d by the mountains into a funnel that
focused straight on the village. Besides, Lukin was no accidental,
crossroads town, but the bank, store, and amusement center of a big
country. The timber was being swept from the Black Mountain; there were
fairly prosperous mines in the vicinity; and cattlemen were ranging
their cows over the plateaus more and more during the spring and summer.
Therefore, Lukin boasted two parallel main streets, and a cross street,
looking forward to the day when it should be incorporated and have a
mayor of its own. At present it had a moving-picture house and a dance
hall where a hundred and fifty couples could take the floor at once;
above all, it had Jack Townsend's hotel. This was a stout, timber
building of two stories, the lower portion of which was occupied by the
restaurant, the drug store, the former saloon now transformed into an
ice-cream parlor, and other public places.

It was dark, but the night winds had not yet commenced, and Lukin
sweltered with a heat more unbearable than full noon.

It was nothing to Ben Connor, however, for he was fresh from the choking
summer nights of Manhattan, and in Lukin, no matter how hot it became,
the eye could always find a cool prospect. It had been unpleasant
enough when the light was burning, for the room was done in a hot,
orange-colored paper, but when he blew out the lamp and sat down before
the window he forgot the room and let his glance go out among the
mountains. A young moon drifted across the corner of his window, a
sickle of light with a dim, phosphorescent line around the rest of the
circle. It was bright enough to throw the peaks into strong relief, and
dull enough to let the stars live.

His upward vision had as a rule been limited by the higher stories of
some skyscraper, and now his eye wandered with a pleasant sense of
freedom over the snow summits where he could imagine a cold wind blowing
through reach after reach of the blue-gray sky. It pleased and troubled
Ben Connor very much as one is pleased and troubled by the first study
of a foreign language, with new prospects opening, strange turns of
thought, and great unknown names like stars. But after a time Ben Connor
relaxed. The first cool puff moved across his forehead and carried him
halfway to a dreamless sleep.

Here a chorus of mirth burst up at him from the street, men's voices
pitched high and wild, the almost hysterical laughter of people who are
much alone. In Manhat