too far, or he might give them the slip altogether.

A strangeness in his manner which this last discussion had brought out,
lay heavy on aunt Polly's mind all day after the departure of the team for
the Ferry. She watched the two men drive off in silence, Leander's bush
beard reddening in the sun, his big body filling more than his half of the
seat.

"Well, by Gum! If he ain't the blamedest, most per-sistent old fool!" he
complained to his wife that night. Their first words were of the old man,
already missed like one of the family from the humble place he had made
for himself. Leander was still irritable over his loss. "I set him down
with his grub and blankets, and I watched him footing it acrost the dam.
He done it real handsome, steady on his pins. Then he set down and waited,
kind o' dreaming, like he used to, settin' on the choppin'-block. I hailed
him. 'What's the matter?' I says. 'Left anything?' No: every time I hailed
he took off his hat and waved to me real pleasant. Nothing the matter.
There he set. Well, thinks I, I can't stay here all day watching ye take
root. So I drove on a piece. And, by Gum! when I looked back going around
the bend, there he went a-pikin' off up the bluffs--just a-humping himself
for all he was worth. I wouldn't like to think he was cunning, but it
looked that way for sure,--turning me off the scent and then taking to the
bluffs like he was sent for! Where in thunder is he making for? He knows
just as well as I do--you have heard me tell him a dozen times--the stages
were hauled off that Wood River road five year and more ago. He won't git
nowhere! And he won't meet up with a team in a week's walking."

"His food will last him a week if he's careful; he's no great eater. I
ain't afraid his feet will get lost; he's to home out of doors almost
anywhere;--it's his head I'm afraid of. He's got some sort of a skew on