strange sadness and despair came into his eyes.

Drawing a quick breath, he leaped the fence and was about going
on up the road, when he heard, at a little distance, the sound of a
drove of cattle approaching, and he stood aside to allow them to
pass. They snuffed and shied at the silent figure by the fence, and
hurried by with snappug heels-a peculiar sound that made the man
smile with pleasure.

An old man was driving the cows, crying out:

"St, boy, there! Go on, there. Whay, boss!"

Will knew that hard-featured, wiry old man, now entering his
second childhood and beginning to limp painfully. He had his
hands full of hard clods which he threw impatiently at the
lumbering animals.

"Good evening, uncle!"

"I ain't y'r uncle, young man."

His dim eyes did not recognize the boy he had chased out of his
plum patch years before.

"I don't know yeh, neither."

"Oh, you will, later on. I'm from the East. I'm a sort of a relative to
John Hannan."