Late that night a knock came at Candy's door, which is to say, the door of the dormitory. She and the others were in bed, but many were long in getting to sleep after the evening's excitement, and one of these was Bella, who volunteered to answer it. She quickly returned to say the caller was asking for Candy. "It's Jeremy," she added.
    He was carrying a pack which Candy supposed contained all his belongings, or all that he wished to take. Without preliminaries, and before she could ask how things stood between him and Jason, he asked, "Can I sleep here tonight?"
    A man pass the night in the dormitory? And not just any man; hers. How could he suggest such a thing? "Not inside!" he said, having read her face. "Here on the porch."
    "I...suppose...."
    "Good." He flung his pack onto the porch swing, which creaked under the weight, and flung himself after it. He looked spent, almost old.
    She stood staring at him, one foot still inside. In her robe, she did not like to come farther. It would set a bad example for Molly and the others. But she did not like to leave him in this state, whatever it was. "What happened between you and Jason? We heard you shouting."
    Jeremy loosened his bootlaces. God, how they bound. "Doesn't matter." He sat up and arranged his pack for a pillow.
    "But he ordered you off the mountain. He must have had a reason." Jeremy shook his head. "You won't tell me?"
    He turned on her fiercely. "Blame it, Candy, I said it doesn't matter! Isn't that good enough for you?"
    "Of course," she said meekly.
    "Then can I stay here tonight?"
    "Of course."
    "Thank you." But he did not sound thankful. He swung his legs up onto the seat and lay back, hands locked behind his head. He did not look at her again.
    After watching him for a little she went inside. A few minutes later she came out with her cloak around her and left without speaking. He felt a misgiving about her walking out so late but put it from him with an effort. Let her please herself, he thought, or tried to; I don't care.
    She paused at the totem pole to deliberate. There she met someone she would not have expected, had she been expecting anyone, but just the one she would have hoped for, had she been hoping. He was returning from the dance and a stint at Lottie's following. "Late for an evening constitutional," he said, with a hint of insinuation. He unsheathed the grin that seemed to have charmed Molly; by Heaven, it would not charm her.
    She asked the same question of him she had of Jeremy. "So he didn't want to tell you? Well, I can't blame him. You'd better ask Jason." He headed on, rounding the pole.
    "You can spare me the walk," she said.
    He turned and met her eyes–large, liquid, too-probing. He preferred to assess others in his own terms (form, color, line) rather than be assessed. And he gathered she regarded his morals, such as she knew of them, rather severely. "Well, all right. But you won't like it."
    When she returned Jeremy was still awake. He was now ready to explain, when she asked (or perhaps she had figured out herself), that he had only been protecting her sister, who some day soon would be his daughter. He was conscious of their debt to him and confident Candy would soon recognize it, if she had not already, so that she could stand with him and they could decide what to do next: demand his share of the mountain as a home for them and the kids, or show Jason they could make a go of it without him. It was time they were married, anyway. His expectancy thus buoyed, he was unprepared for what she actually had to say.
    She stood between the door and the swing, not looking at him. Her voice sounded like an echo, as if it issued from a deep recess within her. "You'll have to sleep somewhere else," she said. "I can't have you here."
    Jeremy started to object but changed his mind. He got up slowly. "That simple?"
    "Unless you have an explanation for what Jericho told me." She waited in hope, but resisted the hope lest it weaken her. "Have you?"
    So she was on Jericho's side, too. "Do I need one?"
    "A man has two families–the one he was raised in and the one he raises himself. If he'll turn against one he'll turn against both. I can't trust a man like that around my child–" She had not realized she thought of them in that way. "Not around Molly and Christopher."
    Molly, whose welfare he had been guarding! And she saw him as a menace to it. The split with Jason had been one thing: he had sided with Jason's enemy of the time, as it must appear to Jason. But he had looked out for Molly as if she were his own, and he had thought Candy knew it. Evidently she did not; she did not know him. His jaw hardened and his eyes changed, as though a lamp within them had blown out. He hefted the pack onto his back.
    Candy felt he deserved some kindness. "You can get a room at Lottie's." She knew he was as much aware of it as she. "Or the hotel. It's just opened."
    This made it worse, made it sound as if he were a passing stranger who would be leaving in the morning. Will he? she thought, and on the thought turned to him, but he was nearly at the gate already. Was this the end of their "understanding," then? But of course it was; she had told him so. Till that moment she had not looked ahead to a future apart from him; she had only done what she knew she must. And what else could she have done? In the weeks to come she would ask herself that many times.
    The night felt colder to Jeremy than any he could remember. Only Lottie's lights still burned with the promise of a warm haven. As he made for it a voice hailed him, and he turned to a figure that had just climbed up from the wharf. Even at that distance there was enough of a moon to show up the satyr-like features, the angular body, the gait whose studied ease was undercut by a rigidity no amount of practice could eradicate. Jeremy wondered at his being out so late, as most of the others who knew him would have. It would have surprised them to learn he habitually visited the wharf late at night to walk off some care that kept sleep at arm's length, as one was doing tonight.
    As he and Jeremy fell into step, his first words were "It appears I've caused you some difficulties."
    Jeremy shook his head. "That's all in the past."
    "Where it should have stayed." He offered to try to put things straight with Jason.
    "He'd only say it proves him right."
    "I guess he would at that." He stopped as an idea struck him. "Let's prove him right, then." Jeremy did not understand. "Come to work for me. I can always use a good man at the mill." He grinned. "Even a Bolt."
    Jeremy saw this would probably be the only offer he would get in Seattle, and he knew Aaron well enough to have no doubt of being paid what he merited (though not a penny more). It was a stroke of luck–if luck were the right word. But he could not greet it with the joy Aaron might reasonably feel warranted. "Everyone will say I've turned my back on my family."
    Aaron respected Jeremy's scruples even when he thought them misapplied. "Sounds to me like it was the other way round. And why do you care what they say?" The question defined the difference between the two men. By then they had come up alongside Lottie's, and before finding Jeremy a berth in the bunkhouse Aaron proposed to buy him a drink. "You could use one," he observed.
    "That's what got me into this," Jeremy muttered. But he let himself be led.
    Aaron stepped up to the bar and ordered two whiskeys. "One for me and one for my new foreman," he announced to the room. The other occupants, the late-night diehards, glanced up briefly. These consisted of an unsmiling old man in the corner and a quartet bent on finishing their last round of poker, which was being conducted in defiance of the town's prohibition on gambling. Stempel ignored it. Jeremy, unsure whether he had heard him correctly, tried to ask, but all he could produce, as often in moments of dismay, was a "Wh" sound stammered repeatedly.
    Lottie was not pouring the drinks, or looking at them. To be exact, Jeremy realized, she was not looking at him; Jericho must have preceded them. "I told you," he said quietly.
    Aaron saw how it was, but unlike Jeremy was not about to let it rest. He assumed the smile he reserved for negotiating business terms. "All right," he informed Lottie, "if you won't serve a man of mine you won't serve any. I'll set in a private saloon behind the mill and serve the drinks at cost. See how long you can compete with that."
