"What in the nation air inside o' that thar boy?" he exclaimed. "A chicken, ain't it?"

For a musical treble chirping was heard proceeding apparently from Rufe's pocket. This chicken differed from others that Rufe had put away, in being alive and hearty.

The small boy entered into the conversation with great spirit, to tell that a certain hen which he owned had yesterday come off her nest with fourteen of the spryest deedies that ever stepped. One in especial had so won upon Rufe by its beauty and grace of deportment that he was carrying it about with him, feeding it at close intervals, and housing it in the security of his pocket.

The deedie hardly made a moan. There was no use in remonstrating with Rufe,—everything that came within his eccentric orbit seemed to realize that,—and the deedie was contentedly nestling down in his pocket, apparently resigned to lead the life of a portemonnaie.

Rufe narrated with pardonable pride the fact that, some time before, his great-uncle, Rufus Dicey, had sent to him from the "valley kentry" a present of a pair of game chickens, and that this deedie was from the first egg hatched in the game hen's brood.

But Rufe was not selfish. He offered to give Tim one of the chicks. Now poultry was Tim's weakness. He accepted with more haste than was seemly, and at once asked for the deedie in the small boy's pocket. Rufe, however, refused to part from the chick of his adoption, and presently Tim, with the gun on his shoulder, left the tanyard in company with Rufe, to look over the brood of game chicks, and make a selection from among them.

Birt hardly noticed what they did or said. Every faculty was absorbed in considering the wily game which his false friend had played so successfully. It was all plain enough now. The fruit of his discovery would be plucked by other hands. There was to be no division of the profits. Nate Griggs had coveted the whole. His craft had secured it for himself alone. He had the legal title to the land, the mine—all! There seemed absolutely no vulnerable point in his scheme. With suddenly sharpened perceptions, Birt realized that if he should now claim the discovery and the consequent right of thirty days' notice of Nate's intention, by virtue of the priority of entering land accorded by the statute to the finder of a mine or valuable mineral, it would be considered a groundless boast, actuated by envy and jealousy. He had told no one but Nate of his discovery—and would not Nate now deny it!

However, one thing in the future was certain,—Nathan Griggs should not escape altogether scathless. For a long time Birt sat motionless, revolving vengeful purposes in his mind. Every moment he grew more bitter, as he reflected upon his wrecked scheme, his wonderful fatuity, and the double dealing of his chosen coadjutor. But he would get even with Nate Griggs yet; he promised himself that,—he would get even!

At last the falling darkness warned him home. When he rose his limbs trembled, his head was in a whirl, and the familiar scene swayed, strange and distorted, before him. He steadied himself after a moment, finished the odd jobs he had left undone, and presently was trudging homeward.

A heavy black cloud overhung the woods; an expectant stillness brooded upon the sultry world; an angry storm was in the air. The first vivid flash and simultaneous peal burst from the sky as he reached the passage between the two rooms.

"Ye air powerful perlite ter come a-steppin' home jes' at supper- time," said his mother advancing to meet him. "Ye lef' no wood hyar, an' ye said ye would borry the mule, an' come home early a- purpose to haul some. An' me hyar with nuthin' to cook supper with but sech chips an' blocks an' bresh ez I could pick up off'n the groun'."

Birt's troubles had crowded out the recollection of this domestic duty.

"I clean furgot," he admitted, penitently. Then he asked suddenly, "An' whar war Rufe, an' Pete, an' Joe, ez YE hed ter go ter pickin' up of chips an' sech off'n the groun'?"

He turned toward the group of small boys. "Air you-uns all disabled somehows, ez ye can't pick up chips an' bresh an' sech?" he said. "An' ef ye air, whyn't ye go ter the tanyard arter me?"

"They war all off in the woods, a-lookin' arter Rufe's trap ez ye sot fur squir'ls," Mrs. Dicey explained. "It hed one in it, an' I cooked it fur supper."

Birt said that he could go out early with his axe and cut enough wood for breakfast tomorrow, and then he fell silent. Once or twice his preoccupied demeanor called forth comment.

"Whyn't ye eat some o' the squir'l, Birt?" his mother asked at the supper table. "Pears-like ter me ez it air cooked toler'ble tasty."

Birt could not eat. He soon rose from the table and resumed his chair by the window, and for half an hour no word passed between them.

The thunder seemed to roll on the very roof of the cabin, and it trembled beneath the heavy fall of the rain. At short intervals a terrible blue light quivered through crevices in the "daubin'" between the logs of the wall, and about the rude shutter which closed the glassless window. Now and then a crash from the forest told of a riven tree. But the storm had no terrors for the inmates of this humble dwelling. Pete and Joe had already gone to bed; Tennessee had fallen asleep while playing on the floor, and Rufe dozed peacefully in his chair. Even Mrs. Dicey nodded as she knitted, the needles sometimes dropping from her nerveless hand.

Birt silently watched the group for a time in the red light of the smouldering fire and the blue flashes from without. At length he softly rose and crept noiselessly to the door; the fastening was the primitive latch with a string attached; it opened without a sound in his cautious handling, and he found himself in the pitchy darkness outside, the wild mountain wind whirling about him, and the rain descending in steady torrents.

He had stumbled only a few steps from the house when he thought he indistinctly heard the door open again. He dreaded his mother's questions, but he stopped and looked back.

He saw nothing. There was no sound save the roar of the wind, the dash of the rain, and the commotion among the branches of the trees.

He went on once more, absorbed in his dreary reflections and the fierce anger that burned in his heart.

"I'll git even with Nate Griggs," he said, over and again. "I'll git even with him yit."



CHAPTER VII.

When Birt reached the fence, he discovered that the bars were down. Rufe had forgotten to replace them that afternoon when he drove in the cow to be milked. Despite his absorption, Birt paused to put them up, remembering the vagrant mountain cattle that might stray in upon the corn. He found the familiar little job difficult enough, for it seemed to him that there was never before so black a night. Even looking upward, he could not see the great wind-tossed boughs of the chestnut-oak above his head. He only knew they were near, because acorns dropped upon the rail in his hands, and rebounded resonantly. But an owl, blown helplessly down the gale, was not much better off, for all its vaunted nocturnal vision. As it drifted by, on the currents of the wind, its noiseless, out- stretched wings, vainly flapping, struck Birt suddenly in the face, and frightened by the collision, it gave an odd, peevish squeak.

Birt, too, was startled for a moment. Then he exclaimed irritably, "Oh, g'way owEL"—realizing what had struck him.

The next moment he paused abruptly. He thought he heard, close at hand, amongst the glooms, a faint chuckle. Something—was it?— SOMEBODY laughing in the darkness?

He stood intently listening. But now he heard only the down-pour of the rain, the sonorous gusts of the wind, the multitudinous voices of the muttering leaves.

He said to himself that it was fancy. "All this trouble ez I hev hed along o' Nate Griggs hev mighty nigh addled my brains."

The name recalled his resolve.

"I'll git even with him, though. I'll git even with him yit," he reiterated as he plodded on heavily down the path, his mind once more busy with all the details of his discovery, his misplaced confidence, and the wreck of his hopes.

It seemed so hard that he should never before have heard of "entering land," and of that law of the State according priority to the finder of mineral. The mine was his, but he had hid the discovery from all but Nate, who claimed it himself, and had secured the legal title.

"But I'll git even with him," he said resolutely between his set teeth.

He had thought it a lucky chance to remember, in his reverie before the fire-lit hearth, that peg in the shed at the tanyard on which Tim had hung his brother's coat. Somehow the episode of the afternoon had left so vivid an impression on Birt's mind that hours afterward he seemed to see the dull, clouded sky, the sombre, encircling woods, the brown stretch of spent tan, the little gray shed, and within it, hanging upon a peg, the butternut jeans coat, a stiff white paper protruding from its pocket.

That grant, he thought, had taken from him his rights. He would destroy it—he would tear it into bits, and cast it to the turbulent mountain winds. It was not his, to be sure. But was it justly Nate's?—he had no right to enter the land down the ravine.

And so Birt argued with his conscience.

Now wherever Conscience calls a halt, it is no place for Reason to debate the question. The way ahead is no thoroughfare.

Birt did not recognize the tearing of the paper as stealing, but he knew that all this was morally wrong, although he would not admit it. He would not forego his revenge—it was too dear; he was too deeply injured. In the anger that possessed his every faculty, he did not appreciate its futility.

There were other facts which he did NOT know. He was ignorant that the deed which he contemplated was a crime in the estimation of the law, a penitentiary offense.

And toward this terrible pitfall he trudged in the darkness, saying over and again to himself, "I'll git even with Nate Griggs; he'll hev no grant, no land, no gold—no more 'n me. I'll git even with him."

His progress seemed incredibly slow as he groped along the path. But the rain soon ceased; the wind began to scatter the clouds; through a rift he saw a great, glittering planet blazing high above their dark turmoils.

How the drops pattered down as the wind tossed the laurel!—once they sounded like footfalls close behind him. He turned and looked back into the obscurities of the forest. Nothing—a frog had begun to croak far away, and the vibrations of the katydid were strident on the damp air.

And here was the tanyard, a denser area of gloom marking where the house and shed stood in the darkness. He did not hesitate. He stepped over the bars, which lay as usual on the ground, and walked across the yard to the shed. The eaves were dripping with moisture. But the coat, still hanging within on the peg, was dry.

He had a thrill of repulsion when he touched it. His hand fell.

"But look how Nate hev treated me," he remonstrated with his conscience.

The next moment he had drawn the grant half-way out of the pocket, and as he moved he almost stepped upon something close behind him. All at once he knew what it was, even before a flash of the distant lightning revealed a little tow-head down in the darkness, and a pair of black eyes raised to his in perfect confidence.

It was the little sister who had followed him to-night, as she always did when she could.

"Stand back thar, Tennessee!" he faltered.

He was trembling from head to foot. And yet Tennessee was far too young to tell that she had seen the grant in his hands, to understand, even to question. But had he been seized by the whole Griggs tribe, he could not have been so panic-stricken as he was by the sight of that unknowing little head, the touch of the chubby little hand on his knee.

He thrust the grant back into the pocket of Nate's coat. His resolve was routed by the presence of love and innocence. Not here- -not now could he be vindictive, malicious. With some urgent, inborn impulse strongly constraining him, he caught the little sister in his arms, and fled headlong through the darkness, homeward.

As he went he was amazed that he should have contemplated this revenge.

