"They shan't have it if they do," cried Oleah, stamping his little foot resolutely on the floor. Joe rose from the low chair on which he had been sitting, and went out, saying something about his father coming down into Egypt. "Mamma," said Abner, when Joe had gone out, "what makes him say such strange things? He says that he is Joseph, and that his brothers sold him into Egypt, and he calls papa the captain of the guard. He goes out into the fields and watches the negroes work, and says he is Potiphar's overseer, and must attend to his household." "Poor boy, he is insane, my son," answered Mrs. Tompkins; "he is very unfortunate, and you must not tease him. Let him believe he is Joseph, for it will make him feel happier to have his delusion carried out by others." "The other day, when we were playing in the barn, Joe and Oleah and me, I saw a great scar and sore place on poor Joe's head, just like some one had struck him. I asked him what did it, and he said he fell with his head on a sharp rock when his brothers threw him into the pit." Oleah now was anxious to go back to his play, and dragged his brother out of the house to the lawn, leaving Mrs. Tompkins alone with the baby. Several weeks after the baby and Crazy Joe became inmates of Mr. Tompkins' house, a man, dressed in trowsers of brown jeans and hunting shirt of tanned deer skin, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and heavy boots, came to the mansion. The Autumn day was delightful; it was after the Fall rains. The Indian Summer haze hung over hill, and mountain, and valley, and the sun glowed with mellowed splendor. The stranger carried a rifle, from which a wild turkey was suspended, and wore the usual bullet-pouch and powder-horn of the hunter slung across his shoulder. He was tall and wiry, about thirty-five years of age, and, to use his own expression, as "active as a cat and strong as a lion." Daniel Martin, or "Uncle Dan," as he was more generally known, was a typical Virginia mountaineer, whose cabin was on the side of a mountain fifteen miles from Mr. Tompkins' plantation. He was noted for his bravery and his bluntness, and for the unerring aim of his rifle. He was the friend of the rich and poor, and his little cabin frequently afforded shelter for the tourist or the sportsman. He was called "Uncle Dan" by all the younger people, simply because he would not allow himself to be called Mr. Martin. "No, siree," he would say; "no misterin' fur me. I was never brought up to it, and I can't tote the load now." He persisted in being called "Uncle Dan," especially by the children. "It seems more home-like," he would say. Why he had not wife and children to make his cabin "home-like" was frequently a theme for discussion among the gossips, and, as they could arrive at no other conclusion, they finally decided that he must have been crossed in love.