    Glaring, she moved to fill his order. Her coldness seemed to extend to her other customers, though in actuality the poker players were only studying their cards and the old man in the corner was always cold and speechless. "Don't bother," said Jeremy. It was not clear if he were speaking to her or Aaron. "The man who can't find a welcome at Lottie's...." He took up the pack he had set down. "That man has no place in Seattle. Especially if he's got no...ties to keep him here. Looks like it's time I moved on." He had never imagined he would hear himself say so. Aaron moved to accompany him to the door. Jeremy waved him back. "Stay and have that drink. It's still your town." With those words, he departed.
    Lottie glanced after him. A shadow of bad conscience passed over her face, but she shook it off. "Still want your whiskey?" She had the bottle poised in her hand.
    Aaron nodded absently. As he watched her pour he looked unaccustomedly pensive. "I may still put in that saloon," he said. He downed what was in the glass, tossed down a coin, and left for home.
    Jeremy, carrying a few clothes and a little money (he had never needed much of either), climbed away from the valley. He paused once to look back. Except for the mountain, white and green, that stood guardian over it, he saw nothing that hinted at what the place had meant to him till a couple of hours ago; but now no longer. How quickly it had all changed! How quickly those he loved had turned against him! He dismissed them from his mind as they had dismissed him and he walked on.
    His absence freed Jericho to continue his attentions to Molly, Candy having resolved in accordance with Lottie's advice that to prohibit his company would be to make it all the more desirable. But the freedom he gained thus met a brake in Clancey. Everywhere Jericho was (that Molly was), there Clancey was also. After Jericho invited her, or she invited herself, to stroll the woods in quest of a flower for her portrait, Clancey followed. And wherever Jericho looked, Clancey's face presented itself, sometimes so close at hand it gave him a start. At one point he asked helpfully whether Jericho hadn't missed the rhododendrons.
    "Why are you still about?" asked Jericho. "Haven't you a ship to run?"
    "She's safe harbored, t'ank ye kindly. And as for me bein' in harm's way, as ye might say, 'tis only in me capacity as chaperone, which no proper young colleen should be without while she's in the comp'ny of a dashin' young fella such as yourself."
    "Ah." Jericho took the compliment at its intended worth. "And this would be her sister's idea, no doubt?"
    "Oh, aye, aye. Told me to stick close by her and not let her out of me sight." He slipped a wink to Molly, whose eyes bulged at the barefaced shamelessness of the lie. "So's to make certain," Clancey went on, rather enjoying himself, "this posin' business is on the up and up. Which it appears to be and which I shall report accordin'ly." He tipped his hat as a signature.
    "Happy of your good opinion." This was of course meant ironically.
    "Jericho, look!" Molly's eyes were gleaming. She ran to a bush and picked something off it, which she brought back and held out to him. It was a dainty purple sprig. "Heather!"
    Jericho sniffed. "Hardly a flower at all." He picked it up, snapped it in two, and threw it aside. "Let's go. Nothing to see here." Molly had just glimpsed a fox among the bushes. It had its head lifted and was sniffing, like Jericho, but for its own purposes. A moment later it had darted away. Molly wished she could follow it, but at Jericho's call she ran after him instead.
    Clancey was confessing his inability to grasp Jericho's dilemma. "Simple sailor that I am, I'm t'inkin' ye could just paint the girl without the flower and put the flower in later."
    Jericho laughed unkindly. "You would think that."
    "Haven't I just said it?"
    "I must have the flower first. I have to see the two together–the flower in her and her in the flower."
    "Ah, ye've the artistic natur'."
    "Not at all. Painting is only my science. Life is my art." He glanced at Molly to make sure she was suitably impressed. He did not care about Clancey's opinion.
    This was as well, for Clancey's judgment, which he expressed freely as he walked Molly home, was that the lubber was full of blither-blather–"Life is his art, indeed!"–and would profit by a year or two at sea. "That'd wash the French scent off him," he opined.
    Jericho had returned to camp or to his studio–or to Lottie's. But he remained in Molly's mind. She barely heard what Clancey was saying (to which she would have paid little attention, anyway) because a question had presented itself to her mind, rather like a question on a school examination. She decided to solicit Clancey's view of it. "If two sisters married two brothers–"
    "Eh? Marry their brothers?"
    "Not their own brothers. Two different brothers. Brothers to each other, I mean. If two sisters married them, what would they be to each other?"
    "Who?"
    "The sisters."
    "Sisters. Ye've just said so."
    "Yes, but what else would they be? They'd be more than sisters, wouldn't they? If they married the two brothers?"
    "Now, how could bot' of 'em marry the same two brothers? It don't make sense, darlin'."
    "No! One of them would marry one brother, and one would marry the other. The other brother. The other sister would."
    "I still don't follow ye."
    "Oh...! For example, if Candy married Jeremy, and I married...one of Jeremy's brothers." Molly knew vaguely that Jeremy was gone, but that was all she knew about it.
    "Ah, I see," said Clancey, and then, more percipiently, "I do indeed." He pondered for a moment. "What was the question again?"
    "Never mind!" She left it at that, for they were at the dormitory, anyway.
    Their separate but related concerns were still on their minds next evening, when Jericho had asked permission to take Molly to the opera house. A visiting pianist was offering Schubert (the Wanderer Fantasy) as well as other pieces, but it was the Schubert she was longing to hear, if she would be able to keep her attention on it. She got out her prettiest dress, on which she had sewn an extra ruffle, and brushed her hair till her scalp hurt. She practiced standing tall, pinched her cheeks till they stung, and tried biting on a gooseberry to redden her lips, but the result looked bloody, and she wiped them clean till only a trace of the sweet redness remained.
    After all this, the only comment Jericho had to make on her appearance was "Girl, why do you walk that way?"
    "What way?" She must be a horrible sight, but how? He showed her, holding his head down and his shoulders in, eyes to the ground. An awareness that he was right made her blush ferociously. She did not always walk like this (she hoped) but she was doing so tonight. Why did it have to be in front of him? "Lift your head and walk proud," he ordered. She did so. The movement was a little stiff, but he did not mind; it entertained him. He placed her hand in the cusp of his elbow and told her that now she looked the fine young lady she was. She glowed. Together they promenaded by the other couples collecting outside, waiting for the house to open.
    Jericho left her and went to buy the tickets, perhaps to be spared her conversation for a few minutes, since he could easily have obtained them as they entered. While she was standing alone, someone all but leapt out in front of her: Brian again! "Hey, Molly!" he greeted her.
    "Good evening, Brian," she said as politely as she could. She did not want Jericho to suppose she had invited him to converse with her, but also she did not want to be unkind. If she appeared haughty to a degree, it was only in holding her head high, like the fine young lady she was. Then the house opened and Jericho returned to lead her away into the crowd pooled up at the entrance. Brian stayed back. He was not dressed for an evening out; he had happened to see her in passing and come over on purpose to talk to her.
