presence, and he rode to find her.

His way took him across the long bridge that spanned the river. The
river marked the boundary-line of his country. After that day's taste of
the politics of his native land he felt a queer sense of relief when he
found himself on foreign soil.

Beyond the little church and its burying-ground, with the tall cross in
its centre, the road led up the river hill to the edge of the forest.
Here was set Dennis Kavanagh's house, its back to the black growth,
staring sullenly with its little windows out across the cleared farms of
the river valley.

To one who knew Kavanagh it seemed to typify his attitude toward the
world. He had seen other men clutching and grabbing. He had clutched and
grabbed with the best of them. When one deals with squatter claims, tax
titles, forgotten land grants and other complications that tie up the
public domain, it often happens that the man who waits for the right to
prevail finds the more unscrupulous and impetuous rival in possession,
and claiming rather more than the allowed nine points at that. So Dennis
Kavanagh had played the game as the others had played it. When one
looked up at the house, with its back against the woods, staring with
its surly window-eyes, one saw the resoluteness of the intrenched
Kavanagh put into visible form.

The dogs came racing to meet Harlan. They knew him as their mistress's
friend.

She was sitting on the broad porch-rail when he rode up, and he swung
his horse close and patted her cheek as one greets a child. She smiled