"If I was hunting up a father," he said to himself aloud one day, "I'd try
to find a better lookin' one. I wouldn't pa'm off on myself no such old
warped stick as I be." The remark seemed a tentative one.

"I had the choice, to take or leave you," Paul responded. "You were an
unconscious witness. Why should I have opened the subject at all?"

Both knew that this answer was an evasion. By forcing the tie they had
merely marked the want of ease and confidence between them. As "Packer
John" Paul could have enjoyed, nay, loved this man; as his father, the sum
and finality of his filial dreams, the supplanter of that imaginary
husband of his mother's youth, the thing was impossible. And the father
knew it and did not resent it in the least, only pitied the boy for his
needless struggle. He was curious about him, too. He wanted to understand
him and the life he had come out of: his roundabout way of reaching the
simplest conclusions; his courage in argument, and his personal shying
away from the truth when found. More than all he longed for a little plain
talk, the exile's hunger for news from home. It pleased him when Paul,
rousing at this deliberate challenge, spoke up with animation, as if he
had come to some conclusion in his own mind. It could not be expected he
would express it simply. The packer had become used to his oddly elaborate
way of putting things.

"If we had food enough and time, we might afford to waste them discussing
each other's personal appearance. _I_ propose we talk to some purpose."

"Talking sure burns up the food." The packer waited.

"I wish I knew what my father was doing with himself, all those years when