“Howdye!” said Chad.

“Good-mornin’, little man,” said the Major pleasantly, and Chad knew straightway that he had found a friend.  But there was silence.  Chad scanned the horses and the strange vehicle and the old driver and the little pickaninny who, hearing the boy’s voice, had stood up on his seat and was grinning over one of the hind wheels, and then his eyes rested on the Major with a simple confidence and unconscious appeal that touched the Major at once.

“Are you goin’ my way?” The Major’s nature was too mellow and easy-going to pay any attention to final g’s.  Chad lifted his old gun and pointed up the road.

“I’m a-goin’ thataway.”

“Well, don’t you want to ride?”

“Yes,” he said, simply.

“Climb right in, my boy.”

So Chad climbed in, and, holding the old rifle upright between his knees, he looked straight forward, in silence, while the Major studied him with a quiet smile.

“Where are you from, little man?”

“I come from the mountains.”

“The mountains?” said the Major.

The Major had fished and hunted in the mountains, and somewhere in that unknown region he owned a kingdom of wild mountain-land, but he knew as little about the people as he knew about the Hottentots, and cared hardly more.

“What are you doin’ up here?”

“I’m goin’ home,” said Chad.

“How did you happen to come away?”

“Oh, I been wantin’ to see the settleMINTS.”

“The settleMINTS,” echoed the Major, and then he understood.  He recalled having heard the mountaineers call the Bluegrass region the “settlemints” before.

“I come down on a raft with Dolph and Tom and Rube and the Squire and the school-teacher, an’ I got lost in Frankfort.  They’ve gone on, I reckon, an’ I’m tryin’ to ketch ’em.”

“What will you do if you don’t?”

“Foller’em,” said Chad, sturdily.

“Does your father live down in the mountains?”

“No,” said Chad, shortly.

The Major looked at the lad gravely.

“Don’t little boys down in the mountains ever say sir to their elders?”

“No,” said Chad.  “No, sir,” he added gravely and the Major broke into a pleased laugh—­the boy was quick as lightning.

“I ain’t got no daddy.  An’ no mammy—­I ain’t got—­nothin’.”  It was said quite simply, as though his purpose merely was not to sail under false colors, and the Major’s answer was quick and apologetic: 

“Oh!” he said, and for a moment there was silence again.  Chad watched the woods, the fields, and the cattle, the strange grain growing about him, and the birds and the trees.  Not a thing escaped his keen eye, and, now and then, he would ask a question which the Major would answer with some surprise and wonder.  His artless ways pleased the old fellow.

“You haven’t told me your name.”

“You hain’t axed me.”