The days passed and, unfettered, Jim White remained in the deep woods.  After Nella-Rose’s disturbing but thrilling advent, Truedale rebounded sharply and, alone in his cabin, brought himself to terms.  By a rigid arraignment he relegated, or thought he had relegated, the whole matter to the realm of things he should not have permitted, but which had done no real harm.  He brought out the heavy book on philosophy and endeavoured to study.  After a few hours he even resorted to the wet towel, thinking that suggestion might assist him, but Nella-Rose persistently and impishly got between his eyes and the pages and flouted philosophy by the magic of her superstition and bewitching charm.

Then Truedale attacked his play, viciously, commandingly.  This was more successful.  He reconstructed his plot somewhat-he let Nella-Rose in!  Curbed and somewhat re-modelled, she materialized and, while he dealt strictly with her, writing was possible.

So the first day and night passed.  On the second day Truedale’s new strength demanded exercise and recreation.  He couldn’t be expected to lock himself in until White returned to chaperone him.  After all, there was no need of being a fool.  So he packed a gunny sack with food and a book or two, and sallied forth, after providing generously for the live stock and calling the dogs after him.

But Truedale was unaware of what was going on about him.  Pine Cone Settlement had, since the trap episode, been tense and waiting.  Not many things occurred in the mountains and when they did they were made the most of.  With significant silence the friends and foes of Burke Lawson were holding themselves in check until he returned to his old haunts; then there would be considerable shooting-not necessarily fatal, a midnight raid or two, a general rumpus, and eventually, a truce.

All this Jim White knew, and it was the propelling factor that had sent him to the deep woods.  His sentiments conflicted with duty.  Guilty as Lawson was, the sheriff liked him better than he did Martin and he meant, should he come across Burke in “the sticks,” to take him off for a bear hunt and some good advice.  Thus he would justify his conscience and legal duties.  But White, strange to say, was as ignorant as Truedale was of an element that had entered into conditions.  It had never occurred to Jim to announce or explain his visitor’s arrival.  To Pine Cone a “furriner” aroused at best but a superficial interest and, since Truedale had arrived, unseen, at night, why mention him to a community that could not possibly have anything in common with him?  So it was that Greyson and a few others, noting Truedale at a distance and losing sight of him at once, concluded that he was Burke, back and in hiding; and a growing but stealthy excitement was in the air.  He was supposed by both factions to be with the sheriff, and feeling ran high.  In the final estimate, could White have known it, he himself held no small part!

Beloved and hated, Lawson divided the community for and against himself about equally.  There were those who defended and swore they would kill any who harmed the young outlaw-he was of the jovial, dare-devil type and as loyal to his friends as he was unyielding to his foes.  Others declared that the desperado must be “finished”; the trap disagreement was but the last of a long list of crimes; it was time to put a quietus on one who refused to fall into line-who called the sheriff his friend and had been known to hobnob with revenue men!  That, perhaps, was the blackest deed to be attributed to any native.

So all Pine Cone was on the war path and Truedale, heedless and unaware, took his air and exercise at his peril.

The men of the hills had a clear case now, since Peter Greyson had given his evidence, which, by the way, became more conclusive hour by hour as imagination, intoxication, and the delight of finding himself important, grew upon Greyson.

“Jim told me,” Peter had confided to Jed Martin, “that he was going to get a posse from way-back and round Lawson up.”

This was wholly false.  White never took any one into his business secrets, least of all Greyson for whom he had deep contempt.  “But I don’t call that clean to us-all, Jed.  We don’t want strangers to catch Burke; we don’t want them to-to string him up or shoot him full of holes; what we-all want is to force White to hand him over to justice, give him a fair trial, and then send him to one of them prison traps to eat his soul out behind bars.  Jed-just you shut your eyes and see Burke Lawson behind bars-eating sop from a pan, drinking prison water-just you call that picture up.”

