. "I hain't nuver
met ther gal an' like as not she wouldn't favour me with no second look
nohow."

"I loves ter see a man talk out-right," avowed the Kentuckian with
cordial responsiveness. "Es fer me, I've done made me some sev'ral right
hateful enemies, myself, because I seeks ter wed with her, an' I 'lowed
ter warn ye in good time thet ye mout run foul of like perils."

"I'm beholden ter ye fer forewarnin' me," came Maggard's grave
response. "Ther old man hes done invited me ter sa'nter over thar an'
sot me a cheer some time, though--an' I reckon I'll go."

Rowlett rose and with a good-humoured grin stretched his giant body. In
the gesture was all the lazy power of a great cat.

"I hain't got no license ter dissuade ye, ner ter fault ye," he
declared, "but I hopes ter Goddlemighty she hain't got no time of day
fer ye."

That afternoon Maggard sat before the doorstep of Old Caleb Harper's
house when the setting sun was splashing from a gorgeous palette above
the ragged crests of the ridges. It was colour that changed and grew in
splendour with ash of rose and purpled cloud border and glowing orange
streamer. Against those fires the great tree stood with druid dignity,
keeping vigil over the roof it sheltered.

At length Maggard heard a rustle and turned his head to see the girl
standing in the doorway.

He was a mountain man and mountain men are not schooled in the etiquette
of rising when a woman presents herself. Yet now he came to his feet,
responding to no dictate of courtesy but lifted as by some nameless
exaltation at the sight of her--some impulse entirely new to him and
inexplicable.

She stood there a little shyly at first, as slender and as gracefully
upright as a birch, and her dark hair caught the fire of the sinking sun
with a bronze glow like that of the turkey's wing. Her eyes, over which
heavy lashes drooped diffidently, were bafflingly deep, as with rich
colour drowned in duskiness.

"This hyar's my gal, Dorothy," announced the old man and then she
disappeared.

That night Maggard walked home with a chest rounded to the deep draughts
of night air which he was drinking, and a heady elation in the currents
of his veins. She had slipped in and out of the room as he had talked
with the patriarch, after supper, flitting like some illusive shadow of
shyness. He had had hardly a score of words with her, but the future
would plentifully mend that famine.

In the brilliant moonlight he vaulted t