    One other also was present on her behalf. He had followed her and her escort from the dormitory, though at a distance, for Jericho had deliberately outpaced him. At present he could freely ignore him, Clancey having decided his charge ended at the opera house doors. An old sea dog like him could not sit still long for that brand of piano playing; anyhow, inside she would have half the town as chaperones. But he would be waiting for her when she came out. As the tide of provincial culture seekers ebbed, he and Brian were left as jetsam. They were standing near each other, and the attention of both was focused on the pair, who were just passing indoors. Jericho was doing all the talking; Molly turned to him in delight at some remark. That was their last sight of her.
    Clancey saw the effect it had had on the boy and offered him a consoling pat on the shoulder. "Well, that's as may be," he said obscurely.
    Brian looked at him in surprise. Unaware of his interest in the case, and wrapped up in his own new-minted, unanticipated adoration, he had supposed himself the only one to have been watching. "What does she see in him?"
    "Same t'ing as you. Only she's a female, so it strikes her different." He found himself a section of wall to lean against for the next hour and a half.
    "I could never get her to look at me that way."
    "No, lad, ye couldn't."
    "Because I'm not that handsome?"
    Clancey shook his head. "Because he's a–how d'ye say it?–a mythioloco creatur'. Somethin' that don't exist at all save in her own mind. And there ain't a blessed t'ing ye can do about it but wait till she sees it for herself. But you're young yet, and she's a girl worth waitin' for."
    "She sure is," Brian said dreamily. Clancey smiled.
    Inside, Molly was ascending second by second to a happiness she had never imagined. At its heart, nurturing and informing it, was the agonizing despair she had felt earlier and would feel again later, a feeling halfway between a head cold and a good cry, or like lying face down on the pebble bed of a mill race: love, in other words. In its absence, the evening and Jericho and the music, the wonderful Schubert rippling through her, could never have borne her so high, to unimaginable bliss born of unimaginable suffering: love, in other words.
    Jericho was bored. The music, he could have endured if the playing had been halfway competent (Molly thought it simply wonderful). But what tedium it was to have nothing worth listening to, and no opportunity of being listened to himself! He enjoyed the moon-faced, moon-eyed, moonstruck–everything to do with the moon–looks he inspired in Molly, but while she was concentrating on the music or allowing it to concentrate in her, these had ceased. So deprived of amusements, he turned his thoughts to himself.
    He understood love, he believed, its frenzy and its wormwood aftertaste, but he had ever known it himself that he could recall. He liked to look at women, however, and his need to capture his perceptions of them in concrete shapes and colors sometimes possessed him to the exclusion of all else. At those times he was perhaps in love with the image in his head, and on his canvas as he transferred it little by little. If its original happened to mistake herself for the object of his passion, that was no concern of his.
    One time the girl's fragility, which had drawn him to her in the first place and which he had labored long and hard to render in its exact contours, free of the satire to which his careless nature disposed him when he did not fight it; that fragility, buffeted and finally wrecked by his indifference and occasional outright cruelty, had driven her to seek eternal peace in an overdose of laudanum. A friend had snatched the glass from her lips just in time and denounced Jericho to his face as a brute and despoiler, but what had he to do with it? The girl should have been happy. He had made more of her than she had ever made of herself, and memorialized her for the generations. She should have knelt down and kissed his hand; no, too popish. But gratitude she owed him, by God.
    And so, he reasoned now, would Molly–if ever he found the right flower for her. As he sat, he ran through the possibilities and actually saw them in his mind. The anemone, symbol of fleeting love; that would be apt, if he could keep her infatuation with him, and his own interest (of a different type) in her, kindled till the purple-topped stems overspread the fields. But if they had to wait, why not the rose? A pink rose probably, with a fiery red center. Or the lily, exalted, unapproachable; no, not quite right. The violet, token of innocent love, would have done but he had used it in another painting already. The only flower he had painted twice was the camellia; it had fit both women perfectly, and it was his favorite, elegant and delicate, with a texture that caught the light like parchment. His favorite, but not his flower: that was the poppy, the Janus-flower, symbol of light and dark, of life and death.
    These and other musings occupied him till the end of the recital, when prolonged applause on all sides recalled him to the moment. And high time, too; he felt like a drink. The girl was all agush with praise for the playing; he pretended agreement, but how simple her tastes were! As they emerged onto the street he saw Clancey slumped against the wall asleep. Good, he thought; one less nuisance to deal with.
    As he walked her back to the dormitory the music was still coursing through her head. She felt as if it were bearing her along with it toward a crescendo. When they arrived at the gate, he opened it for her and he accompanied her up the path to the porch. They halted at the foot of the steps. They had hardly spoken on the long walk and did not speak now. Jericho looked down at her gravely. He lifted one of his long, delicately veined hands to brush the hair from her forehead as if he were about to kiss it. She held her breath; she held any number of breaths. He lowered his head.
    "Time to come inside," said Candy. She was standing at the screen door. Jericho bade her a good evening, and Molly resumed her breathing. Candy expressed her thanks to him for seeing her little sister safely home. Conscious of the "little," and of her lost chance (but unsure whether it were not another product of her imagination), Molly nodded a quick good night to Jericho and hurried in. Not till she was in bed did the music return to her, and the memory of his courtliness (when he had known she was looking), and the mystery of the glade; his glade, as she thought of it now. At last she was ready to enter it. Tomorrow she would.
    As she drifted asleep her erstwhile escort remained awake, dividing his attention between his own choice of sleeping draught (taken in successive doses, in a shot glass) and the aged, pretty, buxom woman who was just serving up his second bottle. He considered painting her; that mixture of sweetness and sandpaper, whose exact proportions he had yet to ascertain, intrigued him. But her advanced years put him off.
    He had once painted an old woman (old, that is, by his standards) with a fading myrtle as her emblem and had made a good job of it, within the limits, which he sensed in himself, of an inadequate appreciation of all the stages of life past green youth. Vice, he did not mind contemplating, but age he chose to ignore, especially as it applied to himself. Even buildings, he would not paint unless they were new; the events they had witnessed, the years and weathers that had worn them to their present states depressed him.
    Better he should devote his attention to someone like Molly, till she was no longer new in his eyes, and by then his work with her would be done. What he saw in her face, he no longer saw in his mirror. Yet he was still young; people were always saying so. Lottie said so now. "For so young a man," she said, "you put them away with a will."
    He poured himself another. "Had a deal of practice," he said. "Don't even feel it now." The bar under his hand seemed to slide sideways an inch or two. "Or not mudge–much."
    Having seen him drunk, Lottie took his boast with a grain of salt. But she had to allow he had taken a prodigious amount of alcohol over his bows (four times as much as his brother) before reaching that state. "Any special regret you're eager to wash away?"
