D ICK WRINKLE, travel-stained and covered with dust, a small valise in his hand, trudged down the declivitous footpath of the mountain amid the splendor of late summer leafage and occasional dashes of rhododendron and other wild flowers, the color and scent of which greeted his senses, dulled as they were to the finer things of life, as a subtle something belonging to the past which had been lost and was regained. Now and then he would stop, rest his bag on the ground, and breathe in the crisp air as if it were a palpable substance that was pleasing to his palate. At such moments, when the open spaces between hanging boughs, tangled vines, and trunks of trees would permit, his glance, half doubtful, half confident, would rest on the palatial residence in the valley below, which, at every step, had been growing nearer and nearer.

"Yes, that's the place," he said once, in a certain tone of exultation. "It must be; I've followed the directions to the letter, and there couldn't be two such dandy houses as that round here. And it is hers, in her own right, to boss over and to keep or to sell or to do as we please with."

When he had reached the level ground he found himself in a broad, well-graded road that led straight to the gates of the mansion, and when he was quite near to it he observed on the right-hand side an extensive peach-orchard. It was the gathering season, and in a shed open at the sides, and containing long, canvas-covered tables, several negro men and women were busy packing the ripe peaches into new crates which were being nailed up by a white man in overalls and a conical straw-hat. The pedestrian leaned against the whitewashed board-fence and scanned the group, seeking a familiar face. But those before him had a strange look. He was wondering if he could be mistaken in the place, after all, when, his glance roving to the nearest row of trees, he saw an aged man emerge with his arms full of peaches, which he took to the nearest negro packer. Dick Wrinkle didn't recognize him under his broad hat and in his fine clothes, but a thrill went through him when he heard him address the servant.

"Put these jim-dandies on top with the yaller side up," he commanded. "They are a lettle mite soft, but they've only got to go over the mountain. They are for the head boss, an' you'd better pack 'em right. He's powerful fond o' good ripe peaches. I've seed 'im eat 'em with the skin on, an', as much as I like 'em, I can't do that. I'd as soon chaw sandpaper."

"It's Pa," the man at the fence said, in a tone of relief. "I'd know his voice amongst a million. He looks younger by ten years than he did. I reckon high living did it. Well, it's my turn at it, an' it won't be long 'fore I set in. I may have trouble at the start, but I'll weather the storm. I know who I'm dealing with. I didn't live with 'er as long as I did without learning a few things."

Dropping his bag over the fence, he climbed over after it. He stood for a moment, hesitatingly, and then, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, he flicked the dust off his coat and trousers and new shoes. He was well and rather tastily attired. He was shaved, and his scant hair showed that it had been brushed. He wore a heavy gold chain, which had a prosperous look stretching across his black waistcoat. The old man had turned back toward the trees, and, without being noticed by the active packers, his son followed him, bag in hand. Old Jason, his eyes raised in searching for the choicest fruit among the low branches of the trees, did not see his son till he was close behind him.

"Now, Pa," Dick Wrinkle began, calmly enough, "don't jump out o' your hide. Reports to the contrary, I'm alive and kicking."

Turning at the sound of the familiar voice, the old man started, an exclamation, half of fear, half of gratified wonder, escaping his lips. He stared fixedly, and his mouth fell open, exposing his quid of tobacco. The peaches in his hands rolled to the ground, and, utterly bewildered, he stooped as if to pick them up, but paused and stared again. "Lord, have mercy!" he cried. "Lord, have mercy, who'd have dreamt it—you back—you—you here! Why, we all heard—we all 'lowed—we all was plumb sure you was—"

"I know. Never mind about that," the younger said, with a shrug meant to shake off the topic. "Where's Ma, and—and Hettie?"

"Your Ma?—your Ma? Why, she's down at the spring-house watchin' 'em try a new-fangled churn, or—or was a few minutes ago. Why, Dick, we all thought you was—was—"

"Oh, I know, but where is Hettie?"

"Hettie? Oh, my Lord! Why, Dick, boy, hain't you heard a thing?"

"I've heard a sight more 'n I want to hear or will again," Dick Wrinkle said, with lowering brows and a voice which seemed to bury itself in a mass of inner threats as to dire approaching events. "I've come to propose a—a settlement, without blood if it can be arranged; if not, we kin spill plenty of it in the up-to-date Western style. I've been away, and was detained longer 'n I expected by circumstances over which I had no control, and in my absence, I'm told, my household—an', by gosh, my honor!—has been stained. I'm not out looking for trouble, but trouble may throw itself in my way. I'm prepared to do an outraged man's part. I've got a medium-sized gun in my hip-pocket and a young cannon in this valise."

"Oh, Dick, Dick, we mustn't have blood spilt, for all we do!" Old Jason's display of actual concern was the first ever wrung from him. "Besides, the law—the law must be considered."

"Oh, I'm willing to consider the law," Dick said. "I'll do a lot o' things if I'm not made any madder 'n I am right now. I'm glad to git back, an' I don't want to be mad. I'll do as much toward keepin' peace as any other man. There ain't anything so awfully unheard of in what happened to me. Fellers has been off from home before, an' the whole world wasn't plumb upset by it."

"But they didn't rise from the dead," old Jason submitted, argumentatively. "How on earth did you manage to do it? I mean—"

The son's glance for the first time wavered. He looked toward the towering mountain as if for moral sustenance. His lips mutely moved as if he were conning a lesson he was learning by rote, and then, seeing the question still in his father's blearing eyes, he began:

"I met with trouble, Pa—I reckon some would style it an accident. When that big tornado struck the country out there and so many was blowed to smithereens and never had even the pieces of 'em put together again—I say, Pa, when all that happened I was struck in the back of the head by a rock or a beam or a plank—I never knew exactly which—and never got my right senses back for a long, long time afterward. In fact, I didn't even know my own name or even recall you and Ma, or my old home back here. I say, it was all a plumb blank till—till—"

"I know, till you heard about Hettie and—and—but go on. I'm a listenin'."

