c? By godfreys domino, the way
they pet and stuff that fool horse is a sin and a shame. It ain't Lote's
fault so much as 'tis his wife's--she's responsible. Don't you fret,
Bub, the cap'n'll be here for you some time to-night. If he said he'll
come he'll come, even if he has to hire one of them limmysines. He, he,
he! All you've got to do is wait, and . . . Hey! . . . Hold on a minute!
. . . Bub!"

The boy was walking away. And to hail him as "Bub" was, although Jim
Young did not know it, the one way least likely to bring him back.

"Bub!" shouted Jim again. Receiving no reply he added what he had
intended saying. "If I run afoul of Cap'n Lote anywheres on the road,"
he called, "I'll tell him you're here a-waitin'. So long, Bub. Git dap,
Chain Lightnin'."

The horse, thus complimented, pricked up one ear, lifted a foot, and
jogged off. The depot wagon became merely a shadowy smudge against the
darkness of the night. For a few minutes the "chock, chock" of the hoofs
upon the frozen road and the rattle of wheels gave audible evidence of
its progress. Then these died away and upon the windswept platform of
the South Harniss station descended the black gloom of lonesomeness
so complete as to make that which had been before seem, by comparison,
almost cheerful.

The youth upon that platform turned up his coat collar, thrust his
gloved hands into his pockets, and shivered. Then, still shivering,
he took a brisk walk up and down beside the suitcase and, finally,
circumnavigated the little station. The voyage of discovery was
unprofitable; there was nothing to discover. So far as he could
see--which was by no means far--upon each side of the building was
nothing but bare fields and tossing pines, and wind and cold and
blackness. He came to anchor once more by the suitcase and drew a long,
hopeless breath.

He thought of the cheery dining room at the school he had left the day
before. Dinner would be nearly over by now. The fellows were having
dessert, or, probably, were filing out into the corridors, the younger
chaps to go to the study hall and the older ones--the lordly seniors, of
whom he had been one--on the way to their rooms. The picture of his own
cheerful, gay room in the senior corridor was before his mind; of that
room as it was before the telegram came, before the lawyer came with
the letter, before the end of everything as he knew it and the beginning
of--this. He had not always loved and longed for that schoo