"Hello," greeted the intruder, plunging straight into the object of his visit, "I'm up against it, and I wonder if you won't help me out." He paused, and Brent waited for him to proceed, "I'm Reeves, of the Northern Dredge Company, and I've got every available man in Dawson out there on the works trying to finish three miles of flume and a half mile of railroad before snow flies. I can't spare a man off the works, but I've got to bank my house, so I decided to stay home myself tomorrow and tackle it. If you'll help me, and if we get a good
early start, I think we can finish the job by night. I wouldn't care a rap if it were not for my wife, she's from the South, and I'm afraid of those cold floors. What do you say, will you do it? I'll pay you well."
"Yes," answered Brent, and he noticed that the other's eyes had strayed in evident surprise to the pile of books upon the table among the dirty dishes.
"All right, that's fine! What time can I expect you?"
"Daylight," answered Brent, "Will you have a drink?" he indicated the bottle that stood beside the pile of books, but Reeves shook his head:
"No, thanks, I've got to tackle some work tonight that I've been putting off for weeks. See you in the morning."
Seated once more in his chair with his book, Brent poured himself a drink, "From the South," he whispered, and raising the murky glass to his lips swallowed the liquor. His eyes closed and into his brain floated a picture, dim and indistinct, at first, but gradually taking definite form—a little town of wide, tree-shaded streets, a weather-stained brick courthouse standing in the centre of a grassed square, and facing it across the street a red brick schoolhouse. The schoolhouse doors swung open and out raced a little boy swinging his books on the end of a strap. He was a laughing, cleareyed little boy, and he wore buckled slippers and black velvet nickers, and a wide collar showed
dazzling white against the black of the velvet jacket.
Other children followed, barefooted little boys whose hickory shirts, many sizes too large for the little bodies, bulged grotesquely about their "galluses," and little boys shod in stiff hot looking black shoes and stockings, and little girls with tight-braided pig-tails hanging down their backs, and short starched skirts, who watched with envious eyes as the velvet clad boy ran across to the "hitch-rail" that flanked the courthouse sidewalk, and mounted a stocky little "calico" Shetland pony, and rode down the tree-shaded street at a furious gallop. On the outskirts of the town the pony swerved of its own accord between two upstanding stone posts and into a broad avenue that swept in graceful curves between two rows of huge evergreens that led from the white turnpike to a big brick house, the roof of whose broad gallery was supported upon huge white pillars. Up the avenue raced the pony and up the dozen steps that led to the gallery, just at the moment that the huge bulk of a round-eyed colored "mammy" blocked the doorway of the hall.
"Hyah, yo' rascal, yo'!" cried the outraged negress flourishing her broom, "Git yo' circus hoss offen my clean gallery flo', fo' I bus' him wide open wif dis, broom! Lawd sakes, efen Miss Callie see yo' hyah, she gwine raise yo' ha'r fo' sho'! Yo' Ca'teh Brent, yo' git!" The broom swished viciously—and Brent opened his eyes with a jerk. The first fitful gusts of a norther were whipping about