Along toward morning she came on a little village—one she had not seen before. There was not a light anywhere, but the houses clustered together like comfortable sheep in the darkness, and she felt happier for being among them. Now that she was safe with these other human creatures, her weariness and sleepiness almost overcame her. It was growing chilly as the morning air quickened—though as yet there was no hint in the sky of coming light—and she shivered in her thin clothes. She still wore the white frock that had been so dainty and sweet the day of the Singing, but which was now a dusty rag. Her hat she had left behind her. The hair Ma McBirney had taught her to brush every night was full of the dust of the road. All of that pleasant cleanliness which she recently had been taught, had been of necessity lost in the life she had been leading. She felt ashamed as she thought how she would look to strangers, who probably would think her a miserable vagabond. However, her state could be remedied in time. Now the thing was to get in out of the cold; for she was drenched with sweat and her damp clothes clung to her. She turned into one of the little yards, and going around to the rear of the house, tried the handle of a shed door. It yielded, and she stepped into a dark little room smelling of firewood. At the far side was an open door, and she groped her way to it and stood on a little framed-in porch with wire netting on the one exposed side. And there, neatly made, was a cot bed, waiting, it seemed, for some weary child to crawl in between its warm blankets. Azalea took off her worn and dusty shoes and her disgraceful frock, and stretched herself between the comforts. The next moment she was sound asleep. * * * * * A few hours later, the Sisson All Star Combination, rattling down the mountain side, came upon the wagon and the tent of Betty Bowen, ranged side by side in a comfortable little pocket away back from the road—the same road that Azalea had taken a mile lower down, after her hurried taking of the short cuts. Sisson greeted the encampment with a whoop, and brought Rafe, shock-headed and heavy-eyed, from his bed of straw in the wagon. “Well,” said Sisson, “you ain’t getting up early to hang out the wash, be you? Where’s Bet? Where’s the girl?” Rafe pointed at the tent with his thumb. “In there, I reckon. We all sat late last night around the fire.” “Huh! Mighty social, ain’t you? Had any trouble with that girl?” Rafe frowned and shook his head. “Well, get ’em out of the tall grass,” commanded Sisson. “I want to see ’em.”