“Young man,” said the judge, “I’ll _tell_ you, and let it be a warning to you when you’re married, to be honest and say so” (Raoul blushed violently). “The fact was, I had been acquainted with the widow Enraghty more than fifty years--her husband had got killed in the forties, an’ she was sixty-five if she was a day, and she owned that valuable corner lot opposite the new Court-house and by the building of the Board of Trade.” (“Not built yet,” whispered Coe to me.) “I’d been dickering with her for weeks; but I stood at four thousand, and she wanted five. Now I rode up that morning (it was a fine day; warm and spring-like, and I felt rather sanguine) and I said, ‘What’s your price, Mrs. Enraghty, to-day?’ ‘Six thousand,’ said she. This raise made me kind o’ nervous, an’ I got rash. ‘I’ll give you three thousand,’ said I, ‘cash.’ ‘Here’s your deed,’ says Widow Enraghty. And I declare she had it all ready. I looked at it carefully; it seemed all right, and I paid her the money. I kinder noticed there was a young fellow sittin’ in the room. Well, sir!” “Well, judge?” The judge’s manner grew impressive. “Next week that young fellow--Bill Pepper he was, an’ he was just twenty-one--he brought an ejectment against me. _She had married him that morning._ So Bill Pepper kep’ the land, and Mrs. Pepper kep’ the money.” In the laughter that followed I became conscious of Raoul pinching my arm mysteriously. “I want a word with you in private,” said he. “Would you mind coming out upon the cow-catcher? It’s been railed off on purpose for observation,” he added, answering my look of amazement, “and it’s a first-rate place to see the cobweb trestle from. It’s something about the young ladies,” he added, seeing that I still hesitated, “and there’s really no other place.” I looked through the car, but perceived the ladies were sitting in earnest conclave. On the front platform Mrs. Langworthy and the baby were taking the air. In the cab of the engine were the two girls. I suppose I made a gesture of assent, for Raoul nodded to the engineer, who slowed to a halt that almost threw the Langworthy’s domestic group into the bed of a brawling mountain stream some three hundred feet below. “These gen’lemen want to ride on the pilot,” shouted the engineer in explanation; and we took our way to that exalted perch, where, sitting cross-legged and with hands nervously gripping the rail, I listened to Raoul’s story. The Misses Bruce, he said, were wild not to go back that day with the railroad party, but to drive to the end of the location through the woods. “Great Heavens!” said I, “but only Coe and I are going, with Captain Healy. There is nothing but tents----” “The ladies are used to camping out.” “But it will be so rough--there are two thousand niggers in camp!” “The ladies are not afraid.”