Jed endeavoured to do so and it grew upon his imagination.

“We-all wants to trail him,” Greyson continued, “we don’t want to give him a free passage to Kingdom-Come by rope or shot-we-all want prison for Lawson, prison!”

As Jed was the one most concerned, this edict went abroad by mountain wireless.

“Catch him alive!” Friend and foe were alert.

“And when all’s fixed and done-when Burke’s trapped,” Greyson said, “what you going to do-for me, Jed?”

This was a startling, new development.

“I didn’t reckon yo’ war doin’ this-fur pay!” Jed faltered.  Then Greyson came forth: 

“No pay, Jed.  Gawd knows I do my duty as I see it.  But being keen about duty, I see more than one duty.  When you catch and cage Lawson, Jed, I want to be something closer to you than a friend.”

“Closer than-” Jed gasped.

“And duty drives me to confess to you, Jed, that the happiness of a lady is at stake.”

Jed merely gaped now.  Visions of Nella-Rose made him giddy and speechless.

“The day you put Lawson in jail, Jed, that day I’ll give you the hand of my daughter.  She loves you; she has confessed!  You shall come here and share-everything!  The hour that Burke is convicted-Marg is yours!”

“Marg!” The word came on a gasp.

“Not a word!” Greyson waved his hand in a princely way-this gesture was an heirloom from his ancestry.  “I understand your feelings-I’ve seen what has been going on-but naturally I want my daughter to marry one worthy of her.  You shall have my Marg when you have proven yourself!  I’ve misjudged you, Jed, but this will wipe away old scores.”

With a sickening sense of being absorbed, Jed sank into black silence.  If Marg wanted him and old Greyson was helping her, there was no hope!  Blood and desire would conquer every time; every mountaineer recognized that!

And so things were seething under a surface of deadly calm, when Truedale, believing that he had himself well in control, packed his gunny sack and started forth for a long tramp.  He had no particular destination in mind-in fact, the soft, dreamy autumn day lulled him to mental inertia-he simply went along, but he went as directly toward the rhododendron slick as though he had long planned his actions.  However, it was late afternoon before he came upon Nella-Rose.

On the instant he realized that he had been searching for her all day.  His stern standards crumbled and became dry dust.  One might as well apply standards to flickering sunlight or to swirling trifles of mountain mist as to Nella-Rose.  She came upon him gaily; the dogs had discovered her on one of their ventures and were now quietly accompanying her.

“I-I’ve been looking for you-all day!” Truedale admitted, with truth but indiscretion.  And then he noted, as he had before, the strange impression the girl gave of having been blown upon the scene.  The pretty, soft hair resting on the cheek in a bewildering curve; the large, dreamy eyes and black lashes; the close clinging of her shabby costume, as if wrapped about her slim body by the playful gale that had wafted her along; all held part in the illusion.

“I had to-to lead Marg to Devil-may-come Hollow.  She’s hunting there now!” Nella-Rose’s white teeth showed in a mischievous smile.  “We’re right safe with Marg down there, scurrying around.  Come, I know a sunny place-I want to tell you about Marg.”

Her childish appropriation of him completed Truedale’s surrender.  The absolute lack of self-consciousness drove the last remnant of caution away.  They found the sunny spot-it was like a dimple in a hill that had caught the warmth and brightness and held them always to the exclusion of shadows.  It almost seemed that night could never conquer the nook.

And while they rested there, Nella-Rose told him of the belief of the natives that he was the refugee Lawson.

“And Marg would give you up like-er-this” (Nella-Rose puffed an imaginary trifle away with her pretty pursed lips).  “She trailed after me all day-she lost me in a place where hiding’s good-and there I left her!  She’ll tell Jed Martin this evening when she gets back.  Marg is scenting Burke for Jed and his kind to catch-that’s her way and Jed’s!” Stinging contempt rang in the girl’s voice.

