he was his own master and, with a happy sense of
freedom, he brushed the dew from his face and, shifting the chunk under
his head, pulled his old cap down a little more on one side and closed
his eyes. But sleep would not come and Chad had his first wonder over
the perverse result of the full choice to do, or not to do. At once,
the first keen savor of freedom grew less sweet to his nostrils and,
straightway, he began to feel the first pressure of the chain of duties
that was to be forged for him out of his perfect liberty, link by link,
and he lay vaguely wondering.

Meanwhile, the lake of dull red behind the jagged lines of rose and
crimson that streaked the east began to glow and look angry. A sheen of
fiery vapor shot upward and spread swiftly over the miracle of mist
that had been wrought in the night. An ocean of it and, white and thick
as snowdust, it filled valley, chasm, and ravine with mystery and
silence up to the dark jutting points and dark waving lines of range
after range that looked like breakers, surged up by some strange new
law from an under-sea of foam; motionless, it swept down the valleys,
poured swift torrents through high gaps in the hills and one long
noiseless cataract over a lesser range--all silent, all motionless,
like a great white sea stilled in the fury of a storm. Morning after
morning, the boy had looked upon just such glory, calmly watching the
mist part, like the waters, for the land, and the day break, with one
phrase, "Let there be light," ever in his mind--for Chad knew his
Bible. And, most often, in soft splendor, trailing cloud-mist, and
yellow light leaping from crest to crest, and in the singing of birds
and the shining of leaves and dew--there was light.

But that morning there was a hush in the woods that Chad understood. On
a sudden, a light wind scurried through the trees and showered the
mistdrops down. The smoke from his fire shot through the low
undergrowth, without rising, and the starting mists seemed to clutch
with long, white fingers at the tree-tops, as though loath to leave the
safe, warm earth for the upper air. A little later, he felt some great
shadow behind him, and he turned his face to see black clouds
marshalling on either flank of the heavens and fitting their black
wings together, as though the retreating forces of the night were
gathering for a last sweep against the east. A sword flashed blindingly
from the dome high above them and, after it, came one s