he mill,
with hard cider and apples and nuts a plenty, and even had Blind Dick,
the fiddler, who lived in Tom Reed's upper cabin, to help them make
merry. That is, Andy gave the treat, but his foreman was host; he
never came himself. Jane was there and Dan monopolized her. He knew
her well, so that night he never danced, never drank; but Job, poor
fellow! asked her to dance and she refused him; then he offered her
cider, and her great black eyes snapped fire and she turned from him.
He was mad with rage. He drank. He danced with the Alviso girls, the
lowest Mexicans in the county. He glared after Dan as he saw him start
off with Jane.

The cider, the jealousy in his soul, or the evil in both, probably,
made him start after them. A something whispered to take the short-cut
across to the junction of the road and Blackberry Valley trail, and
face them and have it out. He hurried stumbling over the drifts. He
hid in the shade of a great tree. Up the road he heard them coming,
heard Dan say, "Oh, well, I was afraid Uncle Andy would be fooled when
he took that kid in. Regular chip of the old block; his father went to
the bad, and he is going fast. He came from the city slums; none of
the brave, true blood of the mountains in his veins. Steer clear of
him, Jane." Heard an indistinguishable reply in Jane's voice, felt a
blind passion rising within him, clinched his fists, started with a
bound for the dark shadows coming up the road, felt a terrible blow
on his head, and--well, it must have been a long while before he
thought again. Then he was lying down in the depths of a snow-drift,
where he had fallen when he started so angrily for Dan and had struck
his head against the limb of the old oak at the turn and been hurled
back twenty feet down through the snow on the rock of the creek bed.

[Illustration: He hid in the shade of a tree.]

He tried to rise, but could not. A broken limb refused to act. He
called for help, but the cry rose no higher than the snowbank. He was
in an open grave of white on the sharp rocks and bitterly cold ice of
the stream. He shivered and shook, then gradually a sort of delightful
repose began to steal over him. At first it felt pleasant, then he
realized he was freezing, freezing to death! Death! The thought struck
terror to his heart. Death! It was the last thing for which he was
ready. Memory was unnaturally active. The New England hills, the white
church, grandfather, mother, home, all came ba