The other men, too, were looking over the valley, so long obscured by the dense forest trees and still denser undergrowth through which they had taken their way. It seemed much nearer than when they had last seen it from the dome, even allowing for the distance they had traversed, and they noted, with that interest always excited by a familiar scene from a new standpoint, the aspect of the well-known landmarks, all changed and strange. Kenniston had drawn near the verge; he stood sharply outlined against the sky, a field-glass in his hand, which again and again he brought to bear upon the smouldering black mass on the cliffs far below that once was the new hotel, only to be located now by the thinly curling smoke from its ruins. The instrument was familiar enough to the mountaineers, who had most of them observed its use during the war; but to a certain type of rustic an affectation of ignorance is the prettiest of jests. "Say, mister," Rodolphus Ross adjured him, with a show of eager anxiety, "air yer contraption strong enough ter view enny insurance on that thar buildin'?" The echo caught his laughter and blended it with the rain crow's call. He was not sensitive himself, and he could not appreciate sensitiveness in others. The fact that the building had perished in the flames, without insurance, was well known to the community; and how could it help or hinder that he should sharpen his wits by a little exercise on the theme? Kenniston made no reply, still sweeping the landscape with his glass. As the surveyor bent to take sight, Kenniston suddenly turned. "Stop," he said; "you will stop this farce right here. This is a conspiracy!" The surveyor, still in his stooping posture, looked at him in amazement. "Hey?" he exclaimed, as if he did not believe his senses. "A conspiracy!" Kenniston reiterated. The surveyor, in the course of his brawny career, had been offered few insults, and these he had promptly requited with stout blows. But the sight of a man who has lost reason, temper, and policy together has sometimes a steadying effect on the spectator. Besides, he was in the performance of a sworn duty, and, being a faithful and efficient officer of the county, he had a high ideal of the functions of his office. He was nettled by Kenniston's self-magnifying attitude, but it was obviously in order to give him the correct measurements, not of himself, but of his land, and although he retorted, it was in good enough temper. "Conspirin' with the meridian line?" he demanded, with a sneer, thrusting his quid of tobacco into his leather jaw with a tongue grown expert by long practice in thus clearing the way for its own utterances. "Or maybe ye think the points o' the compass have got in a mutiny against ye?"