"Wal," drawled the mountain guide, "who'd er thought er seein' a chap lack that heah? Whar'd you come from anyways?" This was familiar vernacular, and Steve, rising slowly from the ground, and allowing Tige to make friendly acquaintance with the strangers, said: "I lives at Hollow Hut and I comes over here whenever I pleases. Whar'd you uns come from?" The man gave a hearty but musical laugh at the ready dignity of the reply, but the boy's mouth dropped once more in consternation, as words came again in crisp, foreign accent. "I came from the city, my lad, to get some of your fine quail and deer. You are willing I should have a few, are you not? My friend here is showing me the way." The mountain folk had proved a most entertaining study for this sportsman, and his interest was ready for each new specimen encountered. Turning to the guide he said: "Suppose we lunch here," and taking out his watch continued, "yes, it is high time; twelve thirty to the minute." The boy stepped forward involuntarily for a look at the queer, pretty thing in the man's hand. "What's that?" he asked. "Why, that's a watch, son. Didn't you ever see one?" said the man kindly. The guide smiled derisively: "Wal, I reckons not," while the boy, too interested for reply, asked again: "What's a watch?" and the man with his genial laugh said: "Son, we will be greatly pleased if you will take lunch with us. My name is Polk, Samuel Polk," he said, touching his cap with the unfailing courtesy of a true gentleman. "And after we eat I will show you the watch and tell you all about it." But the mountaineer does not readily eat with "furriners," so Steve stood near by and looked on while the two men ate very strange things. Little cans were opened and tiny fish taken out that looked exceedingly queer. Mr. Polk, trying to persuade the boy to eat, explained that these were sardines, some square, white things were crackers, a thick stuff was cheese and that some big, round, yellow things were oranges. But Steve only stared in silence till the meal was over though Tige, with no instinctive handicap, accepted delicious scraps with astonishment and relish. So amazed, however, had the boy been with it all that he nearly forgot about the watch. But when he remembered and the man let him take it in his rusty, brown fingers, that was the most wonderful moment of all. The tick, tick inside was a marvel, almost a thing uncanny to the boy, and when it was explained how the hands went round and round, telling the time of day, it surely seemed a thing beyond mortal ken. The guide drawled out with a superior air: "Wal, sonny, you come from the backwoods shore ef you never heerd tell of a watch before."