'em."

But David thought better of it. He would not look in her basket and pry
among her treasures without her permission.

"When is she coming back?" he asked, awakened to desire further
knowledge of the silent girl's aspirations.

"Soon, I reckon. She's been a right smart spell longah now 'n she 'lowed
she'd be. Hit's old man Irwin. He's been hurted some way. She went ovah
to see could Aunt Sally Carew go an' help Miz Irwin keer fer him--she's
a fool thing, don't know nothin'. They sont down fer me--but here I be,
so she rode the colt ovah fer Sally."

David wrapped and tied the piece of silver as he had found it. As he
replaced it in the box, he discovered the pieces of the broken fiddle
loosely tied in a sack, precious relics of a joy that was past.
Carefully he locked the box and returned the key, but the books he
folded in the strip of gingham and carried away with him.

"I'll be back to-night or in the morning. If she doesn't return, send
Hoyle for me. You mustn't be too long alone. Shall I mend the fire?"

He threw on another log, then lifted her a little and brought her a
glass of cool water, and climbed back to his cabin, walking lightly and
swiftly.

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH DAVID ACCOMPANIES CASSANDRA ON AN ERRAND OF MERCY

Filled with the enthusiasm of his thoughts, David climbed too rapidly,
and now he found he must take the more gradual rise of the mule trail
without haste. His cap thrust in his pocket, the breeze lifted his hair
and dried the perspiration which would still come with any too eager
exertion. But why should he care? Even to be alive these days was joy.
This was continually the refrain of his heart, nor had he begun to
exhaust his resources for entertainment in his solitary life.

Never were the days too long. Each was filled with such new and lively
interest as to preclude the thought of ennui. To provide against it, he
had sent for books--more than he had had time to read in all the busy
days of the last three years. These and his microscope and his surgical
instruments had been brought him on a mule team by Jerry Carew, who did
his "toting" for him, fetching all he needed for work or comfort, in
this way, from the nearest station where goods could be sent until the
hotel opened in the early summer. Not that he needed them, but that, as
an artist loves to keep a supply of paints and canvas, or a writer--even
when idle--is happier to know that he has at hand plenty of pens a