without humanity, and was sure that it needed only to be known that the insane pauper had become a sound and healthy man to make him the subject of a series of persecutions or persuasions that would wrest from him the rights and values on which the great proprietor was foully battening.  These rights and values he never intended to surrender, and until he was strong and independent enough to secure them to himself, he did not care to expose his gentler will to the machinations of the great scoundrel who had thrived upon his unrewarded genius.

So, by degrees, he came to look upon the woods as his home.  He was there at peace.  His wife had faded out of the world, his life had been a fatal struggle with the grossest selfishness, he had come out of the shadows into a new life, and in that life’s simple conditions, cared for by Jim’s strong arms, and upheld by his manly and cheerful companionship, he intended to build safely the structure of his health, and to erect on the foundation of a useful experience a better life.

In June, Jim did his planting, confined almost entirely to vegetables, as there was no mill near enough to grind his wheat and corn should he succeed in growing them.  By the time the young plants were ready for dressing, Benedict could assist Jim for an hour every day; and when the autumn came, the invalid of Number Ten had become a heavier man than he ever was before.  Through the disguise of rags, the sun-browned features, the heavy beard, and the generous and almost stalwart figure, his old and most intimate friends would have failed to recognize the delicate and attenuated man they had once known.  Jim regarded him with great pride, and almost with awe.  He delighted to hear him talk, for he was full of information and overflowing with suggestion.

“Mr. Benedict,” said Jim one day, after they had indulged in one of their long talks, “do ye s’pose ye can make a house?”

“Anything.”

“A raal house, all ship-shape for a woman to live in?”

“Anything.”

“With a little stoop, an’ a bureau, an’ some chairs, an’ a frame, like, fur posies to run up on?”

“Yes, Jim, and a thousand things you never thought of.”

Jim did not pursue the conversation further, but went down very deep into a brown study.

During September, he was in the habit of receiving the visits of sportsmen, one of whom, a New York lawyer, who bore the name of Balfour, had come into the woods every year for several successive years.  He became aware that his supplies were running low, and that not only was it necessary to lay in a winter’s stock of flour and pork, but that his helpless proteges should be supplied with clothing for the coming cold weather.  Benedict had become quite able to take care of himself and his boy; so one day Jim, having furnished himself with a supply of money from his long accumulated hoard, went off down the river for a week’s absence.