    His grey eyes appeared greyer than usual. "Not as I recall. Should there be?" She shrugged. "No," he continued, explaining, "in the circles I frequent, people drink pretty free. That's how I acquired the habit. Can't say I mind much, though." He treated himself to another swig, savoring the taste before swallowing. "Nope, don't mind at all."
    Lottie was wiping dry the counter in front of him and taking her time at it, working in circles that largely overlapped each other. "Did you acquire any other bad habits over there?" she asked casually. "Such as–oh–leading innocents astray?"
    It took him a moment to absorb her meaning. When he did, he smacked the glass down on the counter. "Not the same song from you now! The girl's a baby."
    "She's around the corner from being a woman, as you know better than anyone. She's blossoming, and you're her shining sun, or so she thinks. Wouldn't it be kindest to put her off? I'm sure you've had your share of companions–"
    "Share!" He was yelling now; perhaps he was more drunk than he showed. "People ain't wages! You ain't allowed only so many!"
    "I know a girl whose sights are set on one. And I won't see her hurt. Before long she'll be opening the door to a bright, beautiful world. She'll meet with sorrows along the way, and I wouldn't keep her from them even if I could. But they'll be the kind that happen naturally, not what comes of running after what isn't so."
    "Ain't it? You know that for a fact?" His face was ruddy. He was drunk, she decided.
    "What phrase is that our schoolmarm is so fond of?" Lottie pretended to search her memory. "Oh, yes. She'd call it...a contradiction in terms."
    Jericho wagged a finger at her. "Aha! That feline stare again."
    Lottie did not know what that meant and did not ask. "Feline, canine, ox, or ostrich–all the animals boarded the ark two by two." For the first time Jericho suspected he had had too much: the words made no sense to him at all. Lottie continued in a more friendly tone. "No creature made is one of a kind. Best find yours and leave the rest alone."
    He looked at her uncertainly, as if seeking significance in her expression, but if he were it did not reveal itself. He changed the subject. "Thing I have to find is a flower to paint. But none are in bloom."
    "Rhododendrons?" He ignored the question. "There's one I'll bet you haven't seen. Snow-flower, the Indians call it." The name pleased him. "It only grows in the mountains and it's easy to overlook. It's small but it's pretty. "
    "What's its color? Tell me it's red!"
    "Red it is."
    Till then he had been leaning languidly, in an affectation of sloth; all at once his limbs took life, and his eyes gleamed. "That's the one! I know it is! Where can I find it?"
    "You'll have to ask your brother."
    No shortage of those! "Which one?"
    "Joshua."
    He had expected a different answer. "Didn't realize he had an interest in botany."
    "There are few things he hasn't had an interest in, one time or another." Again he suspected the words of having an underlying meaning, but concluded from her manner there was none. As she spoke she was sweeping cobwebs from the bottles arrayed behind the bar. He would ask Joshua, then.
    Joshua knew the flower, or knew of it, and where the tales said it was to be found: somewhere in the high reaches of Bridal Veil Mountain. But he rejected the idea of going to look for it at once, reminding Jericho that Jason had teamed them together and assigned them a pile of work that had to be got on with. Jericho was no longer only their sign painter (in which capacity he had yet to finish one sign) but a partner in full standing and was expected to learn every element of the business. Joshua did not doubt he had the intelligence ("It doesn't take brains to be a logger," he had heard it said, and had said himself), but he did not expect Jericho to stick longer than the next wind that blew him in some other direction, family or no–and he had not fully made up his mind about that.
    "After work," Jericho urged.
    "No! Not after." Then he added, in a quieter voice, "Not ever."
    "But why?" Honestly, he was just like a kid.
    "Because Jason forbade it. Back when I was a boy."
    "You're not a boy now."
    Joshua saw he would have to tell it all. He did not want to; did not want to think of it and did not want Jericho to know. But it was his responsibility; Jason had teamed them. "It's a healing plant. The Indians use it to treat fever." His mind still held back but he flogged it on. "When our–our mother fell ill, our father went searching for it up in the high reaches. He nearly died searching. If he'd found it"–again he forced himself on–"it might have saved her. But it didn't. So it doesn't exist. You understand? Not for Jason, not for me–and not for you. Not if you want to be part of this family."
    He waited for some acknowledgment. "All right," Jericho said, and then said it a second time, sounding pettish. But another brainstorm followed the first. "Then take me to the cabin. If it's still there. You know I've never seen it."
    "I told you, there's work to do!"
    "It won't take that long, will it?"
    Forever after, Jericho would ascribe Joshua's change of heart and flight from duty to his own powers of persuasion. But Joshua had simply wanted to see the old place again, and had been putting in a few too many late nights, anyway. The work could wait half a day. He fetched his heavy lined coat and borrowed one of Jason's, which now fit tightly at the middle, for Jericho. He had left his own elsewhere; at Lottie's maybe. With Joshua in the lead, the two climbed up from camp into the mountain heights. Ever chillier and whiter their surroundings grew, till within an amazingly brief time (since both were young and climbed like mountain goats) they were standing before the original Bolt homestead, the oldest, the highest, and the farthest from civilization of their abode.
    The Bolts' mountain, it had been called then. Before them only Indians and trappers had roamed its forests, but only as a remote hunting ground, and Jonathan Bolt had been wise enough not to interfere with them. Years later, when his sons started their timber operation, most of the original visitors dropped away, presumably to blaze new territory, and the few that did not disappear altogether seldom let themselves be seen.
    The cabin did not look much different from any other whose dwellers had deserted it. Jericho asked if it were the same as it had been. "About the same. You'll have been born there." He pointed out one of two bed frames with their patchwork ticks still on them.
    When Jericho had looked around once, he shrugged. "Nothing to see here." Joshua began to disagree and then remembered that the memories he had of the place were not Jericho's. "I thought it would be more picturesque," the latter said, in a tone that bordered on contempt. "Let's go back." And he walked out.
    Joshua did not follow him at once. In the dust and the shadows, he stood pondering. "Come on!" Jericho yelled. "You're the one who said we had to get to work." As he paced, bits of his shadow fell through one and another of the chinks between the logs onto the opposite wall, like a half-shape made of spiders, now seen and now hidden as they scrambled over it, a menace whose advance was apprehended only in flashes, piecemeal. It was familiar to Joshua's senses, as if he had known it before, but the knowledge seemed to lie just outside his grasp. He suddenly wished Jericho had never come to Seattle.
    Far below, Molly was approaching the glade of her dream. The entrance on the near side, the side she knew, hid the round in the middle. But she could guess its shape from the maples that bordered it, venerable guardians of its unyielded secrets, and that reminded her for some reason of Captain Clancey. The entrance was a narrow space between two trees that clasped hands overhead. Tall shrubs lined the curving path within. She set a foot on it.
