After supper that night Bennington found himself unaccountably alone in
camp. Old Mizzou had wandered off up the gulch. Arthur had wandered off
down the gulch. The woman had locked herself in her cabin.
So, having nothing else to do, he got out the manuscript of Aliris: A
Romance of all Time, and read it through carefully from the beginning.
To his surprise he found it very poor. Its language was felicitous in
some spots, but stilted in most; the erudition was pedantic, and
dragged in by the ears; the action was idiotic; and the proportions
were padded until they no longer existed as proportions. He was
astounded. He began to see that he had misconceived the whole treatment
of it. It would have to be written all over again, with the love story
as the ruling motif. He felt very capable of doing the love story.
He drew some paper toward him and began to write.
You see he was already developing. Every time a writer is made to
appreciate that his work is poor he has taken a step in advance of it.
Although he did not know that was the reason of it, Bennington
perceived the deficiencies of Aliris, because he had promised to read
it to the girl. He saw it through her eyes.
The young man became absorbed in redescribing the heroine with violet
eyes. A sudden slamming of the door behind him brought him, startled,
to his feet. He laughed, and was about to sit down again, but noticed
that the door had remained open. He arose to shut it. Over the trunks
of the nearer pines played a strange flickering light, throwing them
now into relief, now into shadow. "Strange!" murmured Bennington to
himself, and stepped outside to investigate. As he crossed the sill he
was seized on either side.
He cried out and struggled blindly, but was held as in a vice. His
captors, whom he dimly perceived to be large men in masks, whirled him
sharply to the left, and he found himself face to face with a third
man, also masked. Beyond him were a score or so more, some of whom bore
pine torches, which, partly blazing and partly smoking, served to cast
the weird light he had seen flickering on the tree trunks. Perfect
silence reigned. The man with whom Bennington was fronted eyed him
gravely through the holes in his mask.
"I'd like to know what this means?" broke out the Easterner angrily.
The men did not reply. They stood motionless, as silent as the night.
In spite of his indignation, the young man was impressed. He twisted
his shoulders again. The men at either arm never tightened a muscle to
resist, and yet he was held beyond the possibility of escape.
"What's the matter? What're you trying to do? Take your hands off me!"
he cried.