It was beautiful — the scent o’ the new hay that stood in cocks and rows on the hill — the noise o’ the crickets — the smell o’ the grain — the old house, just as I remembered them; just as I had dreamed of them a thousand times.  And — when I went by the gate Bony — my old dog — came out and barked at — me and I spoke to him and he knew me and came and licked my hands, rubbing upon my leg.  I sat down with him there by the stone wall and — the kiss of that old dog — the first token of love I had known for years’ called back the dead and all that had been his.  I put my arms about his — neck and was near crying out with joy.

’Then I stole up to the house and looked in at a window.  There sat father, at a table, reading his paper; and a little girl was on her knees by mother saying her prayers.  He stopped a moment, covering his eyes with his handkerchief.

‘That was Hope,’ I whispered.

‘That was Hope,’ he went on.  ’All the king’s oxen could not have dragged me out of Faraway then.  Late at night I went off into the woods.  The old dog followed to stay with me until he died.  If it had not been for him I should have been hopeless.  I had with me enough to eat for a time.  We found a cave in a big ledge over back of Bull Pond.  Its mouth was covered with briars.  It had a big room and a stream of cold water trickling through a crevice.  I made it my home and a fine place it was — cool in summer and warm in winter.  I caught a cub panther that fall and a baby coon.  They grew up with me there and were the only friends I had after Bony, except Uncle Eb.

‘Uncle Eb!’ I exclaimed.

‘You know how I met him,’ he continued.  ’Well, he won my confidence.  I told him my history.  I came into the clearing almost every night.  Met him often.  He tried to persuade me to come back to my people, but I could not do it.  I was insane; I feared something — I did not know what.  Sometimes I doubted even my own identity.  Many a summer night I sat talking for hours, with Uncle Eb, at the foot of Lone Pine.  O, he was like a father to me!  God knows what I should have done without him.  Well, I stuck to my life, or rather to my death, O — there in the woods — getting fish out of the brooks and game out of the forest, and milk out of the cows in the pasture.  Sometimes I went through the woods to the store at Tifton for flour and pork.  One night Uncle Eb told me if I would go out among men to try my hand at some sort of business he would start me with a thousand dollars.  Well, I did — it.  I had also a hundred dollars of my own.  I came through the woods afoot.  Bought fashionable clothing at Utica, and came to the big city — you know the rest.  Among men my fear has left me, so I wonder at it.  I am a debtor to love — the love of Uncle Eb and that of a noble woman I shall soon marry.  It has made me whole and brought me back to my own people.

‘And everybody knew he was innocent the day after he left,’ said David.