ready to ease the boat off as we came alongside.  And there on the lower deck watching us stood a young fellow whom, from his resemblance to her, I knew as brother Robert, with the superintendent from the reservation, backed by the whole patrol.  Then my old friend Doctor Wise, the new coroner at Hoodsport, came edging through the crowd to take my hand.  ‘Well, well, Tisdale, old man,’ he said, ‘this is good.  Do you know they had you drowned—­or worse?’”

Tisdale settled back in his chair and, turning his face, looked off the port bow.  The Narrows had dropped behind, and for a moment the deck of the Aquila slanted to the tide rip off Port Orchard; then she righted and raced lightly across the broad channel.  Ahead, off Bremerton Navy Yard, some anchored cruisers rose in black silhouette against a brilliant sea.

“And,” said Marcia Feversham, “of course you went to the camp in a body and released the prisoners.”

“Yes, we used the mail steamer’s boats, and she waited for us until the inquest was over, then brought us on to Seattle.  The motor-boat took the doctor and superintendent home.”

“And the girl,” said Elizabeth after a moment, “did you never see her again?”

“Oh, yes.”  The genial lines deepened, and Hollis rose from his chair.  “Often.  I always look them up when I am in Seattle.”

“But who was John?”

“John?  Why, he was her husband.”

The Olympics had reappeared; the sun dropped behind a cloud over a high crest; shafts of light silvered the gorges; the peaks caught an amethyst glow.  Tisdale, tracing once more that far canyon across the front of Constance, walked slowly forward into the bows.

The yacht touched the Bremerton dock to take on the lieutenant who was expected aboard, and at the same time Jimmie Daniels swung lightly over the side aft.  The Seattle steamer whistled from her slip on the farther side of the wharf, and he hurried to the gang-plank.  There he sent a glance behind and saw Tisdale still standing with his back squared to the landing, looking off over the harbor.  And the Press representative smiled.  He had gathered little information in regard to the coal question, but in that notebook, buttoned snugly away in his coat, he had set down the papoose story, word for word.

CHAPTER XVI

THE ALTERNATIVE

Tisdale did not follow the lieutenant aft.  When the Aquila turned into Port Orchard, he still remained looking off her bows.  The sun had set, a soft breeze was in his face, and the Sound was no longer a mirror; it fluted, broke in racy waves; the cutwater struck from them an intricate melody.  Northward a few thin streamers of cloud warmed like painted flames, and their reflection changed the sea to running fire.  Then he was conscious that some one approached behind him; she stopped at his elbow to watch the brilliant scene.  And instantly the spirit of combat in him stirred; his muscles tightened like those of a man on guard.