repulsive sight. His clothes were dirty and ragged, and his breath had
frozen in icicles on his stubby red beard.

Behind him came a boy no larger than Keith, but with a hard, shrewd look
in his hungry little face that made one feel he had lived a long time
and learned more than was good for him to know. It was plain to be seen
that he was nearly starved, and suffering from the intense cold. His
bare toes peeped through their ragged shoes, and he had no coat. A thin
cotton shirt and a piece of an old gray horse-blanket was all that
protected his shoulders from the icy wind of that February afternoon.
He, too, crept in noiselessly, as if expecting to be ordered out at the
first sound, and then turned to coax in some animal that was tied to one
end of the rope which he held.

Malcolm and Keith looked on with interest, and sprang up excitedly as
the animal finally shuffled in far enough for the boy to close the door
behind it. It was a great, shaggy bear, taller than the man when it sat
up on its haunches beside him.

The tramp looked uneasily around the room for an instant, but seeing no
one save the two children, ventured nearer the stove. The boy followed
him, and the bear shuffled along behind them both, limping painfully.
Not a word was said for a moment. The boys were casting curious glances
at the three tramps who had come in as noiselessly as if they had snowed
down, and the man was watching the boys with shrewd eyes. He did not
seem to be looking at them, but at the end of his survey he could have
described them accurately. He had noticed every detail of their
clothing, from their expensive leather leggins to their fur-lined
gloves. He glanced at Malcolm's watch-chain and the fine skates which
Keith swung back and forth by a strap, and made up his mind, correctly,