the Incaic niche above one of his woolen socks.

The descent was harder than the climb, though quicker. For so slippery was the wet trail at that angle that whenever our heels failed to bite into the soil we sat down emphatically on the backs of our necks some feet farther down the slope, to fetch it a resounding wallop with the rest of the body. There is talk of some day building an electric line from Cuzco and a funicular up to the ruins, with perhaps a tourist hotel among them, but fortunately talk does not easily breed action in

Peru. For perhaps the chief charm of Machu Picchu is inherent in the difficulties of reaching it. A scene once made accessible to fat middle-aged ladies is ready to be marked off the traveler's itinerary and turned over to the gentle mercies of the tourist. We ended the descent without broken bones, and finding the precarious connection with the outer world still sagging between the roaring boulders, climbed the wet steep bank beyond, where, strangely enough, Tomas was waiting as he had been ordered with the four animals, their heads turned toward Cuzco.

"I'M going up to camp, Kathy,” said

His wife turned quickly in her place. Her small, sober face confronted him inimically.

"I can't put it off any longer," said Ivor.

"I suppose not," agreed Kathy, quiveringly; but her big, dark eyes pleaded, an old, old mother plea.

"You don't imagine I like to?" asked Ivor in an injured tone.

"And that's the very reason why you'll overdo it," broke out Kathy, “and I 'll be waiting here at home, and hating you." The words flamed out at him.

"Good heavens, Kathy!" said Ivor, "don't you know your own boy well enough to know that he 'd hate me himself if I were fool enough to be soft with him about this?"

"Are you going to-kill-him-just because he is n't a coward?"

"Not quite," said Ivor. He grinned. irrepressibly. "Don't you worry about Roddy. He'll come up smiling. Here, are n't you going to tell me good-by?"

She shook her head speechlessly, moving away. He detained her firmly.

"Why, Kathy, that boy 's the best thing I've got-next to his mother. Can't you trust me to hurt him when I must?"

She pushed him away, her tears streaming.

"Hell!" muttered Ivor softly as she ran sobbing from the room. He went to the sideboard and poured himself a stiff drink.

He repeated both ejaculation and potation several times during his drive to Nelson's store, where he left the cutter. He was feeling very sad and firm about Roddy by the time he began to climb the trail to camp. It was quite dark and snowing heavily when he reached the cabin and pushed at the shed door. Only the dim glow from a bed of coals lighted the inner room. He stood, hand on knob, peering through the gloom.

Roddy rose hastily from a low seat by the hearth. Even in the dimness Ivor caught a flare of expression which made him say to himself, "Darn if I don't believe the kid's glad I 've come."

"Why don't you fix up your fire?" he asked curtly. "What do you mean by letting it go out on you this weather?"

"I did n't notice," stammered Roddy. He stooped, throwing on logs and saying: "I'll get you some supper." "Had mine at Nelson's," said Ivor.

He had consciously to harden his voice. He concluded not to make conversation. He drew up a home-made arm-chair of hickory, settled himself comfortably, and lighted a cigar. Roddy returned to his seat on the box in the corner. Ivor smoked and considered him thoughtfully. His boast to Kathy was, he reflected, justifiable; for while Roddy appeared under pale and troubled conviction of sin, there was nothing in face or bearing which invited Ivor to be soft with him. He neither sought nor avoided his father's eyes. He merely waited in quiet, submissive readiness for Ivor's next move.

"If you'll hunt me out some blankets I'll turn in," said Ivor, breaking a long hour's silence. He added, watching the boy with a cruelly intimate scrutiny, "I'm going to want you up pretty early in the morning."

"All right, sir," said Roddy, quietly.

Ivor continued to observe him as he moved about, taking blankets from a locker. There seemed a shortage of pillows. He carried his own over to Ivor's

cot.

"I'll turn in too, then," he said to Ivor, adding timidly, "Good night, Father."

Ivor nodded. It was some time before he lay down. He slept brokenly, and rose in the darkness of early morning to waken Roddy.

