At the edge of town she suggested that they walk across a pasture and go back by another street, and not until they were passing through the woodland did Chad come to himself.

“You know I didn’t rickollect when you called me ‘little boy.’”

“Indeed!”

“Not at fust, I mean,” stammered Chad.

Margaret grew mock-haughty and Chad grew grave.  He spoke very slowly and steadily.  “I reckon I rickollect ever’thing that happened out thar a sight better’n you.  I ain’t forgot nothin’—­anything.”

The boy’s sober and half-sullen tone made Margaret catch her breath with a sudden vague alarm.

Unconsciously she quickened her pace, but, already, she was mistress of an art to which she was born and she said, lightly: 

“Now, that’s much better.”  A piece of pasteboard dropped from Chad’s jacket just then, and, taking the little girl’s cue to swerve from the point at issue, he picked it up and held it out for Margaret to read.  It was the first copy of the placard which he had tied around Jack’s neck when he sent him home, and it set Margaret to laughing and asking questions.  Before he knew it Chad was telling her about Jack and the mountains; how he had run away; about the Turners and about Melissa and coming down the river on a raft—­all he had done and all he meant to do.  And from looking at Chad now and then, Margaret finally kept her eyes fixed on his—­and thus they stood when they reached the gate, while crows flew cawing over them and the air grew chill.

“And did Jack go home?”

Chad laughed.

“No, he didn’t.  He come back, and I had to hide fer two days.  Then, because he couldn’t find me he did go, thinking I had gone back to the mountains, too.  He went to look fer me.”

“Well, if he comes back again I’ll ask my papa to get them to let you keep Jack at college,” said Margaret.

Chad shook his head.

“Then I’ll keep him for you myself.”  The boy looked his gratitude, but shook his head again.

“He won’t stay.”

Margaret asked for the placard again as they moved down the street.

“You’ve got it spelled wrong,” she said, pointing to “steel.”  Chad blushed.  “I can’t spell when I write,” he said.  “I can’t even talk—­right.”

“But you’ll learn,” she said.

“Will you help me?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me when I say things wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Where’m I goin’ to see you?”

Margaret shook her head thoughtfully:  then the reason for her speaking first to Chad came out.

“Papa and I saw you on Sunday, and papa said you must be very strong as well as brave, and that you knew something about horses.  Harry told us who you were when papa described you, and then I remembered.  Papa told Harry to bring you to see us.  And you must come,” she said, decisively.

They had reached the turnstile at the campus again.