Hale dropped his
reins, lifted one hand to his dizzy head, let his transit to the
ground, and started for it on a run. Across the path lay a great
oak with a white wound running the length of its mighty body, from
crest to shattered trunk, and over it he leaped, and like a child
caught his old friend in both arms. After all, he was not alone.
One friend would be with him till death, on that border-line
between the world in which he was born and the world he had tried
to make his own, and he could face now the old one again with a
stouter heart. There it lay before him with its smoke and fire and
noise and slumbering activities just awakening to life again. He
lifted his clenched fist toward it:
"You got ME once," he muttered, "but this time I'll get YOU." He
turned quickly and decisively--there would be no more delay. And
he went back and climbed over the big oak that, instead of his
friend, had fallen victim to the lightning's kindly whim and led
his horse out into the underbrush. As he approached within ten
yards of the path, a metallic note rang faintly on the still air
the other side of the Pine and down the mountain.
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