"Don't shoot! Hit's Steve, my little buddie Steve!" And she stepped across the room to him in a way which showed she was capable of being stirred into action sometimes. The men looked uncertain, but Mirandy's husband, peering into Steve's face a moment, said: "Yes, that's right, hit's Steve Langly, though I'd nuver knowed ye in the world," and the other men dropped back. The child in the centre of the room looked about with dull eyes, then dropped to the floor in a pitiful little drunken heap. With his heart wrung to the point of agony, Steve stepped forward and stooping down lifted it tenderly to his breast. In the old home that little boy represented himself, as he used to be. When he could speak he said in a voice which trembled upon the silence: "This is my little nephew, is it not?" And Mirandy cried out sharply to her husband, without answering the question: "Ye shan't nuver do that no more," and the men slunk out one by one, ashamed, rebuked, sobered, though they could not have told why. Steve turned as they left and sat down, still holding the child to his breast. Then gently releasing his hold with one hand he tenderly pushed back the damp hair from the little swollen face, while Mirandy stood by, the tears dropping down her cheeks,--a thing most unusual for a mountain woman. And she said again passionately, "Champ shan't nuver make him drunk agin." "What is his name?" asked Steve at last. "Hit's Champ fer his pappy. The bigges' one--he's outdoors some'eres,--he's named Steve," she said in mollifying tone. "He was borned the nex' winter atter you was here, an' you'd been sech a likely lookin' boy I thought I'd name him fer ye." "That was good ev you, Randy," said Steve dropping tenderly into the old form of speech. "I'll be glad ter see my namesake. Air the two all ye hev?" "No, thar's the baby on the bed; she's a little gal," Mirandy replied dully. "Then there's two on 'em that died, when they was babies. We women allus gits chillun enough," she said, in a whining voice peculiar to the older women of the mountains which she had already acquired. Steve remained a month and it was the most trying time of his life. When he learned of the "still," which he did very promptly, despair for Mirandy, her husband and the children filled his heart. Champ Brady was always under the influence of his "moonshine," and Steve knew it was perfectly useless to try to dissuade him from making or using it. Mirandy had his own distaste for it, but she had been accustomed to the thought of its free use all her life, and how could he make her listless mind comprehend its danger for her children? Not trusting her emotion and passionate protest the day he came, he talked with her earnestly many times and made her promise to do all she could to keep the children from it.