outside.

``Say, podner,'' he said, with an
unpleasant smile, ``ye don't go up to
Cracker's Neck fer nothin', do ye?''

The woman had lived at Cracker's
Neck before she appeared at the Gap,
and it did not come to Grayson what
the man meant until he was half-way to
his room. Then he flushed hot and
wheeled back to the cabin, but the
mountaineer was gone.

``Tell that fellow he had better keep
out of my way,'' he said to the woman,
who understood, and wanted to say
something, but not knowing how, nodded
simply. In a few days the other children
went back to the cabin, and day
and night Grayson went to see the child,
until it was out of danger, and afterwards.
It was not long before the women
in town complained that the mother was
ungrateful. When they sent things to
eat to her the servant brought back
word that she had called out, `` `Set
them over thar,' without so much as a
thanky.'' One message was that ``she
didn' want no second-hand victuals from