Returning from the fringes of the woodland, after confiding my scribbled advices to our courier, my way led me under the shoulder of the bluff above Cold Springs. There, right where the water came seeping out through the bank of tawny gravel, I came upon a picture which is one of the pictures that have endured in reasonably vivid colours on the background of my mind. The bole of an uptorn gum tree spanned a half-moon depression at the verge of the spring. Upon the butt end of the log, where an upended snag of root made a natural rest for his broad back, was perched Judge Priest. His plump legs hugged the rounded trunk. In one hand he held a pint flask and in the other a tin cup, which lately must have contained burgoo. A short distance down the tree from him sat old Doctor Lake, without any bottle, but with the twin to Judge Priest's tin cup poised accurately upon one of his bony knees. Behind these two, snugly screening them in, was a wall of green and yellow grape leaves. Through the vines the sunlight filtered in, to make a mellow flood about them. Through the leaves, also, came distantly the sound of the present speaker's voice and, at frequent intervals, cheering. There was to be heard a gentle tinkling of cracked ice. A persuasive odour of corn distillations perfumed the languid air. All through the glade nuts were dropping from the hickories, with sharp little reports. It was a picture, all right enough! My feet made rustlings in the leaves. Judge Priest squinted over his glasses to see who the intruder upon their woodland privacy might be. “Why, howdy, son!” he hailed. “How's everything with you?” He didn't offer to share his store of refreshment with me. I never knew him to give a very young man a drink or to accept a drink from such a one. Doctor Lake raised his cup to stir its contents and nodded in my direction over it. “The big speech of the day has just got started good, gentlemen,” I said. “Didn't you-all know it?” “Yes; we knowed it,” answered the old Judge; “in fact, we heared the beginnin' of it. That's one reason why me and Lew Lake come on away. The other reason was that Lew run acrost a little patch of late mint down here by the spring. So we slipped off frum the crowd and come on down here to sort of take things nice and easy till it gits time to be startin' back toward the city.” “Why, I thought he was a mighty fine speaker, from what I heard right after Mr. Prentiss introduced him,” I said.