“If I would do what?” asked Don, in amazement.

“Why, David,” said Bert, “the money was all paid to you in less than twenty-four hours after the dog was placed in your keeping.”

“Paid to me?” gasped David.

“Well, no, not to you, but to your order.”

“To my order!” repeated the boy, who began to think he was dreaming.

“Yes, to your order,” said Don.  “We left the pointer in your hands at noon, while you were at dinner.  In less than an hour afterward, Dan came over and said that you wanted five dollars to buy a dress for your mother, and Bert gave him the money.  The next forenoon your father met me at the landing and told me you wanted the other five to buy some medicine for your mother, who was ill with the ague, and I gave it to him, and I just know I made a mess of it,” added Don, bringing his hands together with a loud slap.

It was plain from the looks of David’s face that he had.  The boy listened with eyes wide open, his under jaw dropping down and his face growing pale, as the duplicity of which his father and brother had been guilty was gradually made plain to him, and when at last his mind grasped the full import of Don’s words, he covered his face with his hands and cried aloud.  Don and Bert looked at him in surprise, and then turned and looked at each other.  They who had never wanted for the necessities, and who had never but once, and that was during the war, lacked the luxuries of life, could not understand why his grief should be so overwhelming; but they could understand that they had been deceived, and even the gentle-spirited Bert was indignant over it.  The impulsive Don could scarcely restrain himself.  He walked angrily up and down the floor, thrashing his boots with his riding-whip and cracking it in the air so viciously that the ponies danced about in their stalls.

“Dave,” said Bert, at length, “are we to understand that your father and brother came to us and got that money without any authority from you?”

“That’s just what they did,” sobbed David.

“And you never saw a cent of it?”

“Not one cent, or mother either.”

“Well, what of it?” exclaimed Don.  “Brace up and be a man, Dave.  A ten-dollar bill is not an everlasting fortune.”

“I know it isn’t much to you, but it is a good deal to me.  You don’t know what the loss of it means.  It means corn-bread and butter-milk for breakfast, dinner and supper.”

“Well, what of that?” said Don, again.  “I have eaten more than one dinner at the Gayoso House, in Memphis—­and it is one of the best hotels in the country—­when corn-bread and butter-milk were down in the bill of fare as part of the dessert.”

“Well, if all the folks who stop at that hotel had to live on it, as we do, they would call for something else,” replied David.  “How am I to settle Silas Jones’s bill, I’d like to know?”

“Never mind Silas Jones’s bill.  If he says anything more to you about it, tell him that you don’t owe him a cent.”