thus
musing, for the climb had taken more strength than he could well spare.
His cabin was not yet habitable, for the simple things Doctor Hoyle had
accumulated to serve his needs were still locked in well-built
cupboards, as he had left them.

Thryng meant soon to go to work, to take out the bed covers and air
them, and to find the canvas and nail it over the framework beside the
cabin which was to serve as a sleeping apartment. All should be done in
time. That was a good framework, strongly built, with the corner posts
set deep in the ground to keep it firm on this windswept height, and
with a door in the side of the cabin opening into the canvas room. Ah,
yes, all that the old doctor did was well and thoroughly done.

His appetite sharpened by the climb and the bracing air, David
investigated the contents of one of those melon-shaped baskets which
Cassandra had given him when he started for his new home that morning,
with little Hoyle as his guide.

Ah, what hospitable kindness they had shown to him, a stranger! Here
were delicate bits of fried chicken, sweet and white, corn-bread, a
glass of honey, and a bottle of milk. Nothing better need a man ask; and
what animals men are, after all, he thought, taking delight in the mere
acts of eating and breathing and sleeping.

Utterly weary, he would not trouble to open the cot which lay in the
cabin, but rolled himself in his blanket on the wide, flat rock at the
verge of the mountain. Here, warmed by the sun, he lay with his face
toward the blue distance and slept dreamlessly and soundly,--very
soundly, for he was not awakened by a crackling of the brush and
scrambling of feet struggling up the mountain wall below his hard
resting-place. Yet the sound kept on, and soon a head appeared above the
rock, and two hands were placed upon it; then a strong, catlike spring
landed the lithe young owner of the head only a few feet away from the
sleeper.

It was Frale, his soft felt hat on the back of his head and the curl of
dark hair falling upon his forehead. For an instant, as he gazed on the
sleeping figure, the wild look of fear was in his eyes; then, as he
bethought himself of the words of Aunt Sally, "They is a man thar," the
expression changed to one more malevolent and repulsive, transforming
and aging the boyish face. Cautiously he crept nearer, and peered into
the face of the unconscious Englishman. His hands clinched and his lips
tightened, and he made a movement wi