oving will, force her to follow him. A warm entreaty,
one word of his own need, and she would answer. And while he thought,
the jungle feeling came upon him, hot, hateful to his conscious mind,
the feeling of the complexity of it all, strange beasts of emotion out
for prey, the reason drugged with nature's sophistries. The jungle! That
was what Nan had called it, this welter of human misery. Who else had
been talking to him about it? Why, Old Crow! He had not called it the
jungle, but he had been lost in its tortuous ways. This prescience to
Old Crow brought a queer feeling, as if a cool air blew on him. The
jungle feeling passed. Almost he had the vision of an eternal city,
built up by the broken but never wholly failing strength of man, and Old
Crow there beckoning him into it and telling him he'd kept a place for
him. And the cool breeze which was Old Crow told him that although Tira
must be rescued, if it could be brought about, it must not be through
any of the jungle ways. She must not be drugged by jungle odors and
carried off unwillingly, even to the Holy City itself, by that road. He
and Tira--yes, he and Tira and Nan--would march along together with
their eyes open. He hastened to speak, to commit himself to what he must
deliberately wish:

"Then we'll telephone Nan."

She looked at him, all gratitude. Her friend had gone away into strange
dark corners of life where only her instinct followed him, and here he
was back again.

"No," she said, "don't you telephone. Somebody'd listen in. You write. I
guess mebbe nothin'll happen right off, even if I did burn the crutch. I
guess I got kinder beside myself to-night. I ain't likely to be so
ag'in."

"I'll walk up to the hut with you," said Raven, rising as she did, "and
see you safe inside."

"No," said she, "I couldn't let you no ways. It's bad enough as 'tis."

By this she meant the paragraph in the paper which had laid an insulting
finger on him; but he had not seen it and did not understand. Only it
was plain to him that she would not let him go. She drew her hood up,
and made it secure under her chin. Then she looked at him and smiled a
little. She had to smile, her woman's instinct told her, to reassure
him. She opened the door, and though he followed her quickly, had
slipped through the outer door as softly and was gone. He stood there on
the sill watching her hurrying to the road. When she had turned to the
right, she began to run, and he went down th