mish around for some grub; won't you?"

Fred was perfectly willing, and proceeded to search until he had
discovered part of a loaf of home-made bread, and the coffee that was so
necessary to warm the poor girl. There was a strip of bacon a few inches
thick, some flour, grits--and these were about all.

Just then Bristles came over to where he was putting the coffee in the
pot.

"I've just remembered who that sick man is, Fred!" he said, in a low
tone, but with a vein of satisfaction in it, for he had been racking his
memory all the while.

"Who is he, then?" Fred asked, a bit eagerly.

"Why," Bristles went on, "you see, his name is Masterson!"

CHAPTER V

HOW GOOD SPRANG FROM EVIL

"Masterson, did you say, Bristles?" Fred asked, hurriedly, as he closed
the communicating door between the two rooms, and came back to the side
of his chum.

"Yep, that's it," replied the other, briskly, proud of having solved
what promised to be a puzzle. "He used to live in Riverport years ago,
when I was a kid; he and his girl Sarah."

"Is he any relation to Squire Lemington, do you know?" asked Fred.

"Sure, that's a fact, he is; a nephew, I reckon," answered Bristles,
thoughtfully. "I remember there was some sort of talk about this Arnold
Masterson; I kind of think he got in a fuss with the Squire, and there
was a lawsuit. But shucks, that don't matter to us, Fred, not a whit.
These people are up against it, hard as nails, and we've just _got_ to
do something for 'em when we get back."

"That's right, we will," asserted Fred.

He was thinking hard as he said this. Was it not a strange thing that
he should in this way place another Masterson under heavy obligations?
He had done Hiram a good turn that won the gratitude of the man from
Alaska; and now here it was a brother and a niece who had cause for
thanking him.

Perhaps there was something more than accident in this. If Hiram ever
did return, which Fred was almost ready to doubt, he would be apt to
hear about what had happened at the lonely farmhouse; and if he cared at
all for his folks, his debt must be doubled by the kind deed of the
Fenton boy.

"And believe me," Bristles went on, not noticing the way Fred was
pondering over the intelligence he had just communicated; "we just can't
get busy collecting some grub for this poor family any too soon. Why,
they're cleaned out, that's what! Never knew anybody could live from
hand to mouth like this. Why couldn'