“But not your way I bet, Nella-Rose.”  The fun, not the danger, of the situation struck Truedale.

“No!-I’d do it all myself!  I’d either warn him and have done with it, or I’d stand by him.”

“I’m not sure that I like the misunderstanding about me,” Truedale half playfully remarked, “they may shoot me in the back before they find out.”

“Do you” (and here Nella-Rose’s face fell into serious, dangerously sweet, lines), “do you reckon I would leave you to them-all if there was that danger?  They don’t aim to shoot or string Burke up; they reckon they’ll take him alive and-get him locked up in jail to-to-

“What, Nella-Rose?”

“Die of longing!”

“Is that what would happen to Burke Lawson?”

The girl nodded.  Then the entrancing mischief returned to her eyes and she became a child once more-a creature so infinitely young that Truedale seemed grandfatherly by comparison.

“Can’t you see how mighty funny it will be to lead them and let them follow on and then some day-they’ll plump right up on you and find out!  Godda’mighty!”

Irresponsible mirth swayed the girl to and fro.  She laughed, silently, until the tears stood in the clear eyes.  Truedale caught the spirit of her mood and laughed with her.  The picture she portrayed of setting jealousy, malice, and stupidity upon the wrong trail was very funny, but suddenly he paused and said seriously: 

“But in the meantime this Burke Lawson may return; you may be the death of him with your pranks.”

Nella-Rose shook her head.  “I would know!” she declared confidently.  “I know everything that’s going on in the hills.  Burke would let me know-first!”

“It’s like melodrama,” Truedale murmured half to himself.  By some trick of fancy he seemed to be looking on as Brace Kendall might have.  The thought brought him to bay.  What would good old Brace do in the present situation?

“What is melodrama?” Nella-Rose never let a new word or suggestion escape her.  She was as keen as she was dramatic and mischievous.

“It would be hard to make you understand-but see here”-Truedale drew the gunny sack to him-“I bet you’re hungry!” He deliberately put Brace from his thoughts.

“I reckon I am.”  The lovely eyes were fixed upon the hand that was bringing forth the choicest morsels of the food prepared early that morning.  As he laid the little feast before her, Truedale acknowledged that, in a vague way, he had been saving the morsels for Nella-Rose even while he had fed, earlier, upon coarser fare.

“I don’t know about giving you a chicken wing!” he said playfully.  “You look as if you were about to fly away as it is-but unfortunately I’ve eaten both legs!”

“Oh! please”-Nella-Rose reached across the narrow space separating them, she was pleading prettily-“I just naturally admire wings!”

“I bet you do!  Well, eat plenty of bread with them.  And see here, Nella-Rose, while you are eating I’m going to read a story to you.  It is the sort of thing that we call melodrama.”

“Oh!” This through the dainty nibbling of the coveted wing.  “I’m right fond of stories.”

“Keep quiet now!” commanded Truedale and he began the spirited tale of love and high adventure that, like the tidbits, he knew he had brought for Nella-Rose!

The warm autumn sun fell upon them for a full hour, then it shifted and the chill of the approaching evening warned the reader of the flight of time.  He stopped suddenly to find that his companion had long since forgotten her hunger and food.  Across the debris she bent, absorbed and tense.  Her hands were clasped close-cold, little hands they were-and her big eyes were strained and wonder-filled.

“Is that-all?” she asked, hoarsely.

“Why, no, child, there’s more.”

“Go on!”

“It’s too late!  We must get back.”

“I-I must know the rest!  Why, don’t you see, you know how it turns out; I don’t!”

“Shall I tell you?”

“No, no.  I want it here with the warm sun and the pines and your-yourself making it real.”

“I do not understand, Nella-Rose!” But as he spoke Truedale began to understand and it gave him an uneasy moment.  He knew what he ought to do, but knew that he was not going to do it!  “We’ll have to come again and hear the rest,” was what he said.