"Why, I can't afford ter be a scoundrel an' sech, jes' 'kase Nate Griggs air a tricky feller an' hev fooled me. Ef Tennessee hedn't stepped up so powerful peart I moughtn't hev come ter my senses in time. I mought hev tore up Nate's grant by now. But arter this I ain't never goin' ter set out ter act like a scamp jes' 'kase somebody else does."

His conscience had prevailed, his better self returned. And when he reached home, and opening the door saw his mother still nodding over her knitting, and Rufe asleep in his chair, and the fire smouldering on the hearth, all as he had left it, he might have thought that he had dreamed the temptation and his rescue, but for his dripping garments and Tennessee in his arms all soaking with the rain.

The noise of his entrance roused his mother, who stared in drowsy astonishment at the bedraggled apparition on the threshold.

"Tennie follered me ter the tanyard 'fore I fund her out," Birt explained. "It 'pears ter hev rained on her, considerable," he added deprecatingly.

Tennie was looking eagerly over her shoulder to note the effect of this statement. Her streaming hair flirted drops of water on the floor; her cheeks were ruddy; her black eyes brightened with apprehension.

"Waal, sir! that thar child beats all. Never mind, Tennie, ye'll meet up with a wild varmint some day when ye air follerin' Birt off from the house, an' I ain't surprised none ef it eats ye! But shucks!" Mrs. Dicey continued impersonally, "I mought ez well save my breath; Tennie ain't feared o' nuthin', ef Birt air by."

The word "varmint" seemed to recall something to Tennessee. She began to chatter unintelligibly about an "owEL," and to chuckle so, that Birt had sudden light upon that mysterious laugh which he had heard behind him at the bars.

In his pride in Tennessee he related how the owl had startled him, and the little girl, invisible in the darkness, had laughed.

"Tennessee ain't pretty, I know, but she air powerful peart," he said, affectionately, as he placed her upon her feet on the floor.

Birt was out early with his axe the next day. The air was delightfully pure after the rain-storm; the sky, gradually becoming visible, wore the ideal azure; the freshened foliage seemed tinted anew. And the morning was pierced by the gilded, glittering javelins of the sunrise, flung from over the misty eastern mountains. As the day dawned all sylvan fascinations were alert in the woods. The fragrant winds were garrulous with wild legends of piney gorges; of tumultuous cascades fringed by thyme and mint and ferns. Every humble weed lent odorous suggestions. The airy things all took to wing. And the spider was a-weaving.

Birt had felled a slender young ash, and was cutting it into lengths for the fireplace, when he noticed a squirrel, sleek woodland dandy, frisking about a rotten log at some little distance, by the roadside.

Suddenly the squirrel paused, then nimbly sped away. There was the sound of approaching hoofs along the road, and presently from around the curve a woman appeared mounted on a sorrel mare, and with a long-legged colt ambling in the rear.

It was Mrs. Griggs, setting out on a journey of some ten miles to visit her married daughter who lived on a neighboring spur. She had taken an early start to "git rid o' the heat o' the noon," as she explained to Mrs. Dicey, who had run out to the rail fence when she reined up beside it. Birt dropped his axe and joined them, expecting to hear more about Nate's grant and the gold mine. Rufe and Tennessee added their company without any definite intention. Pete and Joe were hurrying out of the house toward the group. All the dogs congregated, some of them climbing over the fence to investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an attentive aspect, as if he, too, relished the gossip.

Mrs. Griggs's pink calico sunbonnet surmounted the cap with the explanatory ruffle. She carried a fan of turkey feathers, and with appropriate gesticulation, it aided in expounding to Mrs. Dicey the astonishing news that Nate had found a gold mine on vacant land, and had entered the tract. They intended to send specimens to the State Assayer, and they were all getting ready to begin work at once.

Another surprise to Birt! The ignorant mountain boy had never heard of the Assayer. But indeed Nate had only learned of the existence of the office and its uses during that memorable trip to Sparta.

The prideful Mrs. Griggs from her elevation, literal and metaphorical, supplemented all this by the creditable statements that Nate had turned twenty-one, had cast his vote, and had a right to a choice at the Cross-roads.

Then she chirruped to the rawboned sorrel mare, and jogged off down the road, followed by the frisky colt, whose long, slender legs when in motion seemed so fragile that it was startling to witness the temerity with which he kicked up his frolicsome heels. The dogs, with that odd canine affectation of having just perceived the intruders, pursued them with sudden asperity, barking and snapping, and at last came trotting nimbly home, wagging their tails and with a dutiful mien.

Mrs. Dicey went back into the house, and sat for a time in envious meditation, fairly silenced, and with her apron flung over her face. Then she fell to lamenting that she had been working all her life for nothing, and it would take so little to make the family comfortable, and that her children seemed "disabled somehow in thar heads, an' though always rootin' around in the woods, hed never fund no gold mine nor nuthin' else out o' the common."

Birt kept silent, but the gloom and trouble in his face suddenly touched her heart.

"Thar now, Birt!" she exclaimed, with a world of consolation in her tones, "I don't mean ter say that, nuther. Ain't I a-thinkin' day an' night o' how smart ye be—stiddy an' sensible an' hard-workin' jes' like a man—an' what a good son ye hev been to me! An' the t'other chill'n air good too, an' holps me powerful, though Rufe air hendered some, by the comical natur o' the critter."

She broke out with a cheerful laugh, in which Birt could not join.

"An' I mus' be gittin' breakfus fur the chill'n," she said, kneeling down on the hearth, and uncovering the embers which had been kept all night under the ashes.

"Don't ye fret, sonny. I ain't goin' ter grudge Nate his gold mine. I reckon sech a good son ez ye be, an' a gold mine too, would be too much luck fur one woman. Don't ye fret, sonny."

Birt's self-control gave way abruptly. He rose in great agitation, and started toward the door. Then he paused, and broke forth with passionate incoherence, telling amidst sobs and tears the story of the woodland's munificence to him, and how he had flung the gift away.

In recounting the hopes that had deluded him, the fears that had gnawed, and the despair in which they were at last merged, he did not notice, for a time, her look as she still knelt motionless before the embers on the hearth.

He faltered, and grew silent; then stared dumbly at her.

She seemed as one petrified. Her face had blanched; its lines were as sharp and distinct as if graven in stone; only her eyes spoke, an eloquent anguish. Her faculties were numbed for a moment. But presently there was a quiver in her chin, and her voice rang out.

And yet did she understand? did she realize the loss of the mine? For it was not this that she lamented

"Birt Dicey!" she cried in an appalled tone. "Did ye hide it from yer MOTHER—an' tell NATE GRIGGS?"

Birt hung his head. The folly of it!

"What ailed ye, ter hide it from me?" she asked deprecatingly, holding out her worn, hard-working hands. "Hev I ever done ye harm?"

"Nuthin' but good."

"Don't everybody know a boy's mother air bound ter take his part agin all the worl'?"

"Everybody but me," said the penitent Birt.

"What ailed ye, ter hide it from me? What did ye 'low I'd do?"

"I 'lowed ye wouldn't want me ter go pardners with Nate," he said drearily.

"I reckon I wouldn't!" she admitted.

"Ye always said he war a snake in the grass."

"He hev proved that air a true word."

"I wisht I hedn't tole him!" cried Birt vainly. "I wisht I hedn't."

He watched her with moody eyes as she rose at last with a sigh and went mechanically about her preparations for breakfast.

There was a division between them. He felt the gulf widening.

"I jes' wanted it fur you-uns, ennyhow," he said, defending his motives. "I 'lowed ez I mought make enough out'n it ter buy a horse."

"I hain't got time ter sorrow 'bout'n no gold mine," she said loftily. "I used ter believe ye set a heap o' store by yer mother, an' war willin' ter trust her—ye an' me hevin' been through mighty hard times together. But ye don't—I reckon ye never did. I hev los' mo' than enny gold mine."

And this sorrow for a vanished faith resolved itself into tears with which she salted her humble bread.



CHAPTER VIII.

If she had had any relish for triumph, she might have found it in Birt's astonishment to learn that she understood all the details of entering land, which had been such a mystery to him.

"'Twar the commonest thing in the worl', whenst I war young, ter hear 'bout'n folks enterin' land," she said. "But nowadays thar ain't no talk 'bout'n it sca'cely, 'kase the best an' most o' the land in the State hev all been tuk up an' entered—'ceptin' mebbe a trac', hyar an' thar, full o' rock, an' so steep 't ain't wuth payin' the taxes on."

Simple as she was, she could have given him valuable counsel when it was sorely needed. He hung about the house later than was his wont, bringing in the store of wood for her work during the day, and "packing" the water from the spring, with the impulse in his attention to these little duties to make what amends he might.

When at last he started for the tanyard, he knew by the sun that he was long over-due. He walked briskly along the path through the sassafras and sumach bushes, on which the rain-drops still clung. He was presently brushing them off in showers, for he had begun to run. It occurred to him that this was no time to seem even a trifle remiss in his work at the tanyard. Since he had lost all his hopes down the ravine, the continuance of Jube Perkins's favor and the dreary routine with the mule and the bark-mill were his best prospects. It would never do to offend the tanner now.

"With sech a pack o' chill'n ter vittle ez we-uns hev got at our house," he muttered.

As he came crashing through the underbrush into view of the tanyard, he noticed instantly that it did not wear its usual simple, industrial aspect. A group of excited men were standing in front of the shed, one of them gesticulating wildly.

And running toward the bars came Tim Griggs, panting and white- faced, and exclaiming incoherently at the sight of Birt.

"Oh, Birt," he cried, "I war jes' startin' to yer house arter you- uns; they tole me to go an' fetch ye. Fur massy's sake, gimme Nate's grant. I'm fairly afeared o' him. He'll break every bone I own." He held out his hand. "Gimme the grant!"

"Nate's grant!" exclaimed Birt aghast. "I hain't got it! I hain't" -

He paused abruptly. He could not say that he had not touched it.

Tim's wits were sharpened by the keen anxiety of the crisis. He noticed the hesitation. "Ye hev hed it," he cried wildly. "Ye know ye hev been foolin' with it. Ye know 'twar you-uns!"

He changed to sudden appeal. "Don't put the blame off on me, Birt," he pleaded. "I'm fairly afeared o' Nate."

"Ain't the grant in the pocket o' his coat—whar ye left it hangin' on a peg in the shed?" asked Birt, dismayed.

