"You think I'm a squirrel," snapped the fugitive. "No, sir, I live
with my cousin John Shadrack's widder."

"Ah!" I cried. "It's plain now, Tip, you deceiver. So there's the
attraction."

"The attraction?" Tip's brow was furrowed.

"Mrs. John Shadrack," I said.

The fugitive broke into a loud guffaw. He leaned over the gate and let
his pipe fall on the other side and beat the post violently with his
hands.

"I allow you've never seen John Shadrack's widder," said he.

"I'd like to, Tip. Will you take me with you to Happy Valley?"

The smile left Tip's face, and he gazed at me, open-mouthed with
astonishment.

"You would go over the mountain?" he said, drawling every word.

Over the mountain there is peace! It is cold and gray there in the
early morning, and the hills are bleak and black, but I remember days
when from this same spot I've watched the deep, soft blue and green;
I've sat here as the hills were glowing in the changing evening lights
and our valley grew dark and cold. What a fair country that must be
where the sun sets! And we stay here in our dim light, in our dull
monotones, when, to the westward, there's a land all capped with clouds