mory of his
humiliations on account of that brick would last a lifetime. He
wondered why maiden aunts could not understand. His mother, now, would
have known better. But he dutifully put the thing into the pocket of
his big coat--he could drop it into the first snowback--and turned to
kiss his aunt.

"I know all about them hall bedrooms in Albany," she lectured. "Make
your landlady heat it for you every night."

A noise in the road made them all turn.

Two men in a high-backed, low-set cutter were driving into the yard.

It was evident from the signs that the men had been having a hard time
on the road. They must have been out all night, for they could not
have started from anywhere early enough to be here now at sunrise.

Their harness had been broken and mended in several places. The cutter
had a runner broken. The horses were cut and bloody, where they had
kicked themselves and each other in the drifts.

As they drove up beside the group in the yard, one of the men
shouted:

"Say, is there any place we can put in here? We've been on that road
all night."

"Drive in onto the barn floor, and come in and warm yourselves," said
Mrs. Whiting.

"Rogers," said the man who had spoken, addressing the other, "if I
ever get into a place that's warm, I'll stay there till spring."

Rogers laid the lines down on the dashboard of the cutter and stepped
stiffly out into the snow. He swept the group with a sharp, a praising
eye, and asked:

"Who's the one to talk to here?"

Jeffrey Whiting stepped forward naturally and replied with another
question.

"What do you want?"

Rogers, a large, square-faced man, with a stubby grey moustache and
cold grey eyes, looked the youth over carefully as he spoke.

"I want a man that knows this country and can get around in it in this
season. I was brought up in the country, but I never saw anything like
this. I wouldn't take a trip like this again for any money. I can't do
this sort of thing. I want a man that knows the country and the people
and can do it."

"Well, I'm going away now," said Jeffrey slowly, "but Uncle Catty here
knows the people and the country better than most and he can go
anywhere."

The big man looked doubtfully at the little, oldish man on the sled.
Then he turned away decisively. Uncle Cassius, his kindly, ugly old
face all withered and puckered to one side, where a splinter of shell
from Fort Fisher had taken away his right eye, was evidently not the