rudely hollowed from the half of a bee-gum log, and, unnoticed, slipped away
at the first muffled stroke of the dirt--doubling his fists into his eyes and
stumbling against the gnarled bodies of laurel and rhododendron until, out in
a clear sunny space, he dropped on a thick, velvet mat of moss and sobbed
himself to sleep. When he awoke, Jack was licking his face and he sat up,
dazed and yawning. The sun was dropping fast, the ravines were filling with
blue shadows, luminous and misty, and a far drowsy tinkling from the valley
told him that cows were starting homeward. From habit, he sprang quickly to
his feet, but, sharply conscious on a sudden, dropped slowly back to the moss
again, while Jack, who had started down the spur, circled back to see what the
matter was, and stood with uplifted foot, much puzzled.

There had been a consultation about Chad early that morning among the
neighbors, and old Nathan Cherry, who lived over on Stone Creek, in the next
cove but one, said that he would take charge of the boy. Nathan did not wait
for the burial, but went back home for his wagon, leaving word that Chad was
to stay all night with a neighbor and meet him at the death-stricken cabin an
hour by sun. The old man meant to have Chad bound to him for seven years by
law--the boy had been told that--and Nathan hated dogs as much as Chad hated
Nathan. So the lad did not lie long. He did not mean to be bound out, nor to
have Jack mistreated, and he rose quickly and Jack sprang before him down the
rocky path and toward the hut that had been a home to both. Under the poplar,
Jack sniffed curiously at the new-made grave, and Chad called him away so
sharply that Jack's tail drooped and he crept toward his master, as though to
ask pardon for a fault of which he was not conscious. For one moment, Chad
stood looking. Again the stroke of the falling earth smote his ears and his
eyes filled; a curious pain caught him by the throat and he passed on,
whistling--down into the shadows below to the open door of the cabin.

It was deathly still. The homespun bedclothes and hand-made quilts of