Ike looked at the flickering white flames for a moment, at the pulsing red coals, at the vacillating brown shadows. Rosamondy had rushed into the shed-room to exhibit her imitation of Ike to his mother and aunt Jemima. He listened to the chorus of voices for a moment, then he said, “I dunno but what I’m foolish, uncle Ab, but I hearn what ye tole Jerry Binwell jes’ now ’bout whar ye hid the Squair’s money-box, an’—an’ I wisht ye hedn’t done it.” “What fur?” the blind man lifted his face lighted with sudden interest, “ye be ’feared ez he mought ’low it’s thar yit an’ go arter it an’ git his neck bruk.” Ike moved uneasily. “That’s jes’ the reason he tried to keep me an’ Skimpy Sawyer from climbin’ down thar one evenin’—fust time I ever seen him; tried ter skeer we-uns with witches an’ sech. The Squair’s money-box air what he war arter, I be bound, the night o’ the coon hunt whenst I cotch him thar. I’m feared he’ll git it. I dunno what to do! I s’picioned suthin’, but I never ’lowed ’twar money. He’ll git arrested ef he don’t mind.” “I wisht he would,” said Abner; he chuckled fiercely and fell to revolving his old grudges. “Waal, I’d hate that mightily,” said Ike dolorously, “arrested out’n we-uns’s house. I war goin’ ter tell dad nex’ day, but he war gone ’fore I got home. I wisht Jerry Binwell bed never kem hyar!” “Why, Ike,” Abner retorted cogently, “then leetle Rosamondy would never hev kem!” “I seen old Corbin an’ the constable with thar heads mighty close tergether ter-day,” Ike went on drearily, “an’ arterward I passed down the river-bank on the opposite side ter Keedon Bluffs, an’ I see the constable a-hidin’ hisself in a clump o’ sour-wood. I dunno what ter do. I feel ’sponsible, somehows. I don’t want him ter git the money—a thievin’ scamp—and yit I don’t want him ter git arrested.” He paused in astonishment. Abner Guyther was laughing in sardonic delight. “He ain’t goin’ ter git the money!” he cried. “An’ I dunno nobody ez needs arrestin’ ez bad ez he do—somebody oughter scotch his wheel, sartain! G’long, Ike; g’long ter bed. An’ quit addlin’ yer brains ’bout’n yer elders.”