do to me if they find me," wailed Hatfield, who seemed to be more afraid of the rough usage of his big half-brothers than anything else.
But the first sled to get through to Snow Camp brought, besides the doctor, the boy's mother and 'Lias Hatfield himself. The back-woods woman showed considerable tenderness when she met her lost boy, and the young fellow who had suffered in jail for some weeks held no anger against his brother because of it.
"Why, Mr. Cam'ron," he said to the merchant, "I reckon it sarved me out right. I was purty ha'sh with the boy. He ain't naught but a weakling, after all. Marm, she does her best by us all, and we stick to her; but if Fred ain't fitten to work in the woods, or on the farm, we'll find him something to do in town—if he likes it better. I don't hold no grudge."
Two days later the boy was well enough to move, and they all went away from Snow Camp; but Mr. Cameron had agreed, before they went, to give Fred Hatfield a chance in his store in the city, if they would send him down there in the spring.
"He's not fit for the rough life up here," he told Tom and Helen and Ruth, when they talked it over. "He's not an attractive boy, either. But he needs a chance, and I will give him one. If we only helped those people in the world who
