She gave the man who was soon to be her husband a folded paper, which he thrust into an inside pocket. They hastened to the mountaineer minister's home, and were married. According to his custom, old Longley Thrash gave them his blessing, an ax, and a side of acorn-fatted, pepper-cured bacon. Wolfe gave the preacher a banknote.
Because of the hawk-eyed deputy, the couple dared not spend the night anywhere in the Wolfe's Basin country. It was only after more than four hours of brisk walking that they stopped under a giant hemlock that stood beside a dashing creek, and made a bed of boughs and the blankets they had brought.
Two and a half days were required for the completion of their exceedingly unusual wedding journey. They were footsore and weary, and their clothing was somewhat torn, when at last they reached the heart of Doe River Wilderness.
But their eyes brightened at the sight which greeted them there. Before them lay an open and level space of half a dozen acres, which was dotted sparsely with big gray-barked, leafless beeches. In the very center of it was the source of Doe River, a small lake, or great spring, of such depth that the water was bluish-black. Wolfe and his wife went to it, their tired feet swish-swishing in the thin carpet of brown and yellow beech leaves. Had they known that it was here the iron chalice—but they couldn't know.
They threw up a temporary shelter of hemlock boughs. On the next morning, Wolfe set out alone to the eastward, and found his nearest neighbor at a distance of eight miles. This neighbor, for a consideration, agreed to go to Conradsville—which was in North Carolina and twenty-four miles away—for nails, traps, window-lights and a few other articles. Then Wolfe bought a bag of cornmeal from the man, promised to return three days later, and hurried back to his waiting and naturally anxious wife.
Just ten days from the time of their starting their little log cabin, Wolfe nailed the last split board on the roof and finished the lumpy stone-and-clay chimney. It was all very crude, of course. The two narrow doors were made of split-oak slabs; there were but two small windows; the floor of flat stones was rough and uneven; the few pieces of furniture were homemade and unsightly. But the man and the woman who dwelled there loved each other, and were happy in spite of all there was to make them unhappy, and it was home—that dearest of all earth's places.
The days stole into the past rapidly, as joyful days always go, and the last of February came. Wolfe had searched faithfully for the treasure that the stranger of the long ago had babbled about on his deathbed, but to no avail; he had found nothing that in any way resembled gold. The trapping had been good, however, and neighbor Ivins had been accommodating, and Wolfe had succeeded in saving enough money to take him and his wife to Oregon in the spring. As for Tot—Tot was a full blown rose of a woman now, and to her husband, quite properly, the most wonderful person he had ever known.
One of the last of the winter's snows had just ceased to fall. The white blanket was nearly a foot in depth on the ground; it lay heavily upon the branches of the trees. They stood together at one of the small windows, watching the twilight shadows fall in the forest. The full moon peeped above the crest of the long, low mountain that formed the eastern horizon, and heaven's own pure white began to glisten like a field of diamonds. Over the whole scene hung a silence so deep that Wolfe and his wife felt that they could touch it, almost, with their hands.