s last winter at school.
It was a performance he considered quite too juvenile, and a single
glance at him would convince anyone that it was high time he had put
away childish things. His great, strong frame, over six feet in his
"shoepacks," his brawny arms and hands, well developed under the toil
of the axe and the plough, all spoke of his having reached man's
estate. But his growth had somewhat outrun his years, and he had not
yet reached the age when he might with propriety remain away from
school during the winter. Besides, he had held a conference with Dan
Murphy and "Hash" Tucker during the Christmas holidays to consider the
matter of further education. Should they abjure the whole trivial
business, was the question discussed, or should they attend school this
winter just to see what the new master would be like, and, if possible,
make things lively for him?

The latter course, being the more uncertain, offered the more
entertainment and was unanimously adopted; so here was the young man,
on this dazzling January morning, swinging along the silent white
forest path, ready for any kind of adventure.

For Scotty had arrived at a period when the unknown and the forbidden
were the alluring, and the lawful and the restraining were the irksome.
Indeed Rory was wont to grumble that that young Scot was just going to
ruin; he had never been made to mind anybody when he was little, and
now he was just growing up clean wild. For since Rory had given up
fiddling and dancing and had settled down with Roarin' Sandy's Maggie
in the north clearing he had become a very staid householder and
frowned upon all youthful frivolity. And though his prophecies were
perhaps overpessimistic, there was undoubtedly some cause for
disapproval in the matter of Scotty's conduct. Even Big Malcolm and
his wife, who, as old age advanced, were more and more inclined to make
an idol of their grandson, could not quite shut their eyes to his
imperfections. He was the same big-hearted Scotty he had been in his
childhood, lavishly generous and swift to respond to the call of
suffering; but his high spirits were sometimes too much for the narrow
confines of his life, and he was wont to break out into wild,
mischievous pranks.

During the last winter of poor old McAllister's feeble misrule, Scotty
and his two leal followers, Dan Murphy and "Hash" Tucker, had contrived
to make the hard name of Number Nine notorious. So long as the three
confin