far into the succeeding day; sometimes they were up before dawn and off
after squirrels--with which poor Kerry had no better luck than with the
birds. Every day the Irishman dressed his host's hand; and every day he
tasted more fully the charm of this big, strong, gentle, peaceful nature
clad in its majestic garment of flesh.

"If he'd 'a' been an ugly, common-looking brute, I'd 'a' nabbed him in a
minute," he told himself, weakly. And every day the handcuffs under the
dried fern-leaves lay heavier upon his soul.

On the 20th of September, which Kerry had set for his last day in the cave,
he was moved to begin again at the beginning and tell the big mountaineer
all his affairs.

"Ye see, it's like this," he wound up: "Katy--the best gurrl an' the
purtiest I ever set me two eyes on--she's got a father that'll strike her
when the drink's with him. He works her like a dog, hires her out and takes
every cent she earns. Her mother--God rest her soul!--has been dead these
two years. And now the old man is a-marryin' an' takin' home a woman not
fit for my Katy to be with. I says when I heard of it, says I: `Katy, I'll
take ye out o' that hole. I'll do the trick, an' I'll git the reward, an'
it's married we'll be inside of a month, an' we'll go West.' That's what
brought me up here into the mountains--me that was born, as ye might say,
on the stair-steps of a tenement-house, an' fetched up the same."

Absorbed in the interest of his own affairs, the Irishman did not notice
what revelations he had made. Whether or not this knowledge was new to his
host the uncertain light of the dying fire upon that grave, impassive face
did not disclose.