“Oh, that’s all right, thank you, darling!” And he set off after Sam. When he returned, he was enthusiastic about his guide. “I like him! He hung back at first, and I finally found that Bowles wouldn’t plough for him without the money; so I paid him ten dollars in advance. That’s all he is charging to take me. We shall be gone only three or four days. He knows all the trails; and we can get our bacon and meal at a little store on Siler’s creek, and not have to carry a heavy pack from here.” “If only you had an intelligent companion!” said Lucie with foreboding. “Oh, Sam’s a fine fellow! And he knows a lot of old songs. You know I want to make a collection.” “Do get ‘London City’ for me if you can,” I said. “He will never give me more than a snatch of it. ‘In London City where I did dwell A merchant boy I loved so well----’ I am sure it has been sung under the very bonnet of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, ‘City’ not ‘town’; ‘merchant,’ not ‘soldier’ or ‘sailor.’” “It’s a link,” said Harvey. “Think of it! This remote spot where nothing ever happened, and old London! I’ll get it for you.” I wasn’t hopeful, knowing Sam’s disposition to sing only at his own instance; but I could not discourage any one so gallantly sure as Harvey. The next twenty-four hours were spent by the bear-hunters in making ready. I asked Sam where he intended to get a bear-dog, and was surprised to hear that they had decided not to take one. “One o’ them big dogs’ll eat three men’s rations,” said Sam. “We’d have to carry a heap more stuff, an’ pay five dollars fer the hire of him, too. Anyways, if we took a bear-dog, he’d git all the credit for the killin’, when like as not he’d be back in camp eatin’ up our victuals.” “It’s settled, Sam,” said Harvey. “A gun’s the clean thing.” “I knowed you wanted to shoot bear, not claw ’em out like Jed Weaver does.” As preparations went on, Lucie shrank to a wife’s place in the background; but near the starting-moment she slipped a pair of her husband’s best silk socks into his kit. “They will rest your feet, dear,” she said, suppressing a crinkly catch in her voice. The kiss she received was absent-mindedly given; but when a hundred yards on his way, Harvey turned thoughtfully and waved a marital hand broadly rearward. The fifth morning thereafter, Lucie, who had been on watch at the curve of the road, came running in. “Dolly,” she cried, “I thought tramps never got up here!” “They don’t,” I said. “But look!” She turned again and gazed out; then stood framed in eerie silence. I saw, and she saw, that it was Ned. He came up with an unrelaxing smile, but looking as if he had not slept since his departure. Certainly he had not shaved, though I had seen him carefully pack his safety razor, and remembered his remark that even in the woods a man could be a gentleman. He had on Sam’s ragged coat, and under it we had glimpses of Sam’s still more ragged, and once blue, cotton shirt. His head was bare.