mplex. He tried to convince his soul that he had a business reason for
staying. He lied to himself and said he would make another desperate
sortie on the castle of the Comas company. But he did not go there the
next day. Near noon he set himself to watch the entrance of the
cafeteria. When he saw a table vacant near the door he went in, secured
food, and posted himself where he could view all comers.

The girl did not come.

At two o'clock, after eating three meals, he did not dare to brave the
evident suspicions of that baleful cashier any longer. Undoubtedly the
girl had been a casual customer like himself. He gave it up and started
for the north.

CHAPTER FOUR

When Ward Latisan was home again and had laced his high boots and
buttoned his belted jacket, he was wondering, in the midst of his other
troubles, why he allowed the matter of a chance-met girl to play so big
a part in his thoughts. The exasperating climax of his adventure with
the girl, his failure to ask her name frankly, his folly of bashful
backwardness in putting questions when she was at arm's length from him,
his mournful certainty that he would never see her again--all conspired
curiously to make her an obsession rather than a mere memory.

He had never bothered with mental analysis; his effort to untangle his
ideas in this case merely added to his puzzlement; it was like one of
those patent trick things which he had picked up in idle moments,
allowing the puzzle to bedevil attention and time, intriguing his
interest, to his disgust. He had felt particularly lonely and helpless
when he came away from Comas headquarters; instinctively he was seeking
friendly companionship--opening his heart; he had caught something, just
as a man with open pores catches cold. He found the notion grimly
humorous! But Latisan was not ready to own up that what he had
contracted was a case of love, though young men had related to him their
experiences along such lines.

He went into the woods and put himself at the head of the crews. He had
the ability to inspire zeal and loyalty.

In the snowy avenues of the Walpole tract sounded the rick-tack of busy
axes, the yawk of saws, and the crash of falling timber. The twitch
roads, narrow trails which converged to centers like the strands of a
cobweb, led to the yards where the logs were piled for the sleds; and
from the yards, after the snows were deep and had been iced by watering
tanks on sleds, huge loads wer