LITMIR.BIZ

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thing for him to do, anyway.

      “Oh!” said Freckles, “so you was after knowing that? Well, I didn't s'pose you did, and I was afraid you'd think me wanting in respect to be preceding you!”

      The astonished Angel looked at him, caught the irrepressible gleam of Irish fun in his eyes, so they stood and laughed together.

      Freckles did not realize how he was talking that morning. He showed her many of the beautiful nests and eggs of the line. She could identify a number of them, but of some she was ignorant, so they made notes of the number and color of the eggs, material, and construction of nest, color, size, and shape of the birds, and went to find them in the book.

      At his room, when Freckles had lifted the overhanging bushes and stepped back for her to enter, his heart was all out of time and place. The study was vastly more beautiful than a week previous. The Angel drew a deep breath and stood gazing first at one side, then at another, then far down the cathedral aisle. “It's just fairyland!” she cried ecstatically. Then she turned and stared at Freckles as she had at his handiwork.

      “What are you planning to be?” she asked wonderingly.

      “Whatever Mr. McLean wants me to,” he replied.

      “What do you do most?” she asked.

      “Watch me lines.”

      “I don't mean work!”

      “Oh, in me spare time I keep me room and study in me books.”

      “Do you work on the room or the books most?”

      “On the room only what it takes to keep it up, and the rest of the time on me books.”

      The Angel studied him closely. “Well, maybe you are going to be a great scholar,” she said, “but you don't look it. Your face isn't right for that, but it's got something big in it—something really great. I must find out what it is and then you must work on it. Your father is expecting you to do something. One can tell by the way he talks. You should begin right away. You've wasted too much time already.”

      Poor Freckles hung his head. He never had wasted an hour in his life. There never had been one that was his to waste.

      The Angel, studying him intently, read the thought in his face. “Oh, I don't mean that!” she cried, with the frank dismay of sixteen. “Of course, you're not lazy! No one ever would think that from your appearance. It's this I mean: there is something fine, strong, and full of power in your face. There is something you are to do in this world, and no matter how you work at all these other things, or how successfully you do them, it is all wasted until you find the ONE THING that you can do best. If you hadn't a thing in the world to keep you, and could go anywhere you please and do anything you want, what would you do?” persisted the Angel.

      “I'd go to Chicago and sing in the First Episcopal choir,” answered Freckles promptly.

      The Angel dropped on a seat—the hat she had removed and held in her fingers rolled to her feet. “There!” she exclaimed vehemently. “You can see what I'm going to be. Nothing! Absolutely nothing! You can sing? Of course you can sing! It is written all over you.”

      “Anyone with half wit could have seen he could sing, without having to be told,” she thought. “It's in the slenderness of his fingers and his quick nervous touch. It is in the brightness of his hair, the fire of his eyes, the breadth of his chest, the muscles of his throat and neck; and above all, it's in every tone of his voice, for even as he speak it's the sweetest sound I ever heard from the throat of a mortal.”

      “Will you do something for me?” she asked.

      “I'll do anything in the world you want me to,” said Freckles largely, “and if I can't do what you want, I'll go to work at once and I'll try 'til I can.”

      “Good! That's business!” said the Angel. “You go over there and stand before that hedge and sing something. Just anything you think of first.”

      Freckles faced the Angel from his banked wall of brown, blue, and crimson, with its background of solid green, and lifting his face to the sky, he sang the first thing that came into his mind. It was a children's song that he had led for the little folks at the Home many times, recalled to his mind by the Angel's exclamation:

      “To fairyland we go,

       With a song of joy, heigh-o.

       In dreams we'll stand upon that shore

       And all the realm behold;

       We'll see the sights so grand

       That belong to fairyland,

       Its mysteries we will explore,

       Its beauties will unfold.

       “Oh, tra, la, la, oh, ha, ha, ha!

       We're happy now as we can be,

       Our welcome song we will prolong,

       And greet you with our melody.

       O fairyland, sweet fairyland,

       We love to sing——”

      No song could have given the intense sweetness and rollicking quality of Freckles' voice better scope. He forgot everything but pride in his work. He was singing the chorus, and the Angel was shivering in ecstasy, when clip! clip! came the sharply beating feet of a swiftly ridden horse down the trail from the north. They both sprang toward the entrance.

      “Freckles! Freckles!” called the voice of the Bird Woman.

      They were at the trail on the instant.

      “Both those revolvers loaded?” she asked.

      “Yes,” said Freckles.

      “Is there a way you can cut across the swamp and reach the chicken tree in a few minutes, and with little noise?”

      “Yes.”

      “Then go flying,” said the Bird Woman. “Give the Angel a lift behind me, and we will ride the horse back where you left him and wait for you. I finished Little Chicken in no time and put him back. His mother came so close, I felt sure she would enter the log. The light was fine, so I set and focused the camera and covered it with branches, attached the long hose, and went away over a hundred feet and hid in some bushes to wait. A short, stout man and a tall, dark one passed me so closely I almost could have reached out and touched them. They carried a big saw on their shoulders. They said they could work until near noon, and then they must lay off until you passed and then try to load and get out at night. They went on—not entirely from sight—and began cutting a tree. Mr. McLean told me the other day what would probably happen here, and if they fell that tree he loses his wager on you. Keep to the east and north and hustle. We'll meet you at the carriage. I always am armed. Give Angel one of your revolvers, and you keep the other. We will separate and creep toward them from different sides and give them a fusillade that will send them flying. You hurry, now!”

      She lifted the reins and started briskly down the trail. The Angel, hatless and with sparkling eyes, was clinging around her waist.

      Freckles wheeled and ran. He worked his way with much care, dodging limbs and bushes with noiseless tread, and cutting as closely where he thought the men were as he felt that he dared if he were to remain unseen. As he ran he tried to think. It was Wessner, burning for his revenge, aided by the bully of the locality, that he was going to meet. He was accustomed to that thought but not to the complication of having two women on his hands who undoubtedly would have to be taken care of in spite of the Bird Woman's offer to help him. His heart was jarring as it never had before with running. He must follow the Bird Woman's plan and meet them at the carriage, but if they really did intend to try to help him, he must not allow it. Allow the Angel to try to handle a revolver in his defence? Never! Not for all the trees in the Limberlost! She might shoot herself. She might forget to watch sharply and run across a snake that was not particularly well behaved that morning. Freckles permitted himself a grim smile as he went speeding on.

      When he reached the carriage, the Bird Woman and the Angel had

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