June gazed rather contemptuously about the gray morning landscape and grunted comprehendingly. “Uh-huh. Reckon I wouldn’t neither if I was a cotton plant! It surely is a mighty--mighty _mean_-lookin’ place, ain’ it?” Well, it really was. Before them ran the railroad embankment, behind them was the little grove of bare trees and on either hand an uncultivated expanse of level field stretched away into the gray gloom. No habitation was as yet in sight. The telegraph poles showed spectrally against the dawn, and a little breeze, rising with the rising sun, made a moaning sound in the clustered wires. Sam came back from his profitless adventures and wormed himself between Wayne’s legs. June blew on his cold hands and crooned a song under his breath. The eastern sky grew lighter and lighter and suddenly, like a miracle, a burst of rose glow spread upward toward the zenith, turning the grayness into the soft hues of a dove’s breast! Wayne sprang to his feet, with an exclamation of pain as his cramped and chilled muscles responded to the demand, and stretched his arms and yawned prodigiously. “Come along and let’s find that hot coffee, June,” he said almost cheerfully. “There must be a house somewhere around here, I reckon.” “Sure must!” replied the other, falling instantly into Wayne’s humour. “Lawsy-y, I can jus’ taste that coffee now! Which way we goin’, Mas’ Wayne?” Wayne stamped his feet on the still frosty ground and considered. At last: “North,” he replied, “and north’s over that way. Come along!” He led the way back toward the track, followed by June and Sam, and after squeezing himself between the wires of a fence climbed the embankment and set off over the ties with a speed born of long practice. The rose hue was fast changing to gold now, and long rays of sunlight streamed upward heralding the coming of His Majesty the Sun; and against the glory of the eastern sky the three travellers stood out like animated silhouettes cut from blue-black cardboard as they trudged along--the white boy, the black boy, and the yellow dog. CHAPTER II JUNE STRIKES A BARGAIN