"THIS rise of land is a hill. Why do they call it a 'knob,' I wonder? While I am in Cincinnati I want to act as much like city folks as I can, so I'll try to remember to say 'knob' whenever I mean hill," and Obadiah Holman sat down on the knob and looked at the city. His far-sighted blue eyes were trained for the open, not for roofs and walls, so they passed over brick and stone architecture, well worth noting in this new land of log and plank buildings, to watch a bit of greensward near the edge of the knob where some form of animal life was stirring. He was instantly ready for lively observation. "I believe that's a dog. Two dogs! They must be having a race. The yellow pup is the faster." Leaping up, Doby put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly, hoping to change the direction of the run. He would like to see two dogs at play, even if they were strange dogs. They did not hear him. They were far away and they disappeared from his sight in a flash. He sat down again. He was disappointed. Their passing had given him a singularly deserted feeling. "I wish they had come up here to be company for me. A whole cityful," thought Doby, remembering the three thousand inhabitants of Cincinnati, "is such a crowd of people that a boy emigrant doesn't know any person and he feels left out of everything and--anyway--no boy can have a really good time without a dog." Doby had another reason for being forlorn. He had been rejected by a group of men whom he wanted to join on an expedition into Kentucky. No one likes to be snubbed. He was trying to forget the uncomfortable experience by visiting all the points of interest in the city and then by climbing to the top of the knob where he could get a high and impersonal glimpse of things. Opposite him was the mouth of the Licking River as it flowed north into the Ohio. Half a dozen miles east was the Little Miami. A score or so to the west was the Big Miami. All low grounds about these river mouths were flooded in spring by what the astonished emigrants called "amazing high freshets," and the towns which the promoters began on them had to be abandoned by "the respectable public" whom their advertisements had drawn there. But the knob was above the reach of backwater and higher than any rising ague fog. Three wise men thought it the best place for a city. One, Denman, who was rich, paid two hundred and fifty dollars for the eight hundred acres on the knob. Another, Colonel Patterson, who was influential, had an army post for protection built here. And the third, Filson, who was clever, surveyed the lands and made most valuable maps of the regions round about. The irate Indians scalped Filson for his pains, but the other two waxed prosperous with the growth of their city.