ed the operator. "He can
handle men. I never saw such a fellow. Why, he must have got half-way to
the Springs when the slide started, but he was back, climbing up along the
edge of it to the wreck, almost before it quit thundering. And he took out
a live baby, without a damage mark, and all its folks lying right there
dead, before the rest of us got in earshot."

Daniels put down his sandwich and took out his neglected notebook. He
gathered all the detail the ready operator could supply: how Tisdale had
wrapped the child in a blanket and carried him from place to place,
talking to him in his nice, friendly way, amusing him, keeping him quiet,
while he worked with the strength of two men to liberate other survivors.
And how, when none was left to save, he had taken the baby in his arms and
gone to break trail to the Springs to send out news of the disaster. All
that the station master and Banks could not tell him, with the name and
prominence of Joey's family, Jimmie added later at the chalet, and he
finished with a skilful reference to the papoose, killed by accident so
many years before. It was a great story. It went into the paper as it
stood. And when the day came to leave the _Press_ office, the chief,
shaking hands with his "novelist," said it was a fine scoop, and he had
always known Jimmie had it in him to make good; he was sorry to lose him.
But the Society Editor, reading between the lines, told him it was the
greatest apology he could have made. She was proud of him.

At Vivian Court late that afternoon, Elizabeth read the story to Beatriz
Weatherbee. Her couch was drawn into the sunny alcove, where, from her
pillows, she might watch the changing light on Mount Rainier. Finally,
when Elizabeth finished, Beatriz broke the silence. "He must have passed
down the canyon while we were there."

"Yes, he did. He carried one end of your stretcher all the way to the
Springs." Then Elizabeth asked: "Don't you remember the baby, either? He
had brown eyes."

"I seem to remember a child," she answered slowly, "a baby sitting in the
firelight, but"--and she shook her head, "I've dreamed so many dreams."

"He was a fact; a perfect dear. I should have adopted him, if his
relatives hadn't been so prominent and rich. And you, too, fell instantly
in love with him. You wanted him in your arms the moment you opened your
eyes."

Elizabeth paused with a straight look from under her heavy brows and while
she hesitated there was