as, have you got--hasn't the Ol' Chief got any--less
glorious breeches than those?"

"Hey?"

"Anything little cheaper?"

"Nuh," says Nicholas.

The Boy closed his eyes, relieved on the whole. Fate had a mind to see
him in chaparejos. Let her look to the sequel, then!

When consciousness came back it brought the sound of Yagorsha's yarning
by the fire, and the occasional laugh or grunt punctuating the eternal
"Story."

The Colonel was sitting there among them, solacing himself by adding to
the smoke that thickened the stifling air.

Presently the Story-teller made some shrewd hit, that shook the Pymeut
community into louder grunts of applause and a general chuckling. The
Colonel turned his head slowly, and blew out a fresh cloud: "Good
joke?"

In the pause that fell thereafter, Yagorsha, imperturbable, the only
one who had not laughed, smoothed his lank, iron-gray locks down on
either side of his wide face, and went on renewing the sinew open-work
in his snow-shoe.

"When Ol' Chief's father die--"

All the Pymeuts chuckled afresh. The Boy listened eagerly. Usually
Yagorsha's stories were tragic, or, at least, of serious interest,
ranging from bereaved parents who turned into wolverines, all the way
to the machinations of the Horrid Dwarf and the Cannibal Old Woman.

The Colonel looked at Nicholas. He seemed as entertained as the rest,
but quite willing to leave his family history in professional hands.

"Ol' Chief's father, Glovotsky, him Russian," Yagorsha began again,
laying down his sinew-thread a moment and accepting some of the
Colonel's tobacco.

"I didn't know you had any white blood in you," interrupted the
Colonel, offering his pouch to Nicholas. "I might have suspected
Muckluck--"

"Heap got Russian blood," interrupted Joe.

As the Story-teller seemed to be about to repeat the enlivening
tradition concerning the almost mythical youth of Ol' Chief's father,
that subject of the great Katharine's, whose blood was flowing still in
Pymeut veins, just then in came Yagorsha's daughter with some message
to her father. He grunted acquiescence, and she turned to go. Joe
called something after her, and she snapped back. He jumped up to bar
her exit. She gave him a smart cuff across the eyes, which surprised
him almost into the fire, and while he was recovering his equilibrium
she fled. Yagorsha and all the Pymeuts laughed delightedly at Joe's
discomfiture.

The Boy had been obliged to sit up to watc