“He can spend sixty dollars on his old guns; but he can't afford to let me leave this hateful house,” she complained to the apple tree. “He can go 'way off camping somewhere to have a good time, but he leaves me sweltering in this miserable little town all summer. I don't care if he IS supporting me. He ought to. He's my brother. Oh, I wish I were a man; I wish I were dead!” Three days later Thorpe left for the north. He was reluctant to go. When the time came, he attempted to kiss Helen good-by. She caught sight of the rifle in its new leather and canvas case, and on a sudden impulse which she could not explain to herself, she turned away her face and ran into the house. Thorpe, vaguely hurt, a little resentful, as the genuinely misunderstood are apt to be, hesitated a moment, then trudged down the street. Helen too paused at the door, choking back her grief. “Harry! Harry!” she cried wildly; but it was too late. Both felt themselves to be in the right. Each realized this fact in the other. Each recognized the impossibility of imposing his own point of view over the other's. PART II. THE LANDLOOKER Chapter XVI In every direction the woods. Not an opening of any kind offered the mind a breathing place under the free sky. Sometimes the pine groves,--vast, solemn, grand, with the patrician aloofness of the truly great; sometimes the hardwood,--bright, mysterious, full of life; sometimes the swamps,--dark, dank, speaking with the voices of the shyer creatures; sometimes the spruce and balsam thickets,--aromatic, enticing. But never the clear, open sky.