wood, so he stopped at the bars and shouted 

 "Hello!" 

 The man stopped his axe in mid-air and turned. A woman, with a baby in her arms, appeared in the light of the door with children crowding about her. 

 "Hello!" answered the man. 

 "I want to git to stay all night." The man hesitated. 

 "We don't keep people all night." 

 "Not keep people all night," thought Chad with wonder. 

 "Oh, I reckon you will," he said. Was there anybody in the world who wouldn't take in a stranger for the night? From the doorway the woman saw that it was a boy who was asking shelter and the trust in his voice appealed vaguely to her. 

 "Come in!" she called, in a patient, whining tone. "You can stay, I reckon." 

 But Chad changed his mind suddenly. If they were in doubt about wanting him—he was in no doubt as to what he would do. 

 "No, I reckon I'd better git on," he said sturdily, and he turned and limped back up the hill to the road—still wondering, and he remembered that, in the mountains, when people wanted to stay all night, they usually stopped before sundown. Travelling after dark was suspicious in the mountains, and perhaps it was in this land, too. So, with this thought, he had half a mind to go back and explain, but he pushed on. Half a mile farther, his foot was so bad that he stopped with a cry of pain in the road and, seeing a barn close by, he climbed the fence and into the loft and burrowed himself under the hay. From under the shed he could see the stars rising. It was very still and very lonely and he was hungry—hungrier and lonelier than he had ever been in his life, and a sob of helplessness rose to his lips—if he only had Jack—but he held it back. 

 "I got to ack like a man now." And, saying this over and over to himself, he went to sleep. 

 

 

 CHAPTER 7. 

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