I love the North already, and I've hardly
seen it. We could have a cabin in the woods, and get some furniture
when we could afford it, and then we could arrange it so cozily.
Really, I would be crazy about it. And we could have trout every day,
and wild ducks, and venison. If we could afford a screened porch we
could eat and sleep on it, and in the living room we could have a
table----"

"Good Lord, girl, arrangin' furniture again!" cried old John. "An I'd
come home some night an' break my neck before I could find the
matchbox. If we was to live in a cabin I'd spike the stuff to the
floor! But--maybe it won't be so bad as all that."

"I've been hateful to you of late, Dad, because of--of Oskar. But
really, you made an awful mistake. I should think you would know that
he couldn't have taken that coat. It isn't in him!"

"I never said he ate it," grinned the man.

"Oh, don't joke about it! Dad, I love Oskar. He's--oh, he's
everything a man should be, and it hurts me so to have them saying he
is a thief. He isn't a thief! And the time will come when he will
prove it. Promise me, Dad, that when he does prove it, you will make
every effort in your power to right the wrong you have done him."

Old John's hand rested for a moment upon the girl's head. "I promise
all that, girl. Surely ye know I can be just. If it is as ye say,
I'll more than make it up to him. I promise ye, his name shall not
suffer."

"I love you, Dad. I know you are just--but you're a hard-hearted old
Scot, just the same. You don't make many mistakes, but you have made
two--about Oskar, and about hiring that Wentworth. I told you you'd be
sorry."

"Well, maybe ye're right," and John McNabb never blinked an eye.

"See, didn't I just say you were hard-headed? You won't admit you made
a mistake even after what Orcutt told you to-day. But tell me
honestly, Dad, are you ruined?"

"Well, we won't worry about that, lass. D'ye hear the hoot-owl? I
like to hear them of nights. I found one's nest once an' I took the
three eggs out an' slipped them under a hen that Mother McFarlane had
settin'. It was at Long Lake post, Mother McFarlane was the factor's
wife, an' I was his clerk. The eggs had been sat on a long time an'
they hatched out before the hen eggs. Ye should have seen Mother
McFarlane's face when she caught sight of them chickens! It was one of
the best jokes I ever made."

"And here you ought to be as solemn as an