Unconsciously she was showing to all present that she was dissecting the three reporters. Her unfavorable opinion of them slowly took expression in her tell-tale face. Not that she wholly disliked or distrusted them; she really pitied them. How could they be content to live such a life, dependent upon what they could make by meddling, so to speak? Then too, she felt a vague shame, a chagrin, a regret that real people must be put into works of fiction with all the seamy side of their natures turned out to the world's eye. "We're in for it," exclaimed Hubbard, "Mrs. Philpot is making a study of us as a group. See the dreaming look in her eyes!" "Oh, no! she never studies anybody or anything," said Miss Crabb. "Poor little woman, real life is a constant puzzle to her, and she makes not the slightest effort to understand it." Hubbard and Miss Stackpole glanced curiously at each other and then at Miss Crabb. Evidently their thought was a common one. XVI. The pedestrian excursion spoken of by Miss Stackpole promised to be an enjoyable affair to those of the Helicon guests who could venture upon it. A writer of oddly entertaining and preposterously impossible short stories, John B. Cattleton, had been mousing among the ravines of Mt. Boab, and had stumbled upon what he described as a "very obscure little cabin, jammed under a cliff in an angle of the cañon and right over a bright stream of cold, pure spring-water. It's a miserably picturesque and forlornly prepossessing place," he went on in his droll way, "where all sorts of engaging ghosts and entertaining ogres might be supposed to congregate at midnight. I didn't go quite down to it, but I was near enough to it to make out its main features, and I saw the queerest being imaginable poking around the premises. A veritable hermit, I should call him, as old as the rocks themselves. His dress was absurdly old-fashioned, a caricature of the uniform of our soldier sires of revolutionary renown. A long spike-tailed blue coat with notable brass buttons, a triangular hat somewhat bell-crowned and tow or cotton trousers. Shirt? Vest? Yes, if I remember well they were of copperas homespun. His hair and beard were white, fine and thin, hanging in tags and wisps as fluffy as lint. I sat upon a rock in the shadow of a cedar tree and watched his queer manoeuvres for a good while. All his movements were furtive and peculiar, like those of a shy, wild beast." "It's the Prophet of the Smoky Mountain," said Miss Crabb in an earnest stage whisper. "He's Craddock's material, we can't touch him." "Touch him! I'll interview him on dialect in politics," said Hubbard, "and get his views on sex in genius." "I should like a sketch of his life. There must be a human interest to serve as straw for my brick," remarked Miss Stackpole. "The motive that induced him to become a hermit, and all that."