arrodstown called McAndrew, and it was he
gave me the nickname "Canny Davy," and I grew to have a sort of
precocious fame in the station. Often Captain Harrod or Bowman or some
of the others would pause in their arguments and say gravely, "What does
Davy think of it?" This was not good for a boy, and the wonder of it is
that it did not make me altogether insupportable. One effect it had on
me--to make me long even more earnestly to be a man.

The impulse of my reputation led me farther. A fortnight of more
inactivity followed, and then we ventured out into the fields once more.
But I went with the guard this time, not with the women,--thanks to a
whim the men had for humoring me.

"Arrah, and beant he a man all but two feet," said Terence, "wid more
brain than me an' Bill Cowan and Poulsson togither? 'Tis a fox's nose
Davy has for the divils, Bill. Sure he can smell thim the same as you
an' me kin see the red paint on their faces."

"I reckon that's true," said Bill Cowan, with solemnity, and so he
carried me off.

At length the cattle were turned out to browse greedily through the
clearing, while we lay in the woods by the forest and listened to the
sound of their bells, but when they strayed too far, I was often sent to
drive them back. Once when this happened I followed them to the shade at
the edge of the woods, for it was noon, and the sun beat down fiercely.
And there I sat for some time watching them as they lashed their sides
with their tails and pawed the ground, for experience is a good master.
Whether or not the flies were all that troubled them I could not tell,
and no sound save the tinkle of their bells broke the noonday stillness.
Making a circle I drove them back toward the fort, much troubled in mind.
I told Cowan, but he laughed and said it was the flies. Yet I was not
satisfied, and finally stole back again to the place where I had found
them. I sat a long time hidden at the edge of the forest, listening
until my imagination tricked me into hearing those noises which I feared
and yet longed for. Trembling, I stole a little farther in the shade of
the woods, and then a little farther still. The leaves rustled in the
summer's breeze, patches of sunlight flickered on the mould, the birds
twittered, and the squirrels scolded. A chipmunk frightened me as he
flew chattering along a log. And yet I went on. I came to the creek as
it flowed silently in the shade, stepped in, and made my way slowly down
it,