“No!” snapped Mary Temple, and passed the venison to Andy with jerky hospitality.

[26]

CHAPTER IV A MEMBER OF THE CLAN

DR. INMAN SHONTO, always an early riser, was the first one stirring at El Trono de Tolerancia the following morning. He left the log house by the door through which he had entered it the night before, and gazed off into the timberland to the east, through which Andy and he had reached the place. He turned and walked around the cabin, and then he realized what Charmian Reemy had meant when she stated that it was next to impossible for one to be intolerant when he looked from her home to the west.

The cabin was set on a gigantic rock that overhung the brow of the mountain. A metal railing had been erected along the edge of the rock to prevent the unwary from plunging down at least forty feet to the rock’s massive base. From the base the land sloped off sharply for perhaps half a mile. And beyond that it continued to slope more gently to level wooded stretches below. The great forest over which one looked would have seemed endless were it not for the broad Pacific in the far distance, which began at the end of the mass of green and rolled on to the uttermost ends of the earth.

Never in his life had the nature-loving man seen a more gorgeous picture. It seemed that the very world[27] was laid out for him to gaze upon from that gaunt pinnacle. He stepped to the iron rail, cold and dewy, grasped it in his strong, lean hands, and stood there, bareheaded, reverent.

[27]

“Do you feel tolerant of all mankind now, Doctor?” came a low voice at his elbow.

Shonto wheeled about, startled, as if awakened from a dream. Charmian Reemy stood beside him, dressed in a man’s flannel shirt, a divided whipcord skirt, and high-laced boots. She had combed her dark brown hair, but had not stopped to do it up. It fell in a cataract, gleaming bronze-gold with the rays of the early-morning sun behind her, almost to her knees. She was smiling that smile which lifted one corner of her mouth in a whimsical little twist.

“I am tolerant of all mankind,” said the doctor seriously. “But now that you have come, I don’t know whether to look at you or—that.” And he pointed over the mysterious forest to the sea, which seemed to stand upright before him as if painted on a huge canvas.

“Do you think I’m 

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