eachers for what they were doing
for mountain boys and girls. As he stood there well dressed, erect,
manly, he bore little resemblance to the forlorn boy who had crept
away from his cabin home at Hollow Hut a year before.

As the crowd dispersed a little after the speech-making, in which
several took part, Mr. Polk and Steve walked away together and passed
a group of teachers and students of which the visiting lady of Mr.
Polk's acquaintance was the centre.

"Come here, Mr. Polk, please, and bring Steve to see me," she called.

Miss Grace Trowbridge was one of the group and Mr. Polk halted
reluctantly, but finally joined them.

Before a word could be exchanged a tall, lank, grim mountaineer
slouched forward and laid a horny hand upon Steve's shoulder. The
startled boy looked up to see his father standing beside him!

The Kentucky mountain product, unlike any other so-called shiftless
man in the world, may idle his days away with pipe and drink, but let
a wrong, real or fancied, be done him or his and in his thirst for
vengeance he is transformed. His energy, his perseverance, his
intelligence, his fury become colossal. So, Jim Langly, convinced
after months of waiting and brooding that his boy had been enticed
away by the giver of the watch, had set out with a grim purpose of
finding boy and man which had been undaunted by any obstacle. With
slow but persistent effort he had traced the child over mountain and
valley, often losing all clue, but never relaxing till at last he had
reached Mr. Follet and learned that the boy was in school. From thence
he easily made his way to the school of Mr. Polk's selection, and,
arriving by strange providence upon a gala day, had found the two
objects of his search at the same moment.

"I've found ye at last," he said grimly, "an' when I set eyes on the
man whut give ye that watch and tolled my boy away from his home, I'll
shoot him down lack a dog!"

Mr. Polk quietly walked out and said, "I am your man, Mr. Langly."

"You," the enraged mountaineer yelled, and jerking a pistol from his
trousers pocket, he lifted and would have cocked it, but quick as a
deer Grace Trowbridge had stepped in front of Mr. Polk, protecting him
with her body, while Steve threw himself on his father and screamed
shrilly, dropping into the speech of the mountains:

"No, oh, pappy, pappy, don't shoot him! He nuver got me ter leave
home; I went myself, and I'll go back with yer and stay all my life!"