hitherto unknown, just-discovered father. A merely
ordinary, every-day parent like Francis Madigan was, as a matter of
course, the common enemy, and no self-respecting Madigan would waste the
poetry of filial feeling upon any one so realistic.

"You wait for me here, Jack," she said, with unhesitating reliance upon
his obedience.

"Where're you going? I thought you were in a hurry to get down to the
wickiups."

She did not hear him. She had spun off the sled, and with the
sure-footed speed of the hill-child she was crossing the street.

Old Trask, his short-sighted eyes blinking beneath his twitching, bushy
red eyebrows, looked down as upon a miracle when a red-mittened hand
caught his and he heard a confident voice--the clear voice children use
to enlighten the stupidity of adults:

"I'll help you across; take my hand."

"Eh--what?"

He leaned down, failing to recognize her. Children had no identity to
him. They were merely brats, he used to say, unless they happened to
have some musical aptitude. But he accepted her aid, his battered old
hat rocking excitedly upon his high bony forehead, as he ducked and
turned and shivered at the oncoming balls. "Bad boys--bad boys!" he
ejaculated. "Boys are the devil!"

"Yes," agreed Split, craftily. "Girls are best. Your little girl,
now--father--" she began softly.

"Eh--what?" he exclaimed. "Who's your father? My respects to him."

"I have no father," she answered softly. A plan had sprung full-born
from her quick brain. She would win this erratic father back to memory
of his former life and her place in it--somewhat as did one Lucy
Manette, a favorite heroine of Split's that Sissy had read about and
told her of. That would be a fine thing to do--almost as fine, and
requiring the center of the stage as much, as rehabilitating the Red
Man.

"I have no father," she murmured, "if you won't be mine."

"What? What? No!" Trask was across now and brushing the snowy traces of
battle from his queer old cape. "No; I don't want any children. I had
one once--a daughter."

Split's heart beat fast.

"She was a brat, with the temper of a little fiend, and no
ear--absolutely none--for music; played like an elephant."

How terribly confirmatory!

"And what--what became of her?" whispered Split.

"She ran away two years ago and--"

"Two years!"

"I said two, didn't I?" demanded the old professor, irascibly.

Disgusted, Split turned her back on him. Why, two years ago Si