uncomfortable at hearing it.

After some more minutes a neighbor whispered to a neighbor, "Play you a
game of crib."

The man nodded, stole over to where the board was, and brought it across
the floor on creaking tip-toe. They set it between them, and now and
then the cards made a light sound in the room.

"I treed that coon on Honey," said the young man, after a while--"Honey
Creek, San Saba. Kind o' dry creek. Used to flow into Big Brady when it
rained."

The flames crackled on, the neighbors still played their cribbage. Still
was the day bright, but the shrinking wedge of sun had gone entirely
from the window-sill. Half-past Full had drawn from his pocket a
mouthorgan, breathing half-tunes upon it; in the middle of "Suwanee
River" the man who sat in the corner laid the letter he was beginning
upon the heap on his knees and read no more. The great genial logs lay
glowing, burning; from the fresher one the flames flowed and forked;
along the embered surface of the others ran red and blue shivers of
iridescence. With legs and arms crooked and sprawled, the buccaroos
brooded, staring into the glow with seldom-winking eyes, while deep
inside the clay the spirit spoke quietly. Christmas Day was passing,
but the sun shone still two good hours high. Outside, over the snow
and pines, it was only in the deeper folds of the hills that the blue
shadows had come; the rest of the world was gold and silver; and from
far across that silence into this silence by the fire came a tinkling
stir of sound. Sleighbells it was, steadily coming, too early for Bolles
to be back from his school festival.

The toy-thrill of the jingling grew clear and sweet, a spirit of
enchantment that did not wake the stillness, but cast it into a deeper
dream. The bells came near the door and stopped, and then Drake opened
it.

"Hello, Uncle Pasco!" said he. "Thought you were Santa Claus."

"Santa Claus! H'm. Yes. That's what. Told you maybe I'd come."

"So you did. Turkey is due in--let's see--ninety minutes. Here, boys!
some of you take Uncle Pasco's horse."

"No, no, I won't. You leave me alone. I ain't stoppin' here. I ain't
hungry. I just grubbed at the school. Sleepin' at Missouri Pete's
to-night. Got to make the railroad tomorrow." The old man stopped his
precipitate statements. He sat in his sledge deeply muffled, blinking
at Drake and the buccaroos, who had strolled out to look at him, "Done a
big business this trip," said he. "Told you