"Hit ain't no use, Mavis," he said; "the law's agin us an' we got
to wait. They've run away an' they've both sold out an' yo' daddy
left word that he was goin' to send fer ye whenever he got
whatever he was goin'."

Jason waited and he did not have to wait long.

"I hain't goin' to leave ye," she flashed.




VIII

St. Hilda sat on the vine-covered porch of her little log cabin,
high on the hill-side, with a look of peace in her big dreaming
eyes. From the frame house a few rods below her, mountain
children--boys and girls--were darting in and out, busy as bees,
and, unlike the dumb, pathetic little people out in the hills,
alert, keen-eyed, cheerful, and happy. Under the log foot-bridge
the shining creek ran down past the mountain village below, where
the cupola of the court-house rose above the hot dirt streets, the
ramshackle hotel, and the dingy stores and frame dwellings of the
town. Across the bridge her eyes rested on another neat, well-
built log cabin with a grass plot around it, and, running
alongside and covered with honeysuckle--a pergola! That was her
hospital down there--empty, thank God. With a little turn of her
strong white chin, her eyes rested on the charred foundation of
her school-house, to which some mean hand had applied the torch a