Page:Harold Bell Wright--The shepherd of the hills.djvu/76

 born and raised in the hills. And Sammy's father, too, was different. But this stranger—it was quite as though he belonged to another world.

Coming to the big, low gap, the girl looked far away to the blue line of hills, miles, and miles away. The stranger had come from over these, she thought; and then she fell to wondering what that world beyond the farthest cloud-like ridge was like.

Of all the people Sammy had ever known, young Stewart was the only one who had seen even the edge of that world to tell her about it. Her father and her friends, the Matthews's, never talked of the old days. She had known Ollie from a child. With Young Matt they had gone to and from the log school house along the same road. Once, before Mr. Stewart's death, the boy had gone with his father for a day's visit to the city, and ever after had been a hero to his backwoods schoolmates. It was this distinction, really, that first won Sammy's admiration, and made them sweethearts before the girl's skirts had touched the tops of her shoes. Before the woman in her was fairly awake she had promised to be his wife; and they were going away now to live in that enchanted land.

Spying an extra choice bunch of grass a few steps to one side of the path, Brownie turned suddenly toward the valley, and the girl's eyes left the distant ridge for the little cabin and the sheep corral in