McCalloway realized that now, even more than formerly, the flame of the convicted man's influence was operating on the raw materials of this impressionable mind, welding to vindictiveness the feudal elements of its metal. But McCalloway had learned patience in a hard school, and now he was applying the results of his experience. Slowly under his sagacious guidance the stamp of hatred which had latterly marred the face of his youthful protege began to lighten. Boone was as yet too young to go under the yoke of unbroken pessimism. The very buoyancy of his years and splendid health argued that somehow the clouds must break. Meanwhile his task was clean cut--and dual. Asa's "woman" must have, from the stony farm, every stalk and ear of corn that could be wrung from its stinted productivity--and he must put behind him that ignorance which had so long victimized his kind. So once more he turned to his books when he was not busy with hoe or plough. One day, while the boy and the man sat together in McCalloway's house, knuckles rapped sharply on the door. It is contrary to the custom of frontier caution for one to come so far as the threshold without first raising his voice in announcement from a greater distance. But the door opened upon a grizzled man at the sight of whose face McCalloway bent forward as though confronted by a spectre--and indeed the newcomer belonged to a world which he had renounced as finally as though it had been of another incarnation. This visitor was lean and weather-beaten. His face was long and somewhat dour, but tanned brown, and instead of speaking he brought his hand to his temple with a smart salute. It was such a salute as bespoke a long life of soldiering and the second nature of military habit. The voice in which McCalloway greeted him was almost unrecognizable as his own, because it was both far away and strained. "Sergeant!" he exclaimed; "what has brought you here?" "The lad, sor'r," the other gravely reminded him. "I must speak with ye alone. 'Tis a verra private and a verra serious matter that brings me." Boone had never heard so hard a note in his benefactor's voice as that which crept into his curt reply: "It must needs be--to warrant your coming without permission, MacTavish." They were just finishing their daylight supper, and the boy rose, pushing back his chair. Faithfully he regarded his pledge of respecting the other's privacy whenever he was not invited to share it, and instinctively he felt that this was no moment for his intrusion. "I reckon I'll hev ter be farin' over thar ter see how Asa's woman's comin' on," he remarked casually, as he reached for the hat that lay at his feet. "Like es not she needs a gittin' of firewood erginst nightfall."