ife before he is twenty-one. I was doing
well, and beginning to think again of visiting the Wallamet to hunt up
my girl. One Sunday afternoon, I knew it was Sunday, because I kept a
journal; I was sitting outside of my fort writing, when a shadow fell
across the paper, and, looking up, lo! a skeleton figure stood before
me." (Sepulchral tones, and a pause.) "Used as I was to lonely
encounters with strange men, my hair stood on end as I gazed on the
spectre before me. He was the merest boy in years; pretty and delicate
by nature, and then reduced by starvation to a shadow. His story was
soon told. He had left Boston on a vessel coming out to the northwest
coast, had been wrecked at the mouth of the Umpqua, and been wandering
about in the mountains ever since, subsisting as best he could on roots
and berries. But you are becoming tired?"

"No, I assure you; on the contrary, growing deeply interested."

"The boy was not a young woman in disguise, or anything like that, you
know"--with an amused look at me. "I thought you'd think so; but as he
comes into the story as a collateral, I just mention his introduction to
myself. I fed him and nursed him until he was able to go to work, and
then I got Sam Chong Lung to let him take up a claim alongside a Chinese
camp, promising to favor the Chinaman in a beef contract if he was good
to the boy. His claim proved a good one, and he was making money, when
two Chinamen stole a lot of horses from Sam Chong Lung, and he offered
four hundred dollars to Edwards if he would go after them and bring them
back. Edwards asked my advice, and I encouraged him to go, telling him
how to take and bring back his prisoners." (Reflective pause.) "You
can't imagine me living alone, now, can you? Such an egotistical fellow
as I am, and fond of ladies' society. You can't believe it, can you?"

"Hermits and solitaires are always egotists, I believe. As to the
ladies, your loneliness was the result of circumstances, as you have
explained."

"Well, I should have missed Edwards a good deal, if it had not been for
some singular _incidents_ which happened during his absence." Ela always
accented the last syllable of any word ending in e-n-t, like "incident"
or "commencement," giving it besides a peculiar nasal sound, which was
sure to secure the attention. The word incident, as he pronounced it,
produced quite a different effect from the same word, spoken in the
usual style.

"A man came to my fort one da