Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/241

Rh manded her again; only when he frightened her, he ceased.

"Why must it be at once, Henry? I don't understand!"

"It's not must, dear," he denied. "It's just that I want you so!"

When would it be, he demanded then; before spring, she promised at last. But that was all he could make her say. And so he let her go.

The next evening, in the moonlight, she drove him to Petoskey. He had messages to send and preferred to trust the telegraph office in the larger town. Returning they swung out along the country roads. The night was cool here on the hills, under the stars; the fan-shaped glare from their headlights, blurring the radiance of the moon, sent dancing before them swiftly-changing, distorted shadows of the dusty bushes beside the road. Topping a rise, they came suddenly upon his birthplace. She had not designed coming to that place, but she had taken a turn at his direction, and now he asked her to stop the car. He got out and paced about, calling to her and pointing out the desirableness of the spot as the site for their country home. She sat in the motor, watching him and calling back to him.

The house was small, log built, the chinks between the logs stopped with clay. Across the road from it, the silver bark of the birch trees gleamed white among the black-barked timber. Smells of rank vegetation came to her from these woods and from the weed-grown fields about and beyond the house. There had been a small garden beside the house once; now neglected strawberry vines ran riot among the weed stems, and a