his legs with a deep breath of satisfaction.  His thoughts wandered to the clash of the storm.  He would have a place like this out there in the mystery of the trackless mountains, where the Saskatchewan was born.  He would build it like Brady’s place, even to the rain-water tank midway between the roof and the ground.  And after a few years no one would remember that a man named John Keith had ever lived.

Something brought him suddenly to his feet.  It was the ringing of the telephone.  After four years the sound was one that roused with an uncomfortable jump every nerve in his body.  Probably it was McDowell calling up about the Jap or to ask how he liked the place.  Probably—­it was that.  He repeated the thought aloud as he laid his pipe on the table.  And yet as his hand came in contact with the telephone, he felt an inclination to draw back.  A subtle voice whispered him not to answer, to leave while the storm was dark, to go back into the wilderness, to fight his way to the western mountains.

With a jerk he unhooked the receiver and put it to his ear.

It was not McDowell who answered him.  It was not Shan Tung.  To his amazement, coming to him through the tumult of the storm, he recognized the voice of Miriam Kirkstone!

VII

Why should Miriam Kirkstone call him up in an hour when the sky was livid with the flash of lightning and the earth trembled with the roll of thunder?  This was the question that filled Keith’s mind as he listened to the voice at the other end of the wire.  It was pitched to a high treble as if unconsciously the speaker feared that the storm might break in upon her words.  She was telling him that she had telephoned McDowell but had been too late to catch him before he left for Brady’s bungalow; she was asking him to pardon her for intruding upon his time so soon after his return, but she was sure that he would understand her.  She wanted him to come up to see her that evening at eight o’clock.  It was important—­to her.  Would he come?

Before Keith had taken a moment to consult with himself he had replied that he would.  He heard her “thank you,” her “good-by,” and hung up the receiver, stunned.  So far as he could remember, he had spoken no more than seven words.  The beautiful young woman up at the Kirkstone mansion had clearly betrayed her fear of the lightning by winding up her business with him at the earliest possible moment.  Why, then, had she not waited until the storm was over?

A pounding at the door interrupted his thought.  He went to it and admitted an individual who, in spite of his water-soaked condition, was smiling all over.  It was Wallie, the Jap.  He was no larger than a boy of sixteen, and from eyes, ears, nose, and hair he was dripping streams, while his coat bulged with packages which he had struggled to protect, from the torrent through which he had forced his way up the