"Well, there ain't much to tell." Dick Wrinkle was perspiring freely. He took off his hat and wiped his red neck and bald pate with an impatient hand. "Being hit that way, you see, was the last thing I remembered. Folks say I must have wandered about over the plains like a wild animal that didn't know how to do a thing but eat and drink what I could run across. Some cowboys tuck me up and l'arned me to cook, and I followed that for a long time. Then, t'other day, they put me on the back of a bucking bronco, just for the fun o' the thing. I stayed on as long as I could, but he finally flung me over on my head. That fetched me to. The whole thing come back like a flash. Several years had slipped by, but when I come to my right mind I thought that same storm was raging. I refused to believe so much time had passed till a cowboy showed me the date on a newspaper, and that plumb floored me."

"You don't say!" Old Wrinkle stroked his beard thoughtfully and, in paternal sympathy, avoided his son's anxious eyes. "Well, well, that was all-powerful curious, but—but I've read of sech things, and maybe Hettie has, too; if she hain't, I'll try to show her that—I mean—but I reckon I'd better trot over to the spring-house and kinder lead your Ma up to it, and not have it sprung too suddenlike. She ain't one o' your weak sort that flops down at the slightest report of good or bad luck, but we'd better be on the safe side. I'll tell yore Ma, I say, an' then I'll go up to the big house an see if I can do anything with Hettie."

"Well, maybe you'd better," Dick Wrinkle agreed, slowly, "and I reckon you'd better give her a full account o' how it all happened. I don't want to be eternally going over it. I've had enough of it myself."

"You mean about—yore crazy spell?" The old man stared inquiringly.

"Yes, about all that. I've told you—I've done give you full particulars. You know as much about it as I do. A man out of his right senses don't remember anything worth while, nohow."

"Well, I hope I'll git it straight, an' not backside foremost. It would be funny if I begun it whar the bronco throwed you and ended up in the tornado. Het will have to be worked fine, Dick. She sorter feels 'er oats now. She always did hold 'er head in the air, but it's higher now since she got rich. She mought take a fool notion that the bronco throwed you powerful soon after her change o' luck."

"I don't want 'er dern money!" Dick Wrinkle snarled, his glance shifting unsteadily. "I don't need anybody's cash. I've got a thousand dollars in my pocket now."

"You say you have?" The eyes under the bushy gray brows fluttered thoughtfully. "Well, if I was you, I believe, Dick, that I'd not haul it out an' make a show of it. You see—well, you see, it's like this: Het's a thinkin' woman, an' sorter keen-eyed at times, when she wants to be, an' lookin' at a wad like that mought—I don't say, it would—but it mought, bein' a sort o' money-maker herself, it mought set her to wonderin' how a feller clean out o' his senses could accumulate so much cash in times as hard as these. If crazy fellers kin load up like that out thar, men of brains could walk clean off with the State."

Dick Wrinkle started slightly and let his glance trail along the ground, in several directions before lifting it again to the would-be helpful countenance before him.

"I made it after I got my senses back," he said, finally, and rather doggedly.

"Well, I don't believe I'd let that out, nuther," said old Wrinkle, in a tone that was meant to be kindness itself. "You see, Dick, the bronco throwed you just t'other day, an' a thing like that is liable to git you all balled up. A woman like Het mought ax a heap o' fool questions, an' you hain't had yore right mind back long enough to go into a game like that yet awhile."

"Oh, I don't give a damn, one way or another!" the younger snorted. "It ain't any o' her business, nohow where I was nor how long I was gone. She's my wife, I ain't the fust man that ever went away for a spell and then come home."

"I was jest wonderin'," the old man said, soothingly, "if yore old high-an'-mighty way wouldn't be best, Dick. All the tornado an' buckin'-bronco business may be a waste of talk. Het tuck to you in the fust place beca'se you sorter held a tight rein over 'er, an', if I'm any judge, Alf Henley, with all his easy ways an' indulgence, hain't driv' her over any smooth road. I've heard it said that a woman will kitten to a man that beats 'er quicker 'n she'll kitten to one that kittens to her; an', if you set in on this fine place with a bowed head, you'll be duckin' at every turn."

"Well, you go on an' tell her I've got home," was the request of the son. "Tell 'er I want to see 'er, too, an' that right off. You may tell 'er I'm loaded for bear—that I've heard about the way she's been going on with Alf Henley behind my back, an' that a day of reckoning has arrived. It's been delayed, but it's here."

"All right," old Wrinkle said, gravely, "that's the best way. You are comin' to yore senses, Dick. It wouldn't be natural for you to let a fine place an' a little money scare the life out of you. It's lucky Alf ain't here. I don't think he'll give you any trouble, though. Some thought Het's good luck would spoil 'im, but, if I'm any judge, he seems sorter 'shamed about it. He hain't been here but once, an' then acted like a fish out o' water. He's a money-maker, an' too live a chap to want to put on a dead man's shoes. You've come in good time, an' if Het will let you stay you'll be in clover the rest o' yore days. Between you an' Alf I naturally favor you, of course. Me 'n yore Ma felt all right here, but we did have a shaky sort o' claim, you'll admit, bein' akin to the fountain-head in sech a roundabout way, an' with Alf Henley's name in the pot, too. Well, I'll be goin'. Watch the back porch, an' if you see me wave my hat up and down, this way, you come right on. If I was to wave it to one side, like this—but never mind; we'll do the best we kin."

"All right," agreed Dick. "I'll go pick me some ripe peaches. The very sight of 'em makes my mouth water."