Project Gutenberg's Two Little Knights of Kentucky, by Annie Fellows Johnston

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Two Little Knights of Kentucky

Author: Annie Fellows Johnston

Release Date: May 10, 2004 [EBook #12317]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF KENTUCKY ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF
KENTUCKY

TO
MARGARET AND ALBION,
MARY, HELEN, LURA AND ROSE,
WILLIAM AND GEORGE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. TWO TRAMPS AND A BEAR.
II. GINGER AND THE BOYS.
III. THE VALENTINE PARTY.
IV. A FIRE AND A PLAN.
V. JONESY'S BENEFIT.
VI. THE LITTLE COLONEL'S TWO RESCUES.
VII. A GAME OF INDIAN.
VIII. "FAIRCHANCE".

[Illustration: PLANS.]

TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF
KENTUCKY.

* * * * *
CHAPTER I.

TWO TRAMPS AND A BEAR.

It was the coldest Saint Valentine's eve that Kentucky had known in
twenty years. In Lloydsborough Valley a thin sprinkling of snow whitened
the meadows, enough to show the footprints of every hungry rabbit that
loped across them; but there were not many such tracks. It was so cold
that the rabbits, for all their thick fur, were glad to run home and
hide. Nobody cared to be out long in such weather, and except now and
then, when an ice-cutter's wagon creaked up from some pond to the
frozen pike, the wintry stillness was unbroken.

On the north side of the little country depot a long row of icicles hung
from the eaves. Even the wind seemed to catch its breath there, and
hurry on with a shiver that reached to the telegraph wires overhead. It
shivered down the long stovepipe, too, inside the waiting-room. The
stove had been kept red-hot all that dull gray afternoon, but the
window-panes were still white with heavy frost-work.

Half an hour before the five o'clock train was due from the city, two
boys came running up the railroad track with their skates in their
hands. They were handsome, sturdy little fellows, so well buttoned up in
their leather leggins and warm reefer overcoats that they scarcely felt
the cold. Their cheeks were red as w