but take time enough to do it well. Say half
an hour,--will that do?"

"Yas, I reckon."

Then David left him, and the moments passed until an hour had slipped
away, but still the youth did not appear, and he was on the point of
calling out to him, when he saw the twisted form of little Hoyle
scrambling up through the underbrush.

"They're comin'," he panted, with wild and frightened eyes fixed on
David's face. "I see 'em up the road, an' I heered 'em say they was
goin' to hunt 'round the house good, an' then s'arch the cabin ovah
Hanging Rock." The poor child burst into tears. "Do you 'low they'll
shoot Frale, suh?"

"They'd not reached the house when you saw them?"

"They'll be thar by now, suh," sobbed the boy.

"Then run and hide yourself. Crawl under the rock--into the smallest
hole you can. They mustn't see that you have been here, and don't be
frightened, little man. We'll look after Frale."

The child disappeared like a squirrel in a hole, and Thryng went to the
cabin door and knocked imperatively. It was opened instantly, and Frale
stood transformed, his old, soiled garments lying in a heap at his side
as if he had crept out of his chrysalis. A full half hour he had been
lingering, abashed at himself and dreading to appear. The slight growth
of adolescence was gone from lip and chin, and Thryng was amazed and
satisfied.

"Good," he cried. "You've done well."

The youth smiled shamefacedly, yet held his head high. With the heavy
golf stockings, knee breeches, and belted jacket, even to himself he
seemed another man, and an older man he looked by five years.

"Now keep your nerve, and square your shoulders and face the world with
a straight look in the eye. You've thrown off the old man with these."
David touched the heap of clothing on the floor with his foot. "Hoyle is
here. He says the men are on their way here and have stopped at the
house."

Instead of turning pale as Thryng had expected, a dark flush came into
Frale's face, and his hand clinched. It was the ferocity of fear, and
not the deadliness of it, which seized him with a sort of terrible
anger, that David felt through his silence.

"Don't lose control of yourself, boy," he said, placing his hand gently
on his shoulder and making his touch felt by the intimate closing of his
slender fingers upon the firmly rounded, lean muscles beneath them.

"Follow my directions, and be quick. Put your own clothes in this bag."
He hastily tossed a fe