“Yes--up into the Rio Abaste country where they had discovered diamonds as big as hens' eggs--one had been sold for nearly a quarter of a million dollars--and everybody was crazy. I didn't find any diamonds nor anything else but starvation, so I herded cattle, that being the only thing I knew anything about--how to ride--and slept out on the lowlands sometimes under a native mat and sometimes under the kindly stars. Then we had a revolution and cattle raids, and one night I came pretty near being chewed up by a puma--and so it went. I made a little money in rawhides after I got to know the natives, and I'm going back to make some more; and you are going with me when we get things straightened out. I wouldn't have come home except that I heard you had been turned out neck and crop from Kennedy Square. One of Mr. Seymour's clerks stopped in Rio on his way to the River Plate and did some business with an English agent whom I met afterward at a hacienda, and who told me about you when he learned I was from Kennedy Square. And when I think of it all, Uncle George, and what you have suffered on account of me!”--Here his voice faltered. “No!--I won't talk about it--I can't. I have spent too many sleepless nights over it: I have been hungry and half dead, but I have kept on--and I am not through: I'll pull out yet and put you on your feet once more if I live!” St. George laid his hand tenderly on the young man's wrist. He knew how the boy felt about it. That was one of the things he loved him for.