!" the Boy cried.

But the legs only moved faster. Never since he was born did the Boy see
a pair of legs get over the ground like that. He sat down and laughed
and then hurried on to join Sarah.

He didn't tell his sister what had happened. His mother mustn't know
that he had been in a fight. But when he felt the touch of her hand on
his forehead that night as he rose from her knee he couldn't bear the
thought of deceiving her again and so he confessed.

"It wasn't wrong, was it, to fight for a thing like that?" he asked
wistfully.

"No," came the answer. "He needed a thrashing--the little scoundrel, and
I'm glad you did it."

XI

The school flickered out in five weeks and the following summer another
lasted for six weeks.

And then they moved to the land Tom had staked off in the heart of the
great forest fifteen miles from the northern banks of the Ohio. He would
still be in sight of the soil of Kentucky.

The Boy's heart beat with new wonder as they slowly floated across the
broad surface of the river. He could conceive of no greater one.

"There _is_ a bigger one!" his father said. "The Mississippi is the
daddy of 'em all--the Ohio's lost when it rolls into her
banks--stretchin' for a thousand miles an' more from the mountains in
the north way down to the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans."

"And it's all ours?" he asked in wonder.

"Yes, and plenty more big ones that pour into hit from the West."

The Boy saw again the impassioned face of the orator telling the
glories of his country, and his heart swelled with pride.

They left the river and plunged into the trackless forest. No roads had
yet scarred its virgin soil. Only the blazed trail for the first ten
miles--the trail Tom had marked with his own hatchet--and then the
magnificent woods without a mark. Five miles further they penetrated,
cutting down the brush and trees to make way for the wagon.

They stopped at last on a beautiful densely wooded hill near a stream of
limpid water. A rough camp was quickly built Indian fashion and covered
with bear skins.

The next day the father put into the Boy's hand the new axe he had
bought for him.

"You're not quite eight years old, Boy," he said, encouragingly, "but
you're big as a twelve-year-old an' you're spunky. Do you think you can
swing an axe that's a man's size?"

"Yes," was the sturdy answer.

And from that day he did it with a song on his lips no matter how heavy
the heart that beat in