Boyd was already better in spirits when he greeted the sun the next morning from the top of a hill near Judy's place. The air of the mountains had been good for him. Better still had been Judy's cordiality and her naturalness. After all his depression had been rooted in the artificialities of human association, and in Judy Peters's company there was no such artificiality. She had not hesitated to interrupt his narrative of events at various points to tell him that in this or that particular he had been a "darned fool," or a "frosted potater vine," or a "dod dasted idjit," or something else of the sort that she thought helpful to her endeavor to bring him back to a healthy mental condition. Her main reliance for his restoration to normality, however, was in getting something strenuous for him to do. "Hard work's the calomel he needs, an' a good hard fight's his quinine. It'll cure his chills, an' I'll git it ready fer him." With that determination fixed in her mind, Judy knocked the ashes out of her pipe, covered up the kitchen fire, set some roe herrings to soak, and went to bed. Sleep was to her healthy soul a matter of course. XVII JUDY INFORMS HERSELF AND MAKES PLANS It was well past midsummer when Westover after a stay of three days went from Judy Peters's place up into the higher and more desolate parts of the mountain region. He was accompanied by Theonidas, whose instructions from his mother were minute and explicit. "B'ar in mind, Theonidas," she said to him in an intimate conversation, "as how your duty's to keep him busy with things outsiden' hisself. He's got too many books 'long with him, but they's good ef he don't git to readin' of 'em by daylight. You's got to look out fer that. Ef you find him a readin' an' a broodin' by daylight, you jes' find out somethin' 'bout a b'ar or a catamount hangin' round, an' git him to lookin' fer that. An' ef he gits to readin' too late o' nights, showin' as how his min's oneasy like, you kin git up a night hunt or somethin' like that, or ef that don't work you kin go out an' yell like a painter till he gits his gun." A "painter," in mountain parlance, meant a panther, or more properly the mountain lion, a catlike, predatory beast between whom and the mountaineers there was eternal war. "Anyhow, Theonidas," concluded Judy, "you ain't no fool, an' now as you knows my intentions, you's to carry 'em out. Keep him a goin'. Keep him busy. Keep him so durned tired that he can't help sleepin' o' nights. That's your cawntract. Ef he gits contrary an' won't git sleepy an' you can't think o' nothin' else to do, jes' you set down an' tell him a lot o' your yarns. He's too perlite not to let you talk on, an' I ain't never knowed nothin' as would put a feller to sleep quicker'n one o' your yarns, Theonidas."