Never before had Sandy cared. He knew there was something lurking in the past that caused his father to slink from the mountain people, caused the men and women to avoid and shun him, but it had always existed. It was part of Lost Hollow and the Morley fate. Then, alone with the last of his race, Martin Morley told the old story that had sapped the vitality of his family. Such a small, mean thing it seemed to have downed the once good stock! But in a place where tradition thrives on starvation, lack of ambition and misunderstanding, it had done its work. As Morley drawled the ancient wrong to light, as he eased his soul of the burden and so shared it with his boy, his eye brightened and he sat straighter upon the fallen log for--at its completion--Sandy laughed! "It was this--er--way. In them days us-all and the Hertfords was equals. The plantation lying off to the east of the old Hertford home place belonged to us-all"--many and many were the quarts of berries and bushels of nuts Sandy had gathered from there!--"but it slipped away--it's all gone years past. My grandfather and Lansing Hertford was close friends--none closer. They fought and loved side by side till Hertford--he got some kind of government order to go to furrin' parts a mighty distance from Lost Hollow. Some time after he went my grandfather followed on a pleasure trip--a pleasure trip, Sandy, think of that! He went away for pleasure! His pockets full of money and him right well fixed! On his travels he stopped and called on Hertford in them furrin' parts and Hertford he gave to grandfather a mighty precious bottle of stuff to bring back home to a big merchant down Lynchburg way. What happened the Lord only knows, Sandy, but when the merchant opened the bottle there wasn't nothing but water in it! No one ever spoke out in grandfather's day--they dassent. He was a mighty proud and upperty man, but a whisper and a nudge can do the work, and little by little grandfather was pushed down and out. In my father's time they spoke louder--they don' said how grandfather had sold the precious stuff before he came back; Lord, Sandy, I leave it to you, son, would he have come if he had done that low-down, mean trick?" "No!" Sandy breathed the word like a hiss, and in the darkness and his weakness he felt the poison of the lie stealing into his thought, but he flung his head up proudly. "No! No!" he repeated clearly and defiantly; "No!" "But they-all never trusted none of us again." Sandy recalled his first visit to the Walden back door and his courage rose--they had learned to trust him even in Lost Hollow! "Grandfather tried to rise up and failed. Father had his hope, but it was killed; I strove, Sandy, I sho' did, God knows! but you see how it has been with me. There's no use, son, we-all is damned!" "I am--going to succeed!" Sandy's voice struck through the gloom and stillness like a tangible blow. Martin started and gave a nervous laugh.