ognition of a simple hospitality without significance or danger. The
man's face appealed to him, young, alert, intelligent, earnest, and the
anguish of doubt and anxiety it expressed went to his heart. In the
experience of his sylvan life as a hunter Wyatt's peculiar and subtle
temperament evolved certain fine-spun distinctions which were unique; a
trapped thing had a special appeal to his commiseration that a creature
ruthlessly slaughtered in the open was not privileged to claim. He did
not accurately and in words discriminate the differences, but he felt
that the captive had sounded all the gamut of hope and despair, shared
the gradations of an appreciated sorrow that makes all souls akin and
that even lifts the beast to the plane of brotherhood, the bond of
emotional woe. He had often with no other or better reason liberated
the trophy of his snare, calling after the amazed and franticly fleeing
creature, "Bye-bye, Buddy!" with peals of his whimsical, joyous
laughter.

He was experiencing now a similar sequence of sentiments in noting the
wild-eyed eagerness with which the captured raider took obvious heed of
every minor point of worthiness that might mask the true character of
his entertainers. But, indeed, these deceptive hopes might have been
easily maintained by one not so desirous of reassurance when, in the
darkest hour before the dawn, they reached a large log-cabin sequestered
in dense woods, and he found himself an inmate of a simple, typical
mountain household. It held an exceedingly venerable grandfather,
wielding his infirmities as a rod of iron; a father and mother, hearty,
hospitable, subservient to the aged tyrant, but keeping in filial check
a family of sons and daughters-in-law, with an underfoot delegation of
grandchildren, who seemed to spend their time in a bewildering
manoeuver of dashing out at one door to dash in at another. A
tumultuous rain had set in shortly after dawn, with lightning and
wind,--"the tail of a harricane," as the host called it,--and a terrible
bird the actual storm must have been to have a tail of such dimensions.
There was no getting forth, no living creature of free will "took water"
in this elemental crisis. The numerous dogs crowded the children away
from the hearth, and the hens strolled about the large living-room,
clucking to scurrying broods. Even one of the horses tramped up on the
porch and looked in ever and anon, solicitous of human company.

"I brung Ben up by