“Yes?  Why”-and here the shadowy eyes took on the woman-look, the look that warned and lured the man near her-“I did not know it ever came like that-really.”

“What, Nella-Rose?”

“Why-love.  They-all knew it-and took it.  It was just like it was something all by itself.  That’s not the sort us-all have.  Does it only come that-er-way in mel-melerdrammer?”

“No, little girl.  It comes that way in real life when hearts are big enough and strong enough to bear it.”  Truedale watched the effect of his words upon the strange, young face before him.  They forced their way through her ignorance and untrained yearning for love and admiration.  It was a perilous moment, for conscience, on Truedale’s part, seemed drugged and sleeping and Nella-Rose was awakening to that which she had never known before.  Gone, for her, were caprice and mischief; she seemed about to see and hear some wonderful thing that eluded but called her on.

And after that first day they met often.  “Happened upon each other” was the way Truedale put it.  It seemed very natural.  The picturesque spots appealed to them both.  There was reading, too-carefully selected bits.  It was intensely interesting to lead the untrained mind into bewildering mazes-to watch surprise, wonder, and perplexity merge into understanding and enjoyment.  Truedale experienced the satisfaction of seeing that, for the first time in his life, he was a great power.  The thought set his brain whirling a bit, but it made him seriously humble as well.

Gradually his doubts and introspections became more definite; he lived day by day, hour by hour; while Jim White tarried, Nella-Rose remained; and the past-Truedale’s past-faded almost from sight.  He could hardly realize, when thinking of it afterward, where and how he decided to cut loose from his past, and all it meant, and accept a future almost ludicrously different from anything he had contemplated.

One day a reference to Burke Lawson was made and, instead of letting it pass as heretofore, he asked suddenly of Nella-Rose: 

“What is he to you?”

The girl flushed and turned away.

“Burke?-oh, Burke isn’t-anything-now!”

“Was he ever-anything?”

“I reckon he wasn’t; I know he wasn’t!”

Then, like a flash, Truedale believed he understood what had happened.  This simple girl meant more to him than anything else-more than the past and what it held!  A baser man would not have been greatly disturbed by this knowledge; a man with more experience and background would have understood it and known that it was a phase that must be dealt with sternly and uncompromisingly, but that it was merely a phase and as such bound to pass.  Not so Truedale.  He was stirred to the roots of his being; every experience was to him a concrete fact and, consequently, momentous.  In order to keep pure the emotions that overpowered him at times, he must renounce all that separated him from Nella-Rose and reconstruct his life; or-he must let her go!

Once Truedale began to reason this out, once he saw Nella-Rose’s dependence upon him-her trust and happiness-he capitulated and permitted his imagination to picture and colour the time on ahead.  He refused to turn a backward glance.

Of course all this was not achieved without struggle and foreboding; but he saw no way to hold what once was dear, without dishonour to that which now was dearer; and he-let go!

This determined, he strenuously began to prepare himself for the change.  Day by day he watched Nella-Rose with new and far-seeing interest-not always with love and passion-blinded eyes.  He felt that she could, with his devotion and training, develop into a rarely sweet and fine woman.  He was not always a fool in his madness; at times he was wonderfully clear-sighted.  He meant to return home, when once his health was restored, and take the Kendalls into his confidence; but the thought of Lynda gave him a bad moment now and then.  He could not easily depose her from the most sacred memories of his life, but gradually he grew to believe that her relations to him were-had always been-platonic; and that she, in the new scheme, would play no small part in his life and Nella-Rose’s.

There would be years of self-denial and labour and then, by and by, success would be achieved.  He would take his finished work, and in this he included Nella-Rose, back to his old haunts and prove his wisdom and good fortune.  In short, Truedale was love-mad-ready to fling everything to the ruthless winds of passion.  He blindly called things by wrong names and steered straight for the rocks.

