und what Wunsch's first name was. That "A"
may have stood for Adam, or August, or even Amadeus; he got very angry
if any one asked him.

He remained A. Wunsch to the end of his chapter there. When he presented
this score to Thea, he told her that in ten years she would either know
what the inscription meant, or she would not have the least idea, in
which case it would not matter.

When Wunsch began to pack his trunk, both the Kohlers were very unhappy.
He said he was coming back some day, but that for the present, since he
had lost all his pupils, it would be better for him to try some "new
town." Mrs. Kohler darned and mended all his clothes, and gave him two
new shirts she had made for Fritz. Fritz made him a new pair of trousers
and would have made him an overcoat but for the fact that overcoats were
so easy to pawn.

Wunsch would not go across the ravine to the town until he went to take
the morning train for Denver. He said that after he got to Denver he
would "look around." He left Moonstone one bright October morning,
without telling any one good-bye. He bought his ticket and went directly
into the smoking-car. When the train was beginning to pull out, he heard
his name called frantically, and looking out of the window he saw Thea
Kronborg standing on the siding, bareheaded and panting. Some boys had
brought word to school that they saw Wunsch's trunk going over to the
station, and Thea had run away from school. She was at the end of the
station platform, her hair in two braids, her blue gingham dress wet to
the knees because she had run across lots through the weeds. It had
rained during the night, and the tall sunflowers behind her were fresh
and shining.

"Good-bye, Herr Wunsch, good-bye!" she called waving to him.

He thrust his head out at the car window and called back, "LEBEN SIE
WOHL, LEBEN SIE WOHL, MEIN KIND!" He watched her until the train swept
around the curve beyond the roundhouse, and then sank back into his
seat, muttering, "She had been running. Ah, she will run a long way;
they cannot stop her!"

What was it about the child that one believed in? Was it her dogged
industry, so unusual in this free-and-easy country? Was it her
imagination? More likely it was because she had both imagination and a
stubborn will, curiously balancing and interpenetrating each other.
There was something unconscious and unawakened about her, that tempted
curiosity. She had a kind of seriousness that he had not m