It was then that he said what he had had in his mind since morning--said it with a tenderness that rang perfectly true:
"All I was thinking of this morning, Trevanion, was to get to my father as soon as possible. But if my impatience had resulted in accident I should never have gotten over it."
And Dick Trevanion, holding the little, warm, happy figure close in his great arms, said what half an hour ago he had never thought to say:
"Quiet!" said Mr. Kipley, to young Carrington's comment, as he sat on the veranda steps that evening after dinner, looking with growing approval at that young gentleman as he lounged in a big wicker chair. "Well, of course, it tain't the Boo-lee-vards"--for Mr. Kipley had consulted the encyclopedia painstakingly in order to converse comfortably with the returning traveler. "It tain't the Boo-lee-vards," he repeated, with an air of erudition, "but there _are_ times when Yellow Dog can have as big a pack of firecrackers tied to its tail as you'd see anywhere."
"Yes?" said the boy, and it was a yes that coaxed. He was enjoying Mr. Kipley hugely.
"Yes," said Kipley, placidly. "Day after pay-day occasionally, or when the lumber-jacks come down from Raegan camp at Christmas time to get their money and blow it in before New Year's." Then he chuckled reminiscently.
"They're queer cusses," he said. "One of 'em came in last Christmas that was a walkin' woolen store, 'n' when he tried to sell mittens and stockin's by the hundred pair, they just naturally locked him up. But he come by 'em honest, after all. You know," he explained, kindly, "these lumber-jacks can't get any money while they are in the woods, but they can trade at the company's store there, 'n' have it checked against their time. 'N' they _will_ play poker. So they used mittens 'n' stockings for chips. 'N' this fellow had got most of 'em. He told _me_," said Mr. Kipley, with intense enjoyment, "that he won eleven hundred pair of mittens on three aces. The other fellow had kings. 'N' he bluffed forty pair of stockings outen a greenhorn on ace high.
"You play poker?" he inquired, for young Carrington's laugh had been deliciously prompt.
"Enough to appreciate a good poker story, anyway," he said. "That's a corker."