riding gloomily behind. Then nervously and hurriedly he told how he had
been thrown into the gully on the back of the wounded buffalo, and the
manner of his escape. An audible titter ran through the cavalcade.
Mr. Peyton regarded him gravely. "But how did the buffalo get so
conveniently into the gully?" he asked.

"Jim Hooker lamed him with a shotgun, and he fell over," said Clarence
timidly.

A roar of Homeric laughter went up from the party. Clarence looked up,
stung and startled, but caught a single glimpse of Jim Hooker's face
that made him forget his own mortification. In its hopeless, heart-sick,
and utterly beaten dejection--the first and only real expression he had
seen on it--he read the dreadful truth. Jim's REPUTATION had ruined him!
The one genuine and striking episode of his life, the one trustworthy
account he had given of it, had been unanimously accepted as the biggest
and most consummate lie of his record!




CHAPTER VII


With this incident of the hunt closed, to Clarence, the last remembered
episode of his journey. But he did not know until long after that it had
also closed to him what might have been the opening of a new career.
For it had been Judge Peyton's intention in adopting Susy to include a
certain guardianship and protection of the boy, provided he could get
the consent of that vague relation to whom he was consigned. But it