only some wrong to call the officahs and set them aftah
Frale--poor Frale. He--he told me himself--last evening." She paused
again, and the pallor slowly left her face and the red surged into her
cheeks and mounted to the waves of her heavy hair.

"It is Frale, then, who is in trouble! And you wish me to help him get
away?" She looked down and was silent. "But I am a stranger, and know
nothing about the country."

He pushed his chair away from the table and leaned back, regarding her
intently.

"Oh, I am afraid for him." She put her hand to her throat and turned
away her face from his searching eyes, in shame.

"I prefer not to know what he has done. Just explain to me your plan,
and how I can help. You know better than I."

"I can't understand how comes it I can tell you; you are a strangah to
all of us--and yet it seems like it is right. If I could get some
clothes nobody has evah seen Frale weah--if--I could make him look
different from a mountain boy, maybe he could get to some town down the
mountain, and find work; but now they would meet up with him before he
was halfway there."

Thryng rose and began pacing the room. "Is there any hurry?" he
demanded, stopping suddenly before her.

"Yes."

"Then why have you waited all this time to tell me?"

She lifted her eyes to his in silence, and he knew well that she had not
spoken because she could not, and that had he not ventured with his
direct questions, she would have left him, carrying her burden with her,
as hopelessly silent as when she came.

He sat beside her again and gently urged her to tell him without further
delay all she had in her mind. "You feel quite sure that if he could get
down the mountain side without being seen, he would be safe; where do
you mean to send him? You don't think he would try to return?"

"Why--no, I reckon not--if--I--" Her face flamed, and she drew on her
bonnet, hiding the crimson flush in its deep shadow. She knew that
without the promise he had asked, the boy would as surely return as that
the sun would continue to rise and set.

"He must stay," she spoke desperately and hurriedly. "If he can just
make out to stay long enough to learn a little--how to live, and will
keep away from bad men--if I--he only knows enough to make mean corn
liquor now--but he nevah was bad. He has always been different--and he
is awful smart. I can't think how came he to change so."

Taking the empty basket with her, she walked toward th