Old Jason would easily get well--the colonel himself was surgeon enough to know that--and he himself dressed and bandaged the ragged wound that the big bullet had made through one of the old man's mighty shoulders. At his elbow all the time, helping, stood little Jason, and not once did the boy speak, nor did the line of his clenched lips alter, nor did the deadly look in his smouldering eyes change. One by one the guests left, the colonel sent Marjorie and Gray to bed, grandmother Hawn sent Mavis, and when all was done and the old man was breathing heavily on a bed in the corner and grandmother Hawn was seated by the fire with a handkerchief to her lips, the colonel heard the back door open and little Jason, too, was gone--gone on business of his own. He had seen Steve Hawn's face at the window, his mother had slipped out on the porch while he was dancing, and neither had appeared again. So little Jason went swiftly through the dark, over the ridge and up the big creek to the old circuit rider's house, where the stream forked. All the way he had seen the tracks of a horse which he knew to be Steve's, for the right forefoot, he knew, had cast a shoe only the day before. At the forks the tracks turned up the branch that led to Steve's cabin and not up toward his mother's house. If Steve had his mother behind him, he had taken her to his own home; that, in Mavis's absence, was not right, and, burning with sudden rage, the boy hurried up the branch. The cabin was dark and at the gate he gave a shrill, imperative "Hello!" In a few minutes the door opened and the tousled head of his cousin was thrust forth. "Is my mammy hyeh?" he called hotly. "Yep," drawled Steve. "Well, tell her I'm hyeh to take her home!" There was no sound from within. "Well, she ain't goin' home," Steve drawled. The boy went sick and speechless with fury, but before he could get his breath Steve drawled again: "She's goin' to live here now--we got married to-night." The boy dropped helplessly against the gate at these astounding words and his silence stirred Steve to kindness. "Now, don't take it so hard, Jason. Come on in, boy, an' stay all night." Still the lad was silent and another face appeared at the door. "Come on in, Jasie." It was his mother's voice and the tone was pleading, but the boy, with no answer, turned, and they heard his stumbling steps as he made his way along the fence and started over the spur. Behind him his mother began to sob and with rough kindness Steve soothed her and closed the door.