n, the girl who
had died in the hospital. Johnnie knew him to be one of the bitterest
enemies of the Cottonville mill owners, and realized that he would be
the last one to whom she should apply. Mutely, doggedly, she pressed on,
and rounding a bend in a long, lonely stretch of road, saw before her
the tall, lithe form of a man, trousers tucked into boots, a tall staff
in hand, making swift progress up the road. The sound of feet evidently
arrested the attention of the wayfarer. He turned and waited for her
to come up.

The figure was so congruous with its surroundings that she saw with
surprise a face totally strange to her. The turned-down collar of the
rumpled shirt was unbuttoned at a brown throat; the face above seemed to
her eyes neither old nor young, though the light, springing gait when he
walked, the supple, easeful attitude now that he rested, one hand flung
high on the curious tall staff, were those of a youth; the eyes of a
warm, laughing hazel had the direct fearlessness of a child, and a
slouch hat carried in the hand showed a fair crop of slightly grizzled,
curling hair.

A stranger--at first the thought frightened, and then attracted her.
This man looked not unlike Johnnie's own people, and there was something
in his face that led her to entertain the idea of appealing to him for
help. He settled the question of whether or no she should enter into
conversation, by accosting her at once brusquely and genially.

"Mornin', sis'. You look tired," he said. "You ought to have a stick,
like me. Hold on--I'll cut you one."

Before the girl could respond beyond an answering smile and "good
morning," the new friend had put his own alpenstock into her hands and
gone to the roadside, where, with unerring judgment, he selected a long,
straight, tapering shoot of ash, and hewed it deftly with a monster
jack-knife drawn from his trousers pocket.

"There--try that," he said as he returned, trimming off the last of the
leaves and branches.

Johnnie took the staff with her sweet smile of thanks.

For a few moments the two walked on silently side by side, she
desperately absorbed in her anxieties, her companion apparently
returning to some world apart in his own mind. Suddenly:

"Can I get to the railroad down this side?" the man asked her in that
odd, incidental voice of his which suggested that what he said was
merely a small portion of what he thought.

"Why--yes, I reckon so," hesitated Johnnie. "It's a pret