up the rooster and started for the yard. They would all know now.

His heart grew bitter at the thought. He ought to have hid the rooster.
He ought to have got a spade and buried him. He was full of regrets, not
for what he had done, but for what he had not done. He would stay here
till dark. He would stay here all night. He never would go home any
more. He would hide in the woods, and he and Frank would hunt. He would
kill what they wanted to eat and cook it over a fire. His face was set.
His mind was full of grim little desperate outcast thoughts.

Then his dark romance was shattered. From the yard his father had called
him. The call seemed to search out this very spot, but he did not
answer. Let them find him if they wanted him. He wasn't going to them,
and he wasn't going to run, either. They would try to take his gun away
now. There was a lump in his throat as he thought of the injustice of
it, of the insults he had patiently borne, of the futility of
explanations where grown people, who loved and treasured roosters above
everything else, were concerned.

He heard them coming through the lot and flattened himself against the
wall, his eyes full of fight. They would have to throw him down and beat
him into insensibility. To the end he would cling to his gun, asking no
quarter, making no explanations. And thus they found him--Aunt Cindy
first, then his father and his mother. He glanced sullenly at them and
said nothing.

"Hiding, old man?" asked his father.

At something kind and comradely in the tones he looked up with sudden
hope beyond the belt and the shirt into the clean-cut face and gray,
twinkling eyes bent down upon him.

"No, sir," he said. "I wasn't hidin'."

"Well, who killed Pete?"

His heart began to pound in his ears; the eyes of his father held him;
he had almost owned up; then it came over him, as all such things come,
by inspiration. There stood old Frank, gently wagging his tail. Frank
had nothing to lose; nothing would be done to Frank. Frank's reputation
was spotless; it could stand a stain or two. Eagerly he smiled up into
his father's face.

"F'ank killed him!" he said.

For a moment the air was electric with uncertainty. Then his mother
spoke, her eyes full of pain and reproach.

"Why, dear!"

"Honey, honey!" remonstrated Aunt Cindy, "you know dat dawg----!"

But a quick glance from his father silenced this feminine outburst. "All
right, old scout," said Earle gravely. "Just as