Sad news arrived in Peaceful Valley a week later, for Captain Bemis had passed on, Aunt Abby was in lonely sorrow, and wrote for Chip to come at once.

Her fate was now linked with these people. Aunt Abby had been kind and helpful, and Chip, more than glad to return a little of the obligation, hurried to Christmas Cove.

It was a solemn and silent house she now entered. Aunt Abby, despite the fact that it was not a love-match, mourned her departed companion. The mill’s pertinent silence added gloom, and Chip’s smiling face and affectionate interest was more than welcome to Aunt Abby.

And now that concealment was no longer needed, Chip hastened to tell her story in full.

How utterly Aunt Abby was astonished, how breathlessly she listened to Chip’s recital, and how, when the climax came and Chip assured her that good Old Cy Walker was still alive, Aunt Abby collapsed entirely, sobbing and thanking God all at once, is but a sidelight on this tale.“I couldn’t tell you before,” Chip assured her, while her own tears still flowed. “I was so ashamed and guilty all in one, I couldn’t bear to. I never did so mean a thing in all my life, and never will again. But when Uncle Jud told me what you didn’t, and how much he cared for me, and how you once cared for Uncle Cy, I went all to pieces and told the whole story and sent word to Uncle Cy that day. I feel so guilty now, and so mean, I don’t see how you can forgive me.”

But Aunt Abby’s forgiveness was not slow in coming. The past ten days of sorrow had left her heart very tender. In spite of being “book-larned,” she was very humane. Chip’s sad life and misfortunes appealed to her, as they had to Uncle Jud, and true Christian woman that she was, her heart opened to Chip.

“I hope we shall never be parted while I live,” she said, as the tears came again. “I have no children, and no one to live for but my sister. I am so wonted to Christmas Cove, I could not feel at home anywhere else. If Uncle Jud will consent, I will adopt you legally, and when I am laid away, all I have shall be yours.”

And so Chip McGuire, waif of the wilderness, child of an outlaw, once sold to a human brute, yet fighting her way upward and onward to a better life, despite every drawback, now found a home and mother.

No light of education had illumined her pathway, no Christian teaching and no home example, only the inborn and God-given impulse of purity, self-respect, and gratitude; and yet, like a bud forcing its way up out of a muck heap and into the sunshine, so Chip had emerged to win respect and love.

But all her history is not told yet. She still lacked even a common education. There was still an old man seeking to find her, who was yet wandering afar. A homeless, almost friendless old man was he, whose life had gone amiss, and whose sole ambition was to do for her and find content in her happiness. A wanderer and recluse for many years, he was still more so now, and out of place as well among the busy haunts of men. More than that, he was an object of curiosity to all grown people and the jest of the young, as he tramped up and down the land in search of Chip.

And what a pitiful quest it was,–this asking the same question thousands of times, this lingering in towns to watch mill operatives file out, this peering into stores and marts, to go on again, and repeat it for months and months.There was still another link in this chain,–a boy, so far as experience goes, who was only deterred from unwise haste by a cool-headed man.

“You had better not go to Chip now,” Martin said to him on his return from Peaceful Valley. “She is an odd child of nature, and you won’t lose by waiting. My advice to you is to forget her for the present, find some profitable occupation, and then, when you have made a little advancement in life, go and woo her if you can. To try it now is foolish.”

It was cold comfort for Ray.

One of Chip’s first acts of emancipation was to write to Aunt Comfort and Angie, assuring both of her love and best wishes, and thanking them for all they had done. Both letters were cramped in chirography but correct in spelling, and in Angie’s was a note for Martin, asking that he draw one hundred dollars of her money and send it to her, and as much more to pay some one to follow Old Cy. The latter request Martin ignored, however, for he had already set the machinery of newspaperdom at work, and an advertisement for information of that wanderer was flying far and wide.

Of the money sent her, Chip made odd and quite characteristic uses, only one of which needs mention,–the purchase of a banjo. Had Ray known this, and that the tender memory it invoked was the reason for this investment, he would have had less cause for grief. But Ray did not, which was all the better for him.

And now, while she is in good company at Christmas Cove, with Mr. Bell, syntax, decimal fractions, the planetary system, and divisions of the earth six hours of each school day, or with Aunt Abby sewing, or picking at the banjo, or attending church, we must leave Chip and follow Old Cy.

With a hunter’s instinct he had calculated that Chip would head for the place of her birth, and then, if possible, send word to either himself or the Indian. That she had made way with herself he did not consider probable. She was not of that fibre, he felt positive; but instead, would make her own way across country, working, if need be, to obtain food and shelter until she at last reached the one spot nearest her heart,–her mother’s grave.

Believing this of her, and judging rightly, he left Greenvale, and, as it happened, twice crossed and once followed the very route she had taken for miles. That he failed to hear of her from the many he asked was solely due to accident, added to her own caution in avoiding all observant eyes.And what an almost hopeless and interminable tramp he took! Back and forth across the section of country she was likely to follow for weeks and weeks, halting a day in every village and two or three in each city, asking the same question over and over again, until his indomitable courage and almost deathless faith slowly ebbed away.

Autumn came, the leaves grew scarlet and brown, snow followed, and winter locked all streams, and still Old Cy journeyed on. Spring and sunshine once more warmed the earth into life, the fields grew green, and yet he paused not.

With June and the real beginning of summer, however, came a new inspiration, which was to go at once by rail and stage to Chip’s native town and learn if, perchance, she, or any news of her, had reached this village.

