previously lived.

To dress, he had merely to buckle on his shoes. He glanced at his
fireplace and at his hillside, wavered, but fought down the temptation
and started the fire.

"Keep yer shirt on, Bill; keep yer shirt on," he admonished himself.
"What's the good of rushin'? No use in gettin' all het up an' sweaty.
Mr. Pocket'll wait for you. He ain't a-runnin' away before you can get
yer breakfast. Now, what you want, Bill, is something fresh in yer bill
o' fare. So it's up to you to go an' get it."

He cut a short pole at the water's edge and drew from one of his pockets
a bit of line and a draggled fly that had once been a royal coachman.

"Mebbe they'll bite in the early morning," he muttered, as he made his
first cast into the pool. And a moment later he was gleefully crying:
"What'd I tell you, eh? What'd I tell you?"

He had no reel, nor any inclination to waste time, and by main strength,
and swiftly, he drew out of the water a flashing ten-inch trout. Three
more, caught in rapid succession, furnished his breakfast. When he came
to the stepping-stones on his way to his hillside, he was struck by a
sudden thought, and paused.

"I'd just better take a hike down-stream a ways," he said. "There's no
tellin' what cuss may be snoopin' around."

But he crossed over on the stones, and with a "I really oughter take
that hike," the need of the precaution passed out of his mind and he
fell to work.

At nightfall he straightened up. The small of his back was stiff
from stooping toil, and as he put his hand behind him to soothe the
protesting muscles, he said:

"Now what d'ye think of that, by damn? I clean forgot my dinner again!
If I don't watch out, I'll sure be degeneratin' into a two-meal-a-day
crank."

"Pockets is the damnedest things I ever see for makin' a man
absent-minded," he communed that night, as he crawled into his blankets.
Nor did he forget to call up the hillside, "Good night, Mr. Pocket! Good
night!"

Rising with the sun, and snatching a hasty breakfast, he was early
at work. A fever seemed to be growing in him, nor did the increasing
richness of the test-pans allay this fever. There was a flush in his
cheek other than that made by the heat of the sun, and he was oblivious
to fatigue and the passage of time. When he filled a pan with dirt, he
ran down the hill to wash it; nor could he forbear running up the hill
again, panting and stumbling profanely, to refill the pan.

He was now a hund