l witticisms. But Thurst
Tilly had a way of saying and doing quite his own,

"Never see any one knocked so flat as you was," said he. "Ye
didn't know enough t' keep ahead o' the cattle. I declare I
thought they'd trample ye 'fore ye could git yer eye unsot."

Trove made no answer.

"That air gal had a mighty power in her eye," Thurst went on.
"When I see her totin' you off las' night I says t' the boys, says
I, 'Sid is goin' t' git stepped on. He ain't never goin' t' be the
same boy ag'in.'"

The boy held his peace, and for days neither ridicule nor
excitement--save only for the time they lasted--were able to bring
him out of his dream.

That night they came to wild country, where men and cattle lay down
to rest by the roadway--a thing Trove enjoyed. In the wagon were
bread and butter and boiled eggs and tea and doughnuts and cake and
dried herring. The men built fires and made tea and ate their
suppers, and sang, as the night fell, those olden ballads of the
frontier--"Barbara Allen," "Bonaparte's Dream," or the "Drover's
Daughter."

For days they were driving in the wild country. At bedtime each
wound himself in a blanket and lay down to rest, beneath a rude
lean-to if it were raining, but mostly under the stars. On this
journey Trove got his habit of sleeping, out-of-doors in fair
weather. After it, save in midwinter, walls seemed to weary and
roofs to smother him. The drove began to low at daybreak, and soon
they were all cropping the grass or browsing in the briers. Then
the milking, and breakfast over a camp fire, and soon after sunrise
they were all tramping in the road again.

It was a pleasant journey--the waysides glowing with the blue of
violets, the green of tender grass, the thick-sown, starry gold of
dandelions. Wild fowl crossed the sky in wedge and battalion,
their videttes out, their lines now firm, now wheeling in a long
curve to take the path of the wind. Every thicket was a fount of
song that fell to silence when darkness came and the low chant of
the marshes.

When they came into settled country below the big woods they began
selling. At length the drove was reduced to one section; Trove
following with the helper named Thurston Tilly, familiarly known as
"Thurst."

He was a tall, heavy, good-natured man, distinguished for fat,
happiness, and singular aptitudes. He had lifted a barrel of salt
by the chimes and put it on a wagon; once he had eaten two mince
pies at a meal