The old man frowned to conceal how greatly he was moved.

“I haven’t forgot nothin’, Kate,” he said, “an’ everything is for his own good.  Do you know what I’ve been tryin’ to do all these years?”

“What?”

“I’ve been tryin’ to hide him from himself!  Kate, do you remember how I found him?”

“I was too little to know.  I’ve heard you tell a little about it.  He was lost on the range.  You found him twenty miles south of the house.”

“Lost on the range?” repeated her father softly.  “I don’t think he could ever have been lost.  To a hoss the corral is a home.  To us our ranch is a home.  To Dan Barry the whole mountain-desert is a home!  This is how I found him.  It was in the spring of the year when the wild geese was honkin’ as they flew north.  I was ridin’ down a gulley about sunset and wishin’ that I was closer to the ranch when I heard a funny, wild sort of whistlin’ that didn’t have any tune to it that I recognized.  It gave me a queer feelin’.  It made me think of fairy stories—­an’ things like that!  Pretty soon I seen a figure on the crest of the hill.  There was a triangle of geese away up overhead an’ the boy was walkin’ along lookin’ up as if he was followin’ the trail of the wild geese.

“He was up there walkin’ between the sunset an’ the stars with his head bent back, and his hands stuffed into his pockets, whistlin’ as if he was goin’ home from school.  An’ such whistlin’.”

“Nobody could ever whistle like Dan,” she said, and smiled.

“I rode up to him, wonderin’,” went on Cumberland.

“‘What’re you doin’ round here?’ I says.

“Says he, lookin’ at me casual like over his shoulder:  ’I’m jest takin’ a stroll an’ whistlin’.  Does it bother you, mister?’

“‘It doesn’t bother me none,’ says I.  ‘Where do you belong, sonny?’

“‘Me?’ says he, lookin’ sort of surprised, ’why, I belong around over there!’ An’ he waved his hand careless over to the settin’ sun.

“There was somethin’ about him that made my heart swell up inside of me.  I looked down into them big brown eyes and wondered—­well, I don’t know what I wondered; but I remembered all at once that I didn’t have no son.

“‘Who’s your folks?’ says I, gettin’ more an’ more curious.

“He jest looked at me sort of bored.

“‘Where does your folks live at?’ says I.

“‘Oh, they live around here,’ says he, an’ he waved his hand again, an’ this time over towards the east.

“Says I:  ‘When do you figure on reachin’ home?’

“‘Oh, most any day,’ says he.

“An’ I looked around at them brown, naked hills with the night comin’ down over them.  Then I stared back at the boy an’ there was something that come up in me like hunger.  You see, he was lost; he was alone; the queer ring of his whistlin’ was still in my ears; an’ I couldn’t help rememberin’ that I didn’t have no son.