under the log, had regained its senses,
squawked hoarsely twice, and walked into the bushes. When Jimmy's mind
turned to his prize, the prize was gone. He had been in the depths as
he sat on the log. But the loss of the pullet brought with it a still
further depression, and Jimmy forgot all about his impersonation of
the "Bald Eagle." He lost his conceit in the red ochre stripes on his
face, and the iridescent feathers in his hat, and the blue-black mud
on his nimble feet. For a few moments he was just a sad-eyed boy who
saw the hand of the whole world raised against him. The cry of the new
baby rang in his ears. The thought of the other boys teasing him about
the number of babies at his house frenzied him; and as his bills of
wrongs grew longer and longer, Jimmy shook his head defiantly at all
the world. For a few hollow moments Jimmy tried to find the straying
chicken. He went through the empty form of spitting in his hand,
saying, before he came down with his index finger,--

[Illustration: _He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet,
and his heart was glad_.]

[Illustration: _He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot,
twisting his face into an agonized knot_.]

"Spit, spit, spy,
Tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye."

[Illustration: "_Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll
hit ye in the eye_."]

He threw a stick in the direction the chicken might have taken, but
he knew that luck--like all the world--was against him, and he had no
heart in the rites that on another day might have brought fortune to
him. His stubbed toe was hurting him, and the murmur of a ripple in
the stream a few rods below the cattle guard called to him enticingly.
As soon as the boy deemed it safe to venture out of the thicket, he
hobbled down to the water's edge, and sat for a long time in the
shade, with the cooling water laving his bruised feet. He knew that
the other boys would miss him, but he did not care. He was enjoying
the gloom that was settling down upon him. Slowly, and by almost
imperceptible degrees, there rose in his consciousness the conviction
of guilt. At the end of an hour, the feeling that he was a thief swept
over him, covering his sense of personal grievance like a mantle. For
another hour he wrestled with a persistent devil that was tempting him
to strangle his scruples; he won. Jimmy Sears had seventeen cents in
his cast-iron bank at home--the result of a year's care