over) dawned as bright as a diamond, its
light flashing on the brook below, across which darted the kingfisher,
a streak of azure through the green of the pines--while in a clump
of near-by firs two red squirrels played hide-and-seek among the
branches.

At the first sunbeam the Clown stretched his great arms above his
head, whistled a lively jig tune, reached for a fry pan, and soon had
a mess of pork hissing over the fire. Later on, from a bent sapling a
smoke-begrimed coffee pail bubbled, boiled over, and was lifted off to
settle.

"A grand morning ain't it, Hite?" he shouted in high glee, rubbing his
eyes as he squatted before the blaze. "Yes, sir--a grand mornin'. Them
deer won't hev' time to stop and make up their beds arter the old dog
gits to work on 'em to-day. I'm tellin' ye, Hite, we'll hev' ven'son
'fore night if Mr. Thayor and Billy takes a mind to go huntin'."

"Mebbe," replied the trapper guardedly, "and mebbe we won't. There
ain't no caountin' on luck, specially deer. But it's jest as well to
be ready"--and he squeezed another cartridge into the magazine of his
Winchester and laid the rifle tenderly on its side in a dry place as
if fearful of disturbing its fresh coat of oil.

Suddenly the old dog, who had been watching the frizzling bacon,
lifted his ears and peered down in the basin of the hemlocks.

"Halloo!" came faintly from below where the timber was thickest.

The Clown sprang to his feet.

"Thar they be, Hite!" he said briskly. "By whimey--thar they be!"

The trapper strode out into the tangled clearing and after a resonant
whoop in reply stood listening and smiling.

"Jest like Billy Holcomb," he remarked. "He's took 'bout as mean goin'
as a feller could find to git here." Then he added, "But you never
could lose him."

"Whoop," came in answer, as the tall, agile figure of Holcomb appeared
above the tangle of sumac, followed by a short, gray-haired man in
blue flannel, who was stepping over a refractory sapling that Holcomb
had bent down.

The trapper and the Clown strode clear of the brush and saw for the
first time the man whose home they had been preparing.

Not the Samuel Thayor that Holcomb had talked to during that memorable
luncheon at The Players, when he sat silent among Randall's guests;
nor the Samuel Thayor who had faced his wife; nor the Samuel Thayor,
the love of whose daughter put strength in his arms and courage in
his heart. But a man with cheeks ruddy from the s