“Waal, ye can’t git the time back,” said Ben Doaks; and many an idler before and since Bylor has learned this melancholy truth. He sat silent for a time, ruefully pondering upon his blasted industrial prospects. Then he broke forth fretfully once more:— “I war fool enough ter go so close. I seen the very hat he wore,”—his tones were full of a despairing regret,—“a big white hat sot onto the back o’ his head.” “That war jes’ Josh Nixon,” said the elder of the herders, gravely shaking his head. “That war the very kind o’ hat he wore, an’ set the same.” Three of the five hats in the room were of that exact description; in fact, it was a fashion common enough in the region for Jerry Price to have two alike, and the old one which Mrs. Purvine had lent the fugitive was hardly distinguishable from Mink’s own, floating down the Tennessee River. It did not shadow a face altogether appreciative of his own pranks, as Mink drew it down over his brow and rode away in the mist, when convinced that the herders were likely to come out no more for the present. “I can’t take no sure enough enjyemint in nuthin’,” he complained. “I feel so badgered an’ hunted.” He looked about him doubtfully. A few strides of his horse and he would be across the state line, and safer than for many a day. He stood drearily contemplating the vacancy of the clouds above the Carolina side, as unresponsive to the imagination as his future, which in vain he sought to forecast. He suddenly wheeled. “I’m bound ter see Lethe, though! I’m bound ter tell her I hev fund her out. She’ll know what I think o’ her afore I’m done.” He pressed the horse, broken now to a steady gait, into the elusive ways of the herders’ trail through the weird, stunted woods along the ridge to the great Piomingo Bald; thence into a path that led down into Wild-Cat Hollow. He noted its well-worn and smooth curves. “Ben Doaks hev made a reg’lar turnpike, a-travelin’ ter see Lethe Sayles,” he said, with some half scornful pity that would not bestir itself to be jealous. He made a wide detour of the little house, nestling in the great cleft of the mountain, occasionally becoming dimly visible as the mist shook out its gauzy folds in long pervasive shivers, and anon obliterated as it dropped its denser curtain. Over the valley it was torn into fringes, a slant of sunlight gilding it, the blue of the sky showing through.