"That sounds fair enough," he agreed. "Now the question is, what are we going to do together, you and me and the money?" "Would you do what I wanted?" she asked at his shoulder. "Would you?" "Yes." "We might try Richmond." "Don't fool yourself," she returned hardily; "I know all about those trial trips. Any man I go with has got to go far: I don't intend to be left at some pokey little way station with everything gone and nothing accomplished." "But," he objected, "a man who went with you could never come back." "Back to this wilderness," she scoffed; "any one should thank God for being taken out of it." "I've always lived here, my father too, and his before him; and back of that we came from mountains. We're mountain blood; I don't know if we could get used to anything else, live down yonder." "I'd civilize you," she promised him. "Perhaps--" he assented slowly. Suddenly from beyond the ruin came the stir of a horse moving in harness, the sound stopped and the voices of men grew audible. Instinctively Gordon and Meta Beggs drew behind a standing fragment of wall. Gordon could see, through the displaced, rotting boards, a buggy and two men standing at the side of the road. One, he recognized, was Valentine Simmons; he easily made out the small, alert figure. The other, with his back to the mill, held outspread a sheet of paper. There was something familiar about the carriage of the head, a glimpse of beard, a cigar from which were expelled copious volumes of smoke. Gordon vainly racked his memory for a clue to the latter, elusive personality. He heard Simmons say: "... by the South Fork entrance ... through the valley." The stranger partially turned, and Gordon instantly recalled where he had seen him before--it was the man he had driven from Stenton with the surprising foreknowledge of the County, who had been met by Pompey Hollidew. He replied to Simmons, "Exactly ... timber sidings at the principal depots."