so long as I was a boy.

On the way back to the hotel Mr. Carson stopped with me at a store
and he bought me a new suit of clothes, a hat and a pair of boots,
for I was barefooted and almost bareheaded. Thus dressed I could
hardly realize that I was the Will Drannan of a few hours before.

That was the first pair of boots I had ever owned. Perhaps, dear
reader, you do not know what that means to a healthy boy of
fifteen.

It means more than has ever been written, or ever will be.

I was now very ready to start out hunting, and on our way to the
hotel I asked Mr. Carson if he did not think we could get away by
morning, but he told me that to hunt I would probably need a gun,
and we must wait until he could have one made for me, of proper
size for a boy.

The next day we went to a gun factory and Mr. Carson gave orders
concerning the weapon, after which we returned to the hotel. We
remained in St. Louis about three weeks and every day seemed like
an age to me. At our room in the hotel Mr. Carson would tell me
stories about hunting and trapping, and notwithstanding the
intense interest of the stories the days were longer, because I so
much wished to be among the scenes he talked of, and my dreams at
night were filled with all sorts of wonderful animals, my fancy's
creation from what Mr. Carson talked about. I had never fired a
gun in my life and I was unbearably impatient to get my hands on
the one that was being made for me.