s about to utter
himself.

"I suppose it was this--this Old Tom who taught you all these things
you know about timber?" he said, curious.

Steve pondered the question.

"Wal-l-l, yes," he answered at last. "Old Tom learned me some,
but--but most of it I kind of feel as if I always knowed."

The boy was fast asleep, curled up beneath the blankets, when Caleb
finally broached, that night, the matter which had kept him awake the
entire night before. And when he had finished Allison sat quiet for a
long time before he offered any reply.

"You mean----" he began, at length.

"I just mean that I'm going to give him his chance," Caleb cut in. His
voice was hushed, but vehement. "Why, man, think what he has this
minute, to start with! A brain as clear as a diamond, absolutely
fresh, absolutely unspoiled or fagged with the nonsensical fol-de-rol
which makes up the bulk of the usual boy's education of his age, and a
working knowledge, for instance, of this north country which most men
might envy. Why, the possibilities are limitless!"

Allison puffed his pipe in silence.

"No doubt you're right," he admitted. "In ten years, with a technical
education to back up his practical knowledge, he might prove priceless
to someone who had need of such a specialist. Always assuming, of
course, that he developed according to promise. But the possibilities
are limitless, too, in the other directions, aren't they?"

"Meaning?" invited Caleb.

"Well, you don't know any too much concerning his antecedents, do you?"
Allison suggested. "And still----"

"I don't have to," Caleb interrupted, "not after one look at him!"

"--And still, if you catch a boy young enough," Allison finished
serenely, "you can make a fairly presentable gentleman out of almost
any material, with time enough and money enough to teach him what to
do."

"You can," Caleb came back, "but no matter how much money you spend,
you can't make the sort of a gentleman out of him, that knows without
being taught, what _not_ to do! They--they have to be born to that,
Dexter."

And there they let it drop. But the next morning, when they were alone
upon the brook, Caleb, after several false starts managed to re-open
the subject with the boy himself.

"Has it ever occurred to you, Steve," he asked, "that all these things
you know about the woods might be valuable, some day, to--to men who
pay well for such knowledge?"

Steve paid no apparent heed to the que