ey knew me. Their looks alone told that, but never
a nod, or smile of greeting, marked my return.

Though I had never spoken to them, I knew them all--the Penfields, father
and son, tall and lean with bony faces and sandy hair and eyebrows, and
restless, pale blue eyes--Squire Land, small and ascetic, his lips
constantly puckered as though he had tasted something unpleasant. Captain
Proctor, stouter than when I had seen him last, with the benign good
nature that comes of settled affairs and good living. Over them and over
the town, those eight years had passed with a light hand.

But it was not our town I had come to visit. I found Ned Aiken, as I knew
I should, with the _Eclipse_ in harbor. He was seated on his door step by
the river road, as though he had always been planted in that very place.
I remember expecting he would be glad to see me. Instead, he took his
pipe from his mouth, and gazed at me steadily, like some steer stopped
from grazing. Then he placed his pipe on the stone step, and rose slowly
to his feet, squat and burly, his little eyes glinting below his greasy,
unbraided hair, his jaw protruding and ominous. Slowly he loosened the
dirty red handkerchief he kept swathed about his throat, and raised a
stubby hand to push the hair from his heavy forehead. Then his face
relaxed into a grim smile, and he seated himself on the step again.

"You've changed since last I saw you," he said; "changed remarkable, you
have. Why, right now I thought you might be someone else."

Had Brutus also been laboring under the same delusion?

I told him I was glad we were still on speaking terms, and seated
myself beside him. He studied me for a while in silence, leisurely
puffing at his pipe.

"You mistook me for someone?" I asked finally.

"Yes," said Mr. Aiken, and slapped his pipe against the palm of his hand.
"You've been shootin' up, you have, since I set eyes on you."

He paused, seemingly struck by a genial inspiration.

"Yes, shootin' up." Still looking at me he gave way to a hoarse chuckle.

"Why, boy, we've all been doing some shootin'--you, your dad, and me
too--since we seen you last," and he was taken by a paroxysm of
silent mirth.

"Now that's what I call wit!" he gasped complacently, and then he
repeated in joyous encore:

"You shootin'--me shootin'--he shootin'."

"You weren't shooting at anybody?" I asked with casual innocence.

"And why shouldn't we be, I want to know?" he demanded, but his to