“Why, boy,” roared old Joel.  “Mammy, hit’s Chad!”

Dolph dropped an armful of feed.  The man with the axe left it stuck in a log, and each man shouted: 

“Chad!”

The mountaineers are an undemonstrative race, but Mother Turner took the boy in her arms and the rest crowded around, slapping him on the back and all asking questions at once.  Dolph and Rube and Tom.  Yes, and there was the school-master—­every face was almost tender with love for the boy.  But where was Jack?

“Where’s—­where’s Jack?” said Chad.

Old Joel changed face—­looking angry; the rest were grave.  Only the old mother spoke: 

“Jack’s all right.”

“Oh,” said Chad, but he looked anxious.

Melissa inside heard.  He had not asked for her, and with the sudden choking of a nameless fear she sprang out the door to be caught by the school-master, who had gone around the corner to look for her.

“Lemme go,” she said, fiercely, breaking his hold and darting away, but stopping, when she saw Chad in the doorway, looking at her with a shy smile.

“Howdye, Melissa!”

The girl stared at him mildly and made no answer, and a wave of shame and confusion swept over the boy as his thoughts flashed back to a little girl in a black cap and on a black pony, and he stood reddening and helpless.  There was a halloo at the gate.  It was old Squire Middleton and the circuit-rider, and old Joel went toward them with a darkening face.

“Why, hello, Chad,” the Squire said.  “You back again?”

He turned to Joel.

“Look hyeh, Joel.  Thar hain’t no use o’ your buckin’ agin yo’ neighbors and harborin’ a sheep-killin’ dog.”  Chad started and looked from one face to another—­slowly but surely making out the truth.

“You never seed the dawg afore last spring.  You don’t know that he hain’t a sheep-killer.”

“It’s a lie—­a lie,” Chad cried, hotly, but the school-master stopped him.

“Hush, Chad,” he said, and he took the boy inside and told him Jack was in trouble.  A Dillon sheep had been found dead on a hill-side.  Daws Dillon had come upon Jack leaping out of the pasture, and Jack had come home with his muzzle bloody.  Even with this overwhelming evidence, old Joel stanchly refused to believe the dog was guilty and ordered old man Dillon off the place.  A neighbor had come over, then another, and an other, until old Joel got livid with rage.

“That dawg mought eat a dead sheep but he never would kill a live one, and if you kill him, by , you’ve got to kill me fust.”

Now there is no more unneighborly or unchristian act for a farmer than to harbor a sheep-killing dog.  So the old Squire and the circuit-rider had come over to show Joel the grievous error of his selfish, obstinate course, and, so far, old Joel had refused to be shown.  All of his sons sturdily upheld him and little Melissa fiercely—­the old mother and the school-master alone remaining quiet and taking no part in the dissension.