of a man, into whose soul the love of a lifetime is born.
Unconsciously, he drew away from her, and long afterward she
recalled the sweetness of his deep voice when he spoke again.

"Elinor Wream, I'd rather see you helpless up here with the hungriest
wild beast between us that ever tore a human form to pieces than to see
you in that quiet water below the shallows."

"Why?" Elinor looked up into his face.

"Because I could save your life here, maybe, even if I lost mine.
Down there I could drown for you, but that would n't save you.
Nobody ever swam that whirlpool and lived to tell about it.
There's a ledge underneath that holds down what the infernal slow
suction swallows. But it's dead sure."

"Why, that's awful," Elinor said, lightly, for she had no picture
of him engulfed in the slow-moving treachery below them.

"There's an old Indian legend about that pool," Vic said,
staring down at the water.

"Tell me about it." Elinor was breaking the twigs from a branch
of buck-berry growing beside her.

"Oh, it's a tragical one, like everything else about that place,"
Vic responded, grimly. "Old Lagonda, Chief of the Wahoos, I reckon,
I don't know his tribe, did n't want to give up this valley
to the sons and heirs of Sunrise to desecrate with salmon cans
and pop bottles and Harvard-turned chaperons. He held out against