The Call of the Cumberlands

As they rode at a walk along the little shred of road left to them,

the man turned gravely.

"Drennie," he began, "she waited for me, all those years. What I was

helped to do by such splendid friends as you and your brother and

Wilfred, she was back here trying to do for herself. I told you back

there the night before I left that I was afraid to let myself question

my feelings toward you. Do you remember?"

She met his eyes, and her own eyes were frankly smiling.

"You were very complimentary, Samson," she told him. "I warned you

then that it was the moon talking."

"No," he said firmly, "it was not the moon. I have since then met that

fear, and analyzed it. My feeling for you is the best that a man can

have, the honest worship of friendship. And," he added, "I have

analyzed your feeling for me, too, and, thank God! I have that same

friendship from you. Haven't I?"

For a moment, she only nodded; but her eyes were bent on the road

ahead of her. The man waited in tense silence. Then, she raised her

face, and it was a face that smiled with the serenity of one who has

wakened out of a troubled dream.

"You will always have that, Samson, dear," she assured him.

"Have I enough of it, to ask you to do for her what you did for me? To

take her and teach her the things she has the right to know?"

"I'd love it," she cried. And then she smiled, as she added: "She will

be much easier to teach. She won't be so stupid, and one of the things

I shall teach her"--she paused, and added whimsically--"will be to make

you cut your hair again."

But, just before they drew up at the house of old Spicer South, she

said: "I might as well make a clean breast of it, Samson, and give my vanity

the punishment it deserves. You had me in deep doubt."

"About what?"

"About--well, about us. I wasn't quite sure that I wanted Sally to

have you--that I didn't need you myself. I've been a shameful little

cat to Wilfred."

"But now--?" The Kentuckian broke off.

"Now, I know that my friendship for you and my love for him have both

had their acid test--and I am happier than I've ever been before. I'm

glad we've been through it. There are no doubts ahead. I've got you

both."