    The place was still. Perhaps Jericho was not there today. Her heart pounding, she followed the path around a bend and stopped as the glade opened before her. It was not quite as she had imagined, neither as dim as it had looked from the outside nor as bright as she had dreamed it, and smaller, hemmed in by shrubs. Most of it was taken up with a fallen tree trunk, dead for generations. She glimpsed an edge of something inside the hollow and walked ahead, stepping softly, as if someone might otherwise overhear, to where she could see the rest of it, cached away from all prying eyes but hers. It was the dulcimer she had heard, now sitting silent. How clever of him to hide it so! She must tell him.
    Before leaving she looked around her and up at the grove's protectors. Why had she feared this place? She and Jericho could visit it together, and he could play for her; she would suggest it to him. The idea reminded her of what Miss Essie had said that morning: the pianist they had heard on Sunday had been asked by the Ladies' League if he would consent to a second recital on some day other than the Lord's. He had consented, and the performance had been set for the following Saturday evening. She would ask Jericho. No, she would drop the fact in passing and allow him to ask her, which he was sure to do. She could not wait to talk to him.
    Rather than take the main trail, where Clancey might see her, guess whom she was going to see, and insist on accompanying her, she took a longer path she knew, which would not only enable her to evade his oversight but also spare him the long climb. She was not sure if, at his age, he could finish it. It was a kindness to him really. She did not spare herself, however, and after she had emerged from the forest into an outlying flat of the base camp and taken her last strides (which were remarkably long for her size) up onto the level ground, holding her skirts as she went, she had to stop to catch her breath. She was hot, sweaty, and tired, but felt the exhilaration of victory. Only once before had she made the climb, and then it had been with Christopher, who had blazed the way. This time she had done it alone.
    She looked about for Jericho. It had not occurred to her till now what a job it would be finding him in all those acres. There were men working in pairs or clusters at every point of the compass, some nearby, some at a distance, like ants on an anthill. She did not recognize any of the faces and was too shy to ask a stranger what she had to ask. She tried to look as if she knew where she was going and succeeded well enough for them to leave her alone, having their own business to attend to, anyhow.
    For many the sight of a woman's dress was itself sufficient to excite the attention, but once they saw who its occupant was (and they all knew her, even when she did not know them) their hopes collapsed immediately. She was pretty, all right, and was nearing the age when a man could consider courting her in earnest, but her blood ties would rule it out even if she was a hundred. No man alive would dare to brave that sister of hers: one step amiss and she'd be after him with a broom, or a loaded weapon.
    Of all the males who had had occasion to notice her, Brian alone did not fear Candy's wrath, or not inordinately. The watchfulness she exercised seemed to him no different from the encroachments of grown-up women everywhere, including many of the brides who acted older than they were (while some of the older ones acted younger). They watched out for Molly, too. That was one reason he had never visited her at home, though the principal one was that she had never invited him. He was afraid he bored her. Sometimes in talking to her he would catch her yawning behind her hand. He would bet she never did that with Jericho Bolt.
    For her part she did not dislike Brian; it was only that he was always Brian, always the same. She could not foresee the day when she would wish a man to be always the same. He was like Seattle, lacking in anything (except Jericho) that stimulated more than a mild interest in her. She would give him this: he was as interesting a boy as the town could boast. Those with more spirit were big and oafish, given to horseplay; those with less were hardly noticeable. Some of the younger men at the mill, hardly more than boys themselves, looked as if they might have something to offer but never did; she was too young for them to pay her any heed.
    –except for one. He had worked at the mill a short while and then moved on, she had never learned whither. He was small and dark-haired, with a dark look to match; Bloch was his name. From time to time she caught him regarding her with a speculative look, the meaning of which she could not guess. After he left Seattle she dreamed about him; dreamed of a storm and a cabin and a rescuer who was he. At least he had the same face to start with, but when it lost its speculative look it changed to that of someone else whom she did not know. Eventually she decided it was not Mr. Bloch she was dreaming about, after all, and that cured her of the dream.
    Today, hunting Jericho, she had no thought for Mr. Bloch or any other man she had ever fancied, or fancied she had fancied. Jericho, she now knew, was the one she had been looking for all along.
    It was he who found her. On reaching the center of the camp, where the press of men was thickest–men hastening to and fro, toting, hauling, chaining down logs–she was so intent on their faces, her eyes darting eagerly like hornets from each to the next, she did not mind what they were doing. A few were hoisting a log onto one of the skid roads. Unaware of them and unheeding of their cries of warning, she stepped into its path. The giant brown cylinder swung back at her.
    An arm clutched her shoulder and forced her aside. She spun to face Jericho, whom she only half-recognized. She angrily struggled to free herself. He turned her back around to behold the sure death or crippling from which he had saved her. "You want to watch out for those," he chided. "What in blazes you doing here, anyhow?"
    She had not thought: he had to work. "I'm in the way again, aren't I?"
    Her crestfallen face stirred a little sympathy in him. "It's not that. But I–" He glanced across the clearing, whence Joshua had been called to settle a dispute over how a big cedar was to be sectioned. Cut it any damned way, Jericho thought, what's it matter? But the distraction had freed him for a few minutes from the indignity of being Joshua's chattel. He could be free longer than that if he made his escape now. His heart jumped. "On second thought, follow me. I got me an idea."
     He led her away down a little hill to the mouth of the big flume that wove down the hillsides into Stempel's mill race. It carried their timber and, via boats, any other articles (if they were sturdy enough) that someone wanted delivered faster than he could carry them. Other flumes dotted the camp, but this was the central one, the biggest and by far the most often used. Its boats with their V-shaped keels, which exactly matched the flume bed, sat alongside.
    Molly, having encouraged herself to believe she was not out of favor, after all, mentioned the second recital that was forthcoming. "I wondered–" she began, and then stopped. She had decided he must do the asking. "I mean, I thought you might–" No, she could not say that, either. Oh, this was hopeless!
    "All right, I'll take you," he said offhandedly. They were now at the flume. He pointed below, to where a log no larger than a cane to their eyes shot round a bend, ricocheted off the walls, and threw up great shocks of water on both sides, rumbling and thumping proudly as it sped toward its end. "Like a ride?" he asked her, nodding at the boats.
    A ride! Down that? "Jason wouldn't allow it."
    Jericho grinned slyly. "He don't have to know."
    She tried to imagine it, and for a few seconds it almost seemed possible. But no! How could they? "It would kill us!"
    He laughed out loud. "You thought I meant this one?" It had certainly sounded as though he had. "No, there's one gentler. Just right for you." He took her hand in his. Feeling too weak to resist, and not really wanting to, she allowed herself to be led down to a smaller sluice on an easier slope, where the water ran less furiously, still fast enough to frighten her, but not so much.
    "My shoes will get wet." It was not a convincing excuse, but perhaps she had not been looking for one.
    "They won't."
    "I'll get wet."
    "A little, maybe. Nothing to be scared of." She continued to hesitate. "Come on. I'll hold you the whole way down."