"Naw—naw!" exclaimed Tim, despairingly. "He missed his coat this mornin', bein' the weather war cooler, an' then the grant, an' he sent me arter it. An' I fund the coat a-hangin' thar on the peg, whar I hed lef' it, bein' ez I furgot it when I went off with Rufe ter look at his chickens, an' the pocket war empty an' the paper gone! Nate hev kem ter sarch, too!"

Once more he held out his hand. "Gimme the grant. Nate 'lows 'twar you-uns ez tuk it, bein' ez I lef' it hyar."

Birt flushed angrily. "I'll say a word ter Nate Griggs!" he declared.

And he pushed past the trembling Tim, and took his way briskly into the tanyard.

There was a vague murmur in the group as he approached, and Nate Griggs came out from its midst, nodding his head threateningly. His hat, thrust far back on his sandy hair, left in bold relief his long, thin face with its small eyes, which seemed now so close together that his glance had the effect of a squint. He scanned Birt narrowly.

This was the first time the two had met since Birt's ill-starred confidence there by the bark-mill.

"What ails ye, ter 'low ez it air ME ez hev got yer grant, Nate Griggs?" Birt asked, steadily meeting the accusation.

The excitement had impaired for the moment Nate Griggs's cunning.

"'Kase," he blurted out, "ye hev been a-tryin' ter purtend ez ye fund the mine fust, an' hev been a-tellin' folks 'bout'n it."

"Prove it," said Birt, in sudden elation. "Who war it I tole, an' when?"

The sly Nathan caught his breath with a gasp. His craft had returned.

Admit that to HIM Birt had divulged the discovery of the mine! Confess, when! This would invalidate the entry!

"Ye tole TIM," Nate said shamelessly, "an' ez ter when—'twar yestiddy evenin' at the tanyard. Didn't he, Tim?" And he whirled around to his younger brother for confirmation of this audacious and deliberate falsehood.

The abject Tim—poor tool!—frightened and cowering, nodded to admit it. "Gimme the grant, Birt," he faltered, helplessly. "I oughtn't ter hev furgot it."

"Look-a-hyar, Birt," said the tanner with a solemnity which the boy did not altogether understand, "gin Nate the grant."

"I hain't got it," replied Birt, badgered and growing nervous.

"Tell him, then, ye never teched it."

Birt's impulse was to adopt the word. But he had seen enough of falsehood. He had done with concealment.

"I did tech it," he said boldly, "but I hain't got it. I put it back in the pocket o' the coat."

Jube Perkins laid a sudden hand upon his collar. "'Tain't no use denyin' it, Birt," he said with the sharp cadence of dismay. "Gin the grant back ter Nate, an' mebbe he won't go no furder 'bout'n it. Stealin' a paper like that air a pen'tiary crime!"

Birt reeled under the word. He thought of his mother, the children. He had a bitter foretaste of the suspense, the fear, the humiliation. And he was helpless. For no one would believe him! His head was in a whirl. He could not stand. He sank down upon the wood-pile, vaguely hearing a word here and there of what was said in the crowd.

"His mother air a widder-woman," remarked one of the group. "An' she air mighty poor."

Andy Byers was laughing cynically.

Absorbed though he was, Birt experienced a subacute wonder that any one could feel so bitterly toward him as to laugh at a moment like this. How had he made Andy Byers his enemy!

Nobody noticed it, for Nate was swaggering about in the crowd, enjoying this conspicuous opportunity to display all the sophistications he had acquired in his recent trip to Sparta. He was calling upon them to witness that he did not care for the loss of the grant—the PAPER was nothing to him!—for it was on record in the land office, and he could get a certified copy from the register in no time at all. But his rights were his RIGHTS!—and ten thousand Diceys should not trample on them. Birt had doubtless thought, being ignorant, that he could destroy the title by making away with the paper; and if there was law in the State, he should suffer for it.

And after this elaborate rodomontade, Nate strode out of the tanyard, with the obsequious Tim following humbly.

Birt told his story again and again, to satisfy curious questioners during the days that ensued. And when he had finished they would look significantly at one another, and chuckle incredulously.

The tanner seemed to earnestly wish to befriend him, and urged him to confess. "The truth's the only thing ez kin save ye, Birt."

"I'm tellin' the truth," poor Birt would declare.

Then Jube Perkins argued the question: "How kin ye expec' ennybody ter b'lieve ye when ye say Tennessee purvented ye from takin' the grant—ennything the size o' leetle Tennie, thar."

And he pointed at the little sister, who was perched upon the wood- pile munching an Indian peach.

Somehow Birt did not accurately define the moral force which she had wielded, for he was untaught, and clumsy of speech, and could not translate his feelings. And Jube Perkins was hardly fitted to understand that subtle coercion of affection.

When he found that Birt would only reiterate that Tennie "kem along unbeknown an' purvented" him, Jube Perkins gave up the effort at last, convinced of his guilt.

And Andy Byers said that he was not surprised, for he had known for some little time that Birt was a "most MISCHIEVIOUS scamp."

Only his mother believed in him, requiting his lack of confidence in her with a fervor of faith in him that, while it consoled, nevertheless cut him to the heart. It has been many years since then, for all this happened along in the fifties, but Birt has never forgotten how staunchly she upheld him in every thought when all the circumstances belied him. Now that misfortune had touched him, every trace of her caustic moods had disappeared; she was all gentleness and tenderness toward him. And day by day as he went to his work, meeting everywhere a short word, or a slighting look, he felt that he could not have borne up, save for the knowledge of that loyal heart at home.

He was momently in terror of arrest, and he often pondered on Nate's uncharacteristic forbearance. Perhaps Nate was afraid that Birt's story, told from the beginning in court, might constrain belief and affect the validity of the entry.

Birt vainly speculated, too, upon the strange disappearance of the grant. There it was in the pocket of the coat late that night, and the next morning early—gone!

Sometimes he suspected that Nate had only made a pretense of losing the grant, in order to accuse him and prejudice public opinion against him, so that he might not be believed should he claim the discovery of the mineral down the ravine.

His mother sought to keep him from dwelling upon his troubles. "We won't cross the bredge till we git thar," she said. "Mebbe thar ain't none ahead." But her fears for his sake tortured her silent hours when he was away. When he came back from his work, there always awaited him a bright fire, a good supper, and cheerful words as well, although these were the most difficult to prepare. The dogs bounded about him, Tennessee clung to his hand, the boys were hilarious and loud.

By reason of their mother's silence on the subject, that Birt might be better able to go, and work, and hold up his head among the men who suspected him, the children for a time knew nothing of what had happened.

Now Rufe, although his faults were many and conspicuous, was not lacking in natural affection. Had he understood that a cloud overhung Birt, he could not have been so merry, so facetious, so queerly and quaintly bad as he was on his visits to the tanyard, which were peculiarly frequent just now. If Birt had had the heart for it, he might have enjoyed some of Rufe's pranks at the expense of Andy Byers. The man had once found a sort of entertainment in making fun of Rufe, and this had encouraged the small boy to retaliate as best he could.

At this time, however, Byers suddenly became the gravest of men. He took little notice of the wiles of his elfish antagonist, and whenever he fell into a snare devised by Rufe, he was irritable for a moment, and had forgotten it the next. He had never a word or glance for Birt, who marveled at his conduct. He seemed perpetually brooding upon some perplexity. Occasionally in the midst of his work he would stand motionless for five minutes, the two-handled knife poised in his grasp, his eyes fixed upon the ground, his shaggy brows heavily knitted, his expression doubting, anxious.

The tanner commented upon this inactivity, one day. "Hev ye tuk root thar, Andy?" he asked.

Byers roused himself with a start. "Naw," he replied reflectively, "but I hev been troubled in my mind some, lately, an' I gits ter studyin' powerful wunst in a while."

As he bent to his work, scraping the two-handled knife up and down the hide stretched over the wooden horse, he added, "I hev got so ez I can't relish my vittles sca'cely, bein' so tormented in my mind, an' my sleep air plumb broke up; 'pears like ter me ez I hev got a reg'lar gift fur the nightmare."

"Been skeered by old Mis' Price's harnt lately?" Rufe asked suddenly from his perch upon the wood-pile.

Byers whirled round abruptly, fixing an astonished gaze upon Rufe, unmindful that the knife slipped from his grasp, and fell clanking upon the ground.



CHAPTER IX.

This grave, eager gaze Rufe returned with the gayest audacity.

"Been skeered by old Mis' Price's harnt lately?" he once more chirped out gleefully.

He was comical enough, as he sat on the top of the wood-pile, hugging his knees with both arms, his old, bent, wool hat perched on the back of his tow head, and all his jagged squirrel teeth showing themselves, unabashed, in a wide grin.

Jubal Perkins laughed lazily, as he looked at him.

Then, with that indulgence which Rufe always met at the tanyard, and which served to make him so pert and forward, the tanner said, humoring the privileged character, "What be you-uns a-talkin' 'bout, boy? Mrs. Price ain't dead."

"HE hev viewed old Mis' Price's harnt," cried Rufe, pointing at Andy Byers, with a jocosely crooked finger. "HE air so peart an' forehanded a-viewin' harnts, he don't hev to wait till folkses be dead. HE hev seen Mis' Price's harnt—an' it plumb skeered the wits out'n him."

Perkins did not understand this. His interest was suddenly alert. He took his pipe from his mouth, and glanced over his shoulder at Byers. "What air Rufe aimin' at, Andy?" he asked, surprised.

Byers did not reply. He still gazed steadfastly at Rufe; the knife lay unheeded on the ground at his feet, and the hide was slipping from the wooden horse.

At last he said slowly, "Birt tole ye 'bout'n it, eh?"

"Naw, sir! Naw!" Rufe rocked himself fantastically to and fro in imminent peril of toppling off the wood-pile. "'Twar Tom Byers ez tole me."

"TOM!" exclaimed Byers, with a galvanic start.

For Tom was his son, and he had not suspected filial treachery in the matter of the spectral blackberry bush.

Rufe stared in his turn, not comprehending Byers's surprise.

"TOM," he reiterated presently, with mocking explicitness. "Tom Byers—I reckon ye knows him. That thar freckled-faced, snaggled- toothed, red-headed Tom Byers, ez lives at yer house. I reckon ye MUS' know him."

"Tom tole ye—WHAT?" asked the tanner, puzzled by Byers's grave, anxious face, and Rufe's mysterious sneers.

