of what your father says,--like it was
your Bible, you know."

"My father's dead," replied Jack.

"Oh, that's why. Boys don't always pay attention to what their father
says when he's alive."

"Oh, but then my father was--" Here Jack checked himself, for fear of
seeming to boast. "You see," he went on, "my father knew a great deal.
He was so busy with his books that he lost 'most all his money, and then
we moved to the Indian Reserve, and there he took the fever and died;
and then we came down here, where we owned a house, so that I could go
to school."

"Why don't you give Will Riley as good as he sends?" said Bob, wishing
to get away from melancholy subjects. "You have got as good a tongue as
his."

"I haven't his stock of bad words, though."

"You've got a power of fun in you, though,--you keep everybody laughing
when you want to, and if you'd only turn the pumps on him once, he'd
howl like a yellow dog that's had a quart o' hot suds poured over him
out of a neighbor's window. Use your wits, like your father said. You've
lived in the woods till you're as shy as a flying-squirrel. All you've
got to do is to talk up and take it rough and tumble, like the rest of
the world. Riley can't bear to be laughed at, and you can make him
ridiculous as easy as not."

The next day, at the noon recess, about the time that Jack had finished
helping Bob Holliday to find some places on the map, there came up a
little shower, and the boys took refuge in the school-house. They must
have some amusement, so Riley began his old abuse.

"Well, greenhorn from the Wildcat, where's the black sheep you stole
that suit of clothes from?"

"I hear him bleat now," said Jack,--"about the blackest sheep I have
ever seen."

"You've heard the truth for once, Riley," said Bob Holliday.

Riley, who was as vain as a peacock, was very much mortified by the
shout of applause with which this little retort of Jack's was greeted.
It was not a case in which he could call in King Pewee. The king, for
his part, shut up his fists and looked silly, while Jack took courage to
keep up the battle.

But Riley tried again.

"I say, Wildcat, you think you're smart, but you're a double-distilled
idiot, and haven't got brains enough to be sensible of your misery."

This kind of outburst on Riley's part always brought a laugh from the
school. But before the laugh had died down, Jack Dudley took the word,
saying, in a dry and quizzical way:

"Don't you t