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ABNER TEEFTALLOW had been thrown out upon the world to make his own living in the unforeseeable fashion in which come nearly all the crucial events of life. There was something dismaying in it; this abrupt whirling about of his fortunes and his own utter helplessness to control anything. They boy followed the men to the yellow office with the strangeness of his new position already fallen upon him. The short, powerful Mr. Sandage walking just in front of him was no longer his foster-father but a man with whom he presently would part and go his way alone into the untried experiment of keeping himself alive. This quality of estrangement permeated the way Mr. Sandage walked and extended even to the little blond curls of hair over the top of his blue denim shirt. Abner glanced at his foster-father from time to time with rather a drawn feeling in his face and a lump slowly growing and pressing the back of his throat.

Presently the three climbed the steps into Railroad Jones's office. The magnate had a list of names and Abner was directed to sign this or make his mark as a contract to work in the railroad gang at Irontown.

The fat man watched the boy stoop over the table and begin writing his name in a great unformed hand. As Abner wrote he moved his under jaw in and out with the making of each letter.

"Well," buzzed the magnate, "he can write his name, after all."

"Yes, an' he can read some, too," added Mr. Sandage. "He jest picked it up hisse'f."

"Uh-huh, bad habit," nodded the rich man. "Childern'll