Rufe broke into the liveliest cackle. "Tom, he 'lowed ter me ez he war tucked up in the trundle-bed, fast asleep, that night when his dad got home from old Mis' Price's house, whar he had been ter hear her las' words. Tom, he 'lowed he war dreamin' ez his gran'dad hed gin him a calf—Tom say the calf war spotted red an' white—an' jes' ez he war a-leadin' it home with him, his dad kem racin' inter the house with sech a rumpus ez woke him up, an' he never got the calf along no furder than the turn in the road. An' thar sot his dad in the cheer, declarin' fur true ez he hed seen old Mis' Price's harnt in the woods, an' b'lieved she mus' be dead afore now. An' though thar war a right smart fire on the h'a'th, he war shiverin' an' shakin' over it, jes' the same ez ef he war out at the wood-pile, pickin' up chips on a frosty mornin'."

And Rufe crouched over, shivering in every limb, in equally excellent mimicry of a ghost-seer, or an unwilling chip-picker under stress of weather.

"My!" he exclaimed with a fresh burst of laughter; "whenst Tom tole me 'bout'n it I war so tickled I war feared I'd fall. I los' the use o' my tongue. I couldn't stop laffin' long enough ter tell Tom what I war laffin' at. An' ez Tom knowed I war snake-bit las' June, he went home an' tole his mother ez the p'ison hed done teched me in the head, an' said he reckoned, ef the truth war knowed, I hed fits ez a constancy. I say—FITS!"

Once more the bewildered tanner glanced from one to the other.

"Why, ye never tole me ez ye hed seen su'thin' strange in the woods, Andy," he exclaimed, feeling aggrieved, thus balked of a sensation. "An' the old woman ain't dead, nohow," he continued reasonably, "but air strengthenin' up amazin' fast."

"Waal," put in Rufe, hastening to explain this discrepancy in the spectre, "I hearn you-uns a-sayin' that mornin', fore ye set out from the tanyard, ez she war mighty nigh dead an' would be gone 'fore night. An' ez he hed tole me he'd skeer the wits out'n me, I 'lowed ez I could show him ez his wits warn't ez tough ez mine. Though," added the roguish Rufe, with a grin of enjoyment, "arter I hed dressed up the blackberry bush in mam's apron an' shawl, an' sot her bonnet a-top, it tuk ter noddin' and bowin' with the wind, an' looked so like folks, ez it gin ME a skeer, an' I jes' run home ez hard ez I could travel. An Towse, he barked at it!"

Andy Byers spoke suddenly. "Waal, Birt holped ye, then."

"He never!" cried Rufe, emphatically, unwilling to share the credit, or perhaps discredit, of the enterprise. "Birt dunno nuthin' 'bout it ter this good day." Rufe winked slyly. "Birt would tell mam ez I hed been a-foolin' with her shawl an' bonnet."

Andy Byers still maintained a most incongruous gravity.

"It warn't Birt's doin', at all?" he said interrogatively, and with a pondering aspect.

Jubal Perkins broke into a derisive guffaw. "What ails ye, Andy?" he cried. "Though ye never seen no harnt, ye 'pear ter be fairly witched by that thar tricked-out blackberry bush."

Rufe shrugged up his shoulders, and began to shiver in imaginary terror over a fancied fire.

"Old—Mis'—Price's—harnt!" he wheezed.

The point of view makes an essential difference. Jube Perkins thought Rufe's comicality most praiseworthy—his pipe went out while he laughed. Byers flushed indignantly.

"Ye aggervatin' leetle varmint!" he cried suddenly, his patience giving way.

He seized the crouching mimic by the collar, and although he did not literally knock him off the wood-pile, as Rufe afterward declared, he assisted the small boy through the air with a celerity that caused Rufe to wink very fast and catch his breath, when he was deposited, with a shake, on the soft pile of ground bark some yards away.

Rufe was altogether unhurt, but a trifle subdued by this sudden aerial excursion. The fun was over for the present. He gathered himself together, and went demurely and sat down on the lowest log of the wood-pile. After a little he produced a papaw from his pocket, and by the manner in which they went to work upon it, his jagged squirrel teeth showed that they were better than they looked.

Towse had followed his master to the tanyard, and was lying asleep beside the woodpile, with his muzzle on his forepaws.

He roused himself suddenly at the sound of munching, and came and sat upright, facing Rufe, and eyeing the papaw gloatingly. He wagged his tail in a beguiling fashion, and now and then turned his head blandishingly askew.

Of course he would not have relished the papaw, and only begged as a matter of habit or perhaps on principle; but he was given no opportunity to sample it, for Rufe hardly noticed him, being absorbed in dubiously watching Andy Byers, who was once more at work, scraping the hide with the two-handled knife.

Jubal Perkins had gone into the house for a coal to re-kindle his pipe, for there is always a smouldering fire in the "smoke-room" for the purpose of drying the hides suspended from the rafters. He came out with it freshly glowing, and sat down on the broad, high pile of wood.

As the first whiff of smoke wreathed over his head, he said, "What air the differ ter ye, Andy, whether 't war bub, hyar, or Birt, ez dressed up the blackberry bush? ye 'pear ter make a differ a-twixt 'em."

Still Byers was evasive. "Whar's Birt, ennyhow?" he demanded irrelevantly.

"Waal," drawled the tanner, with a certain constraint, "I hed been promisin' Birt a day off fur a right smart while, an' I tole him ez he mought ez well hev the rest o' ter-day. He 'lowed ez he warn't partic'lar 'bout a day off, now. But I tole him ennyhow ter go along. I seen him a while ago passin' through the woods, with his rifle on his shoulder—gone huntin', I reckon."

"GONE HUNTIN'!" ejaculated Rufe in dudgeon, joining unceremoniously in the conversation of his elders. "Now, Birt mought hev let me know! I'd hev wanted ter go along too."

"Mebbe that air the reason he never tole ye, bub," said Perkins dryly.

For he could appreciate that Rufe's society was not always a boon, although he took a lenient view of the little boy. Any indulgence of Birt was more unusual, and Andy Byers experienced some surprise to hear of the unwonted sylvan recreations of the young drudge. He noticed that the mule was off duty too, grazing among the bushes just beyond the fence, and hobbled so that he could not run away. This precaution might have seemed a practical joke on the mule, for the poor old animal was only too glad to stand stock still.

Rufe continued his exclamatory indignation.

"Jes' ter go lopin' off inter the woods huntin', 'thout lettin' ME know! An' I never gits ter go huntin' nohow! An' mam won't let me tech Birt's rifle, 'thout it air ez empty ez a gourd! She say she air feared I'll shoot my head off, an' she don't want no boys, 'thout heads, jouncin' round her house—shucks! Which way did Birt take, Mister Perkins?—'kase I be goin' ter ketch up."

"He war headed fur that thar salt lick, whenst I las' seen him," replied the tanner; "ef ye stir yer stumps right lively, mebbe ye'll overhaul him yit."

Rufe rose precipitately. Towse, believing his petition for the papaw was about to be rewarded, leaped up too, gamboling with a display of ecstasy that might have befitted a starving creature, and an elasticity to be expected only of a rubber dog. As he uttered a shrill yelp of delight, he sprang up against Rufe, who, reeling under the shock, dropped the remnant of the papaw. Towse darted upon it, sniffed disdainfully, and returned to his capers around Rufe, evidently declining to believe that all that show of gustatory satisfaction had been elicited only by the papaw, and that Rufe had nothing else to eat.

Thus the two took their way out of the tanyard; and even after they had disappeared, their progress through the underbrush was marked by an abnormal commotion among the leaves, as the saltatory skeptic of a dog insisted on more substantial favors than the succulent papaw.

The tanner smoked for a time in silence.

Then, "Birt ain't goin' ter be let ter work hyar ag'in," he said.

Byers elevated his shaggy eyebrows in surprise.

"Ye see," said the tanner in a confidential undertone, "sence Birt hev stole that thar grant, I kin argufy ez he mought steal su'thin' else, an' I ain't ekal ter keepin' up a spry lookout on things, an' bein' partic'lar 'bout the count o' the hides an' sech. I can't feel easy with sech a mischeevious scamp around."

Byers made no rejoinder, and the tanner, puffing his pipe, vaguely watched the wreaths of smoke rise above his head, and whisk buoyantly about in the air, and finally skurry off into invisibility. A gentle breeze was astir in the woods, and it set the leaves to whispering. The treetoads and the locusts were trolling a chorus. So loudly vibrant, it was! So clamorously gay! Some subtle intimation they surely had that summer was ephemeral and the season waning, for the burden of their song was, Let us now be merry. The scarlet head of a woodpecker showed brilliantly from the bare dead boughs of a chestnut-oak, which, with its clinging lichens of green and gray, was boldly projected against the azure sky. And there, the filmy moon, most dimly visible in the afternoon sunshine, swung like some lunar hallucination among the cirrus clouds.

"Ye 'lows ez I ain't doin' right by Birt?" the tanner suggested presently, with more conscience in the matter than one would have given him credit for possessing.

"I knows ye air doin' right," said Byers unexpectedly.

All at once the woodpecker was solemnly tapping—tapping.

Byers glanced up, as if to discern whence the sudden sound came, and once more bent to his work.

"Ye b'lieves, then, ez he stole that thar grant from Nate Griggs?" asked Perkins.

"I be SURE he done it," said Byers, unequivocally.

The tanner took his pipe from his lips. "What ails ye ter say that, Andy?" he exclaimed excitedly.

Andy Byers hesitated. He mechanically passed his fingers once or twice across the blunt, curved blade of the two-handled knife.

"Ye'll keep the secret?"

"In the sole o' my boot," said the tanner.

"Waal, I KNOWS ez Birt stole the grant. I hev been powerful changeful, though, in my thoughts bout'n it. At fust I war glad when he war suspicioned 'bout'n it, an' I war minded to go an' inform on him an' sech, ter pay him back; 'kase I held a grudge ag'in him, believin' ez he hed dressed out that thar blackberry bush ez Mrs. Price's harnt. An' then I'd remember ez his mother war a widder-woman, an' he war nothin' but a boy, an' boys air bound ter be gamesome an' full o' jokes wunst in a while, an' I'd feel like I war bound ter furgive him 'bout the harnt. An' then ag'in I got toler'ble oneasy fur fear the Law mought hold ME 'sponsible fur knowin' 'bout Birt's crime of stealin' the grant an' yit not tellin' on him. An' I'd take ter hopin' an' prayin' the boy would confess, so ez I wouldn't hev ter tell on him. I hev been mightily pestered in my mind lately with sech dilly-dallyin'."

Again the sudden tapping of the woodpecker filled the pause.

