She drew his hand suddenly to her lips and kissed it; her hot tears of joy fell on it, but her heart was too full for mere words.

“Fiddle-de-dee, Moira!  Buck up,” he protested, hugely pleased, but embarrassed withal.  “The way you take this, one would think you had expected me to go back on an old pal and had been pleasantly surprised when I didn’t.  Cheer up, Moira!  Cherries are ripe, or at any rate they soon will be; and if you’ll just cease shedding the scalding and listen to me, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.  I’ll advance you two months’ salary for—­well, you’ll need a lot of clothes and things in Sequoia that you don’t need here.  And I’m glad I’ve managed to settle the McTavish hash without kicking up a row and hurting your feelings.  Poor old Mac!  I’m sorry I can’t bear with him, but we simply have to have the logs, you know.”

He rose, stooped, and pinched her ear; for had he not known her since childhood, and had they not gathered huckleberries together in the long ago?  She was sister to him—­just another one of his problems—­ and nothing more.  “Report on the job as soon as possible, Moira,” he called to her from the gate.  Then the gate banged behind him, and with a smile and a debonair wave of his hand, he was striding down the little camp street where the dogs and the children played in the dust.

After a while Moira walked to the gate and leaning upon it, looked down the street toward the log-landing where Bryce was ragging the laggard crew into some thing like their old-time speed.  Presently the locomotive backed in and coupled to the log tram, and when she saw Bryce leap aboard and seat himself on a top log in such a position that he could not fail to see her at the gate, she waved to him.  He threw her a careless kiss, and the train pulled out.

Presently, when Moira lifted her Madonna glance to the frieze of timber on the skyline, there was a new glory in her eyes; and lo, it was autumn in the woods, for over that hill Prince Charming had come to her, and life was all crimson and gold!

When the train loaded with Cardigan logs crawled in on the main track and stopped at the log-landing in Pennington’s camp, the locomotive uncoupled and backed in on the siding for the purpose of kicking the caboose, in which Shirley and Colonel Pennington had ridden to the woods, out onto the main line again—­where, owing to a slight downhill grade, the caboose, controlled by the brakeman, could coast gently forward and be hooked on to the end of the log-train for the return journey to Sequoia.

Throughout the afternoon Shirley, following the battle royal between Bryce and the Pennington retainers, had sat dismally in the caboose.  She was prey to many conflicting emotions; but having had what her sex term “a good cry,” she had to a great extent recovered her customary poise—­and was busily speculating on the rapidity with which she could leave Sequoia and forget she had ever met Bryce Cardigan—­when the log-train rumbled into the landing and the last of the long string of trucks came to a stop directly opposite the caboose.