"Not from the site of the first blasting; the wine cellar will be under the billiard-room, which will be in the pavilion at this end of the bluffs." He had waxed warm, excited. "The rock could easily be flung as far as this, and even if no human life were endangered, might kill horses or cows, or crash through the roof, or break down the chimney." "Waal, the comp'ny is a good, solid, solvent comp'ny, ain't it?" said the man in the corner unexpectedly,--"respons'ble in damages?" Kenniston recoiled suddenly, and Tems pricked up his ears, like the old war-horse that he was. The prospect of conflict in whatever sort was grateful to his senses, and he snuffed the battle from afar. In this, too, he saw his defense and his opportunity. Kenniston would hardly have conceived it possible that, with such inconsiderable adversaries, he could be routed in diplomacy. It was not, however, to bring matters to this point of view that his schemes were designed. "I hope there will be no need for a demand for damages," he said stiffly. Then, driven back upon his last resource, the simple truth, he continued, turning toward the man in the corner, "It has been partly to avert all dangers and troubles that the company has been trying to buy out Mr. Tems, at his own price." "My h'a'thstone hain't got no price," said old Tems acridly. Kenniston had thrown himself back in his chair with a dogged exasperation of manner. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his short flannel coat. His square chin, glimpsed in the parting of his full beard, was deeply sunken in its lustrous fibres. His lowering blue eyes were fixed on the fire, all aglow, for at this altitude the chill summer nights cannot dispense with the smouldering back-log. His legs, in their somewhat worn integuments of dark flannel and long boots,--for there are penalties to footgear and garb in clambering about these rough mountains,--were stretched out before him, and Adelicia's cat found them convenient to rub against, as she arched her back and purred in the dull red light. He felt at the moment irritated beyond measure. This idea of a lawsuit, craftily interjected by the stranger whom he himself had called into the conversation, might seriously embarrass the proceedings of the company. It could be held _in terrorem_ at every point. Nay, it might incite Tems to seek out occasion to make a pretext of injury. It added a prospect of indefinite discomfort and jeopardy to the already harassed present. "I kin b'lieve that, Cap'n Lucy,--I kin b'lieve that," said the stranger, with a sudden outpouring of his full, mellow, rich voice. Its sonorousness and sweetness struck Kenniston only vaguely then, but he remembered it afterward. "Ye want yer _home_, an' the company wants yer _hut_." "I don't want thar money,--ain't got no cur'osity 'bout the color of it," old Tems said tartly.