"Did ye SEE him steal the grant, Andy?" asked the tanner, with bated breath.

"Ez good ez seen him. I seen him slyin' round, an' I HEV FUND THE PLACE WHAR HE HEV HID IT."

And the woodpecker still was solemnly tapping, high up in the chestnut-oak tree.



CHAPTER X.

Birt, meanwhile, was trudging along in the woods, hardly seeing where he went, hardly caring.

He had not had even a vague premonition when the tanner told him that he might have the rest of the day off. He did not now want the holiday which would once have so rejoiced him, and he said as much. And then the tanner, making the disclosure by degrees, being truly sorry to part with the boy, intimated that he need come back no more.

Birt unharnessed the mule by the sense of touch and the force of habit, for blinding tears intervened between his vision and the rusty old buckles and worn straps of leather. The animal seemed to understand that something was amiss, and now and then turned his head interrogatively. Somehow Birt was glad to feel that he left at least one friend in the tanyard, albeit the humblest, for he had always treated the beast with kindness, and he was sure the mule would miss him.

When he reached home he loitered for a time outside the fence, trying to nerve himself to witness his mother's distress. And at last his tears were dried, and he went in and told her the news.

It was hard for him nowadays to understand that simple mother of his. She did nothing that he expected. To be sure her cheek paled, her eyes looked anxious for a moment, and her hands trembled so that she carefully put down upon the table a dish which she had been wiping. But she said quite calmly, "Waal, sonny, I dunno but ye hed better take a day off from work, sure enough, an' go a-huntin'. Thar's yer rifle, an' mebbe ye'll git a shot at a deer down yander by the lick. The chill'n haint hed no wild meat lately, 'ceptin' squir'ls out'n Rufe's trap."

And then he began to cry out bitterly that nobody would give him work, and they would all starve; that the tanner believed he had stolen the grant, and was afraid to have him about the hides.

"'Tain't no differ ez long ez 'tain't the truth," said his mother philosophically. "We-uns will jes' abide by the truth."

He repeated this phrase over and over as he struggled through the tangled underbrush of the dense forest.

It was all like some terrible dream; and but for Tennessee, it would be the truth! How he blessed the little sister that her love for him and his love for her had come between him and crime at that moment of temptation.

"So powerful peart!" he muttered with glistening eyes, as he thought of her.

The grant was gone, to be sure; but he did not take it. They accused him—and falsely!

It was something to be free and abroad in the woods. He heard the wind singing in the pines. Their fine, penetrating aroma pervaded the air, and the rusty needles, covering the ground, muffled his tread. Once he paused—was that the bleat of a fawn, away down on the mountain's slope? He heard no more, and he walked on, looking about with his old alert interest. He was refreshed, invigorated, somehow consoled, as he went. O wise mother! he wondered if she foresaw this when she sent him into the woods.

He had not before noted how the season was advancing. Here and there, in the midst of the dark green foliage, leaves shone so vividly yellow that it seemed as if upon them some fascinated sunbeam had expended all its glamours. In a dusky recess he saw the crimson sumach flaring. And the distant blue mountains, and the furthest reaches of the azure sky, and the sombre depths of the wooded valley, and the sheeny splendors of the afternoon sun, and every incident of crag or chasm—all appeared through a soft purple haze that possessed the air, and added an ideal embellishment to the scene. Down the ravine the "lick" shone with the lustre of a silver lakelet. He saw the old oak-tree hard by, with the historic scaffold among its thinning leaves, and further along the slope were visible vague bobbing figures, which he recognized as the "Griggs gang," seeking upon the mountain side the gold which he had discovered.

Suddenly he heard a light crackling in the brush,—a faint footfall. It reminded him of the deer-path close at hand. He crouched down noiselessly amongst the low growth and lifted his rifle, his eyes fixed on the point where the path disappeared in the bushes, and where he would first catch a glimpse of the approaching animal.

He heard the step again. His finger was trembling on the trigger, when down the path leisurely walked an old gentleman attired in black, a hammer in his hand, and a pair of gleaming spectacles poised placidly upon the bridge of an intellectual Roman nose. And this queer game halted in the middle of the deer-path, all unconscious of his deadly danger.

It was a wonder that the rifle was not discharged, for the panic- stricken Birt had lost control of his muscles, and his convulsive finger was still quivering on the trigger as he trembled from head to foot. He hardly dared to try to move the gun. For a moment he could not speak. He gazed in open-mouthed amazement at the unsuspecting old gentleman, who was also unaware of the far more formidable open mouth of the rifle.

"Now, ain't ye lackin' fur head-stuffin'?" suddenly yelled out Birt, from his hiding-place.

The startled old man jumped, with the most abrupt alacrity. In fact, despite his age and the lack of habit, he bounded as acrobatically from the ground as the expected deer could have done. He was, it is true, a learned man; but science has no specific for sudden fright, and he jumped as ignorantly as if he did not know the difficult name of any of the muscles that so alertly exercised themselves on this occasion.

Birt rose at last to his feet and looked with a pallid face over the underbrush. "Now, ain't ye lackin' fur head-stuffin'," he faltered, "a-steppin' along a deer-path ez nat'ral ez ef ye war a big fat buck? I kem mighty nigh shootin' ye."

The old gentleman recovered his equilibrium, mental and physical, with marvelous rapidity.

"Ah, my young friend,"—he motioned to Birt to come nearer,—"I want to speak to you."

Birt stared. One might have inferred, from the tone, that the gentleman had expected to meet him here, whereas Birt had just had the best evidence of his senses that the encounter was a great surprise.

The boy observed his interlocutor more carefully than he had yet been able to do. He remembered all at once Rufe's queer story of meeting, down the ravine, an eccentric old man whom he was disposed to identify as Satan. As the stranger stood there in the deer-path, he looked precisely as Rufe had described him, even to the baffling glitter of his spectacles, his gray whiskers, and the curiously shaped hammer in his hand.

Birt, although bewildered and still tremulous from the shock to his nerves, was not so superstitious as Rufe, and he shouldered his gun, and, pushing out from the tangled underbrush, joined the old man in the path.

"I want," said the gentleman, "to hire a boy for a few days—weeks, perhaps."

He smiled with two whole rows of teeth that never grew where they stood. Birt wished he could see the expression of the stranger's eyes, indistinguishable behind the spectacles that glimmered in the light.

"What do you say to fifty cents a day?" he continued briskly.

Birt's heart sank suddenly. He had heard that Satan traded in souls by working on the avarice of the victim. The price suggested seemed a great deal to Birt, for in this region there is little cash in circulation, barter serving all the ordinary purposes of commerce.

As he hesitated, the old man eyed him quizzically. "Afraid of work, eh?"

"Naw, sir!" said Birt, sturdily.

Ah, if the bark-mill, and the old mule, and the tan-pit, and the wood-pile, and the cornfield might testify!

"Fifty cents a day—eh?" said the stranger.

At the repetition of the sum, it occurred to Birt, growing more familiar with the eccentricity of his companion, that he ought not in sheer silliness to throw away a chance for employment.

"Kin I ask my mother?" he said dubiously.

"By all means ask your mother," replied the stranger heartily.

Birt's last fantastic doubt vanished. Oh no! this was not Satan in disguise. When did the enemy ever counsel a boy to ask his mother!

Birt still stared gravely at him. All the details of his garb, manner, speech, even the hammer in his hand, were foreign to the boy's experience.

Presently he ventured a question. "Do you-uns hail from hyar- abouts?"

The stranger was frank and communicative. He told Birt that he was a professor of Natural Science in a college in one of the "valley towns," and that he was sojourning, for his health's sake, at a little watering-place some twelve miles distant on the bench of the mountain. Occasionally he made an excursion into the range, which was peculiarly interesting geologically.

"But what I wish you to do is to dig for—bones."

"BONES?" faltered Birt.

"Bones," reiterated the professor solemnly.

DID his spectacles twinkle?

Birt stood silent, vaguely wondering what his mother would think of "bones." Presently the professor, seeing that the boy was not likely to ask amusing questions, explained.

He informed Birt that in the neighborhood of salt licks—"saline quagmires" he called them—were often found the remains of animals of an extinct species, which are of great value to science. He gave Birt the extremely long name of these animals, and descanted upon such conditions of their existence as is known, much of which Birt did not understand. Although this fact was very apparent, it did not in the least affect the professor's ardor in the theme. He was in the habit of talking of these things to boys who did not understand, and alack! to boys who did not want to understand.

One point, however, he made very clear. With the hope of some such "find," he was anxious to investigate this particular lick,—about which indeed he had heard a vague tradition of a "big bone" discovery, such as is common to similar localities in this region,— and for this purpose he proposed to furnish the science and the fifty cents per diem, and earnestly desired that some one else should furnish the muscle.

He was accustomed to think much more rapidly than the men with whom Birt was associated, and his briskness in arranging the matter had an incongruous suggestion of the giddiness of youth. He said that he would go home with Birt to fetch the spade, and while there he could settle the terms with the boy's mother, and then they could get to work.

He started off at a dapper gait up the deer-path, while Birt, with his rifle on his shoulder, followed.

A sudden thought struck Birt. He stopped short.

"Now I dunno which side o' that thar lick Nate Griggs's line runs on," he remarked.

"Never mind," said the professor, waving away objections with airy efficiency; "I shall first secure the consent of the owner of the land."

Birt cogitated for a moment. "Nate Griggs ain't goin' ter gin his cornsent ter nobody ter dig ennywhar down the ravine, ef it air inside o' his lines," he said confidently, "'kase I—'kase he— leastwise, 'kase gold hev been fund hyar lately, an' he hev entered the land."

The professor stopped short in the path.

"Gold!" he ejaculated. "Gold!"

Was there a vibration of incredulity in his voice?

Birt remembered all at once the specimens which he had picked up that memorable evening, down the ravine, when he shot the red fox. Here they still were in his pocket. They showed lustrous, metallic, yellow gleams as he placed them carefully in the old man's outstretched hand, telling how he came by them, of his mistaken confidence, the betrayed trust, and ending by pointing at the group of gold-seekers, microscopic in the distance on the opposite slope.

"I hev hearn tell," he added, "ez Nate air countin' on goin' pardners with a man in Sparty, who hev got money, to work the gold mine."

Now and then, as he talked, he glanced up at his companion's face, vaguely expecting to discover his opinion by its expression, but the light still played in a baffling glitter upon his spectacles.

Birt could only follow when the professor suddenly handed back the specimens with a peremptory "Come—come! We must go for the spade. But when we reach your mother's house I will test this mineral, and you shall see for yourself what you have lost."

