Fitz nearly overturned his chair in his eagerness to reach the top ofthe kitchen stairs. "Come up here, Chad, quick as your legs can carry you--two steps at a time!" Chad hurried into the room with the face of a man sent for to put out a fire. "Chad," said the colonel, "you know the big hill as you go up from the marsh at home?" "Yes, sah." "Whose lan' is the coal on, mine or Jedge Barbour's?" The old darky's face changed from an expression of the deepest anxiety to an effort at the deepest thought. The change was so sudden that the wrinkles got tangled up in the attempt, resulting in an expression of vague uncertainty. "You mean, Colonel, de hill whar we cotch de big coon?" "Yes," said the colonel encouragingly, ignorant of the coon, but knowing that there was only one hill. "Well, Jedge Barbour's niggers always said dat de coon was dere coon, 'ca'se he was treed on dere lan', and we 'sputed dat it was our coon, 'ca'se it was on our lan'." "Who got de coon?" asked Fitz. "Oh, _we_ got the coon!" And Chad's eyes twinkled. "That settles it. It's your land, Colonel," said Fitz, with one of his sudden roars, in which everybody joined but Chad and the judge. "But den, gemmen,"--Chad was a little uncomfortable at the merriment,--"it was our coon for sho. I knowed whar de line went, 'ca'se I he'p Marsa John caarry de spy-glass when he sold de woodlan's to Jedge Barbour, an' de coon was on our side ob dat line." If Chad's first statement caused nothing but laughter, the second produced nothing but the profoundest interest. Here was the surveyor himself! The colonel turned the map to Chad's side of the table. Every man in the room stood up and craned his head forward. "Now, Chad," said the colonel, "this map is a plan of our lan'--same as if you were lookin' down on it. Here is the road to Caartersville. See that square, black mark? That's Caarter Hall. This is the marsh, and that is the coal hill. Now, standin' here in the marsh,--this is where our line begins, Fitz,--standin' here, Chad, in the marsh, which side of the line is that hill on? Mine or Jedge Barbour's?" The old man bent over the table, and scanned the plan closely. "Wat's dis blue wiggle lookin' like a big fish-wum?" "That's the Tench River." Chad continued his search, his wrinkled brown hand, with its extended forefinger capped by its stumpy nail, looking for all the world like a mud turtle with head out crawling over the crumpled surface of the map. "Scuse me till I run down to de kitchen an' git my spec's. I can't see like"-- "Here, take mine!" said Fitz, handing him his gold ones. He would have lent him his eyes if he could have found that coal-field the sooner. The turtle crawled slowly up, its head thrust out inquiringly, inched along the margin of the map, and backed carefully down again, pausing for such running commentaries as "Dis yer's de ribber;" "Dat's de road;" "Dis de ma'sh."