ch and a start; but as the years drifted by he had not succeeded in
raising much except a numerous family of dirty, unkempt youngsters of
whom Dan was the oldest and the most promising specimen, the one who
had inherited his father's pride and selfishness, with a certain
natural shrewdness and sagacity that his mother's family possessed,
but of which she had failed to receive much.

While Malden's wife lived, they managed to silently share in the
income of Pine Tree Ranch, but after she died the smuggling business
between the big place and Dean's Lane suddenly stopped. Nothing ever
cut deeper--they could never forgive her for dying. At last they
settled down to a stolid, long wait for the old man's end. The chief
theme of conversation at home was the uncertainties of life for the
"old miser," and the sure probability of their move some day on to the
big ranch, though not one of them knew what they would do with it if
they got it. Dan felt no hesitation about telling this at school, and
it was common gossip of the county.

But alas! the night Dan came home and excitedly told the family, as
they looked up from their rough board table and bacon and mush and
molasses, that "the old man had taken Teale's kid in, sure he had,"
consternation seized them. It took them weeks to rally; and, when they
did, for the first time in their history the family had an object in
life, and that was to make life miserable for Job.

Unsuspecting and innocent, the twelve-year-old lad had gone over to
play with the Dean children, as he would at any home, till the time
when petty persecutions culminated in all the rude youngsters calling
him vile names and throwing stones at him, and the father standing by
and drawling out, "Give it to him, the ornery critter!"

Annoyance followed annoyance. Job's pets always got hurt or
disappeared. Dick, his first pony, was accidentally lamed for life;
the big dog he romped with was found dead from poison. All the
mischief in the neighborhood was eventually laid at Job's door. For a
long time the boy systematically avoided the Deans, till by some
strange political fortune Marshall Dean was appointed postmaster for
the Pine Mountain post-office. That was a gala day in Deans' Lane.
Sally Dean had a brand-new dress on the strength of it, and Dan gave
himself more airs than ever before. After that Job was obliged to go
to the Deans' twice a week for the mail, and more than once went away
with the suspicion that