strength came, and hope, and I turned my face to the North, toward the
valley and home. It was hard to come back on crutches, but it was
better than not to come at all. It was best, to have gone away, else I
had never known the joy of the return, and I was pretty sure to stay,
now that I was home, but if they fancied me dozing away my life at the
store stove they were mistaken; not that I scorned the learned
discussion there, but the frosts were coming soon to stir up sluggish
blood, and when the guns were barking in the woods, and the hounds were
baying along the ridges, I would be with them.

I looked right at the girl when I said it. I was boasting. She knew
it. She must see, too, what a woful figure I should make with
strong-limbed fellows like Tim there, and strong-limbed hounds like old
Captain, who was lying at my side. But somehow she liked my vaunting
speech. I knew it when our eyes met.




III

The gate latch clicked. From the road Henry Holmes called a last
good-night, and Tim and I were alone. We sat in silence, watching
through the window the old man's lantern as he swung away toward home.
Then the light disappeared and without all was black. The village was
asleep.

By the stove lay my hound, Captain, snoring gently. He had tried to
keep awake, poor beast! For a time he had even struggled to hold one
eye open and on his master, but at last, overcome by weariness, his