Long after his father and his son had vanished from sight between the great snow ridges that lined the street, Charlie Pickett stood at the window of the jury room, looking out upon the wide, white landscape, thinking of the days gone by, of the day just passed, of the days he still hoped might come in the future.

Some one touched him gently on the shoulder. He turned and saw that it was Gabriel, and reached out to him a welcoming hand.

“I’m glad to see you, Gabriel,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get a chance to speak to you ever since you’ve been here. I’ve been wanting to ask you about Dannie, and about Father, and Aunt Martha, and yourself, and about the old place. It’s been a hard day for me, Gabriel.”

“The’ ain’t no doubt o’ that, Char—Mr. Pickett, I mean.”

“No, not Mr. Pickett. I’m always Charlie to you, you know. We’ve worked and tramped and hunted and fished together too often for any formality of that kind, Gabriel. But I am glad to see you. Here, sit down. Tell me about Dannie. I’ve just given him up to Father. I had a right to take him, Gabriel; I wanted to take him; but I knew it would break Father’s heart, and I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t do it.”

“Well,” replied Gabriel, slowly, “I ain’t got nothin’ to say aginst Abner Pickett. He’s treated me like a white man fer eighteen year an’ up’ards; but ef I had a son like you, an’ a gran’son like Dannie Pickett, I’ll be everlastin’ly gee-hawed ef I wouldn’t git down off’n my high hoss once’t in a w’ile, say once’t in a year to start on, an’ treat ’em both like human bein’s. Not to say but w’at he’s good to Dannie. W’y good ain’t no name fer it. They ain’t nothin’ he wouldn’t do fer that boy, nothin’—excep’ to let ’im hev the benefit uv a father.”

“And is Dannie equally fond of him?”

“Sure. They’re jes’ like twins, them two is. W’enever an’ w’erever you see one uv ’em, you’re jes’ nat’ally bound to see t’other.”

“So Aunt Martha has written me; and I’m glad of that, Gabriel. It is the only thing that reconciles me to his loss. But does he never think about his father? Does he never ask for him? Does he never want him? Tell me that, Gabriel.”

“Well, he ain’t never asked ’is gran’father about ye more’n once, I reckon. I heard ’im ask once. An’ the way—well, never mind that. Ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say: ‘You can’t close up a crack by hammerin’ a wedge in it.’ But ef he’s asked me about ye once’t, he’s asked a hunderd times. He’ll come on ye sudden like, w’en ye ain’t expectin’ it, an’ fire away till you don’t know wuther you’re standin’ on your head or your feet. He come onto me once’t that way las’ fall in the potater patch. ‘Gabriel,’ says ’e, ‘w’at did my father go away fer?’ sez ’e. Well, now, I could ’a’ told ’im, an’ I couldn’t ’a’ told ’im, an’ I didn’t do nary one. ‘Did he an’ Gran’pap hev a quarrel?’ sez ’e. An’ bless my soul ef I knew w’at to say. I couldn’t go to fillin’ of ’im up with stuff about ’is gran’pap; an’ I hadn’t no warrant to do it, anyhow. I didn’t hear ye quarrel. ‘Don’t never tell fer a fact w’at ye ain’t willin’ to swear to,’ ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say. But I kin tell ye this, that ef they’s one thing in this world ’at that boy wants to hear about, an’ to talk about, an’ to hev about, it’s his father.”

“Thank you, Gabriel. Thank you a thousand times for telling me that.”

“Yes, an’ the most surprisin’ thing about it all is, w’at a lot of blamed ignoramuses we all be w’en he asks any of us anything about ye.”

“I know you’re all very kind about it, Gabriel, and very wise and considerate. I’m sure he couldn’t be in better hands.”

“Yes, your Aunt Marthy jest dotes on ’im.”

“I’m certain of that. But it was a strange thing for him to do, Gabriel, to pull out that line of stakes. I came up the gap with him the night he did it. He wanted to tell me then. I’m sorry now I didn’t permit him to. It might have saved him a deal of suffering.”

“Well, he’s taken it hard, I can tell ye. He ain’t the same boy he was six months ago. He couldn’t eat nor sleep nor rest, it worried ’im so. We all thought he was sick, he fell away that bad. Even your Aunt Marthy couldn’t do nothin’ fer ’im. But say, wa’n’t it grand, the way he come in there at the wind-up an’ told how things wuz; puffickly regardless of wuther he spent the nex’ six months in jail or no? There’s the Pickett grit fer ye!”

“Gabriel, I think it was heroic.” And the tears sprang into Charlie Pickett’s eyes as he thought of that pathetic little figure facing the crowded court room, battling with his fear and conquering it, brave to the limit in the cause of conscience and of truth.

