and struck off over the mountain. Soon there would be bustle
and stir and life about the place, for the hotel would be open and
people would be crowding in, some to escape the heat of the far South
and the low countries, some from the cities either North or South to
whom the bracing air of the mountains would bring renewed
vitality--business men with shattered nerves and women whose high play
during the winter at the game of social life had left them nervous
wrecks.

But now the beauty of the spring and the sweet silences were undisturbed
by alien chatter. As yet were to be heard only the noises of the
forest--of wind and stream--of bird calls and the piping of turtles and
the shrilling of insects or vibrant croaking of frogs--or mayhap the
occasional sound of a gun, discharged by some solitary mountain boy,
regardless of game laws, to provide a supper at home,--only these, as
Frale climbed rapidly away from the station toward the Fall Place, and
Cassandra. He would stop there first and then strike for his old haunts
and hiding-places.

He felt a leaping joy in his veins to be again among his hills. How
lonely he had been for them he had not known until now, when, with
lifted head and bounding heart, he trod lightly and easily the difficult
way. And yet the undercurrent of a tragedy lay quiet beneath his joy and
haunted him, keeping him to the trails above,--the secret paths which
led circuitously to his home,--even while the thought of Cassandra made
his heart buoyant and eager.

The sight of Doctor Thryng who during these months had been near
her--perhaps seeing her daily--aroused all the primitive jealousy of his
nature. He would go now and persuade her to marry him and stand by him
until he could fight his way through to the unquestioned right to live
there as his father had done, defying any who would interfere with his
course. Had he not a silver bullet for the heart of the man who would
dare contest his rights? It only remained for him to meet Giles Teasley
face to face to settle the matter forever.

Since it was purely a mountain affair, and the officers of the law had
already searched to their satisfaction, there was little chance that the
pursuit would be renewed by the State. It would, however, be impossible
for him to go back to the Fall Place and live there openly until the
last member of the Teasley family capable of wreaking vengeance on his
head had been settled with; but as the father was crippled w