ng. He found the boy wrestling
a little desperately with a mop of wavy chestnut hair which only grew
the more hopeless with every stroke of the brush.

"Never mind that." Caleb met the misapprehension in the boy's eyes.
"Never mind that! And I--I've taken the liberty of digging out this
old canvas shooting coat. It's one I got for Sarah--for my
sister--but, as you say, women folks are mighty skittish about anything
that has to do with a gun. She never would go even so far as to try it
on, but if you don't mind---- That coat of yours must be a trifle hot
for this weather, I should say."

Steve reached out a hand that trembled a little and took the coat. He
took it and stared at it with that same strained and hungry look which
he had bestowed a half hour before upon the "City."

"Do you mean," he asked, and his lips remained parted breathlessly upon
the question, "do you mean--this yere's for me?"

Caleb thought of the "injine"--the "_steam_ injine."

"I mean just that, if you'll have it," he replied. The boy slipped his
little body into the garment and wheeled to survey himself in a mirror.
In comparison with the dismembered swallowtail it was the purple of a
Solomon. There was a cartridge web across its front, with loops, and
after he had looked long and long at his reflection, the boy thrust
both his thumbs into the belt it made.

Then: "Them's fer ketridges," he announced solemnly.

He scowled judiciously and nodded.

And, "I'll hev to git me some, the first thing in the mornin'," he said.

That was his only remark then, and yet Caleb felt amply repaid. Later
he had more to say, but for the time being he merely followed Caleb
back downstairs, walking very stiff and straight except when, with
every few steps, he leaned over the better to see the looped webbing
across his middle.

And at table that evening the man came to know another trait in the odd
little stranger's odd makeup which, coupled with those which he had
already mentally tabulated for future private contemplation, set him to
wondering more than a little.

With the appearance of the first dish upon the table that night the boy
was very frankly nonplussed at the array of implements upon each side
of his plate, placed there for him to manipulate. He scarcely knew one
from the other, and the separate uses for each not at all. But the way
in which he met the problem made Caleb lift his eyes and meet Sarah's
inscrutable glance with somet