birds singing over their heads, and with numberless tiny feet
scurrying through the underbrush on all sides. Just out of sight
a brook babbled noisily of its delight in being alive; and away
up in the treetops the morning sun played hide-and-seek among the
dancing leaves.

And David leaped, and laughed, and loved it all, nor was any of
it strange to him. The birds, the trees, the sun, the brook, the
scurrying little creatures of the forest, all were friends of
his. But the man--the man did not leap or laugh, though he, too,
loved it all. The man was afraid.

He knew now that he had undertaken more than he could carry out.
Step by step the bag had grown heavier, and hour by hour the
insistent, teasing pain in his side had increased until now it
was a torture. He had forgotten that the way to the valley was so
long; he had not realized how nearly spent was his strength
before he even started down the trail. Throbbing through his
brain was the question, what if, after all, he could not--but
even to himself he would not say the words.

At noon they paused for luncheon, and at night they camped where
the chattering brook had stopped to rest in a still, black pool.
The next morning the man and the boy picked up the trail again,
but without the bag. Under some leaves in a little hollow, the
man had hidden the bag, and had then said, as if casually:--

"I believe, after all, I won't carry this along. There's nothing
in it that we really need, you know, now that I've taken out the
luncheon box, and by night we'll be down in the valley."