It lay among and upon the sharp, low, stumpy pine ridges in haphazard fashion, like a Swiss village. A small brook ran through it, smothered here and there in snow. A sawmill was the largest figure of the town, and the railway station was the centre. There was not an inch of painted board in the village. Everywhere the clear yellow of the pine flamed unstained by time. Lumber piles filled all the lower levels near the creek. Evidently the town had been built along logging roads, and there was something grateful and admirable in its irregular arrangement. The houses, moreover, were all modifications of the logging camps; even the drug store stood with its side to the street. All about were stumps and fringes of pines, which the lumbermen, for some good reason, had passed by. Charred boles stood purple-black out of the snow.
It was all green and gray and blue and yellow-white and stern. The sky was not more illimitable than the rugged forest which extended on every hand.
"Oh, this is glorious—glorious!" said the wife. "Do I own some of this town?" she asked, as they rose to go out.
"I reckon you do."
"Oh, I'm so glad!"
As they stepped out on the platform, a large man in corduroy and wolf-skin faced them like a bandit.
"Hello, Ed!"
"Hello, Jack! Well, we've found you. My wife, Mr. Ridgeley. We've come up to find out how much you've embezzled," he said, as Ridgeley pulled off an immense glove to shake hands all round.
"Well, come right over to the hotel. It ain't the Auditorium, but then, again, it ain't like sleeping outdoors."
As they moved along they heard the train go off, and then the sound of the saw resumed its domination of the village noises.