dream seemed actually to lead her to
them, there he was to help her through the great ordeal with heartening
smiles and comforting suggestions.

Her sleep was restless, but delightful. Once she woke and left her bed
to peer out of the window, wondering if, by chance, she might not
glimpse a light in Layson's camp far down the mountain-side. She was
disappointed when she found she could not, but went back to bed to find
there further compensating dreams.

There might have been still greater compensation for her had she known
that at the very moment when she peered out through the darkness,
looking for some vagrant glimmer of a light from Layson's camp, he had,
himself, just gone back to his cabin after having stood a long time
staring through the darkness toward her own small cabin in its fastness.

He was thinking, thinking, thinking. The little mountain maid had
strangely fascinated the highly cultivated youth from the far bluegrass.
He did not know quite what to make of the queer way in which her fresh
and lovely, girlish face, obtruded itself constantly into his thoughts.
And as for the haughty bluegrass belle whom poor Madge dreaded so--he
did not think of her, at all, save, possibly, with half acknowledged
annoyance at the fact that she was coming to spy out his wilderness and
those who dwelt therein. He would have been a little happier if he could
have remained there, undisturbed, for a time longer.

Day had not dawned when Madge awoke. The sun, indeed, had just begun to
poke the red edge of his disc above Mount Nebo, when, having built her
fire and cooked her frugal breakfast, she loosed the rope which held the
crude, small draw-bridge up and lowered the rickety old platform until
it gave a pathway over the deep chasm and carried her to the mainland,
ready for the journey to the distant cross-roads store.

Dew, sparkling like cut diamonds, cool as melting ice, was everywhere in
the brilliant freshness of the morning; the birds were busy with their
gossip and their foraging, chattering greetings to her as she passed; in
her pasture her cow, Sukey, had not risen yet from her comfortable night
posture when she reached her. The animal looked up gravely at her,
chewing calmly on her cud, plainly not approving, quite, of such a very
early call. While the girl sat on the one-legged stool beside her,
sending white, rich, fragrant streams into the resounding pail, her
shaggy Little Hawss limped up, nosing at her pocke