listened. Some one was singing.
On the thin wintry air a deep mellow voice rose and they distinctly
heard the words:

Soft o'er the fountain, ling'ring falls the southern moon,
Far o'er the mountain breaks the day too soon.
In thy dark eyes' splendor, where the warm light loves to dwell,
Weary looks yet tender, speak their fond farewell.
'Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part,
'Nita, Juanita! Lean thou on my heart.

It was a wonderful voice that they heard, deep, full, and mellow, all
the more wonderful because they heard it there in those lone mountains.
The ridges took up the echo, and gave it back in tones softened but
exquisitely haunting.

The three paused and looked at one another. They could not see the
singer. He was hidden from them by the dips and swells of the valley,
but they felt that here was no common man. No common mind, or at least
no common heart, could infuse such feeling into music. As they listened
the remainder of the pathetic old air rose and swelled through the
ridges:

When in thy dreaming, moons like these shall shine again,
And daylight beaming prove thy dreams are vain,
Wilt thou not, relenting, for thy absent lover sigh?
In thy heart consenting to a prayer gone by!
'Nita, Juanita! Let me linger by thy side!
'Nita, Juanita! Be thou my own fair bride.

"I'm curious to see that singer," said Warner. "I heard grand opera once
in Boston, just before I started to the war, but I never heard anything
that sounds finer than this. Maybe time and place help to the extent of
fifty per cent, but, at any rate, the effect is just the same."

"Come on," said Dick, "and we'll soon find our singer, whoever he is."

The three rode at a rapid pace until they reached the valley. There
they drew rein, as they saw near them a tall man, apparently about
forty years of age, mending a fence, helped by a boy of heavy build and
powerful arms. The man glanced up, saw the blue uniforms worn by the
three horsemen, and went peacefully on with his fence-mending. He also
continued to sing, throwing his soul into the song, and both work and
song proceeded as if no one was near.

He lifted the rails into place with mighty arms, but never ceased to
sing. The boy who helped him seemed almost his equal in strength, but he
neither sang nor spoke. Yet he smiled most of the time, showing rows of
exceedingly strong, white teeth.

"They seem to me to be of rather superior type," said Di