st how such words would hurt
him, how his pride, his love for his brother, and his sturdy
independence were all cut to the very quick. He went out of the room
without a word and could be heard climbing the ladderlike stairs that
led to the room he had made for himself under the eaves. Ralph sat
down by the fire, muttering uneasily something about "it all blowing
over." With lagging steps Barbara went on setting the table.

They were not prepared to see Felix come down the stairs a few minutes
later with his coat and cap and with his violin under his arm.

"I will take no man's charity, not even my brother's," he said
huskily, as he stood still for a moment on the threshold. Then he was
gone.

Barbara leaned over the half door and watched him go down the path,
saw him pass through the lane of tiny apple trees, saw the dusk gather
about him as he went on, a smaller and smaller, plodding figure that
disappeared at last into the dark. The autumn wind in the oak tree
sounded blustering and cold as she closed the door and turned back to
the room again.

"He has only gone down to the town, he will come back to-morrow,"
growled Ralph, but Barbara knew better.

"He has gone to look for gold," she cried, and, sitting down on the
bench by the fire, she buried her face in her hands and burst into
tears.

* * * * *

Felix used to think, as the days and weeks passed, and as that strange
journey upon which he had launched so suddenly dragged on and on, that
the grassy slope above the orchard and the cool dark foliage of the
oak tree must be the very greenest and fairest things on earth. There
was no green now before his aching eyes, only the wide stretch of
yellow-brown prairie, a rough trail, deep in dust, winding across it,
a line of white-topped wagons crawling like ants over the vast plain,
and a blue arch of sky above, blinding-bright with the heat.

It was October when he went away from home, it was a month later when,
by leisurely stage and slow canal boat, he arrived at the Mississippi
River, the outpost of established travel. Here he was obliged to wait
until spring, for even in the rush of '49 there were few bold enough
to attempt the overland trail in winter. He turned his hand to every
sort of work, he did odd jobs during the day and played his violin for
dancing at night, he grew lean and out-at-elbows and graver than he
used to be. He slept in strange places and ate stranger food,