Silas Strong, Emperor of the Woods. Irving Bacheller

while he seemed to be trying the point of a pen.

      "You may give me five cents if you've a mind to when you open it," Socky added.

      Gordon turned slowly and kissed the forehead of his little son. The boy put his arms around the neck of his father and begged him to come and lie upon the bed and tell a story.

      So it happened the current of ruin was turned aside—the heat-oppressed brain diverted from its purpose. For as the man lay beside his children he began to think of them and less of himself. "I cannot leave them," he concluded. "When I go I shall take them with me."

      In the long, still hours he lay thinking.

      The south wind began to stir the pines, and cool air from out of the wild country came through an open window. Fathoms of dusty, dead air which had hung for weeks over the valley, growing hotter and more oppressive in the burning sunlight, moved away. A cloud passing northward flung a sprinkle of rain upon the broad, smoky flats and was drained before it reached the great river. All who were sick and weary felt the ineffable healing of the woodland breeze. It soothed the aching brain of the mill-owner and slackened the ruinous toil of his thoughts.

      Gordon slept soundly for the first time in almost a month.

II

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      NEXT morning Gordon felt better. He began even to consider what he could do to mend his life. The children got ready for Sunday-school and were on their way to church an hour ahead of time. Sue, in her white dress and pretty bonnet, walked with a self-conscious, don't-touch-me air. Socky, in his little sailor suit, had the downward eye of meditation. Each carried a Testament and looked neither to right nor left. They hurried as if eager for spiritual refreshment. They were, however, like the veriest barbarians setting out with spears and arrows in quest of revenge. They were thinking of Lizzie Cornell and that boy of the red head and the doomed uncle. Socky's lips moved silently as he hurried. One might have inferred that he was repeating his golden text. Such an inference would have been far from the truth. He was, in fact, tightening the grasp of memory on those inspiring words: "an' Uncle Sile fetched him a cuff with his fist an' broke the bear's neck, an' then he brought him home on his back an' et him for dinner." They joined a group of children who were sitting on the steps of the old church. Their hearts beat fast when they saw Lizzie coming with her cousin, the red-headed boy.

      A number went forth to meet the two.

      "Tell us the badger story," said they to the red-headed boy.

      "Pooh! that ain't much," he answered, modestly.

      "Please tell us," they insisted.

      "Wal, one day my Uncle Mose see a side-hill badger—"

      "What's a side-hill badger?" a voice interrupted.

      "An animal what lives on a hill, an' has legs longer on one side than on t 'other, so 't he can run round the side of it," said he, glibly, and with a look of pity for such ignorance.

      "Go on with the story," said another voice.

      "My Uncle Mose sat an' watched one day up in the limb of a tree above the hole of a badger. By-an'-by an ol' he badger come out, an' my uncle dropped onto his back, an' rode him round an' round the hill 'til he was jes' tuckered out.

      Then Uncle Mose put a rope on his neck an' tied him to a tree, an' the ol' badger dug an' dug until they was a hole in the ground so big you could put a house in it. An' my uncle he got an idee, an' so one day he fetched him out to South Colton an' learnt him how to dig wells an' cellars, an' bym-by the ol' badger could earn more money than a hired man."

      "Shucks!" said Socky, turning upon his adversary with sneering, studied scorn. "That's nothing!"

      Then proudly stepping forward, he flung the latest exploit of his Uncle Silas into the freckled face of the red-headed boy. It stunned the able advocate of old Moses Leonard—a mighty hunter in his time—and there fell a moment of silence followed by murmurs of applause.

      The little barbarian—Lizzie Cornell—had begun to scent the battle and stood sharpening an arrow.

      "It's a lie," said the red-headed boy, recovering the power of speech.

      "His father's a thief an' a drunkard, anyway." That was the arrow of Lizzie Cornell.

      Socky had raised his fists to vindicate his honor, when, hearing the remark about his father, he turned quickly upon the girl who made it.

      What manner of rebuke he would have administered, history is unable to record. The minister had come. The children began to scatter. Lizzie and her red-headed cousin ran around the church. Socky and Sue stood with angry faces.

      Suddenly Socky leaned upon the church door and burst into tears. He dimly comprehended the disgrace which Lizzie had sought to put upon him. The minister could not persuade him to enter the church or to explain the nature of his trouble.

      When all had gone into Sunday-school, the boy turned, wiping his eyes. Sue stood beside him, a portrait of despair.

      "Le's go home an' tell our father," said she.

      They started slowly, but as their indignation grew their feet hurried. Neither spoke in the long journey to their door. They ran through the hall and rushed in upon their father who sat reading.

      "Oh, father!" said the girl, in excited tones; "Lizzie Cornell says you're a thief an' a drunkard."

      Gordon rose and turned pale.

      The hands and voices of the children were ever raised against him.

      "It's a lie!" said he, turning away.

      He stood a moment looking out of the window. He must take them to some lonely part of the wilderness and there make an end of his trouble and of theirs. He turned to the children, saying, "Right after dinner we'll start for the woods."

      So it befell that in the afternoon of a Sunday late in June, Socky and Sue, with all their effects in a pack-basket, and their father beside them, started in a spring-wagon over the broad, stony terraces that lift southward into thickening woods, on their way to great peril.

      And so, too, it befell that in leaving home and the tearful face of dear Aunt Marie, they were sustained by a thought of that good and mighty man whom they hoped soon to see—their Uncle Silas.

III.

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      THE day was hot and still. Slowly they mounted the foot-hills between meadows aglow with color. The country seemed to flow ever downward past their sleepy eyes on its way to the great valley. The daisies were like white foam on the slow cascade of Bowman's Hill, and there were masses of red and yellow which appeared to be drifting on the flats. A driver sat on the front seat, and Gordon behind with Socky and Sue. The little folk chattered together and wearied their father with queries about birds and beasts. By-and-by the girl grew silent, her chin sank upon her breast, and her head began to shake and sway as their wagon clattered over the rough road. In a moment Socky's head was nodding also, and the feet of both swung limp below the wagon-seat.

      They had seemed to sink and rise and struggle and cry out in the silence, and were now as those drowned beneath it. Gordon drew them towards him and lifted their legs upon the cushioned wagon-seat. He sat thinking as they rode. They had been hard on him—those creditors. He had not meant to steal, but only to borrow that small sum which he had taken out of the business in order to feed and clothe the children who lay beside him. True, some dollars of it had gone to buy oblivion—a few hours of unearned, of unholy relief. How else, thought he, could he have stood the reproaches of brutal