he knew on—she hed a voice like a steel trap, and when she got her teeth sot in a argument she never did let up. I brung her along with me, and the gun he give me, but I didn't take nuthin' else."
Caleb waited there until he knew that the boy had finished.
"You never bothered about that old tin box?" he inquired casually.
The boy shook his head again.
"Old Tom, whenever he went away for a spell, always sed I wan't to meddle with it," he explained. "This time I reckoned his goin' was just about the same thing, only he won't be comin' back, so I—I just locked the box up in the cubberd and hitched the staple into the door and come down myself."
By the time that meal was finished the boy's eyes were so heavy-lidded that, fight as he would, they still persisted in drooping till the long lashes curled over his cheeks. And in spite of Caleb's remonstrance it was Sarah who saw him upstairs and into the huge guest-room with its four-poster and high-boy and spindle-backed chairs.
When she came back downstairs her eyes were shining more than a little and the flush upon her cheeks was undeniably rose. Her brother, from his seat before the unlighted fireplace, puffed methodically upon his pipe and barely lifted his head at her coming. He was deep in meditation. She stood looking at him for a time from the foot of the stairway.
"He's asleep," she began finally in a very little voice. "He fell asleep almost before his cheek touched the pillow."
Caleb made no answer. He nodded but his eyes were vacant with thoughts of his own.
"Cal," she went on, "did you give him that old coat of mine?"
Caleb nodded again—an affirmative.
"Well, the last thing he asked before he slept was that I deliver a message to you. 'Tell him thanks for me,' he said. 'Tell him I clean forgot it til now!' And as for me, Cal—why—why, 'he'd git me anuther, anytime I took the notion thet I wanted one!'"
And still Caleb nodded. The room was quiet for a long time.
"Sarah," he murmured at last.
"Yes, Cal," she answered.
"Has that boy's—yarn—set you to thinking a little?"
"It was very interesting and unusual," she admitted. Then she rose and crossed over to his chair and perched herself, with odd, elfish, girlish grace upon its arm.
"Do you mean Old Tom's tin box?" she asked gently.
And he nodded.
"Yes, in part—yes," he said. "But not just that alone, either. I mean everything, Sarah. The way he handles himself; the way he looks one in the face when he is talking. The—the—now what are you grinning over?"
She stroked his sparse hair.
"Cal, you old romancer, you. Who'd ever suspect it in a man of your age and—and avoirdupois!"
"Avoirdupois!" he snorted. "Can't a man continue to have ideas now and then, even if he does become a—a trifle plump. And that boy—why, Sarah I tell you——!"
And then his sister put one hand over his lips.
"I know, Cal," she interrupted placidly. "I know! You're going to tell me, once more, your pet theory that there's many a boy in that backwoods who might paint a great canvas, or model a deathless bronze—or—or lead a lost cause, if he could only be found and provided with the chance. It sounds—it sounds very big and grand and romantic, Cal, but has it ever occurred to you that anyone big enough for things like those would find the way himself?"
Immediately, jerkily, Caleb started to straighten up. Argumentatively—and then she checked him.
"Oh, I know you don't believe it and I—I don't think I do myself, Cal. A man has to know what opportunity is before he can go out and hunt up his own big chance. I just said it for the sake of argument, Cal. I—I'm like Samanthy—ole Samanthy, you know! I'm a woman, and when I git my teeth sot in a argumint I never do let up. Have your dreams, you—you boy! And in the meantime, if you have any plans, tell me, please, what are you going to do with him in the morning?"
Caleb Hunter bobbed his head, vehemently. Rapidly he related to her the episode of the switch engine in Dexter Allison's millyards.
"And I believe what I believe," he insisted, doggedly. "And to-morrow I aim to give that boy a ride in one of Allison's 'steam injine' cabs, if it's all I do!"
"I thought so," said Miss Sarah.
For a time she sat there upon his arm chair. Neither spoke, nor felt the need for words. Just before she rose to go upstairs, she broke that quiet.
"He has an odd, strange, half-wild beauty," she mused aloud. "A beauty that is quite unusual, I should say, in children of his—his station. His hair is silken and, oh so thick! And his eyes and square chin with that little cleft. And his nose—his nose, I should say, might be said to denote estheticism—and—a—a—ah——"
Caleb Hunter threw back his head at the telltale little quaver in the voice and found Sarah Hunter smiling down at him, whimsically.
"Get all the amusement out of it that you can," he invited her. "And—and trust a woman to take note of such points as you have mentioned!"
From the stairs she gave him one backward glance.
"Forgive me, Cal," she hogged. "I meant it all—truly! Even the estheticism, which I only included to tease you. And if you don't want to trust to a woman's judgment on such points as I have mentioned, I would suggest that you peep in on him when you retire, and—and confirm them for yourself."
Hours later Caleb acted upon her suggestion. Every characteristic which Sarah had mentioned he found and noted in that half-lighted moment or two while he stood at the bedside.
And he noted more than just that. Sarah's old canvas hunting coat was folded into a small bundle and lay, guarded by one outflung, loose-fingered brown hand, beside the sleeping boy's face on the pillow.
Caleb went to bed with a half dozen wild notions whirling in his head, and a strange something tugging at his heart.
CHAPTER III
THREE QUARTERS AND SIX EIGHTHS
Saturday morning dawned as hot and dry and windless as had been the other days of the week which had preceded it. Caleb Hunter, rising from an uneasy night, blamed his sleeplessness upon the weather. It was fully an hour before his usual, not-too-early hour of rising, when he slowly descended the wide stairway; and yet he was but little surprised to find the boy already there before him, seated upon the top step of the verandah, when he strolled outside.
The little stranger with the grave
