In the spring following came a great day for the mountain school when some friends and benefactors were coming. Great preparations were made. The school about three hundred strong fronted the main hall, and there was great waving of small and large handkerchiefs in a genuine salute as the visiting party drove up.

When the company had scattered a little after the greeting, Steve suddenly felt an arm about him and turning, found Mr. Polk smiling down upon him. The boy was overjoyed and could only cling to his hand, speechless for a moment. Mr. Polk had met the visiting party on the train, among whom was the lady who had told him of the school, and she would take no refusal,--he must go with them.

It was a beautiful day for Steve and in his boyish talk about his life and school he often spoke of Miss Grace, but each time came that grim setting of Mr. Polk's lips and the boy soon instinctively dropped her name. The day was destined to be full of events, some in honour of the visitors and some that were totally unexpected.

The speech of welcome from the school was made by Stephen Langly. Miss Grace had told him to say in his own words whatever was in his heart to say. So the boy stepped out from the gathered school, mounted a little platform and stood before the a.s.sembled crowd unabashed, for the mountaineer knows no embarra.s.sment, while in simple good English he thanked the generous friends and teachers for what they were doing for mountain boys and girls. As he stood there well dressed, erect, manly, he bore little resemblance to the forlorn boy who had crept away from his cabin home at Hollow Hut a year before.

As the crowd dispersed a little after the speech-making, in which several took part, Mr. Polk and Steve walked away together and pa.s.sed a group of teachers and students of which the visiting lady of Mr.

Polk's acquaintance was the centre.

"Come here, Mr. Polk, please, and bring Steve to see me," she called.

Miss Grace Trowbridge was one of the group and Mr. Polk halted reluctantly, but finally joined them.

Before a word could be exchanged a tall, lank, grim mountaineer slouched forward and laid a h.o.r.n.y hand upon Steve's shoulder. The startled boy looked up to see his father standing beside him!

The Kentucky mountain product, unlike any other so-called shiftless man in the world, may idle his days away with pipe and drink, but let a wrong, real or fancied, be done him or his and in his thirst for vengeance he is transformed. His energy, his perseverance, his intelligence, his fury become colossal. So, Jim Langly, convinced after months of waiting and brooding that his boy had been enticed away by the giver of the watch, had set out with a grim purpose of finding boy and man which had been undaunted by any obstacle. With slow but persistent effort he had traced the child over mountain and valley, often losing all clue, but never relaxing till at last he had reached Mr. Follet and learned that the boy was in school. From thence he easily made his way to the school of Mr. Polk's selection, and, arriving by strange providence upon a gala day, had found the two objects of his search at the same moment.

"I've found ye at last," he said grimly, "an' when I set eyes on the man whut give ye that watch and tolled my boy away from his home, I'll shoot him down lack a dog!"

Mr. Polk quietly walked out and said, "I am your man, Mr. Langly."

"You," the enraged mountaineer yelled, and jerking a pistol from his trousers pocket, he lifted and would have c.o.c.ked it, but quick as a deer Grace Trowbridge had stepped in front of Mr. Polk, protecting him with her body, while Steve threw himself on his father and screamed shrilly, dropping into the speech of the mountains:

"No, oh, pappy, pappy, don't shoot him! He nuver got me ter leave home; I went myself, and I'll go back with yer and stay all my life!"

Frantically the boy clung to his father, pleading pitifully, while Grace Trowbridge with all her strength pushed Mr. Polk back among a quickly gathering crowd. Others joined her, and in the excitement of the moment, both she and Mr. Polk were hurried into safety within one of the school buildings and the door locked upon them.

The town constable was on the ground, for his services were quite likely to be needed in any public gathering, and before Jim Langly realized what was happening, being wholly unfamiliar with the ways of law and order, his pistol had been wrenched from his hand (something unheard of in mountain ethics), and he was hurried from the scene like an infuriated lion made captive.

Breathless and spent, Grace Trowbridge found herself looking into the face of her old lover when the door was locked upon them. She stood an instant like a frightened bird driven to cover, her eyes gazing into his, anxiety, relief, tragic intensity born of but one emotion in her white quivering face,--and then the warm blood surged up with returning realization of the years of estrangement between them, and she wheeled for instant flight.

But the door was locked, and baffled she faced him again, crying, "Oh, Sam, let me out!"

For answer he caught her in his arms and said, "Let you out, and away from me? Never! I shall hold you fast instead. I love you, love you, love you," he cried vehemently, "and what is more, you love me!" He crushed her to him and the tense, spent figure relaxed in his arms while love in full tide swept over them, after six weary years of longing and restraint. Their separation had followed a misunderstanding which now did not even seem to need explanation.

"Sam," she cried at last, moving energetically away from him, "I can never give up these blessed mountain children. You'll have to adopt every one of them if you take me!"

"All right," he said happily, "just as many of them as you please."

Instantly both remembered Steve.

"Oh, Sam, where is Steve? Do you suppose his father has carried him off, and that we will never see him again?" she exclaimed in distress, and a few moments later, when release came to them, their first anxious inquiry was for the boy.

No one had seen or thought of him in the excitement, and when the story of Jim Langly's arrest had been told them, they searched the grounds and buildings in great anxiety before they finally found Steve in his room.

When Mr. Polk opened the door the boy stood before him dressed in a little ragged shirt and old pair of trousers he had worn for hunting and with bared feet. The hopeless expression of the lost was in his face.

