But both Pickett and his chief had miscalculated Nicholson’s energy. Instead of stopping for the night on the easterly slope of the ridge that overlooked the Delaware, that wiry and energetic custodian of the fortunes of the D. V. & E. had, as we have already seen, pushed his survey vigorously through Pickett’s Gap, and was the first to occupy the route. That Charlie Pickett did not know this when, in the moonlight, he set his stakes between the walls of the glen, was not his fault. There was nothing on the ground to indicate that any engineer had preceded him. Nor did Nicholson know, when he led his men up through the gap on the following morning, that the stakes at which he glanced as he hurried on had not been set by him. The mist hung about him like a thick cloud when he set up his instrument near the big rock in the potato field and continued his survey, and it was no wonder that the change in the line of stakes did not attract his attention. Indeed, the true state of things was not known that day nor the next by any person save one,--poor, unfortunate Dannie Pickett. And the longer he held his secret locked in his breast, the more fearful he became of a final disclosure. How long his reckless, not to say criminal, deed could remain unknown to others he did not know; he did not dare to think. A few days later Abner Pickett was sitting on his porch enjoying an after-dinner smoke. Dannie was at school, and Gabriel was in the back lot. A very trimly dressed young man descended from a wagon at the front gate and walked up the path. It was with fear and trembling that he approached Abner Pickett. He had heard many stories of the old man’s peculiarities, of his opposition to railroads in general, and of his bitter resentment against the D. V. & E. in particular. He had been led to believe that it would be almost safer to beard a lion in its den, than to face this irrepressible old man in his own home on such an errand as this. It was the duty of his company, however, under the law, to make at least an attempt to settle, and it was his mission to-day, however fruitless it might be, to use all of his skill and strategy in the effort to purchase a right of way through Pickett’s Gap. He put on a most courteous demeanor. “This is Mr. Pickett, I believe?” “Pickett’s my name,” replied the old man, calmly. “Will you come up on the stoop an’ take a chair?” “Thank you very much. My name is Safford, Mr. Pickett. I represent the Delaware Valley and Eastern Railroad Company.” “Yes?” “You are doubtless aware that this company has laid out a route for a railroad through your land?” “Yes, I know it.”