The moment, however, that the lawyer proposed to assist in righting the wrong, Mr. Benedict became dangerously excited.  He could tell his story, but the thought of going out into the world again, and, particularly of engaging in a conflict with Robert Belcher, was one that he could not entertain.  He was happier in the woods than he had been for many years.  The life was gradually strengthening him.  He hoped the time would come when he could get something for his boy, but, for the present, he could engage in no struggle for reclaiming and maintaining his rights.  He believed that an attempt to do it would again drive him to distraction, and that, somehow, Mr. Belcher would get the advantage of him.  His fear of the great proprietor had become morbidly acute, and Mr. Balfour could make no headway against it.  It was prudent to let the matter drop for a while.

Then Mr. Balfour opened his heart in regard to the boy.  He told Benedict of the loss with which he had already acquainted Jim, of the loneliness of his remaining son, of the help that Harry could afford him, the need in which the lad stood of careful education, and the accomplishments he could win among better opportunities and higher society.  He would take the boy, and treat him, up to the time of his majority, as his own.  If Mr. Benedict could ever return the money expended for him, he could have the privilege of doing so, but it would never be regarded as a debt.  Once every year the lawyer would bring the lad to the woods, so that he should not forget his father, and if the time should ever come when it seemed practicable to do so, a suit would be instituted that would give him the rights so cruelly withheld from his natural protector.

The proposition was one which taxed to its utmost Mr. Benedict’s power of self-control.  He loved his boy better than he loved himself.  He hoped that, in some way, life would be pleasanter and more successful to the lad than it had been to him.  He did not wish him to grow up illiterate and in the woods; but how he was to live without him he could not tell.  The plucking out of an eye would have given him less pain than the parting with his boy, though he felt from the first that the lad would go.

Nothing could be determined without consulting Jim, and as the conversation had destroyed the desire for further sport, they packed their fishing-tackle and returned to camp.

“The boy was’n’t got up for my ’commodation,” said Jim, when the proposition was placed before him.  “I seen the thing comin’ for a week, an’ I’ve brung my mind to’t.  We hain’t got no right to keep ’im up here, if he can do better.  Turk ain’t bad company fur them as likes dogs, but he ain’t improvin’.  I took the boy away from Tom Buffum ’cause I could do better by ’im nor he could, and when a man comes along that can do better by ’im nor I can, he’s welcome to wade in.  I hain’t no right to spile a little feller’s life ’cause I like his company.  I don’t think much