And the woods were of a strange aspect, chiefly of oaks with gnarled limbs, full-leaved, bulky of bole, but all uniformly stunted, not one reaching a height greater than fifteen feet. This characteristic gave a weird, unnatural effect to the long avenues beneath their low-spreading boughs. The dwarfed forest encircled Piomingo Bald, and stretched along the summit of the range, unbroken save where other domes—Silar’s Bald, Gregory’s Bald, and Parsons’ Bald—rose bare and gaunt against the sky. “Ez ter witches an’ harnts an’ them, I ain’t never seen none hyar on Piomingo Bald,” said Doaks. “It ain’t never hed the name o’ sech, like Thunderhead.” Mink placed his elbows on his knees, and held his chin in his hand. His roving dark eyes were meditative now; some spell of imagination lay bright in their depths. “Hev _he_ been viewed lately?” he asked. “Who?” demanded Doaks, rousing himself. “That thar Herder on Thunderhead,” said Mink, lowering his voice. The fibrous mist, hovering about the summit of Thunderhead and stretching its long lines almost over to Piomingo Bald, might in some mysterious telegraphy of the air transmit the matter. “Not ez I knows on,” said Doaks. “He ain’t been viewed lately. But Joe Boyd, he’s a-herdin’ over thar now: I kem acrost him one day las’ week, an’ he ’lowed ez his cattle hed been actin’ powerful strange. I ’lowed the cattle mus’ hev viewed the harnt, an’ mebbe he war tryin’ ter ’tice ’em off.” “Ef ye’ll b’lieve me,” said Mink ruminatively, after a pause, “I never hearn none o’ them boys tell a word about that thar harnt of a herder on Thunderhead.” “Them t’other herders on Thunderhead don’t hanker ter talk ’bout him, no-ways,” said Doaks. “It’s powerful hard ter git a word out’n ’em ’bout it; they’re mighty apt ter laff, an’ ’low it mus’ be somebody ridin’ roun’ from ’cross the line. But it’ll make enny of ’em bleach ef ye ax ’em suddint ef all o’ Joshua Nixon’s bones war buried tergether.” The mists had spanned the abyss of the valley in a sheer, gossamer-like network, holding the sunbeams in a glittering entanglement. They elusively caressed the mountain summit, and hung about the two lounging figures of the herders,—a sort of ethereal eavesdropping of uncomfortable suggestions,—and slipped into the dwarfed woods, where they lurked spectrally. “Waal, ef ye ax ’em ef Joshua Nixon’s bones war all buried tergether they’ll bleach,” Doaks repeated. “See that thar sort’n gap yander?” he continued, pointing at a notch on the slope of Thunderhead. “They fund his bones thar under a tree streck by lightning. They ’lowed that war the way he died. But the wolves an’ the buzzards hedn’t lef’ enough ter make sure. They hed scattered his bones all up an’ down the slope. He hed herded over thar a good many year, an’ some o’ the t’other boys keered fur the cattle till the owners kem in the fall.” He recounted slowly. Time was no object on Piomingo Bald.