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.