Mrs. Dicey's first impression upon meeting the stranger and learning of his mission was not altogether surprise as Birt had expected. Her chief absorption was a deep thankfulness that the floors all preserved their freshly scoured appearance.

"Fur ef Rufe hed been playin' round hyar ter-day, same ez common, the rubbish would have been a scandal ter the kentry," she reflected.

In fact, all was so neat, albeit so poor, that the stranger felt as polite as he looked, while he talked to her about employing Birt in his researches.

Birt, however, had little disposition to listen to this. He was excited by the prospect of testing the mineral, and he busied himself with great alacrity in preparing for it under the professor's directions. He suffered a qualm, it is true, as he pounded the shining fragments into a coarse powder, and then he drew out with the shovel a great glowing mass of live coals on the hearth.

The dogs peered eagerly in at the door, having followed the stranger with the liveliest curiosity. Towse, bolder than the rest, entered intrepidly with a nonchalant air and a wagging tail, for he and Rufe, having failed to find Birt, had just returned home. The small boy paused on the threshold in amazed recognition of the old gentleman who had occasioned him such a fright that day down the ravine.

The professor gesticulated a great deal as he bent over the fire and gave Birt directions, and, with his waving hands and the glow on his hoary hair and beard, he looked like some fantastic sorcerer. Somehow Rufe was glad to see the familiar countenances of Pete and Joe, and was still more reassured to note that his mother was quietly standing beside the table, as she stirred the batter for bread in a wooden bowl. Tennessee had pressed close to Birt, her chubby hand clutching his collar as he knelt on the hearth. He held above the glowing coals a long fire shovel, on which the pulverized mineral had been placed, and his eyes were very bright as he earnestly watched it.

"If it is gold," said the old man, "a moderate heat will not affect it."

The shovel was growing hot. The live coals glowed beneath it. The breath of the fire stirred Tennessee's flaxen hair. And Birt's dilated eyes saw the yellow particles still glistening unchanged in the centre of the shovel, which was beginning to redden.



CHAPTER XI.

Suddenly—was the glistening yellow mineral taking fire? It began to give off sulphurous fumes. And drifting away with them were all Birt's golden visions and Nate's ill-gotten wealth—ending in smoke!

The sulphurous odor grew stronger. Even Towse stopped short, and gazed at the shovel with a reprehensive sniff.

"Ker-shoo!" he sneezed.

And commenting thus, he turned abruptly and went hastily out, with a startled look and a downcast tail.

His sneeze seemed to break the spell of silence that had fallen on the little group.

"It be mighty nigh bodaciously changed ter cinders!" exclaimed Birt, staring in amaze at the lustreless contents of the shovel from which every suggestion of golden glimmer had faded. "What do it be, ef 'tain't gold?"

"Iron pyrites," said the professor. "'Fools' gold,' it is often called."

He explained to Birt that in certain formations, however, gold is associated with iron pyrites, and when the mineral is properly roasted, this process serving to expel the sulphur, the fine particles of gold are found held in the resulting oxide of iron. But the variety of the mineral discovered down the ravine he said was valueless, unless occurring in vast quantities, when it is sometimes utilized in the production of sulphur.

"I wonder," Birt broke out suddenly, "if the assayer won't find no gold in them samples ez Nate sent him."

The professor laughed. "The assayer will need the 'philosopher's stone' to find gold in any samples from this locality."

"Ye knowed then, all the time, ez this stuff warn't gold?" asked Birt.

"All the time," rejoined the elder.

"An' Nate hev got the steepest, rockiest spot in the kentry ter pay taxes on," resumed Birt, reflectively. "An' he hev shelled out a power o' money ter the surveyor, an' sech, a'ready. I reckon he'll be mightily outed when he finds out ez the min'ral ain't gold."

Birt stopped short in renewed anxiety.

That missing grant! Somehow he felt sure that Nate, balked of the great gains he had promised himself, would wreak his disappointment wherever he might; and since the land was of so little value, he would not continue to deny himself his revenge for fear that an investigation into the priority of the mineral's discovery might invalidate the entry. Once more Birt was tortured by the terror of arrest—he might yet suffer a prosecution from malignity, which had hitherto been withheld from policy. If only the mystery of the lost grant could be solved!

The conversation of the elders had returned to the subject of the investigations around the "lick" and the terms for Birt's services. As so much time had been consumed with the pyrites, the professor concluded with some vexation that they could hardly arrange all the preliminaries and get to work this afternoon.

"I dare say we had best begin to-morrow morning," he said at last.

"Birt can't go a-diggin' no-ways, this evenin'," put in the officious Rufe, who stood, according to his wont, listening with his mouth and eyes wide open, "'kase ez I kem home by the tanyard Jube Perkins hollered ter me ter tell Birt ter come thar right quick. I furgot it till this minit," he added, with a shade of embarrassment that might pass for apology.

Birt felt a prophetic thrill. This summons promised developments of importance. Only a few hours ago he was discharged under suspicion of dishonesty; why this sudden recall? He did not know whether hope or fear was paramount. He trembled with eager expectancy. He seized his hat, and strode out of the house without waiting to hear more of the professor's plans or the details of the wages.

He had reached the fence before he discovered Tennessee close at his heels. He cast his troubled eyes down upon her, and met her pleading, upturned gaze. He was about to charge her to go back. But then he remembered how she had followed him with blessings—how mercy had kept pace with her steps. He would not deny her the simple boon she craved, and if she were troublesome and in his way, surely he might be patient with her, since she loved him so! He lifted her over the fence, and then started briskly down the path, the sturdy, light-footed little mountain girl delightedly trudging along in the rear.

When he entered the tanyard no one was there except Jube Perkins and Andy Byers the tanner, lounging as usual on the wood-pile, and the workman, with scarcely less the aspect of idleness, dawdlingly scraping a hide on the wooden horse. Birt discerned a portent in the unwonted solemnity of their faces, and his heart sank.

"Waal, Birt, we-uns hev been a-waitin' fur ye," said the tanner in a subdued, grave tone that somehow reminded Birt of the bated voices in a house of death. "Set down hyar on the wood-pile, fur Andy an' me hev got a word ter say ter ye."

Birt's dilated black eyes turned in dumb appeal from one to the other as he sank down on the wood-pile. His suspense gnawed him like an actual grief while Jubal Perkins slowly shifted his position and looked vaguely at Andy Byers for a suggestion, being uncertain how to begin.

"Waal, Birt," he drawled at last, "ez yer dad is dead an' ye hev got nobody ter see arter ye an' advise ye, Andy an' me, we-uns agreed ez how we'd talk ter ye right plain, an' try ter git ye ter jedge o' this hyar matter like we-uns do. Andy an' me know more 'bout the law, an' 'bout folks too, than ye does. These hyar Griggs folks hev always been misdoubted ez a fractious an' contrary-wise fambly. Ef enny Griggs ain't aggervatin' an' captious, it air through bein' plumb terrified by the t'others. They air powerful hard folks—an' they'll land ye in the State Prison yet, I'm thinkin'. I wonder they hain't started at ye a'ready. But thar's no countin' on 'em, 'ceptin' that they'll do all they kin that air ha'sh an' grindin'."

"That air a true word, Birt," said Andy Byers, speaking to the boy for the first time in many days. "Ef they hev thar reason fur it, they mought hold thar hand fur a time, but fust or las' they'll hev all out'n ye ez the law will allow 'em."

Birt listened in desperation. All this was sharpened by the certainty that the mineral was only valueless pyrites, and the prescience of Nate's anger when this fact should come to his knowledge, and prudence no longer restrain him. His rage would vent itself on his luckless victim for every cent, every mill, that the discovery of the "fools' gold" had cost him.

"They'll be takin' ye away from the mountings ter jail ye an' try ye, an' mebbe ye'll go ter the pen'tiary arter that. An' how will yer mother, an' brothers, an' sister, git thar vittles, an' firewood, an' corn-crap an' clothes, an' sech—Rufe bein' the oldest child, arter you-uns?" demanded the tanner. "An' even when ye git back—I hate ter tell ye this word—nobody will want ye round. They'll be feared ye'd be forever pickin' an' stealin'."

"But we-uns will stand up fur ye, bein' ez ye air the widder's son," said Byers eagerly. "We-uns will gin the Griggs tribe ter onderstand that."

"An' mebbe the Griggses won't want ter do nuthin', ef they hain't got no furder cause fur holdin' a grudge," put in the tanner.

"What be ye a-layin' off fur me ter do?" asked Birt wonderingly.

"Ter gin Nate's grant back ter him," they both replied in a breath.

"I hev not got it!" cried poor Birt tumultuously. "I never stole it! I dunno whar it be!"

The tanner's expression changed from paternal kindliness to contemptuous anger.

"Air ye goin' ter keep on bein' a liar, Birt, ez well ez a thief?" he said sternly.

"I dunno whar it be," reiterated Birt desperately.

"I know whar it be," said Byers. Birt gazed at him astounded.

"Whar?" he cried eagerly.

"Whar ye hid it," returned Byers coolly.

Birt's lips moved with difficulty as he huskily ejaculated "I never hid it—I never!"

"Ye needn't deny it. I ez good ez seen ye hide it."

Birt looked dazed for a moment. Then the blood rushed to his face and as suddenly receded, leaving it pale and rigid. He was cold and trembling. He could not speak.

The tanner scrutinized him narrowly. Then he said, "Tell him 'bout it, Andy. Tell him jes' ez ye tole me. An' mebbe he'll hev sense enough ter gin it up when he sees he air fairly caught."

"Waal," said Byers, leaning back against the wall of the smoke- house, and holding the knife idly poised in his hand, "I kem down ter the tanyard betimes that mornin' arter the storm. Both ye an' Birt war late. I noticed Nate Griggs's coat hangin' thar in the shed, with a paper stickin' out'n the pocket, ez I started inter the smoke-house ter tend ter the fire. I reckon I mus' hev made consider'ble racket in thar, 'kase I never hearn nuthin' till I sot down afore the fire on a log o' wood, an' lit my pipe. All of a suddenty thar kem a step outside, toler'ble light on the tan. I jes' 'lowed 't war ye or Birt. But I happened ter look up, an' thar I see a couple o' big black eyes peepin' through that thar crack in the wall."

He turned and pointed out a crevice where the "daubin'" had fallen from the "chinkin'" between the logs.

