The Flutter of Sable Wings


A path took form on the mossy rock as Jack MacRae strode on. He followed
this over patches of grass, by lone firs and small thickets, until it
brought him out on the rim of the Cove. He stood a second on the cliffy
north wall to look down on the quiet harbor. It was bare of craft, save
that upon the beach two or three rowboats lay hauled out. On the farther
side a low, rambling house of logs showed behind a clump of firs. Smoke
lifted from its stone chimney.

MacRae smiled reminiscently at this and moved on. His objective lay at
the Cove's head, on the little creek which came whispering down from the
high land behind. He gained this in another two hundred yards, coming to
a square house built, like its neighbor, of stout logs with a
high-pitched roof, a patch of ragged grass in front, and a picket-fenced
area at the back in which stood apple trees and cherry and plum,
gaunt-limbed trees all bare of leaf and fruit. Ivy wound up the corners
of the house. Sturdy rosebushes stood before it, and the dead vines of
sweet peas bleached on their trellises.

It had the look of an old place--as age is reckoned in so new a
country--old and bearing the marks of many years' labor bestowed to make
it what it was. Even from a distance it bore a homelike air. MacRae's
face lightened at the sight. His step quickened. He had come a long way
to get home.

Across the front of the house extended a wide porch which gave a look at
the Cove through a thin screen of maple and alder. From the
grass-bordered walk of beach gravel half a dozen steps lifted to the