“Nothing at all. Mother, I”--his voice caught suddenly, and he cleared his throat--“I am not really a marrying man. Marriage seems to be the happy fate of some fellows, but I am an exception. I have a great work before me--a sort of duty, as I see it--and these mountains are the best field on earth.” “Oh, I'm so happy I hardly know what to do.” Her face was fairly glowing. “This thing will tickle Jeff an' Mandy to death. I am glad you made up with Jeff. He's all right, Paul. He means well. He's just been unlucky, that is all.” “Yes, he is all right,” Paul agreed, “and things will run more smoothly with him from now on.” They were nearing the cabin. They saw Warren in front of the door, a bowed, sentinel-like figure in the red light of the fire within. His face was toward them as they approached, but he made no movement. His wife quickened her step, and going ahead of her son she took her husband's hands. “Jeff, Jeff!” she was heard to say, and Paul caught the words, “cottage,” “furniture,” and “oh, ain't it glorious?” Warren said nothing, but Paul heard him sigh. He pressed his wife's hands spasmodically and then dropped them. Firmly he advanced to meet his stepson, and paused in front of him. “The Lord ought to have let your shot go deeper that night, Paul,” he gulped, and for the first time in his life his eyes and voice were full of tears. “The Lord caught that shot in His hand, Jeff,” Paul answered. “He saved us both, and we are wiser now!” CHAPTER XVIII |AS Paul walked homeward a wave of transcendental ecstasy fairly lifted him from the ground. The stars and all space seemed his. He laughed; he sang; he whistled; a prayer of mystic delight rippled from his lips. He was drawing near the gate to Hoag's grounds when he noticed a man on a mule in the middle of the road. The rider's short legs swung back and forth from the plodding animal's flanks like pendulums, but his face was toward the village and Paul did not recognize him. Presently, however, when the gate was reached the rider was heard to cry “Whoa!” and Paul knew the voice. It was that of Tye, the shoemaker. “How are you, Uncle Si?” Paul quickened his step and approached just as the old man was about to dismount. “Oh!”--the cobbler settled back in his saddle--“I'm glad to see you. I've been over the mountain deliverin' a big raft o' work. I shod a whole family--two grown-ups an' ten children. I want to see you, an' I was goin' to hitch an' go to the house.” “I see, I see,” Paul smiled easily. “Like all the rest, you want to warn me to look out for Jeff Warren.” “Not a bit of it--you are away off!” Tye stroked his short beard with the fingers which held his riding-switch and grinned confidently. “That will take care of itself. I don't have to be told what a feller with _your_ light will do. I'll bet a dollar to a ginger-cake that you've been to see 'em already, an' you didn't act the fool, neither.”