Mark laughed apologetically. “Oh, I forgot you never could bear to be called by yore step-daddy’s name; but you wuz raised up with the King layout, an’ Laramore is not a easy word to handle. Well, I reckon you are follerin’ what you started--writin’ books?” “Yes.” “I ‘lowed you’d stick to it. I never seed a feller study harder an’ want to do a thing as bad.” Lucian Laramore smiled. “Did any one here ever find out that I had adopted that profession?” “Not a soul, Luke. I never let on to anybody that I knowed it, an’ the folks round heer don’t read much. They mought ‘a’ suspected some ‘n’ ef Luke King had been signed to yore books and stories, but nobody ever called you by yore right name. What on earth ever made you come home?” “It was my mother that brought me here, Mark--not the others,” said Laramore. “If a man is a man, no sort of fame or prosperity can make him forget his mother. I planned to come back several times, but something always prevented it. However, when you wrote me that the last time you saw her she was not looking well, I decided to come at once.” Mark was critically surveying his old friend from head to foot while he was speaking. Laramore smiled, and added, “You are wondering why I am so plainly dressed, Mark; you needn’t deny it.” Mark flushed when he replied: “Well, I did ’low you fellers ’ud put on more style ’n we-uns down here.” “It’s an old suit I have worn out hunting in Canada. I put it on because I intended to do a good deal of walking; and then, to tell the truth, I thought it would look better for me to go back very simply dressed.” “That’s a fact, now I think of it; well, I wish you luck over thar. Goin’ ter foot it over?” “Yes; it is only three miles, and I have plenty of time.” But the walk was longer than Laramore thought it would be, and he was hot, damp with perspiration, and covered with dust when he reached the four-roomed cabin among the stunted pines and wild cedars. Old Sam King sat out in front of the door. He wore no shoes nor coat, and his hickory shirt and jean trousers had been patched many times. His hair was long, sun-burned, and tangled, and the corrugated skin of his cheek and neck was covered with straggling hairs. As the stranger came in view from behind the pine-pole pig-pen, the old man uttered a grunt of surprise that brought to the door two young women in homespun dresses, and a tall, lank young man in his shirt-sleeves. “I suppose you don’t remember me,” said Laramore, and he put his satchel on a wash-bench by a tub and a piggin of lye soap. “Well, I reckon nobody in this shack is gwine to ’spute with you,” rumbled the old man, as with his chin in his hand, he lazily looked at the face before him. “I might not have known you either if I had not been told that you lived here. I am the fellow you used to call Luke King.” “By Jacks!” After that ejaculation the old man and the others stared speechlessly.