“I’m agoin’,” quoth Saint Mark, “right clost to Miss Blake’s.  If we don’t overtake her—­and that hoss of hers sure travels wonderful fast, somethin’ wonderful, yes, ma’am, by God—­excuse me, lady—­it’s sure surprisin’ the way that skinny little hoss of hers will travel—­why, I c’n take you acrost the ford.  There ain’t no way of gettin’ into Miss Blake’s exceptin’ by the ford.  And then I c’n take my team back to the road.  From the ford it’s a quarter-mile walk to Miss Blake’s house.  You c’n cache your bundle and she’ll likely get it for you in the mornin’.  We had ought to be there by sundown.  Her trail from the ford’s clear enough.  I’m a-takin’ this lumber to the Gover’ment bridge forty mile up.  Yes, by God—­excuse me, lady—­it’s agoin’ to be jest a dandy bridge until the river takes it out next spring, by God—­you’ll have to excuse me again, lady.”

He seemed rather mournfully surprised by the frequent need for these apologies.  “It was my raisin’, lady,” he explained.  “My father was a Methody preacher.  Yes’m, he sure was, by God, yes—­excuse me again, lady.  He was always a-prayin’.  It kinder got me into bad habits.  Yes, ma’am.  Those words you learn when you’re a kid they do stick in your mind.  By God, yes, they do—­excuse me, lady.  That’s why I run away.  I couldn’t stand so much prayin’ all the time.  And bein’ licked when I wasn’t bein’ prayed at.  He sure licked me, that dern son of a—­Oh, by God, lady, you’ll just hev to excuse me, please.”  He wiped his forehead.  “I reckon I better keep still.”

Sheila struggled, then gave way to mirth.  Her companion, after a doubtful look, relaxed into his wide, bearded smile.  After that matters were on an easy footing between them and the “excuse me, lady,” was, for the most part, left to her understanding.

They drifted like a lurching vessel through the long crystal day.  Never before this journey into Hidden Creek had time meant anything to Sheila but a series of incidents, occupations, or emotions; now first she understood the Greek impersonation of the dancing hours.  She had watched the varying faces the day turns to those who fold their hands and still their minds to watch its progress.  She had seen the gradual heightening of brilliance from dawn to noon, and then the fading-out from that high, white-hot glare, through gold and rose and salmon and purple, to the ashy lavenders of twilight and so into gray and the metallic, glittering coldness of the mountain night.  It was the purple hour when she said good-bye to Saint Mark on the far side of a swift and perilous ford.  She was left standing in the shadow of a near-by mountain-side while he rode away into the still golden expanse of valley beyond the leafy course of the stream.  Hidden Creek had narrowed and deepened.  It ran past Sheila now with a loud clapping and knocking at its cobbled bed and with an over-current of noisy murmurs.  The hurrying water was purple, with flecks of lavender