"Oh, ye air, air ye? Well, that's mighty big talk for little breeches," he taunted, to see whether the spirit that looked out at him from his grandson's eyes went deep, or was mere surface bravado. He got his answer. With a roar the baby charged him, gripped the big man around the knees and swung. "Git off'n my injine!" he bellowed, contorting his small body to hammer with his toes the offending legs he clung to. "I told you once civil, and [108] you didn't go. I'm cap'n of this train, and I can throw rowdies off when they won't go." The lines of the man's face puckered curiously as he looked down at the small assailant. Without another word he freed his foot from the chip-and-string "train," moving circumspectly and with due regard to flimsy couplings. Without another word he stepped slowly on, looking across his shoulder once, to note that Lance instantly joined his train into shape and, turning his back on his big adversary, promptly forgot all about him. Where the woods-path struck the big road, the grandfather stood a long moment and studied his grandson; then he made his way to the house where eleven year-old Roxy sat sorting wild greens on the porch edge. "How old is that chap back thar?" he inquired of her brusquely. "Brother Lance? W'y, he ain't but fo' year old," Roxana returned sanctimoniously. "Gran'pap, you mustn't hold it agin' him that he's so mean--he's but fo' year old. An' Poppy won't never whip him like he ort. If Poppy would jest give him a good dosin' of hickory tea, I 'low he'd come of his meanness mighty quick." Jesse Lance merely grunted in reply to these pious observations, and in his mind there framed itself a codicil to be added to that will. Melissa--Melissa who married Kimbro Cleaverage--had been left out of both testaments so far; but she [109] was his favorite child, and it had been in her father's mind to bequeath to her the wild land up in the Gap. Yet of what use would such a piece of timber be to a woman? And it would be of less account to a man like Kimbro Cleaverage. They would but sell it for the meagre price someone might offer their necessities now. No, the dauntless captain of the train back there on the path was the one to own the Gap hundred. Such a man as he promised to become, would subdue that bit of savage nature, and live with and upon it. The lawyer in Hepzibah should fix the will that way.