come even in early April--but the noon sun had let the wheat-fields and the
pastures blossom through it, and had swept it from the gray moist pike until
now there were patches of white only in gully and along north hill-sides under
little groups of pines and in the woods, where the sunlight could not reach;
and Chad trudged sturdily on in spite of his heavy rifle and his lame foot,
keenly alive to the new sights and sounds and smells of the new world--on
until the shadows lengthened and the air chilled again; on, until the sun
began to sink close to the far-away haze of the horizon. Never had the horizon
looked so far away. His foot began to hurt, and on the top of a hill he had to
stop and sit down for a while in the road, the pain was so keen. The sun was
setting now in a glory of gold, rose, pink, and crimson over him, the still
clouds caught the divine light which swept swiftly through the heavens until
the little pink clouds over the east, too, turned golden pink and the whole
heavens were suffused with green and gold. In the west, cloud was piled on
cloud like vast cathedrals that must have been built for worship on the way
straight to the very throne of God. And Chad sat thrilled, as he had been at
the sunrise on the mountains the morning after he ran away. There was no
storm, but the same loneliness came to him now and he wondered what he should
do. He could not get much farther that night--his foot hurt too badly. He
looked up--the clouds had turned to ashes and the air was growing chill--and
he got to his feet and started on. At the bottom of the hill and down a little
creek he saw a light and he turned toward it. The house was small, and he
could hear the crying of a child inside and could see a tall man cutting wood,
so he stopped at the bars and shouted

"Hello!"

The man stopped his axe in mid-air and turned. A woman, with a baby in her
arms, appeared in the light of the door with children crowding about her.