“Thank goodness!” sighed the boy.  “Oh, I was so afraid he’d go home with it, instead of to the river.”  Then, with a little gasp, “Mr. Duncan, I told you once Grey had as much sense as a man.  He saved you.”

“No, Jack o’ Lantern,” said the big foreman gently, as he wrapped his great coat around the half-frozen boy, “no, siree, it was you, and your quick wits, that did it.  Old Grey got the lantern habit, but it would have done no good had you not had sense enough to sling the light around his neck; and you leaving yourself to freeze here without a coat—­bless you, youngster!  The mill hands and this big Scotchman won’t forget that in a hurry.”

And it was on faithful old Grey’s back that the injured boy rode home—­home to warm blankets, warm supper, and the warm love of his mother, but also to the knowledge that one of the smaller bones in his ankle had broken when he heard that snapping sound.  But it did not take so long to mend, after all, and one day in the early spring the big foreman appeared, his shrewd eyes twinkling with fun, although he made the grave statement that Andy had at last consented to sell old Grey.

“It isn’t true!  It can’t be true!” gasped Jacky.  “Sell Grey-Boy after what he did to save the mill hands?  Oh!  I can’t believe Andy would do such a thing.”  And his thin little face went white, and his poor foot dragged as he stood erect, as if to fight for the horse’s rights.

“But Andy has sold him, nevertheless,” grinned Alick Duncan, “sold him to me and the other mill hands, and we’re going to give him away.”

“Away?” cried the boy, with startled, agonized eyes.

“Yes, lad,” answered the big foreman seriously; and placing his strong hand on Jacky’s head, he added, “Give him away to the bravest little chap in the world—­a chap we all call Jack o’ Lantern.”

For a moment the boy stood speechless, then held out his arms—­for the old grey horse had come slowly up to the shanty, and with downbent head was laying his soft, warm muzzle against Jacky’s ear.

The Barnardo Boy

The only thing that young Buckney could say to express his surprise at the wonderful stone buildings was “Blow me!” He had expected to find that the great Canadian city of Montreal would be just a few slab shacks, with forests on all sides, and painted Indians prowling, tomahawk in hand, in search of scalps.  When he left the big Atlantic liner with twenty other raw English lads of his own street-bred sort, he thought he was saying good-bye to civilization forever.  And here, all around him, arose the massive stone-built city, teeming with life, with gayety, wealth, and poverty, carriages, horses, motor cars—­why, it was just like London, after all!  And once more “Buck” said, “Blow me!”

“What’s that he says, father?” asked a slender young lady who had accompanied her father, the great surgeon, to help him select a Barnardo boy to assist the stableman.