It was a cold, bleak morning. The ground had frozen after a heavy rain, and the wagon jolted roughly over the ruts in the canyon road, making slow progress. The sky was overcast and straggling snowflakes wandered aimlessly up and down in the still air.
Darrell, from his seat beside the driver, turned occasionally to speak to Trix, the mare, fastened to the rear end of the wagon and daintily picking her way along the rough road. Sometimes he hummed a bit of half-remembered song, but for the most part he was silent. While not attempting any definite analysis of his feelings, he was distinctly conscious of conflicting emotions. He was deeply touched by the kindness of Mr. Underwood and Mrs. Dean, and felt a sort of self-condemnation that he was not more responsive to their affection. He knew that their home and hearts were alike open to him; that he was as welcome as one of their own flesh and blood; yet he experienced a sense of relief at having escaped from the unvarying kindliness for which, at heart, he was profoundly grateful. Even late that night, in the solitude of his plainly furnished room, with the wind moaning outside and the snow tapping with muffled fingers against the
window pane, he yet exulted in a sense of freedom and happiness hitherto unknown in the brief period which held all he recalled of life.
The ensuing days and weeks passed pleasantly and swiftly for Darrell. He quickly familiarized himself with the work which he had in charge, and frequently found leisure, when his routine work was done, for experiments and tests of his own, as well as for outside work which came to him as his skill became known in neighboring camps. His evenings were well filled, as he had taken up his old studies along the lines of mineralogy and metallurgy, pushing ahead into new fields of research and discovery, studying by night and experimenting by day. Meanwhile, the rocky peaks around him seemed beckoning him with their talismanic signs, as though silently challenging him to learn the mighty secrets for ages hidden within their breasts, and he promised himself that with the return of lengthening days, he would start forth, a humble learner, to sit at the feet of those great teachers of the centuries. He had occasional letters from Mr. Britton, cheering, inspiring, helpful, much as his presence had been, and in return he wrote freely of his present work and his plans for future work.
Sometimes, when books were closed or the plaintive tones of the violin had died away in silence, he would sit for hours pondering the strange problem of his own life; watching, listening for some sign from out the past; but neither ray of light nor wave of sound came to him. His physician had told him that some day the past would return, and that the intervening months or years as the case might be, would then doubtless be in turn forgotten, and as he revolved this in his mind he formed a plan which he at once proceeded to put into execution.
On his return one night from a special trip to Ophir he went to his room with more than usual haste, and opening a package in which he seemed greatly interested, drew forth what appeared to be a book, about eleven by fifteen inches in size, bound in flexible morocco and containing some five or six hundred pages. The pages were blank, however, and bound according to an ingenious device which he had planned and given the binder, by which they could be removed and replaced at will, and, if necessary, extra pages could be added.
For some time he stood by the light, turning the volume over and over with an expression of mingled pleasure and sadness; then removing some of the pages, he sat down and prepared to write. The new task to which he had set himself was the writing of a complete record, day by day, of this present life of his, beginning with the first glimmerings of memory, faint and confused, in the earliest days of his convalescence at The Pines. He dipped his pen, then hesitated; how should this strange volume be inscribed?
Only for a moment; then his pen was gliding rapidly over the spotless surface, and the first page, when laid aside, bore the following inscription:
"To one from the outer world, whose identity is hidden among the
secrets of the past:
"With the hope that when the veil is lifted these pages may assist
him in uniting into one perfect whole the strangely disjointed
portions of his life, they are inscribed by
"John Darrell."