Young Matt felt a strong man’s contempt for the things Ollie had gotten out of the world, but he stood in awe before Mr. Howitt.  He told himself, now, that he would look for and find the things yonder that made Dad the man he was.  He would carry to the task his splendid strength.  Nothing should stop him.  And Sammy, when she understood that he was going away to be like the shepherd, would wait awhile to give him his chance.  Surely, she would wait when he told her that.  But how should he begin?

Looking up again, his eye caught a slow, shifting patch of white on the bench above Lost Creek, where the little stream begins its underground course.  The faint bark of a dog came to him through the thin still air, and the patch of white turned off into the trail that leads to the ranch.  “Dad!” exclaimed the young man in triumph.  Dad should tell him how.  He had taught Sammy.

And so while the sunlight danced on the green field, and old Kate slept in the lengthening shadows of the timber, the lad gave himself to his dreams and built his castles—­as we all have builded.

His dreaming was interrupted as the supper bell rang, and, with the familiar sound, a multitude of other thoughts came crowding in; the father and mother—­they were growing old.  Would it do to leave them alone with the graves on the hill yonder, and the mystery of the Hollow?  And there was the place to care for, and the mill.  Who but Young Matt could get work from the old engine?

It was like the strong man that the fight did not last long.  Young Matt’s fights never lasted very long.  By the time he had unhitched old Kate from the cultivator, it was finished.  The lad went down the hill, his bright castles in ruin—­even as we all have gone, or must sometime go down the hill with our brightest castles in ruin.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Preparation.

That same night, Mr. Lane told his daughter that he would leave home early the next morning to be gone two days.  Jim was cleaning his big forty-five when he made the announcement.

Sammy paused with one hand on the cupboard door to ask, “With Wash Gibbs, Daddy?”

“No, I ain’t goin’ with Wash; but I’ll likely meet up with him before I get back.”  There was a hint of that metallic ring in the man’s voice.

The girl placed her armful of dishes carefully on the cupboard shelf; “You’re—­you’re not going to forget your promise, are you, Daddy Jim?”

The mountaineer was carefully dropping a bit of oil into the lock of his big revolver.  “No, girl, I ain’t forgettin’ nothin’.  This here’s the last ride I aim to take with Wash.  I’m goin’ to see him to,”—­he paused and listened carefully to the click, click, click, as he tested the action of his weapon—­“to keep my promise.”

“Oh, Daddy, Daddy, I’m so glad!  I wanted this more than I ever wanted anything in all my life before.  You’re such a good Daddy to me, I never could bear to see you with that bad, bad man.”  She was behind his chair now, and, stooping, laid her fresh young cheek against the swarthy, furrowed face.