njo as sly
plots of the same to draw their souls to hell.

Chad felt the master's look, and he did not begin playing again, but
put the banjo down by his chair and the dance came to an end. Once more
Chad saw the master look, this time at Sintha, who was leaning against
the wall with a sturdy youth in a fringed hunting-shirt bending over
her--his elbow against a log directly over her shoulder, Sintha saw the
look, too, and she answered with a little toss of her head, but when
Caleb Hazel turned to go out the door, Chad saw that the girl's eyes
followed him. A little later, Chad went out too, and found the master
at the corner of the fence and looking at a low red star whose rich,
peaceful light came through a gap in the hills. Chad shyly drew near
him, hoping in some way to get a kindly word, but the master was so
absorbed that he did not see or hear the boy and Chad, awed by the
stern, solemn face, withdrew and, without a word to anybody, climbed
into the loft and went to bed. He could hear every stroke on the floor
below, every call of the prompter, and the rude laughter and banter,
but he gave little heed to it all. For he lay thinking of Caleb Hazel
and listening again to the stories he and the cattle-dealer had told
him about the wonderful settlements. "God's Country," the dealer always
called it, and such it must be, if what he and the master said was
true. By and by the steady beat of feet under him, the swift notes of
the banjo, the calls of the prompter and the laughter fused, became
inarticulate, distant--ceased. And Chad, as he was wont to do,
journeyed on to "God's Country" in his dreams.

CHAPTER 4.

THE COMING OF THE TIDE

While the corn grew, school went on and, like the corn, Chad's
schooling put forth leaves and bore fruit rapidly. The boy's mind was
as clear as his eye and, like a mountain-pool, gave back every image
that passed before it. Not a word dropped from the master's lips that
he failed to hear and couldn't repeat, and, in a month, he had put
Dolph and Rube, who, big as they were, had little more than learned the
alphabet, to open shame; and he won immunity with his fists from gibe
and insult from every boy within his inches in school--including Tad
Dillon, who came in time to know that it was good to let the boy alone.
He worked like a little slave about the house, and, like Jack, won his
way into the hearts of old Joel and his wife, and even of Dolph and
Rube, in spite of their sore