Turk wagged his tail in assent, and Jim departed, believing that his dog had understood every word as completely as if he were a man.  “Good-bye—­here’s hopin’,” said Jim, waving his hand to Turk as he pushed his boat from the bank, and disappeared down the river.  The dog watched him until he passed from sight, and then went back to the cabin to mope away the period of his master’s absence.

Jim sat in the stern of his little boat, guiding and propelling it with his paddle.  Flocks of ducks rose before him, and swashed down with a fluttering ricochet into the water again, beyond the shot of his rifle.  A fish-hawk, perched above his last year’s nest, sat on a dead limb and watched him as he glided by.  A blue heron rose among the reeds, looked at him quietly, and then hid behind a tree.  A muskrat swam shoreward from his track, with only his nose above water.  A deer, feeding among the lily-pads, looked up, snorted, and then wheeled and plunged into the woods.  All these things he saw, but they made no more impression upon his memory than is left upon the canvas by the projected images of a magic-lantern.  His mind was occupied by his scheme, which had never seemed so serious a matter as when he had started upon its fulfilment.  All the possibilities of immediate detection and efficient pursuit presented themselves to him.  He had no respect for Thomas Buffum, yet there was the thought that he was taking away from him one of the sources of his income.  He would not like to have Buffum suppose that he could be guilty of a mean act, or capable of making an ungrateful return for hospitality.  Still he did not doubt his own motives, or his ability to do good to Paul Benedict and his boy.

It was nearly ten miles from Jim’s cabin, down the winding river, to the point where he was to hide his boat, and take to the road which would lead him to the house of Mike Conlin, half way to Sevenoaks.  Remembering before he started that the blind cart-road over which he must bring his patient was obstructed at various points by fallen trees, he brought along his axe, and found himself obliged to spend the whole day on his walk, and in clearing the road for the passage of a wagon.  It was six o’clock before he reached Mike’s house, the outermost post of the “settlement,” which embraced in its definition the presence of women and children.

“Be gorry,” said Mike, who had long been looking for him, “I was afeared ye’d gi’en it up.  The old horse is ready this two hours.  I’ve took more nor three quarts o’ dander out iv ’is hide, and gi’en ’im four quarts o’ water and a pail iv oats, an’ he’ll go.”

Mike nodded his head as if he were profoundly sure of it.  Jim had used horses in his life, in the old days of lumbering and logging, and was quite at home with them.  He had had many a drive with Mike, and knew the animal he would be required to handle—­a large, hardy, raw-boned creature, that had endured much in Mike’s hands, and was quite equal to the present emergency.