The tall pines were whispering together in the soft wind as unconcernedly as if it had been seven days instead of seven years since the soldiers had stood on that spot before, and the tinkling stream below was still chinking on its way like silver coins in a vault. At first Philip mounted the seat beside Tom Zachary, and took charge of the fowls jolting in a yellow, croaking mass between his feet, except the old paralyzed rooster, which he earned tenderly in his lap. He was too excited to ride, however, and presently he got down and walked with the others. At every stage of the descent the soldiers were learning new facts about the war, which made their return to the United States a triumphal and delirious progress. By the time they reached the hill-pastures where they were greeted by some of the very same copper bells that had startled the cavalcade going up, they began to be joined by the people who had heard of their discovery. They came in twos, and threes, and whole families, to swell their train, so that when they turned into the sandy road through the valley they were attended by a joyous procession of curious followers, which steadily increased until the cart, with the bear shambling alongside, came to a stand by the woodpile of Elder Long, misnamed Shifless. Philip took off his bell-crowned hat right and left to the women; and Lieutenant Coleman greeted Aunt Lucy, who leaned on her crutches at the gate among the purple cabbage-heads, with the stately courtesy he had learned at West Point. Riley Hooper mounted the woodpile, and announced, with a merry twinkle in his eye, that he and Tom had captured the "harnts" that had been "doin'" the ghost business so long on old Whiteside; at which Aunt Lucy glared through her spectacles as if the remark were a personal affront to her, and the elder exclaimed fervently, "May the Lord's will be done!" When presently the mail-carrier came along in his one-horse gig, Lieutenant Coleman wrote a hurried despatch to the adjutant-general of the army, announcing the relief of his station, and the cask containing the treasure was committed to the carrier's charge, to be sent on by express, as if it were only the commonest piece of luggage. When the sun disappeared behind the mountain, ushering in the long twilight in the valley, the crowd was still increasing, and one of the last to arrive was the old postmaster from the Cove. When he came the soldiers and their deliverers were seated with the elder's family about the supper-table in the kitchen, where the neighbors lined the walls and filled the doors and windows, eager to hear more of the life on the mountain.