When the girl reached this ravine she skirted its edge until she should come to a place where an easier descent could be made into its shadowy depths, and had gone but a little way along its rim when, on glancing through an opening between the bushes, she caught sight of her neighbor, Steve Judson, coming up the dry, rocky bed of the stream, which in the rainy season was changed into a brawling torrent. He had neither seen her nor heard her approach, and was quite unaware that anyone was near. Sophronia was just on the point of calling out and asking him to give her a helping hand in crossing the ravine, when something in his manner--a certain cautiousness of movement and an alertness of bearing--caught her attention and aroused her curiosity; so, keeping silent, she drew back amid the bushes and peered through a small space between the branches. Steve clambered up the rocky defile until he reached a spot almost opposite to where Sophronia stood concealed. After a cautious glance around, he drew from under his coat an object that looked, from her point of observation, like an ordinary fruit jar. He held the jar up in front of him a few moments, looking into it with close attention, turning it slowly around as he did so, then crossed over to the opposite side of the ravine, where, after placing his burden carefully at the foot of a cedar tree, he began to dig a hole in the ground near by. The earth was light and yielding--the rich deposit of leaf mold of many years accumulation--and in a short time a hole was dug sufficiently deep for its purpose, the jar was placed in it and covered with dirt. Some fallen leaves and loose pebbles were next scattered over the recently disturbed spot, and finally a large, flat rock laid just above the place where the jar had been buried. After another cautious look of inquiry about him, when Steve had arisen to his feet, he turned and went down the ravine in the direction of his house. Sophronia, wondering vainly what it was that her neighbor had hidden so carefully, and with such an air of secrecy, waited until he had been lost to sight amid the foliage, then slowly followed the course he had taken. Soon she reached her destination. The Judson home was but a humble one, a dilapidated log cabin perched on the top of a rocky hill that gradually descended to the ravine which its owner had but lately quitted. An air of neglect and shiftlessness hung heavily about the spot, for Steve was a person who would willingly sit for hours on a rail fence industriously whittling and talking politics, which was a favorite theme, but when it came to the driving of a needed nail in a loose plank, or repairing a break in a fence, he seldom had the time or inclination to engage in so prosaic an occupation. Selling off the stock was preferable to mending the fence, and when a shed tumbled down the broad canopy of heaven must thenceforth of necessity be a shelter.