now, to bed. Dick, you're a fool. I've had to tell you so more
than once. But you're a dear fool, and sometime I may be able to
remember that and nothing else. Just now I can't seem to want to do
anything but pitch you, neck and crop, into the snow."

They went down together, Dick still doggedly conscious of doing the only
thing possible, and when they were near the foot of the hill, Raven
yelled at him, the old Moosewood whoop, and sprang. It was the signal
between them when one or the other had a mind to "wrastle," and they
stood there in the road and assailed each other scientifically and with
vigor, to the great benefit of each. It was a beneficent outburst, and
Charlotte, roused by the cry, ran to a chamber window and stood there in
her nightgown, watching.

"How they do carry on!" she commented to Jerry, when they had separated
and come in, chaffing volubly. "For all the world like two toms."

Things were easier between them, now they had mauled each other, and
they ran upstairs together, "best friends" as they used to be when Dick
learned the game. He was wonderfully encouraged. This was the Uncle Jack
he used to tag about the place. He went to bed with a hopeful
presentiment that, if things kept on like this, he might take Raven back
to town presently, reasonable enough to place himself voluntarily in the
right hands.

To Tira, the week dragged on with a malicious implication of never
meaning to end until it ended her. Strange things could be done in a
week, it reminded her, conclusive, sinister things. The old fears were
on in full force, and though it had not looked as if they could be much
augmented, now they piled up mountain high. And she presently found out
they were not the old fears at all. There was a fresh menace,
ingeniously new. She had studied the weather of Tenney's mind and knew
the signs of it. She could even anticipate them. But this new menace she
could never have foreseen. It was simply his crutch. An evil magic
seemed to have fallen upon it, and it was no longer a crutch but a
weapon. Tenney would not abandon it. His foot was improving fast, and
the doctor had suggested his dropping the crutch for a cane; but he kept
on with it, kept on obstinately without a spoken pretext. To Tira, there
was something sinister in that. She saw him not relying on it to any
extent, but sedulously keeping it by him. Sometimes he gesticulated with
it. He had, with great difficulty, brought in the cradle again