this threat. "While you hitch, I'll
drop a line to Perry Thomas to take the school. Now hurry."

Tip shuffled away to the barn, and I went into the house, and, after
making a hasty breakfast and getting together a few clothes, sat down
at the table, where Tim had rested his drowsy head all night. I wrote
two notes. One was to Perry and was very brief. The other was brief,
but it was to Mary. When I took up the pen it was to tell her all I
knew and felt. When at last I sealed the envelope it was on a single
sheet of paper, bearing a few formal words, while the scuttle by the
fireplace held all my fine sentiments in the torn slips of paper I had
tossed there. I told Mary that I knew that she did not care for me and
had found herself out. If it was her wish, we would begin again where
we were that night when I saw her first, and I would guide myself into
the future all alone, half happy anyway in the knowledge that it was
best for her and best for Tim. Was I wrong, a single word would bring
me back. I was to be away for three days, and when I returned I should
look by the door-sill for her answer. If none was there, it was all I
had a right to expect. If one was there--I quit writing then--it
seemed so hopeless.

* * * * * *

Tip and I crossed Thunder Knob at noon. As we turned the crest of the
hill and began the descent into the wooded gut, my companion looked
back and waved his hand.

"Good-by to Black Log," he cried. "It's the last I'll ever see of you."

He turned to me and tried to smile, but a deep-set frown took
possession of his face, and he hung his head in silence, watching the
wheels as we jolted on and on.

We wound down the steep way into the gut, following a road that at
times seemed to disappear altogether, and leave us to break our way
through the underbrush. Then it reappeared in a broken corduroy that
bridged a bog for a mile, and lifted itself plainly into view again
with a stony back where we began to climb the second mountain. The sun
was ahead of us when we reached the crest of that long hill. Behind
us, Thunder Knob lifted its rocky head, hiding from us the valley of
our troubles. Before us, miles away, all capped with clouds of gold
and red was the sunset country, but still beyond the mountains. The
gray colt halted to catch his breath, and with the whip I pointed to
the west, glowing with the warm evening fires.

"Yonder's Happy Valley, Tip