ter Chattenoogy Tennessee, that Microby Dandeline run off an' left
alone. Like's not she's et a nail thet yo' left a han'ful of on the
floor thet day yo' aimed fer to fix me a shelft."

"She never et no nail," confided the man, as he returned a moment
later carrying the infant. "She done fell out the do' an' them hens
wus apeckin' her. She's scairt wuss'n hurt."

"Well," smiled Patty. "I must go. Tell Microby to come up to my cabin
right soon. I'd like to have a talk with her."

"Might an' yo' pa's claim 'ud be som'ers up the no'th branch,"
suggested the woman. "He rid that-a-way sometimes, didn't he, Watts?"

"I'm not prospecting to-day. I'm going over to see the Samuelsons. Mr.
Samuelson is sick."

"Law, yes! I be'n a-aimin' fer to git to go, this long while. I heern
it a spell back, an' Mr. Christie done tol' us over again. They do say
he's bad off. But yo' cain't never tell, they's hopes of 'em gittin'
onto they feet agin right up 'til yo' hear the death rattle. Yo' tell
Miz Samuelson I aim to git over soon's I kin. I'll bring along the
baby an' a batch o' sourdough bread, an' fix to stay a hull week.
Watts'll hev to make out with Microby an' the rest. Yo' tell Miz
Samuelson I say not to git down in the mouth. They all got to die
anyhow. An' 'taint so bad, onct it's over an' done. But lots of 'em
gits well, too. So they hain't no call to do no diggin' right up to
the death rattle--an' even then they don't allus die. Ol' man Rink,
over on Tom's Hope, back in Tennessee, he rattled twict, an' come to
both times, an' then, couple days later, he up an' died on 'em 'thout
nary rattle. So yo' cain't never tell--men's thet ornery, even the
best of 'em."

Christie's prediction that Patty would like Mrs. Samuelson proved to
be conservative in the extreme. From the moment the slight gray-haired
little woman greeted her, the girl felt as though she were talking to
an old friend. There was something pathetic in the old lady's cheerful
optimism, something profoundly pathetic in the endeavor to transform
her bit of wilderness into some semblance to the far-away home she had
known in the long ago. And she had succeeded admirably. To cross the
Samuelson threshold was to step from the atmosphere of the cow-country
and the mountains into a region of comfort and quiet that contrasted
sharply with the rough and ready air of the neighboring ranches. The
house itself was not large, but it was built of lumber, not logs. The
long liv