Roddy had not slept much during his week of waiting for he knew not what. What he was to get had been the least and pleasantest of his conjectures, which had included prison or long exile from home, perhaps. In his relief at knowing exactly what to expect and when to expect it he had fallen into deep and dreamless slumber. There was much of the little fellow in the sleeping aspect of the big boy. Roddy's dark head was snuggled in the relaxed curve of his elbow. His dark

lashes brushed a cheek which had scarcely lost the soft curve of young boyhood.

"Damn!" muttered Ivor, bitterly hating what he had to do. He dropped a deliberately heavy hand on the boy's shoulder.

Roddy's eyes opened vaguely. He smiled at Ivor the least bit, and closed them again, plainly feeling himself to be at home in bed.

Ivor shook him awake. Roddy's eyes came open to stay, comprehension in them. He sat up.

"In just a moment, Father," he said. Ivor went back to the fire and stood there waiting.

"All right, Father," said Roddy presently from where he had gone to kneel.

Ivor stood over him for a pausing moment, flinging out the whip. "Ready?" he asked.

Roddy lifted his eyes.

"He wants it," thought Ivor. A fierce thrill of exultation in the boy's mood ran through him.

IT was during his second five-minute intermission that Roddy got to his feet and went to stand by the cabin window. It swung on hinges high up in the wall, and he opened it, letting the snow-laden wind blow on his face. He drew a deep breath, tasting its purity and coldness. A movement across the room attracted his attention, and he glanced around in time to see Ivor thrusting a flask back into his pocket. Roddy took another deep breath of the pure, cold air. A gust of wind tore apart the snow-cloud, and for a moment the white peak across the valley stood revealed. Steps closed in on him. He shut the window and knelt almost automatically, his vision filled with the vast, bleak sweep of the peak. Ivor's touch on his shoulder gave him a moment of strange surprise.

"Put up your arms!" ordered Ivor in a thick, slightly uncertain voice.

As Roddy obeyed he thought, "He 's trying to break me."

Roddy still wanted it, but his traitorous fingers began to long to reach back, to get

themselves on the whip, to tear it from his father's grasp. Suddenly his hands, held with scrupulous steadiness above his stoically erect young head, flung toward each other and gripped, each snatching the other back.

A sharp quiver ran over Ivor's face. Roddy had been mistaken about one thing. Ivor's actual intention toward him had been the one of ascertaining the precise measure of his big boy's grip on himself. There he had meant to stop. When he finally stayed his hand he remained by Roddy, studying his profile, hard drawn against the light. It gasped, slightly bent, the profile of the spent runner.

"Son," said Ivor, "what made you do it?"

Roddy's straining arms relaxed. He turned, letting them fall to the near-by. table.

"What made you?" repeated Ivor. Roddy seemed not to hear. Just in front of him lay a tiny drift of snow which had blown in through a crevice in the window-frame and lodged on the table. Toward this his clenched hands stole forth from his pit of burning. As they touched that purity, that coldness, a long shudder seized Roddy. He lurched forward and lay with his head between his arms, his palms pressed to the snow.

Ivor stood over Roddy looking troubled and somewhat alarmed. Presently he touched his fingers to the culprit's racing pulse, felt for his hammering heart, wiped the icy sweat from his temples, bent at length, speaking to him anxiously.

At that Roddy stirred, lifted his head, gazed at Ivor blankly.

"All right?" asked Ivor. His voice shook a little.

"Sure," muttered Roddy, bringing out the single word with some difficulty. His blank gaze became aware. He gave Ivor a faint, twisted smile of reassurance.

"Roddy," said Ivor again, "what made you do it?"

Roddy did not answer. A dark flush so all-enveloping that it obscured the marks of his penalty crept over his face and clung.

Half sitting on the edge of the table, Ivor continued:

"Forgery 's a mighty ugly thing, Roddy."

He kept coiling and uncoiling the whip as he spoke, his eyes on Roddy's shamed and bent head.

"I can't understand your doing a thing like that, you 've always been so straight with me."

"I was fool drunk," said Roddy, bitterly. He did not look up.

"But you knew you did it?"

"Oh, I knew I did it all right; it was just that I did n't give a damn. I was n't excusing myself, Father. I ought to bekilled."

Ivor's look of perplexity held.

"But even drunk you must have had some reason. Now, you don't gamble, and if you needed money for any legitimate use you knew you 'd only to ask for it; I 've never been short with my boys. Was it here, look at me, Roderick."