He meant well, as God knew; indeed all the religious elements, hitherto unsuspected in him, came to the fore now.  Conventions were absurd when applied to present conditions, but, once having accepted the inevitable, the way was divinely radiant.  He meant to pay the price for what he yearned after.  He had no other intention.

Now that he was resigned to letting the past go, he could afford to revel in the joys of the present with a glad sense of responsibility for the future.

Presently his course seemed so natural that he wondered he had ever questioned it.  More and more men with a vision-and Truedale devoutly believed he had the vision-were recognizing the absurdity of old ideals.

Back to the soil meant more than the physical; it meant back to the primitive, the simple, the real.  The artificial exactions of society must be spurned if a new and higher morality were to be established.

If Truedale in this state of mind had once seen the actual danger, all might have been well; but he had swung out of his orbit.

At this juncture Nella-Rose was puzzling her family to the extent of keeping her father phenomenally sober and driving Marg to the verge of nerve exhaustion.

The girl had, to put it in Greyson’s words, “grown up over night.”  She was dazzling and recalled a past that struck deep in the father’s heart.

There had been a time when Peter Greyson, a mere boy, to be sure-and before the cruel war had wrecked the fortunes of his family-had been surrounded by such women as Nella-Rose now suggested.  Women with dancing eyes and soft, white hands.  Women born and bred for love and homage, who demanded their privileges with charm and beauty.  There had been one fascinating woman, a great-aunt of Nella-Rose’s, who had imperilled the family honour by taking her heritage of worship with a high hand.  Disregarding the rights of another, she boldly rode off with the man of her choice and left the reconstruction of her reputation to her kith and kin who roused instantly to action and lied, like ladies and gentlemen, when truth was impossible.  Eventually they so toned down and polished the deed of the little social highwaywoman as to pass her on in the family history with an escutcheon shadowed only, rather than smirched.

Nella-Rose, now that her father considered, was dangerously like her picturesque ancestress!  The thought kept Peter from the still, back in the woods, for many a day.  He, poor down-at-heel fellow, was as ready as any man of his line to protect women, especially his own, but he was sorely perplexed now.

Was it Burke Lawson who, from his hiding place, was throwing a glamour over Nella-Rose?

Then Peter grew ugly.  The protection of women was one thing; ridding the community of an outlaw was another.  Men knew how to deal with such matters and Greyson believed himself to be very much of a man.

“Nella-Rose,” he said one day as he smoked reflectively and listened to his younger daughter singing a camp meeting hymn in a peculiarly sweet little voice, “when my ship comes in, honey, I’m going to buy you a harp.  A gold one.”

“I’d rather have a pink frock, father, and a real hat; I just naturally hate sunbonnets!  I’d favour a feather on my hat-flowers fade right easy.”

“But harps is mighty elegant, Nella-Rose.  Time was when your-aunts and-and grandmothers took to harps like they was their daily nourishment.  Don’t you ever forget that, Nella-Rose.  Harps in families mean blood, and blood don’t run out if you’re careful of it.”

Nella-Rose laughed, but Marg, in the wash-house beyond, listened and-hated!

No one connected her with harps or blood, but she held, in her sullen heart and soul, the true elements of all that had gone into the making of the best Greysons.  And as the winter advanced, Marg, worn in mind and body, was brought face to face with stern reality.  Autumn was gone-though the languorous hours belied it.  She must prepare.  So she gathered her forces-her garden products that could be exchanged for necessities; the pork; the wool; all, all that could be spared, she must set in circulation.  So she counted three dozen eggs and weighed ten pounds of pork and called Nella-Rose, who was driving her mad by singing and romping outside the kitchen door.

“You-Nella-Rose!” she called, “are you plumb crazy?”

Nella-Rose became demure at once and presented herself at the door.

“Do I look it?” she said, turning her wonderful little face up for inspection.  Something in the words and in the appealing beauty made Marg quiver.  Had happiness and justice been meted out to Marg Greyson she would have been the tenderest of sisters to Nella-Rose.  Several years lay between them; the younger girl was encroaching upon the diminishing rights of the older.  The struggle between them was as old as life itself, but it could not kill utterly what should have existed ardently.

