After a few weeks, when Freckles learned that he was still living, that
he had a home, and the very first money he ever had possessed was safe
in his pockets, he began to grow proud. He yet side-stepped, dodged, and
hurried to avoid being late again, but he was gradually developing the
fearlessness that men ever acquire of dangers to which they are hourly
accustomed.

His heart seemed to be leaping when his first rattler disputed the trail
with him, but he mustered courage to attack it with his club. After its
head had been crushed, he mastered an Irishman's inborn repugnance for
snakes sufficiently to cut off its rattles to show Duncan. With this
victory, his greatest fear of them was gone.

Then he began to realize that with the abundance of food in the swamp,
flesh-hunters would not come on the trail and attack him, and he had his
revolver for defence if they did. He soon learned to laugh at the big,
floppy birds that made horrible noises. One day, watching behind a tree,
he saw a crane solemnly performing a few measures of a belated nuptial
song-and-dance with his mate. Realizing that it was intended in
tenderness, no matter how it appeared, the lonely, starved heart of the
boy sympathized with them.

Before the first month passed, he was fairly easy about his job; by the
next he rather liked it. Nature can be trusted to work her own miracle
in the heart of any man whose daily task keeps him alone among her
sights, sounds, and silences.

When day after day the only thing that relieved his utter loneliness was
the companionship of the birds and beasts of the swamp, it was the