n and picked the plumpest gobbler I could find off the roost, and
an hour later had him in the oven. This was at eight o'clock in the
evening. While he was baking I canvassed the old farmer's wardrobe. I'd
grown like a mushroom those last years and, though I was only sixteen, a
suit of his ready-made clothes was a fair fit. I got into it grimly. I
also found a dog-skin fur coat and, while it smelled a good deal like its
original owner, it would be warm, and I laid it aside carefully for
future reference.

"Then came supper. I didn't hurry in the least, but I had a campaign in
mind, so I went to work. When that bird was done I ate it, and everything
else I could find. I had the appetite of an ostrich, and when I was
through there wasn't enough left for a hungry cat. I even considered
taking the family cat in to the feast,--they had one, of course, and it
always looked hungry, too; but I had a sort of pride in my achievement
and I wanted to leave the remains as evidence.

"It was ten o'clock by this time and no one had shown up. I was
positively sorry. I'd hoped the old farmer would return and find me. I
had a few last words to say to him, some that had been lying heavy on my
mind for a long time. But he didn't come, and I couldn't wait any longer;
so I wrote them instead. I put on the dog-skin coat and started away on
foot into the night. If I'd had money I would have left the value of the
clothes; but he'd never given me a dollar in all those four years, so I
took them on account. It was two miles to town and I made it in time to
catch the ten-forty-five freight out.

"I forgot one thing, though. I went back after I'd got started a quarter
of a mile to say good-bye to the horses. I always liked horses, and old
Bill and Jerry and I had been good friends. I rode the pilot of that
engine and got into Kansas City the next morning. That was the second
stage.... Still interested, are you, Elice?"

"Yes."

"Next, I landed in the hardwood region of Missouri, the north edge of the
Ozarks. It was the old story of one having to live, and I'd seen an ad in
the papers for 'loggers wanted.' I had answered it, and the man in charge
dropped on me like a hawk and gave me transportation by the first train.
Evidently men for the job were not in excess, and when I'd been there a
day I knew why. It was the most God-forsaken country I'd ever known, away
back in the mountains, where civilization had ceased advancing fifty
years before. T