There was one girl however who, instead of multiplying her visits to the Card cabin with Creed's advent, abruptly ceased them. Judith Barrier was an uncertain quantity to her masculine household; unreasonably elated or depressed, she led them the round of her moods, and they paid for the fact that Creed Bonbright did not come across the mountain top visiting, without being at all aware of where their guilt lay. After that interview at the milking lot one thought, one emotion was with her always. Always she was waiting for the next meeting with Creed. Through the day she heard his voice or his footstep in all the little sounds of the woods, the humble noises of the farm life; and at night there was the cedar tree. Now the cedar tree had affairs of its own. When, with the egotism of her keen, passionate, desirous youth, the girl in the little chamber under the eves listened to its voice in April, it was talking in the soft air of the vernal night about the sap which rose in its veins, spicy, resinous, odoured with spring, carrying its wine of life into the farthest green tips, till all the little twigs were intoxicated with it, and beat and flung themselves in joy. And the tree's deep note was a song of abiding trust. There was a nest building within its heart--so well hidden in that dense thicket that it was safe from the eye of any prowler. Hope and faith and a great devotion went to the building. And the tree, rich and happy in its own life, cherished generously that other life within its protecting arms. Its song was of the mating birds, the building birds, the mother joy and father joy that made the nest ready for the speckled eggs and the birdlings that should follow. But to the listening girl the cedar tree was a harp that the winds struck--a voice that spoke in the night of love and Creed. Finally one morning she saddled Selim and, with something in her pocket for Little Buck and Beezy, set out for Hepzibah--reckon they's nothin' so turrible strange in a body goin' to the settlement when they' out o' both needles _an_' bakin' soda! As she rode up Nancy herself called to her to 'light and come in, and finally went out to stand a moment and chat; but the girl smilingly shook her head. "I got to be getting along, thank ye," she said. "I can't stop this mornin'. You-all must come and see us, Aunt Nancy." "Why, what's Little Buck a-goin' to do, with his own true love a-tearin' past the house like this and refusin' to stop and visit?" complained Nancy, secretly applauding the girl's good sense and dignity. "Where _is_ my beau?" asked Judith. "I fetched him the first June apples off the tree." "Judy's brought apples to her beau, and now he's went off fishin' with Doss and she's got nobody to give 'em to," old Nancy called as Creed stepped from the door of his office and started across to the cabin. "Don't you want 'em, Creed?" The tall, fair young fellow came up laughing.