On a brown hill-top they met the sunrise, and from a drowsy roosting-place they flushed a flock of greenish birds.  Witherspoon stood in his stirrups and waved his hat.  “Good-by,” he cried, “but you needn’t have got up so soon.  We didn’t want you.  Hank,” he said, turning sideways in his saddle, “I think we can get there in about five days, at the pace we’ll be compelled to go; and we can sell these mules or give them away, just as we like.  Going home!  I can’t get the strangeness of it out of my head.  And a sister, too, mind you.  I’m beginning to feel like a man now.  You see, uncle wanted me to be a boy as long as I could, and it was only of late that he began to tell me that I must put aside foolishness; but I am beginning to feel like a man now.”

“You will need to feel like one when you take up your new responsibilities.  You are playing now, but it may be serious enough after a while.”

“What!  Don’t preach, Hank.  Responsibilities!  Why, I’ll throw them over my shoulder like a twine string.  But let me tell you something.  There’s one thing I’m not going to allow—­they shan’t say a word against that old man.  Oh, I know the trouble and grief he brought about, but by gracious, he had a cause.  If—­if—­mother didn’t love him, why did she say that if he didn’t love her she would go away somewhere and grieve herself to death?  That was no way to treat a fellow, especially a fellow that loves you like the mischief.  And besides, why did father cut him out?  Pretty mean thing for a man to slip around and steal his brother’s sweetheart.  In this country it would mean blood.”

“You are a jewel, my boy.”

“No, I’m simply just.  Of course, two wrongs don’t make a right, as the saying has it, but a wrong with a cause is half-way right, and I’ll tell them at the very start that they better not talk about the matter.  In fact, I told them so in the letter.  You’ve had a pretty hard time of it, haven’t you, Hank?”

“I shouldn’t want an enemy’s dog to have a harder one,” DeGolyer answered.

“But you’ve got a good education.”

“So has the hog that picks up cards and tells the time of day,” said DeGolyer, “but what good does that do him?  He has to work harder than other hogs, and is kept hungry so that he may perform with more sprightliness.  But if I have a good education, my boy, I stole it, and I shouldn’t be surprised at any time to meet an officer with a warrant of arrest sworn out against me by society.”

“Good; but you didn’t steal trash at any rate.  But, Hank, you look for the dark when the light would serve you better.  Don’t do it.  Throw off your trouble.”

“Oh, I’m not disposed to look so much for the dark as you may imagine.  Throw it off!  That’s good advice.  It is true that we may sometimes throw off a trouble, but we can’t very well throw off a cause.  Some natures are like a piece of fly-paper—­a sorrow alights and sticks there.  But that isn’t my nature.  It doesn’t take much to make me contented.”