I knelt on the tree, bent down and took her upheld hand in mine. It was warm, soft, and, that moment, clinging. Forerunners of dusk had come, and the gray pools of her clear eyes made me release her hand and get on my feet. She moved away, and as I turned to set my face in the opposite direction, something halted me in the very act. On the Hebron road, two hundred yards or more distant, I saw the figure of a man. A young, tall, bareheaded, roughly clad man, standing very straight and still. He saw me; he was looking at me. Of that I was sure. His position was by a great stone, which cast him in deeper shadow. There was something portentous in his attitude, natural though it was. I stopped and returned his inspection of me, but he made no sign, no gesture. He might have been a tree of the forest, for all of his immobility. A feeling, not of fear, but of premonition, swept over me as I went on across the tree. I knew it was Buck Steele, the smith of Hebron. CHAPTER NINE IN WHICH I SIT UPON A HILLTOP AND REFLECT TO NO ADVANTAGE I did something to-day which I have had vaguely in mind ever since I took up my abode in the wilderness. I climbed to the very top of my hill of refuge. The principal reason why I have never attempted it before was that I feared it would prove too much for me; would require too much exertion. And 'Crombie, while advising and insisting upon continuous exercise, had also warned me not to overdo it. This morning I felt mighty as Tubal Cain. My walks, my regular hours, my wholesome diet, are having effect. I am beginning to brown. At seven o'clock, when I shaved, the path of my razor showed a firm, tanned skin. My eyes are clear, and I can feel life coming into me. Oh, what a glorious thing it is! Just simple, primitive, animal life! I don't know when I have coughed. I can inflate my lungs, and imagine the consternation of that "colony" at the inrushing flood of this ozone laden air. I am not deluding myself that I am sound. 'Crombie said it would take time, and 'Crombie knows. But I am better. My recent walks have not caused me to pant and blow. That is why, this morning, I felt the assurance within me that I could surmount old Baldy's peak, and feel no bad results. Rain fell last night. It began just as I went to bed, and I lay and listened to it. There is something most fascinating about rain on the roof after you have gone to bed. Last night it dropped gently, a steady murmur. It came to my ears as a cradle song of Nature. I could hear it outside the window near which I sleep. The patter, patter, and after a while the gurgling of little streams over the clapboard eaves. I remember of thinking what a good soaking my garden spot would get, and of the consequent delay waiting for it to dry out before I could spade it up, then I went to sleep.