With an obvious effort Roddy obeyed. He had grown white again.

"Had it anything to do with a girl?" asked Ivor, with an odd, apologetic sort of hesitation.

A look of relief flicked into Roddy's face. He shook his head indifferently. Ivor saw that the question meant nothing to him.

"Then some one took advantage of your being drunk, and used you to try and get money out of me," guessed Ivor, not unexpectedly.

Roddy was mute, his face impassive.

"I think I'll ask you whom you were running with, Roddy, when you did that." Roddy raised sudden eyes to Ivor's. "I'm paying," he said.

"And you 've paid about all you can stand. Do you want to pay more than you can stand?”

Apparently Roddy took this under consideration. Shades of varying emotion came and went in his face. Finally it grew stubborn beneath Ivor's eyes.

"You are my boy," said Ivor. "It was my name and my money you made so free with. It seems to me that I've the right

to ask you anything I like in connection. with the affair."

Roddy was silent.

"Come," said Ivor, "don't be a fool now. You 're not drunk now."

Roddy shook his head. His face took on a dreadful patience.

"Give you one more chance," said Ivor. He stood up.

Roddy was a big, strong, brave boy, and he was seventeen; but he controlled a tremor at this movement of Ivor's.

"Croy 's not worth it," said Ivor, suddenly.

Roddy had controlled the tremor; but he could not control the flick of color which confirmed Ivor in his suspicion.

"Good guess, eh?" said Ivor, throwing the whip to the floor. "You can go dress now."

Roddy's color deepened painfully. He bit his lip as he stumbled to his feet. Ivor put out a steadying hand.

"Not quite fair," he went on, using his natural manner to the boy for the first time, "but it was the only way I'd ever have had it out of you, you stubborn ass. Can you manage alone?"

Roddy nodded. He went over to his cot and finished dressing with dogged movements which completely ignored whatever pain he endured. He pulled on a heavy white sweater last, picked up his cap, and stood as if pondering over something.

Roddy was a splendidly handsome lad, and his head was set on his shoulders as if he owned the earth. Ivor looked at him wistfully. Their eyes met. Roddy's were wistful, too. Ivor took a step toward his

son.

"Roddy," he said, "I 'd sure like to have one decent boy."

Roddy's lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came from them. He compromised on a smile, turned and took down a pail from a shelf by the door.

"Oh, I'll get water," said Ivor, reaching for his coat.

"Why?" asked Roddy over his shoulder. He went on out.

Left alone, Ivor chuckled as he drew

out his flask. It was empty, to his disappointment, and he flung it from the window into the vacancy beyond the drop of the hilltop. Turning, his eye fell on the whip. He stooped, and sent that after the flask. A curtain of snow blotted it out as it descended through space. Ivor felt easier in his mind as he returned to the fire. He gave the embers a kick and consulted his watch. It was nearly eight, but the morning light still came dimly through the snow whirl. The storm was increasing. If the weather held, they might not be able to get down the mountain at all that day. He heard Roddy coming back with fresh water, and stamping the snow from his feet in the outer shed.

"Some blizzard," said Roddy, entering almost gaily. "Had a regular time getting down to the spring."

He got an ax from the corner and went out again. Ivor heard the true, ringing blows which proclaimed Roddy the natural-born woodsman. In an incredibly short time he returned with a snowy armful of oak logs, and replenished the fire.

"Need help?" asked Ivor.

"Oh, nothing much to do," said Roddy, carelessly.

He moved about expertly, slicing bacon and mixing corn-meal, and soon had breakfast under way. He then drew the table close to the fire, spread a newspaper for cloth, and placed covers of campingkit ware which he produced from a rude corner cupboard.

"I'll have a wash-up," said Ivor, going

out.

The shed was a dark little cave of winds. Fine snow particles sifted in everywhere through the shrunk boarding, and Ivor did not linger over his ablutions, but hurried back to the warm room of logs.

He found breakfast ready. The firelight played pleasantly on the blue enamel of the dishes, and the food odors were enticing. Ivor wanted his drink; but the coffee was good, and the bread baked as every Southern boy knows how to bake corn-cake. He made an excellent meal,