“Laws-a-massy, Owen Haines,” she exclaimed, “ye better lef’ be that thar juggler-man, ez ye calls him! He could throw you-uns over his shoulder. Ye’ll git inter trouble, meddlin’. Phemie be plumb delighted with her ch’ice, an’ a gal hev got a right ter make a ch’ice wunst in her life, ennyhows.” He sought now and again to stem the tide of her words, but only when a breathless wheeze silenced her he found opportunity to protest that he meant no harm to the juggler, and he held no grudge against Euphemia; that he was the bearer of intelligence important to the juggler, and she would do her guest a favor to disclose his whereabouts. There were several added creases--they could hardly be called wrinkles--in Mrs. Sims’s face of late, and a certain fine network of lines had been drawn about her eyes. She was anxious, troubled, irritated, all at once, and entertained her own views touching the admission of the fact of the juggler’s frequent and lengthened absence from his beloved. Euphemia’s fascinations for him were evidently on the wane, and although he was gentle and considerate and almost humble when he was at the house, he seemed listless and melancholy, and had grown silent and unobservant, and they had all marked the change. “We-uns kin hardly git shet o’ the boy,” said Mrs. Sims easily, lying in an able-bodied fashion. “But I do b’lieve ter-day ez he hev tuk heart o’ grace an’ gone a-huntin’.” Owen Haines’s countenance fell. Of what avail to follow at haphazard in the vastness of the mountain wilderness? There was naught for him to do but return to his work, and wait till nightfall might bring home the man he sought. Meantime, the sheriff was as near as ’Possum Cross-Roads, only twelve miles down the valley. Peter Knowles would probably give the information which he had tried to depute to the supplanted lover. Haines did not doubt now the juggler’s innocence, but he appreciated the cruel ingenuity of perverse circumstances, and he had felt the venom of malice. Thus it was that he had sought to warn the man of the discovery which Peter Knowles had made, and of the very serious construction he was disposed to place upon the facts. XIII.