lips to the water. It was the sweetest, most satisfying drink,
he had imbibed for many a day.

But the morning was growing old, and Hiram wanted to trace the
farther line of the farm. He went down to the river, crossed the
open meadow again where they had built the campfire the morning
before, and found the deeply scarred oak which stood exactly on
the boundary line between the Atterson and Darrell tracts.

He turned to the north, and followed the line as nearly as might
be. The Darrell tract was entirely wooded, and when he reached
the uplands he kept on in the shadowy aisles of the sap-pines
which covered his neighbor's property.

He came finally to where the ground fell away again, and the
yellow, deeply-rutted road lay at his feet. The winter had
played havoc with the automobile track.

The highway was unfenced and the bank dropped fifteen feet to the
beaten path. A leaning oak overhung the road and Hiram lingered
here, lying on its broad trunk, face upward, with his hat pulled
over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight which filtered
through the branches.

This land hereabout was beautiful. The boy could appreciate the
beauty as well as the utility of the soil. It was so pleasing
to the eye that he wished with all his heart it had been his own
land he had surveyed.

"And I'll not be a tenant farmer all my life, nor a farm-foreman,