The laughter was checked by his tone. The men glanced at one another constrainedly. Before his coming, the event had promised to the volunteer assistants an episode of sociability affording the interchange of ideas and jocular converse, the interest of the developments sufficiently great to repay them for the hardship of the steep scramble down the mountain side. The significance of the proceeding was reasserted, and the silence was unbroken until the surveyor, busily adjusting his compass, remarked to Kenniston that he had noted one or two blazes indicating an old line, as he came up the mountain. "Ye won't go a-nigh them blazes!" cried Cap'n Lucy sarcastically, waving his hand along an imaginary line. "Ye take my word fur it, ye won't see them blazes 'twixt hyar an' the mounting's foot." Kenniston detected a covert meaning in the tone, and glanced keenly around at the speaker. But Cap'n Lucy's face was as enigmatically satiric as his laughter; and as Kenniston's questioning stare sought out the son, Luther turned away to avoid meeting his eyes, lowering, anxious, and it seemed somehow conscious. Conscious, too, was the hang-dog manner with which the usually bluff young mountaineer spoke to the deputy sheriff Ross, observing that he did not see how the surveyor could get his bearings such a shut-in day as this. The deputy sheriff had found it easily compatible with his interpretation of his duty to spare the time to assist as idle spectator at anything promising so much interest and excitement as the processioning of the Kenniston tract. For the antagonism between the disputants had already been noised abroad, and Rodolphus Ross, albeit a "peace officer" within the meaning of the statute, was not so attached to the service of the white-winged goddess that he did not cherish a lively expectation of whatever sport could be extracted from Cap'n Lucy's and Kenniston's belligerent idiosyncrasies. He protested now so clamorously that it might seem he feared that this unique opportunity would be wrested from him, and, assuming the rôle of a trustworthy weather prophet, maintained that whenever it rained before twelve o'clock, noon, an early clearance was the certain sequel. The discussion and the aspect of the weather diverted the general attention from Cap'n Lucy's singular words, and from Luther's unwillingness to proceed and surly disaffection.