Tennessee, alarmed by this impressive demonstration, dismounted hastily from the saddle as soon as his threatening gaze was withdrawn. She tangled her feet in the stirrups and her hands in the reins, and lost more time in scrambling off the floor of the passage and down upon the ground; but at last she was fairly on her way to the spring to convey an account to her mother of the outlaw in the chest. In fact, she was not far from the scene of the soap- boiling when she heard her name shouted in stentorian tones, and pausing to look back, she saw Rufe gleefully capering about in the passage, the headstall on his own head, the bit hanging on his breast, and the reins dangling at his heels. Now this beguilement the little girl could never withstand, and indeed few people ever had the opportunity to drive so frisky and high-spirited a horse as Rufe was when he consented to assume the bit and bridle. He was rarely so accommodating, as he preferred the role of driver, with what he called "a pop-lashEE!" at command. She forgot her tell-tale mission. She turned with a gurgle of delight and began to toddle up the hill again. And presently Mrs. Dicey, glancing toward the house, saw them playing together in great amity, and rejoiced that they gave her so little trouble. They were still at it when Birt came home, but then Tennessee was tired of driving, and he let her go with him to the wood-pile and sit on a log while he swung the axe. No one took special notice of Rufe's movements in the interval before supper. He disappeared for a time, but when the circle gathered around the table he was in his place and by no means a non-combatant in the general onslaught on the corn-dodgers. Afterward he came out in the passage and sat quietly among the others. The freshened air was fragrant, and how the crickets were chirring in the grass! On every spear the dew was a-glimmer, for a lustrous moon shone from the sky. Somehow, despite the long roads of light that this splendid pioneer blazed out in the wilderness, it seemed only to reveal the loneliness of the forests, and to give new meaning to the solemnity of the shadows. The heart was astir with some responsive thrill that jarred vaguely, and was pain. Yet the night had its melancholy fascination, and they were all awake later than usual. When at last the doors were barred, and the house grew still, and even the vigilant Towse had ceased to bay and had lodged himself under the floor of the passage, the moon still shone in isolated effulgence, for the faint stars faded before it.