He was a gray-haired, clean-shaven man, with fresh color and keen blue eyes. Although muffled to the chin in a raccoon coat that almost met the fur of his cap there was a splendid vigor about him that breathed health, energy, and the rewards a temperate life brings. Everything about him seemed clearness personified--eye, complexion, voice. "I've not lost my way, thank you, sir," Carl answered. "I just got to thinking and have wandered farther from home than I meant to." "Are you going back to town now?" "Yes, sir." "Jump in and I'll give you a lift." Raising the fur robes invitingly the stranger reached to open the door. Carl was almost too surprised to speak. "You're very kind, sir," he contrived to stammer. "I should be glad of a ride. I don't often get one. Besides, I ought to have been at home long ago." The honesty of the reply apparently pleased the motorist for, smiling, he tucked the lad in and asked: "Where do you live?" "At Mulberry Court, sir." "I'm afraid I don't quite know where that is." "Very likely not. It's a little tenement house off Minton Street. Maybe you never were there." "I guess I never was," the man replied simply. "It's a nice place to live," continued Carl, glowing with local pride. "Of course it isn't like this. We've no trees. But in winter trees aren't much good anyway; and in summer we can go to the parks." To this philosophic observation his companion agreed with a nod and they sped on in silence. The vast stretches of snow, so unsightly in the city's narrow thoroughfares, were on every hand white and sparkling, and each little shrub rearing its head out of the spangled fields was laden with ermine. The boy drew a long breath, drinking in the crystal air. "Gee!" he burst out impulsively. "This is great. I feel cheered up already." The man driving the car shot him a quiet smile. "I'm glad to hear that," said he. "So you were out of spirits, were you?" "I was fussed within an inch of my life," owned Carl with engaging candor. "In wrong somewhere?" "Oh, I'm not; but my chum is." "What's the matter?" "Why, you see his sister has just been fired from Davis and Coulter's mills. It wasn't her fault at all, either. Her brother gave the foreman, Corcoran, a jawing because he got too fresh with one of the girls. Corcoran didn't say a word at the time but a couple of weeks later he took out his spite on Hal Harling's sister, Louise. I suppose he was mad and decided on this way to get even." "Humph!"