use of the passing injustice that she had done him. Many times she
was on the point of sending him word that she would meet him at the
Pine, but she was afraid of her own strength if she should see him face
to face, and she feared she would be risking his life if she allowed him
to come. There were times when she would have gone to him herself, had
her father been well and strong, but he was old, beaten and helpless,
and she had given her sacred word that she would never leave him. So
once more she grew calmer, gentler still, and more determined to follow
her own way with her own kin, though that way led through a breaking
heart. She never mentioned Hale's name, she never spoke of going West,
and in time Dave began to wonder not only if she had not gotten over
her feeling for Hale, but if that feeling had not turned into permanent
hate. To him, June was kinder than ever, because she understood him
better and because she was sorry for the hunted, hounded life he led,
not knowing, when on his trips to see her or to do some service for her
father, he might be picked off by some Falin from the bushes. So Dave
stopped his sneering remarks against Hale and began to dream his old
dreams, though he never opened his lips to June, and she was unconscious
of what was going on within him. By and by, as old Judd began to mend,
overtures of peace came, singularly enough, from the Falins, and while
the old man snorted with contemptuous disbelief at them as a pretence to
throw him off his guard, Dave began actually to believe that they were
sincere, and straightway forged a plan of his own, even if the Tollivers
did persist in going West. So one morning as he mounted his horse at old
Judd's gate, he called to June in the garden:

"I'm a-goin' over to the Gap." June paled, but Dave was not looking at
her.

"What for?" she asked, steadying her voice.

"Business," he answered, and he laughed curiously and, still without
looking at her, rode away.

* * * * * * *

Hale sat in the porch of his little office that morning, and the Hon.
Sam Budd, who had risen to leave, stood with his hands deep in his
pockets, his hat tilted far over his big goggles, looking down at the
dead leaves that floated like lost hopes on the placid mill-pond. Hale
had agreed to go to England once more on the sole chance left him before
he went back to chain and compass--the old land deal that had come to
life--and between them they ha