“Let’s hurry supper,” said the Cub, when he had brought in the milk. “I’ve had the last milking lesson I need, and I can do it all right now without pulling too hard, or squirting, or laming my wrists. Larsen says I’ll be worth twenty a month and board by summer if I keep on steady,—just as if I wouldn’t! But I’ve got to keep the other end up besides, and I’ve some reading to do to-night, if I’m going up to the shack again in the morning.” Crossing the kitchen, he picked his mother up as if she had been a feather, and whirling her about, gave her a hearty kiss that sent a glow to her heart and cheeks at the same time, before he seated her, like a small child, on the table edge, where she struggled, laughed, and was sublimely happy at his rough caress. Then, further to carry out his genial mood, he bounced into his father’s room and, wheeling him to the kitchen, pushed the chair close to the table, and thus they all supped together, a circumstance that had seemed impossible in Mrs. Peck’s presence. After Adam Lawton had gone to bed, the Cub helping him as usual, the boy settled himself by the bright lamp in the kitchen with his books, while Mrs. Lawton and Brooke sat by the firelight in the library, talking quietly. Brooke, hunched on the rug, leaned her head back against her mother’s knee, and yielded to the soothing touch of gentle fingers upon her eyes and brow. Presently Tatters began to growl deeply and give what they had learned to designate as his animal bark, quite different in quality from that with which he announced the approach of man. Pam, of course, joined him, springing from the cushioned chair in which she slept. The Cub went to the door and listened—cackles of alarm were coming from the chicken house. “It’s the weasel or mink, or whatever it was that prowled last night,” he reported. “I’ll go out and see, because Stead says that sometimes, if you leave them all night, they gnaw out of the trap. Don’t you want to come too, Sis? Hurry up, then, and get your cape. No, don’t let the dogs out, they’ll get pinched in the trap, or chew the beast up, maybe, and I want to keep him whole. I guess the moon is bright enough, we will not need the lantern,” and seizing a stout stick, the Cub tiptoed carefully out to make as little noise as possible, not having yet learned that to wild animals scent serves as a warning even more than sound. Brooke, however, preferred to take the lantern, and lighting it, she quickly followed. The Cub examined his traps. They were untouched, but as he knelt he saw a straight row of tracks in the snow, that were too large to belong to either weasel or mink. Following these, they led him around to the roosting house. There, between it and the open yard, something that appeared to be a small dog crouched in the corner. The moon shone brightly between the buildings, and every hair of the little beast stood out as clearly as by electric light.