The room behind her was neat and clean, but almost bare of even such comforts as might have been found in pioneer homes. Here and there some little stool or shelf showed that her brother's deft fingers had been at work; but in this as in most things he lacked the steadiness of application which would have served to better their lot. And Captain Underwood was a broken man, plunged in a lethargy of remorse and disappointment which threatened never to lighten. Since her mother's death, life would have been almost unendurable to Stephanie had it not been for two things: these were the passionate affection existing between herself and Dick, and her intense love for and kinship with nature. All her scanty hours of idleness she spent roaming about the clearing or the edge of the forest--she knew the haunts of every weed and flower for a mile around. In the winter, flocks of little hungry birds were her pensioners, and it is likely that she would have seriously diminished their own stores in feeding them, had not Dick collected berries and wild rice and seeds in the fall as a provision for emergencies. On this keen autumn morning there were very few birds about; the robins had flown, and the owls were going to bed; far away some noisy crows wheeled and cawed above the trees, but no longer could Stephanie hear the innumerable small twitterings and tentative songs of a morning in the summer. The forest was very silent. Indeed, the only sound that broke the half-awakened quietness was the distant thud and throb of axes biting deep into the trunk of a tree. It was a curiously insistent sound, that seemed to claim more notice than it was worth. Very clearly on the clear air was borne the noise of every blow, and occasionally a faint crack as of a blade being wrenched away. It forced itself on Stephanie's attention, growing louder and fainter as slight breaths of wind moved the hazy air, but never ceasing in its continual, irregular thud--thud; thud--thud. Her father and Dick were chopping down the half-dead pine; she could distinguish the difference between the weight of their respective strokes.