After he had eaten, he talked so rationally that Coleman and Bromley shook each other's hands and laughed immoderately at every slightest excuse for merriment, but said not a word of the delusion which had so lately darkened Philip's mind. They were so very jolly that Philip laughed weakly himself by infection, and then he asked them to tell him how he had fallen over the mountain without knowing it. In reply to this question, Coleman told him that he had been sick, and that he must have walked off the great rock in the thick fog. Philip was silent for a space, as if trying to digest this strange information, and then with some animation he said: "Look here, Fred! The funniest part of this whole dark business was when I had climbed up to the top of the great bank. There, alongside a hole in the snow, lay our telescope. When I put out my hand to take it, it rolled away through the opening in the snow; and the Lord forgive me, fellows, I heard it ring on the rocks at the bottom of the Cove." With this long speech, and without waiting for a reply, Philip fell off into a gentle doze. Coleman and Bromley, having no doubt now that Philip's mind was restored, because he seemed to have no recollection of the princess or of his strange behavior on the mountain for the year that was past, were very happy at this change in his condition. As to the telescope, they regarded its fall as a very dangerous matter, and a catastrophe which might bring them some unwelcome visitors. But, then, it was possible that it had fallen among inaccessible rocks, and would never be found at all. If any one should come to disturb them, they might hear of some unpleasant facts of which they would rather remain in ignorance. Now that nearly five years had passed since the great war, they thought that whoever came would not exult over them in an unbearable way, or rub insults into their wounds. They knew that some of the mountaineers had been Union men; and although they would never seek communication with them, a connection formed against their will might result to their advantage. They had a good supply of the double eagles left. Somebody held title to the mountain, they knew; and if the telescope did bring them visitors, they could buy the plateau from the deep gorge up, and pay in gold for it handsomely, too. Then they could send down their measures to a tailor and have new uniforms made to the buttons they had saved--that is, if the tailor was not a secessionist too hot-headed to soil his hands with the uniform of the old, mutilated, and disgraced Union. Then, too, they could buy seeds and books and a great many comforts to make their lives more enjoyable on the mountain.