Look hard, bairns!" he whispered.

"Ye winna see the like o' yon again, while God lets ye live.

Notice their color against the ice and snow, and the pretty skippin' ways of them! And spunky! Weel, I'm heat fair!" Freckles emptied his cap, turned his pockets and scattered his last grain.

Then he waved his watching friends good-bye and started down the timber-line.
A week later, Duncan and Freckles arose from breakfast to face the bitterest morning of the winter.

When Freckles, warmly capped and gloved, stepped to the corner of the kitchen for his scrap-pail, he found a big pan of steaming boiled wheat on the top of it.