“I suppose it’s extravagance,” Doris said, her fingers caressing the smooth mahogany, feeling the black and ivory of the keyboard, “but it’s one of the few things one doesn’t need eyes for.”

She had proved that to Hollister long ago.  When she could see she must have had an extraordinary faculty for memorizing music.  Her memory seemed to have indelibly engraved upon it all the music she had ever played.

Hollister smiled indulgently and ordered the instrument cased for shipping.  It went up on the same steamer that gave passage to themselves and six woodsmen and their camp cook.  There were some bits of new furniture also.

This necessitated the addition of another room.  But that was a simple matter for able hands accustomed to rough woodwork.  So in a little while their house extended visibly, took on a homier aspect.  The sweet-peas and flaming poppies had wilted under the early frosts.  Now a rug or two and a few pictures gave to the floors and walls a cheerful note of color that the flowers had given to their dooryard during the season of their bloom.

About the time this was done, and the cedar camp working at an accelerated pace, Archie Lawanne came back to the Toba.  He walked into Hollister’s quite unexpectedly one afternoon.  Myra was there.

It seemed to Hollister that Lawanne’s greeting was a little eager, a trifle expectant, that he held Myra’s outstretched hand just a little longer than mere acquaintance justified.  Hollister glanced at Mills, sitting by.  Mills had come down to help Hollister on the boom, and Doris had called them both in for a cup of tea.  Mills was staring at Lawanne with narrowed eyes.  His face wore the expression of a man who sees impending calamity, sees it without fear or surprise, faces it only with a little dismay.  He set down his cup and lighted a cigarette.  His fingers, the brown, muscular, heavy fingers of a strong-handed man, shook slightly.

“You know, it’s good to be back in this old valley,” Lawanne said.  “I have half a notion to become a settler.  A fellow could build up quite an estate on one of these big flats.  He could grow almost anything here that will grow in this latitude.  And when he wanted to experience the doubtful pleasures of civilization, they would always be waiting for him outside.”

“If he had the price,” Mills put in shortly.

“Precisely,” Lawanne returned, “and cared to pay it—­for all he got.”

“That’s what it is to be a man and free,” Myra observed.  “You can go where you will and when—­live as you wish.”

“It all depends on what you mean by freedom,” Lawanne replied.  “Show me a free man.  Where is there such?  We’re all slaves.  Only some of us are too stupid to recognize our status.”

“Slaves to what?” Myra asked.  “You seem to have come back in a decidedly pessimistic frame of mind.”