Kenniston lifted his head suddenly, the excitement of the moment showing red in his face. A half-scornful incredulity was in his eyes, almost on his lips. He was about to speak; then paused doubtfully. The testimony of his recollections of Cap'n Lucy's significant insistence on the phrase "Big Hollow Boulder" and a thousand satiric allusions to the stationary functions of a monument of boundary overwhelmed him for the moment; for their incongruity with a culpable knowledge or agency in the fact was more than inexplicable; it was mysterious. There needed no dexterous jugglery with phrase and fact, however, to account for Luther's furtive, hang-dog manner and averted eye. "It seems impossible! But I will not believe that old man Lucy had anything to do with moving it," Kenniston began. He suddenly caught his lip and bit it hard. It was evident from his flaunting remarks that the old mountaineer had not been similarly generous to his neighbor. "A heap o' land," suggested the politic Taft. "But then I s'pose ter run yer eastern line out would show whar yer corner is?" He asked the question eagerly. "Oh no. Calls for permanent natural objects usually control calls for distance. I suppose that rule would hold fast in this instance. My eastern line can only run to the boulder, which is presumably immovable." Taft's countenance fell. He had thought that the further survey of the eastern boundary would serve to reëstablish the corner where the boulder should be; on the contrary, Cap'n Lucy was invested with many hundred acres for which he had given no equivalent in goods, or money, or even occupancy. "I saw that something was mighty wrong with the line that the surveyor was running; and so did Cap'n Lucy, for that matter," said Kenniston, revolving the events of the processioning. "He looked dumfounded when he saw Wild Duck Falls in his boundary, and the hotel,--or rather the place where the hotel ought to be." Taft caught a quick inspiration. "That's it,--them boys is a-moonshinin' fur true. They must hev moved the boulder ter crowd ye out of a buildin' site. An' then they burnt the hotel." "Well, they've got me pretty badly crowded,--I'll say that for them."