."

And he gasped when she threw back her head and burst into her gurgling,
throaty laugh.

"'What is home without a father?'" she sing-songed. And when they were
both sober-faced again she added:

"I want to know him, please! Can't I meet him, Mr. O'Mara?"

Side by side they turned in at the millyard, between towering piles of
aromatic raw planks. Behind them Caleb and Allison had lost still more
ground while the latter paused to speak a peremptory word in the ear of
a mildly intoxicated, red-headed riverman who was pouring forth his
whole soul in the refrain of "Harrigan, That's Me!" And almost
immediately, in answer to Barbara's question, Steve pointed across to a
short, plump figure in conversation with McLean, the mill
superintendent. Even at that distance his broad face gleamed from the
closeness of a recent shave; even at that distance it was quickly
apparent to the girl that his garb was as near a replica of O'Mara's
own clothes as his lack of height and extra weight would permit.

"Will you bring him?" she asked eagerly. "Will he come?"

But the question was unnecessary. Joe Morgan--Fat Joe to the
river-front and the construction squad--was already hustling in their
direction, even before Steve, with that slow smile tugging at his lips,
had finished assuring her that it was never necessary to summon Joe
into the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex. He came
without being called. Barbara had a closer and closer view of him,
until he stopped at last directly in front of them and bowed. She
wanted to laugh at that wide face--at the grandiloquent flourish with
which he removed his hat--and would have had she not recalled the grave
respect with which the man beside her had referred to him a moment
before. His eyes were palest blue, his nose a smooth pink mound in an
expanse of pink, pink cheeks. She noted that his teeth were as white
and even as those of O'Mara himself. Fat Joe bowed again.

"Morning, Chief," he saluted, in that thin and reedy tenor which none
but fat men have.

Then Barbara laughed.

Steve managed the presentation with extreme punctility and left them.
When he returned, almost an hour later, he heard them both laughing
long before he came into view, and on the way back up the hill the girl
detailed for him much of her conversation with Fat Joe.

"Hereafter I shall be more dignified when in your presence," she
informed him in as deep a bass as she could summo