ch she
shook gently from side to side with a rhythmic, slow movement in
cadence with her song. Swan turned his eyes from one to the other, his
face clouding for a moment as for a burst of storm, clearing again at
once as Mackenzie rose and gave him good evening in cheerful and
unshaken voice.

Mrs. Carlson had spoken a true word when she described Swan as a
handsome man. Almost seven feet tall, Mackenzie took him to be, so
tall that he must stoop to enter the door; lithe and sinewy of limbs,
a lightness in them as of an athlete bred; broad in the shoulders,
long of arms. His face was stern, his red hair long about the ears,
his Viking mustache long-drooping at the corners of his mouth.

"I thought a man was here, or my woman had begun to smoke," said Swan,
coming in, flinging his hat down on the floor. "What do you want,
loafin' around here?"

Mackenzie explained his business in that country in direct words, and
his presence in the house in the same breath. Mollified, Swan grunted
that he understood and accepted the explanation, turning up his
sleeves, unfastening the collar of his flannel shirt, to wash. His
woman stood at the stove, her song dead on her lips, sliding the eggs
from the pan onto a platter in one piece. Swan gave her no heed, not
even a curious or questioning look, but as he crossed the room to the
wash bench he saw the broken chain lying free upon the floor.

A breath he paused over it, his eyes fastened on it in a glowering
stare. Mackenzie braced himself for the storm of wrath which seemed
bursting the doors of Swan Carlson's gloomy heart. But Swan did not
speak. He picked up the chain, examined the cut link, threw it down
with a clatter. At the sound of its fall Mackenzie saw Mrs. Carlson
start. She turned her head, terror in her eyes, her face blanched.
Swan bent over the basin, snorting water like a strangling horse.

There were eight eggs on the platter that Swan Carlson's woman put
before him when he sat down to his supper. One end of the great
trencher was heaped with brown bacon; a stack of bread stood at Swan's
left hand, a cup of coffee at his right. Before this provender the
flockmaster squared himself, the unwelcome guest across the table from
him, the smoke of his pipe drifting languidly out into the tranquil
summer night.

Swan had said no word since his first inquiry. Mackenzie had ventured
nothing more. Mrs. Carlson sat down in the chair that she had placed
near the door before