The sun was sinking when they started up the spur, and unconsciously Jason hurried his steps and the girl followed hard.  The twin spirals of smoke were visible now, and where the path forked the boy stopped and turned, jerking his thumb toward her cabin and his.

“Ef anything happens”—­he paused, and the girl nodded her understanding—­“you an’ me air goin’ to stay hyeh in the mountains an’ git married.”

“Yes, Jasie,” she said.

His tone was matter-of-fact and so was hers, nor did she show any surprise at the suddenness of what he said, and Jason, not looking at her, failed to see a faint flush come to her cheek.  He turned to go, but she stood still, looking down into the gloomy, darkening ravine below her.  A bear’s tracks had been found in that ravine only the day before.  “Air ye afeerd?” he asked tolerantly, and she nodded mutely.

“I’ll take ye down,” he said with sudden gentleness.

The tall mountaineer was standing on the porch of the cabin, and with assurance and dignity Jason strode ahead with a protecting air to the gate.

“Whar you two been?” he called sharply.

“I went fishin’,” said the boy unperturbed, “an’ tuk Mavis with me.”

“You air gittin’ a leetle too peart, boy.  I don’t want that gal a-runnin’ around in the woods all day.”

Jason met his angry eyes with a new spirit.

“I reckon you hain’t been hyeh long.”

The shot went home and the mountaineer glared helpless for an answer.

“Come on in hyeh an’ git supper,” he called harshly to the girl, and as the boy went back up the spur, he could hear the scolding going on below, with no answer from Mavis, and he made up his mind to put an end to that some day himself.  He knew what was waiting for him on the other side of the spur, and when he reached the top, he sat down for a moment on a long-fallen, moss-grown log.  Above him beetled the top of his world.  His great blue misty hills washed their turbulent waves to the yellow shore of the dropping sun.  Those waves of forests primeval were his, and the green spray of them was tossed into cloudland to catch the blessed rain.  In every little fold of them drops were trickling down now to water the earth and give back the sea its own.  The dreamy-eyed man of science had told him that.  And it was unchanged, all unchanged since wild beasts were the only tenants, since wild Indians slipped through the wilderness aisles, since the half-wild white man, hot on the chase, planted his feet in the footsteps of both and inexorably pushed them on.  The boy’s first Kentucky ancestor had been one of those who had stopped in the hills.  His rifle had fed him and his family; his axe had put a roof over their heads, and the loom and spinning-wheel had clothed their bodies.  Day by day they had fought back the wilderness, had husbanded the soil, and as far as his eagle eye could reach, that first Hawn had claimed mountain, river, and tree for his