t move nor open her lips. Thryng thought he
detected a look of fear in the boy's eyes, as he crept closer to her.

In a flash came to him the realization of the difficulty. His friend had
told him of these people,--their occupations, their fear of the world
outside and below their fastnesses, and how zealously they guarded their
homes and their rights from outside intrusion, yet how hospitable and
generous they were to all who could not be considered their hereditary
enemies.

He hastened to speak reassuring words, and, bethinking himself that she
had called the boy Hoyle, he explained how one Adam Hoyle had sent him.

"The doctor is my friend, you know. He built a cabin somewhere within a
day's walk, he told me, of Carew's Crossing, on a mountain top. Maybe
you knew him?"

A slight smile crept about the girl's lips, and her eyes brightened.
"Yes, suh, we-all know Doctah Hoyle."

"I am to have the cabin--if I can find it--live there as he did, and see
what your hills will do for me." He laughed a little as he spoke,
deprecating his evident weakness, and, lifting his cap, wiped the cold
moisture from his forehead.

She noted his fatigue and hesitated. The boy's questioning eyes were
fixed on her face, and she glanced down into them an answering look. Her
lips parted, and her eyes glowed as she turned them again on David, but
she spoke still in the same passive monotone.

"Oh, yes. My little brothah was named foh him,--Adam Hoyle,--but we only
call him Hoyle. It's a right long spell since the Doctah was heah. His
cabin is right nigh us, a little highah up. Theah is no place wheah you
could stop nighah than ouahs. Hoyle, jump out and help fetch his things
ovah. You can put them in the back of the wagon, suh, and ride up with
us. I have a sight of room foh them."

The child was out and across the tracks in an instant, seizing a valise
much too heavy for him, and Thryng cut his thanks short to go to his
relief.

"I kin tote it," said the boy shrilly.

"No, no. I am the biggest, so I'll take the big ones. You bring the
bundle with the strap around it--so. Now we shall get on, shan't we?
But you are pretty strong for a little chap;" and the child's face
radiated smiles at the praise.

Then David tossed in valise and rug, without which last no Englishman
ever goes on a journey, and with much effort they managed to pull the
box along and hoist it also into the wagon, the body of which was filled
with corn fodder, c