For years the Doctor had heard much of the fishing to be had in the
more unsettled parts of the Ozarks, but with his growing practice he
could find leisure for no more than an occasional visit to nearby
streams. But about the time that Martha began telling him that he was
too old to stay out all day on the wet bank of a river, and Dr. Harry
had come to relieve him of the heavier and more burdensome part of his
practice, a railroad pushed its way across the mountain wilderness. The
first season after the road was finished the Doctor went to cast his
hook in new waters.

In all these after years those days so full of mystic beauty have lived
in the old man's memory, the brightest days of all his life. For it was
there he met the Boy--there in the Ozark hills, with their great ridges
clothed from base to crest with trees all quivering and nodding in the
summer breeze, with their quiet valleys, their cool hollows and lovely
glades, and their deep and solemn woods. And the streams! Those Ozark
streams! The Doctor wonders often if there can flow anywhere else such
waters as run through that land of dreams.

The Doctor left the train at a little station where the railroad crosses
White River, and two days later he was fishing near the mouth of Fall
Creek. It was late in the afternoon. The Boy was passing on his way home
from a point farther up the stream. Not more than twelve, but tall and
strong for his age, he came along the rough path at the foot of the bluff
with the easy movement and grace of a young deer. He checked a moment
when he saw the Doctor, as a creature of the forest would pause at first
sight of a human being. Then he came on again, his manner and bearing
showing frank interest, and the clear, sunny face of him flushing a bit
at the presence of a stranger.