travelers picked up the bag and
the violins, and went out into the sweet freshness of the morning. As
he fastened the door the man sighed profoundly; but David did not
notice this. His face was turned toward the east--always David looked
toward the sun.

"Daddy, let's not go, after all! Let's stay here," he cried ardently,
drinking in the beauty of the morning.

"We must go, David. Come, son." And the man led the way across the
green slope to the west.

It was a scarcely perceptible trail, but the man found it, and followed
it with evident confidence. There was only the pause now and then to
steady his none-too-sure step, or to ease the burden of the bag. Very
soon the forest lay all about them, with the birds singing over their
heads, and with numberless tiny feet scurrying through the underbrush
on all sides. Just out of sight a brook babbled noisily of its delight
in being alive; and away up in the treetops the morning sun played
hide-and-seek among the dancing leaves.

And David leaped, and laughed, and loved it all, nor was any of it
strange to him. The birds, the trees, the sun, the brook, the scurrying
little creatures of the forest, all were friends of his. But the
man--the man did not leap or laugh, though he, too, loved it all. The
man was afraid.

He knew now that he had undertaken more than he could carry out. Step
by step the bag had grown heavier, and hour by hour the insistent,
teasing pain in his side had increased until now it was a torture. He
had forgotten that the way to the valley was so long; he had not
realized how nearly spent was his strength before he even started down
the trail. Throbbing through his brain was the question, what if, after
all, he could not--but even to himself he would not say the words.

At noon they paused for luncheon, and at night they camped where the
chattering brook had stopped to rest in a still, black pool. The next
morning the man and the boy picked up the trail again, but without the
bag. Under some leaves in a little hollow, the man had hidden the bag,
and had then said, as if casually:--

"I believe, after all, I won't carry this along. There's nothing in it
that we really need, you know, now that I've taken out the luncheon
box, and by night we'll be down in the valley."

"Of course!" laughed David. "We don't need that." And he laughed again,
for pure joy. Little use had David for bags or baggage!

They were more than halfway down the mountain now, an