    If she had not been blushing before, she knew she was now. Her heart was racing faster than the flume. And suddenly all seemed to be decided; he seemed to have taken it that he had consented without her saying a word–as she had, but how did he know? From a pile of small logs beside them, he picked one and lodged it between the walls of the flume, which it exactly fit, having been cut to that purpose.
    The boats here were shorter and narrower than those at the main flume, but otherwise identical in design. Jericho lifted one of them onto the flume bed behind the log, which served as a brake. Then he climbed in, outstretching his legs into the tapering stem. He beckoned to Molly to climb in after him.
    She was still afraid, but now it was a fear of something that was going to happen, and which she wanted to happen, and she did not care a fig if it did (or at least was trying not to). He held her hand as she stepped over the rim and lowered herself onto his lap, inserting her legs into the same hollow as his. She could feel the vibration of the water racing beneath, conducted through the keel and through his body into her own.
    "Don't touch the wood," he warned her. "It splinters." She lifted her hand from the rim. "Lean forward now." She did so. Gripping the walls, Jericho slid the boat forward. It lifted a little as it rode over the log, balanced on it for a moment, then tilted downward, and nosed into the stream with a splash. The current picked it up, and before Molly had time for regret they were shooting downhill.
    The men at the camp sometimes amused themselves this way; now she was sharing in one of their masculine pleasures, which before she had disdained. Jericho had her gripped tight, one arm around her front, the other hand at her forearm. The boat coursed down and around, gathering speed as it went. Came a bend, and it bounced and rocked from side to side, threatening to overturn. Jericho pressed her harder to him. Then came a sharper turn. The boat hit it, they bounced and swayed, he leaned left and took her with him (minus her stomach, which had deserted her), and on they raced. The boat continued to gather speed. This was like nothing she had ever known. Her heart was straining against her chest, but her delight was infinite, and it seemed as if she would ride forever.
    And he was responsible. With the renewed realization, pleasure of a different kind poured through her, pleasure mixed with vanity; surely Candy would say it was vanity. But here she was, with him, flying on and on in an infinity and an eternity of bliss. At the peak of her joy and her fear, which were one, she laughed and screamed, and cried, all together....
    And suddenly it ended. The course leveled off; the boat slid to a stop. She sat breathless, with beads of sweat and water mingled on her face. The man moved his arm away, brushing hers, and gently–oh, so gently–touched her dew-sprayed hair, whether on purpose she did not know. She knew she ought to move but did not know how, and she was afraid to face him.
    "Lordy," he said, "that was one hellacious ride!" The sentiment was less than she had hoped for. "Never had a better but once." This made Molly unreasonably jealous: why couldn't his best have been with her? "Stand up," he said, "if you can."
    She was unsure if her feet would support her but did as commanded. She stumbled as she stepped over into the dirt. She felt wobbly, as if she had taken a balloon flight and a sea voyage and a coach trip all at once. He jumped down alongside her. She looked up at him shyly. He grinned back, and his grin, like his summing up, was disappointing, unworthy of the unique (for her) rapture they had shared.
    And where had it brought them? She looked about. It was a part of the woods she did not know. She was far from home, not as far as she had feared he would bring her but farther than she had ever been before in her youthful and, on the whole, happy life. "You needn't tell your sister about this," he said. "Unless you care to."
    "No!" she said, blushing again, and then, more calmly, "No, I don't think I do." The two of them smiled at each other. They now had a secret, which none of the others would ever understand. "Saturday?" Molly said tentatively.
    "What?" Jericho was lost for a second. "Oh, the music. Fine, we'll...meet outside the opera house. Unless you'd rather I called."
    "No," she agreed, without fully knowing why. "We'd better meet there."
    It was time for her to get back; past time. She made to go, but he stopped her with a touch on the wrist. "I forgot to tell you, I've found the flower for your portrait. Only I've not seen it yet. The snow-flower." She had not seen it, either, though she had heard of it. "The last thing a man would expect to find blooming in the wild," he continued, "and if he wasn't careful, he could miss it altogether. A beauty that's not known– yet–but soon will be." He meant it would be after he painted it but his wording was purposely ambiguous. He reached out and ran the flat of his hand along her cheek.
    Molly lifted her eyes to the tips of the mountains behind him, which were reddish brown with streaks of white. Lower, the slopes were a mottled white and brown, and lower still, a dark greyish green. The redness and the darkness were growing; she would be very late home. She thought the view the most gorgeous she had ever seen. To Jericho it looked as if he had painted it himself, only he would have done it better.
    When he got back to camp Joshua was cross, as Jericho had expected him to be. The sun was out of sight, and that load of work would have to wait yet another day. "Where were you this time?"
    Jericho explained about Molly's visit, omitting the flume ride. "I had to see her home, didn't I?"
    Joshua observed the patches of wetness on his (that is, Jason's) coat and trouser legs. "How? By canoe?" His mind flashed onto the truth. "You didn't–?" He looked down at the flume. "You did!"
    Jericho shrugged. "Fastest way down." He started for the chow tables; it had to be just about suppertime.
    Joshua stood for a moment and then trudged after him. "You're purely irresponsible, you know that?"
    "Been told so before."
    "It doesn't appear to have worked any great change in your character."
    Jericho gave another long shrug. Shrugging came easily to him, like smiling and laughing. "People never change. Not really. Every man just adapts his form to the landscape he finds himself in."
    Joshua had not expected him to reveal so much about himself. "As you've done here?" This fetched another shrug. "Well," Joshua said with finality, "you better start adapting to the logging business. If you want to be a Bolt, I expect you to work like a Bolt."
    "Tomorrow. It's suppertime now. And there's a poker game after."
    That took the biscuit. "No more poker for you." Jericho asked why. "Because you're a Bolt. We reward our men for their work. And we don't take away what we give." Jericho was beginning to think that being a Bolt wasn't hardly profitable.
    In any case, he disregarded the edict. The games were played next to the stove where the men dried their socks after the Sunday washing. Onto the same line Jericho had pinned a post card (French) which revealed quite a bit–yet still too little for the other men's taste–of a girl toward whose inclinations he dropped hints intimating great familiarity, but of whom he refused to say more. For this and his other enviable attributes, the men had accorded him so exalted a status that they allowed him one of the two deacon seats at the ends of the bunk rows. These were the nearest thing to proper chairs, though all they were was half logs with the flat sides up. The other players were relegated to empty kegs and upturned crates. Two more crates shoved together made a table. Of cards they had no lack; for chips they used (naturally) wood chips.
    None of the other loggers would ever have suspected Jericho of cheating, but after he took the first three hands Corky accused him of having the devil's own luck. "Not luck," Jericho corrected, "art. And I am an artist." He stood up far enough to reach under the tick in his bunk and pulled out a bottle, which he uncorked and extended politely. "Any of you gentlemen care to partake?"
    They stared at one another in almost superstitious dread. Corky glanced nervously at the door. "Put that away! Jason don't allow no forty-rod in camp."
    Jericho took a long swallow and wiped his mouth. "Jason don't have to know." But he set the bottle behind his foot, out of plain view. "This game's stale," he pronounced. "What say we play for more than quarters?"
