Louisiana Theodosia Singleton blushed and said nothing. Little Buck's grandmother was now convinced. "Well ef it ain't you, shore enough," she cried. "Now didn't I tell yore contrary old pap 'at somebody was a-comin' hongry? But who'd ever ha' dreamp' you'd grow from the pesky boy you used to be into the fine-lookin' man ye are! You shore do 'mind me o' yore pore grandpap when he used to come to see me afore we was married. Look at him, Tot Singleton; don't you reelly think he's jest grand-lookin'?" "You--you're a-doin' the talkin' now, Granny," said Tot Singleton, visibly embarrassed. Wolfe smiled. But only for a moment. There came from somewhere near the foot of Lost Trail Mountain an old and broken voice that seemed a part of the peacefulness of the eternal hills; an old and broken voice that was filled with the holiness of a benediction: "'_And, lo, the star, which they saw in the East, went before them----_'" III "That was pore Grandpap Bill Singleton 'at hollered," explained the old woman, putting her right hand up to meet that of her kinsman. "We calls him the 'Prophet', Little Buck." She emitted a tiny shriek at his grip; he had forgotten her rheumatism. He apologized quickly, and held his hand down toward the young woman who had been his boyhood sweetheart. Tot Singleton glanced straight into his eyes, seemed suddenly afraid of him, and ran swiftly homeward. Wolfe faced his garrulous grandmother again and opened his lips to speak, but she cut him off short. "Now don't that beat the devil? She acted like as ef she was afeared ye'd bite her head off, didn't she? Atwixt me and you, Little Buck, wimmen is sawt o' strange critturs. Say, dad-burn it, you jest wait here ontel I step back yander to the aidge o' the basin and git my stick, which same I draped--it lays at that 'ar slim poplar thar--and me and you we'll go to yore pap's house." Her grandson rode to the foot of the Lost Trail, recovered the sourwood staff and brought it to her. He dismounted then, and the two walked toward the settlement of the Wolfes, the horse following at the end of its rein. "And so you're a real, shore-enough officer o' the United States law!" proudly observed Granny Wolfe as they picked their way through a thin copse of sumach. "A deputy-sheriff, made that at the special request of the new Unaka Lumber Company, of which I am general manager," said Wolfe. He went on, "It was done in order that I might better protect the company's interests in the mountains. What lucky fellow got Tot Singleton, Granny?"