his pipe. Tom, as I have said, was too awed to say
anything at all.

"I am of age and free born," growled Hugh, looking into the glowing
embers and speaking as if to himself; "where I go and what I do
concerns no one but myself."

"Not so long as you go to the proper place and do only what is right,"
said Harvey, who, sitting back a few feet from the fire, looked calmly
at the fellow whose rough profile was outlined against the fiery
background behind him.

"Men interpret right according to their own ideas, and they seldom
agree, but most people will pronounce that person the worst sort of
knave who robs poor men of what they earn and looks upon them as he
looks upon the beasts of the field--worth only the amount of money they
bring to him."

CHAPTER III.

MISSING.

The conversation was taking a dangerous shape. Harvey saw that it
would not do for him to stay. Both these men were fierce enough to fly
at his throat. That little cabin in the woods was liable to become the
scene of a tragedy unless he bridled his tongue or went away.

Disdaining to say so much as "good-night," he rose to his feet, opened
the door, shut it behind him, and walked out in the blustery darkness.

"I would rather spend the night fighting tigers than to keep the
company of such miscreants. But the new hands will be here in a few
days, and the fellows will be taught a lesson which they will remember
all their lives. I suppose I ought to pity their dupes, but they
should have enough sense to see that these men are their worst enemies.
It will be a bright day for the Rollo Mills and for Bardstown when they
are well rid of them."

The superintendent did not pause to think where he was going when he
stepped into the open air. The cold wind struck his face and a few
fine particles touched his cheek. The sky had partly cleared, so that
he could see the fine coating of snow around him, but after all, very
little had fallen.

"If I can keep the path," he thought, "I will reach the village, but
that is no easy matter--ah! there it is again."

The peculiar odor that had mystified him before was in the air. He
recalled that Hugh and Tom had made an allusion to it that he did not
understand.

"It may come from their chimney and be caused by something burning; but
I looked closely at the wood on the hearth and saw nothing else."

A natural impulse led him, after walking a few rods, to look behind
him. He had heard nothing, bu