THE WAY OUT 
By Lucia Chamberlain 
Illustrations by H. J. Peck 
^J^a^^^l^^^f^gfjyHE greatest sense was of in- 
tolerable heat, withering as 
the breath of fire. The great- 
est sound was the monoto- 
nous wash of leaves in an un- 
easy wind. It came fitfully, 
in gasps, like the respiration of the mountain 
itself, troubling the trees of the grove on the 
canyon pitch, blanching whiter in its going 
the bleached grass of the clearing before the 
cabin. The whole mountain was clothed in 
haze, heavy blue along the western spurs, 
heavy brown tov/ard the east. Under it was 
the agitation of leaves and the interminable 
song of the shrill-voiced creatures of the 
grass. 
The scorching, palpitant, languid air kept 
the creatures of trees and earth quiescent. 
Not a squirrel stirred on the naked divides. 
Not a wing cut the foggy blue. Even the yel- 
low pony before the door drooped his vicious 
head till the bridle trailed in the dust. 
But the man who walked the drifted leaves 
under the towering, twisted oaks, or paced 
the clearing before the cabin in its flaming 
ring of poppies, moved and moved inces- 
santly. Some agitation, some force within 
him, seemed to lift him above the limits of 
sensation. His great, loose-knitted body 
moved with a slouching swing, his big hands 
opened and shut with nervous contraction, 
or plunged fumbling in the pockets of his 
battered corduroy coat. He carried his 
shaggy head forward with a listening look. 
His eyes were now on the white curtain that 
covered the window looking on the grove, 
now with a vaguer anxiety they swept the 
semicircle of the sallow summit, sloping 
down to gray of chapparal, lower still to 
black of oaks, dim, all dancing together in 
the glistening mist. Then, with a keener, a 
concentrated attention, his look returned to 
the white window. It drew him like a mas;- 
net. His big, rude, indeterminate features 
were drawn in lines of tension unusual to 
that lax physiognomy. The vague color of 
his eyes was sharpened with a hot light like 
anger, or fear. Now he hesitated at the door, 
50 
as if some insupportable suspense drew his 
hand toward the latch. Then he wheeled, 
sullen, dogged, submissive, and swung off 
over the deep leaf-drift of the grove. 
The air bit hot to his lungs. He got it 
full in the face as he came to the edge of the 
grove, a sharp pufif of wind with the sting 
of the furnace; then a hush, leaves stilled, 
air stagnant. He stood at the pitch of the 
road. It descended abruptly some twenty 
feet, then cut away, a gradually lifting 
white line, around the mountam., up the 
steep Frog Back, and over its naked ver- 
tebrae, a white glint on the sky. Here 
the watcher's eyes were fixed. Long eyes 
they were, set in long wrinkles that come 
from much sighting between hard sun and 
broken land. But the hand held out, palm 
westward, to feel a second gust was smooth 
and uncalloused — not a rancher's, hardly 
even a hunter's — an idle hand, but sensi- 
tive in every finger to the quality of the 
quivering air. 
There \was a pause, while the mountain 
held its uneasy breath. Then the white grass 
of the Frog Back blenched with rapid, rip- 
pled shadows, a wave of dust came flying 
down the road, and all the sighing branches 
of the grove bent westward. 
The watcher glanced quickly, furtively, 
behind him. Had the gust stirred the white 
curtain, or had some hand ? His great frame 
drew up tense as a spring. The door was 
opening. Two men came on to the porch. 
Their figures were just visible between the 
ragged yellowpassion-vines. One, little and 
weather-worn, had already his grip on the 
pony's mane, histoein thestirrup. He talked 
over his shoulder at the other, who mopped 
his face and nodded his answers. His back 
was toward che grove, but by the set of his 
shoulders and the spread of his feet, he 
seemed the aggressive, the controlling power. 
The watcher in the grove came forv/ard 
a couple of strides, hesitated. They did 
not see him. He stood, his eyes eating 
their gestures, his ears strained for the tones 
of the words he could not distinguish. The 
