He took the saddle from her back as soon as he dismounted,—none too quickly, for she instantly rolled over upon the ground, her iron-shod feet awkwardly waving in the air. Then, as she gathered herself up with a snort of satisfaction, she set out for the barn and the water-trough with a capable air, evidently used to serving her own supper and making her own bed. As Jepson entered the firelit room, Ben Bowles, sitting beside the hearth, his elbows on his knees, his pipe in his mouth, roused himself from a sort of lethargy of idleness, and a slow smile began to make more distinctly indented the many wrinkles around his mouth and hay-colored beard. His mild eyes shone with such pleasure as so definite a clod might be presumed to feel, but he glanced dubiously at his wife before he ventured to speak. “Air that you-uns, Teck? Powerful glad ter see ye back hyar,” he said cordially. “I ain’t company enough fur him, Teck,” said Mrs. Bowles, with an assertive smile, displaying all her fine teeth. “Laws-a-massy, jes’ listen at M’ria, now!” Her husband gallantly scouted the idea, but he looked somewhat deprecatory of having laid himself liable to this interpretation. Jepson glanced about him, heedless of both. “Whar’s the chill’n?” he demanded. “Gone ter bed?” “Whar ye reckon?” retorted Mrs. Bowles, with a flash of her bead-like eyes. “Ye s’pose I hev made sassingers or minch-meat out’n ’em?” “Ye air ekal ter it,” her brother-in-law ruthlessly declared. The mild Ben Bowles deserved, perhaps, a better fate than the continual futility of his efforts to preserve the peace about him. So much tact, so perfected by practice, seemed wasted here. “Ha, ha!” He forced a laugh, affecting to interpret facetiously the retort and the counter-retort. “Nare one o’ ’em hev got meat enough on thar bones ter be wuth the scrapin’, ’ceptin’ it air Bob. Ha, ha! Bob’s fat enough.” Jepson’s only rejoinder was a glance of scorn. He strode over to the shadowy corner where the children lay, and looked down at Sim’s pale, unhappy face, with its marks of sullen sorrow all undispelled, even in its absent, far-away expression. Aminty’s had the solemnity of sleep upon it, and her tossed and tangled hair about it. Bob’s wide-open twinkling hazel eyes shut instantly in feigned slumber the moment they encountered Jepson’s. The diplomatist of four snored gently.