They were at the hewn log which formed the step to the porch between the rooms of their cabin. A lank hound rose from the floor, and pulled himself back from his forward-planted paws, and whimpered a welcome to them; a captive coon rattled his chain from his corner under the porch roof. “Why don't you let that poor thing go, Matthew?” Mrs. Braile asked. “Well, I will, some day. But the little chap that brought it to me was like our--” He stopped; both were thinking the same thing and knew they were. “I saw the likeness from the first, too,” the wife said. III The Gillespies arrived at their simpler log cabin half an hour later than the Brailes at theirs. It was on the border of the settlement, and beyond it for a mile there was nothing but woods, walnut and chestnut and hickory, not growing thickly as the primeval forest grew to the northward along the lake, but standing openly about in the pleasant park-like freedom of the woods-pastures of that gentler latitude. Beyond the wide stretch of trees and meadow lands, the cornfields and tobacco patches opened to the sky again. On their farther border stood a new log cabin, defined by its fresh barked logs in the hovering dark. Gillespie pulled the leatherwood latch-string which lifted the catch of his door, and pushed it open. “Go in, Jane,” he said to his daughter, and the girl vanished slimly through, with a glance over her shoulder at Dylks where he stood aloof a few steps from her father. Gillespie turned to his guest. “Did you see her?” he asked. “Yes, I walked over to her house this morning.” “Did any one see _you_?” “No. Her man was away.” Gillespie turned with an effect of helplessness, and looked down at the wood-pile where he stood. “I don't know,” he said, “what keeps me from spliting your head open with that ax.” “I do,” Dylks said. “Man!” the old man threatened, “Don't go too far.” “It wasn't the fear of God which you pretend is in your heart, but the fear of man.” Dylks added with a vulgar drop from the solemn words, “You would hang for it. I haven't put myself in your power without counting all the costs to both of us.” Gillespie waved his answer off with an impatient hand. “Did she know you?” “Why not? It hasn't been so long. I haven't changed so much. I wear my hair differently, and I dress better since I've been in Philadelphia. She knew me in a minute as well as I knew her. I didn't ask for her present husband; I thought one at a time was enough.” “What are you going to do?”