He wondered if, after all, it was too late. There were things he knew how to do. If his mother would give up this wandering and settle down in some quiet little place and keep Azalea with her, and if they could have really good things to eat, and a hearth to sit before rainy nights, and clothes that were decent and clean, why perhaps, after all, a fellow could “get shet” of the drinking of corn whiskey and the gambling and all. Rafe was young still, and the little kind angel of his better impulses had not all been slain by his black selfishness and his coarse appetites. So he sat and dreamed before the fire, and was somehow washed almost innocent again by the great sea of goodness that forever stretches about us, and in which we may, if we will, bathe and purify ourselves. The night and the stars, the wind and the fire were there to help him find himself. And while he dreamed, Azalea clipped on through the thick-growing laurel, skirted a little spring-fed pond, and finding the wagon-road, fled down the mountain with feet that felt as light as feathers—as light as her heart. All of her courage had come rushing back. She said to herself that she would never be taken again—never. She was not going to have her life spoiled. It was her life and she meant to “run it” to suit herself. And as she fled, it seemed as if the little brown, thin hands of her dead mother were held out to help her; and as if the strong, kind hands of Ma McBirney were stretched in welcome; and the good, freckled hands of Jim and Hi beat together in encouragement. Yes, they were patting “juba” for her, were Jim and Hi, and to the patter, patter, her feet sped on. She was not afraid of the night. She liked it. The stars saw what she was doing and were glad. The night bird that called out, kept the woods from being too solitary. The very wind was in her favor, and pushed at her back. Sometimes she stopped to rest, and she would have liked to sleep. But it seemed foolish to do that. The point now, was to get safe away. “I was caught napping once,” she said to herself with a dry little laugh, “but I don’t mean to be again.”