CONTENTS
Chapter I. The Hyacinth Letter
Chapter II. A Face Out Of The Night
Chapter III. A Skull And A Flirtation
Chapter IV. The Silken Scarf
Chapter V. Beauty-Proof
Chapter VI. Philip Follows A Pretty Face
Chapter VII. The Tragedy In The Cabin
Chapter VIII. Another Letter For Philip
Chapter IX. Philip Takes Up The Trail
Chapter X. Isobel's Disappearance
Chapter XI. The Law Versus The Man
Chapter XII. The Fight—And A Strange Visitor
Chapter XIII. The Great Love Experiment
Chapter XIV. What Came Of The Great Love Experiment
Chapter XV. Philip's Last Assignment
Chapter XVI. A Lock Of Golden Hair
Chapter XVII. The Girl In The Wreck
Chapter XVIII. The Battle In The Canyon
Philip Steele's pencil drove steadily over the paper, as if the mere writing of a letter he might never mail in some way lessened the loneliness.
The wind is blowing a furious gale outside. From off the lake come volleys of sleet, like shot from guns, and all the wild demons of this black night in the wilderness seem bent on tearing apart the huge end-locked logs that form my cabin home. In truth, it is a terrible night to be afar from human companionship, with naught but this roaring desolation about and the air above filled with screeching terrors. Even through thick log walls I can hear the surf roaring among the rocks and beating the white driftwood like a thousand battering-rams, almost at my door. It is a night to make one shiver, and in the lulls of the storm the tall pines above me whistle and wail mournfully as they straighten their twisted heads after the blasts.
To-morrow this will be a desolation of snow. There will be snow from here to Hudson's Bay, from the Bay to the Arctic, and where now there is all this fury and strife of wind and sleet there will be unending quiet—the stillness which breeds our tongueless people of the North. But this is small comfort for tonight. Yesterday I caught a little mouse in my flour and killed him. I am sorry now, for surely all this trouble and thunder in the night would have driven him out from his home i