Hollister's speculations took a new turn when Archie Lawanne and
Bland came back from the bear hunt. For Lawanne did not go out. He
pitched a tent on the flat below Hollister's and kept one Siwash to
cook for him. He made that halt to rest up, to stretch and dry his
bear-skins. But long after these trophies were cured, he still
remained. He was given to roaming up and down the valley. He extended
his acquaintance to the settlement farther down, taking observation of
an earnest attempt at cooeperative industry. He made himself at home
equally with the Blands and the Hollisters.
And when July was on them, with hot, hazy sunshine in which berries
ripened and bird and insect life filled the Toba with a twitter and a
drone, when the smoke of distant forest fires drifted like pungent fog
across the hills, Hollister began to wonder if the net Myra seemed
unconsciously to spread for men's feet had snared another victim.
This troubled him a little. He liked Lawanne. He knew nothing about
him, who he was, where he came from, what he did. Nevertheless there
had arisen between them a curious fellowship.
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