“You got to tote these things”-Marg held forth the basket-“down to the Centre for trade, and you can fetch back the lil’ things like pepper, salt, and sugar.  Tell Cal Merrivale to fetch the rest and bargain for what I’ve got ready here, when he drives by.  If you start now you can be back by sundown.”

To Marg’s surprise, Nella-Rose offered no protest to the seven-mile walk, nor to the heavy load.  She promptly pulled her sunbonnet to the proper angle on her head and gripped the basket.

“Ain’t you goin’ to eat first?” asked Marg.

“No.  Put in a bite; I’ll eat it by the way.”

As the Centre was in the opposite direction from the Hollow, as seven miles going and seven miles coming would subdue the spirits and energy even of Nella-Rose, Marg was perplexed.  However, she prepared food, tucked it in the basket, and even went so far as to pin her sister’s shawl closely under her chin.  Then she watched the slim, straight figure depart-still puzzled but at peace for the day, at least.

Nella-Rose, however, was plotting an attack upon Truedale quite out of the common.  By unspoken consent he and she had agreed that their meetings should be in the open.  Jim White might return at anytime and neither of them wanted at first to include him in the bewildering drama of their lives.  For different reasons they knew that Jim’s cold understanding of duty would shatter the sacred security that was all theirs.  Truedale meant to confide everything to White upon his return-meant to rely upon him in the reconstruction of his life; but he knew nothing could be so fatal to the future as any conflict at the present with the sheriff’s strict ideas of conduct.  As for Nella-Rose, she had reason to fear White’s power as woman-hater and upholder of law and order.  She simply eliminated Jim and, in order to do this, she must keep him in the dark.

Early that morning she had looked, as she did every day, from the hill behind the house and she had seen but one thin curl of smoke from the clearing!  If White had not returned the night before the chances were that he would make another day of it!  Nella-Rose often wondered why others did not note the tell-tale smoke-a clue which often played a vital part in the news of the hills.  Only because thoughts were focussed on the Hollow and on White’s absence, was Truedale secure in his privacy.

“I’ll hurry mighty fast to the Centre,” Nella-Rose concluded, after escaping from Marg’s disturbed gaze, “then I’ll hide the things by the big road and I’ll-go to his cabin.  I’ll-I’ll surprise him!”

Truedale had told her the day before, in a moment of caution, that he would have to work hard for a time in order to make ready for White’s return.  The fact was he had now got to that point in his story when he longed for Jim as he might have longed for safety on a troubled sea.  With Jim back and fully informed-everything on ahead would be safe.

“I’ll surprise him!” murmured Nella-Rose, with the dimples in full play at the corners of her mouth; “old Jim White can’t keep me away.  I’ll watch out-it’s just for a minute; I’ll be back by sundown; it will be only to say ‘how-de?’”

Something argued with the girl as she ran on-something quite new and uncontrolled.  Heretofore no law but that of the wilds had entered into her calculations.  To get what she could of happiness and life-to make as little fuss as possible-that had been her code; but now, the same restraint that had held Marg from going to the Hollow awhile back, when she thought that, with night, Burke Lawson might disclose his whereabouts, held Nella-Rose!  So insistent was the rising argument that it angered the girl.  “Why?  Why?” her longings and desires cried.  “Because!  Because!” was the stern response, and the woman in Nella-Rose thrilled and throbbed and trembled, while the girlish spirit pleaded for the excitement of joy and sweetness that was making the grim stretches of her narrow existence radiant and full of meaning.

On she went doggedly.  The dimples disappeared; the mouth fell into the pathetic, drooping lines that by and by, unless something saved Nella-Rose, would become permanent and mark her as a hill-woman-one to whom soul visions were denied.