at the reason for that contempt.  Was there something that ruled this land—­ something better than the code that ruled his hills?  He had remembered every word the geologist had ever said, for he loved the man, but it had remained for a strange girl—­a girl—­to revive them, to give them actual life and plant within him a sudden resolve to learn for himself what it all meant, and to practise it, if he found it good.  A cold wind sprang up now and cutting through his thin clothes drove him in a lope toward his mother’s home.

Apparently Mavis was watching for him through the window of the cottage, for she ran out on the porch to meet him, but something in the boy’s manner checked her, and she neither spoke nor asked a question while the boy took off his saddle and tossed it on the steps.  Nor did Jason give her but one glance, for the eagerness of her face and the trust and tenderness in her eyes were an unconscious reproach and made him feel guilty and faithless, so that he changed his mind about turning the old mare out in the yard and led her to the stable, merely to get away from the little girl.

Mavis was in the kitchen when he entered the house, and while they all were eating supper, the lad could feel his little cousin’s eyes on him all the time—­watching and wondering and troubled and hurt.  And when the four were seated about the fire, he did not look at her when he announced that he was going back home, but he saw her body start and shrink.  His step-father yawned and said nothing, and his mother looked on into the fire.

“When you goin’, Jasie?” she asked at last.

“Daylight,” he answered shortly.

There was a long silence.

“Whut you goin’ to do down thar?”

The lad lifted his head fiercely and looked from the woman to the man and back again.

“I’m a-goin’ to git that land back,” he snapped; and as there was no question, no comment, he settled back brooding in his chair.

“Hit wasn’t right—­hit couldn’t ‘a’ been right,” he muttered, and then as though he were answering his mother’s unspoken question: 

“I don’t know how I’m goin’ to git it back, but if it wasn’t right, thar must be some way, an’ I’m a-goin’ to find out if hit takes me all my life.”

His mother was still silent, though she had lifted a comer of her apron to her eyes, and the lad rose and without a word of good-night climbed the stairs to go to bed.  Then the mother spoke to her husband angrily.

“You oughtn’t to let the boy put all the blame on me, Steve—­you made me sell that land.”

Steve’s answer was another yawn, and he rose to get ready for bed, and Mavis, too, turned indignant eyes on him, for she had heard enough from the two to know that her step-mother spoke the truth.  Her father opened the door and she heard the creak of his heavy footsteps across the freezing porch.  Her step-mother went into the kitchen and Mavis climbed the stairs softly and opened Jason’s door.