E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg

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HIDDEN CREEK

BY KATHARINE NEWLIN BURT

AUTHOR OF "THE BRANDING IRON" AND "THE RED LADY"

1920

TO MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT WHO BLAZED THE TRAIL

CONTENTS

PART ONE: THE GOOD OLD WORLD

I. SHEILA'S LEGACY II. SYLVESTER HUDSON COMES FOR HIS PICTURE III. THE FINEST CITY IN THE WORLD IV. MOONSHINE V. INTERCESSION VI. THE BAWLING-OUT VII. DISH-WASHINGVIII. ARTISTS IX. A SINGEING OF WINGS X. THE BEACON LIGHT XI. IN THE PUBLIC EYE XII. HUDSON'S QUEENXIII. SYLVESTER CELEBRATES XIV. THE LIGHT OF DAWN XV. FLAMES

PART TWO: THE STARS

I. THE HILL II. ADVENTURE III. JOURNEY'S END IV. BEASTS V. NEIGHBOR NEIGHBOR VI. A HISTORY AND A LETTER VII. SANCTUARYVIII. DESERTION IX. WORK AND A SONG X. WINTER XI. THE PACK XII. THE GOOD OLD WORLD AGAINXIII. LONELINESS XIV. SHEILA AND THE STARS

HIDDEN CREEK

PART ONE

THE GOOD OLD WORLD

CHAPTER I

SHEILA'S LEGACY

Just before his death, Marcus Arundel, artist and father of Sheila,bore witness to his faith in God and man. He had been lying apparentlyunconscious, his slow, difficult breath drawn at longer and longerintervals. Sheila was huddled on the floor beside his bed, her handpressing his urgently in the pitiful attempt, common to human love, tohold back the resolute soul from the next step in its adventure. Thenurse, who came in by the day, had left a paper of instructions on thetable. Here a candle burned under a yellow shade, throwing a circle ofwarm, unsteady light on the head of the girl, on the two hands, on therumpled coverlet, on the dying face. This circle of light seemed tocollect these things, to choose them, as though for the expression ofsome meaning. It felt for them as an artist feels for his compositionand gave to them a symbolic value. The two hands were in the center ofthe glow—the long, pale, slack one, the small, desperate, clingingone. The conscious and the unconscious, life and death, humanity andGod—all that is mysterious and tragic seemed to find expression therein the two hands.

So they had been for six hours, and it would soon be morning. The large,bare room, however, was still possessed by night, and the city outsidewas at its lowest ebb of life, almost soundless. Against the skylight thewinter stars seemed to be pressing; the sky was laid across the panes ofglass like a purple cloth in which sparks burned.

Suddenly and with strength Arundel sat up. Sheila rose with him, drawingup his hand in hers to her heart.

"Keep looking at the stars, Sheila," he said with thrilling emphasis, andwidened his eyes at the visible host of them. Then he looked down at her;his eyes shone as though they had caught a reflection from the myriadlights. "It is a good old world," he said heartily in a warm and humanvoice, and he smiled his smile of everyday good-fellowship.

Sheila thanked God for his return, and on the very instant he was gone.
He dropped back, and there were no more difficult breaths.

Sheila, alone there in the garret studio above the city, cried to herfather and shook him, till, in very terror of

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