ving the peak, which was at once a refuge and a place where he
could accumulate money; not much money, according to Jack's standard
of reckoning--his mother had often spent as much for a gown or a ring
as he could earn if he stayed all summer--but enough to help him out
of the country if he saved it all.

When his first four days vacation was offered him, Jack thought a long
while over the manner of spending it. Quincy did not offer much in the
way of diversion, though it did offer something in the way of risk. So
he cut Quincy out of his calculations and decided that he would phone
down for a camp outfit and grub, and visit one or two of the places
that he had been looking at for so long. For one thing, he could climb
down to the lake he had been staring into for nearly a month, and see
if he could catch any trout. Occasionally he had seen fishermen down
there casting their lines in, but none of them had seemed to have much
luck. For all that the lake lured him, it was so blue and clear, set
away down there in the cupped mountain top. Hank had advised him to
bait with a salmon-roe on a Coachman fly. Jack had never heard of that
combination, and he wanted to try it.

But after all, the lake was too near to appeal to him except by way of
passing. Away on the next ridge was the black, rocky hump called
Grizzly Peak on the map. Hank spoke of it casually as Taylor Rock, and
sometimes called it King Solomon. That was where the bears had their
winter quarters, and that was where Jack wanted to go and camp. He
wanted to see a bear's den, and if the bears were all gone--Hank
assured him that they never hung out up there in the summer, but
ranged all over the mountains--he wanted to go inside a den and see
what it was like. And for a particular, definite ambition, without
which all effort is purposeless, he wanted to kill a bear.

Hank brought him all the things he needed, talked incessantly of what
Jack should do and what he shouldn't do, and even offered to pack his
outfit over to the Peak for him. So Jack went, and got his first taste
of real camping out in a real wilderness, and gained a more intimate
knowledge of the country he had to guard.

By the time his second relief was at hand, he was tempted to take what
money he had earned and go as far as it would take him. He did not
believe he could stand another month of that terrible isolation, even
with his new friendliness toward the stars and the forest to lighten a
lit