Bob leaped up and followed his instincts. He made no noise or cry, he simply went to the low couch, and snuggled his rough head against the shoulder pressed on the pillow.

Matilda Markham could not bear the sight. It made her afraid of herself. Her brother, above all people, must not think her emotional.

She knew what he thought of emotional women--he not only believed them incapable, but he mistrusted their moral natures. She walked out to the porch and sat grimly down in a rocker and swayed back and forth energetically.

"It's real hot," she vouchsafed presently. "This is a terrible shut-in place. I haven't any use for mountains unless you can get on the toppest peak."

"Has that boy explained himself?" asked Levi Markham, also swaying to and fro in his rocker. Matilda shook her head.

"What do you think we ought to do? I've been inquiring a bit and I find there is no police station nor hospital nearer than twenty-five miles. I asked the man at Stagg's what they did when men were injured in the factory, and he looked at me as if he thought I was a fool!

'They don't do anything to them,' he confided. It's an evil hole, Matilda. I never saw a place in my life that needed capital and human intelligence more. And what about this boy? He must belong somewhere, I suppose."

"I think he's pretty sick, brother; I guess we'll have to turn to and supply what the town lacks in ambulances and hospitals. He's burning up with fever, and he has a real wild light in his eyes."

"What do you mean, Matilda?"

"Well, brother, not to mince matters, I think if you undress him I'll turn to and clean him up some. After that we'll put him to bed in the little room off the dining-room and send for a doctor. I suppose they have a doctor somewhere around here, haven't they?"

Levi puckered up his lips and frowned.

"I've questioned about that, too," he admitted. "There is a doctor--goes horseback with saddle bags and medicine chest on a circuit covering acres and acres. Kind of a medical bully; brings people into the world and hustles them out. Doses and cuts them according to his lights. He's off on a stabbing case back among the hills--some still, they say, has let itself loose. He will be back when he patches up the worst and turns the rest over to the authorities. Matilda!"

Miss Markham started.

"Yes, brother."

"I don't want any one to see or know about that boy until after we've seen the doctor. He looks badly used and starved to me, and I never turn a dumb brute off when its luck is against it, until I know what I'm turning it to. You get a tub of hot water ready and I'll tackle the lad now."

It was seven that evening when the doctor returned from the hills and was told the "folks from the North" wanted to see him. He did not hurry himself. He rested, ate, and changed his clothes and then sauntered down the road to the cottage. Sandy, the worst of him, as Matilda explained, lay in a comatose state on the narrow, immaculate bed with Bob, now fed and comforted, on the floor beside him.

"That's Morley's boy from Lost Hollow," the doctor drawled, as he gazed upon the restless form. "At first I wasn't sure. I never saw him clean before. As I passed through The Hollow to-day Morley came out and told me the news. The boy's left home; he's going to get an education somehow--the father said he had saved money."

"There's nearly thirty-one dollars in his pants' pocket," Matilda broke in accurately.

"He comes of good stock back about the time of the Revolution. Running to seed since. It's mighty odd how blood bursts out now and again.

This fellow's mother came from The Forge--a pretty creature--died when he was born. Took me thirty-six hours to bring him into life--but I couldn't save the mother. The father is a degenerate--the only sign of decency I ever noticed in him is his thought about this boy. Looks like a tussle for Sandy Morley now, I reckon. What you want to do about it? If he lives, which he likely enough won't, he's going to be a right smart bit of care."

Levi looked at Matilda and Matilda looked at Levi, and then they both looked at Sandy. "Massachusetts!" moaned the boy, tossing about restlessly--"I'm going to get there, I tell you! Mass--massa--chu----"

The voice trailed off miserably and Bob was alert at once.

"I never cast a beast out----" began Levi.

"Not to mention a human boy," added Matilda.

"We're going to see him through or--out, doctor."

The impassive face of the doctor gave no intimation as to his emotions.

He took out his medicine bottles and forthwith began to complicate Sandy's chances in the hand-to-hand struggle.

