abing and hang around the spot where the cream puff grows.
However, now that you've brought the thing into camp, it would be
improvident not to eat it. What am I, Don, wood-scout or cook?"

"Cook," said Donald. "All day," he added, "you've been limping."

Brian made a fence of forked twigs, hung the sausages up to toast,
opened the can of macaroni and set it in the embers. That Don had
noticed the limp gratified him immensely, even though it had been a
mere and prosaic matter of a blistered heel.

Whistling softly, he watched the boy gather wood. Well, thank God! he
was as unlike that white-faced moody lad who had stumbled into his
Tavern of Stars as a boy could be. He whistled a good deal. He was as
slim as a sapling, the slimness of muscle and health. His eyes were
clear and boyish. And there was color in his face. Best of all, to
Brian's mind, after the first sullen period of readjustment he had
worked his own salvation and reverted by wholesome instinct to boyhood
with its inexhaustible animal vigor, its gaucheries and its boisterous
minutes of frolic heretofore denied. Now save for the hours by the
camp fire when he passionately blurted out again and again the tale of
his rebellion until Brian knew his life as he knew the weather-lore of
the open road, he seemed ever on the verge of laughter.

Brian smiled. Attuned to the mood he summed up the achievement of his
own summer. The brawn of splendid health and a clear head! For the
one he could thank his gypsying; for the other, in a measure, he could
thank the boy.

In the lonely hours before he came with his problems there had been
solitude less soothing than Brian had expected. There has been an
inclination to smoke and brood and nurse certain sentimental misgivings
about Kenny when the fire was low and the owls hooting in the forest.
After, mercifully--for they might have driven him back to
sunsets--there had been no time. The life of another had made its
demand and sympathy with Brian was never passive. Impossible somehow
not to romp with the young savage yonder rejoicing in his freedom, with
even work a lark! Impossible not to laugh with him, fight out his
battles with him and surrender with a sigh of content to the weariness
and hunger of a caveman!

If now with autumn at hand the fortunes of the road had in them a grain
more of hardship and less of romance, it was to be expected. Brian had
tramped to his goal. The staleness was gone. I