And she looked meaningly at Polly Ann, who said nothing.  The children had been pulling at the girl’s skirts, and suddenly she made a dash at them.  They scattered, screaming with delight, and she after them.

“Howdy, Mr. Ripley?” said the woman, smiling a little.

“Howdy, Mis’ McChesney?” said the old man, shortly.

So this was the mother of Tom, of whom I had heard so much.  She was, in truth, a motherly-looking person, her fleshy face creased with strong character.

“Who hev ye brought with ye?” she asked, glancing at me.

“A lad Polly Ann took a shine to in the settlements,” said the old man.  “Polly Ann!  Polly Ann!” he cried sharply, “we’ll hev to be gittin’ home.”  And then, as though an afterthought (which it really was not), he added, “How be ye for salt, Mis’ McChesney?”

“So-so,” said she.

“Wal, I reckon a little might come handy,” said he.  And to the girl who stood panting beside him, “Polly, give Mis’ McChesney some salt.”

Polly Ann did, and generously,—­the salt they had carried with so much labor threescore and ten miles from the settlements.  Then we took our departure, the girl turning for one last look at Tom’s mother, and at the cabin where he had dwelt.  We were all silent the rest of the way, climbing the slender trail through the forest over the gap into the next valley.  For I was jealous of Tom.  I am not ashamed to own it now.

In the smoky haze that rises just before night lets her curtain fall, we descended the farther slope, and came to Mr. Ripley’s cabin.

CHAPTER VII

IN SIGHT OF THE BLUE WALL ONCE MORE

Polly Ann lived alone with her grandfather, her father and mother having been killed by Indians some years before.  There was that bond between us, had we needed one.  Her father had built the cabin, a large one with a loft and a ladder climbing to it, and a sleeping room and a kitchen.  The cabin stood on a terrace that nature had levelled, looking across a swift and shallow stream towards the mountains.  There was the truck patch, with its yellow squashes and melons, and cabbages and beans, where Polly Ann and I worked through the hot mornings; and the corn patch, with the great stumps of the primeval trees standing in it.  All around us the silent forest threw its encircling arms, spreading up the slopes, higher and higher, to crown the crests with the little pines and hemlocks and balsam fir.

There had been no meat save bacon since the McChesneys had left, for of late game had become scarce, and old Mr. Ripley was too feeble to go on the long hunts.  So one day, when Polly Ann was gone across the ridge, I took down the long rifle from the buckhorns over the hearth, and the hunting knife and powder-horn and pouch beside it, and trudged up the slope to a game trail I discovered.  All day I waited, until the forest light grew gray, when a buck came and stood over the water, raising his head and stamping from time to time.  I took aim in the notch of a sapling, brought him down, cleaned and skinned and dragged him into the water, and triumphantly hauled one of his hams down the trail.  Polly Ann gave a cry of joy when she saw me.