ed with sweaty
toil, but this girl, it seemed, was something more. She was strong
enough to earn her bread, and something more. Money values were not
clear to David Eden, but three hundred dollars sounded a very
considerable sum. He determined to risk exposure by glancing around the
rock. If she could work like a man, no doubt she was made like a man and
not like those useless and decorative creatures of whom Matthew had
often spoken to him, with all their graces and voices.

Cautiously he peered and he saw her standing beside the old, broken gray
horse. Even old Ephraim seemed a stalwart figure in comparison.

At first he was bewildered, and then he almost laughed aloud. Was it on
account of this that Benjamin had warned him, this fragile girl? He
stepped boldly from behind the rock.

"There is no more to say," quoth Jacob.

"But I tell you, he himself will come."

"You are right," said David.

At that her eyes turned on him, and David was stopped in the midst of a
stride until she shrank back against the horse.

Then he went on, stepping softly, his hand extended in that sign of
peace which is as old as mankind.

"Stay in peace," said David, "and have no fear. It is I, David."

He hardly knew his own voice, it was so gentle. A twilight dimness
seemed to have fallen upon Jacob and Ephraim, and he was only aware of
the girl. Her fear seemed to be half gone already, and she even came a
hopeful step toward him.

"I knew from the first that you would come," she said, "and let me buy
one horse--you have so many."

"We will talk of that later."

"David," broke in the grave voice of Ephraim, "remember your own law!"

He looked at the girl instead of Ephraim as he answered: "Who am I to
make laws? God begins where David leaves off."

And he added: "What is your name?"

"Ruth."

"Come, Ruth," said David, "we will go home together."

She advanced as one in doubt until the shadow of the cliff fell over
her. Then she looked back from the throat of the gate and saw Ephraim
and Jacob facing her as though they understood there was no purpose in
guarding against what might approach the valley from without now that
the chief enemy was within. David, in the pause, was directing Jacob to
place the girl's saddle on the back of Abra.

"For it is not fitting," he explained, "that you should enter my garden
save on one of my horses. And look, here is Glani."

The stallion came at the sound of his name. She had heard o