OLD BILL SMITH, THE SILENT HUNTER 216 
world—even in the distant perspective of womanhood—the 
idea of her marriage and a dower was almost death to him. 
To part with any portion of his precious and ill-gotten gold 
was like wringing the drops of his heart-blood upon the 
thirsty sands. He at once became furious the moment he 
discovered the intimacy and childish sympathy between the 
boy Smith and his child. There was no knowing what such 
a thing might come to; and thestarveling, whom he flattered 
himself he had apprenticed out of charity, might prove the 
viper upon his hearth. ' 
Such were the barbarities practised upon the helpless 
orphan, that, although too manly himself ever to complain, 
they became the talk of the neighborhood; and, while some 
persons openly asserted that old Saunders was trying to kill 
the boy by inches, others had determined to have him pre- 
sented to the next Grand Inquest that sat in the county, for 
barbarity and neglect of duty. 
Before, however, this very necessary and proper step could 
be taken, these persecutions had grown beyond any further 
possibility of endurance, and in a fit of ungovernable despair, 
the miserable child made up his rags into a little bundle, in 
which he also secreted a few scraps of food, which little 
Mattie, to whom he had made known his purpose, had ob- 
tained for him. He then crept into her little room by the 
window at night, and after weeping long, as if their little 
hearts would burst—in each other’s arms—for each felt that 
this parting was from the only friend they had in the world 
—the poor boy comforted the tender mourner by assuring 
her, in a tone of singular confidence, that when he got to be 
a great man he was going to come back for her and make her 
his little wife. 
Even at the early age of thirteen the remarkable magnetic 
power which afterwards distinguished the man, was developed 
—for, in relating this occurrence himself in after-life, he said 
that when he spoke this in a bold, confident tone, the little 
