were generally unsafe, and lawless characters rife in the land. We looked
around at the pathetic poverty of the place--and wondered why they should
disquiet themselves. Poor souls! there was little left to rob them of,
save the fluttering remnants of their mortal breath. But, poor as they
were, they had their telephone,--a fact that struck us paradoxically in
many a poor cabin as we went along. Yes! had they a mind, they could
call up the White House, that instant, or the Waldorf-Astoria.

We spoke of our old trapper, and the old lady smiled.

"Those are his socks I've been darning for him," she said. So the cynical
old bachelor was taken care of by the good angel, woman, after all!

Trapping was about all there was to do now in the valley, she said. A
mink brought seven dollars, a musk-rat thirty cents. Our old bachelor had
made as much as eighteen dollars in two days--one day several years ago.
The old man had told us this himself. It was evidently quite a piece of
history in the valley, quite a local legend.




CHAPTER XV

THE MAN AT DANSVILLE


At Dansville we fell in with a man after our own hearts. Fortunately for
himself and his friends, he is unaware of the simple fact that he is a
poet. We didn't tell him, either--though we longed to. He was standing