"
"What are we going to do about it, then?" asked Frank, anxiously.
"We've got to meet him," Ned replied. "Whoever he is, he knows from
Buck that Mrs. Brady went up the mountain to visit a camp of
strangers. We've got to go in and face him! I wish we had kept away
from here to-night."
Mrs. Brady and Buck now opened the door and entered the cabin, the
boys close behind them. A log fire was burning on a stone hearth, and
a tall, rather handsome young man with light hair and blue eyes was
sitting in a homemade chair before it.
He stirred the fire to a brighter blaze as they entered, and the
leaping flames disclosed a dark-haired child of perhaps seven years
asleep on a bed in a corner of the small room. Without speaking,
without so much as a glance at the visitor, the old lady walked
swiftly to the bed and took the child in her arms.
The boy opened his eyes and started to cry, but she quieted him with
low words and sat down on the edge of the bed, swinging him back and
forth with a motion of her arms and shoulders. The man at the fire
glanced sharply at the woman and then turned his eyes to the boys,
now standing not far from the bed.
"The little dear!" the woman cried, mothering the child.
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