Even then his snorting horse had to swim a few yards, and he
reached the other bank soaked to his waist line. But the warm sun
came out just as he entered the woods, and as he climbed, the
mists broke about him and scudded upward like white sails before a
driving wind. Once he looked back from a "fire-scald" in the woods
at the lonely cabin in the cove, but it gave him so keen a pain
that he would not look again. The trail was slippery and several
times he had to stop to let his horse rest and to slow the beating
of his own heart. But the sunlight leaped gladly from wet leaf to
wet leaf until the trees looked decked out for unseen fairies, and
the birds sang as though there was nothing on earth but joy for
all its creatures, and the blue sky smiled above as though it had
never bred a lightning flash or a storm. Hale dreaded the last
spur before the little Gap was visible, but he hurried up the
steep, and when he lifted his apprehensive eyes, the gladness of
the earth was as nothing to the sudden joy in his own heart. The
big Pine stood majestic, still unscathed, as full of divinity and
hope to him as a rainbow in an eastern sky.
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