"Ye ain't no revenuer!" cried Sis, moving back a step, however. "Ye ain't 'lowed ter _purtend_ ter be one, nuther. I hearn o' a man in Persimmon Cove ez _purtended_ ter be a off'cer o' the law, an' got 'rested hisse'f. An' I would hev thunk enny-ways ez ye hed hed enough o' arrestin' folks fur fun, sence that time ye flung Lar'bee over the bluffs, an' nigh kilt him. Ef ye be so sharp set ter 'rest ennybody, go find Jack Espey an' 'rest him." Ross was out of countenance. Nevertheless--"How many j'ints hev her tongue got?" he demanded of Joe, with a feint of serious interest. But Joe had deserted to the enemy. He thought that Sis was in the ascendant, and Ross's threat at once angered and terrified him. He received with pouting silence the officer's aside, while Sis went on triumphantly:-- "Dad say my granny Jiniway air kin somehows ter the high sher'ff's wife; an' whenst I go ter Colb'ry nex' week with dad, I be goin' ter go ter her house an' ax the high sher'ff ef he 'lows his dep'ties ter arrest people fur joke, an' _purtend_ ter be revenue off'cers, an' skeer leetle gals by arrestin' 'em, an' 'lowin' he'll take the whole fambly fur moonshinin'. My granny Jiniway's third cousin air the high sher'ff's wife!" In the face of this genealogical detail, it was with a somewhat subdued spirit that Ross mounted the mare and set forth on his return; for the high sheriff was a man with a most attenuated sense of humor, a literal interpretation of the duties of his office, and notwithstanding the fact that Ross's willingness to ride long distances, in all manner of weather, relieved him of this the most irksome of duties to an inert temperament, he had begun to look doubtfully upon him, particularly since the untoward result of the facetious arrest of the supposed Larrabee, and Ross felt that his tenure was not altogether secure. As he passed the portal of the Lost Time mine, the thought of his quest recurred to his mind, and the important clue which he deemed he had obtained from the little girl's conversation. He no longer considered it important, for from the rough-hewn portal of the cavern poured forth the compressed stream of the divers subterranean currents, gathered together and hurled forth in a great spout, and with a plunging force that astonished him, remembering as he did the far tamer flow of the earlier season. He ascribed the change to the persistent autumn rains flooding some watercourse that doubtless pierced the hidden chambers. It filled the outlet within a few feet of the summit of the arch. Any entrance here was impossible; as for another opening to the mine, he looked about him upon the limitless tangled wilderness of wood and rock, the shifting beclouding mists, the endless skeins of the rain, and he swore between his big front teeth an oath which, despite the grotesque humor of its phraseology, had within it all the bitter profanity of his baffling disappointment. And in default of aught else