any simple little thing like that, the aged grandmother
triumphantly informed them that he was just a boy with his first crop
of whiskers--he carried nothing in his hand--he wasn't even a pedlar
or a book-agent--he didn't look around at all--he was sure of the
road, but he must have some reason for not wanting to be known. Not
many rheumatic old ladies, with only a small eye-hole in a frozen
window, would have observed as much, and she was naturally quite
elated over the fact that she had seen more than the people who went
to the station, and the latter were treated to some scathing remarks
about the race not always being to the swift, but the way she
expressed it was that it is not "always them that runs the fastest
that sees the most."

The young man whose coming had aroused this comment walked rapidly
over the hard-packed drifts. There had been no teams on the road
since the storm, and there was not much danger of meeting anyone, but
in any event, he thought his crop of black whiskers would be a
sufficient disguise. He did not want any-one to know him. Not that he
cared, he told himself, recklessly, but it would be just as well not
to see any of them. It seemed ages to the lad since he had left this
place, though it was only six months since he had said good-bye to
Libby Anne in the purple September twilight.

Things looked odd to him as he walked quickly over the drifts
toward the old Cavers house. The schoolhouse was more dingy and
desolate-looking; the houses and barns all seemed smaller; there was
the same old mound on the Tiger Hills on the southern horizon,--the
one that people said had been built by the Mound Builders, but when
you came up to it, is just an ordinary hill with a hay-meadow
at the foot; the sandhills, too, were there still, with their
sentinel spruce-trees, scattered and lonesome. Looking over at
the schoolhouse, Bud remembered the day he thrashed Tom Steadman
there--it came back to him with a thrill of pleasure; and then came
the memory of that other day at the school, when he had told Mr.
Burrell that he was going to try to let the good seed grow in his
heart, and when he had been so full of high resolves. Small good it
had done him, though, and Mr. Burrell had been quick to believe evil
of him. Bud's face burned with anger even now. But he could get along
without any of them!

Since leaving home six months before, Bud had had a varied
experience. He went to Calgary first, and got a job on