r a
while, at all events.

He had led Satan out of the moral shed-room, as well. The reappearance
of the filly without Thad had raised a great anxiety about his brother's
continued absence. All at once he began to feel as if those brutal
wishes of his were prophetic,--as if they were endowed with a malignant
power, and could actually pursue poor Thad to some violent end. He did
not understand now how he could have framed the words.

When a fellow really likes his brother,--and most fellows do,--there is
scant use or grace or common-sense in keeping up, from mere
carelessness, or through an irritable habit, a continual bickering, for
these germs of evil are possessed of a marvelous faculty for growth, and
some day their gigantic deformities will confront you in deeds of which
you once believed yourself incapable.

Ben's hands were trembling as he folded a blanket, and laid it on the
animal's back to serve instead of a saddle.

"I'm a-goin' ter the still-house ter see ef Thad ever got thar," he
said, when his mother appeared at the door.

He added, "I'm a-gittin' sorter skeered ez su'thin' mought hev happened
ter him."

His grandfather hobbled out into the little porch. "Them roads air
turrible rough fur that thar filly, ez ain't fairly broke good yit, nor
used ter travel," he suggested.

"I'd gin four hunderd fillies, ef I hed 'em, jes' ter know that thar boy
air safe an' sound," Ben declared, as he mounted.

He took the short cut, judging that, at the point where it crossed the
river, the stream was still fordable. When he heard his brother's
piteous cries for help, he quaked to think what might have happened to
Thad if he had not recognized the presence of Satan in the moral
shed-room, and summarily ejected him. The rainfall had been sufficient
to aggregate considerable water in the gullies about the sink-hole, and
these, emptying into the cavity and sending a continuous stream over the
boy, had served to chill him through and through, and he had a pretty
fair chance of being drowned, or dying from cold and exhaustion. Ben
pressed on to the still-house at the best speed he could make, and such
of the moonshiners as were half sober came out with ropes and a barrel,
which they lowered into the cavity. Thad managed to crawl into the
barrel, and, after several ineffectual attempts, he was drawn up through
the sink-hole.

There was no formal reconciliation between the two boys. It was enough
for Ben to feel Thad