r still he saw a quivering
red leaf.

It was the leaf of a starveling tree, growing out of a cleft where there
was so little earth that it seemed to draw its sustenance from the rock.
It was a scraggy, stunted thing, but it was well for him that it had
struck root there, for its branches brushed the solid, smooth face of
the cliff, which he could not have surmounted but for them and the
grape-vine that had fallen over from the summit and entangled itself
among them.

As he climbed the tree, he felt it quake over the abysses, which the
mists still veiled. He had a sense of elation and achievement when he
gained the top, and it followed him home. There it suddenly deserted
him.

He found Pearce Tallam in a frenzy of rage at the discovery, which he
had made through Jube's confession, that a stolen horse had been stabled
on his premises. Despite his tyranny and his fierce, rude temper, he
was an honest man and of fair repute. Although he realized that neither
boy knew that the animal had been stolen, he gave Jube a lesson which he
remembered for many a long day, and Ike also came in for his share of
this muscular tuition.

For in the midst of the criminations and recriminations, the violent
blacksmith caught up a horseshoe and flung it across the shop, striking
Ike with a force that almost stunned him. He was a man in strength, and
it was hard for him not to return the blow; but he only walked out of
the shop, declaring that he would stay for no more blows.

"Cl'ar out, then!" called out Pearce Tallam after him. "I don't keer ef
ye goes fur good."

He met, at the door of the dwelling, a plaintive reproach from his
mother. "'Count o' ye not tellin' on Jube, he mought hev been tuk up fur
a horse-thief. I dunno what I'd hev done 'thout him," she added, "'long
o' raisin' the young tur-r-keys, an' goslin's, an' deedies, an' sech; he
hev been a mighty holp ter me. He air more of a son ter me than my own
boy."

She did not mean this, but she had said it once half in jest, half in
reproach, and then it became a formula of complaint whenever Ike
displeased her.

Now he was sore and sensitive. "Take him fur yer son, then!" he cried.
"I'm a-goin' out'n Pore Valley, ef I starves fur it. I shows my face
hyar no more."

As he shouldered his gun and strode out, he noted the light of the
forge-fire quivering on the mist, but he little thought it was the last
fire that Pearce Tallam would ever kindle there.

He glanced back a