Bonaventure

ying back the way he had come. And so anew the weeks wore by. Once more

,-in what State should I f

blank, examined the questioner

ama, yes, Alabama. You must excuse me, I didn't

here, coming back from the war, a y

long ago." "Lawng ago-o-o," the speaker pronounced it, but the

two railways parted, one leading south, the other west, he followed the southern for days, and then came back to the point of separation, and by and by found the lost thread again on the more westward road. But the time since 'Thanase ha

s, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad, through the rushes, flags, willows, and cypress-stumps of the cleared swamp behind the city of the Creo

f a fellow-tramp, pledged on the honor of his guild, gave assurance that thus

ard were on his thin cheek and chin. Patient weariness and humble perseverance were in his eyes. His coarse, ill-matched attire was whole and, but for the soilure of foot-travel, clean. Companioning with nature had browned his skin, and dried his straight fin

th one finger, as he turned away with his question answered by a shake of the head.

as old Tony says. He bunks with old Tony, you know, what keeps that little grocery in Solidelle Street. Tony says his candles comes to more than his bread and meat, or, rather, his rice and crawfish. He's the funniest crazy I ever see. All the crazies I

ith its struggles. The times were strong and rude. Every step of his way had been through a land whose whole civil order had been condemned, shattered, and cast into the mill of revolution for a total remoulding. Every day came like the discharge of a great double-shotted gun. It could not but be that, humble as his walk was, and his years so few, his fevered mind should leap into the questions of the hour like a naked boy into the surf. He made mistakes, sometimes in a childish, sometimes in an older way, some against most worthy things. But withal he managed to keep the main direction of truth, after his own young way of thinkin

lived? The police will tell you, as they told Bonaventure, that in these days of steam and steel and yoked lightning a man may get lost and be found again; but that when he stays lost, and is neither dead nor mad, it is because he wants to be lost. So where was to be the gain in finding 'Thanase alive? Oh, much, indeed, to Bonaventure! The star of a n

new lines in the young

aught by the thumb and forefinger of a man to whom, in passi

more, turned to the left,-high brick walls on either side, damp, ill-smelling pavements under foot,-and still strode on in si

ions, and I'll t

omewhere down on the water-front near the Mint, he was brought face to face with a stranger whose

rney that was to have brought the young volunteer home, he had asked and got the aid of this informant to ship-before the mast-for foreign parts. But why

. What storms buffeted o

and leap, and make soft, mild pretence of shouting and smiting hands. The quest was ended! rivalry gone of its own choice, guilt washed from the hands, love returned to her nest. Zoséphine! Zoséphine! Away

g there was a look on his face as though in that tumult conscience had be

nd the Mississippi at his back. When he had sent a letter ahead of him, he had no money left to pay for railway passage. Should he delay

man has told you fals

he ran forward across the open ties, and leaped clear of the track on the farther side, just when another instant would have been too late. He stood a moment, only half-pausing among the palmettos and rushes as the hurtling

asturing across heavenly fields, too slowly for the eye to note their motion; and below, the far-reaching, tremulous sheen of reed and bulrush, the wet lair of serpent, wild-cat, and alligator. Now and then there was the cool blue of sun

d, soiled, whispering: "Turn back; turn back, and settle with me," and ever put off with promises-after tha

made him stronger for the next; and at length, when he came to the low thatch of a neg

stretched their arms clad in green vestments and gray drapings, the bright sugar-cane fields were on his left, and on his right the beautiful winding bayou. In his face, not joy, only pallid eagerness, desire fixed upon fulfilment, and knowledge that happiness w