STRANGER: Has she any spots or marks on her?
MYSELF: _(fencing):_ I have never put a price on her; she is a promising young heifer.
MYSELF: Yes, half a mile below here. Do you?
STRANGER: Yes, three miles above here. My name's Purdy.
He turned to me solemnly and held out his hand. "_I'm_ glad to meet you, Mr. Grayson," he said. "And I'm glad," I said, "to meet you, Mr. Purdy."
I will not attempt to put down all we said: I couldn't. But by such devices is the truth in the country made manifest.
So we continued to walk and look. Occasionally I would unconsciously increase my pace until I was warned to desist by the puffing of Mr. Purdy. He gave an essential impression of genial timidity: and how he _did_ love to talk!
We came at last to a rough bit of land grown up to scrubby oaks and hazel brush.
We followed the old road, examining every bare spot of earth for some evidence of the cow's tracks, but without finding so much as a sign. I was for pushing onward but Mr. Purdy insisted that this clump of woods was exactly such a place as a cow would like. He developed such a capacity for argumentation and seemed so sure of what he was talking about that I yielded, and we entered the wood.
"We'll part here," he said: "you keep over there about fifty yards and I'll go straight ahead. In that way we'll cover the ground. Keep a-shoutin'."
So we started and I kept a-shoutin'. He would answer from time to time: "Hulloo hulloo!"
It was a wild and beautiful bit of forest. The ground under the trees was thickly covered with enormous ferns or bracken, with here and there patches of light where the sun came through the foliage. The low spots were filled with the coarse green verdure of skunk cabbage. I was so sceptical about finding the cow in a wood where concealment was so easy that I confess I rather idled and enjoyed the surroundings. Suddenly, however, I heard Mr. Purdy's voice, with a new note in it:
"I'm coming--" and I turned and ran as rapidly as I could through the trees, jumping over logs and dodging low branches, wondering what new thing my friend had discovered. So I came to his side.
"Have you got trace of her?" I questioned eagerly.
"Sh!" he said, "over there. Don't you see her?"