Page:Harold Bell Wright--The shepherd of the hills.djvu/145

 Matt slip 'round once in a while, just to look at, you, all so fine?"

"Daddy Jim, if you don't—hush—I'll—I'll—" she hid her face on his shoulder.

"There, there, honey; I was only funnin'. You'll always be my Sammy; the only boy I ever had. You just naturally couldn't be nothin' else."

Long after his daughter had gone to her room and to her bed, the mountaineer sat in the doorway, looking into the dark. He heard the short bark of a fox in the brush back of the stable; and the wild cry of a catamount from a cliff farther down the mountain was answered by another from the timber below the spring. He saw the great hills heaving their dark forms into the sky, and in his soul he felt the spirit of the wilderness and the mystery of the hour. At last he went into the house to close and bar the door.

Away down in Mutton Hollow a dog barked, and high up on Old Dewey near Sammy's Lookout, a spot of light showed for a moment, then vanished.