As she considered all these possibilities, quite reasonable to her
suspicious mind, she shuddered.

But then, as she went slowly down the mountain path beside the stranger
she looked up and caught the frank calm glances of his eyes.

Surely there was nothing of cowardice such as would fool a trusting girl
into betrayal of her friends, in them; surely there was not the low
craft of a spy in them; surely their clear and unexcited gaze was not
that of a keen hunter, unscrupulously on the trail of human game, who
has just learned through the innocent indiscretion of a girl who trusted
him, the secret of its covert.

As she looked at him she was convinced of two things, vastly comforting.
One was that Layson had no knowledge of the still; that, untrained to
mountain ways and unsuspicious, he had not even guessed at the secret
of the little hidden place among the mountains. Another was--and this
gave her, although she could have scarcely explained why, a greater
comfort than the first had--that had he had that knowledge he would not
have used it meanly.

She thrilled pleasantly with the complete conviction that the man whom
she had liked so much at first sight, the man who had shown such pluck
in saving her from fire, the man who had exhibited such thoughtfulness
and helpfulness in starting her upon the rocky path toward education,
was true and fair and fine--was, in the curt language of the mountains,
"decent."

When she left him at the foot of the rough path which wound up to the
cabin where she lived alone, she had quite recovered confidence in him.