The little town had been unconsciously grateful for its new sensation. The return of Hugh Stires and his apparent curious transformation was the prime subject of conversation. For a half-year the place had known but one other event as startling: that was the finding, some months before, of a dead body--that of a comparative stranger in the place--thrust beneath a thicket on Smoky Mountain, on the very claim which now held Prendergast and his partner. The "Amen Corner" of the Mountain Valley House had discussed the pros and cons exhaustively. There were many who sneered at the loss of memory and took their cue from Devlin who, smarting from his humiliation and nursing venom, revamped suspicions wherever he showed his battered face. In his opinion Hugh Stires was "playing a slick game." "Your view is colored by your prejudices, Devlin," said Felder. "He's been a blackleg in the past--granted. But give the devil his due. As for the other ugly tale, there's no more evidence against him than there is against you or me!" "They didn't find the body on _my_ ground," had been the other's surly retort, "and _I_ didn't clear out the day before, either!" The phenomenon, however, whether credited or pooh-poohed, was a drawing card. More than a few found occasion to climb the mountain by the hillside trail that skirted the lonely cabin. These, as likely as not, saw Prendergast lounging in the doorway smoking, while the younger man worked, leading a trench along the brow of the hill to bring the water from its intake--which Harry's quick eye had seen was practicable--and digging through the shale and gravel to the bed-rock, to the sparse yellow grains that yielded themselves so grudgingly. Some of the pedestrians nodded, a few passed the time of day, and to each Harry returned his exact coin of salutation. The spectacle of Hugh Stires, who had been used to pass his days in the saloons and his nights in even less becoming resorts, turned practical miner, added a touch of _opera bouffe_ to the situation that, to a degree, modulated the rigor of dispraise. It was the consensus of opinion that the new Hugh Stires seemed vastly different from the old; that if he were "playing a game," it was a curious one. The casual espionage Prendergast observed with a scowl, as he watched Harry's labors--when he was at the cabin, for after the first few days he spent most of his time in haunts of his own in the town, returning only at meal-time, gruff and surly. Harry, however, recognized nothing unusual in the curious glances. He worked on, intent upon his own problem of dark contrasts.