and watch it and wonder--Jack did a great deal of wondering in those
days, after his first panicky fight against the loneliness and silence
had spent itself.

First of all, he awoke to the fact that he was about as important to
the world as one of those little brown birds that hopped among the
rocks and perked its head at him so knowingly, and preened its
feathers with such a funny air of consequence. He could not even
believe that his sudden disappearance had caused his mother any grief
beyond her humiliation over the manner and the cause of his going. She
would hire some one to take care of the car, and she would go to her
teas and her club meetings and her formal receptions and to church
just the same as though he were there--or had never been there. If he
ever went back.... But he never could go back. He never could face his
mother again, and listen to her calmly-condemnatory lectures that had
no love to warm them or to give them the sweet tang of motherly
scolding.

It sounds a strange thing to say of Jack Corey, that scattered-brained
young fellow addicted to beach dancing and joy rides and all that goes
with these essentially frothy pastimes; a strange thing to say of him
that he was falling into a more affectionate attitude of personal
nearness to the stars and to the mountains spread out below him than
he had ever felt toward Mrs. Singleton Corey. Yet that is how he
managed to live through the lonely days he spent up there in the
lookout station.

When Hank was about to start with another load of supplies up the
mountain, Jack had phoned down for all of the newspapers, magazines
and novels which Forest Supervisor Ross could buy or borrow; also a