He was disappointed, however, to observe that after breakfast there was no sign of an impending departure; Jerry Binwell easily adapted himself to the domestic routine and smoked and lounged before the fire, or strolled lazily about the yard. Ike thought, for all he so readily made himself at home, that his sordid, weak, sly face looked strangely alien and out of place among the sterling, honest, candid countenances of the family circle. So ill at ease did Ike feel with this vague anxiety that he was glad enough when his mother bethought herself that she needed logwood from the store. Mounted on the old gray mare he set out on this errand, feeling liberated in a measure, riding against the fresh wind that seemed to blow away the vexing distemper of his thoughts. The rain had revivified the world; everything seemed made anew. The colors were so luminously clear; how splendidly the maples deployed down the mountain side, with red and amber and purple gleams; every needle of the pines was tipped with a rain-drop, prismatically glittering. Mists rose from the intermediate valleys between the ranges, and folded their wings for a space, dallying on the summit, and then, drawn sunwards, lifted with silent ethereal grace into the soft blue sky. How lofty the mountains seemed to-day—how purple! Even the red mud beneath his mare’s hoofs had depths of rich ocherous tints, restful to the eye. It splashed monotonously under the steady jogging tread, so muffled that a squirrel, nimbly speeding along the topmost rail of the wayside fence, had no thought of an approach, and seemed a fellow-traveler; a swift one!—the old mare is soon far behind. And now the river is crossed, swollen by the rain and of a clay-color, instead of its wonted limpid silvery tint, and deep enough in the middle to make the old mare flounder to the girth and then unwillingly swim, while Ike gathers himself on his knees on the saddle to keep out of the cold water. And now up the rocky bank in the deep shadowy woods,—where there is no fence on either side of the road, which seems merely a vagrant wheel-track here and there in the mud, covered with the yellow and red and brown fallen leaves—and all the bosky vistas are full of richest color. Everywhere the giant trees close thickly in—no sign of mountains now, save the tonic balsamic air in proof of the altitudes. Only the pines and cedars and the jungles of the laurel are green, and green they will be all winter. Hear that! a fox barks in that dense tangle—are the frost grapes ripe, old Crafty? And suddenly between a scarlet oak and a yellow hickory a section of purple mountain shows, a floating capricious sprite-like mist slips in and out of sight, and there at the base of the range is the little store—a low white-washed shanty of one room; further up the slope in the clearing a gray log-cabin stands where Skimpy Sawyer lives.