“Wasn’t it lots o’ fun, Jasie?”

“Shore!” was the absent-minded answer, for Jason was looking at the strangeness of the night.  It was curious not to see the big bulks of the mountains and to see so many stars.  In the mountains he had to look straight up to see stars at all and now they hung almost to the level of his eyes.

“How’s the folks?” asked Mavis.

“Stirrin’.  Air ye goin’ to school up here?”

“Yes, an’ who you reckon the school-teacher is?”

Jason shook his head.

“The jologist.”

“Well, by Heck.”

“An’ he’s always axin’ me about you an’ if you air goin’ to school.”

For a while more they rode in silence.

“I went to that new furrin school down in the mountains,” yawned the boy, “fer ‘bout two hours.  They’re gittin’ too high-falutin’ to suit me.  They tried to git me to wear gal’s stockin’s like they do up here an’ I jes’ laughed at ’em.  Then they tried to git me to make up beds an’ I tol’ ’em I wasn’t goin’ to wear gal’s clothes ner do a gal’s work, an’ so I run away.”

He did not tell his reason for leaving the mountains altogether, for Mavis, too, was a girl, and he did not confide in women—­not yet.

But the girl was woman enough to remember that the last time she had seen him he had said that he was going to come for her some day.  There was no sign of that resolution, however, in either his manner or his words now, and for some reason she was rather glad.

“Every boy wears clothes like that up here.  They calls ’em knickerbockers.”

“Huh!” grunted Jason.  “Hit sounds like ’em.”

“Air ye still shootin’ at that ole tree?”

“Yep, an’ I kin hit the belly-band two shots out o’ three.”

Mavis raised her dark eyes with a look of apprehension, for she knew what that meant; when he could hit it three times running he was going after the man who had killed his father.  But she asked no more questions, for while the boy could not forbear to boast about his marksmanship, further information was beyond her sphere and she knew it.

When they came to the lane leading to her home, Jason turned down it of his own accord.

“How’d you know whar we live?”

“I was here this mornin’ an’ I seed my mammy.  Yo’ daddy wasn’t thar.”

Mavis smiled silently to herself; he had found out thus where she was and he had followed her.  At the little stable Jason unsaddled the horses and turned both out in the yard while Mavis went within, and Steve Hawn appeared at the door in his underclothes when Jason stepped upon the porch.

“Hello, Jason!”

“Hello, Steve!” answered the boy, but they did not shake hands, not because of the hard feeling between them, but because it was not mountain custom.

“Come on in an’ lay down.”

Mavis had gone upstairs, but she could hear the voices below her.  If Mavis had been hesitant about asking questions, as had been the boy’s mother as well, Steve was not.  “Whut’d you come up here fer?”