"What, father?" she asked, jumping up and going to him.
"McCartney lied—he has told me everything. The man is alive—Anne nursed him back—it's all right!"
Cherry threw her arms about her father's neck and kissed him.
"Father, father, father!" she cried; and suddenly her voice broke. "If we had only known."
"If we had only known!" repeated Old Silent; and his mind went back to a pile of stones and a little wooden cross that stood miles back beside, the right-of-way.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
King dropped his scythe upon the windrow of freshly-cut hay and stood a moment while he wiped the sweat from his brow. It was July, and the day had been very hot, and King had cut a very wide swath in the tall, wild grass. A little way off on the higher ground of the ridge stood his first crop of growing wheat, the soft green shoots stretching upward from the new soil and bending before a gently moving breeze. Between the meadow and the wheat lay a stretch of newly-broken land where, only the day before, King had driven the plough through long furrows of rich mould. Even yet the mellow odor of freshly-turned soil came to him, mingled with the cool fragrance of the meadow.
King looked about him until his eyes fell upon Sal, where she was working half-buried in a hole she had dug in a futile attempt to follow a gopher to its place of hiding under the ground. He gave a sharp whistle and crouched low, holding out his hands as the dog came bounding towards him.
Taking her in his arms he lifted her from the ground and then rolled her over playfully on the hay.
Getting up, he strolled off along the edge of the standing grass, Sal running before him in a zig-zag search for gophers. When they came to the edge of a small slough the dog pounced at once into the water, almost on top of a wild duck and her brood of half-grown ducklings. They started up suddenly with much splashing of water and beating of wings and loud quacking.