“Oh, yes, I’ll happen round there some day to rights. How in tunket did she ever come to mate wi’ that surly red-haired dog? You know I hain’t seen her since they was married. Women is onaccountable critters, anyhow, an’ I’ve been marcifully presarved from ever bein’ tackled to one on ’em;” yet he sighed, as he looked about the littered room, that showed so plainly the lack of housewifely care. After the supper of fried venison and johnny-cake was eaten, they sat in the twilight and firelight talking over the past and plans for the future, till the boy, worn out with the events of the day, was given a nest of furs in the loft, where he would be safe from detection by any chance visitor, and Job, after barring the door and carefully covering the fire, betook himself with the hound to their accustomed couch on the floor. CHAPTER XII—A FREE LIFE The borders of the clearing were dimly defined in the dusk of the next evening, and Nathan was beginning to feel lonely, though he had the hound for company, when Job came in with his gun on his shoulder. “Well, what news?” Nathan asked, after a little impatient waiting for Job’s account of his trip abroad. “Well, I happened in just arter noon. Your nice stepfather sot by the fireplace a smokin’. ‘Where’s Nate,’ says I, an’ he up an’ answered mighty quick, ‘Run away, but he’ll be back quick enough.’ Your mother was lookin’ turrible worrited, an’ it was quite a spell afore I could git a chance to do my arrant with Toombs right in the room. Bimeby I made out to have a turrible pesterin’ sliver in my right hand an’ got your mother to pick it out wi’ a needle. I’d ruther have a leg took off ’an to have a woman jabbin’ at a sliver. Whilst she was at it, me wi’ my back towards Toombs, I whispered you was at my house and all right, an’ you’d ortu seen her face light up. Then we played the sliver was out, an’ arter I’d wished you was to home to go fishin’ with me an’ wondered what on airth you’d run away f’m such a good home for, I come off. An’ I tell you, boy, that ere ol’ scoundrel thinks he’s killed you. When I come off towards where he chopped that tree, he follered along to see if I went nigh it, an’ all the time I could see he was scairter’n he was mad.” “I don’t care, I can’t go back if you’ll let me stay with you.” “Sartainly, an’ glad to have you.” Nathan readily adapted himself to the ranger’s way of living, helping him in the cabin work and that of the clearing. At intervals, through his friend, he sent his mother tidings of his welfare and learned of her own. Through the same way, and his mother’s ready assistance, he gained possession of his other clothes—a tow shirt, a blue frock, a pair of gray breeches, and two pairs of thick woolen stockings, as large a wardrobe as most backwoods dwellers could boast of. “Your mother stuck this out of the loft winder as I come away,” said Job one day, handing him his father’s cherished gun.