Contrariety was the breath of the deputy's life. The congeniality of his vocation lay much in the opposition of his duties to the desires of those of his fellow-men with whom he was brought into official contact. He earnestly wished to negative Taft's suggestion, but the possibility of getting at closer quarters with Larrabee, of once more finding his trail, which had seemed to disappear from the face of the earth, was stronger for the moment. His enmity had not grown cold; it was the more vehement the more it was baffled. He lingered a moment; then, turning up his collar, and pulling down the broad rim of his hat all around to afford eaves to conduct the rain from his head, he plunged out into the steady torrents with a discordant yawp that made the little shanty ring. Taft gazed thoughtfully after him as he vaulted into the saddle and rode off with a good deal of unnecessary heel-and-toe exercise in the region of the animal's ribs. The restive mare apparently resented the ungentle treatment, for the last that was seen of mount and rider was a profile rampant against the blank white expanse of the closing mists ere they were enveloped in the opaque multitudinous folds. "They tell me that Gawd made man," said Taft at last. "'Pears ter me ez the Almighty slighted _that_ job, sure." Kenniston was a man of painfully orderly instincts. He could not satisfactorily resume the conversation without gathering up the poker, the lifter, and other appurtenances of the stove which Ross had scattered about the little zinc square on which it sat, replacing them, rearranging the writing materials, newspapers, tobacco, and cigars on the table, and stirring the fire to brightness and a possibility of burning. As he threw himself into his chair he marked how the encroaching mists had invested the house. Not half a dozen paces of the path remained visible from the door; even upon the threshold the vapor hung in vague white wreaths, to vanish in the heat, and be replaced by white clouds floating in with a rolling motion,--never disappearing utterly, but venturing no further. On the roof and in the invisibilities of the white mists outside they could hear the chilly rain still steadily falling. The seeming isolation gave a certain confidential character to the conversation even before its developments warranted this. "How did the percessionin' turn out?" Taft demanded. "The rain stopped it," returned Kenniston, gloomily eying the thickening mists, while Taft critically but covertly observed him. "Satisfied ez fur ez it went, I s'pose?" Taft flicked off the ashes from his pipe, and pressed down the remainder of its contents with that salamander of a forefinger. "No," said Kenniston irritably. "It is a great surprise to me." "Mr. Kenniston," said Taft, with that blunt directness which so commended him to the experienced man and so warped his judgment, "that thar Big Hollow Boulder, the beginning o' yer survey, hev been bodaciously moved."