"I rode up to him, wonderin'," went on Cumberland. "'What're you doin' round here?' I says. "Says he, lookin' at me casual like over his shoulder: 'I'm jest takin' a stroll an' whistlin'. Does it bother you, mister?' "'It doesn't bother me none,' says I. 'Where do you belong, sonny?' "'Me?' says he, lookin' sort of surprised, 'why, I belong around over there!' An' he waved his hand careless over to the settin' sun. "There was somethin' about him that made my heart swell up inside of me. I looked down into them big brown eyes and wondered--well, I don't know what I wondered; but I remembered all at once that I didn't have no son. "'Who's your folks?' says I, gettin' more an' more curious. "He jest looked at me sort of bored. "'Where does your folks live at?' says I. "'Oh, they live around here,' says he, an' he waved his hand again, an' this time over towards the east. "Says I: 'When do you figure on reachin' home?' "'Oh, most any day,' says he. "An' I looked around at them brown, naked hills with the night comin' down over them. Then I stared back at the boy an' there was something that come up in me like hunger. You see, he was lost; he was alone; the queer ring of his whistlin' was still in my ears; an' I couldn't help rememberin' that I didn't have no son. "'Then supposin' you come along with me,' says I, 'an' I'll send you home in a buckboard tomorrow?' "So the end of it was me ridin' home with the little kid sittin' up before me, whistlin' his heart out! When I got him home I tried to talk to him again. He couldn't tell me, or he wouldn't tell me where his folks lived, but jest kept wavin' his hand liberal to half the points of the compass. An' that's all I know of where he come from. I done all I could to find his parents. I inquired and sent letters to every rancher within a hundred miles. I advertised it through the railroads, but they said nobody'd yet been reported lost. He was still mine, at least for a while, an' I was terrible glad. "I give the kid a spare room. I sat up late that first night listenin' to the wild geese honkin' away up in the sky an' wonderin' why I was so happy. Kate, that night there was tears in my eyes when I thought of how that kid had been out there on the hills walkin' along so happy an' independent. "But the next mornin' he was gone. I sent my cowpunchers out to look for him. "'Which way shall we ride?' they asked. "I don't know why, but I thought of the wild geese that Dan had seemed to be followin'. "'Ride north,' I said. "An' sure enough, they rode north an' found him. After that I didn't have no trouble with him about runnin' away--at least not durin' the summer. An' all those months I kept plannin' how I would take care of this boy who had come wanderin' to me. It seemed like he was sort of a gift of God to make up for me havin' no son. And everythin' went well until the next fall, when the geese began to fly south.