Keith was listening earnestly, and the boy went on: "When you told us that word about that man Hannibal tellin' his soldiers how everything lay t'other side the mountains, I begin to see what you meant. I thought before that I knowed a lot; then I found out how durned little I did know, and since then I have tried to learn, and I mean to learn; and that's the reason I want to go with you. You know and I don't, and you're the only one as ever made me want to know." Keith was conscious of a flush of warm blood about his heart. It was the first-fruit of his work. The boy broke in on his pleasant revery. "You'll let me go?" he asked. "Cause I'm a-goin' certain sure. I ain't a-goin' to stay here in this country no longer. See here." He pulled out an old bag and poked it into Keith's hand. "I've got sixteen dollars and twenty-three cents there. I made it, and while the other boys were spendin' theirn, I saved mine. You can pour it out and count it." Keith said he would go and see his father about it the next day. This did not appear to satisfy Dave. "I'm a-goin' whether he says so or not," he burst forth. "I want to see the worl'. Don't nobody keer nothin' about me, an' I want to git out." "Oh, yes! Why, I care about you," said Keith. To his surprise, the boy began to whimper. "Thankee. I'm obliged to you. I--want to go away--where Phrony ner nobody--ner anybody won't never see me no more--any more." The truth dawned on Keith. Little Dave, too, had his troubles, his sorrows, his unrequited affections. Keith warmed to the boy. "Phrony is a lot older than you," he said consolingly. "No, she ain't; we are just of an age; and if she was I wouldn't keer. I'm goin' away." Keith had to interpose his refusal to take him in such a case. He said, however, that if he could obtain his father's consent, as soon as he got settled he would send for him. On the basis of this compromise the boy went home. CHAPTER XI GUMBOLT With the savings of his two years of school-teaching Keith found that he had enough, by practising rigid economy, to give himself another year at college, and he practised rigid economy. He worked under the spur of ambition to show Alice Yorke and those who surrounded her that he was not a mere country clod. With his face set steadily in the direction where stood the luminous form of the young girl he had met and come to worship amid the blossoming woods, he studied to such good purpose that at the end of the session he had packed two years' work into one. Keith had no very definite ideas, when he started out at the end of his college year, as to what he should do. He only knew that he had strong pinions, and that the world was before him. He wished to bury himself from observation until he should secure the success with which he would burst forth on an astonished world, overwhelm Mrs. Yorke, and capture Alice. His first intention had been to go to the far West; but on consideration he abandoned the idea.