"Why, you're just a little boy!" exclaimed the woman when she had lighted the tin bracket-lamp. Again Connie flushed.

"Yes'm; that is, I'm not so awful old."

"And you are out here in these mountains all alone?"

Connie avoided a direct answer. "That's nothing for us fellows. We run the country, you know."

The woman laughed. "But you are such a little fellow! Aren't you afraid?"

"No'm. You've got pretty babies." He nodded shyly toward the golden-haired little girl. "She looks like a calendar."

"Like a what?"

"Like the picture on the calendar the A. C. Company gave out. Didn't you get one?" His glance swept the walls of the room. The woman shook her head.

"We trade on the other side," she said, and suddenly stopped.

"The other side!" exclaimed the boy. "Over on the Mackenzie?" But the woman was noisily rattling pots and pans about the stove and did not answer. The little girl and boy had drawn close.