And just then they heard Thomas McBirney calling them from below. Then they all went down to have a part in telling their good news, and while they were in the very midst of their story—not that they had much to tell, for they knew no more than Haystack’s message had brought them—Hi’s odd little figure, with its long arms and bullet head, came crawling up the rocks from the lower waterfall. His dark face was strangely old and tired, and as he moved forward, with one of his thin arms in a splint, he certainly looked like a neglected boy, and this in spite of all that Ma McBirney could do to keep him as she thought a boy should be kept. “She’s found, Hi,” Mr. Carson shouted in his hearty way. “Azalea is found!” “Honest, sir?” cried Hi, stumbling forward. “Honest?” “Honest Injun, hope to die!” roared back Mr. Carson. Hi began kicking viciously at the dirt and twisting his body this way and that. He was in agony for fear he would “boo hoo,” as he put it to himself. “Sap head!” he snarled under his breath, “Mammy’s baby boy!” He was calling himself names, and to some effect, for the invisible hand that had clutched his throat seemed to relax. “Well,” said Mr. Carson, “let’s go sit out there on the headland and talk. We rode up here to-day not only to tell you this perfectly gorgeous piece of news, but also to talk over certain matters with you.” “I’m sure we’re pleased to listen to anything you have to say, sir,” replied Thomas McBirney quaintly. So they seated themselves on the benches at “Outlook Point.” “We are so,” murmured Ma McBirney in her soft voice. “Won’t you begin at the beginning, Lucy?” said Mr. Carson to his wife. “Tell them how we came to leave the city and our friends and all, and settle here. Or shall I tell them, dear?” Mrs. Carson leaned back against the trunk of a tulip tree and looked off across the valley.