sombre eyes. But he added, softly: "Sleep on it, bud; I'll let ye change
your mind in the mornin'."

"You shut your head!" screeched Kerry, fiercely, with a hiccough of
wrenching misery. "You talk to me any more like that, an' I'll lambaste
ye--er try to--big as ye are! Oh, damnation!"

The last night in the cave was one of gusty, moving breezes and brilliant
moonlight, yet both its tenants slept profoundly, after their strange
outburst of emotion. The first gray of dawn found them stirring, and Kerry
making ready for his return journey. Together, as heretofore, they prepared
their meal, then sat down in silence to eat it. Suddenly the mountain-man
raised his eyes, to whose grave beauty the Irishman's temperament responded
like that of a woman, and said, quietly,

"I'm a-goin' to tell ye somethin', an' then I'm a-goin' to show ye
somethin'."

Kerry's throat ached. In these two weeks he had conceived a love for his
big, silent, gentle companion which rivalled even his devotion to Katy. The
thought of leaving him helpless and alone, a common prey of reward-hunters,
the remembrance of what Andy had said concerning his own despair beneath
the terrible pressure of the mountain solitude, were almost more than Kerry
could bear.

"Fust and foremost, Dan," the other began, when the meal was finished, "I'm
goin' to tell ye how come I done what I done. Likely you've hearn tales,
an' likely they was mostly lies. You see, it was this-a-way: Me an' my wife
owned land j'inin'. The Turkey Track Minin' Company they found coal on it,
an' was wishful to buy. Her an' me wasn't wed then, but we was about to be,