The rain continued to slap against the old clapboards of the house and the limbs of the huge buttonwood tree Hiram had seen in the front yard creaked loudly. A long and hard storm threatened, and the outlook for pushing on to Miss Pringle's was not a happy one. The woman would be in bed before Hiram reached her place. As Mr. Battick seemed to have fallen into a brown study and asked no further questions, Hiram felt free to examine the furniture of the living room again. The table--if it was a table--was an odd thing. The young man did not know what to make of it. The piece of tarpaulin that covered it was sunk in along the top, and he came to the conclusion that there was no real top to the table. Then, in leaning back in his low chair near the fire, he saw that the long frame was bottomed with heavy planks. It was a box on four legs rather than a table. Mr. Battick spoke again, in his usual abrupt fashion: "Have you had your supper yet, young fellow?" The tone could not be called cordial. "I had something to eat on the train," replied Hiram indifferently. "On that old accommodation?" sniffed Battick. "Case-hardened sandwiches, I bet." Hiram laughed, but admitted the fact. "I know what it is to ride on that train," the man said. "In spite of what Jase Oakley told you about me, I wouldn't see a man starve--not right here in my own house," added this queer individual, though still gruffly. "Oh, the stationmaster did not say anything about you except that you were afraid of rats," Hiram rejoined, watching Battick slyly, for he was very curious about the man. "That's what that old thimblerigger said about me, eh?" growled Battick. "Lucky he don't often come up this way. It might happen that I should take him for a rat." He said it so savagely that Hiram considered it best to say nothing more to excite his strange host. Battick brought eggs and bacon and half of a corn pone from a cupboard, preparing the meal deftly at the open fire. Suddenly Hiram's attention was caught by something on the floor just under the nearest corner of the odd table, or box, in the middle of the room. It was a tiny, cone-shaped heap of grain--wheat, he thought. It had dribbled through the bottom of that box by some tiny hole, it was plain, and had fallen unnoticed to the floor. There was something odd about this grain--something that immediately attracted Hiram's particular interest. When Battick's back was turned he stooped sideways from his chair and secured one of the kernels of wheat between his thumb and finger. He placed it in his palm and studied it minutely. The kernel of wheat was different from any grain he had ever seen. First of all, it was a very large, plump grain, perfectly formed, and upon one side was a tiny yet distinct red stripe.