ed into the bush.

Long after he had gone we two stood in the cabin door searching the
silent wall of green for some sign of him. None was given. The shadow
of the ridge crept away as the sun climbed higher and the clearing was
bathed in its brightness. A crow called pleasantly from a tall pine.
The birds, back from their hiding, sang as though on such a day there
could be no trouble.

I felt the blue ribbon brush my cheek, and two small bare arms about my
neck.

I turned to Penelope and said: "Don't cry, little 'un. I'll take care
of you."

CHAPTER V

To Nathan, the white mule, I owed it that I was able to take good care
of Penelope Blight in the first hours of my guardianship. But for him
I should have brought her face to face with the mob that rode out of
Malcolmville to storm the clearing. I knew but one road home from the
gut, and that was the way James had brought me fishing. Had we
followed it, we should have hardly crossed the ridge before we met the
van of an ill-organized but determined army, and then to her grief
terror must have been added by the wagons filled with men armed as
though they were going into battle. The obstinate temperament of the
mule served us a good turn. When Penelope and I led him from the barn
and climbed to his back, he must have supposed that we were going to
the store and should leave him tied for hours in the hot sun, switching
flies, while we sat comfortably in the shade of the porch discussing
the universe's affairs. Believing this, he protested, stopping in the
middle of the clearing to enjoy a few tidbits of sprouting corn.
Discovering that the small boy on his back lacked his master's strength
and courage, he decided to go on, but as he chose. He chose first a
trot. To Penelope and me it seemed a mad gallop, and I clung
desperately to his scanty mane while she clutched my waist and pleaded
with me to halt him and let her down. In this eternity of
suffering--ten minutes really--her greater grief was forgotten, and she
was spared the pang of a last look at her deserted home, for when
Nathan decided to walk she turned her head to see only a long archway
of trees ending in a green wall.

"Davy," she cried, "please let me get off!"

Now I wanted to get off myself, but I suspected her desire to run back
to the clearing, and my over-powering thought was to carry her away
from that forbidding place. I had promised the Professor to take care
of the girl, and