“But,” said the boy, “dad has always told me that the Jack o’ Lantern is a foolish light, that it deceives people, that it misleads them, that sometimes they follow it and then get swamped in the marshes.”

“Yes, but folks know enough to not follow your lantern, boy,” answered the foreman seriously.  “Your light is a warning, not an invitation.”

“Well, the warning light will always be there, as long as I have legs to carry it,” assured Jacky, as the big foreman set him down on the floor.  Then—­“And when I fail, I’ll just send the grey.”

They all laughed then, but none of them knew that, weeks later, the boy’s words would come true.

II

It was late in January, and the blackest night that the river had ever known.  A furious gale drove down from the west and the very stars were shut in behind a gloomy sky.  Little Jacky Moran trimmed his lantern, filled it with oil, whistled for Grey, and set forth as the black night was falling.  The oncoming darkness seemed to outdo itself.  Before he was half way up the river, night fell, and he found that he could see but a very few feet before him, although it was not yet half-past five o’clock.  At six the men would leave the mill over the river, and, journeying afoot across the ice, would reach home in safety if the lantern were lighted, and if not, any or all of them might be plunged into the treacherous “Wild Cat,” with no hope of ever reaching shore alive.

“He called me Jack o’ Lantern,” the boy said to himself.  “It’s a dancing, deceiving light, but he’ll find to-night that I’ll deceive nobody.”  And through the darkness the child plodded on.  Behind him walked the stiff-kneed old horse, solemn-faced and faithful, following the lantern with stumbling gait, his soft nose, as ever, very near the boy’s shoulder.  The way seemed endless, and Jacky, with stooped and huddled shoulders, bent his head to the wind and forged on.  Then, just as he was within fifty yards of the turn that led up to the danger spot, an unusually wild gust swept his cap from his head and sent it bounding off the narrow footpath.  Boylike, he reached for it, and failing to recapture it, started in pursuit.  In the darkness he did not see the little ledge of earth and rock that hung a few feet above a “dip” on the left side, and in his hurried chase he suddenly plunged forward, and was hurled abruptly to a level far below the footpath.  He fell heavily, badly.  One foot got twisted somehow, and as he landed he heard a faint sharp “crack” in the region of his shoe.  Something seemed to grow numb right up to his knee.  He tried to struggle to his feet, but dropped down into a wilted little heap.  Then he realized with horror that he was unable to stand.  For a moment he was bewildered with pain and the utter darkness, for in his fall the lantern had rolled with him, then gone out.  The boy struck a match, and with but little difficulty