tructions,
and then returned within their cave, while his brother walked quickly
away. He watched him disappear; he did not move, for even if he had
followed him he could not bear to face him in his shame. And then out of
his sullen despair came a boyish idea of revenge. It was those two men
who had made his brother a thief!

He was very near the tree. He crept stealthily on his hands and knees
through the bracken, and as stealthily climbed the wedge of outcrop,
and then leaped like a wild cat on the tree. With incredible activity he
lifted the balancing stone, and as the tree began to move, in a flash
of perception transferred it to the other side of its axis, and felt
the roots and debris, under that additional weight, descend quickly with
something like a crash over the opening. Then he took to his heels. He
ran so swiftly that all unknowingly he overtook a figure, who, turning,
glanced at him, and then disappeared in the wood. It was his second and
last view of his brother, as he never saw him again!

But now, strange to say, the crucial and most despairing moment of his
day's experience had come. He had to face Meely Stryker under the burnt
pine, and the promise he could not keep, and to tell her that he had
lied to her. It was the only way to save his brother now! His small
wits, and alas! his smaller methods, were equal to the despairing task.
As soon as he saw her waiting under the tree he fell to capering and
dancing with an extravagance in which hysteria had no small part. "Sold!
sold! sold again, and got the money!" he laughed shrilly.

The girl looked at him with astonishment, which changed gradually to
scorn, and then to anger. Johnny's heart sank, but he redoubled his
antics.

"Who's sold?" she said disdainfully.

"You be. You swallered all that stuff about Ali Baba! You wanted to be
Morgy Anna! Ho! ho! And I've made you play hookey--from home!"

"You hateful, horrid, little liar!"

Johnny accepted his punishment meekly--in his heart gratefully. "I
reckoned you'd laugh and not get mad," he said submissively. The girl
turned, with tears of rage and vexation in her eyes, and walked away.
Johnny followed at a humble distance. Perhaps there was something
instinctively touching in the boy's remorse, for they made it up before
they reached her fence.

Nevertheless Johnny went home miserable. Luckily for him, his father was
absent at a Vigilance Committee called to take cognizance of the late
sluice rob