sauntered, as fathers have a way of
sauntering, just at the wrong time.

"What're you doing there, Tommy?" he demanded.

The cave and the wild life vanished like a bubble that has burst.

"Pete ate my crumbs, Papa!" he cried.

For a moment his father hesitated, looking down into his eyes as if he
were perplexed and worried and did not know what to do. Then once more
he chained Frank up.

"You mustn't turn him loose again," he said sternly.

"I tol' him to kill Pete! I tol' him to!"

"And he did it?"

The eyes which the boy raised to the man's face were full of fight. He
had said it, and he was going to stick to it. It was no longer only a
matter of saving the gun; it was a question of principle now.

But his father did not press the question. With just a queer look into
the boy's defiant eyes, he turned away and walked across the yard toward
the garage, head bowed. Tommy watched him. No doubt his father thought
he would follow. He had always liked to hang about the garage, he and
Frank, and watch his father tinker with the car. It had been one of the
high lights of their daily life. But now old Frank was chained up--and
as for him, he didn't care anything about automobiles.

Frank had sat down on his haunches, in his fine old eyes, as he watched
his master's retiring form, that disconsolate look of a dog whose
feelings are deeply wounded. A moment Tommy regarded his offended
friend. No use to think of turning him loose again with his father
within hearing. Tommy hardened his heart. All right--so be it--he had
done his part. Things would just have to take their course. Gun under
arm, face set and grim, he walked round the house, and left old Frank to
his fate.

There was a side porch around here, where his mother sometimes sat in
the mornings, but which was deserted the rest of the day. On the step he
took his seat, a solitary little figure, his gun between his knees. Here
he would stay until the beating was over, here where he could not see
it, and could not hear it--very plainly.

He was full to the brim of rebellious thoughts. He wished Pete were
alive so he could shoot him again. He thought of boys he knew whose
parents let them alone, and he envied them their lot in life. Maybe he
would go and live with some of them, go where he would be appreciated.
He would take Frank with him, of course; that went without saying: life
would be a void without Frank.

Yonder was the apple orchard, with the gold of