itance without a
murmur, and would fight on that way to the end. It was the pluck of
the face that drew Grayson. "I'll take it," he said. The doctor was
not without his sense of humor even then, but he nodded. "Cradle and
all," he said, gravely. And Grayson put both on one shoulder and
walked away. He had lost the power of giving further surprise in that
town, and had he met every man he knew, not one of them would have felt
at liberty to ask him what he was doing. An hour later the doctor
found the child in Grayson's room, and Grayson still looking at it.

"Is it going to live, doctor?"

The doctor shook his head. "Doubtful. Look at the color. It's
starved. There's nothing to do but to watch it and feed it. You can
do that."

So Grayson watched it, with a fascination of which he was hardly
conscious. Never for one instant did its look change--the quiet,
unyielding endurance that no faith and no philosophy could ever bring
to him. It was ideal courage, that look, to accept the inevitable but
to fight it just that way. Half the little mountain town was talking
next day--that such a tragedy was possible by the public road-side,
with relief within sound of the baby's cry. The oldest boy was least
starved. Might made right in an extremity like his, and the boy had
taken care of himself. The young couple who had the second lad in
charge said they had been wakened at daylight the next morning by some
noise in the room. Looking up, they saw the little fellow at the
fireplace breaking an egg. He had built a fire, had got eggs from the
kitchen, and was cooking his breakfast. The little girl was
mischievous and cheery in spite of her bad plight, and nobody knew of
the baby except Grayson and the doctor. Grayson would let nobody else
in. As soon as it was well enough to be peevish and to cry, he took it
back to its mother, who was still abed. A long, dark mountaineer was
there, of whom the woman seemed half afraid. He followed Grayson
outside.

"Say, podner," he said, with an unpleasant smile, "ye don't go up to
Cracker's Neck fer nothin', do ye?"

The woman had lived at Cracker's Neck before she appeared at the Gap,
and it did not come to Grayson what the man meant until he was half-way
to his room. Then he flushed hot and wheeled back to the cabin, but
the mountaineer was gone.

"Tell that fellow he had better keep out of my way," he said to the
woman, who understood, and wanted to say something