"It hain't rained--durned ef I know when it was!" chattered Granny Wolfe. "Wisht I may die ef ever I seed another sech a dry summer and fall sence I was borned. Would ye gi' me a match, Little Buck, honey? This here contrary old pipe it's gone out ag'in." "Why not have a cigar?" Whitney Fair suggested sportively, drawing a light-brown weed from a vest pocket. "I be consarned ef I don't try it oncet, anyhow!" laughed the garrulous old woman. "I allus would try 'most anything oncet." She applied a burning match to the cigar, and went to puffing with all her might, greatly to Whitney Fair's amusement. "Yes," Alex Singleton agreed seriously, "it's too dry fo' a dawg to trail good. A feller just couldn't catfoot atter squirrels at all now! But these here folks they're all dead sot on a 'possum-hunt, and I've done j'ined my symp'thies wi' their'n. The's a lot o' pe'simmon-trees jest a-hangin' full down thar clost to whar yore little railroad meets the big railroad, and we might find a 'possum or two in them trees 'thout havin' to depend on the dawg to trail. And as the steam hain't went down in the ingyne yit, we wondered ef we couldn't have what Miss Alice thar calls a 'scursion as well as a 'possum-hunt. We could put some chairs on a lumber flat, ye know." "Come along, like a good fellow," urged Fair, smiling a cold smile that temporarily effaced the cleft from his chin. "The safe will be all right, won't it?" "I don't see why it shouldn't be," Wolfe answered. He threw off his weariness, and entered into the spirit of the thing. "I'll run up to the mill and get the locomotive and a flat," he continued, "and pick you up somewhere on the track below. While you're waiting for me, Alex, you might ask my mother for half a dozen chairs, and get about two lanterns ready, eh?" Singleton nodded joyously. The seven callers and the dog then hastened into the cool, starry night. [Illustration] Wolfe shaved himself and put on his one presentable suit of clothing, which required fifteen minutes. When this was done, he thrust a pair of buckskin gloves and a small flashlight into his pocket, and hurried toward the mill. His brother Nathan, the watchman, challenged him faithfully. He instructed Nathan in case of trouble to call Weaver, who was now the mill's foreman, and who stayed at the big and rough boarding-house that had been erected for the accommodation of the "furriners" of the operating crew. Then Wolfe went to the geared locomotive, threw fresh coal into the furnace, and coupled to a lumber flat. He met the others at a point close to the new dwelling that was to be given to his father, and took them aboard. Alex Singleton rode on the fireman's seat with his dog in his lap.