But I'm responsible to
your mother. Ken, I remember your mother--and you're going back home."

"Dick!"

"You're going back home as fast as I can get you to Holston and put you
on a train, that's all."

"I won't go!" I cried.

Without any more words Dick led me down the street to a rude corral;
here he rapidly saddled and packed his horses. The only time he spoke
was when he asked me where I had tied my mustangs. Soon we were hurrying
out through the slash toward the forest. Dick's troubled face kept
down my resentment, but my heart grew like lead. What an ending to
my long-cherished trip to the West! It had lasted two days. The
disappointment seemed more than I could bear.

We found the mustangs as I had left them, and the sight of Hal and
the feeling of the saddle made me all the worse. We did not climb the
foot-hill by the trail which the Mexican had used, but took a long,
slow ascent far round to the left. Dick glanced back often, and when we
reached the top he looked again in a way to convince me that he had some
apprehensions of being followed.

Twilight of that eventful day found us pitching camp in a thickly
timbered hollow. I could not help dwelling on how different my feelings
would have been if this night were but the beginning of many nights with
Dick. It was the last, and the more I thought about it the more wretched
I grew. Dick rolled in his blanket without saying even good-night, and
I lay there watching the veils and shadows of firelight flicker on the
pines, and listening, to the wind. Gradually the bitterness seemed to go
away; my body relaxed and sank into the soft, fragrant pine-needles; the
great shadowy trees mixed with the surrounding darkness. When I awoke it
was broad daylight, and Dick was shaking my arm.

"Hunt up the horses while I get the grub ready," he said, curtly.

As the hollow was carpeted with thick grass our horses had not strayed.
I noticed that here the larger trees had been cut, and the forest
resembled a fine park. In the sunny patches seedlings were sprouting,
many little bushy pines were growing, and the saplings had sufficient
room and light to prosper. I commented to Dick upon the difference
between this part of Penetier and the hideous slash we had left.

"There were a couple of Government markers went through here and marked
the timber to be cut," said Dick.

"Was the timber cut in the mill I saw?"

"No. Buell's just run up that mill. The old one is out here a