    "None of us got more than quarters," said Sam.
    "Then Jason's underpaying you."
    Corky felt called on to explain. "No, see, we all git part of our wages kept back. For the brides' fund. Really oughta be called the husbands' fund, I reckon. Any time one of us gits married, he gits to collect his share."
    "But supposing you don't get married?"
    They all looked so sorrowful at the prospect, he did not pursue it, and Corky resumed the explanation. "Whole thing was Josh's idea. Got a head on him, he has. Figgered without the fund we'd spend all we had and leave us and our wives with nothin' to start on."
    Jericho shook his head. Brides' fund, hell! And here were Joshua and his brothers making themselves out to be such saints. "That much more for them," he muttered.
    "Huh?"
    "Skip it. My deal, I believe."
    Next morning Joshua seized on him before he had had a chance to steal off. Jericho expected to be put to hard labor at once, but instead they set out on a walk that took them away from the base camp past the farthest cuttings. Jericho half-suspected he was being led out to execution (he did not know what these backwoodsmen might get up to), but Joshua showed no sign of remembering his exasperation of yesterday. His mind was clearly bent on something else.
    What that was, Jericho discovered when they reached their destination, a bluff overlooking a valley at the edge of the Bolt property. The noises of timber cutting barely disturbed the peacefulness there, and by the same token any sound they might make would be little heard in camp. Jericho was yawning, as he did every morning on which he was required to rise early after staying up late the previous night (which was every morning). His back leg muscles were afflicted with cramps, from the walking and climbing his new habitat imposed. But he forgot his aches, and his dislike of being there, as soon as he laid eyes on what stood at the edge of the precipice.
    At first he took it for a collection of junk he would have to help break apart and consign to the valley below. But as he got nearer he saw that all the pieces were connected with rods, ropes, and chains. He briefly entertained the notion that it might have been intended as a work of art, though an unusually ugly one. Then he realized it was only a machine, and as he got nearer still, he could see what it was made up of.
    The tallest component was a wrought-iron steam engine of portable size (relative to full-scale engines, that is), ten feet high, fifteen feet long, with wheels, a fire door, and a smokestack. Over the door bulged an iron skeleton of rods, balls, and screws. Linked to the engine by its crankshaft was a capstan which Jason had salvaged from the harbor and Joshua had modified to their purpose, fitting it with a throttle like a steam locomotive's and a makeshift foot brake. A thick rope wound round the capstan and ran down into the valley through a block and tackle that terminated in a pair of chains. In short, the ungainly assemblage was a prefigurement, in remarkably close detail, of the invention which in a few years was to revolutionize logging, the donkey engine.
    Joshua called it a steam winch and confided to Jericho that it had taken him the better part of a month to set it up. Jericho was circling it, observing how the pieces connected. He allowed that he had never seen its like before. The comment was partly a sidewise sneer, but Joshua took it straight. "First of its kind. It was Jason's idea. Of course he left it up to me to get the darned thing to work. This'll be its first test." He smiled at his brother. "We're making history, Jericho."
    "Just the two of us?"
    Joshua assured him it would take no more than two. He did not want the other men to know till he had tried out the machine, had plans drawn up, and obtained a patent. Once word of it got out, every lumberman from Vancouver to Bangor would be wanting his own. It could earn the Bolts a tidy bit of money.
    "If it works," Jericho qualified.
    "It'll work," Joshua said confidently. "Come with me." He stepped over the side and descended into the valley. The hill was steep and shingly, and they half-stepped, half-slid down. Jericho fell once, and his underside got a primer coat of dirt, which he dusted off when he got to the bottom. "You sure this is a good idea?"
    "Soiling your delicate hands for a change, you mean?" Joshua grinned. "Oh, I think so."
    Jericho raised no further objections and did as Joshua directed. The valley had been cleared of timber, perhaps at some time far in the past. The floor was littered with cut logs. The two men tied one of these to the pulleys at the end of the line that ran from the hilltop. The pulley ropes, they tied round the log lengthwise; the chains, they wrapped round its circumference at both ends and hooked onto the pulleys. When it was done they climbed back to the overlook. Jericho was sweating with the unaccustomed toil, but the novelty of the experiment had captivated him and he found himself eager to see how it turned out; eager, in fact, to see Joshua make good, and himself, too.
    When they had got a fire going in the firebox, laid and fed from a woodpile alongside, Joshua turned a handle above the fire door and waited. In a few minutes the engine began to burble and hiss. Smoke appeared from its stack and the crank shaft began to turn, pulling the capstan after it, groaning and grinding. By moving the throttle Joshua was able to control the speed of rotation. He demonstrated to Jericho: forward to go faster, back to slow down, and when you wanted to stop, you pressed the brake, but not too quickly. He let Jericho try it for a few yards in both directions, and when he was satisfied his pupil understood the principles (they were not difficult) asked if he could manage without Joshua at his side. "Child's play," said Jericho.
    Joshua returned below, where he could watch the progress of the log as it was dragged up the hill and could also clear away any hindrances that might present themselves. Before leaving he told Jericho, "Don't do anything till I say the word." His brother nodded, but only barely; he was intent on absorbing the thrill of this new-found power. "I mean it," Joshua warned.
    "All right, all right" was the answer he got, and had to be satisfied with.
    As soon as he was out of sight Jericho reached over and turned the handle he had seen Joshua turn, but a little farther, to deliver more steam to the engine: no sense doing a thing by halves. He smiled at his cleverness. He had been keeping the brake down, following Joshua's instruction. Now he heard a cry from below to release it and he lifted his foot. The rope reeled in a turn or two. Came another cry to open the throttle a bit. Jericho pushed the rod forward. The capstan began to pull in earnest. He could feel the strength of it throbbing through the lever into his hand. "Hold it there!" Joshua shouted. Jericho, in the flush of success, kept going.
    Below, the log lurched upwards unexpectedly. "I said, hold it!" Jericho paid no attention. The engine was hissing and popping, straining at the chains that held it. "Ease off!" Joshua yelled. Jericho forced the throttle forward as far as it would go. The log took a jump in the air. One of its chains slid off, and it swung wildly. "She's loose!" cried Joshua. The log rammed into the hillside. "Brake!" he screamed. "Brake!" Jericho tried to pull the throttle toward him, but the counter-pull of the capstan was too strong. The engine engaged in a tug of war with the moving weight at the other end. Jericho stepped on the treadle with all his force. The brake screeched against its fitting and jarred the whole machine. One of the chains that held it slipped the stump it had engirdled. The engine tipped forward.
    Joshua saw it from below. "Holy mother," he said. "Un-der!"
    He scrambled out of the way as the log plummeted towards him. Bound to it, the machine toppled from its perch and was dragged downhill headfirst till it rattled to a halt at the bottom. Joshua ran to inspect the damage. Jericho picked his way down to him. "You hurt?" he asked innocently.
