The speech of welcome from the school was made by Stephen Langly. Miss Grace had told him to say in his own words whatever was in his heart to say. So the boy stepped out from the gathered school, mounted a little platform and stood before the assembled crowd unabashed, for the mountaineer knows no embarrassment, while in simple good English he thanked the generous friends and teachers for what they were doing for mountain boys and girls. As he stood there well dressed, erect, manly, he bore little resemblance to the forlorn boy who had crept away from his cabin home at Hollow Hut a year before.
As the crowd dispersed a little after the speech-making, in which several took part, Mr. Polk and Steve walked away together and passed a group of teachers and students of which the visiting lady of Mr. Polk’s acquaintance was the centre.
“Come here, Mr. Polk, please, and bring Steve to see me,” she called.
Miss Grace Trowbridge was one of the group and Mr. Polk halted reluctantly, but finally joined them.
Before a word could be exchanged a tall, lank, grim mountaineer slouched forward and laid a horny hand upon Steve’s shoulder. The startled boy looked up to see his father standing beside him!
The Kentucky mountain product, unlike any other so-called shiftless man in the world, may idle his days away with pipe and drink, but let a wrong, real or fancied, be done him or his and in his thirst for vengeance he is transformed. His energy, his perseverance, his intelligence, his fury become colossal. So, Jim Langly, convinced after months of waiting and brooding that his boy had been enticed away by the giver of the watch, had set out with a grim purpose of finding boy and man which had been undaunted by any obstacle. With slow but persistent effort he had traced the child over mountain and valley, often losing all clue, but never relaxing till at last he had reached Mr. Follet and learned that the boy was in school. From thence he easily made his way to the school of Mr. Polk’s selection, and, arriving by strange providence upon a gala day, had found the two objects of his search at the same moment.
“I’ve found ye at last,” he said grimly, “an’ when I set eyes on the man whut give ye that watch and tolled my boy away from his home, I’ll shoot him down lack a dog!”
Mr. Polk quietly walked out and said, “I am your man, Mr. Langly.”
“You,” the enraged mountaineer yelled, and jerking a pistol from his trousers pocket, he lifted 101 and would have cocked it, but quick as a deer Grace Trowbridge had stepped in front of Mr. Polk, protecting him with her body, while Steve threw himself on his father and screamed shrilly, dropping into the speech of the mountains: