to the moan of the cool wind in the cedars with a sense of satisfaction
that these lonely sounds were familiar. This cedar wood burned into a
pretty fire and the smell of its smoke was newly pleasant.

"Reckon maybe I'll learn to like Arizona," he mused, half aloud.
"But I've a hankerin' for waterfalls an' dark-green forests.
Must be the Indian in me. . . . Anyway, dad needs me bad, an'
I reckon I'm here for keeps."

Jean threw some cedar branches on the fire, in the light of which he
opened his father's letter, hoping by repeated reading to grasp more
of its strange portent. It had been two months in reaching him,
coming by traveler, by stage and train, and then by boat, and finally
by stage again. Written in lead pencil on a leaf torn from an old
ledger, it would have been hard to read even if the writing had been
more legible.

"Dad's writin' was always bad, but I never saw it so shaky," said Jean,
thinking aloud.

GRASS VALLY, ARIZONA.
Son Jean,--Come home. Here is your home and here your needed.
When we left Oregon we all reckoned you would not be long behind.
But its years now. I am growing old, son, and you was always my
steadiest boy. Not that you ever was so dam steady. Only your
wildness seemed more for the woods. You take after mother, and
your brothers Bill and Guy take after me. That is the red and
white of it. Your part Indian, Jean, and that Indian I reckon
I am going to need bad. I am rich in cattle and horses. And my
range here is the best I ever seen. Lately we have been losing