were twitching, his slender nostrils quivering, and indeed, he had the appearance of a man having strayed off some great distance by himself.

"Swear you'll never give me away, Miner," he began, and holding up one of his big hands in the sunlight—his hands which were the truly beautiful thing about him—he made a mystic sign to which his companion swore.

"You won't understand when I do tell you," he hedged, "but I've been comin' away off to myself every spring since I was a boy on account of the 'Second Song of Solomon.'"

And at this Miner groaned, shutting his near-sighted eyes. "Lord, he's the chap that had a thousand wives!"

Then back to earth came Ambrose, his blue eyes swimming in mists of laughter and his shouts waking all the echoes in the hills.

"Wives!" he cried, rolling his long body over and over in the grass, and kicking out his legs in sheer ecstasy, "Miner Hobbs, if ever you git an idea fixed in your head, earthquakes won't shake it. Wives, is it? Why, I ain't given Peachy Williams a thought of my own accord since I started on this trip, nor any other girl, for that matter, so I can't for the land sakes see why I have been havin' her poked at me so continual! 'Course there wouldn't be sense in me denyin' that I have a hankerin' for girls; flesh and blood, 'ceptin' yours, Miner Hobbs, cannot deny the kind we raise in Kentucky. However, they ain't been on my mind this trip. Old King Solomon done a lot of things besides havin' a thousand wives—they was his recreation. He builded a temple and founded a nation and wrote pretty nigh the greatest poetry heard in these parts."

Here the speaker commenced pulling at the damp earth to hide his embarrassment, and then made a pretence of examining the soil that came up in his hand.

"It's the 'Second Song of Solomon' I'm meanin', Miner, and I've already told you you ain't goin' to comprehend me when I do explain," he continued patiently, "but bein's as it's you, I reckon I've got to try. It's that song about spring. Ever since I was a little boy and first heard it, why it began a-callin' me to get away for a little space to myself to try and kind of hear things grow. It's a disappointin' reason for me sneakin' off, ain't it, and foolish? I wish I had been doin' somethin' with more snap to it, just to gratify Pennyroyal. But at first, you see, I didn't mean nothin' in particular by not tellin', knowin' that folks would think my real reason outlandish, but by and by when the town got so all-fired curious and kept sayin' I was up to different sorts of mischief, I just thought I'd keep 'em guessin'." Now the long face was quivering in its eagerness to make things clear. "Why, it seems to me from the time that the first green tips come peepin' up between the stubble in the winter fields I kin hear that Solomon Song a-beatin' and a-beatin' in my ears. 'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.'"

But poor Miner was making a cup for his ear with his hand. "But turtles ain't voices, Ambrose, that anybody knows of," he murmured dimly; "it's frogs we hear croakin' along the river bank."

And this time Ambrose laughed to himself. "It's croaks you're always hearin', old fellow, ain't it?" he whispered affectionately. And then—"I reckon it makes no difference to me whether it's a frog or a turtle, a bird or even a tree toad. It's the song of life, I'm listenin' for, Miner."

CHAPTER III