And the city with its heat and noise, its nervous throb, its bedlam nights, all dropped like a fever from his soul.
Now, close by the railroad track, through a shallow rocky gorge a small river roared and foamed.

Its cool breath came up to his nostrils and gratefully he breathed it in.

For this was the Gale River, named after one of his forefathers, and in his mind's eye he followed the stream back up its course to the little station where he and Deborah were to get off.
There the narrowing river bed turned and wound up through a cleft in the hills to the homestead several miles away.

On the dark forest road beside it he pictured George, his grandson, at this moment driving down to meet them in a mountain wagon with one of the two hired men, a lantern swinging under the wheels.

What an adventure for young George.
Presently he heard Deborah stirring in the berth next to his own.
At the station George was there, and from a thermos bottle which Edith had filled the night before he poured coffee piping hot, which steamed in the keen, frosty air.
"Oh, how good!" cried Deborah.