He heard the door open. The owner of the place entered, his usually impassive face curiously turned toward the interior. Joslin walked forward to meet him, on his face now at least the semblance of a smile. John Moran himself smiled, as he looked and saw the untouched glass upon the table. “Well, friend, you’ve won,” said he. “Here’s your quarter back again.” Joslin felt in his hand the weight of a gold piece, but he put it back, his lip somewhat trembling. “I thank you,” said he, “but I can’t take it.” “Don’t you need it?” “Yes. But I’ll have to finish my own way, I reckon,” said David Joslin. “You see, I’ve been going to school up North here. But now I’ve concluded not to go there any more. No—I don’t need it.” He smiled now, as he extended his hand with that quality upon his face which brought friends to him so quickly, and held them so staunchly. “Good-by,” said he, clasping his brother’s hand in his own large one. “I thank you more than I can tell you. I’m better than when I came in here last night. You’ve been a good Samaritan.” And so David Joslin passed out into a larger world and a wider dawn. BOOK III CHAPTER XVI THE CITY ON THE HILL IN THE Cumberlands, at the Forks of the Kentucky life went on as it had from time immemorial. There were few more houses than there had been a hundred years ago, no more roads, little more of civilization. But one morning, while yet the dawn was young, a man standing contemplatively on the stoop of his house, hands in pockets, looked idly up to the summit of the tall hill, which dominated the little town, and the gaze of this man lingered. There seemed to be someone up there, so far away that he could not be identified. A certain mild interest arose in the observer’s mind. The figure yonder moved about slowly, rising and stooping curiously. Now and again it disappeared behind the crown of the hill. Then it would return, slowly, stooped as though carrying some heavy burden, would drop that burden and start back again. It was Old Granny Williams who took down the first authentic word regarding the strange work of the man on the hilltop—she had gone up to take him something to eat. “Hit’s Davy!” said she. “He’s done come back home! He’s a-startin’ of his collidge. He war a-layin’ the stones in rows, this way and that. He done dug a long sort of trench, like, whar the ground was level, up on top of the hill. He shore air a-goin’ to build something.” Some scoffed at all this. Others looked up still more curiously all that day. Word passed that David Joslin had come back home to stay. The next day, at about ten in the morning, as David Joslin dropped in its place a heavy slab of sandstone, which he had carried in his hands from his quarry on the hillside, he looked up to see the cause of a shadow on the ground. “Good morning, Absalom,” said he quietly. Absalom Gannt said nothing at first, but laid off his coat.