bore traces of renovation: the door was new, the floor patched. He made a rough guess that Marvin had taken possession of one of the long-deserted huts seen at intervals in the mountains. Raindrops presently pattered on the roof; then ceased, as if waiting breathlessly for some mandate; and again a fusillade; and anon torrents. The melancholy elements in the wild wastes without seemed not uncheerful companions in lieu of the saturnine group about the fire. Alack, for liberty, the familiar thing! Harshaw sought to reassure himself, noting their kindness to the idiot and to the little child. Philetus climbed over their feet, and made demands, of a frequency appalling to a mind less repetitious than the one encased in the downy yellow head, to be ridden on their great miry boots. Suddenly Marvin spoke: “My wife ’lows ez how ye defended Mink Lorey when he war tried.” “I did,” said Harshaw jauntily. “Waal, did this hyar gal,—this Lethe Sayles, ez lives yander at the t’other eend o’ the county,—did she up an’ tell in court ennything ’bout me?” Harshaw was not a truthful man for conscience’ sake; but in the course of his practice he had had occasion to remark the inherent capacity of the truth for prevailing. He was far too acute to prevaricate. “Yes,” he said, sticking two fingers into his vest-pocket and swinging the leg he had crossed over the other, “she swore that you were moonshining and told her so; she had told me as much before. We wanted to prove that Mink was drunk, and had somewhere to get whiskey besides the bonded still. We couldn’t get in all the evidence, though.” The fire snapped and sparkled and flared. The pendent sponge-like masses of soot clinging to the chimney continually wavered in the strong current of air; now and then fire was communicated to it, and a dull emblazonment of sparks would trace some mysterious characters, dying out when half realized. Harshaw could but see that his frankness had produced its impression: there was a troublous cast in all the stolid countenances around the hearth; but he was glad to be regarded as a problem as well as a danger. “In the name o’ Gawd,” exclaimed Marvin irritably, “why did ye kem hyar ter this hyar place fur? Ain’t Shaftesville big enough ter hold ye?” Harshaw repeated the account of himself which he had already given to Mrs. Marvin. “I ain’t ready to go yet,” he remarked. “But when your wife thought I wanted to, by George, she got down the gun and said I shouldn’t.” “Ye know too much,” suddenly put in “hongry Jeb,” who looked as cadaverous and as melancholy as his name might imply. “I know enough to shut my mouth,” said Harshaw bluffly, “and keep it shut.” He looked eagerly at “hongry Jeb,” as he threw this out tentatively. The mountaineer’s face was distinct in the firelight, and he gazed at the leaping flames instead of at the speaker.