was very suggestive of the man
himself, but Young Denny failed to catch the suggestion at that
moment.

He never quite knew when that decision became final, nor what the
mental process was which brought it about. Nor did he even dream of
the connection there might have been between it and that square of
cardboard lying in front of him. Just once, as the first light came
streaking in through the uncurtained window beside him, he nodded his
head in deliberate, definite finality.

"Why, it's the thing I've been waiting for," he stated, something
close akin to wonder in his voice. "It's just a man's size chance. I'd
have to take it--I'd have to do that, even if I didn't want to--for
myself."

And later, while he was kindling a fire in the stove and methodically
preparing his own breakfast, he paused to add with what seemed to be
absolute irrelevance:

"Silk--silk, next to her skin!"

There were only two trains a day over the single-track spur road
that connected Boltonwood with the outer world beyond the hills; one
which left at a most unreasonably inconvenient hour in the early
morning and one which left just as inconveniently late at night.
Denny Bolton, who had viewed from a distinctly unfavorable angle
any possible enchantment which the town might chance to offer,
settled upon the first as the entirely probable choice of the short,
fat, brown-clad newspaper man, even without a moment's hesitation to
weigh the merits of either. And the sight of the round bulk of the
latter, huddled alone upon a baggage truck before the deserted
Boltonwood station-shed, fully vindicated his judgment.

It was still only a scant hour since daybreak. Heavy, low-hanging
clouds in the east, gray with threatening rain, cut off any warmth
there might have been in the rising sun and sharpened the raw wind to
a knifelike edge. The man on the truck was too engrossed with the
thoughts that shook his plump shoulders in regularly recurring, silent
chuckles, and a ludicrously doleful effort to shut off with upturned
collar the draft from the back of his neck, to hear the boy's
approaching footsteps. He started guiltily to his feet in the very
middle of a spasmodic upheaval, to stand and stare questioningly at
the big figure whose fingers had plucked tentatively at his elbow,
until a sudden, delighted recognition flooded his face. Then he
reached out one pudgy hand with eager cordiality.

"Why, greetings--greetings!" he exclaimed. "Didn't quit