"Now don't git ter talkin' perlite to me," Jim warned. "Old Doc
McPherson's orders was agin perlite conversation. Get a scrabble on yer!
I'll knock yer up 'bout two or thereabouts."

Outside, Truedale stood still and looked at the beauty of the night. The
moon was full and flooded the open space with a radiance which
contrasted sharply with the black shadows and the outlines of the near
and distant peaks.

The silence was so intense that the ear, straining for sound, ached from
the effort. And just then a bewitched hen in White's shed gave a weird
cry and Truedale started. He smiled grimly and thought of the little
no-count and the tragedy of the white bantam. In the shining light
around him he seemed to see her pitiful face as White had described
it--the eyes full of tears but never overflowing, the misery and hate,
the loneliness and impotency.

At two the next morning Jim tapped on Truedale's window with his gun.

"Comin' fur a walk?"

"You bet!" Con was awake at once and alert. Ten minutes later, closing
the doors and windows of his cabin after him, he joined White on the
leaf-strewn path to the woods. He went five miles and then bade his host
good-bye.

"Don't overwork!" grinned Jim sociably. "I'll write to old Doc McPherson
when I git back."

"And when will that be, Jim?"