"You never could have got through it in this world, Callista," he said softly. "It was all Buddy and me could do. We was wet to the skin and nigh drowned." "Oh, yes I could," Callista assured him with that new, womanly authoritativeness which seemed now to make him her own, rather than set him outside her caring, as it had once done. "I'd 'a' found a way to get through to you. If you have to hide out long, I'm goin' to fix it so that I can be nearer you and do for you. Does that arm feel better now?" There was a large, maternal tenderness about her which appealed powerfully to Lance, upon whose boyhood fretful, chiding Roxy had tended. She seemed a refuge, a comforter indeed. His haggard gaze still on her face, he answered in a half-voice that the arm did feel better. The food she warmed for him, the coffee that was heated and served steaming, these gave him courage as nothing yet had. He fairly choked, and a mist swam before his eyes, when she [363] suddenly held the fragrant, inspiring beverage to his lips. Her voice drove away at once the haunting noises of the wind howling up the breaks of the creek, the insistent drip-drip of the water; her presence shut out the vast, oppressive loneliness of the place; her bright warm color shone in that dark against which the mere blaze of the pine knots had been so feeble; sounds of her living presence vanquished the silence that had weighed heavier on his spirit than all the rocks in the bluff. The dome of that stone skull at once became a round, cozy cup of sheltered warmth and kindly human cheer; as much a home, there in the heart of the wilderness, as the phoebe's nest had ever been. For the first time the grim fact that had sent him into hiding, the horrid tragedy, seemed to blur a bit in its outlines. Callista made a trip down the bank to the floor of the valley, and brought up from where she had left them a small kettle and a frying pan. "I'll cook you a fine dinner," she said in a cheery, practical tone, speaking as though she were in her own kitchen. She maintained an absolutely commonplace note. Neither of them mentioned Flenton Hands nor the reason for Lance's present predicament. "That stuff I brought ready cooked made a pretty good breakfast snack; but when I get me plenty of clean coals here, we'll have some good hot sweet potatoes and bacon. I'm right hungry myself." [364] Lance sighed. "I reckon I'm as much perished for sleep as for victuals," he told her heavily. "After Buddy left me, I tried to get dry; but we'd missed out most of the things we ought to have got when we come a-past the place, and lost the rest in the creek; I hadn't scarcely anything to change with. Look like I couldn't get to sleep. Then all day yesterday I thought I'd catch a nap; but my arm sort o' bothered me some, and--well, the water drip-drip-drippin' out there pestered me. It seemed I must sleep when night come again; but I don't think I had to exceed two hours of rest."