thing, no puff of air, but a living thing as Greek and Indian both alike have taught, a being who creates, then loves and guards its own. It came like a mighty goddess, like an angry angel with a bugle horn, with a dreadful message from the far-off western sea. A message of war, for it sang a wild, triumphant battle-song, and the strain of the song was :

I am the mothering White Wind,
This is my hour of might;

The hills and the snow are my children,
My service they do to-night.

And here and there at the word received, there were mighty doings among the peaks. Here new effects were carven with a stroke. Here lakes were made or unmade; here messengers of life and death dispatched. An avalanche from Purcell's Peak went down to gash the sides, and show long veins of gold; another hurried, by the White Wind sent, to block a stream and turn its wasted waters to a thirsty land—a messenger of mercy. But down the Gunder Peak there whirled a monstrous mass, charged with a mission of revenge. Down, down, down, loud "snoofing" as it went, sliding from shoulder, ledge, and long incline, now wiping out a forest that would

HE coming of Wetmore Hawes to Painted Knob had been heralded by letter. The missive was from John Hawes, known throughout the Gogebics as "the old man" and in Wall Street as "the Michigan Copper King." The letter was crisp and brief and blunt. It told "Long Jim" Rowe, manager of the Escanaba mine, that Mr. Hawes was sending out his son to be assistant superintendent.

"Not that he will be of the least use," wrote Mr. Hawes, "but because it will be good for him. I want you to knock some of the nonsense out of him. If you can make a man of him I'll give you ten shares

Escanaba, preferred. But you'll find him a bad egg."

As "Long Jim" read this his eyelids narrowed under his shaggy brows. This was sign he meant to have those Escanabas.

Yet for two days his grimness was modified by a puzzled air. "Long Jim," although sophisticated in some things, was all unused to the particular kind of wickedness bred in urban centres. Man in the rough he could conquer. As member of citizens' committees he had helped rule the riotous spirits of raw mining camps; as sheriff, he had hunted stage robbers and horse thieves; as mate on lake steamers he had compelled obedience from motley

crews of roustabouts, and here he was, almost single-handed, in charge of two hundred surly Muscovites who had been imported from the far Urals, elaborate legislation to the contrary, to dig the red oxide from the backbone of Michigan's northern peninsula.

What manner of wickedness could this town-reared terror manage to bring to Painted Knob ? Vainly did he try to enumerate the mischievous potentials of the place. But he meant to be prepared. So he had made a stout oak billy, sent to Sault Ste. Marie for a pair of handcuffs, and fitted a small store-room leading from his office with window-bars and double doorlocks.

When the tri-weekly steamer from "The Soo" came ploughing up the lake, "Long Jim" stood on the dock waiting to welcome the prodigal into exile. He half expected to see a flag of distress flying from the boat which bore the "bad egg." But there was no sign of turbulence aboard.

In fact, the young man who walked down the gang-plank and introduced himself as Wetmore Hawes was wholly unlike the individual Mr. Rowe had prepared to receive. It was with unconcealed surprise "Long Jim" noted the slim figure, the pink-and-white complexion, and the curling red locks which gave an almost effeminate air to the boyish face. For

this reason, perhaps, his greeting was rather clumsy.

"I suppose father has written you," said young Mr. Hawes as they walked up the hill toward the boarding-house where the entire American population of Painted Knob lived as members of one family, "why he sent me out here?"

"Well," replied, "Long Jim" Rowe, suddenly embarrassed by this frankness, "he did kinder hint somethin' of the sort. But-but I reckon you'll find it easier to keep straight in Painted Knob than it was in the city. You'll have to hunt mighty hard to find any devilment to do around this outfit."

Young Mr. Hawes, following with his eyes the wave of "Long Jim's "big hand, swept a comprehensive glance up the steep hill road, over the unsightly buildings at the shaft mouth, across the miners' barracks, and up to the top of the Knob itself.

"Yes," said he, "I should say so."

"You see," went on the superintendent, in the tone one might use to persuade a naughty boy that he ought to be good, "there's only me and Corliss and Dan Dwyer and his wife. We're all sober and steady. The Russians, of course, are a bad lot; but I don't reckon you'll chum much with them." Mr.

This seemed to amuse young