troops, and his mules and horses carried off; his fine drove of hogs,
which ran loose in the woods, and upon which he relied to furnish his
year's supply of bacon, had wandered away and become wild; and
Godfrey had nothing but his rifle and his two hands with which to
begin the world anew. But it was hard to go back and begin again
where he had begun forty years ago. The bare thought of it was enough
to discourage Godfrey, who declared that he wouldn't do it, and made
his words good by becoming a roving vagabond. He spent the most of
his time at the landing, watching the steamers as they came in, and
the rest in wandering listlessly about the woods, shooting just game
enough to keep him in powder, lead and tobacco. His sole companion
and friend was his son Daniel, who, being a chip of the old block,
faithfully imitated his father's lazy, useless mode of life. Mrs.
Evans and the younger son, David, were the only members of the family
who worked. They never lost an opportunity to turn an honest penny,
and there were times when Godfrey and Dan would have gone supperless
to bed if it had not been for these two faithful toilers.

Godfrey disliked this aimless, joyless existence as much as he
disliked work, and even Dan at times longed for something better.
They both wanted to be rich. Godfrey wanted to see his fine
plantation, which was now abandoned to briers and cane, cultivated as
it used to be; while it was Dan's ambition to have two or three
painted boats in the lake, to have a pointer following at his heels,
and to do his shooting with a double-barrel gun that "broke in two in
the middle." He wanted to take his morning's exercise on a spotted
pony--a circus horse, he called it; and to wear a broadcloth suit,
a Panama hat and patent leather boots, when he went to church on
Sundays. Don and Bert Gordon had all these aids to happiness, and
they were the jolliest fellows he had ever seen--always laughing,