wed symptoms of the disease?" he asked.

And Doctor Webb's whole body rocked slowly back and forth. "My son,
you're showin' 'em uncommon bad this mornin'. I could notice 'em soon as
I was ridin' up toward you; your colour is a-comin' an' a-goin', your
eyes is shinin' unnatural bright, your heart is a-thumpin' too quick."
And here he sighed, so that Ambrose braced his lean shoulders for the
worst, although his lips were dry.

"Tell me quick, doctor; ef I kin bear it, what is it ails me?"

"Puppy love," the doctor shouted, and then giving his old horse an
unexpected cut with his clean willow switch, off he drove, shaking with
laughter.

"Puppy love!" Twice Ambrose repeated the words in a stupid fashion, and
then his laughter rang out until it sounded like an echo of the older
man's heavier roar. "Durn it," he said to himself, "ef that ain't just
another way of sayin' 'Peachy'!"

When finally the traveller entered the shelter of a certain group of low
hills near the Kentucky river, it was well past the middle of the
afternoon, and there in a hollow he fed and watered his horse and then
lay down behind a tree.

CHAPTER II

THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE

IN THE mean time, however, Mrs. Barrows and her offspring had not been
idle. Indeed, no sooner had they become convinced that no information
could be had out of Ambrose than they both set off at once hurrying
across back lots, the younger preceding her mother like an outrider,
thrusting her head and her news into every open door.

Within a few minutes the mother and daughter had arrived together at a
small house set midway in the next street, and there, without even
pausing to knock, Mrs. Barrows, pulling at a side door, entered a
dining-room. Seated at a breakfast table were six girls and one young
man, and immediately the six pairs of inquiring feminine eyes were
upraised toward Susan, although the solitary male continued the eating
of three large fried eggs in spite of the fact that his appearance
plainly indicated a bilious temperament.

"Miner Hobbs, he's gone!" said Susan. "Got off most without my seein'
him, though I ain't had a good night's rest come this month of May!"

Obviously this information should have been regarded as interesting, and
yet, except for a curt nod, Miner apparently had not heard. From
earliest boyhood notwithstanding that two more unlike fellow creatures
could not be imagined, he and Ambrose Thompson had been closest friends.
For