"You might win in a suit, Jason, I know, but I also know that you
could never collect even damages."

At these words Gray wheeled.

"Then this belongs to you, Jason."

The father smiled and nodded approval and assent.

That night there was a fusillade of shots, and Jason and Gray
rushed out with a Winchester in hand to see one barn in flames and
a tall figure with a firebrand sneaking toward the other. Both
fired and the man dropped, rose to his feet, limped back to the
edge of the woods, and they let him disappear. But all the night,
fighting the fire and on guard against another attack, Jason was
possessed with apprehension and fear--that limping figure looked
like Steve Hawn. So at the first streak of dawn he started for his
mother's home, and when that early he saw her from afar standing
on the porch and apparently looking for him, he went toward her on
a run. She looked wild-eyed, white, and sleepless, but she showed
no signs of tears.

"Where's Steve, mammy?" called Jason in a panting whisper, and
when she nodded back through the open door his throat eased and he
gulped his relief.

"Is he all right?"

She looked at him queerly, tried to speak, and began to tremble so