"Well, of course I knowed he didn't have no dad--or at least it didn't seem possible--but jest to snoop into things and git to look around I went up the trail to the house. It was one jest like this, with the doors and windows sealed, but when I looked in there was an old, old man, sharpening a butcher-knife across his shin. He was so old and dried up there warn't no skin on his shin bone and his back was bent plumb to his knees. By grab, I was skeered--it didn't look natural--but of course I never let on. "'Hello!' I says, 'what are you whipping your kid for? He's down there crying his heart out.' "'Well, I don't keer,' he says, 'he's got to quit pestering his grand-pap. The old man is gitting feeble and don't like to be disturbed, and that boy is always pelting him with stones.' "'Where is the old man?' I asks at last, and he points to a room in behind. "It was one jest like this--you couldn't hardly see and it smelled kind of dead-like and close--and when I looked around I couldn't find nothing but an old, dried-up bundle of bones. Well, I tiptoed my way out of there and I says to the old timer--the one that was trimming his corns: "'Your father ain't alive--he's _dead_!' "'No he ain't!' he says, 'he only seems that way. But you take him down and throw him into the crick and let him soak for a while and he'll tell you about things that happened _a thousand years ago_!'" Meshackatee threw back his head and joined in the laugh which followed his _chef-d'œuvre_ and then he leaned over and nodded at Hall while he took him into confidence with a wink. "On the level, now," he said, "ain't you an officer of the law? You've sure got that man-hunter look. No? Nothing like that? Well, all right then, I'll quit guessing--you was going in to join the Bassetts." He nodded again, wisely, but the stranger shook his head and tugged at his bonds impatiently.