There was little, since the hour in the bookshop, that he would not have done or suffered for the approaching figure.

All along the road from Richmond his imagination had conjured up a score of fantastic instances, in each of which he had rescued, or died for, or had in some impossibly romantic and magnificent fashion been the benefactor of the man who was drawing near to the river and camp-fire.
As superbly generous as any other youth, he was, at present, in his progress through life, in the land of shrines.

He must have his idol, must worship and follow after some visible hero, some older, higher, stronger, more subtle-fine and far-ahead adventurer.

Heretofore, in his limited world, Adam Gaudylock had seemed nearest the gates of escape.
But Adam, he thought, was of the woods and the earth, even as his father was, and as the tobacco was, and as he himself was.

His enormous need was for some one to follow whose feet were above the fat, red fields and the leafy trails.