in time there never was a harder worker.”

Mr. Carey, a little dazed at the suddenness of it, agreed with the proviso that Miss Minnie be provided for, and the thing worked out for Luke Manders as swiftly and smoothly as if Dr. Darrow had motivated it by his wishes, or the ancient granddam who had seen in him “a young-un with a headpiece, smartest of ary Manders ever heerd tell of.” Miss Minnie was comfortably placed in a needlework shop and the young mountaineer climbed up on her stool in the dim and breathless office of the Altonia Mill, and dived deep into the sea of difficulties and discrepancies which she had abandoned to him.

“By gad, Luke,” the owner wiped his steaming forehead, “I never dreamed poor Minnie was getting us into such a snarl! Of course, I knew she was no lightning striker, but her father was my father’s third cousin, and when he died and left her without a penny, why I naturally had to keep an eye on her—blood’s thicker than water— But, good Lord, I[63] believe it’d have been cheaper to board her at the hotel and hire a man here!”

[63]

“I reckon so, sir,” Luke Manders agreed with him gravely. Gravely was the word for Luke Manders. He talked gravely, and walked gravely, and worked gravely, and it was to be seen that he thought gravely. There was no jest and youthful jollity in the young man from the mountains. He was as silent as one of the tall trees he had left behind him, and as strong, yet with always the sense of leashed action—action and power. Mr. ’Gene Carey and old Ben Birdsall felt it and leaned on it, and Miss Ada Tenafee felt it and feared it, and Glen Darrow felt it and rejoiced and exulted.

The kindly, rather innocent and futile old owner of the Altonia leaned on him pathetically, but the youth never overstepped; he never presumed for an instant on the man’s amiable familiarity; he maintained the delicate balance of their relationship.

He listened gravely when his employer told him things he already knew, and better than he did.

“I’m going to tell you something that’ll surprise you, Luke,” he said confidently. “I’m no business man. I’ve run the Altonia Mill, man and boy, most of my life, but that’s just because it was sort of wished on me by my father. I never liked it; I never—in a way, I mean—understood it; during my[64] father’s lifetime, I depended on him, and after he left us, why, I just counted on my partner.”

[64]

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