Then came Christmas and a fortnight’s vacation, and Sam shared cheerfully in the festivities of the season. He was in excellent health; he liked fun; he indulged vigorously in winter sports; his appetite remained admirable. But, for all that, there was a change in the boy, quite unobserved by his father, who was held by business cares; vaguely felt by his friends, and distinctly marked by his mother. Mrs. Parker took occasion to have several long talks with her son. She was sure that he had something on his mind, but all her tact did not lead him to confidences. Sam understood her solicitude, and was grateful, if reticent. A fellow who was trying to prove his self-reliance, he reasoned, must work out his problems for himself. Not that he would have declined counsel from older heads--probably he would have welcomed a chance to accept his father’s advice, the affair appearing to him to be peculiarly one for masculine consideration; but he would not seek it. Mr. Parker, as has been related, was very busy. For one thing, he was arranging a trip into the woods with a capitalist from New York, and plans for the expedition took up much of his time. For another, his method of dealing with Sam on probation was to interfere as little as possible with the boy’s affairs. Sam’s school reports were good; he seemed to be avoiding scrapes; he had distinguished himself in the rescue of Tom Orkney and Little Perrine. On the whole, the father was well pleased with the situation as he observed it. Sam himself was not pleased. It is not good to have a sense of uncertainty, and of baffled intentions to do right. On the one hand was his remembrance of his precautions in trying to follow out his motto of “Safety First”; on the other, an uneasy conviction that Tom Orkney had suffered unjustly. Sometimes one seemed to outweigh the other; again he vacillated miserably between the two opinions. And one day, not long after Christmas, when his doubts were assailing him sorely, he recalled the Major’s invitation, and sought diversion in a visit to the veteran. The Major received him with marked favor, cracked a joke or two about his big game record, and began to make the round of what was really a fine collection of arms. There were flint-lock muskets and fowling-pieces; muzzle-loading and breech-loading rifles; cutlasses, sabers and bayonets; huge, old-fashioned horse pistols, revolvers and even a modern, compact, automatic weapon. Of these the Major spoke briefly; but he lingered longer over a case in which lay a brace of pistols, very old in pattern, but of exquisite workmanship. “I wonder, Sam,” he said, “if you ever have seen such fellows as these? What do you think they are?” “I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” Sam answered. “Well, what do you imagine they were used for?” “I haven’t a notion.”