A strange panic seized Hollister, the alarm of the unexpected, a
reluctance to face the crisis which he had not expected to face for
another twenty-four hours. He stepped down off the porch, walked
rapidly away toward the chute mouth, crossed that and climbed to a
dead fir standing on the point of rocks beyond. From there he watched
until the canoe thrust its gaudy prow against the bank before his
house, until he saw the women ashore and their baggage stacked on the
bank, until the canoe backed into the current and shot away
downstream, until Doris with the baby in her arms--after a lingering
look about, a slow turning of her head--followed the other woman up
the porch steps and disappeared within. Then Hollister moved back over
the little ridge into the shadow of a clump of young firs and sat down
on a flat rock with his head in his hands, to fight it out with
himself.
To stake everything on a single throw of the dice,--and the dice
loaded against him! If peace had its victories no less than war, it
had also crushing defeats. Hollister felt that for him the final, most
complete _debacle_ was at hand.
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