The voices of the wilderness might call, and he could not keep from hearing them, but he need not go.

The amount of work he did that day was wonderful to all who saw, his vast strength put him far ahead of all others and back of his strength was his will.

But they said nothing and he was glad they did not speak.
When he went home in the dusk he overtook Lucy Upton near the palisade.
She was in the same red dress that she wore when she ran the gantlet and in the twilight it seemed to be tinged to a deeper scarlet.

She was walking swiftly with the easy, swinging grace of a good figure and good health, but when he joined her she went more slowly.
He did not speak for a few moments, and she gave him a silent glance of sympathy.

In her woman's heart she guessed the cause of his trouble, and while she had been afraid of him when he appeared suddenly as the Indian warrior yet she liked him better in that part than as she now saw him.
Then he was majestic, now he was prosaic, and it seemed to her that his present role was unfitting.
"You are tired," she said at last.
"Well, not in the body exactly, but I feel like resting." There was no complaint in his tone, but a slight touch of irony.
"Do you think that you will make a good farmer ?" she asked.
"As good as the times and our situation allow," he replied.