The sun was gone. The mountains, darkly glooming, rose high above the Cove on every side, seeming to touch the translucent amber sky that, despite the sunken sun, conserved an effect of illumination heightened by contrast with the fringes of hemlock and pine, that had assumed a sombre purple hue, waving against its crystalline concave. In this suffusion of reflected color, rather than in the medium of daylight, he beheld the scanty fields below in the funnel-like basin; for this projecting spur near the base of the range gave an outlook over the lower levels at hand. Some cows, he could discern, were still wending homeward along an undulating red clay road, which rose and fell till the woods intervened. The woods were black. Night was afoot there amongst the shadowy boughs, for all the golden glow of the feigning sky. The evening mists were adrift along the ravines. Ever and anon the flames flickered out, red and yellow, from the heap of logs. Not a sound stirred the group as they pondered on this strange reply, till Ormsby said reflectively, “The juggler be toler’ble good comp’ny, though,--nuthin’ like the devil an’ sech; leastwise, so much ez I know ’bout Satan,”--he seemed to defer to the superior acquaintanceship of Knowles. “This hyar valley-man talks powerful pleasant; an’ he kin sing,--jes’ set up an’ sing like a plumb red-headed mock-in’bird, that’s what! You-uns hearn him sing at the show,”--he turned from Knowles to appeal to the rest of the group. “Did he ’pear ter you-uns, whilst huntin’, ter try enny charms an’ spells on the wild critters?” asked Knowles. “They didn’t work ef he did!” exclaimed Jack Ormsby, with a great gush of laughter that startled the echoes into weird unmirthful response. “He shot one yallerhammer arter travelin’ nigh ten mile ter git him.” After a pause, “I gin him the best chance at a deer I ever hed. I never see a feller hev the ‘buck ager’ so bad. He never witched that deer. He shot plumb two feet too high. She jes’ went a-bouncin’ by him down the mounting,--bouncin’ yit, I reckon! But he kin shoot toler’ble fair at a mark.” The ready laughter again lighted his face. “He ’lows he likes a mark ter shoot at kase it stands still. He’s plumb pleasant comp’ny sure.” “Waal, he ain’t been sech powerful pleasant comp’ny down ter my house,” protested Tubal Sims. “Ain’t got a word ter say, an’ ’pears like he ain’t got the heart ter eat a mouthful o’ vittles. Yander he hev been a-lyin’ flat on them wet rocks all ter-day, with no mo’ keer o’ the rheumatics ’n ef he war a bullfrog,--a-feeshin’ in the ruver with a hook ’thout no bait on it.” “What’d he ketch?” demanded one of the men, with a quick glance of alarm. Miracles for the purpose of exhibition and cutting a dash they esteemed far less repellent to the moral sense than the use of uncommon powers to serve the ordinary purposes of daily life.