Not knowing it was a mill child on its way to work, Jack detained it in all the kindness of his heart, and the little thing was not in a hurry to go. Indeed, it forgot all about the mill until its father happened along an hour after it should have been at work. His name was Joe Hopper, a ne'er-do-well whose children, by working at the mill, supported him in idleness. Catching the child, he berated it and boxed its ears soundly. Jack was at work, but turning, and seeing the child chastised, he came at the man with quiet fury. With one huge hand in Joe Hopper's collar, he boxed his ears until he begged for mercy. "Now go," said Jack, as he released him, "an' know hereafter how it feels for the strong to beat the weak." Of all things, Jack wanted to talk with Margaret Adams; but he could never make up his mind to seek her out, though his love for this woman was the love of his life. Often at night he would slip away from the old preacher's cabin and his cot by Captain Tom's bed, to go out and walk around her little cottage and see that all was safe. James, her boy, peculiarly interested Jack, but it was some time before he came to know him. He knew the boy was Richard Travis's son, and that he alone had stood between him and his happiness. That but for him--the son of his mother--he would never have been the outlaw that he was, and even now but for this son he would marry her. But outlaw that he was, Jack Bracken had no free-booting ideas of love. Never did man revere purity in woman more than he--that one thing barred Margaret Adams forever from his life, though not from his heart. He felt that he would hate James Adams; but instead he took to the lad at once--his fine strange ways, his dignity, courage, his very aloofness and the sorrow he saw there, drew him to the strange, silent lad. One day while at work in his shop he looked up and saw the boy standing in the door watching him closely and with evident admiration. "Come in, my lad," said Jack, laying down his big hammer. "What is yo' name?" "Well, I don't know that that makes any difference," he replied smiling, "I might ask you what is yours." Jack flushed, but he pitied the lad. He smiled: "I guess you an' I could easily understan' each other, lad--what can I do for you?" "I wanted you to fix my pistol for me, sir--and--and I haven't anything to pay you." Jack looked it over--the old duelling pistol. He knew at once it was Colonel Jeremiah Travis's. The boy had gotten it somehow. The hair-spring trigger was out of fix. Jack soon repaired it and said: "Now, son, she's all right, and not a cent do I charge you." "I didn't mean that," said the boy, flushing. "I have no money, but I want to pay you, for I need this pistol--need it very badly." "To shoot rabbits?" smiled Jack.