Another thought also came with this,–that Martin might soon again visit the woods and perhaps he could intercept him.

A little satisfaction was obtained by this advance move, for when this village was reached, Levi was found waiting.

“I’ve been watchin’ for the gal over eight months now, under pay from Mr. Frisbie,” he assured Old Cy when they met. “I also sent word to Old Tomah late last fall, ’n’ he came out o’ the woods ’n’ stayed here two months, but nothin’s been heard o’ poor Chip by any one, ’n’ I doubt ever will be.”

“Mebbe not yet,” answered Old Cy, “but thar will be some day, an’ here, too. She hadn’t a cent when she left Greenvale–only grit, ’n’ it’s a long ways here fer a gal what’s got to arn her vittles while she’s trampin’. It may be one year, it may be two, but some day Chip’ll show up here, if she lives to do it. I callate I’d best wait here a few weeks tho’, an’ then, if nothin’ turns up, I’ll start ag’in.”

Nothing did, however; but during his stay, Old Cy learned that Chip’s entire history, from the night she left Tim’s Place until she ran away from Greenvale, was known at this village. This fact was of no value whatever, except to prove the universal interest all humanity has in the fate and fortune of one another.

“I never told what happened in the woods,” Levi responded when Old Cy questioned him, “an’ didn’t need to, for it got here ’fore I did. I jest ’lowed it was true, ’n’ that I was hired to wait and watch here for Chip. It’s curis, too, how everybody here feels ’bout it. They’re a poorish sort here, families o’ lumbermen, men that work in the sawmills, some farmin’, an’ all findin’ it hard work to git a livin’. An’ yet they’re so interested in Chip ’n’ so sorry for her, if she shows up now she’d be carried ’round the village like some queen ’ud be, with everybody follerin’. Thar’s ’nother curis thing happened since I’ve been here that I’d never believed o’ these people neither. I told them, of course, who I was, ’n’ what I was here for, ’n’ who was payin’ me, when I come, an’ then as time kinder went slow, I began huntin’ some ’round here. Wal, thar’s a little graveyard up back o’ the village ’n’ all growed up to weeds ’n’ bushes, an’ one day last fall I happened to be lookin’ it over ’n’ somebody come ’long. It was a man that keeps store here, an’ I asked him if ’twas here Chip’s mother was buried. He said ’twas, an’ pointed out the spot ’way up in one corner, ’thout any stone, ’n’ the mound most hid in a tangle. I didn’t say nothin’–jest looked, an’ went on, ’n’ that was all. Wal, the curis part is last spring they sot a couple o’ men to work cleanin’ up the graveyard o’ bushes an’ laid out walks ’n’ built a new fence ’round it. That one unmarked grave got the most attention o’ all, for they turfed it over nice and built a little fence ’round it. I kinder callated how ’n’ why it all come ’bout, ’n’ feelin’ I oughter do suthin, I had a little stun sot up with Chip’s mother’s name on it.”But time also went “kinder slow” for Old Cy, and as the date for Martin’s probable coming had now passed, he finally yielded to Levi’s suggestion and the call of the wilderness as well, and the two started for Martin’s camp.

It was almost like a pilgrimage to one’s boyhood home; for while scarce a year had elapsed since Old Cy and Martin’s party left it, Nature, always seeking to hide human handiwork, had been busy, and the garden was a tangle of weeds. Amzi’s old cabin was almost hid by bushes, the walks were choked with them, and a colony of squirrels frisked about, and now, alarmed at human presence, added a touch of pathos.

One act of vandalism was in evidence, for some wandering trappers had apparently used the larger cabin the previous season. Its floor was littered with all manner of dÉbris, the bones of a deer mouldered in the woodshed, and a family of porcupines had also found the premises available. The impression conveyed by the entire spot and its surroundings made even Levi gloomy, while Old Cy scarce spoke the entire first day there, except to exclaim at “varmints” who would break locks, use the cabin for months, and then leave a litter of garbage to draw vermin.“It’s curis how near to hogs ’n’ hyenas a few humans are,” he said as he looked around and saw how these vandals had behaved. “They wa’n’t satisfied with burglin’ the cabin, turnin’ it into a pig-pen, stealin’ all they could carry off, but they was so durned lazy, they smashed up the furniture to burn.”

For a few days only these two fine old backwoodsmen tarried here, and then Old Cy proposed departure.

“I can’t take no comfort here, nohow,” he said, “for the premises seem ha’nted. Whichever way I turn I ’spect to meet Amzi with his moon eyes, or see Chip watchin’ me, or Angie steppin’ out o’ the cabin. If I stayed here long, I’d see Chip’s spites crawlin’ out o’ the bushes soon ez it got dusky. I’m used to the woods, but this spot seems like a graveyard.

“I never done no prayin’,” he added sadly. “I don’t b’lieve in’t. But if I could set eyes on Chip this minit, I’d go right down on my knees ’n’ say, ’Thank God for this blessin’.’ I’m ’fraid I never will, though.”

The next morning these two friends left this abode of unseen forms, more disconsolate than ever. They halted at Tim’s Place long enough to learn that no tidings of McGuire or the half-breed had even reached that filthy station, and then returned to the settlement once more. Here Old Cy waited until the summer waned, vainly hoping each day would at least bring some word from Martin or Chip, and then bade Levi good-bye, and departed.

He had been gone a week, a wandering tramp once more, when Ray appeared, bearing the glad news that Chip had been found. And also another and a more astounding fact.

But Old Cy was not there.