t of engaging
and wonderful friends. As he lay there on his breast his thoughts
wandered back to the days when he did not know the names of any
flowers or birds--when all was strange and he alone in his hunger to
know them, and Bonnerton came back to him with new, strange force of
reminder. His father and mother, his brother and schoolmates were
there. It seemed like a bygone existence, though only two months ago.
He had written his mother to tell of his arrival, and once since to
say that he was well. He had received a kind letter from his mother,
with a scripture text or two, and a postscript from his father with
some sound advice and more scripture texts. Since then he had not
written. He could not comprehend how he could so completely drift
away, and yet clearly it was because he had found here in Sanger the
well for which he had thirsted.

As he lay there thinking, a slight movement nearer the creek caught
his eye. A large Basswood had been blown down. Like most of its kind,
it was hollow. Its trunk was buried in the tangle of rank summer
growth, but a branch had been broken off and left a hole in the main
stem. In the black cavern of the hole there appeared a head with
shining green eyes, then out there glided onto the log a common gray
Cat. She sat there in the sunshine, licked her paws, dressed her fur
generally, stretched her claws and legs after the manner of her kind,
walked to the end of the log, then down the easy slope to the bottom
of the canon. Here she took a drink, daintily shook the water from
her paws, and set the hair just right with a stroke. Then to Yan's
amusement she examined all the tracks much as he had done, though it
seemed clear that her nose, not her eyes, was judge. She walked down
stream, leaving some very fine impressions that Yan mentally resolved
to have in his note-book, very soon suddenly stopped, looked upward
and around, a living picture of elegance, sleekness and grace, with
eyes of green fire then deliberately leaped from the creek bed to the
tangle of the bank and disappeared.

This seemed a very commonplace happening, but the fact of a house Cat
taking to the woods lent her unusual interest, and Yan felt much of
the thrill that a truly wild animal would have given him, and had gone
far enough in art to find exquisite pleasure in the series of pictures
the Cat had presented to his eyes.

He lay there for some minutes expecting her to reappear; then far up
the creek he heard