He opened the door and entered. Through the window to the south
and west he could see the white face of Mount Geikie, and forty miles away
in that wilderness of peaks, the sombre frown of Hardesty; through it the
sun came now, flooding his work as he had left it. The last page of
manuscript on which he had been working was in his typewriter. He sat down
to begin where he had left off in that pivotal situation in his
masterpiece.
He read and re-read the last two or three pages of the manuscript,
struggling to pick up the threads where he had dropped them. With each
reading he became more convinced that his work for that afternoon was
spoiled. And by whom? By _what?_ A little fiercely he packed his pipe with
fresh tobacco. Then he leaned back, lighted it, and laughed. More and more
as the minutes passed he permitted himself to think of the strange young
woman whose beauty and personality had literally projected themselves into
his workshop. He marvelled at the crudity of the questions which he asked
himself, and yet he persisted in asking them. Who was she? What could be
her mission at Tete Jaune Cache? She had repeated to him what she had said
to the girl in the coach--that at Tete Jaune she had no friends.
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