"Changed my mind," said Lapelle curtly, and then, apparently on second thought, added: "I got off the boat at La Grange and crossed over to spend the night at Martin Hawk's, the man you saw with me this morning, Mr. Gwynne. He is a hunter down Middleton way. I fish and hunt with him a good deal. Well, I reckon I'd better go in and get out of these muddy boots and pants." Without another word, he strode up the steps, across the porch and into the tavern, his head high, his gait noticeably unsteady. "Martin Hawk!" growled the landlord. "The orneriest cuss this side of hell. Plain no-good scalawag. Barry'll find it out some day, and then maybe he'll wish he had paid some attention to what I've been tellin' him." "Wouldn't surprise me a bit if Mart knows a whole lot more about what became of some mighty good yearlin' colts that used to belong to honest men down on the Wea," said one of the group, darkly. "I wouldn't trust Mart Hawk as far as I could throw a thousand pound rock," observed Mr. Johnson, compressing his lips. "Well, come on in, Mr. Gwynne, and slick up a bit. The dinner bell will be ringin' in a few minutes, and I want you to meet the cook before you risk eatin' any of her victuals. My wife's the cook, so you needn't look scared. Governor Noble almost died of over-feedin' the last time he was here,--but that wasn't her fault. And my daughters, big and little, seem anxious to get acquainted with the celebrated Kenneth Gwynne. People have been talkin' so much about you for the last six months that nearly everybody calls you by your first name, and Jim Crouch's wife is so taken with it that she has made up her mind to call her baby Kenneth,--that is, providing nature does the right thing. Next week some time, ain't it, Doc?" "That's what most everybody in town says, Bob," replied the doctor solemnly, "so I guess it must be true." "We begin counting the inhabitants of the town as far as a month ahead sometimes," explained Mr. McCormick drily. "I don't know as we've been out of the way more than a day or a day-and-a-half on any baby that's been born here in the last two years. Hope to see you in my store down there, Mr. Gwynne--any time you're passing that way. You can't miss it. It's just across the street from that white frame building with the green stripes running criss-cross on the front door,--Joe Hanna's store." "Robert Gwyn's son is always welcome at my store and my home," said another cordially. "We didn't know till last fall that he had a son, and--well, I hope you don't mind my saying we couldn't believe it at first." "You spell the name different from the way he spelled it," answered Bugher, the recorder. "I noticed it in your letters, and it struck me as queer." "My father appears to have reverted to the original way of spelling the name," said Kenneth, from the upper step. "My forebears were Welsh, you see. The manner of spelling it was changed when they came to America, over a hundred years ago."