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In attempting to forestall what might come of Bland's stewing in the juice of a groundless jealousy, he could easily precipitate something that would perhaps be best avoided by ignoring it. He stood, when he thought of it, in rather a delicate position himself. So he turned into Lawanne's. He found Archie sitting on the shady side of his cabin, and they fell into talk.
Hollister continued to muse on this after Lawanne went away. He thought Lawanne's summing up a trifle severe. Nevertheless it was a pretty clear statement of fact. Bland certainly seemed above working either for money or to secure a reasonable degree of comfort for himself and his wife.
Not simply for the sake of Lawanne's society, although he valued that for itself. He had a purpose. "That boat's due to-morrow at three o'clock," he said to Lawanne. "Will you take my big canoe and bring Doris up the river? "I can't," he forestalled the question he saw forming on Lawanne's lips. "I can't meet her before that crowd the crew and passengers, and loggers from Carr's. I'm afraid to.
If I could just myself think that maybe a change of scenery will do the trick. Lawanne's clever, isn't he? Nothing would fool him very long." "I don't know," Hollister said. "Lawanne's a man with a pretty keen mind and a lively imagination. He's more interested in why people do things than in what they do. But I dare say he might fool himself as well as the rest of us.
Lawanne asked at length. Hollister nodded. "Complete normal sight?" Hollister nodded again. "You don't seem overly cheerful about it," Lawanne said slowly. "You aren't stupid," Hollister replied. "Put yourself in my place." It was Lawanne's turn to indicate comprehension and assent by a nod. He looked at Hollister appraisingly, thoughtfully. "She gains the privilege of seeing again. You lose what?
That would be Lawanne's camp. Hollister shut the door on the chill October night and turned back to his easy-chair by the stove. Doris had finished her work. She sat at the piano, her fingers picking out some slow, languorous movement that he did not know, but which soothed him like a lullaby. Vigorously he dissented from Lawanne's philosophy of enslavement. He, Hollister, was a free man.
It doesn't take a man long to shed his skin in surroundings like these. Oh, well, whether I come back or not, I'll be all the same a hundred years from now." A rifle shot cut sharp into the silence that followed Lawanne's last words. That was nothing uncommon in the valley, where the crack of a gun meant only that some one was hunting.
Hollister looked after him curiously. There was strong meat in Lawanne's book. He wondered if Mills would digest it. And he wondered a little if Mills regarded Lawanne as a rival, if he were trying to test the other man's strength by his work. Away down the river, now that dark had fallen, the light in Bland's house shone yellow. There was a red, glowing spot on the river bank.
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.
While Hollister, having duly pleased Lawanne's China-boy by this quarter of venison, sat talking to Lawanne, Charlie Mills came in to return a book. "Did you get anything out of that?" Lawanne asked. "I got a bad taste in my mouth," Mills replied. "It reads like things that happen. It's too blamed true to be pleasant.
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