almost his only friend who had a home to offer for Barney's entertainment; and that Kensington home, though far finer than that of any friend whom Barney had previously visited, was no equal of Oliver Cullen's house on Scott Street.
Before the war, Barney had known little beyond the Michigan hills and farms, the lakes and woods of Charlevoix County and the little rural city of Boyne, nestled in a sort of cup at the eastern end of Pine Lake, near the northern tip of the lower Michigan peninsula; and Barney could clearly remember when Boyne was a distinctly wonderful, mysterious and awe-inspiring place with its wide, treeless Water Street, extending two squares with two-story buildings close together, sheltering food shops, hardware, dry-goods and drug stores, banks and pool rooms. Down by the water's edge, Lake Street ribbed it, running in one direction to North Boyne, with its scores of little cottages about the chemical works, the mill and the iron foundry, where a stubby ore carrier from Lake Superior was likely to be unloading; in the other direction lay the tannery with the fine, freshly painted home of the town's rich man not far away; then there was the railroad machine shop where men with great, clanging hammers worked upon the puffing engines and freight cars which bore the logs from the still wooded hinterland,—the Boyne City, Gaylord and Alpena Railroad. For many years Barney had longed, mutely, for the marvel of a ride upon one of these trains whenever Azen Mabo took him into Boyne on the rough, homemade farm wagon to restock the family store of flour, sugar and kerosene.
Azen bought in Boyne; but he never sold there. For Charlevoix, at the western end of Pine Lake, where
