s. He felt terribly hurt and betrayed.
Long indeed was it before he forgot Hookey.

Swiftly that winter passed. Pan had a happy growing time of it. Study
had not seemed so irksome, perhaps owing to the fact that he had a
horse and saddle; he could ride to and fro; he often stopped to see
Lucy who was now big enough to want to go to school herself; and the
teacher had won his love. Pan kept out of fights with Dick Hardman
until one recess when Dick called him "teacher's pet." That inflamed
Pan, as much because of the truth of it as the shame. So this time,
though he had hardly picked a fight, he was the first to strike. With
surprising suddenness he hit the big Dick square on the nose. When
Dick got up howling and swearing, his face was hideous with dirt and
blood. Then began a battle that dwarfed the one in the barn. Pan had
grown considerably. He was quick and strong, and when once his
mother's fighting blood burned in him he was as fierce as a young
savage. But again Dick whipped him.

Miss Hill, grieved and sorrowful, sent Pan home with a note. It
chanced that both his father and mother were at home when he arrived.
They stood aghast at his appearance.

"You dirty ragged bloody boy!" cried his mother, horrified.

"Huh! You oughta see Dick Hardman!" ejaculated Pan.

The lad thought he had ruined himself forever with Miss Amanda Hill.
But to his amaze and joy he had not. Next day she kept him in after
school, cried over him, kissed him, talked long and earnestly. All
that Pan remembered was: "Something terrible will come of your hate for
Dick Hardman if you don't root it out of your heart."

"Teacher--why don't you--talk to Dick this way?" faltered Pan, always
won by her tenderness.

"Because Dick is a different kind of a boy," she replied, but never
explained what she meant.

At Christmas time the parents of the school children gave a party at
the schoolhouse. Every one on the range for miles around was there.
Pan for once had his fill of seeing cowboys. Miss Amanda was an
attraction no cowboys could resist. That night Pan spoke his first
piece entitled: "Sugar-tooth Dick for sweeties was sick."

To Pan it seemed a silly piece, but he spoke it to please Miss Amanda,
and because it was a hit at Dick Hardman. To his surprise he received
a roar of applause. After the supper, dancing began. Some of the
cowboys got drunk. There were fights, two of which Pan saw, to his
thrilling fear and a