those wiser men whose graves its roots penetrated. His eyes were
darkly clouded with the trouble and perplexity of his dilemma. To refuse
still was to stand on a seeming point either of over-stubborn pride or
of confessed guilt. To accede was to face the court that wanted him for
murder and that would prostitute justice to hang him.

"Them things ye dreams of an' hopes fer," he went on in a voice
thrilling with earnestness and sincerity, "air matters thet I've got
heart an' cravin' ter see come erbout. An' yit--I kain't answer yore
question. Hit's ther only test ye could seek ter put me ter--thet I
wouldn't enjoy ter meet outright----"

"Then, even atter what I've told ye, ye still refuses me?"

"Even atter what ye've told me, an' deespite thet I accords with all ye
seeks ter compass hyarabouts, I've _got_ ter refuse ye. I hain't got no
other choice."

This time Hump Doane and his delegation did not turn back, but crossed
the stile and passed stiffly on.

Thornton, for now it was useless to think of himself longer as Cal
Maggard, stood straight-shouldered until the turn of the road took them
beyond sight, then his head came down and his eyes clouded into a deep
misery.

That night the moon rode in a sky where the only clouds were wisps of
opal-fleece and the ranges were flat-toned and colossal ramparts of
cobalt. Down in the valley where the river looped its shimmering thread
the radiance was a wash of platinum softly broken by blue-gray islands
of shadow.

Dorothy Thornton stood, a dim and ghostly figure of mute distress, by
the grave in the thicketed burial ground where the clods had that day
fallen and the mound still stood glaringly raw with its freshly spaded
earth, and Parish Thornton stood by her side.

But while she mourned for the old man who had sought to be father and
mother to her, he thought, too, of the sagacious old shepherd without
whose guidance the flocks were already showing tendencies to stampede in
panic.

Parish Thornton would have given much for a word of counsel to-night
from those silent lips, and hardly realizing what impulse prompted him
he raised his eyes to the great gray-purple shadow-shape of the tree.
Its roots lay in those Revolutionary graves and its top-most plumes of
foliage seemed to brush the starry sky, where the spirits of the dead
might be having their longer and serener life.

Half comprehended yet disquieting with its vague portent, a new element
of thought was st