It might seem that with the weight of his heavy cares, the anguish of his forlorn plight, the dispiriting influence of his imprisonment, the jeopardy of his tortured freedom, his doubtful future,—exhausted, chilled, sore,—he would find scant amusement or relish in the grotesque image. One might wonder at the zest with which he applied himself, with convulsive, feeble efforts, to uproot the pole that sustained it. He conveyed it across the garden,—daring the dogs,—and placed the scarecrow where it might seem to peer into the front window of the house. He stood looking at it with intense satisfaction for a moment,—so like a man it was! He could forecast how the women of the household would cry aloud with terror when they should see it, how the mystified men would stare and swear. He did not laugh; the feat in some other method satisfied his sense of the ludicrous. It did not occur to him as a futile waste of his time and strength,—of both he presently stood in sore need. For the day was breaking when he still trudged between the zigzag lines of farm fences, along a road that bore evidences of much travel, in a country which he did not know, of which the only familiar objects were the dying moon and the slowly developing outline of the Great Smoky Mountains, far away. “I’ll git ter Shaftesville in time ter stan’ my trial, ef I don’t mind, ’fore the dep’ty does,” he said to himself in a panic. Nowhere were forests visible promising shelter. Here and there a limited woods-lot lined the road; more often fields of corn, barely showing tender sprouts above the ground, or stretches of winter wheat or millet, or pastures. He was in the midst of a scene of exclusive agricultural significance, when the startling sound of wagon wheels broke upon the air, and the figure of a man driving a pair of strong mules rose gradually from over the brow of the hill. Mink’s clothes were already dry; his hair curled freshly once more, but he was painfully conscious of the lack of his hat, and he knew that the teamster’s eyes rested upon him in surprise. The man drew up his mules at once. But the wily fugitive hailed him first. “Howdy,” Mink remarked, advancing sturdily, putting one foot on the hub of the front wheel and his hand on the off mule’s back, and looking up with his bold, bright eyes at the driver. “Do you-uns hail from nighabouts?” “Down yander at Peters’ Cross-Roads,” responded the stranger promptly. “I ax kase I ’lowed mebbe ye hed hearn some word o’ that thar prisoner ez got away from the sher’ff o’ Cher’kee County,—Reuben Lorey.” “_Mink_ Lorey, I hearn his name war,” corrected the teamster. “Waal,”—Mink’s careless glance wandered aimlessly up and down the sunny road,—“he oughter be named Mink, ef he ain’t; mean enough.” “Ye’re ’quainted with him, I reckon,” said the teamster, still looking at his hatless head.