R: Live around here?

MYSELF: Yes, half a mile below here. Do you?

STRANGER: Yes, three miles above here. My name's Purdy.

MYSELF: Mine is Grayson.

He turned to me solemnly and held out his hand. "_I'm_ glad to meet you,
Mr. Grayson," he said. "And I'm glad," I said, "to meet you, Mr. Purdy."

I will not attempt to put down all we said: I couldn't. But by such
devices is the truth in the country made manifest.

So we continued to walk and look. Occasionally I would unconsciously
increase my pace until I was warned to desist by the puffing of Mr.
Purdy. He gave an essential impression of genial timidity: and how he
_did_ love to talk!

We came at last to a rough bit of land grown up to scrubby oaks and
hazel brush.

"This," said Mr. Purdy, "looks hopeful."

We followed the old road, examining every bare spot of earth for some
evidence of the cow's tracks, but without finding so much as a sign. I
was for pushing onward but Mr. Purdy insisted that this clump of woods
was exactly such a place as a cow would like. He developed such a
capacity for argumentation and seemed so sure of what he was talking
about that I yielded, and we entered the wood.

"We'll part here," he said: "you keep over there about fifty yards and
I'll go straight ahead. In that way we'll cover the ground. Keep
a-shoutin'."

So we started and I kept a-shoutin'. He would answer from time to time:
"Hulloo hulloo!"

It was a wild and beautiful bit of forest. The ground under the trees
was thickly covered with enormous ferns or bracken, with here and there
patches of light where the sun came through the foliage. The low spots
were filled with the coarse green verdure of skunk cabbage. I was so
sceptical about finding the cow in a wood where concealment was so easy
that I confess I rather idled and enjoyed the surroundings. Suddenly,
however, I heard Mr. Purdy's voice, with a new note in it:

"Hulloo, hulloo----"

"What luck?"

"Hulloo, hulloo----"

"I'm coming--" and I turned and ran as rapidly as I could through the
trees, jumping over logs and dodging low branches, wondering what new
thing my friend had discovered. So I came to his side.

"Have you got trace of her?" I questioned eagerly.

"Sh!" he said, "over there. Don't you see her?"

"Where, where?"

He pointed, but for a moment I could see nothing but the trees and the
bracken. Then all at once, like the puzzle in a picture, I saw her
plainly. She was standing perfectly m