over the mountain, they
were to come together for the night. At the foot of the spur on the
other side, boy and dog came upon the tall man sprawled at full length
across a moss-covered bowlder. The dog dropped behind, but the man's
quick eye caught him:

"Where'd that dog come from, Chad?" Jack put his belly to the earth and
crawled slowly forward--penitent, but determined.

"He broke loose, I reckon. He come tearin' up behind me 'bout an hour
ago, like a house afire. Let him go." Caleb Hazel frowned.

"I told you, Chad, that we'd have no place to keep him."

"Well, we can send him home as easy from up thar as we can from
hyeh--let him go."

"All right!" Chad understood not a whit better than the dog; for Jack
leaped to his feet and jumped around the school-master, trying to lick
his hands, but the school-master was absorbed and would none of him.
There, the mountain-path turned into a wagon-road and the school-master
pointed with one finger.

"Do you know what that is, Chad?"

"No, sir." Chad said "sir" to the school-master now.

"Well, that's"--the school-master paused to give his words
effect--"that's the old Wilderness Road."

Ah, did he not know the old, old Wilderness Road! The boy gripped his
rifle unconsciously, as though there might yet be a savage lying in
ambush in some covert of rhododendron close by. And, as they trudged
ahead, side by side now, for it was growing late, the school-master
told him, as often before, the story of that road and the pioneers who
had trod it--the hunters, adventurers, emigrants, fine ladies and fine
gentlemen who had stained it with their blood; and how that road had
broadened into the mighty way for a great civilization from sea to sea.
The lad could see it all, as he listened, wishing that he had lived in
those stirring days, never dreaming in how little was he of different
mould from the stout-hearted pioneers who beat out the path with their
moccasined feet; how little less full of danger were his own days to
be; how little different had been his own life, and was his our pose
now--how little different after all was the bourn to which his own
restless feet were bearing him.

Chad had changed a good deal since that night after Jack's trial, when
the kind-hearted old Major had turned up at Joel's cabin to take him
back to the Bluegrass. He was taller, broader at shoulder, deeper of
chest; his mouth and eyes were prematurely grave from much brooding and
looked a li