“I was very happy the little time I stayed there at Rowantree Hall,” he said. “I understood their ways—understood the things they do and the things they don’t do—and what’s more I perfectly understand why they don’t do them. Rowantree himself amuses me, yet I’m fond of him. Mrs. Rowantree—well, she’s a little miracle.” “Oh, she is,” cried Azalea. “How she works—and doesn’t mind. What ducks the children are! And how contented they all seem in that solitude!” “Might be Highland chieftains,” laughed Keefe. “And how do you suppose they live?” “I can’t imagine,” Azalea admitted. “Does he farm?” “A little—a very little. It’s she who thinks out the things that keep the wolf from the door. To be sure he has a little money coming from England now and then; but it’s Mrs. Rowantree with her little movable sawmill, which she pays men to run, who really keeps the flour in the barrel. Then she raises chickens, has a cow or two, a vegetable patch and all that. But best of all, she knows how to do without and yet be happy, and she’s bringing up the children in the same way. You noticed, they never apologized for a thing.” “Not a thing! I liked that, Keefe. She knew we wouldn’t care how things were. All we wanted was themselves.” “Quite right. All we wanted was themselves.” He sighed sharply. “She makes one feel at home, doesn’t she, that little Mary Cecily Rowantree? I’ve been a lonely cub, Miss Azalea—a queer lonely cub—thrown out of the lair by an accident, and not knowing much about home. But she does something to me—makes me feel as if I’d got back—” He hesitated for a long time. At last Azalea prodded him with a “Got back?” But he did not answer. They rode on then in the noisy silence of the woods, rode to the sound of falling water, the call of sleepy birds, the almost inaudible rustle of the trees and the little sharp cries of insects. Keefe saw the ladies to their door but he would not come in with them. He left them, to go to his tent and to boil his own tea in the little iron kettle, which, swung from his tripod, had served him on many expeditions. He had placed his tent not far from the rim of a precipice, though back among trees where it would be protected from storms. But to-night he abandoned their shelter, and sat quite on the rim itself, letting the rolling earth fill him with wonder. The stars swept by, a young sickle moon arose, the world faded from rosy gray to purple, from purple to the soft starlit gloom of a summer night. And still he sat there, dreaming, wondering, planning, longing. Most of all he wondered why it was that there were so few thoughts really worth thinking which one could put into words. CHAPTER VII “DOING GOOD”