“Good-by,” said he, clasping his brother’s hand in his own large one. “I thank you more than I can tell you. I’m better than when I came in here last night. You’ve been a good Samaritan.”
And so David Joslin passed out into a larger world and a wider dawn.
BOOK III
CHAPTER XVI
THE CITY ON THE HILL
IN THE Cumberlands, at the Forks of the Kentucky life went on as it had from time immemorial. There were few more houses than there had been a hundred years ago, no more roads, little more of civilization. But one morning, while yet the dawn was young, a man standing contemplatively on the stoop of his house, hands in pockets, looked idly up to the summit of the tall hill, which dominated the little town, and the gaze of this man lingered. There seemed to be someone up there, so far away that he could not be identified.
A certain mild interest arose in the observer’s mind. The figure yonder moved about slowly, rising and stooping curiously. Now and again it disappeared behind the crown of the hill. Then it would return, slowly, stooped as though carrying some heavy burden, would drop that burden and start back again.