"Ye can see," he resumed, "ez this hyar crack air jes' the height o' Birt. Waal, them eyes lookin' in so onexpected didn't 'sturb me none. I hev knowed the Dicey eye fur thirty year, an' thar ain't none like 'em nowhar round the mountings. But I 'lowed 't war toler'ble sassy in Birt ter stand thar peerin' at me through the chinkin'. I never let on, though, ez I viewed him. An' then, them eyes jes' set up sech a outdacious winkin' an' wallin', an' squinchin', ez I knowed he war makin' faces at me. So I jes' riz up—an' the eyes slipped away from thar in a hurry. I war aimin' ter larrup Birt fur his sass, but I stopped ter hang up a skin ez I hed knocked down. It never tuk me long, much, but when I went out, thar warn't nobody ter be seen in the tanyard."

He paused to place one foot upon the wooden horse, and he leaned forward with a reflective expression, his elbow on his knee, and his hand holding his bearded chin.

The afternoon was waning. The scarlet sun in magnified splendor was ablaze low down in the saffron west. The world seemed languorously afloat in the deep, serene flood of light. Shadows were lengthening slowly. The clangor of a cow-bell vibrated in the distance.

The drone of Andy Byers's voice overbore it as he recommenced.

"Waal, I was sorter conflusticated, an' I looked round powerful sharp ter see whar Birt hed disappeared to. I happened ter cut my eye round at that thar pit ez he hed finished layin' the tan in, an' kivered with boards, an' weighted with rocks that day ez ye an' me hed ter go an' attend on old Mrs. Price. Ye know we counted ez that thar pit wouldn't be opened ag'in fur a right smart time?"

The tanner nodded assent.

"Waal, I noticed ez the aidge o' one o' them boards war sot sorter catawampus, an' I 'lowed ez 't war the wind ez hed 'sturbed it. Ez I stooped down ter move it back in its place, I seen su'thin' white under it. So I lifted the board, an' thar I see, lyin' on the tan a-top o' the pit, a stiff white paper. I looked round toward the shed, an' thar hung the coat yit—with nuthin' in the pocket. I didn't know edzactly what ter make of it, an' I jes' shunted the plank back over the paper in the pit like I fund it, an' waited ter see what mought happen. An' all the time ez that thar racket war goin' on bout'n the grant, I knowed powerful well whar 't war, an' who stole it."

Birt looked from one to the other of the two men. Both evidently believed every syllable of this story. It was so natural, so credible, that he had a curious sense of inclining toward it, too. Had he indeed, in some aberration, taken the grant? Was it some tricksy spirit in his likeness that had peered through the chinking at Andy Byers?

He could find no words to contend further. He sat silent, numb, dumfounded.

"Birt," said the tanner coaxingly, "thar ain't no use in denyin' it enny mo'. Let's go an' git that grant, an' take it ter Nate an' tell the truth."

The words roused Birt. He clutched at the idea of getting possession of the paper that had so mysteriously disappeared and baffled and eluded him. He could at least return it. And even if this should fail to secure him lenient treatment, he would feel that he had done right. He rose suddenly in feverish anxiety.

Andy Byers and Perkins, exchanging a wink of congratulation, followed him to the pit.

"It air under this hyar board," said Byers, moving one of the heavy stones, and lifting a broad plank.

Perkins pressed forward with eager curiosity, never having seen this famous grant.

The ground bark on the surface was pretty dry, the layer being ten or fifteen inches thick, and the tanning infusion had not yet risen through it.

Byers stared with a frown at the tan, and lifted another board. Nothing appeared beneath it on the smooth surface of the bark.

In sudden alarm they took away the boards, one after another, till all were removed, and the whole surface of the pit was exposed.

Then they looked at each other, bewildered. For once more the grant was gone.



CHAPTER XII.

Jubal Perkins broke the silence.

"Andy Byers," he exclaimed wrathfully, "what sort 'n tale is this ez ye air tryin' ter fool me with?"

Byers, perturbed and indignant, was instantly ready to accuse Birt.

"Ye hev been hyar an' got the grant an' sneaked it off agin, hev ye!" he cried, scowling at the boy.

Then he turned to the tanner. "I hope I may drap dead, Jube," he said earnestly, "ef that grant warn't right hyar"—he pointed at the spot—"las' night whenst I lef' the tanyard. I always looked late every evenin' ter be sure it hedn't been teched, thinkin' I'd make up my mind in the night whether I'd tell on Birt, or no. But I never could git plumb sati'fied what to do."

His tone carried conviction. The tanner looked at Birt with disappointment in every line of his face. There was severity, too, in his expression. He was beginning to admit the fitness of harsh punishment in this case.

"Ye don't wuth all this gabblin' an' jawin' over ye, ye miser'ble leetle critter," he said. "An' I ain't goin' ter waste another breath on ye."

Birt stood vacantly staring at the tan. All the energy of the truth was nullified by the futility of protestation.

The two men exchanged a glance of vague comment upon his silence, and then they too looked idly down at the pit.

Tennessee abruptly caught Birt's listless hand as it hung at his side, for Towse had suddenly entered the tanyard, and prancing up to her in joyous recognition, was trying to lick her face.

"G'way, Towse," she drawled gutturally. She struck vaguely at him with her chubby little fist, which he waggishly took between his teeth in a gingerly gentle grip.

"Stand back thar, Tennessee," Birt murmured mechanically.

As usual, Towse was the precursor of Rufe, who presently dawdled out from the underbrush. He quickened his steps upon observing the intent attitude of the party, and as he came up he demanded vivaciously, "What ails that thar pit o' yourn, Mister Perkins?— thought ye said 't warn't goin' ter be opened ag'in fore-shortly."

For a moment the tanner made no reply. Then he drawled absently, "Nuthin' ails the pit, Rufe—nuthin'."

Rufe sat down on the edge of it, and gazed speculatively at it. Presently he began anew, unabashed by the silence of the grave and contemplative group.

"This hyar tan hev got sorter moist atop now; I wonder ef that thar grant o' Nate's got spi'led ennywise with the damp."

Birt winced. It had been a certain mitigation of his trouble that, thanks to his mother's caution, the children at home knew nothing of the disgrace that had fallen upon him, and that there, at least, the atmosphere was untainted with suspicion.

The next moment he was impressed by the singularity of Rufe's mention of the missing grant and its place of concealment.

"Look-a-hyar, Rufe," he exclaimed, excitedly; "how d'ye know ennything 'bout Nate's grant an' whar 't war hid?"

Rufe glanced up scornfully, insulted in some occult manner by the question.

"How did I know, Birt Dicey? How d'ye know yerse'f?" he retorted. "I knows a heap, ginerally."

Perkins, catching the drift of Birt's intention, came to the rescue.

"Say, bub, how d'ye know the grant war ever put hyar?"

"Kase," responded Rufe, more amicably, "I seen it put hyar—right yander."

He indicated the spot where the paper lay, according to Byers, when it was discovered.

Birt could hardly breathe. His anxieties, his hopes, his fears, seemed a pursuing pack before which he was almost spent. He panted like a hunted creature. Tennessee was swinging herself to and fro, holding by his hand. Sometimes she caught at Towse's unlovely ear, as he sat close by with his tongue lolled out and an attentive air, as if he were assisting at the discussion.

"Who put it thar, bub?" demanded Perkins.

It would not have surprised Birt, so perverse had been the course of events, if Rufe had accused him on the spot.

"Pig-wigs Griggs," replied Rufe, unexpectedly.

A glance of intelligence passed between the men.

"Tell 'bout it, Rufe," said the tanner, suppressing all appearance of excitement.

"Ye ain't goin' ter do nuthin' ter Pig-wigs fur foolin' with yer pit, ef I tell ye?" asked Rufe, quickly.

"Naw, bub, naw. Which Griggs do ye call 'Pig-wigs?'"

"Why—PIG-WIGS," Rufe reiterated obviously.

Then he explained. "He air Nate's nevy. He air Nate's oldest brother's biggest boy,—though he ain't sizable much. He air 'bout haffen ez big ez me—ef that," he added reflectively, thinking that even thus divided he had represented Pig-wigs as more massive than the facts justified.

"Ye see," he continued, "one day when his uncle Tim war over hyar ter the tanyard, I gin him one o' my game deedies; an' ez soon ez he got home he showed 'em all that thar deedie—powerful, spryest poultry ye ever see!"

Rufe smiled ecstatically as only a chicken fancier can.

"An' Pig-wigs war plumb DE-stracted fur a deedie too. An' he run all the way over hyar ter git me ter gin him one. But the deedies hed all gone ter bed, an' the old hen war hoverin' of 'em, an' I didn't want ter 'sturb 'em," said Rufe considerately. "So I tole Pig-wigs ter meet me at the tanyard early, an' I'd fetch him one. An' ez his granny war goin' visitin' her merried daughter, she let him ride behind her on thar sorrel mare ez fur ez the tanyard. So he got hyar 'fore I did. An' I kem an' gin him the deedie."

Rufe paused abruptly, as if, having narrated this important transaction, he had exhausted the interest of the subject.

Byers was about to speak, but the tanner with a gesture repressed him.

"Ye hain't tole 'bout the pit an' the grant yit, bubby," he reminded the small boy.

Byers's display of impatience was not lost upon Rufe, and it added to the general acrimony of their relations.

"Waal," the small boy began alertly, "we-uns hed the deedie behind the smoke-house thar, an' I seen HIM"—Rufe pointed at Byers with disfavor—"a-comin' powerful slow inter the tanyard, an' I whispered ter Pig-wigs Griggs ter be quiet, an' not let HIM know ez we-uns war thar, 'kase he war always a-jawin' at me, 'thout the tanner war by ter keep him off'n me. So we-uns bided thar till HE went inter the smoke-house. An' then ez we-uns kem by the shed, Pig-wigs seen his uncle Nate's coat hangin' on a peg thar, 'kase that thar triflin' Tim hed furgot, an' lef' it thar when he went ter see the deedies. An' Pig-wigs Griggs, he 'lowed he knowed the coat war his uncle Nate's by the favior of it, an' he reckoned the paper stickin' out'n the pocket war the grant he hed hearn Nate talkin' 'bout. An' I whispered ter him ez he hed better ondertake ter tote it home ter Nate. An' Pig-wigs said he couldn't tote the coat, bein' so lumbered up with the deedie. But he would tote the grant in one hand an' the deedie in t'other. He couldn't put the deedie in one o' his pockets, 'kase his mother sews 'em all up, bein' ez he WOULD kerry sech a passel o' heavy truck in 'em,—rocks an' sech, reg'lar bowlders," added Rufe, with a casual remembrance of the museum in his own pockets. "So Pig-wigs's mother sewed 'em all up, 'kase she said they war tore out all the time, an' she seen no sense in a boy hevin' a lot o' slits in his clothes ter let in the air slanchwise on him. An' Pig-wigs 'lowed he'd tote the grant ef I would git it fur him. An' I did."

