“Ye see, Skimpy,” he said, “my tongue don’t lay holt nat’rally ter the words, kase I hev got some things ter tell ez I ain’t right proud on.” He glanced down at the wondering, upturned face, with its eyes wide with anticipation, and its mouth opening as if to swallow, without the customary grain of salt, any big tale which might be told. “Ye hearn old Corbin say, yander at the store that day, ez I run durin’ the War. An’ I h’isted him up on the beam fur shamin’ me ’fore all them folks. Waal, I oughtn’t ter done it, kase ’twar true—_jes’ one time_! I felt powerful ’shamed ter hear ’bout it ag’in—plumb bowed down.” The crafty eyes scanning Skimpy’s ingenuous face saw that he was sympathetic. “War ain’t a healthy bizness, nohow,” continued Jerry. “But thar air lots o’ men, ez run heap more’n me, ez don’t hev it fetched up ag’in ’em every day. Lots o’ runnin’ war done in the War—but folks nowadays ginerally talks ’bout thar fightin’. Some nimble fellers showed their heels in them times—folks ez live right hyar in the Cove. But I be the only one ez hev got ter hear ’bout it in these days. It’s kase I’m pore, Skimp. Ef I hed a good cabin an’ right smart cornfield, an’ consider’ble head o’ stock, ye wouldn’t hear ’bout my runnin’ that time.” Cynicism is eminently infectious. Skimpy wagged his head significantly. “You wouldn’t indeed!” the gesture seemed to say. “They don’t like me jes’ kase I’m pore. An’ kase I’m pore they call me shif’less. I hev hed a heap o’ trouble; sech truck ez I hed I war obleeged ter spen’ fur doctors’ ’tendance on my wife, ez war ailin’ always, an’ arter all she died at last.” The unromantic Skimpy, meditating on the case, felt that at least the doctors’ bills were at an end. “An’ now I be homeless, an’ a wanderer, an’ hev my leetle gal ter feed. Folks actially want ter take her away from me. Ef ’twarn’t fur her, them Guythers wouldn’t let me stay thar a day.” Skimpy knew that this was true. Ike had confided so much to him of the family feeling on the matter. “An’ now folks in the Cove air a-fixin’ ter drive me out’n it—me an’ little Rosamondy. They can’t set the law onto me, fur I never done nothin’ ag’in it—so they be a-goin’ ter laff me out’n it. Ye wanter know whose ladder that is?” he broke off with apparent irrelevance. Skimpy nodded an eager assent. “It’s old Corbin’s, I’ll be bound, an’ I’ll tell ye why I ’low sech; no man but him kin do sech a job. Waal, ye know what he wants it fur? He wants somebody ez be light an’ handy ter climb up Keedon Bluffs by it ter them hollows. An’ ye wanter know what fur? Ter git suthin’ ez air hid in one o’ ’em. An’ ye wanter know what that be?” Skimpy’s face in the closing dusk might have been cut out of stone, so white and set it was—such a petrified expectancy upon it. The man’s eyes glittered as he held his own face nearer and spoke in a hissing whisper, albeit in the lonely wilderness none could hear his words.