For every sentence a stinging blow with the flat of his hand

[Illustration: "I'LL LEAVE YOU THIS, YOU'LL FEEL SAFER IF YOU HAVE
A GUN." _Frontispiece_.]




CHAPTER I.

_Charming Billy Has a Visitor._


The wind, rising again as the sun went down, mourned lonesomely at the
northwest corner of the cabin, as if it felt the desolateness of the
barren, icy hills and the black hollows between, and of the angry red
sky with its purple shadows lowering over the unhappy land--and would
make fickle friendship with some human thing. Charming Billy, hearing
the crooning wail of it, knew well the portent and sighed. Perhaps he,
too, felt something of the desolateness without and perhaps he, too,
longed for some human companionship.

He sent a glance of half-conscious disapproval around the untidy
cabin. He had been dreaming aimlessly of a place he had seen not so
long ago; a place where the stove was black and shining, with a fire
crackling cheeringly inside and a teakettle with straight, unmarred
spout and dependable handle singing placidly to itself and puffing
steam with an air of lazy comfort, as if it were smoking a cigarette.
The stove had stood in the southwest corner of the room, and the room
was warm with the heat of it; and the floor was white and had a strip