ES DEMANDS

Beth Kent, while the camp was writing its feverish annals, had
undergone emotions in the whole varied order of the gamut. She had
felt herself utterly deserted and utterly unhappy. She had hoped
against hope that Van would come, that something might explain away his
behavior, that she herself might have an opportunity of ascertaining
what had occurred.

One clew only was vouchsafed her puzzling mind: Searle had actually
gone to Glen at last, had been there at the hour of Van's arrival, and
had written Glen's letter to herself. Some encounter between the men
had doubtless transpired, she thought, and Van had been poisoned
against her. What else could it mean, his coldness, his abrupt
departure, after all that had been, and his stubborn silence since?

The letter from Glen had been wholly unsatisfactory. Bostwick had
written it, he said, at Glen's dictation. It echoed the phrases that
Searle himself had employed so persistently, many of them grossly
mendacious, as Beth was sufficiently aware. Her effort had been
futile, after all. She was not at all certain as to Glen's condition;
she was wholly in the dark in all directions.

On the day succeeding the reservation rush she received the news at
Mrs. Dick's, not only that Van had lost his claim, and that McCoppet
and Searle were its latest owners, but also that Van had run amuck that
night after leaving herself.

Some vague, half-terrifying intuition that Searle was engaged in a
lawless, retaliatory enterprise crept athwart her mind and rendered her
intensely uneasy. Her own considerable sum of money might even be
involved in--she could not fathom what. Something that lay behind it
all must doubtless explain Van's extraordinary change. It was
maddening; she felt there must be _something_ she could do--there
_must_ be something! She was not content to wait in utter helplessness
for anything more to happen--anything more that served to wreck human
happiness, if not very life itself!

She felt, moreover, she had a right to know what it was affecting Van.
He had come unbidden into her life. He had swept her away with his
riotous love. He had taught her new, almost frightening joys of
existence. He had drawn upon her very soul--kissing into being a
nature demanding love for love. He had taken her all for himself,
despite her real resistance. She could not cease to love so quickly as
he. She had rights, acquired in surrender--at least the righ