calling Margaret, who had run up toward them, away at the same time, and Chad’s three friends turned from him then and there, while the boy, forgetting all else, stood watching them with dumb wonder and pain.  The school-bell clanged, but Chad stood still—­with his heart well nigh breaking.  In a few minutes the last pupil had disappeared through the school-room door, and Chad stood under a great elm—­alone.  But only a moment, for he turned quickly away, the tears starting to his eyes, walked rapidly through the woods, climbed the worm fence beyond, and dropped, sobbing, in the thick bluegrass.

An hour later he was walking swiftly through the fields toward the old brick house that had sheltered him.  He was very quiet at supper that night, and after Miss Lucy had gone to bed and he and the Major were seated before the fire, he was so quiet that the Major looked at him anxiously.

“What’s the matter Chad?  Are you sick?”

“Nothin’—­no, sir.”

But the Major was uneasy, and when he rose to go to bed, he went over and put his hand on the boy’s head.

“Chad,” he said, “if you hear of people saying mean things about you, you mustn’t pay any attention to them.”

“No, sir.”

“You’re a good boy, and I want you to live here with me.  Good-night, Chad,” he added, affectionately.  Chad nearly broke down, but he steadied himself.

“Good-by, Major,” he said, brokenly.  “I’m obleeged to you.”

“Good-by?” repeated the Major.  “Why?”

“Good-night, I mean,” stammered Chad.

The Major stood inside his own door, listening to the boy’s slow steps up the second flight.  “I’m gettin’ to love that boy,” he said, wonderingly—­ “An’ I’m damned if people who talk about him don’t have me to reckon with”—­and the Major shook his head from side to side.  Several times he thought he could hear the boy moving around in the room above him, and while he was wondering why the lad did not go to bed, he fell asleep.

Chad was moving around.  First, by the light of a candle, he laboriously dug out a short letter to the Major—­scalding it with tears.  Then he took off his clothes and got his old mountain-suit out of the closet—­moccasins and all—­and put them on.  Very carefully he folded the pretty clothes he had taken off—­just as Miss Lucy had taught him—­and laid them on the bed.  Then he picked up his old rifle in one hand and his old coonskin cap in the other, blew out the candle, slipped noiselessly down the stairs in his moccasined feet, out the unbolted door and into the starlit night.  From the pike fence he turned once to look back to the dark, silent house amid the dark trees.  Then he sprang down and started through the fields—­his face set toward the mountains.

It so happened that mischance led General Dean to go over to see Major Buford about Chad next morning.  The Major listened patiently—­or tried ineffectively to listen—­and when the General was through, he burst out with a vehemence that shocked and amazed his old friend.