“I believe, old Grey, it’s the lantern you love as much as you love Andy,” laughed the boy as he struck a match and sheltered its flame from the wind.  “Here you are following me and the lantern just as if you belonged to us, or as if Andy were here.  How’s that?” But the old grey only stood watching the lamp-lighting.  His long, pathetic face was very expressive, but, try as he would, he could not speak and tell the boy that he had learned to love him as well as Andy.  So he only put his soft nose down to Jacky’s shoulder, and in his own silent way coaxed the boy to mount and ride home, which Jacky promptly did, bursting into the old Frenchman’s shanty with the news that the grey had followed the lantern.

“Don’t you believe it, Jacky,” chuckled Andy.  “The grey loves the lantern, I know, but it’s you he’s followed.  You see that horse knows a lot, and he knows that his old master is never likely to light that lantern again, and he wants you for his master now.”

“Well, he may have me,” smiled the boy.  “We’ll just light up together after this.”  Which they certainly did, for that was the beginning of the end.  Andy could never hobble much further than his own door, and Jacky took upon his young shoulders the duties of both lamp-lighting and feeding and caring for his now constant companion, the grey.

“I see your Jacky is helping old Andy since he’s been laid up,” said Alick Duncan, the big foreman, some weeks later, as he paddled across the river with the boy’s father.

“Oh, he likes Andy,” replied Mr. Moran, “and he likes the old horse, and he likes the work, too.  He feels important every time he lights that lantern to steer the mill hands off danger.

“Speaking of the horse,” went on the big foreman, “they’re short one up at the lumber camp.  The boss sent down yesterday that we had to get him an extra horse by hook or crook.  They’ve started hauling logs.  It would be a great thing if Andy could sell that nag at a good figure.  It would help him out.  He’s hard up for cash, I bet.  I’ll speak to him to-night about it.”

At supper Tom Moran mentioned what a fine thing it was for Andy that there was an urgent demand for a horse at the lumber camp; that he could get twice the money for old Grey that the animal was worth.  Mrs. Moran agreed that it would be a great help to old Andy, but Jacky’s small face went white, he ceased his boyish chatter, and his little throat refused to swallow a mouthful of food.

As soon as he could, he escaped, slipped outside, and made for Andy’s shanty as fast as his young legs could carry him.  With small ceremony he flung open the door, to find the old Frenchman sitting in his barrel chair, a single tallow candle on the shelf above his head, his ever present pipe between his lips, and his lame leg stuck up on a bench before the tumbledown stove, where a good spruce fire crackled and burned.  For the first time the extreme poverty of the place struck Jacky’s senses.  He realized instantly, but for the first time, how much in need of money the poor old cripple must be, but, nevertheless, his voice shook as he exclaimed, “Oh, Andy, you won’t sell old Grey?  Oh, you won’t, will you?”