Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/38

 drawing near to an untimely death,—and to be on the safe side, secretly made his will, up in the hay-loft, and duly signed it in his own blood.

The migration from Cowansburg had not been of a kind to suit Lonely's spirit. It had been effected slowly, placidly, and laboriously, by means of a venerable old wagon from which two hub-bands and five wheel spokes were conspicuously absent, together with a raw-boned, long-haired, and ineffably meek-spirited steed of gigantic proportions, answering to the name of Plato.

Tied to the tail-board of the wagon with a piece of clothes-line, had followed Lonely's faithful goat, Gilead,—a stubbornly home-loving creature, who, on different occasions, had been duly sold or traded to nineteen youths of Cowansburg, only at the first opportunity to return to his original owner, with a blind and indomitable instinct that was as profitable as it was touching.

Lonely, for this overland journey through a new and unknown country, had armed himself with great care and forethought. A kitchen knife had been secretly pointed and