The mulatto paused, and looked eagerly at his companion, as though to catch a gleam of intelligence. Again that curious, puzzled look came over the face of Joe, and he seemed trying to pierce the gloom of forgetfulness with his blunted recollection. After a moment his face brightened, and he said: "Yes, I remember the fields of cotton, and the carriage and my mother. I remember the great palmetto tree by the lake, where I floated my boats and made my flutter-mills." "Well, listen now," said the black, still more earnestly. "Can you not remember what your name was when you played by the lake under the big palmetto tree by the lake?" "I was not Joseph then." "Can you not remember what your name was?" "No." "Would you remember if I was to tell you?" "Yes." Irene was leaning against the window-sill, holding the half-closed shutter in her hand. In her eagerness she pressed forward, pushing the shutter so far open that it slipped from her hold and swung crashing back against the house. She sprang back into the room to prevent discovery, and when next she glanced from her window, Crazy Joe was alone. His strange companion had disappeared, and Joe sat nodding under the tree more than half asleep. It was nothing uncommon for Joe to pass the night under a tree, and Irene only watched to see him stretch down under a tree and compose himself to sleep, when she crept to her own bed, filled with wonder and curiosity. Crazy Joe's parentage, like her own, was shrouded in mystery, and perhaps it may have been their common misfortune that had awakened her sympathy and drawn her so strongly towards the lunatic. It was late before Irene closed her eyes for sleep, and when she did, Joe's troubled eyes, Abner's eyes, sad and reproachful, and the gleaming eyes of the stranger haunted her dreams. Early next morning she went out to where Crazy Joe was sitting on the grass, communing with himself. As she approached him she heard him say: "Yes, yes, I remember the cotton fields and the palmetto tree by the lake, the boats I sailed there, but then something heavy strikes my brain." She tried to persuade him to tell her who it was he was talking with on the night before, but the light of memory faded from his face, and his mind immediately averted to his father Jacob, who was soon to come down into Egypt. It was about two weeks after Abner's visit that Oleah found himself at the head of a small scouting party in the neighborhood of his home. Scouting parties were no novelty in and near the village of Snagtown, for this village lay about half way between the two hostile forces, and the scouts of both armies frequently entered it. These parties, not always made up of the most honorable men, kept the good citizens in the vicinity in a constant state of alarm. Hen roosts were robbed, apple orchards devastated, and melon patches stripped, vines and all.