choking. And the last few
days, when I have become accustomed to the idea of going away and
familiar with the details of the astonishing change which has
taken place in my life, you have been gone. I dare not trust to a
casual meeting between here and Pachugan. I do not even know for
sure that you have gone to Pachugan, or that you will come
back--of course I think you will or I should not write.

But unless you come back to-night you will not see me at Lone
Moose. So I'm going to write and leave it with Cloudy Moon to
give you when you do come.

Perhaps I'd better explain a little. Dad had an old bachelor
brother who--it seems--knew me when I was an infant. Somehow he
and dad have kept in some sort of touch. This uncle, whom I do
not remember at all, grew moderately wealthy. When he died some
six months ago his money was willed equally to dad and myself. It
was not wholly unexpected. Dad has often reminded me of that
ultimate loophole when I would grow discontented with being
penned up in these dumb forests. I suppose it may sound callous
to be pleased with a dead man's gift, but regardless of the ways
and means provided it seems very wonderful to me that at last I
am going out into the big world that I have spent so many hours
dreaming of, going out to where there are pictures and music and
beautiful things of all sorts--and men.

You see, I am trying to be brutally frank. I am trying to empty
my mind out to you, and a bit of my heart. I like you a lot, big
man. I don't mind making that confession. If you were not a
preacher--if you did not see life through such narrow eyes, if
you were more tolerant, if you had the kindly faculty of putting
yourself in the other fellow's shoes now and then, if only your
creeds and doctrines and formulas meant anything vital--I--but
those cursed ifs cannot be gainsaid.

It's no use, preacher man. That day you kissed me on the creek
bank and the morning I came to your cabin, I was conscious of
loving you--but it was under protest--under pretty much the same
protest with which you care for me. You were both times carried
away so by your own passion that for the moment your mental
reservations were in abeyance. And although perhaps a breath of
that same passion stirred me--I can admit it now when the
distance between us will not make