my own people. Nothing could stop me then.
I drew my pay, packed my things in a bag and off I went. Left the
'Burg afoot the day after; got to Faraway in the evening. It was
beautiful--the scent o' the new hay that stood in cocks and rows on the
hill--the noise o' the crickets--the smell o' the grain--the old house,
just as I remembered them; just as I had dreamed of them a thousand
times. And--when I went by the gate Bony--my old dog--came out and
barked at--me and I spoke to him and he knew me and came and licked my
hands, rubbing upon my leg. I sat down with him there by the stone wall
and--the kiss of that old dog--the first token of love I had known for
years' called back the dead and all that had been his. I put my arms
about his--neck and was near crying out with joy.

'Then I stole up to the house and looked in at a window. There sat
father, at a table, reading his paper; and a little girl was on her
knees by mother saying her prayers. He stopped a moment, covering his
eyes with his handkerchief.

'That was Hope,' I whispered.

'That was Hope,' he went on. 'All the king's oxen could not have dragged
me out of Faraway then. Late at night I went off into the woods. The old
dog followed to stay with me until he died. If it had not been for him
I should have been hopeless. I had with me enough to eat for a time.
We found a cave in a big ledge over back of Bull Pond. Its mouth was
covered with briars. It had a big room and a stream of cold water
trickling through a crevice. I made it my home and a fine place it
was--cool in summer and warm in winter. I caught a cub panther that fall
and a baby coon. They grew up with me there and were the only friends I
had after Bony, except Uncle Eb.

'Uncle Eb!' I exclaimed.

'You know how I met him,' he continued. 'Well, he won my confidence. I
told him my history. I came into the clearing almost every night. Met
him often. He tried to persuade me to come back to my people, but I
could not do it. I was insane; I feared something--I did not know what.
Sometimes I doubted even my own identity. Many a summer night I sat
talking for hours, with Uncle Eb, at the foot of Lone Pine. O, he was
like a father to me! God knows what I should have done without him.
Well, I stuck to my life, or rather to my death, O--there in the
woods--getting fish out of the brooks and game out of the forest, and
milk out of the cows in the pasture. Sometimes I went through the woods
to the store at T