tempted him to let loose his last load, but he withstood them. A little later,
he saw a fresh bear-track near a spring below the head of a ravine; and, later
still, he heard the far-away barking of a hound and a deer leaped lightly into
an open sunny spot and stood with uplifted hoof and pointed ears. This was too
much and the boy's gun followed his heart to his throat, but the buck sprang
lightly into the bush and vanished noiselessly.

The sun had dropped midway between the zenith and the blue bulks rolling
westward and, at the next gap, a broader path ran through it and down the
mountain. This, Chad knew, led to a settlement and, with a last look of
choking farewell to his own world, he turned down. At once, the sense of
possible human companionship was curiously potent: at once, the boy's
half-wild manner changed and, though alert and still watchful, he whistled
cheerily to Jack, threw his gun over his shoulder, and walked erect and
confident. His pace slackened. Carelessly now his feet tramped beds of soft
exquisite moss and lone little settlements of forget-me-nots, and his long
riflebarrel brushed laurel blossoms down in a shower behind him. Once even, he
picked up one of the pretty bells and looked idly at it, turning it bottom
upward. The waxen cup might have blossomed from a tiny waxen star. There was a
little green star for a calyx; above this, a little white star with its prongs
outstretched--tiny arms to hold up the pink-flecked chalice for the rain and
dew. There came a time when he thought of it as a star-blossom; but now his
greedy tongue swept the honey from it and he dropped it without another
thought to the ground. At the first spur down which the road turned, he could
see smoke in the valley. The laurel blooms and rhododendron bells hung in
thicker clusters and of a deeper pink. Here and there was a blossoming wild
cucumber and an umbrella-tree with huger flowers and leaves; and, sometimes, a
giant magnolia with a thick creamy flower that the boy could not have spanned
with both hands and big, thin oval leaves, a man's stride from tip to stem.
Soon, he was below the sunlight and in the cool shadows where the water ran