Lucian Laramore smiled. “Did any one here ever find out that I had adopted that profession?”
“Not a soul, Luke. I never let on to anybody that I knowed it, an’ the folks round heer don’t read much. They mought ‘a’ suspected some ‘n’ ef Luke King had been signed to yore books and stories, but nobody ever called you by yore right name. What on earth ever made you come home?”
“It was my mother that brought me here, Mark—not the others,” said Laramore. “If a man is a man, no sort of fame or prosperity can make him forget his mother. I planned to come back several times, but something always prevented it. However, when you wrote me that the last time you saw her she was not looking well, I decided to come at once.”
Mark was critically surveying his old friend from head to foot while he was speaking. Laramore smiled, and added, “You are wondering why I am so plainly dressed, Mark; you needn’t deny it.”
Mark flushed when he replied: “Well, I did ’low you fellers ’ud put on more style ’n we-uns down here.”
“It’s an old suit I have worn out hunting in Canada. I put it on because I intended to do a good deal of walking; and then, to tell the truth, I thought it would look better for me to go back very simply dressed.”
“That’s a fact, now I think of it; well, I wish you luck over thar. Goin’ ter foot it over?”
“Yes; it is only three miles, and I have plenty of time.”
But the walk was longer than Laramore thought it would be, and he was hot, damp with perspiration, and covered with dust when he reached the four-roomed cabin among the stunted pines and wild cedars.
Old Sam King sat out in front of the door. He wore no shoes nor coat, and his hickory shirt and jean trousers had been patched many times. His hair was long, sun-burned, and tangled, and the corrugated skin of his cheek and neck was covered with straggling hairs.