beneficent thing, do you know, saving a man's life?" He glanced up at
her flushed face, and she smiled deprecatingly. He fancied her smiles
were rare.

"But it is quite true. Where would I be now but for you and Hoyle here?
Lying under the lee side of the station coughing my life away,--and all
my own fault, too. I should have accepted the bishop's invitation."

"You helped me when the colt was bad." Her soft voice, low and
monotonous, fell musically on his ear when she spoke.

"Naturally--but how about that, anyway? It's a wonder you weren't
killed. How came a youngster like you there alone with those beasts?"
Thryng had an abrupt manner of springing a question which startled the
child, and he edged away, furtively watching his sister.

[Illustration: _"Casabianca, was it?" said Thryng, smiling. Page 17._]

"Did you hitch that kicking brute alone and drive all that distance?"

"Aunt Sally, she he'ped me to tie up; she give him co'n whilst I th'owed
on the strops, an' when he's oncet tied up, he goes all right." The atom
grinned. "Hit's his way. He's mean, but he nevah works both ends to
oncet."

"Good thing to know; but you're a hero, do you understand that?" The
child continued to edge away, and David reached out and drew him to his
side. Holding him by his two sharp little elbows, he gave him a playful
shake. "I say, do you know what a hero is?"

The startled boy stopped grinning and looked wildly to his sister, but
receiving only a smile of reassurance from her, he lifted his great eyes
to Thryng's face, then slowly the little form relaxed, and he was drawn
within the doctor's encircling arm.

"I don't reckon," was all his reply, which ambiguous remark caused
David, in his turn, to look to the sister for elucidation. She held a
long, lighted candle in her hand, and paused to look back as she was
leaving the room.

"Yes, you do, honey son. You remembah the boy with the quare long name
sistah told you about, who stood there when the ship was all afiah and
wouldn't leave because his fathah had told him to bide? He was a hero."
But Hoyle was too shy to respond, and David could feel his little heart
thumping against his arm as he held him.

"Tell the gentleman, Hoyle. He don't bite, I reckon," called the mother
from her corner.

"His name begun like yourn, Cass, but I cyan't remembah the hull of it."

"Casabianca, was it?" said Thryng, smiling.

"I reckon. Did you-uns know him?"

"When I was a small c