ttle defiant, as though the boy expected hostility from the
world and was prepared to meet it, but there was no bitterness in them,
and luminous about the lad was the old atmosphere of brave, sunny cheer
and simple self-trust that won people to him.

The Major and old Joel had talked late that night after Jack's trial.
The Major had come down to find out who Chad was, if possible, and to
take him back home, no matter who he might be. The old hunter looked
long into the fire.

"Co'se I know hit 'ud be better fer Chad, but, Lawd, how we'd hate to
give him up. Still, I reckon I'll have to let him go, but I can stand
hit better, if you can git him to leave Jack hyeh." The Major smiled.
Did old Joel know where Nathan Cherry lived? The old hunter did. Nathan
was a "damned old skinflint who lived across the mountain on Stone
Creek--who stole other folks' farms and if he knew anything about Chad
the old hunter would squeeze it out of his throat; and if old Nathan,
learning where Chad now was, tried to pester him he would break every
bone in the skinflint's body." So the Major and old Joel rode over next
day to see Nathan, and Nathan with his shifting eyes told them Chad's
story in a high, cracked voice that, recalling Chad's imitation of it,
made the Major laugh. Chad was a foundling, Nathan said: his mother was
dead and his father had gone off to the Mexican War and never come
back: he had taken the mother in himself and Chad had been born in his
own house, when he lived farther up the river, and the boy had begun to
run away as soon as he was old enough to toddle. And with each sentence
Nathan would call for confirmation on a silent, dark-faced daughter who
sat inside: "Didn't he, Betsy?" or "Wasn't he, gal?" And the girl would
nod sullenly, but say nothing. It seemed a hopeless mission except
that, on the way back, the Major learned that there were one or two
Bufords living down the Cumberland, and like old Joel, shook his head
over Nathan's pharisaical philanthropy to a homeless boy and wondered
what the motive under it was--but he went back with the old hunter and
tried to get Chad to go home with him. The boy was rock-firm in his
refusal.

"I'm obleeged to you, Major, but I reckon I better stay in the
mountains." That was all Chad would say, and at last the Major gave up
and rode back over the mountain and down the Cumberland alone, still on
his quest. At a blacksmith's shop far down the river he found a man who
had "h