She was unmistakably in earnest and the incredulity in the Judge’s face changed to dismay. He took the map and studied it. "I see," he said slowly, "I see." There was a brief silence, then his voice, that voice of the orator, took its pleading undernote. "Why will you do this thing? If you must create your own opportunities, there are other ways. Why, it is unbelievable. If ever there was a woman made for civilization, you are that one, yet you choose to bury yourself in the wilderness; to take up a claim in the heart of a jungle; to share the hardships of rough and ignorant pioneers." "But I am a pioneer," and he saw the rising storm in her eyes, "the daughter of pioneers. You taught me to be proud of it, Uncle Silas; you loved to remind me my mother was born on the Columbia, and that her father, a New England missionary, followed Marcus Whitman to Oregon. You never let me forget that my other grandfather was among the first to enter the Straits of Fuca, and sailed his own ship a hundred miles, straight up Puget Sound, without chart or pilot. You called it a great record. And my father was the pioneer surveyor. You talked about those seasons you spent in camp with him, while he blazed the great military road through the forest, running his section lines over rocky spurs and through cedar swamps, until I should count it a triumph to have carried chain for him. You see it was born in me, Uncle Silas. I can’t help it—and I’ve got to turn it to the best account. It was my only inheritance." Her voice broke at the last, and the assurance dropped from her like a shell. She stood before him, lovely, irresistible, extenuating a weakness. "Oh," he said in evident distress, "you have misunderstood me. I wouldn’t have you any different. Surely you know it? To me you are the embodiment of all that is fine and sweet and best in this great Northwest that I love. You are the spirit of it all. And your people were above criticism, Alice. Only, the memory of their fortitude makes me tremble for you. Your father, that splendid young fellow with almost a lifetime before him, was cut off in ambush; and your mother—was drowned in the Cowlitz. I want to have you—safe." He began to walk the floor, slowly, with his hands still clasped behind him, his head bent, a cloud on his face. And she waited in respectful silence, watching him with a sweet and regretful tenderness in her eyes. She believed she understood those memories from which had sprung all his great kindness to her. Finally he stopped at the table and again spread out the plat. "This must be near the section Forrest told me about," he said. "Why, it looks like the very one. He was debating on taking it up, himself, at the time I offered him the management at Freeport."