buck antlers and an old-fashioned rifle, lay a Winchester; on
either side of the door were auger holes through the logs (he did
not understand that they were port-holes) and another Winchester
stood in the corner. From the mantel the butt of a big 44-Colt's
revolver protruded ominously. On one of the beds in the corner he
could see the outlines of a figure lying under a brilliantly
figured quilt, and at the foot of it the boy with the pine dagger
had retreated for refuge. From the moment he stooped at the door
something in the room had made him vaguely uneasy, and when his
eyes in swift survey came back to the fire, they passed the blaze
swiftly and met on the edge of the light another pair of eyes
burning on him.

"Howdye!" said Hale.

"Howdye!" was the low, unpropitiating answer.

The owner of the eyes was nothing but a boy, in spite of his
length: so much of a boy that a slight crack in his voice showed
that it was just past the throes of "changing," but those black
eyes burned on without swerving--except once when they flashed at
the little girl who, with her chin in her hand and one foot on the
top rung of her chair, was gazing at the stranger with equal
steadiness. She saw the boy's glance, she shifted her knees
impatiently and her little face grew sullen. Hale smiled inwardly,
for he thought he could already see the lay of the land, and he
wondered that, at such an age, such fierceness could be: so every
now and then he looked at the boy, and every time he looked, the
black eyes were on him. The mountain youth must have been almost
six feet tall, young as he was, and while he was lanky in limb he