About noon Morton, who had followed an obscure and circuitous trail of which he knew nothing, drew near to a low log-house with deer's horns over the door, a sign that the cabin was devoted to hotel purposes--a place where a stranger might get a little food, a place to rest on the floor, and plenty of whiskey. There were a dozen horses hitched to trees about it, and Goodwin got down and went in from a spirit of idle curiosity. Certainly the place was not attractive. The landlord had a cut-throat way of looking closely at a guest from under his eye-brows; the guests all wore black beards, and Morton soon found reason to suspect that these beards were not indigenous. He was himself the object of much disagreeable scrutiny, but he could hardly restrain a mischievous smile at thought of the disappointment to which any highwayman was doomed who should attempt to rob him in his present penniless condition. The very worst that could happen would be the loss of Dolly and his rifle. It soon occurred to him that this lonely place was none other than "Brewer's Hole," one of the favorite resorts of Micajah Harp's noted band of desperadoes, a place into which few honest men ever ventured. One of the men presently stepped to the window, rested his foot upon the low sill, and taking up a piece of chalk, drew a line from the toe to the top of his boot.* Several others imitated him; and Morton, in a spirit of reckless mischief and adventure, took the chalk and marked his right boot in the same way. * In relating this incident, I give the local tradition as it is yet told in the neighborhood. It does not seem that chalking one's boot is a very prudent mode of recognizing the members of a secret band, but I do not suppose that men who follow a highwayman's life are very wise people. "Will you drink?" said the man who had first chalked his boot. Goodwin accepted the invitation, and as they stood near together, Morton could plainly discover the falseness of his companion's beard. Presently the man fixed his eyes on Goodwin and asked, in an indifferent tone: "Cut or carry?" "Carry," answered Morton, not knowing the meaning of the lingo, but finding himself in a predicament from which there was no escape but by drifting with the current. A few minutes later a bag, which seemed to contain some hundreds of dollars, was thrust into his hand, and Morton, not knowing what to do with it, thought best to "carry" it off. He mounted his mare and rode away in a direction opposite to that in which he had come. He had not gone more than three miles when he met Burchard. "Why, Burchard, how did you come here?" "Oh, I came by a short cut." But Burchard did not say that he had traveled in the night, to avoid observation. "Hello! Goodwin," cried Burchard, "you've got chalk on your boot! I hope you haven't joined the--"