the boy to his own devices, to be sure,
but--hidden money and the Walden girl aroused a sudden hot fear in him.

"You lie!" he cried in a tone that for many a day Mary, with her
growing power over him, had not heard. "You-all lie; you're a lying
lot. I'll find the boy----" Martin reached up and took down a lash
whip which hung beneath an old rusted sword on the wall. "I'll find
the boy and the truth, and by heaven! the sneak and liar, whoever he
may be, will get a taste of this!" He snapped the lash sharply.

Molly shrank from his path and Mary gazed after him in sullen
amazement. Led by some intuition, Martin strode down the path leading
to the Branch and, just as he crossed the almost-dry stream bed, he
saw, on the hill opposite, Sandy coming toward him. The boy stopped as
he caught sight of his father and waited at the edge of the woods. His
brief rest had refreshed him and the cool evening breeze, bearing a
shower in its keeping, calmed his aching head and feverish body.
Martin noticed how white and haggard the boy looked and some instinct
warned him to hide the whip behind his back. When he reached Sandy the
two stepped back to where a log lay across the path and upon that
Martin dropped, while Sandy braced against a tree.

"Whar was yo' going?" asked Morley.

"Home, Dad. I wanted to see you--and then----"

"Well----"

"I'm going away!"

"Going away?"

"Come, too, Dad! Come and let us fight it out together. She----" The
boy's eyes, haunted and fierce, turned toward the home place. "She
don't belong to us or with us. I don't know how better to say it--but
she don't. She won't mind; no one will mind after the first. I've got
to go and--I want you! I've been saving and saving little by little
for years--there's enough now and we can go to-night. Out
beyond--somewhere--Dad, there's something better for us than--this. By
and by we'll come back. We'll come and help----" and a sob choked the
words; "we'll come and help all Lost Hollow. Somehow I feel--called!"

Martin Morley stared at the boy before him as though he saw a ghost.
And indeed a ghost of the grim past did confront him. He saw himself
as he once was ere his Inheritance was downed forever. He, too, had
wanted to break away; get out to the free chance and the new hope.

"You can't do it!" he said in a faint voice to that ghost of himself
standing opposite in the darkening shadows. "There's something as
allus holds us-all from