Samuel sat down on a fallen tree which marked the half-way point between
his place and the bay. The last half of the journey would seem shorter,
and, at the end, there would be Blossy smiling a welcome, for he never
doubted but that Blossy would be glad to see him. She thought a good
deal of him, nor had she been especially anxious for that week of
separation.

His face smoothed its troubled frowns into a look of shining
anticipation--the look that Samuel's face had worn when first he ushered
Blossy into his tidy, little home and murmured huskily:

"Mis' Darby, yew're master o' the vessel naow; I'm jest fo'castle hand."

Forgetting all his aches, his pains, his resentments, Samuel took a
peppermint-lozenge out of his pocket, rolled it under his tongue, and
walked on. Presently, as he saw the light of the clearing through the
trees, he broke into a run,--an old man's trot,--thus proving
conclusively that his worry of lumbago and chilblains had been merely a
wrongly diagnosed case of homesickness.

He grinned as he pictured Abe's dismay on returning to the Station to
find him gone. Still, he reflected, maybe Abe would have a better time
alone with the young fellows; he had grown so plagued young himself all
of a sudden. Samuel surely need not worry about him.

More and more good-natured grew Samuel's face, until a sociable rabbit,
peeping at him from behind a bush, decided to run a race with the old
gentleman, and hopped fearlessly out into the open.

"Ah, yew young rascal!" cried Samuel. "Yew're the feller that eat up all