"Why--why--" he gasped, as yet unable to cast his thoughts into speech. Mr. Kincaid glanced down. A faint and amused smile flickered under his moustache. "You aren't going to do that sort of a crank the honour of keeping stirred up, are you?" "That's Pritchard--the worst crank in Michigan. He's quarrelled with every one. I never did know where his farm was, or I should have taken pains to keep off." They climbed into the cart and drove away toward town. "I believe I'll make a hunter of you, Bobby," pursued Mr. Kincaid after they were going. "It's a good thing to be. Of course there's the fun of it--the 'pats,' the quail, the jacksnipe, the 'cock. But then there's the other part, too." [Illustration: "I MEAN WHAT I SAY," SAID MR. KINCAID WITH DEADLY EMPHASIS] They had come out on the sandhills over the town. Mr. Kincaid drew up Bucephalus and contemplated it as it lay below them, its roofs half hidden in the mauve and lilac of bared branches, its columns of smoke rising straight up in the frosty air. "Of course, I don't know, Bobby, whether you'll ever be a hunter or not. It all depends on where you live and how--the chance to get out, I mean. But, sonny, you can always be a sportsman, whatever you do. A sportsman does things because he likes them, Bobby, for no other reason--not for money, nor to become famous, nor even to win--although all these things may come to him and it is quite right that he take them and enjoy them. Only he does not do the things for them, but for the pleasure of doing. And a right man does not get pleasure in doing a thing if in any way he takes an unfair advantage. That's being a sportsman. And, after all, that's all I can teach you if we hunt together ten years. Do you think you can remember that?" "Yes, sir," replied Bobby soberly. "There's only one other thing," went on Mr. Kincaid, "that is really important, and it isn't necessary if you remember the other things I've told you. It's pretty easy sometimes to do a thing because you see everybody else doing it. Always remember that a true sportsman in every way is about the scarcest thing they make--and the finest. So naturally the common run of people don't live up to it. If _you_--not the thinking you, nor even the conscience you, but the way-down-deep-in-your-heart _you_ that you can't fool nor trick nor lie to--if that _you_ is satisfied, it's all right." He turned and grinned humorously at his small companion. "I've nothing but a little income and an old horse and two dogs and a few friends, Bobby; I've lived thirty years in that little place there; and a great many excellent people call me a good-for-nothing old loafer, but I've learned the things I'm telling you now, and I'm just conceited and stuck-up enough to think I've made a howling success of it." "_I_ don't think that," said Bobby, laying his cheek against the man's threadbare sleeve.