He came back, hauling them in a little sleigh.  It was much like those made for the delight of the small boy in every land of snow.  It had a box painted red and two bobs and a little dashboard.  They used it for the transportation of boy and impedimenta.  In the deep wilderness beyond the Adirondacks they found a cave in one of the rock ledges.  They were twenty miles from any post-office but shortly discovered one.  Letters in cipher were soon passing between them and their confederates.  They learned there was no prospect of getting the ransom.  He they had thought rich was not able to raise the money they required or any large sum.  Two years went by, and they abandoned hope.  What should they do with the boy?  One advised murder, but the other defended him.  It was unnecessary, he maintained, to kill a mere baby, who knew not a word of English, and would forget all in a month.  And murder would only increase their peril.  Now eight miles from their cave was the cabin of a settler.  They passed within a mile of it on their way out and in.  They had often met the dog of the settler roving after small game—­a shepherd, trustful, affectionate, and ever ready to make friends.  One day they captured the dog and took him to their cave.  They could not safely be seen with the boy, so they planned to let the dog go home with him in the little red sleigh.  Now the settler’s cabin was like that of my father, on the shore of a pond.  It was round, as a cup’s rim, and a mile or so in diameter.  Opposite the cabin a trail came to the water’s edge, skirting the pond, save in cold weather, when it crossed the ice.  They waited for a night when their tracks would soon disappear.  Then, having made a cover of the sail-cloth sack in which they had brought the boy, and stretched it on withes, and made it fast to the sleigh box, they put the sleeping boy in the sleigh, with hot stones wrapped in paper, and a robe of fur, to keep him warm, hitched the dog to it, and came over hill and trail, to the little pond, a while after midnight.  Here they buckled a ring of bells on the dog’s neck and released him.  He made for his home on the clear ice; the bells and his bark sounding as he ran.  They at the cabin heard him coming and opened their door to dog and traveller.  So came my hero in a little red sleigh, and was adopted by the settler and his wife, and reared by them with generous affection.  Well, he goes to school and learns rapidly, and comes to manhood.  It’s a pretty story—­that of his life in the big woods.  But now for the love tale.  He meets a young lady—­sweet, tender, graceful, charming.”

“A moment,” said Darrel, raising his hand.  “Prithee, boy, ring down the curtain for a brief parley.  Thou say’st they were Syrians—­they that stole the lad.  Now, tell me, hast thou reason for that?”

“Ample,” said Trove.  “When they took him out of the sleigh the first words he spoke were “Anah jouhan.”  He used them many times, and while he forgot they remembered them.  Now “Anah jouhan” is a phrase of the Syrian tongue, meaning ‘I am hungry.’”