tick he always carried in
these nights and pointing away toward Thunder Knob. "I'm done with
Black Log. I'm goin' where there is peace and quiet."

"You lead the life of a hermit?" I suggested.

"A what?" Tip exclaimed.

"You live in a cave in the woods and eat roots and nuts and meditate,"
I explained.

"You think I'm a squirrel," snapped the fugitive. "No, sir, I live
with my cousin John Shadrack's widder."

"Ah!" I cried. "It's plain now, Tip, you deceiver. So there's the
attraction."

"The attraction?" Tip's brow was furrowed.

"Mrs. John Shadrack," I said.

The fugitive broke into a loud guffaw. He leaned over the gate and let
his pipe fall on the other side and beat the post violently with his
hands.

"I allow you've never seen John Shadrack's widder," said he.

"I'd like to, Tip. Will you take me with you to Happy Valley?"

The smile left Tip's face, and he gazed at me, open-mouthed with
astonishment.

"You would go over the mountain?" he said, drawling every word.

Over the mountain there is peace! It is cold and gray there in the
early morning, and the hills are bleak and black, but I remember days
when from this same spot I've watched the deep, soft blue and green;
I've sat here as the hills were glowing in the changing evening lights
and our valley grew dark and cold. What a fair country that must be
where the sun sets! And we stay here in our dim light, in our dull
monotones, when, to the westward, there's a land all capped with clouds
of red and gold. There is Tip's Valley of Peace. John Shadrack's
widow may not be a celestial being, but that is my sunset country. In
journeying to it, I shall leave myself behind; in the joy of the road,
in the changing landscape and skyscape, in the swing of the buggy and
the rattle of the wheels, I shall forget myself and Mary and Tim for a
time, and when I come back it will be with wound unhealed, but the
throbbing pain will have passed, and I can face them with eyes clear
and speech unfaltering.

"I'll go with you to Happy Valley, Tip," I said, rising and turning to
the door. "You hitch the gray colt in the buggy and----"

"We are goin' to ride," cried Tip. He had always made his flights
afoot before that, and the prospect of an easy journey caused him to
smile.

"Do you think I'll walk?" I growled. "Get the gray colt and I'll give
you a lift over the mountain, but I'll bring you back on Monday, too."
Tip shook his head sullenly at