“_Whar’s Sam’l Keale?_” Jepson asked the question, and then looked casually across the road and the stream at the great vermilion sun going down behind the long summit line, far, far away, of Walden’s Ridge,—how finely outlined, how delicate in hue, against the flushed horizon. The mountains close around loomed sombre, purple, silent, and mysterious, sharers in none of these ethereal graces of color. On the rocky banks of the stream, here and there, felled trees were lying; one protruded far into the water, and was green with moss and dank with ooze. It stirred suddenly, for some water animal had sprung upon it, then splashed again into the current, as Bowles’s old dog rushed out of the cornfield with a shrill, sharp bark of discovery. His master’s eyes followed him absently, while with a quivering tail and alert ears he patrolled the banks hither and thither, now and again uttering his sharp cry, varied with wheezes of disappointment. “_Whar’s—Sam’l—Keale?_” Jepson demanded again, significantly, and once more waited for an answer. Neither of the other men spoke. The wind stirred; an acorn dropped with a sharp thud from a chestnut-oak; a locust was shrilling from a pawpaw tree. “Ef ye’ll tell me ennywhar Sam’l Keale _kin_ be, I’ll gin it up. Now jes’ look-a-hyar,” he argued. “Them two fellers—nobody knowed then what they war arter, but it kem out on the trial—got it inter thar heads ez thar war some silver mines in the mountings. An’ they sets out ter find one.” His lip curled. “So day arter day they leaves thar plows in the furrow, an’ goes a-sarchin’ fur the silver mine. An’ one day nare one o’ ’em kems back. A plumb week goes by. An’ then hyar kems Baintree nigh starved with a-wanderin’ in the woods, an’ with a big tale ’bout Sam’l hevin’ fell down a hole ez ’peared ter be the mouth o’ a cave, an’ he couldn’t hear nuthin’ from him, though Baintree hollered an’ hollered. An’ he war afeard the law’d take arter him, kase they war a-scufflin’ whenst Sam’l slipped an’ fell. Waal, the folks tuk arter him fur not hevin’ kem straight ter tell,—lef’ the critter thar in the cave ter starve or drown. None o’ that fooled me!” He broke off abruptly. Ben Bowles pulled his hay-colored beard with meditative fingers. “Ye b’lieve Sam’l war dead fust, an’ then war flung down inter the cave.” Jepson knit his brows fiercely. “Percisely.” “Ye ’low, ef he warn’t, Baintree would hev been powerful quick ter skeet out’n them woods an’ git somebody ter holp him git Sam’l out, ’thout waitin’ a week!” “Jes’ so!” The constable put in suddenly; his loyalty to the law was enlisted, and he felt it his bounden duty to support its decisions with the weight of his personal opinion. “Baintree ’lowed Sam war dead, or hed sunk spang through the yearth, kase he wouldn’t answer. The boy war _afeard_ ter tell. He wouldn’t even tell a-fust ez they war a-scufflin’ an’ a-playin’. An’ ez the jury ’lowed he warn’t guilty, I feel ez ef he ought ter be let ter go.”