“Peter Petrie hain't got nare gran'-child,” said one of the loungers.
Tank, sober for once, held his breath to listen.
“Behaves powerful like a gran'dad,” observed the smith, holding a horseshoe with the tongs in the fire while the striker laid hold on the bellows and the sighing sound surged to and fro and the white blaze flared forth, showing the interested faces of the group in the dusky smithy, and among them the horse whose shoe was making, while another stood at the open door defined against the snow. “Behaves like he ain't got a mite o' sense. I war goin' by thar one day las' week an' I stepped up on the porch ter pass the time o' day with Pete an' his wife, an' the door war open. And' what d'ye s'pose I seen! Old Peter Petrie a-goin' round the floor on all fours, an' a-settin' on his back war a baby—powerful peart youngster—jes' a-grinnin' an' a-whoopin' an' a-poundin' old Peter with a whip! An' Pete galloped, he did! Didn't seem beset with them rheumatics he used ter talk about—peartest leetle 'possum of a baby!”
Tank Dysart lost no time in his investigations and he had the courage of his convictions. He did not scruple to call Peter Petrie to his face a mail-robber.
“Ye tuk a package deposited in the United States' mail and converted it to your own use,” he vociferated.
“'Twar neither stamped nor addressed,” old Petrie gruffly contended, albeit obviously disconcerted.
Dysart even sought to induce the postmaster to send a complaint of the rider to the postal authorities.
“I got too much respec' fur my job,” replied that worthy, jocosely eying Tank across the counter of the store. “I ain't goin' ter let on ter the folks in Washington that we send babies about in the mail-bags hyar in the mountings.”
The social acquaintance of the little man had necessarily been rather limited, but one day a neighbor, attracted to the Petrie cabin by idle curiosity concerning the waif robbed from the mails, gazed upon him for one astonished instant and then proclaimed his identity.
“Nare Gilhooley should ever cross Storm Mounting, 'cordin ter yer saying Petey, an' hyar ye hev been totin' Boss Gilhooley 's gran'son back an' forth across Old Stormy, an' all yer spare time ye spend on yer hands an' knees bar kin' like a dog jes' ter pleasure him.”