"Boys! Hey! what's that dog a draggin' out from 'mong the peach trees? Snake, by the Eturnal!--a rattler too! The hound ain't killed that varmint himself?" The old hunter, yielding to curiosity, or some undeclared impulse, stepped down from the porch, and out to where the hound had come to a stop, and was standing by the body of the snake. Driving the dog aside, he stooped over the dead reptile to examine it. "Shot through the skull!" he muttered to himself; "an' wi' a rifle, o' sixty to the pound. That ere's been a hunter's gun. Who ked it be? It's been done this side of the crik, too; seems as the dog hain't wetted a hair in fetchin' o't." Turning along the trail of the snake--which, to his experienced eye, was discernible in the grass--he followed it, till he came to the spot where the snake had been killed. "Shot hyar for sartin. Yes; thar's the score o' the bullet arter it had passed through the varmint's brainpan; an' thar's the shoe track o' him as fired the shot. No boy that; but a full growed man! Who the durnation hez been trespassin' 'mong my peach trees?" He bent down over the track, and carefully scrutinised them. Then rising erect, he followed them to the bank of the creek, where he saw the same footprints, more conspicuously outlined in the mud. "Stranger for sartin!" muttered he; "no sich futmark as that 'beout these settlements--not as I know on. Who the durnation kin it a-been?" It was strange he should take so much trouble about a circumstance so slight; or show such anxiety to discover who had been the intruder. He was evidently uneasy about something of more importance to him than the trespass among his peach trees. "That gurl must a heerd the shot plainer than she's been tellin' me o', an' seed more'n she's confessed to. Thar's somethin' on her mind, I hain't been able to make out any how. She shall be put thro' a chapter o' kattykism." "Lena, gurl!" he continued, going back towards the porch, still occupied by his daughter; "d'ye mean to say ye seed nobody beout hyar to-day?" "I see some one now," said she; by the rarest bit of good luck enabled to evade giving an answer to the question. "See some un now! Whar?" "There, a friend of yours, coming along the lane." "Alf Brandon!" exclaimed the old hunter, hurrying forth to receive the individual then announced; and who, astride a sleek horse, was seen riding leisurely in the direction of the house. For Lena Rook it was an opportune arrival; and, for a time at least, she was spared that threatened "chapter o' kattykism." STORY ONE, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. AN ANGRY ADMIRER. For the first time in her life, Lena Rook saw Alfred Brandon approach her father's house without a feeling of pain or repulsion. Though for years he had been the most solicitous of her suitors, she felt for him something more than contempt.