Part 11 (1/2)

He stirred the fire to a brighter blaze as they entered, and the leaping flames disclosed a dark-haired child of perhaps seven years asleep on a bed in a corner of the small room. Without speaking, without so much as a glance at the visitor, the old lady walked swiftly to the bed and took the child in her arms.

The boy opened his eyes and started to cry, but she quieted him with low words and sat down on the edge of the bed, swinging him back and forth with a motion of her arms and shoulders. The man at the fire glanced sharply at the woman and then turned his eyes to the boys, now standing not far from the bed.

”The little dear!” the woman cried, mothering the child. ”He's all tired out with his long journey!”

”This is the man that brung the boy in,” Buck said, pointing to the figure by the fire. ”A mess of a time he must have had of it, too.”

”You are the grandmother?” asked the stranger. ”Yes, I understand.

And are these boys your sons, too?” he added, nodding at Ned and Frank, suspiciously.

”Only New York boys spending a vacation in the mountains,” Ned said, answering the question. ”Mrs. Brady came to our camp tonight looking for her son and we came home with her. We are looking for good pictures,” he added.

The stranger pointed to the old lady, sitting with the sleeping child on her breast.

”There is one,” he said.

”Yes, and I'm sorry I haven't my camera with me.”

”Are you thinking of remaining in this section long?” the visitor asked.

”We can't say,” laughed Ned. ”We may move on to-morrow, and may stay here a week.”

The man's suspicions seemed to have vanished. He talked frankly with the boys, and occasionally addressed a word to the old lady. He gave her, briefly, a good report of her son's progress in Was.h.i.+ngton, and handed her a roll of bank-notes.

”He is coming here himself soon,” he said, ”and he will bring more.

He is doing very nicely there.”

Ned was wis.h.i.+ng the boy would waken when the old lady arose from the bed and laid him gently down. He stirred uneasily in his sleep and she stood by his side, smoothing his dark hair away from his forehead.

”He favors my side of the family, being dark,” she said. ”The Stileses are all dark. If one of you boys will sit with him a moment,” she added, with mountain hospitality, ”I'll get you all a snack. It was a long road over the mountains.”

Ned accepted the invitation eagerly and sat down by the child. The face was dark and slender, the eyebrows turned up a trifle at the outer comers.

”Is it Mike III., or is it the prince?” he was asking himself when the boy awoke and sat up in bed with a jerk.

”What's comin' off here?” he demanded, rubbing his sleepy eyes. ”What kind of a b.u.m game is this? I want my daddy.”

The visitor by the fire laughed.

”He's up in city slum talk,” he said. ”And he's learned something of French, too, knocking around with the boys in school.”

”I can talk Franch like a native,” a.s.serted the boy.

”And what else?” asked the man by the fire.

”Any old thing!” boasted the child. ”They keep me at books all the time. I'm glad I'm with grandmother in the hills. Are you my grandmother?” he asked, pointing to the old woman, now bending over the fire.

”Yes, deary,” was the reply. ”I'm going to take care of you now.”

”I'm glad!”