"I can't keep my promise to you, Mr. Polk," he said brokenly. "I can't ever climb that mountain fer yer, but it is better fer me ter die on the way than fer you to be killed." Correct speech had no part in such despair.

Mr. Polk drew the boy to him while Miss Grace stood without, her lips tremulous and eyes full of tears. After a silent moment Mr. Polk led the boy outside and put him in her arms.

"Do you think we are going to give you up?" Mr. Polk said, striding up and down the hall. "Not by a long shot," he went on with energy, and a conviction for which he could not at the moment see any tangible foundation. "This is all going to be fixed up,--just leave everything to Miss Grace and me."

The boy shook his head. "Ye don't know pappy," he said sadly.

"I may not," returned Mr. Polk cheerfully, "but I know Grace Trowbridge, and I am going to trust her to keep you here. Do just as she says, son, and everything will come right."

He left them to talk with the president of the school. They discussed what should be done with Jim Langly. Mr. Polk greatly regretted the man's arrest, but was compelled to admit it could not have been avoided. He begged, however, that prosecution of the case be delayed until every effort could be made to make Langly see that only good was intended for his son.

"Of course I must relinquish all claim to the boy," he said sadly, "but we must by some means win the father's consent that Steve remain here,--that is the important thing."

So it was decided that Mr. Polk should leave, as his presence could only infuriate the man, and the president gladly promised to do everything in his power to win the father.

For a week Jim Langly remained in the lock-up of the town. He had wrenched his back severely in the struggle with his captors; then, like a caged lion indeed, he had beaten the walls of his prison all night without food or drink, and being a man of indolent habits, he collapsed utterly next morning. The gaunt, haggard face with deep hollows beneath the eyes, the giant figure lying helpless upon a rude couch of the lock-up touched deeply the heart of Grace Trowbridge when she went in to see him. In his blind fury he had not noticed her especially the day before; and when, without saying a word, she stepped lightly across the room and reaching through the iron bars closed a rude shutter to screen the glare of the morning sun from his eyes, then gently adjusted a pillow beneath his head and fed him a cup of hot broth, he accepted it all like a wild, sick animal which in its helplessness has lost all animosity to man.

During the day she tended him un.o.btrusively, but with infinite kindness, and next morning she found him better, but still willing to accept her care. He even watched her with a far-away interest as one would something unknown and yet strangely pleasing. By the third morning she talked to him a bit as she smoothed his pillow, and smiled as he ate her toast with relish.

At last he said with an effort, "Whar's Steve?"

"He is here," she said gladly, "just waiting outside the door for you to ask for him. He has been there every day," she added softly.

Then she stepped to the door and motioned for Steve. The boy came in, still dressed in mountain fashion, for no amount of persuasion could induce him to again put on the better clothes. This evidently met the father's approval, for a look of bitter expectancy which had come into his face faded at once as he saw the old trousers and bare feet.

"Set down," he commanded feebly, but not unkindly, though he had nothing more to say.

The two stayed with him through the day, and gradually Grace, with consummate tact, made conversation which included the three, though Langly took little part. Then she read a stirring story which compelled his attention and interest even though he had never heard anything read aloud before. It was the first time in the mountaineer's long life that he had ever been unable to rise from his bed and go his way and the helplessness had softened his spirit like the touch of a fairy's wand. As he listened to the sweet, cultured voice of the woman while she read and saw Steve with quickened intelligence following every word, he realized for the first time that the world held strange things in which he had no part, but for which his boy was ready.

At last Miss Grace turned to Steve and said in the most natural manner, "My throat is getting tired; won't you read a little for us?"

The boy looked at his father in quick alarm, but the gaunt face betrayed nothing, and the reading went on in Steve's boyish voice.

Several days pa.s.sed during which Miss Grace and Steve had been constantly with the prisoner, then his injured back was sufficiently restored to permit of his being raised in bed to a sitting posture, and Miss Grace felt it was time she tried to win his consent to Steve's remaining at school. With woman's intuition she divined the best method of approach. Steve was not there and she told with simple pathos of the boy's love for his mother. Jim Langly had loved his wife with all the mountain man's lack of expression, but the natural portrayal of the boy's affection did not displease him. The old self in fact seemed to pa.s.s out with that day of terrible fury and the softer spirit which had taken its place seemed to linger. She went on to tell how the boy's mother had longed for him to have a chance to learn, and that only a few minutes before her death she had made him promise to go where he could learn.

"It was this," she ended, "which made Steve leave home and not the man who sent the watch."

Jim Langly lay silent a long while after hearing this, and then he said:

"I was agin that in her alive, I reckon I won't be agin her dead."

After a little he inquired with resentment in his voice, "How come that man whut give him the watch ter be with him here?"

"The boy happened to find the man," she said, "and the man was good to him when he needed a friend. But we will get Steve to tell us all about it," she ended brightly, as Steve came just then to the door.

And with a glad heart the boy told all his story from the day he left Hollow Hut till his father's appearance a few days before.

The president of the school then visited Langly, told of the boy's progress and begged earnestly that he be allowed to stay. Nothing was said as to how the boy's expenses were to be met, and since Jim Langly knew as little as a child about the cost of such things, he asked no questions. When strong enough at last Langly walked out a free man, the president having withdrawn all charges against him, and after looking about the buildings with strange interest he started back to Hollow Hut, with no good-bye for his boy after the manner of the mountains, but with an understanding that when school closed Steve should return to his old home for the summer.