"
* * * * * * *
Hale stopped a while to rest his horse at the base of the big
pine. He was practically alone in the world. The little girl back
there was born for something else than slow death in that God-
forsaken cove, and whatever it was--why not help her to it if he
could? With this thought in his brain, he rode down from the
luminous upper world of the moon and stars toward the nether world
of drifting mists and black ravines. She belonged to just such a
night--that little girl--she was a part of its mists, its lights
and shadows, its fresh wild beauty and its mystery. Only once did
his mind shift from her to his great purpose, and that was when
the roar of the water through the rocky chasm of the Gap made him
think of the roar of iron wheels, that, rushing through, some day,
would drown it into silence. At the mouth of the Gap he saw the
white valley lying at peace in the moonlight and straightway from
it sprang again, as always, his castle in the air; but before he
fell asleep in his cottage on the edge of the millpond that night
he heard quite plainly again:
"I'll go with ye--anywhar.
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