“Yes, it wuz,” responded Gabriel. “An’ how under the sun an’ moon an’ seven stars he ever got here through them drifts! How did ’e git here, anyhow? He couldn’t ’a’ druv. They couldn’t no hoss ’a’ got through. He couldn’t ’a’ walked. Goliath o’ Gath couldn’t ’a’ walked it. An’ ’e didn’t fly. How did ’e git here, anyhow?”

“I don’t know, Gabriel. I hadn’t thought of it. How did he?”

The two men gazed at each other with a look of astonishment in their faces that slowly grew into awe. Then Gabriel lifted his eyes and pointed heavenward.

“God a’mighty,” he said reverently. “He done it fer ’im. Nobody else could.”

Then, for many minutes, the two men sat in silence. Gabriel was the first to speak.

“He’ll be goin’ home with ’im now, I reckon. I seen ’em start to’ards the depot.”

“Yes,” replied Charlie, rising and going again to the window; “but I doubt whether they will get farther than Port Lenox to-night. The trains will be late, and the roads will not be broken. Poor boy! I shall be glad to feel that he is at home with Aunt Martha, resting from his physical strain, relieved of his mental burden. Well, Gabriel, let’s go back into court. I don’t suppose they’ll want us any more, but we’ll see what they are doing with the case.”

But court had adjourned. As the two men passed out into the hall the people from the court room came crowding by. Among them was Nicholson, the Delaware Valley and Eastern engineer. When he saw Gabriel his face lighted up with a smile.

“Hello, my bumptious friend!” he shouted; “where’s your horn?”

“Left it to hum,” replied Gabriel, readily, “to scare off tramp engineers ’at might come ’round settin’ stakes in the snow-drifts.”

“Are you going to leave it home when you die, or will you take it along?”

“Oh! I’ll hev it with me on that trip. You can borrow it occasionally ef you want to. Blowin’ on it once’t in a w’ile’s a great relief to them in misery.”

A crowd was gathering, and Gabriel’s sally was greeted with a shout of approval. It nettled Nicholson, and he turned away. He did not care for fun unless he himself could be the beneficiary.

“Children and fools—” he muttered, “the old saying still holds good.”

“Say!” called Gabriel after him; “did you ever hear of ol’ Isra’l Pidgin?”

“Oh, yes!” was the quick reply, “he was an idiot that lived up in York State.”

“Yes. ’Member wut he said about the feller ’at goes ’round with a chip on ’is shoulder lookin’ fer somebody to knock it off?”

Nicholson did not reply.

“Well,” continued Gabriel, “he says, says ’e, ‘that feller’s lucky ef ’e don’t git ’is shoulder put out o’ jint a gittin’ of the chip knocked off,’ says ’e.”

But Nicholson had disappeared. He was pushing his way down the winding staircase, satisfied that, in the estimation of the crowd, he was no match for Gabriel, and anxious to escape. In the lower hall he met Charlie Pickett. He went up to him with outstretched hand, for he was generous as well as impetuous.

“Pickett,” he said, “if I made any fool remarks on the witness stand to-day reflecting on you in any way, I want to ask your pardon. You know there’s no man in the profession, nor anywhere else, for that matter, whom I esteem more highly than I do you. My quick tongue always did get me into no end of trouble, and I’m afraid it always will. It wasn’t two minutes ago that I was crushed in repartee by that wise fool from Pickett’s Gap, Gabriel, by name. But, Pickett, say! whose idea was that moonlight survey, anyway? It was a genuine coup-d’État.”

“Oh, that was Wilson’s scheme. Our chief, you know. He knew that you were running along the westerly bank of the Delaware that afternoon and that a location by us next day would be too late. We didn’t dream that you would get through the gap that night. I didn’t dream that you had been through it when I went down in the moonlight. If I had seen your stakes there, I should more than likely have turned back.”

“Well, it’s lucky for your people that you didn’t see them, then. For the only hope you have, the way the matter stands now, is in the theory that your board was the first to adopt the location. But that was a strange thing, wasn’t it, about that boy pulling out the stakes? It wasn’t a mere dare-devil adventure, you understand. It was done conscientiously in order that justice—from his standpoint—might prevail. Took some courage to go down through that gap in the night-time you know, and pull out that line of stakes. But, talk about grit and moral heroism! did you ever see or hear of anything equal to that boy coming down from Pickett’s Gap, through a world of drifted snow, and going on the stand, voluntarily, to swear himself into jail just to set us right on the matter of the stakes, and to do justice to you? Say, it was magnificent! If I had a boy like him, I’d keep him with me day and night, just for the inspiration.”

