he belted jacket. "They'll know this jacket and cap! I'll tell the
story! Do you think it is folly? No! I can see in your face that you
know what those men will do!"

"Yes, I do know! I have been a woodsman in my time, too! After they have
listened to you they'll hammer hell out of anything that gets in front
of 'em."

His face lighted up. He beamed on her. "I told you that old age has its
whims. A minute ago a whim made me want to keep you away from trouble.
Now, by the gods! the same whim makes me want to send you north. You
will stand for Eck Flagg, saying what he'd like to say to his men! The
right spirit is in you! I ain't afraid that you won't make good!"

He pointed to an object on the wall of the room. It was a stout staff
of ash tipped with a steel nose and provided with a hook of steel; it
was the Flagg cant dog. The ash staff was banded with faded red stripes
and there was a queer figure carved on the wood.

"Lift it down and bring it here and lay it across my knees," he
commanded.

She ran and brought it.

"They know that stick along the Noda waters," he told her, caressing the
staff with his hale hand. "I carried it at the head of the drive for
many a year, my girl. You won't need letters of introduction if you go
north with that stick in your hand. I would never give it into the hands
of a man. It has propped the edge of my shelter tent, to keep the spring
snow off my face when I caught a few winks of sleep; that steel dog has
rattled nigh my ear when I couldn't afford to sleep and kept walking.
Tell 'em your story, with that stick in your hand when you tell it! Take
it and stand up in front of me!"

Her face was white; she trembled when she lifted the staff from his
knees.

An old man's whim! The girl believed that she understood better than he
the instinct which was prompting him to deliver over the scepter which
he had treasured for so long.

And some sort of instinct, trickling in the blood from that riverman
forebear, prompted her strike a pose, which brought a yelp of admiration
from the old man. She had set the steel nose close to her right foot and
propped the staff, with right arm fully extended, swinging the stick
with a man-fashion sweep.

"Sis, where did ye learn the twist of the Flagg wrist when ye set that
staff?" It was a compliment rather than a question, and the girl did not
reply. She was not able to speak; a sob was choking her. Her grip on
that badge of the family authority