ore traveled roads and conveyances; and when
they changed horses again the next day's ride was through an apparently
unbroken wilderness of scattered wood and rolling plain. Yet to
Clarence, with his pantheistic reliance and joyous sympathy with nature,
the change was filled with exhilarating pleasure. The vast seas of
tossing wild oats, the hillside still variegated with strange flowers,
the virgin freshness of untrodden woods and leafy aisles, whose floors
of moss or bark were undisturbed by human footprint, were a keen delight
and novelty. More than this, his quick eye, trained perceptions, and
frontier knowledge now stood him in good stead. His intuitive sense of
distance, instincts of woodcraft, and his unerring detection of those
signs, landmarks, and guideposts of nature, undistinguishable to aught
but birds and beasts and some children, were now of the greatest service
to his less favored companion. In this part of their strange pilgrimage
it was the boy who took the lead. Flynn, who during the past two days
seemed to have fallen into a mood of watchful reserve, nodded his
approbation. "This sort of thing's yer best holt, boy," he said. "Men
and cities ain't your little game."

At the next stopping-place Clarence had a surprise. They had again
entered a town at nightfall, and lodged with another friend of Flynn's
in rooms which from vague sounds appeared to be over a gambling saloon.
Clarence woke late in the morning, and, descending into the street to
mount for the day's journey, was startled to find that Flynn was not on
the other horse, but that a well-dressed and handsome stranger had taken
his place. But a laugh, and the familiar command, "Jump up, boy,"
made him look again. It WAS Flynn, but completely shaven of beard and
mustache, closely clipped of hair, and in a fastidiously cut suit of
black!

"Then you didn't know me?" said Flynn.

"Not till you spoke," replied Clarence.

"So much the better," said his friend sententiously, as he put spurs to
his horse. But as they cantered through the street, Clarence, who had
already become accustomed to the stranger's hirsute adornment, felt a
little more awe of him. The profile of the mouth and chin now exposed to
his sidelong glance was hard and stern, and slightly saturnine. Although
unable at the time to identify it with anybody he had ever known, it
seemed to the imaginative boy to be vaguely connected with some sad
experience. But the eyes were thoughtful