198 RECREATION 
astic comment; ‘‘that’ll sure look genuine.” 
The final day of August found the tall 
man, whose name, we will say, was Andrews, 
at the depot, and with him was a party 
consisting of Everett, McWilliams and 
Everett’s boy, a lad of about twelve. It was 
nearing train time, and Everett pulled out 
his watch and snapped back the case. 
‘‘Seven-twenty,” he remarked. ‘‘ Your 
friend Winters will have to hustle a little,” 
he went on, addressing Andrews. 
‘“‘Oh, he will be here,’”’ was Andrews’s 
reply, and within a few seconds the ‘‘party 
of the second part” made his appearance. 
He carried a gun case, a well-worn valise 
and was smoking a stubby pipe, and after 
him surged at the end of a chain a beautiful 
Llewellin setter. He certainly looked the 
hunter, and after chucking the dog away 
into the baggage car, and introductions all 
around, the party climbed into the smoker 
and the train pulled out. 
Seven hours away and the train stopped 
at a little prairie whistling station, and our 
friends got out. The dogs were dragged 
out of their car, and, shaking hands with 
everybody, hauling at the dogs and biting 
off huge chunks of “chawin” tobacco, 
smoking the cigar that McWilliams handed 
him, grinning from ear to ear, laughing, 
talking, yelling at his team and generally 
effervescing and blowing off steam from his 
sanguine, vigorous, obstinate, good-hearted 
personality, was no one else than that close- 
shooting, herculean-framed, sunburned son 
of Anak, the redoubtable Lew Chapin 
himself. 
The one and only Lew. The man who 
could walk a locomotive to a standstill. 
Who thrashed through the corn-fields, the 
plowed ground, the stubbles and the hedges 
like a destroying angel, and who had a 
private graveyard filled with the victims 
who had essayed to follow him on chicken- 
shooting expeditions. 
“Who you going to walk to death this 
trip, Lew?” asked Everett, loud enough for 
all the depot loungers to hear, they grinning 
accordingly. A blush of gratified vanity 
spread over the big man’s features, but he 
‘“‘haw-hawed”’ and said, ‘Now, Doc, you 
know I ain’t no walker. I jist{mow my way 
along, an’ you fellers don’t git my gait.” 
““Pshaw,’ replied Everett, ~ you ne. mm 
partnership with some firm that furnishes 
artificial legs. They send me circulars every 
time I get back from here at Silo. You 
walk our legs off and they calculate on 
replacing them and whacking up with you.” 
Lew Chapin grinned amiably. ‘ Well, 
fellers, they’s lots o’ chicken,” said he. 
‘“‘But this yer’s a borryed rig, an’ I reckon 
two of us’ll have to walk to-morrow. Who’s 
comin’ with me bright an’ pertickelar early 
in the mornin’ ?” 
‘““Not me,” exclaimed Andrews, Mc- 
Williams and Everett, in a chorus of 
expostulation. Then they explained to 
Winters that the great and good Mr. 
Chapin had deliberately walked them to 
pieces on three different hunts, and they 
appealed to him to step into the breach for 
the first day, and keep Lew company. Mr. 
Winters agreed with a great deal of reluc- 
tance, but by the time they reached the farm- 
house, he launched out very incautiously, 
as Everett and McWilliams thought, of 
what fun it would be to walk and let the 
others ride around. 
At the supper table Grandpa Chapin, 
looking Winters over with the commisera- 
tive air of one giving a “last look at the 
deceased,” said, ‘“‘I pity you ef you’re goin’ 
to walk after Lew Chapin.” Winters found 
himself an object of both curiosity and 
compassion from all of the members of the 
family, but he kept blithely and even gleefully 
talking of the fun he and Mr. Chapin would 
have getting up long before daybreak and 
walking all day after the chickens. 
‘““You’d better let the other fellers have 
your dog,” said Lew to his chosen com- 
panion that evening as they sat round the 
well. ‘‘We’ll git an early start an’ cross over 
to Tom Ford’s an’ Tom’s promised me his 
dog. She’s a good one, but she don’t hunt 
well with any other dog. Tom’s farm’s a 
trifle over twelve mile from here, and if we 
git there in time there’s a big bunch on his 
oats stubble ever’ mornin’, he says.” 
Winters cheerfully acquiesced in this 
arrangement, and he and Lew turned in 
early. The alarm clock woke them at two 
o’clock and in twenty minutes they were 
ready to start. 
Now, there was something deceiving 
about this man Winter’s physique. He was 
not a tall man nor a broad one. He did not 
ee 