“Yes? I’m glad to hear you say that. He’s my boy, Nicholson. You didn’t know that, did you?”

Nicholson stared in amazement.

“Your boy!” he exclaimed. “Why, look here, Pickett! You’re not a son of the owner of Pickett’s Gap, are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Give me your hand. You’ve got a father and a son to be proud of. Why, that old man will move heaven and earth to defend and preserve what he considers his rights. I looked into the muzzle of his double-barrelled shot-gun one day; well, it was lucky the sheriff came when he did, or I’d have been picking bird-shot No. 2 out of my anatomy to this day. And I don’t blame him a bit—not a bit. I’d have done the same thing in his place. But that boy, Pickett, why that boy’s a hero. I wondered what you carried him out of the court room so tenderly for when he fainted. Where is he? Did he get over his illness? No wonder he went to pieces, poor fellow!”

When Nicholson once started in to talk, it was of no use trying to interrupt him till he was through.

“Yes,” replied Charlie, sadly, “he recovered; he went home with his grandfather.”

Nicholson stood for a moment in deep thought.

“Look here, Pickett!” he exclaimed finally. “I don’t want to uncover any family secrets; but what I can’t make out is why in the world, if you own such a boy as that, he don’t know it. And, why in all the worlds, if you’ve got a right to have the company of a human being, with his intelligence and conscience and grit and grace, you don’t avail yourself of it.”

“Well, Nicholson, it’s a long story. I can’t tell it to you now. You wouldn’t understand it if I did. But I hope some day to have him with me. How soon or how far away that day may be, I cannot tell. At any rate, it will take a thousand unkind remarks from you, hereafter, to overbalance the kind things you’ve said about me and mine in the last twenty minutes.”

The two men shook hands warmly and passed out with the crowd. Charlie Pickett went to his hotel, but not to rest. He could not brush from his mental sight the vision of his son’s pale face and anxious eyes. He heard always in his ears the boy’s pathetic voice as he lay exhausted on the bench in the jury room and pleaded that he might go with his father.

When morning came, the vision was still before him, the voice was still in his ears. He paid little heed to the remaining witnesses who testified in the case, and when, after fixing a day for argument, court finally adjourned, he went back to his hotel with his mind in a tumult of anxiety and desire; anxiety lest the great physical and mental strain which the boy had undergone might bring on some sudden and severe illness; desire that he might be with him, might look at him, might talk to him, might hear his voice and press his hands. Nor is it strange that his brief interview should have inspired such tender and tumultuous thoughts. Charlie Pickett’s mother had died in his childhood. His wife had yielded up her life for her son. His father had driven him from home. This boy was the only one in all the world to whom he was united in the bonds of blood and of undisguised, untrammelled, unsatisfied affection. The more he thought about it the more he wondered why he had, on the previous day, so readily yielded to his father’s stern ultimatum. The more he considered it, the more the unreasonableness of it, the injustice of it, the downright cruelty of it impressed itself upon his mind. The restriction under which he had placed himself chafed and galled him beyond endurance. At last, unable longer to withstand the imperious demand of parental passion, he buttoned his great-coat about him, pulled his cap over his eyes, and set his face toward Pickett’s Gap, intent on doing something, anything, to relieve the unbearable situation in which he found himself. A train on the Mooreville branch was just leaving for Port Lenox. He boarded it hastily, and contained himself as best he could while the wheezing engine puffed its slow way between banks of shovelled snow so high that half the time they hid the surrounding country from the sight of those in the cars.

At Port Lenox he waited an hour for the down train on the main line, striding up and down the platform like a caged animal. When he left the car at Fisher’s Eddy, the short winter day was already at its close, and the summit of the hill range, through which the gap wound its sinuous way, was already all but indistinguishable against the western sky. He started across the street toward a livery stable to get a horse and sleigh, but, changing his mind suddenly, he struck out along the middle of the roadway toward the hillside. The thought of waiting for a team to be ready, of forcing a tired horse up the hill through the heavy snow, was too much for his nearly exhausted patience.

Many and many a time, in other days, he had walked the road from Fisher’s Eddy to the Pickett’s Gap homestead in time that would have done credit to the best horse in Meredith County. He felt that he could do it to-night. Moreover he knew that he needed the exercise in order to work off, if possible, some of the surplus energy with which his veins and muscles were charged. Perhaps, when he arrived at his destination, he might not be so impetuous, he might be more considerate, more gentle, more patient under the provocation which was sure to come, more cautiously firm in his just demands.

