Six Feet Four

st of the wind many a tall pine had snapped, broken at last after long valiant years of victorious buffeting with the seasons, while countless tossing branches had been riven away from the

, so that before noon the whole of the wilderness seemed to be shouting; narrow creek beds were filled with gushing, muddy water; the trees on the mountainsides shook and snapped and creaked and hissed to the hissing of the

building at the foot of the rocky slope, shivering as though with the cold, rocking crazily as though in startled fear at each gust, the roaring log fire in the open fireplace made an uncertain twilight and innumerable ghostlike shadows. The wind whistling down the chimney, making that eerie

ted and kicked at a fallen burning log with his one boot, and then hooked his elbows on his mantel. His very black, smiling eyes took cheerful stock of

team through the dark, huh?" continued the landlord a

austere looking, but comfortable enough. And, at the other end of the barn like chamber was the long dining table. Beyond it a door leading to the kitchen at the back of the house. Next to the kitchen the family bed room where Poke Drury and his dreary looking spouse slept. Adjoining this was the one spare bed room, with a couple of broken legged cots and a wash-stand witho

wer has filled me all up. The Lew Yates place up the river got itself pretty well washed out; Lew's young wife an' ol' mother-in-law," and Poke's voice was properly modified, "got scared clean to pieces. Not bein' used to our ways out here," he added brightly. "Any way they've got the spare bed room. An' my room an' Ma's ... well, Ma's got a real bad cold an' s

st for those who understood recent local conditions. Hap Smith had been driving the stage over the mountains for o

glanced up at the clock swinging its pendulum over the chimney piece. Then they went on with what they were doin

, it ain't real nice travellin'. That would be about all that's holdin' Hap up. An' I'm tellin' you why: Did you ever hear a man tell of a stick-up part

ted was naturally to be combated with more or less violence. Out of the innocent enough statement there grew a long, devious argument. An argument which was at its height and evincing no s

y blown into the room. She, like the rest, was drenched and as she hastened across the floor to the welcome fire trailed rain water from her cape and dress. But her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks rosy with the ru

ing or card playing. They looked at her gravely, speculatively and with frankly unhidden interest. One man who had laid a wet coat aside donned it again swiftly and surreptitio

r a moment she stood, her shoulders stirring to the shiver which ran down her whole body. Then she

e gasped

nd there is the bar room," he explained nodding at her reassuringly. "The middle of the room here is the ... the parlour; an' down at that e

le job. The clearing of the throat and a glare to go with it were not for the startl

her eyes and the flush on her cheeks, "Of course. One mustn't expect everything. And please don't ask the gentlemen to .

right to

ered into these mountain-bound fastnesses; certainly less than few women of the type of this girl had ever come here in the memory of the men who now, some boldly and some shy

ined that he had not heard, being a little deaf ... or that, possibly, the poor chap was a trifle slow w

iled himself of it. Hanging in a dusty corner near the long dining table, was an old and long

he suggested, "I'll go ha

h, casting a last look over his s

d wrote, "Winifred Waverly." Her pencil in the space reserved for the signer's home town, she hesitated. Only briefly, however. With a little shrug, she completed the legend, inscribing swiftly, "Hill's Corners." Then

umonia ... an' she won't budge. There's only one more bed room an' Lew Yates's wife h

there a

l wearily. "There isn

ally without expectation of his offer being of any

ere; after all it won't be long until morning and we start on ag

rury's voice, subdued to a low mutter. Then a woman's voice, snapping and querrulous. And a moment later the return of Drury, his haste savouring somewhat of flight f

he quilt on the floor in the corner, made a veritable ceremony of fastening the

nd to the last man of them they had already tiptoed to the register and were seeking to inform themselves as to the

ful hesitation, had been first to get to the book. "Kind of stylish soundin'. But, Hill's Corners?" He shook

ams' fingers. "An' I been there recent. Only last week. The Corners ain't so all-fire

y gestures toward the kitchen recalled to them that a flimsy partition, though it may s

in' it's a right winterish sort of night I don't reckon a little drop

d Waverly, of Hill's Corners or elsewhere, drew the man