Jean drove with her chin up, eyes alert, cheeks rosy. There was a snap in the air that “perked you right up,” as Cousin Roxy would say, and Princess covered the miles lightly, the click of her hoofs on the frozen road almost playing a dance _tempo_. When they stopped at the hitching post above the railroad tracks, Doris didn’t want to wait in the carriage, so she followed Jean down the long flight of wooden steps that led to the station platform from the hill road above. And just as they opened the door of the little stuffy express office, they caught the voice of Mr. Briggs, the agent, not pleasant and sociable as when he spoke to them, but sharp and high pitched. “Well, you can’t loaf around here, son, I tell you that right now. The minute I spied you hiding behind that stack of ties down the track, I knew you’d run away from some place, and I’m going to find out all about you and let your folks know you’re caught.” “I ain’t got any folks,” came back a boy’s voice hopefully. “I’m my own boss and can go where I please.” “Did you hear that, Miss Robbins?” exclaimed Mr. Briggs, turning around at the opening of the door. “Just size him up, will you. He says he’s his own boss, and he ain’t any bigger than a pint of cider. Where did you come from?” “Off a freight train.” Mr. Briggs leaned his hands on his knees and bent down to get his face on a level with the boy’s. “Ain’t he slick, though? Can’t get a bit of real information out of him except that he liked the looks of Nantic and dropped off the slow freight when she was shunting back and forth up yonder. What’s your name?” “Joe. Joe Blake.” He didn’t look at Mr. Briggs, but off at the hills, wind swept and bare except for their patches of living green pines. There was a curious expression in his eyes, Jean thought, not loneliness, but a dumb fatalism. As Cousin Roxy might have put it, it was as if all the waves and billows of trouble had passed over him, and he didn’t expect anything better. “How old are you?” “’Bout nine or ten.” “What made you drop off that freight here?” Joe was silent and seemed embarrassed. Doris caught a gleam of appeal in his glance and responded instantly. “Because you liked it best, isn’t that why?” she suggested eagerly. Joe’s face brightened up at that. “I liked the looks of the hills, but when I saw all them mills I—I thought I’d get some work maybe.” “You’re too little.” Mr. Briggs cut short that hope in its upspringing. “I’m going to hand you right over to the proper authorities, and you’ll land up in the State Home for Boys if you haven’t got any folks of your own.” Joe met the shrewd, twinkly grey eyes doubtfully. His own filled with tears reluctantly, big tears that rose slowly and dropped on his worn short coat. He put his hand up to his shirt collar and held on to it tightly as if he would have kept back the ache there, and Jean’s heart could stand it no longer.