He thrust his hat on his head, shook hands with his visitor, and strode away in the direction of the barn. The right-of-way agent watched him as he disappeared, then he put his papers carefully into his pocket, adjusted his hat at the proper angle on his head, and remarking to himself that this was certainly the most astonishing man it had ever been his good fortune to discover, he walked down the path, resumed his seat in the carriage, and drove smartly up the road. It was already beginning to rain. The heavy mist of the preceding morning had been the forerunner of a September storm. By the time night came, the rain was pouring down, the wind was blowing furiously, and it required a blazing wood fire in the sitting room of the Pickett house to maintain the comfort of the inmates. Before this fire Abner Pickett and Dannie were seated, while Aunt Martha was still busy with her household duties. Every hour that had passed since the night of his adventure had left Dannie more perplexed, more distressed, more conscience stricken, more fearful of the final result of his rash and, what seemed to him now, incomprehensible conduct. He sat looking at the blazing logs, saying nothing, but torturing his brain to find some way out of the dreadful dilemma into which he had thrust himself with such foolhardy bravery. He did not know that he had not yet reached the depth of his anxiety and misery; but he was soon to learn it. His grandfather broke the silence. “Right-o’-way agent was here to-day, Dannie.” “The--the what?” “Right-o’-way agent. The man that buys the right o’ way for the new railroad.” “Which new railroad.” “There’s only one that I’ve heard anything about. They call it the D. V. & E., don’t they?” “I believe so. An’ what did he want, Gran’pap?” “Wanted to buy the right o’ way for his railroad through my property, of course. And I sold it to him, of course. Strip fifty feet wide, right through. Sold it for a hundred an’ sixty dollars. What do you think o’ that bargain, Dan?” “Why, Gran’pap, I’ve heard you say you wouldn’t take five thousand dollars an’ give a railroad the right to run through the gap an’ through your farm.” “That depends on how I’m treated. These people acted the gentleman with me. They run their railroad around my graveyard at an expense to them, in the way o’ buildin’, of at least a thousan’ dollars. If they’d a-run it straight through, they couldn’t ’a’ got my land at any price.” “But--but, how do you know they didn’t run it straight through, Gran’pap?” “Why, haven’t you an’ me seen the stakes as plain as day, a-runnin’ across the brook an’ a-curvin’ around agin to the mouth o’ the gap? I sold ’em fifty feet wide along the line o’ their stakes--nowhere else.”