ie,
while he possessed much of his mother in his face, in body was
under-sized and weakly, and his mind and speech, backward of
development, smacked of his father. He was absolutely dominated by his
sister, and followed her lead in everything with adoring rapture.

Vada reached her father and scrambled agilely up into his work-soiled
arms. She impulsively hugged his yellow head to her cheeks with both
her arms, so that when Jamie came up he had to content himself by
similarly hugging the little man's left knee, and kissing the
mud-stains on his trousers into liquid patches.

But Scipio was impartial. He sat Vada down and picked her brother up.
Then, taking the former's hand in his horny clasp, bore the boy
towards the house.

"You found any gold?" inquired Vada, repeating a question she had so
often heard her mother put.

"'Es any--dold?" echoed Jamie, from his height above Scipio's head.

"No, kiddies," the man replied, with a slight sigh.

"Oh," said Vada. But his answer had little significance for her.

"Where's your momma?" inquired Scipio, after a pause.

"Momma do hoss-ridin'," replied Jamie, forestalling his sister for
once.

"Yes," added Vada. "She gone ridin'. An' they'll come an' take us
wher' ther's heaps an' heaps o' 'piders, an'--an' bugs an' things. He
said so--sure."

"He? Who?"

They had reached the hut and Scipio set Jamie on the ground as he put
his question.

"The dark man," said Vada readily, but wrinkling her forehead
struggling for the name.

"Uh!" agreed Jamie. "Mister Dames."

Just for a moment a sharp question lit Scipio's pale eyes. But the
little ones had no understanding of it. And the next moment, as their
father passed in through the doorway, they turned to the sand and
stone castle they had been laboriously and futilely attempting to mold
into some shape.

"Now you bring up more stones," cried Vada authoritatively. "Run
along, dear," she added patronizingly, as the boy stood with his small
hands on his hips, staring vacantly after his father.

Scipio gazed stupidly about the living-room. The slop-stained table
was empty. The cookstove fire was out. And, just for a second, the
thought flashed through his mind--had he returned too early for his
dinner? No, he knew he had not. It was dinner-time all right. His
appetite told him that.

For the moment he had forgotten what the children had told him. His
simple nature was not easily open to suspicion, therefore, like all