CHAPTER III.
From the little old cabin of dead Indian Tom, built in a grassy glade close to the shore of Sucker Creek, came the sound of a man's laughter.
In this late afternoon the last flooding gold of the sun filled the open door of the poplar shack.

The man's laughter, like the sun on the mottled tapestry of the poplar-wood, was a heart-lightening thing there on the edge of the great swamp that swept back for miles to the north and west.

It was the sort of laughter one seldom hears from a man, not riotous of over-bold, but a big, clean laughter that came from the soul out.

It was an infectious thing.

It drove the gloom out of the blackest night.