ye pierced through the roofs and into Widow Sullivan's
staggering shack, into Hezekiah Whittleby's hushed sitting-room, down
to the moist, dark floor of the Captain's saloon into that amazing
junkshop, the General Merchandise store; but first and last he looked to
the little flag which gleamed and snapped above the schoolhouse, and it
spelled "my country" to Vic.

Marne consented to break into a neat-footed jog-trot going down the last
slope, and so she went up the single winding street of Alder, grunting
at every step, with Gregg's whistle behind her. In town, he lived
with his friend, Dug Pym, who kept their attic room reserved for his
occupancy, so he headed straight for that place. What human face would
he see first?

It was Mrs. Sweeney's little boy, Jack, who raced into the street
whooping, and Vic caught him under the armpits and swung him dizzily
into the air.

"By God," muttered Vic, as he strode on, "that's a good kid, that
Jack." And he straightway forgot all about that knife which Jackie had
purloined from him the summer before. "Me and Betty," he thought, "we'll
have kids, like Jack; tougher'n leather."

Old Garrigan saw him next and cackled from his truck garden in the
backyard, but Vic went on with a wave of his arm, and on past Gertie
Vincent's inviting shout (Gertie had been his particular girl before
Betty Neal came to town), and on with the determination of a soldier
even past the veranda of Captain Lorrimier's saloon, though Lorrimer
himself bellowed a greeting and "Chick" Stewart crooked a significant
thumb over his shoulder towards the open door. He only paused at the
blacksmith shop and looked in at Dug, who was struggling to make the
print of a hot shoe on a hind foot of Simpson's sorrel Glencoe.

"Hey, Dug!"

Pym raised a grimy, sweating forehead.

"You, boy; easy, damn you! Hello, Vic!" and he propped that restless
hind foot on his inner thigh and extended a hand.

"Go an workin', Dug, because I can't stop; I just want a rope to catch
Grey Molly."

"You red devil--take that rope over there, Vic. You won't have no work
catchin' Molly. Which she's plumb tame. Stand still, damn you. I never
seen a Glencoe with any sense!--Where you goin', Vic? Up to the school?"

And his sweaty grin followed Vic as the latter went out with the coil of
rope over his shoulder. When Gregg reached the house, Nelly Pym hugged
him, which is the privilege of fat and forty, and then she sat at the
foot of the