“Oh, yes,” the old man said with instant intelligence, “the Leatherwood God.” “Yes,” the other eagerly assented. “I was told, at your county seat, that I could learn all about it if I asked for Squire Braile, here.” “I am Matthew Braile,” the old man said with dignity, and the stranger returned with a certain apology in his laugh: “I must confess that I suspected as much, and I'm ashamed not to have frankly asked at once.” “Better 'light,”--the Squire condoned whatever offense there might have been in the uncandor. “I don't often get the chance to talk of our famous imposture, and I can't let one slip through my fingers. You must come in to supper, and if you smoke I can give you a pipe of our yellow tobacco, afterwards, and we can talk--” “But I should tire you with my questions. In the morning--” “We old men sometimes have a trick of not living till morning. You'd better take me while you can get me.” “Well, if you put it in that way,” the stranger said, and he slipped down from his saddle. The old man called out, “Here, Abel!” and the figure of what seemed an elderly boy came lurching and paddling round the corner of the cabin, and ducked his gray head hospitably toward the stranger. “Give this horse a feed while we're taking ours.” “All right, Squire. Jest helpin' Sally put the turkey-chicks to bed out o' the cold, or I'd 'a' been round at the first splashin' in the road.” “And now come in,” the Squire said, reaching a hand of welcome from the edge of the porch to the stranger as he mounted the steps. “Old neighbors of ours,” he explained Abel and the unseen Sally. “We've known them, boy and girl, from the beginning, and when their old cabin fell down in the tail-end of a tornado a few years back, we got them here in a new one behind ours, to take care of them, and let them take care of us. They don't eat with us,” he added, setting open the kitchen door, and ushering the stranger into the warm glow and smell of the interior. “Mis' Braile,” he said for introduction to his wife, and explained to her, “A friend that I caught on the wing. I don't know that I _did_ get your name?” “Mandeville--T. J. Mandeville; I'm from Cambridge.” “Thomas Jefferson, I suppose. Cambridge, Ohio--back here?” “Massachusetts.” “Well, you didn't sound like Ohio. I always like to make sure. Well, you must pull up. Mother, have you got anything fit to eat, this evening?” “You might try and see,” Mrs. Braile responded in what seemed their habitual banter. “Well, don't brag,” the Squire returned, and between them they welcomed the stranger to a meal that he said he had not tasted the like of in all his Western travel.