he money and tucking it
into his pockets.

"But, father, I'm not going without you," he declared stoutly, as the
last bit of gold slipped out of sight, and a horse and wagon rattled
around the turn of the road above.

The driver of the horse glanced disapprovingly at the man and the boy
by the roadside; but he did not stop. After he had passed, the boy
turned again to his father. The man was fumbling once more in his
pockets. This time from his coat he produced a pencil and a small
notebook from which he tore a page, and began to write, laboriously,
painfully.

David sighed and looked about him. He was tired and hungry, and he did
not understand things at all. Something very wrong, very terrible, must
be the matter with his father. Here it was almost dark, yet they had no
place to go, no supper to eat, while far, far up on the mountain-side
was their own dear home sad and lonely without them. Up there, too, the
sun still shone, doubtless,--at least there were the rose-glow and the
Silver Lake to look at, while down here there was nothing, nothing but
gray shadows, a long dreary road, and a straggling house or two in
sight. From above, the valley might look to be a fairyland of
loveliness, but in reality it was nothing but a dismal waste of gloom,
decided David.

David's father had torn a second page from his book and was beginning
another note, when the boy suddenly jumped to his feet. One of the
straggling houses was near the road where they sat, and its presence
had given David an idea. With swift steps he hurried to the front door
and knocked upon it. In answer a tall, unsmiling woman appeared, and
said, "Well?"

David removed his cap as his father had taught him to do when one of
the mountain women spoke to him.

"Good evening, lady; I'm David," he began frankly. "My father is so
tired he fell down back there, and we should like very much to stay
with you all night, if you don't mind."

The woman in the doorway stared. For a moment she was dumb with
amazement. Her eyes swept the plain, rather rough garments of the boy,
then sought the half-recumbent figure of the man by the roadside. Her
chin came up angrily.

"Oh, would you, indeed! Well, upon my word!" she scouted. "Humph! We
don't accommodate tramps, little boy." And she shut the door hard.

It was David's turn to stare. Just what a tramp might be, he did not
know; but never before had a request of his been so angrily refused. He
knew that. A fierce