So, yielding to his whim, they carried him farther away, down the
sides of the track up to an embankment or levee by the sides of
the Marigny Canal. Then the big brother, suddenly stopping,
exclaimed:

"Why, here's a cave. Is it Robinson Crusoe?"

"It's my old man's cave," cried Titee. "Oh, please go in; maybe
he's dead."

There cannot be much ceremony in entering a cave. There is but
one thing to do,--walk in. This they did, and holding up the
lantern, beheld a weird sight. On a bed of straw and paper in
one corner lay a withered, wizened, white-bearded old man with
wide eyes staring at the unaccustomed light. In the other corner
was an equally dilapidated cow.

"It's my old man!" cried Titee, joyfully. "Oh, please, grandpa,
I couldn't get here to-day, it rained all mornin' an' when I ran
away, I fell down an' broke something, an', oh, grandpa, I'm all
tired an' hurty, an' I'm so 'fraid you're hungry."

So the secret of Titee's jaunts down the railroad was out. In
one of his trips around the swamp-land, he had discovered the old
man exhausted from cold and hunger in the fields. Together they
had found this cave, and Titee had gathered the straw and paper
that made the bed. Then a tramp cow, old and turned adrift, too,
had crept in and shared the damp dwelling. And thither Titee had
trudged twice a day, carrying his luncheon in the morning and his
dinner in the afternoon.