“Sit down,” said Scipio. “I’ll tell y’u about the trail while you’re eatin’ the pie.” He made as if to rise and offer the only chair in the room to Uncle Pasco. This brought Uncle Pasco immediately to his side. “Keep a-sittin’,” the old gentleman urged. “Keep a-sittin’, and draw me a map. That’s what. Map of Spit-Kitten.” “Here,” began Scipio, wriggling his pen across a blank sheet, “runs Spit-Cat. This here cross is this cabin. Stream’s runnin’ this way. Understand?” “That’s plain,” said Uncle Pasco. “Here,” and Scipio wriggled his pen at right angles to the first wriggle, “comes Spit-Kitten into the main creek--right above this cabin. See? Well. Now.” Scipio began dotting lines. “You follow the little creek up, _so_. Then you cross over to the left bank, _so_. And you go right up out of a little canyon (you can’t if your packs is heavy loaded, for it’s awful steep and slippery for pretty near a hundred yards) and you come out on top clear going--gosh! I’ve got to take another sheet of paper--well, now y’u go down easy a mile or two and keep swinging to your right, and about here”--Scipio now sprinkled some points on the paper--“the trees begin gettin’ scattery and you look out for a fence on your left. You follow that fence for--well, I’d not say whether it’s three miles or four--it’s that noo pasture the Seventy-six outfit calls their Little Pasture, and before y’u come to the corner where there’s a gate by a gushin’ creek I don’t know the name of, you’ll notice the hill goin’ down to your right all over good grass and mighty few trees, and if it’s dark you’ll see the lights of the town below and the trail takes off right about where you’ll be standing this way” (Scipio scratched an arrow), “and don’t y’u mind if it looks like a little-worn trail, for that’s the way it is, and y’u can’t miss it on that hillside. See?” “That’s plain as day,” said Uncle Pasco, accepting the two sheets of the map and sliding them into his own pocket. He still stood beside Scipio, irresolutely, considering the lumpy appearance of Scipio’s pocket. A handkerchief with a bag of tobacco might produce such a bulge. “Fine day,” said Scipio. “Better stay a while.” “Good weather right along now,” said Uncle Pasco. “Time it was,” said Scipio, “after the wettin’ the month of May gave us. Boys doin’ anything in town lately?” “Oh, gay, gay,” returned Uncle Pasco. And he ran a pistol against Scipio’s head. “Out with it,” he commanded. “Cough up.” It is possible, under these circumstances, to refuse to cough, and to perform instead some rapid athletics which result in a bullet-hole in the wall or ceiling, to be forever after pointed to. But the odds are so heavy that the hole will be in neither the wall nor the ceiling that many people of undoubted valor have found coughing more discreet. Scipio coughed. “Uncle Pasco,” said he gracefully, “I didn’t know you were that artistic.”