known as an upright man and was a brother in the church, Deacon Cramps
offered him the position. Out of pure financial necessity Jake accepted.

This was some years before the rubber-tired automobile had invaded the
flint hills of this section and thirty miles meant hours of toilsome
travel. Thus it was necessary that Jake take along a camping outfit and
remain all summer. This he decided to do. Many and long were the hours
that Jake spent in this lonely mountain retreat. For miles around there
was little sign of human activity. No sound of woodman's ax was heard.
The stillness of the long summer afternoons was broken only by the
tinkling of the bells on the hillsides. A lone log cabin lifted its
mud-chinked walls from the brow of a hill from under which flowed a
babbling stream of clear water. In the attic of this lone cabin Jake
Benton was regularly lulled to sleep by the evening lullabies of the
katydids as they sang in the tops of the postoak trees with which the
cabin was surrounded.

One August afternoon when Jake returned from his regular roundup of the
cattle, he found, seated on a log near the spring, two men. At the sight
of the men Jake's heart leaped into his mouth. For two months he had not
laid his eyes on a human form. He had heard no human voice save his own.
Needless to say, he was as much pleased as surprised to find companions
in his lonely abode. Jake neared the log where the men sat. One of them
arose and advanced toward him. "I trust," he remarked, "that you will
not think we are trespassing on your premises. We have been traveling
all day; our horses were tired and we were thirsty, and the spring
invited us to be refreshed." For a moment Jake stood speechless, and
then in almost forgotten terms he made his unexpected visitors feel
welcome.