"To be sure I do. I always liked babies; they are the perfection o' innocence." Before he had finished his sentence, Oleah had climbed down from his knee, and was scampering away toward the nursery. Abner was not more than two seconds in following him. "Wall, now, see heah," said the hunter; "while them young rattletraps is gone, jest tell me what all this means. Hez someone been increasin' yer family by leavin' babies a layin' around loose, or is it a big doll some one haz give the boys?" "It's just as the boys say," Mr. Tompkins answered. "Some one did actually leave a baby about six months old on this porch, and no one knows who he was, where he came from, or where he went." "That's mighty strange. How long ago was it?" "About six weeks." "Wall, now, ain't that strange? Have you any suspicion who done it?" "Not the least." "Wall, it is strange. Never saw no un sneakin' about the house, like?" "No one at all." "Humph! Well, it's dog gone strange." At this moment the two boys, with Dinah in attendance, came out, bearing between them little Irene. "Here it is; here is our baby! Ain't she sweet, though?" cried Oleah, as they bore their precious burden toward the mountaineer. "Why it's a spankin' big un, by jingo! Ya-as, an' I be blessed ef I ain't seen that baby before," cried Uncle Dan. "Where?" asked Mr. Tompkins, eagerly. Uncle Dan took the little thing on his lap, and, as it turned its large dark-gray eyes up to his in wonder, he reflected a few minutes in silence and then said: "I saw a baby what looked like this, and I'll bet a good deal it is the same one, too." "Where did you see it?" again demanded the planter. "That's jest what I'm tryin' to think up," said Uncle Dan. "Oh, yes; it war in the free nigger's cabin, on the side o' the east Twin Mountain. You know where the old cabin stands, where we used to camp when we war out huntin'!" "Yes." "Wall, I war roamin' by there one day, and found two nigger men and a woman livin' there. They had this baby with them, and I questioned them as to where they war gwine, but one nigger, who had a scar slaunch-ways across his face," here the narrator made an imaginary mark diagonally across his left cheek to indicate what he meant by "slaunch-ways," "said they war gwine to live thar. I asked 'em whar they got the baby, and they said its people war dead, and they war to take it to some of its relations. I left 'em soon, for I couldn't git much out o' them, but I detarmined to keep an eye on 'em. The next time I came by that way they were gone, bag and baggage." "The free nigger's cabin is at least twenty miles from here," said Mr. Tompkins. "It is strange why they should bring the baby all that way here and leave it." "It do look strange, but I guess they war runaway niggers what had stole the child out of spite, and when they got heah give out an' left it. I kinder think these niggers war from the South." "Have you ever seen or heard of them since?" asked Mr. Tompkins.