it without question. It did not matter now, except as it bore on the question
as to where he should start his feet. It was a long time for him to have
stayed in one place, and the roving memories, stirred within him now, took
root, doubtless, in the restless spirit that had led his unknown ancestor into
those mountain wilds after the Revolution.

All this while he had been sitting on the low threshold, with his elbows in
the hollows of his thighs and his left hand across his mouth. Once more, he
meant to be bound to no man's service and, at the final thought of losing
Jack, the liberty loving little tramp spat over his hand with sharp decision
and rose.

Just above him and across the buck antlers over the door, lay a long
flint-lock rifle; a bullet-pouch, a powder-horn, and a small raccoon-skin
haversack hung from one of the prongs: and on them the boy's eyes rested
longingly. Old Nathan, he knew, claimed that the dead man had owed him money;
and he further knew that old Nathan meant to take all he could lay his hands
on in payment: but he climbed resolutely upon a chair and took the things
down, arguing the question, meanwhile:

"Uncle Jim said once he aimed to give this rifle gun to me. Mebbe he was
foolin', but I don't believe he owed ole Nathan so much, an', anyways," he
muttered grimly, "I reckon Uncle Jim ud kind o' like fer me to git the better
of that ole devil--jes a LEETLE, anyways."

The rifle, he knew, was always loaded, there was not much powder in the horn
and there were not more than a dozen bullets in the pouch, but they would last
him until he could get far away. No more would he take, however, than what he
thought he could get along with--one blanket from the bed and, from the
fireplace, a little bacon and a pone of corn-bread.