would have slain Al."

"Thank you."

CHAPTER XIV

The little cabin at the foot of the mountain was enshrouded in gloom,
would soon be engulfed by the dark shadows of night. In the cabin window
a candle light, wafted by the soft twilight breeze, flickered and
sputtered, but burned on in obedience to the will of the powers that be.
In a bed in one corner of the room lay Nora, that sweet girl of the
wilds, a pallor spread over her face.

The light in the window was flickering just as her own life had been
flickering and smoldering, but it did not go out. She was still alive,
and the crucial point had been passed. Now she lay, the Diana of the
hills, as beautiful as the Diana of old. Outside 'neath the large
spreading tree the chickens were strutting, craning their necks, bobbing
their heads up and down, looking upward preparatory to a flight to the
limbs above them. On the rickety little porch old Rover was lying, head
cast down between his front forepaws, with a sorrowful expression upon
his dog face. The mistress had been ill for some time, and his
master--Wade--had not paid the least attention to him, always appearing
as though he preferred being alone; so the old dog, feeling the many
slights, went about with a cast-down countenance.

Earlier in the day Wade had passed going toward the mountain in search
of game. Later on he was blazing his way, with the barrel of his rifle,
through the thick underbrush down the mountain side. He had got into
entire new territory, and sometimes it became necessary for him to crawl
through, so thick was the brush. Other times he merely pushed aside the
low-hanging limbs with his gun, finally emerging from the thicket into
the open space. When space would allow he straightened himself out,
then his back ached and his hands and knees were very sore. Suddenly he
caught the sound of a disturbed rabbit as it flitted out from its snug
nest beneath the shrub. Jack looked quickly in that direction, in time
to see it crossing the ravine too far away to shoot. As he walked on
there came to his listening ears the shrill whistle of a mountain quail
as it sang out its note of warning to its hidden mate near. Wade started
off in the direction whence the call of the quail came, but after
walking some distance gave up the search and stood still. A dead silence
prevailed. Before him was the clear running stream, behind him a wild
waste of mountain. Down to the stream's edge he walked, and