    "You fool!" Joshua was almost ready to pound him senseless. "Didn't I warn you?"
    "All right, all right, never mind that now. What do we do about it?"
    The question brought an unwelcome realization. "Tell Jason." But the ordeal would have its satisfying aspect. "No more fatted calf for the prodigal, I'm afraid."
    "He don't have to know, does he?" His voice had a new urgency in it. "The two of us could fix it ourselves, and him none the wiser."
    Joshua shook his head. "The rods are bent. They want an ironworker. Jason'll have to okay the payment."
    "Thought you were the bookkeeper."
    "But he's the boss."
    Jericho's mind scrambled about seeking a means of escape. He had been in town little more than a week and knew few of the ins and outs available. But he did know one. "Here's a way to keep it off the books. Pay it out of the brides' fund." No, Joshua said, they never touched that. It was a point of honor, and of honesty toward the men. "It'd only be temporary," Jericho reasoned. "You'd be sparing Jason the extra worry." Joshua admitted that might be so, but.... "With one brother gone"–Jericho's voice trembled with brotherly concern–"he has to feel he can count on those of us who are left."
    Joshua recognized the self-serving nature of the argument, but it made sense to him–which perhaps only meant he thought they could get away with it. But Jason was proud of the winch, the news of its failure would disappoint him, and if he never learned of it, he would be able to rejoice unreservedly in its success, which was certain, after it got fixed. This would truly be kinder, as well as make Joshua look better (for Jason's sake, not his own). Jericho was right, after all.
    But once in the tent, staring down at the powder tin he had just lifted from under the cot (his own), he found himself unable to go through with it. "It's stealing," he said. How could he have seen it as anything else for even a second?
    "It's borrowing. You're going to pay it back."
    Joshua stared at him. "I'm going to?"
    "You won't have to shoulder it alone. I'll put in a share." He spoke more rapidly as he went. "It's only right. Us being brothers and all." He sounded as happy as an infant.
    Joshua had never met such brazenness. "A share! You should be paying it all!" Was Jericho so vain, or so daft, he really did not know it?
    "Hold on now! That machine was your responsibility. I was only helping you."
    It sounded so fair and so reasonable that it half-convinced Joshua in spite of himself. "I gave you a job to do," he said, "and clear instructions! The first work of any kind you've done here, and you turned it into a train wreck."
    Jericho suddenly turned sulky and his eyes went wide, like a helpless deer's. "You got no call to treat me like this. It's because you're jealous, ain't it?"
    "What?" Joshua found himself suddenly in a side alley he had not seen was there.
    "You know Jason likes me better than you. So you're blaming me for your mistakes!"
    It was a good performance, and might have persuaded the performer, but not his audience. Joshua saw him clearly now, more clearly indeed than he wanted to. "Why, you little–"
    A hand jerked aside one of the flaps. It was Jason's. "What's the matter? I could hear you all the way to the creek."
    Joshua answered. "Matter of taking responsibility." He stared coldly at Jericho as he said it.
    "Well, you've no call to yell at your brother. He doesn't know the ways of the camp. That's why I put him with you, so you could show him, not go criticizing him and making him feel unworthy."
    "You don't know what he's done." He kept his eyes on Jericho as he added, "There's a lot about him we don't know, I think."
    For some reason this provoked Jericho out of his silence. "I'm not the one swiping from the brides' fund!" Joshua's hands involuntarily clenched the object they were holding, thereby drawing Jason's attention to it. "I am sorry," said Jericho. "Didn't mean to let that slip."
    "You didn't have to," said Jason. "It's plain to be seen." He ordered Joshua to hand it over. Joshua was torn between outrage and anxiety, outrage at the betrayal and anxiety that Jason should know he had abandoned the plan for which he had been betrayed. In his confusion, what rose to the surface was the guilt he felt for having considered it at all, and that was what Jason saw. By contrast, the remorse he read in Jericho's face appeared forthright and manly. "You were taking from the fund?" he said to Joshua. It was a question only technically, and Joshua was too honest to say no.
    "He woulda put it back. Wouldn't you, Josh?"
    "You're new," said Jason, "so you wouldn't know." But he did, Joshua protested silently; knew down to the ground.
    Jason could not remember his brother's ever having let the camp down so badly. But perhaps he had a good excuse, and if so he must be allowed to present it; there was only one allowable. "Tell me it was to save a man's life." Even now he hoped this was the way of it. But he saw from Joshua's face it was not.
    "You deserve to know the truth, Jason," Jericho blurted out. Joshua looked at him sharply. "Your new winch got broke. The money was to fix it."
    "Broke! On its first run? What kind of damn fool carelessness was that?"
    Jericho quickly intervened. "I can't let him take the whole blame. I was there, too."
    Jason raised a hand. "No. Noble of you, but it's misplaced loyalty." Joshua's jaw fell. Jason had it turned clear around! The fund was one thing, he had let himself be led into that, but the fall of the engine was entirely the other's doing. "Well, boy?" Jason demanded. Joshua hated to be called that. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
    This time Joshua took the chance offered. "Why assume it was my fault? Why not his?"
    "You're trying to put it off on your brother?" Jason said it as if that were the one act more unforgivable than wrecking the machine in the first place. "If it were so, it'd make no matter. He was in your charge. If it was his mistake, it was yours."
    "But–"
    "Sorry, Josh," Jericho said again. "I shoulda stopped you but I thought you knew your business. I said it was a bad idea."
    And he had said as much. Joshua saw, more coolly than Jeremy had, that his position was hopeless; he even saw to a degree how it had been managed. But he was not prepared for the next step the caller sounded. "And you were right. Jericho, you take over the job from here on."
    Joshua would have protested even if he had not been the wronged party, simply as a good lumberman. "He's not able! He doesn't know the first thing about it!"
    "And if you do better than your brother has," Jason continued, as if he had not heard, "you'll take over more than that."
    "You'd replace me with him?"
    To Jason the choice was self-evident. "He was ready to take on a burden that was yours. You were ready to let him do it. He stood taller than you today. I'm disappointed in you, brother."
    That was more than Joshua was willing to tolerate in the circumstances. Behind Jericho's mask of solemn concern he was sure he detected a smirk. He knew there must exist some sufficient epithet for him, perhaps a French one, but he did not know it. "You've made your choice," he said to Jason. "See how much help he is to you." He took up his coat and one or two other items. The rest of what he would need was at the cabin: the new one, not the old. He gave Jason a last long look. "I'm disappointed in you, too...." His final word was etched in acid. "...brother." Then he left.
    This was more than Jason had expected. "Didn't mean to drive a wedge between you," Jericho said. His obvious sincerity, when held up alongside Joshua's backhandedness, dispelled any worry of Jason's that he might have been too severe.
    "He's a hothead. He'll cool down." Jason hoped that was so. "Meantime, you show me to that winch. Between us we'll get her kicking." He put his arm around Jericho, and the two of them went off together.

Part Four

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