haunts. Dan seemed, in his quiet way, to claim his old friend by right
of discovery and the others laughingly yielded, giving the Doctor--as
Young Matt, the father, put it--"a third interest in the boy."

And so, with the companionship of the yearly visits, and frequent letters
in the intervening months, the Doctor watched the development of his
young friend, and dreamed of the part that Dan would play in life when he
became a man. And often as he watched the boy there was, on the face of
the old physician, that look of half envy, half regret.

In addition to his training at the little country school, Dan's mother
was his constant teacher, passing on to her son as only a mother could,
the truths she had received from her old master, the Shepherd. But when
the time came for more advanced intellectual training the choice of a
college was left to their friend. The Doctor hesitated. He shrank from
sending the lad out into the world. He foolishly could not bear the
thought of that splendid nature coming in touch with the filth of life as
he knew it. "You can see," he argued gruffly, "what it has done for me."

But Sammy answered, "Why, Doctor, what is the boy for?" And Young Matt,
looking away over Garber where an express train thundered over the
trestles and around the curves, said in his slow way, "The brush is about
all cleared, Doctor. The wilderness is going fast. The boy must live in
his own age and do his own work." When their friend urged that they
develop or sell the mine in the cave on Dewey Bald, and go with the boy,
they both shook their heads emphatically, saying, "No, Doctor, we belong
to the hills."

When the boy finally left his mountain home for a school in the distant
city, he had grown to be a man to fill the heart of every lover of his