A DEDICATION.
It would hardly be in character for me to dedicate this book
in good, stiff, old-fashioned tomb-stone style, but I could not have
put in the background of scenery without being reminded of the
two boys, inseparable as the Siamese twins, who gathered musselshells
in the river marge, played hide-and-seek in the hollow sycamores,
and led a happy life in the shadow of just such hills as those
among which the events of this story took place. And all the more
that the generous boy who was my playmate then is the generous
man who has relieved me of many burdens while I wrote this story,
do I feel impelled to dedicate it to George Cary Eggleston, a
manly man and a brotherly brother.
