body unhappy," protested
Boone.

Cyrus Spradling studied him with a keen, but not unkindly, fixedness of
gaze.

"Ye don't, don't ye? Wa'al, let me norrate ye a leetle parable. Suppose
you an' me hes done been pore folks livin' in a small dwellin'-house.
We've done been plum content, because we hain't never knowed nothing
better. But suppose one of us goes a'visitin' ter rich kin-folks--an'
t'other one stays home." He paused there to rekindle his pipe, and the
voice of his resumed "parable" was troubled.

"Ther one thet's been away hes done took up notions of wealth that he
kain't nuver hope ter satisfy. The mean cabin seems a heap meaner when
he comes back ter hit--but ther other pore damn fool--he's still happy
an' contented because he don't know no better."

"I reckon," laughed the young visitor, "if the feller that had gone away
was anything but the disablest body in the world, he'd set about
improving the house he had to dwell in."

"I hope ter God ye're right, Booney. Hit's been a mighty sober thing fer
me ter ponder over, though--whether I was helpin' my gal or hurtin'
her."

Boone was smitten with a sense of guilt. He felt that he ought to make
confession that he had come here tonight because he had already
recognized a new flame in his heart, and a flame which the voice of
sanity and wisdom told him he must quench: that he was here because
discontent had driven him. But his voice was firm as he made some
commonplace reply, and Cyrus nodded his satisfaction. "Mebby if thar's a
few boys like thet, growin' up hyarabouts, ther few gals thet gits
larnin' won't be foredoomed ter lead lonesome lives, atter all."

The moonlight was beginning to convert the dulness of twilight into a
nocturne of soft and tempered beauty.

Boone felt suddenly appalled, as if the father had given him parental
recognition and approval, and laid upon him an obligation. He wanted to
rise and frame some excuse for immediate flight, but it was of course
too late for that.

The evening star came up over the dark contours of the ridge. It shone
soft and lustrous in the sky, where other stars would soon add their
myriad points of light, but however many others might fill the heavens
there would still be only one evening star--and Boone, as he waited for
one girl, fell to thinking of the other with whom he had climbed
Slag-face yesterday; the girl who had set fire to his young imagination.

Then Happy came out of the door and soon aft