penitence.

The boy heard her, but he did not turn around.

"You better go home, Mavie," he said, and at his very tone her
face flashed with joy. "They mought come back agin. I'm goin' to
stay up here till dark. They can't see nothin' then."

There was not a word of rebuke for her; it was his secret and hers
now, and pride and gratitude filled her heart and her eyes.

"All right, Jasie," she said obediently, and down the bowlder she
stepped lightly, and slipping down the bed of the creek,
disappeared. And not once did she look around.

The shadows lengthened, the ravines filled with misty blue, the
steep westward spur threw its bulky shadow on the sunlit flank of
the opposite hill, and the lonely spirit of night came with the
gloom that gathered fast about him in the defile where he lay. A
slow wind was blowing up from the river toward him, and on it came
faintly the long mellow blast of a horn. It was no hunter's call,
and he sprang to his feet. Again the winding came and his tense
muscles relaxed--nor was it a warning that "revenues" were coming-
-and he sank back to his lonely useless vigil again. The sun
dipped, the sky darkened, the black wings of the night rushed
upward and downward and from all around the horizon, but only when
they were locked above him did he slip like a creature of the
gloom down the bed of the stream.