he fire for a moment, and then goes back and brushes off
the snow from the man's matted hair, then back to the fire.

"I'm awful glad to see you eat, Mr. John Logan," says Stumps; "I wish
there was more, I do," and he rocks on his foot and wags his head from
shoulder to shoulder gleefully. "It ain't much--it ain't much, Mr. John
Logan; but it is all there is."

"All there is, and they were eating it." The man says this aside to
himself, and he hides his face for a moment, as if he would conceal a
tear. Then, after a time he seems to recover himself, and he lays the
bread down on the table, tenderly, silently, carefully indeed, as if it
were the most delicate and precious thing on earth. Then, lifting his
face, looks at them with an effort to be cheerful, and says:

"I--I forgot; I--I am not hungry. I have had my dinner. I--I, oh yes; I
have been eating a great deal. Oh, no, no, no; I'm not hungry--not
hungry!"

As the man says this he rises and stands between the others at the fire.
He puts his hands over their heads, and looks alternately in their
uplifted faces. There is a long silence. "Carrie, they have tied a dog
to that door, over yonder."

"There is no dog tied to this door, John Logan."

Low and tender with love, yet very firm and earnest is her voice. And
her eyes are lifted to his. He looks down into her soul, and there is an
understanding between them. There is a conversation of the eyes too
refined for words; too subtle, too sweet, too swift for words.

They stand together but a moment there, soul flowing into soul and
tiding forth, and to and fro; but it was as if they had talked together
for hours. He leans his head, kisses her lifted and unresisting lips,
and says, "God bless you," and that is all.

It is her first kiss, the imprint, the mint-mark on this virgin gold.
This maiden of a moment since, is a woman now.

"Do you know that they are after you?" The girl says this in a sort of
wild whisper, as she looks toward the door.

"Do I know that they are after me? Father in Heaven, who should know it
better than I?" The man throws up his arms, and totters back and falls
into a seat from very weakness. "Do I know that they are after me? For
more than half a year I have fled; night and day, and day and night I
have fled, hidden away; starting up at midnight from down among the
cattle, where I had crept to keep warm; and then on, on and on, out into
the snow, the storm, over the frozen ground, to t