“She's jealous,” said Miss Saunders, and Hale ridiculed the idea, for not one sign since she came to the Gap had she shown him. It was the jealousy of a child she had once betrayed and that she had outgrown, he thought; but he never knew how June stood behind the curtains of her window, with a hungry suffering in her face and eyes, to watch Hale and Miss Anne ride by and he never guessed that concealment was but a sign of the dawn of womanhood that was breaking within her. And she gave no hint of that breaking dawn until one day early in May, when she heard a woodthrush for the first time with Hale: for it was the bird she loved best, and always its silver fluting would stop her in her tracks and send her into dreamland. Hale had just broken a crimson flower from its stem and held it out to her. “Here's another of the 'wan ones,' June. Do you know what that is?” “Hit's”--she paused for correction with her lips drawn severely in for precision--“IT'S a mountain poppy. Pap says it kills goslings”--her eyes danced, for she was in a merry mood that day, and she put both hands behind her--“if you air any kin to a goose, you better drap it.” “That's a good one,” laughed Hale, “but it's so lovely I'll take the risk. I won't drop it.” “Drop it,” caught June with a quick upward look, and then to fix the word in her memory she repeated--“drop it, drop it, DROP it!” “Got it now, June?” “Uh-huh.” It was then that a woodthrush voiced the crowning joy of spring, and with slowly filling eyes she asked its name. “That bird,” she said slowly and with a breaking voice, “sung just that-a-way the mornin' my sister died.” She turned to him with a wondering smile. “Somehow it don't make me so miserable, like it useter.” Her smile passed while she looked, she caught both hands to her heaving breast and a wild intensity burned suddenly in her eyes. “Why, June!” “'Tain't nothin',” she choked out, and she turned hurriedly ahead of him down the path. Startled, Hale had dropped the crimson flower to his feet. He saw it and he let it lie. Meanwhile, rumours were brought in that the Falins were coming over from Kentucky to wipe out the Guard, and so straight were they sometimes that the Guard was kept perpetually on watch. Once while the members were at target practice, the shout arose: