after a desperate struggle, and climbed into bed. The wind, whistling
in, obligingly blew out the lamp for him. It shrieked and howled about
the eaves and the old house squeaked and groaned. Albert pulled the
comforter up about his neck and concentrated upon the business of going
to sleep. He, who could scarcely remember when he had had a real home,
was desperately homesick.

Downstairs in the dining-room Captain Zelotes stood, his hands in his
pockets, looking through the mica panes of the stove door at the fire
within. His wife came up behind him and laid a hand on his sleeve.

"What are you thinkin' about, Father?" she asked.

Her husband shook his head. "I was wonderin'," he said, "what my
granddad, the original Cap'n Lote Snow that built this house, would have
said if he'd known that he'd have a great-great-grandson come to live in
it who was," scornfully, "a half-breed."

Olive's grip tightened on his arm.

"Oh, DON'T talk so, Zelotes," she begged. "He's our Janie's boy."

The captain opened the stove door, regarded the red-hot coals for an
instant, and then slammed the door shut again.

"I know, Mother," he said grimly. "It's for the sake of Janie's half
that I'm takin' in the other."

"But--but, Zelotes, don't you think he seems like a nice boy?"

The twinkle reappeared in Captain Lote's eyes.

"I think HE thinks he's a nice boy, Mother," he said. "There, there,
let's go to bed."

CHAPTER II

The story of the events which led up to the coming, on this December
night, of a "half-breed" grandson to the Snow homestead, was an old
story in South Harniss. The date of its beginning was as far back as the
year 1892.

In the fall of that year Captain Zelotes Snow was in Savannah. He was in
command of the coasting schooner Olive S. and the said schooner was then
discharging a general cargo, preparatory to loading with rice and cotton
for Philadelphia. With the captain in Savannah was his only daughter,
Jane Olivia, age a scant eighteen, pretty, charming, romantic and
head over heels in love with a handsome baritone then singing in a
popular-priced grand opera company. It was because of this handsome
baritone, who, by the way, was a Spaniard named Miguel Carlos Speranza,
that Jane Snow was then aboard her father's vessel. Captain Lote was not
in the habit of taking his women-folks on his voyages with him. "Skirts
clutter up the deck too much," was his opinion.

He had taken Jane, however, not only