When he reached the place where his survey terminated, on that eventful September night, he stopped for a moment and looked down through the darkness to the twinkling lights of Fisher’s Eddy as he had looked that night. Then, pushing on through the snow-burdened glen, he recalled, as he walked, every word and tone and look of the boy who was his unwilling companion on that former journey; how they noted the location of the curve; how they halted at the graveyard; how they said good-by at the gate.

Here he was now, again at the gate, almost within sight, within hearing, within touch of his boy. The thought of it brought a sudden weakness to his limbs, and he stopped and leaned heavily against the post on which Dannie had sat one happy morning and bade his grandfather good-by. Here he was. What was he to do? What was he to say? How should he enter the house? How introduce the object of his mission? Abner Pickett had forbidden him to return; how would he greet him to-night? In his unreasoning impetuosity he had thought of none of these things until this moment. Now they presented themselves to him with perplexing persistency. Not that he was weakening in his purpose, he would not admit that; but how could he best accomplish the object he had in view? That was the question. He moved slowly up the path, turning these things over in his mind, until he reached the front porch. At the side of the porch there was a window opening from the sitting room. The curtain had not been drawn, and he could see in. The impulse to look before he entered came upon him, and he pushed his way through a huge bank of loose snow, close to the window ledge, and fastened his eyes upon the occupants of the room.

A table was drawn up in front of a great wood fire, for it was a bitter cold night, and Abner Pickett was sitting by it reading his paper. In his face was still the hard, stern, uncompromising look with which he had greeted Charlie in the jury room the day before. There was scant encouragement in that face, indeed! Aunt Martha was sitting in her accustomed chair by the fire, busy with her knitting; and Dannie, on a stool by her side, with his head resting in her lap, gazed at the crackling logs and the leaping flames, looking up now and then to answer some question that she asked him. His face was turned so that Charlie could see it plainly. It had in it a look of weariness, indeed, but of content—of absolute content. It was a quiet, peaceful, pleasant scene; but in another moment he, Charlie Pickett, was to break in upon it, to destroy it, to set a gentle woman’s heart throbbing with apprehension and fear, to arouse the unconquerable passion of a stern old man, to plunge a weary, peaceful, contented boy into a new turmoil of trouble and of grief. And to what end? Simply to satisfy his own selfish desire. A revulsion of feeling came over him as he looked. The old man moved uneasily in his chair, laid down his paper, and turned toward Dannie. He appeared to be saying something to him, and as he talked, the sternness, the hardness, the coldness vanished from his rugged features, and his gray eyes, piercing when he was in anger, softened now with the mild glow of tenderness and affection. Charlie saw it all by the bright light of the fire, understood it all, felt it all, and, waiting no longer, he turned away. With his face to the thick darkness he struggled out to the path, down through the gate, and on into the middle of the road. He thrust behind him his own desire, his own disappointment and sorrow and loneliness, and once again, like the man that he was, he thought only of his father’s comfort and the happiness of his son.

A figure loomed up out of the darkness before him and stood still.

“Who goes thar?” came the challenge.

“It is I, Gabriel, Charlie Pickett.”

“Charlie Pickett! An’ w’at in the name o’ the seven wise men an’ their jigger-books be ye a doin’ here?”

“I came to get my boy, Gabriel. I looked in at the window and saw that he was content, and his grandfather happy, and I hadn’t the heart to disturb their comfort and peace. So I am going again. They will not know that I ever came. It is our secret, Gabriel. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand; but look here! That ain’t fair, you know. You’re his father. You’ve got the fust right.”

“True, but I’m not demanding it. Don’t tempt me. My mind is made up. Let me go now before I falter. Good night and good luck to you, Gabriel!”

He reached out his hand, and Gabriel took it with a tremendous grasp.

“The genuine Pickett grit!” he exclaimed. “You’re a chip o’ the old block, after all. So’s the boy. Wher’s your hoss? What! Didn’t hev any? Walked up? Well, I’ll be—say, you’ll do! You’re Pickett to the backbone! So’s the boy. Consarn ye, both o’ ye. Blame the hull three o’ ye! You’re a set o’ the contrariest, pig-headedest, big-heartedest human bein’s ’at the Lord ever let tromp on his foot-stool!”

It was evident that Gabriel’s feelings were getting the best of him, for his voice was very husky as he continued:—

“Good night! Ef ever you want anything done around these parts, you let me know. I’m it when you speak. Don’t forgit!”

“Thank you, Gabriel! Thank you a thousand times. Good night!”

The next moment Charlie Pickett’s figure was lost in the darkness, and Gabriel stood gazing at the place where it had disappeared, muttering to himself:—

“Well, ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say: ‘On the hull, darkness covers more good deeds than evil ones.’”