apped his big thighs and roared until the rafters
seemed to shake when Tall Tom told him about the dog-fight and the
boy-fight with the family in the next cove: for already the clanship
was forming that was to add the last horror to the coming great war and
prolong that horror for nearly half a century after its close.

By and by, the scarlet figure of little Melissa came shyly out of the
dark shadows behind and drew shyly closer and closer, until she was
crouched in the chimney corner with her face shaded from the fire by
one hand and a tangle of yellow hair, listening and watching him with
her big, solemn eyes, quite fearlessly. Already the house was full of
children and dependents, but no word passed between old Joel and the
old mother, for no word was necessary. Two waifs who had so suffered
and who could so fight could have a home under that roof if they
pleased, forever. And Chad's sturdy little body lay deep in a
feather-bed, and the friendly shadows from a big fireplace flickered
hardly thrice over him before he was asleep. And Jack, for that night
at least, was allowed to curl up by the covered coals, or stretch out
his tired feet, if he pleased, to a warmth that in all the nights of
his life, perhaps, he had never known before.

CHAPTER 3.

A "BLAB SCHOOL" ON KINGDOM COME

Chad was awakened by the touch of a cold nose at his ear, the rasp of a
warm tongue across his face, and the tug of two paws at his cover. "Git
down, Jack!" he said, and Jack, with a whimper of satisfaction, went
back to the fire that was roaring up the chimney, and a deep voice
laughed and called:

"I reckon you better git UP, little man!"

Old Joel was seated at the fire with his huge legs crossed and a pipe
in his mouth. It was before busily astir. There was the sound of
tramping in the frosty air outside and the noise of getting breakfast
ready in the kitchen. As Chad sprang up, he saw Melissa's yellow hair
drop out of sight behind the foot of the bed in the next corner, and he
turned his face quickly, and, slipping behind the foot of his own bed
and into his coat and trousers, was soon at the fire himself, with old
Joel looking him over with shrewd kindliness.

"Yo' dawg's got a heap o' sense," said the old hunter, and Chad told
him how old Jack was, and how a cattle-buyer from the "settlements" of
the Bluegrass had given him to Chad when Jack was badly hurt and his
owner thought he was going to die. And how Chad had nursed