The boy was at Andy's shoulder, his thin young fingers clutched the old shirt-sleeve excitedly, his voice arose, high and shrill and earnest. "Why, boy," said the old Frenchman, "I didn't know you cared so much. _I_ don't want to sell Grey, and I _won't_ sell him if you help me with my work for the mill hands." Alick Duncan rose to his feet, his big, hearty laugh ringing out as Jacky seized his hand with the words, "There, Mr. Duncan, Andy _won't_ sell Grey. He says so. You heard him." The big foreman stooped, picked up the boy, and swung him on his shoulder as if he had been a kitten. "All right, little Jack o' Lantern, do as you like. We mill hands will go on with Andy's pay, only you help him all you can--and maybe he'll keep the old grey--just for luck." "I _know_ it's for luck," laughed Jacky. "The grey knows so much. Why, Mr. Duncan, he knows _everything_; he knows as much as the mill hands." "I dare say," said the big foreman, dryly. "If he didn't he wouldn't have even horse sense." "But why do you call me that--'Jack o' Lantern'?" asked the boy from his perch on the big man's shoulder. "Because I thought the name suited you," smiled the foreman. "I've often seen the little Jack o' Lantern hovering above the marshes and swales, a dancing, pretty light, moving about to warn woodsmen of danger spots, just as your lantern, Jacky, warns the rivermen of that nasty 'wildcat' place in the river." "But," said the boy, "dad has always told me that the Jack o' Lantern is a foolish light, that it deceives people, that it misleads them, that sometimes they follow it and then get swamped in the marshes." "Yes, but folks know enough to _not_ follow your lantern, boy," answered the foreman seriously. "Your light is a warning, not an invitation." "Well, the warning light will always be there, as long as I have legs to carry it," assured Jacky, as the big foreman set him down on the floor. Then--"And when I fail, I'll just send the grey." They all laughed then, but none of them knew that, weeks later, the boy's words would come true. II It was late in January, and the blackest night that the river had ever known. A furious gale drove down from the west and the very stars were shut in behind a gloomy sky. Little Jacky Moran trimmed his lantern, filled it with oil, whistled for Grey, and set forth as the black night was falling. The oncoming darkness seemed to outdo itself. Before he was half way up the river, night fell, and he found that he could see but a very few feet before him, although it was not yet half-past five o'clock. At six the men would leave the mill over the river, and, journeying afoot across the ice, would reach home in safety if the lantern were lighted, and if not, any or all of them might be plunged into the treacherous "Wild Cat," with no hope of ever reaching shore alive.