“I tell ye that younker is a hummer; not yerself nor any man in the crowd is better than him at a time like this; if his father and mother don’t want him I’m going to adopt him. In two or three years among the Rockies he’ll make the best kind of a hunter or trapper, instid of wasting his time larning larning which ain’t no good to nobody. But I say, Abner, if ye really want to change places with him, ye can do so.”