daddy!" she exclaimed. Everything was of intense interest to her. The sudden glimpse of some great mountain towering above the trees; the velvety green, billowy moss; the merry little brooks they crossed; the whirring flight of a startled partridge and now the sinking sun flooding the silent woods with gold. When she was not in ecstasies over these, her brown eyes glanced at the clean-cut, handsome profile of the young woodsman who was so skilfully driving the bay team.

He was no longer the awkward and embarrassed young fellow she remembered that summer at Long Lake. He had, she realized much to her agreeable surprise, the ease and manner of a well-bred man about him now. His honest, cheery frankness appealed to her; moreover, she thought him exceedingly handsome.

"That\'s where the line crosses," said Holcomb, pointing quickly to a blazed hemlock.

"Oh, look, mother—quick!" cried Margaret.

"We\'re in Big Shanty tract now, dear," explained Thayor. "The line we have just passed strikes due east from here and runs—how far, Billy?"

"Oh—clear to Alder Brook—about fifteen miles, before it corners south."

Alice\'s lips grew tense; she was beginning to realize the vastness of her husband\'s purchase. She began to wonder, too, how much it had cost him—this folly of Sam\'s.

"And is it all as beautiful as this?" asked Margaret of the young man whose strong brown hands held the reins.

"Yes, Miss Thayor, and some of it is a good deal better looking."

"You shall see, dearie," added Thayor; "I\'ve a surprise in store for you both—yes, a hundred surprises. We will cross the East Branch of Big Shanty Brook in a moment—that is surprise number one. How is the headache, Alice—better?"

"A little," she returned indifferently.

"Listen!" said Thayor; "hear it? That\'s the East Branch roaring."

"Oh—I\'m just crazy to see it!" cried Margaret. "It was on the West
Branch you killed the deer, wasn\'t it, daddy?"

Thayor nodded and smiled.

"Now look, puss!" he commanded, as they reached the rough bridge spanning the East Branch.

Margaret peered down into the heavy black water a hundred feet below them.

"Daddy, it\'s gorgeous—simply gorgeous," exclaimed Margaret. "Look, mother, at the water swirling through that green pool. Oh, do look, mother." Alice condescended to look.

"Isn\'t it superb, Alice?" ventured Thayor.

"Yes—Sam—but lonely."

In the twilight the great brook boiled below them.

"It ain\'t so lonely," remarked Holcomb pleasantly, turning to Mrs. Thayor, "when the sun is shining." He had dropped into his native dialect, which now and then cropped out in his speech.

"I suppose it ain\'t," said Alice in a whisper to Margaret. The girl touched her mother\'s arm pleadingly.

"Please don\'t," she said; "he might hear you. It really isn\'t kind in you, mother. You know they speak so differently in the country."

Holcomb had heard it, but not a muscle twitched in resentment. He tightened the reins, and for a mile drove in silence.

"And this is the man your father lunched with at The Players," continued Alice under her breath.

Margaret did not reply.

Presently they came out into the valley at the head of the Deadwater, still as ink, reflecting the barkless trees it had killed so clearly that it was difficult to see the point of immersion. Then the plain gabled roof of Morrison\'s came into view above a flat of young poplars, the silver leaves shivering in............