Page:Harold Bell Wright--The shepherd of the hills.djvu/183

 the spring when it's time to plant again, but what if you're not here?"

Her teacher could not answer for a time; then he said, in an odd, hesitating way, "Have you heard from Ollie lately?"

The girl raised her head, her quick, rare instinct divining his unspoken thought, and something she saw in her old friend's face brought just a hint of a smile to her own tearful eyes. She knew him so well. "You don't mean that, Dad," she said. "We just couldn't do that. I had a letter from him yesterday offering us money, but you know we could not accept it from him." And there the subject was dropped.

They spent the afternoon together, and in the evening, at Sammy's Lookout on the shoulder of Dewey, she bade him good-night, and left him alone with his flocks in the soft twilight.

That same evening Mr. Matthews returned from his trip to the settlement.