"How did you-uns reach up ter that thar peg?" demanded Byers, pointing to the peg on which the coat had hung, far beyond Rufe's reach.

"Clumb up on the wooden horse," said Rufe promptly. "I peeked through the chinkin' an' seen ye thar a-smokin' yer pipe over the fire."

Rufe winked audaciously, suddenly convincing Byers as to the possessor of the big black eyes, which he had recognized as characteristic of the Dicey family, when they had peered through the chinking.

"Waal, how did the grant git inter the pit, Rufe, an' what hev become of it?" asked Byers, overlooking these personalities, for he felt a certain anxiety in the matter, being the last person known to have seen the grant, which, by reason of his delay and indecision, had again been spirited away.

"Pig-wigs put it thar, I tell ye," reiterated Rufe. "Ye see, I hed got outside o' the gate, an' Pig-wigs war a good ways behind, walkin' toler'ble slow, bein' ez he hed ter kerry the grant in one hand an' the deedie in t'other. An' thar I see a-cropin' along on the ground a young rabbit—reg'lar baby rabbit. An' I motioned ter Pig-wigs ter come quick—I hed fund suthin'. An' ez Pig-wigs couldn't put the deedie down, he laid the grant on top o' the boards ez kivered the pit. But the wind war brief, an' kem mighty nigh blowin' that grant away. So Pig-wigs jes' stuck it down 'twixt two planks, an' kem ter holp me ketch the rabbit. But Pig-wigs warn't no 'count ter holp. An' the rabbit got away. An' whilst Pig-wigs war foolin' round, he drapped his deedie, an' stepped on it—tromped the life out'n it." Rufe's expression was of funereal gravity. "An' then he follered me every foot o' the way home, beggin' an' beggin' me ter gin him another. But I wouldn't. I won't gin no more o' my deedies ter be tromped on, all round the mounting."

Rufe evidently felt that the line must be drawn somewhere.

"An' what hev gone with that thar grant? 'T war hyar yestiddy."

"I dunno," responded Rufe, carelessly. "Mebbe Pig-wigs reminded hisself 'bout'n it arter awhile, an' kem an' got it."

This proved to be the case. For Andy Byers concerned himself enough in the matter to ride the old mule over to Nate's home, to push the inquiries. Nate was just emerging from the door. The claybank mare, saddled and bridled, stood in front of the cabin. He was evidently about to mount.

"Look-a-hyar, ye scamp!" Byers saluted him gruffly, "whyn't ye let we-uns know ez ye hed got back that thar grant o' yourn, ez hev sot the whole mounting catawampus? Pig-wigs hearn ye talkin' 'bout it at las', and tole ye ez he hed it, I s'pose?"

Nate affected to examine the saddle-girth. He looked furtively over the mare's shoulder at Andy Byers. He could not guess how much of the facts had been developed. In sheer perversity he was tempted to deny that he had the grant. But Byers was a heavy man of scant patience, and he wore a surly air that boded ill to a trifler.

Nate nodded admission.

"Pig-wigs fotched it home, eh?" demanded Byers, leaning downward.

Once more Nate lifted his long, thin questioning face. His craft had no encouragement.

"Ef ye be minded to call him 'Pig-wigs'—his right name air Benjymen—'t war him ez fotched it home."

"Now ye air a mighty cantankerous, quar'lsome, aggervatin' critter!" Byers broke out irritably. "Ain't ye 'shamed o' this hyar hurrah ye hev kicked up fur nuthin'? accusin' o' Birt wrongful, an' sech?"

"Naw; I ain't 'shamed o' nuthin'!" said Nate hardily, springing into the saddle. "I'm a-ridin' ter the SettleMINT ter git word from the assayer 'bout'n the gold ez I hev fund. An' when I rides back I'll be wuth more'n enny man in the mountings or Sparty either!"

And he gave the mare the whip, and left Andy Byers, with his mouth full of rebukes, sitting motionless on the dozing old mule.

The mare came back from the Settlement late that night under lash and spur, at a speed she had never before made. Day was hardly astir when Nate Griggs, wild-eyed and haggard, appeared at the tanyard in search of Birt. He was loud with reproaches, for the assayer had pronounced the "gold" only worthless iron pyrites. He had received, too, a jeering letter from his proposed partner in Sparta, who had found sport in playing on his consequential ignorance and fancied sharpness. And now Nate declared that Birt, also, had known that the mineral was valueless, and had from the first befooled him. In some way he would compel Birt to refund all the money that had been expended. How piteous was Nate as he stood and checked off, on his trembling fingers, the surveyor's fee, the entry-taker's fee, the register's fee, the secretary of State's fee, the assayer's fee—Oh, ruin, ruin! And what had he to show for it! a tract of crags and chasms and precipitous gravelly slopes and gullies worth not a mill an acre! And this was all—for the office of laughing-stock has no emoluments. Where was Birt? He would hold Birt to account.

Andy Byers, listening, thought how well it was for Birt that Nate no longer had the loss of the grant as a grievance.

Perkins mysteriously beckoned Nate aside. "Nate," he said in a low voice, "Birt air powerful mad 'bout that thar accusin' him o' stealin' the grant, when 't war some o' yer own folks, 'Pig-wigs,' ez hed it all the time. I seen him goin' 'long towards yer house a leetle while ago. I reckon he air lookin' fur you. He hed that big cowhide, ez I gin him t'other day, in one hand. Ye jes' take the road home, an' ye'll ketch up with him sure."

Nate's wits were in disastrous eclipse. Could he deduce nothing from the tanner's grin? He spent the day at the Settlement without ostensible reason, and only at nightfall did he return home, and by a devious route, very different from that indicated by Jubal Perkins.

Inquiry developed the fact that the boundaries of Nate's land did not include the salt lick, and his talents as an obstructer were not called into play. The professor was free to dig as he chose for the antique bones he sought, and many a long day did he and Birt spend in this sequestered spot, with the great crags towering above and the darkling vistas of the ravine on either hand. There was a long stretch of sunny weather, and somehow that shifting purple haze accented all its languorous lustres. It seemed a vague sort of poetry a-loose in the air, and color had license. The law which decreed that a leaf should be green was a dead letter. How gallantly red and yellow they flared; and others, how tenderly pink, and gray, and purplish of hue! What poly-tinted fancies underfoot in the moss! Strange visitants came from the north. Flocks of birds, southward bound, skimmed these alien skies. Sometimes they alighted on the tree-tops or along the banks of the torrent, chattering in great excitement, commenting mightily on the country.

Birt had never been so light-hearted as during these days. The cessation of anxiety was itself a sort of happiness. The long, hard ordeal to which the truth had subjected him had ended triumphantly.

"Mighty onexpected things happen in this worl'," he said, reflectively. "It 'pears powerful cur'ous to me, arter all ez hev come an' gone, ez I ain't no loser by that thar gold mine down the ravine."

He himself was surprised that he did not rejoice in Nate's mortification and defeat. But somehow he had struck a moral equilibrium; in mastering his anger and thirst for revenge, he had gained a stronger control of all the more unworthy impulses of his nature.

Meantime there was woe at the tanyard. Jube Perkins had been anxious to have Birt resume his old place on the old terms. The professor, however, would not release the boy from his engagement. It seemed that this man of science could deduce subtle distinctions of character in the mere wielding of a spade. He had never seen, he said, any one dig so conscientiously and so intelligently as Birt. The tanner suddenly found that conscience might prove a factor even in so simple a matter as driving the old mule around the bark-mill. The boy who had taken Birt's place was a sullen, intractable fellow, and brutal. When he yelled and swore and plied the lash, the old mule would occasionally back his ears. The climax came one day when the rash boy kicked the animal. Now this reminded the mild-mannered old mule of his own youthful prowess as a kicker. He revived his reputation. He seemed to stand on his fore-legs and his muzzle, while his hind-legs played havoc behind him. The terrified boy dared not come near him. The bark-mill itself was endangered. Jube Perkins had not done so much work for a twelvemonth as in his efforts to keep the boy, the mule, and the bark-mill going together.

There were no "finds" down by the lick to rejoice the professor, and he went away at last boneless, except in so far as nature had provided him. He left Birt amply rewarded for his labor. So independent did Mrs. Dicey feel with this sum of money in reserve, that she would not agree that Birt should work on the old terms with the tanner. Birt was dismayed by this temerity. Once more, however, he recognized her acumen, for Jubal Perkins, although he left the house in a huff, came back again and promised good wages. Ignorant and simple as she was, her keen instinct for her son's best interest, his true welfare, endowed her words with wisdom. Thenceforth he esteemed no friend, no ally, equal to his mother.

It delighted him to witness her triumph in the proof of his innocence, and indeed she did not in this matter bear herself with meekness. It made him feel so prosperous to note her relapse into her old caustic habit of speech. Ah, if he were hurt or sore beset, every word would be tenderness.

Birt shortly compassed a much desired object. The mule's revival of his ancient glories as a "turrible kicker" had injured his market value, and Birt's earnings enabled him to purchase the animal at a low price. The mule lived to a great age, always with his master as "mild-mannered" as a lamb.

For some time Birt saw nothing of Nate, but one day the quondam friends met face to face on a narrow, precipitous path on the mountain side. Abject fear was expressed in Nate's sharp features, for escape was impossible.

There was no need of either fear or flight.

"How air ye, I'on Pyrite!" cried Birt cheerfully.

The martyr's countenance changed.

"Ye never done me right 'bout that thar mine, Birt Dicey," Nate said reproachfully. "Ye mus' hev knowed from the fust ez them thar rocks war good fur nuthin'."

"Ye air the deceivinest sandy-headed Pyrite that ever war on the top o' this mounting, an' ye knows it," Birt retorted in high good humor; "an' ef it war wuth my while I'd gin ye a old-fashion larrupin' jes' ter pay ye fur the trick ez ye played on me. But I ain't keerin' fur that, now. Stan' back thar, Tennessee!"

Since then, Tennessee, always preserving the influence she wielded that memorable night, has grown to be a woman—never pretty, but, as her brother still stoutly avers, "powerful peart."

THE END