noon he took out a piece of bread-and-butter with meat between
and hid it in the hay, and Jim Leonard brought some eggs. He said he had
no chance to boil them without his mother seeing, but he asked Pony if he
did not know that raw eggs were first-rate, and when Pony said no, he
said, "Well, they are." They broke one of the eggs when they were hiding
them, and it ran over the bread-and-butter, but they wiped it off with
hay as well as they could, and Jim Leonard said maybe it would help to
keep it, anyway.

[Illustration: "'WHY, YOU AIN'T AFRAID, ARE YOU, PONY?'"]

When he came round to Pony's house the next Friday afternoon from school
he asked him if he had heard the news, and when Pony said no, he said that
the fellow that ran off had been taken up in the city by the watchman. He
was crying on the street, and he said he had nowhere to sleep, and had not
had anything to eat since the night before.

Pony's heart seemed to be standing still. He had always supposed that as
soon as he ran off he should be free from all the things that hindered and
vexed him; and, although he expected to be sorry for his father and
mother, he expected to get along perfectly well without them. He had never
thought about where he should sleep at night after he got to the city, or
how he should get something to eat.

"Now, you see, Pony," said Jim Leonard, "what a good thing it was that I
thought about provisioning you before you started. What makes you look
so?"

Pony said, "I'm not looking!"

Jim Leonard said, "You're not afraid, are you, just because that fellow
got took up? You're not such a cowardy-calf as to want to back out now?"

The tears came into Pony's eyes.

"Cowardy-calf yourself, Jim Leonard! You've backed out long ago!"

"You'll see whether I've backed out," said Jim Leonard. "I'm coming round
to sleep in the barn with you to-night, and help you to get a good start
in the morning. And maybe I'll start myself to-morrow. I will if I can get
anybody to help me make the raft and bring it through the woods. Now let's
go up into the loft and see if the provisions are all safe."

They dug the provisions up out of the hay and Jim Leonard broke one of the
eggs against the wall. It had a small chicken in it, and he threw it away.
Another egg smelt so that they could hardly stand it.

"I don't believe these eggs are very good," said Jim Leonard. "I got them
out of a nest that the hen had left; mother said I might have them all