An old black woman, famed for her charms and nursing, was secured by Matilda Markham to assist in the care of Sandy Morley.

"I shall keep an eye on the witch," Matilda warned her brother, "but she has a sense about nursing that can be relied upon."

And so the battle was on. Gossip about the boy was killed at the bedroom door. No one became interested or cared. The doctor, after a week or two, chancing upon Martin Morley on The Way, told him of Sandy's good fortune.

"Morley, if there's a bit of the man in you," he advised, "let go that boy and leave him to his opportunity. You've almost killed him, body and soul, among you, now; whether it be life or death, let him have a try for the clean thing. It's all you can do for him--forget him!"

And Martin, with bowed head, acquiesced.

"If he dies----" he faltered.

"I'll let you know," the doctor replied.

But Morley never heard of Sandy's death and the summer merged into autumn, and the cold and shadow settled upon The Hollow. When winter drove the mountain folks indoors to closer contact, bad air and poor food, it drove the devil in with them and hard times followed. But before the grip of winter clutched the hills, Sandy decided that in spite of the odds against him he would make another attempt to reach Massachusetts.

A mere shadow of a boy was he when, in late September, Matilda Markham got him out on the piazza one morning and, having tucked him up well in blankets, remarked enlighteningly, "There!"

All the fineness in Sandy had been emphasized during the weeks of sickness. As the bad food, the bruises and tan had disappeared--and what little flesh which his poor body possessed--the native delicacy and dignity grew and grew.

The people of The Forge, taking small interest in the Mountain Whites, for whom they had a contempt, merely relegated Sandy to "Luck with the Yankee who was dickering about a factory site."

As for Sandy himself he had wandered too near the perilous edge of things to be very keen as to his present and future. Often he lay with closed eyes and thought back to Lost Hollow. The actual distance between him and the only home he had ever known was short but, to a community that spoke of Sheridan's Ride as if it had occurred but the day before, and which slunk and shrank from moving out of its shadows, The Forge was a "right smart way off" and, besides, no one but Martin knew of the circumstances surrounding Sandy; and Martin, to the best of his ability, was doing the only thing he could do for his boy. Often on the long weary tramps in the woods he yearned to get a glimpse of things, but the rough doctor's warnings and suggestions held him back.

"Mart Morley, keep your clutches off that lad. You've nearly put an end to him. Give others a try now."

So with a courage and self-denial no one knew or suspected, Martin kept to the hills and made ready for winter as best he could. He and Molly, when the mood seized her, gathered wood and piled it carelessly by the cabin door. It seemed a goodly pile while the days were still warm and fine, but Martin, with a groan, realized how small the accumulation really was with the long, black months lying before.

CHAPTER VIII

The warm sun of September brought a faint tinge to Sandy's hollow cheeks. After Matilda's "There!" the boy had leaned his head back on the pillow of his couch and closed his eyes. Bob, sleek and well-conditioned, lay at his feet, starting now and then as he dreamed of other days rich in kicks and blows, and lean as to platters of nourishing food.

"Sleeping?" asked Levi, coming on the porch with the mail and whispering to his sister.

"I shouldn't wonder."

"He looks----" But Matilda shook her head at Levi and cut the words short. To express an opinion about Sandy's appearance at that moment would not do--it were best passed over lightly. Levi took a chair, drew it up close to his sister, and left Sandy and Bob free to compare, in dreams, the Then and Now of Life.

"It was no use," Markham whispered. "I might just as well have let the letter go that day he"--Levi nodded toward Sandy--"made his entrance on the scene. They won't accept my terms. I wish now I had let them know how I felt when my blood was up."

"Life's too short for that, brother. Up or down, blood hampers when it's hot. Common sense is always best. What does the letter say?"

"The Treadwell woman won't lose her hold on Lansing: not even for four years!"

Matilda's eyes dropped and she kept silent.

"She's about ruined him," Levi went on. "I put it to her plain and solemn, but she always slips through argument like a greased snake.