Lawrence County was the world, and game, wood, and huckleberries the fulness thereof; all beyond was like the reaches of space unexplored and mysterious. God was only a word--one may almost say--and mostly part of a compound adjective; hell was Ogdensburg, to which he had once journeyed; and the devil was Colonel Jedson. This latter opinion, it should be said, grew out of an hour in which the Colonel had bullied him in the witness-chair, and not to any lasting resemblance. As to Ogdensburg itself, the hunter had based his judgment upon evidence which, to say the least, was inconclusive. When Sile and the city first met, they regarded each other with extreme curiosity. A famous hunter, as he moved along the street with rifle, pack, and panther-skin, Sile was trying to see everything, and everything seemed to be trying to see Sile. The city was amused while the watchful eye of Silas grew weary and his bosom filled with distrust. One tipsy man offered him a jack-knife as a compliment to the length of his nose, and before he could escape a new acquaintance had wrongfully borrowed his watch. His conclusions regarding the city were now fully formed. He broke with it suddenly, and struck out across country and tramped sixty miles without a rest. Ever after the thought of Ogdensburg revived memories of confusion, headache, and irreparable loss. So, it is said, when he heard the minister describing hell one Sunday at the little school-house in Pitkin, he had no doubt either of its existence or its location. All this, however, relates to antecedent years of our history--years which may not be wholly neglected if one is to understand what follows them. After the death of his sister--the late Mrs. Gordon--Strong began to read his Bible and to cut his trails of thought further and further towards his final destination. A deeper reverence and a more correct notion of the devil rewarded his labor. It must be added that his meditations led him to one remarkable conclusion--namely, that all women were angels. His parents had left him nothing save a maiden sister named Cynthia, and characterized by some as "a reg'lar human panther." "Wherever Sile is they's panthers," said a guide once, in the little store at Pitkin. "Don't make no dif'er'nce whuther he's t' home er in the woods," said another, solemnly. That was when God owned the wilderness and kept there a goodly number of his big cats, four of which had fallen before the rifle of Strong. Cynthia, in his view, had a special sanctity, but there was another woman whom he regarded with great tenderness--a cheery-faced maiden lady of his own age and of the name of Annette.