I asked him how long ago it was that his partner, Mink Havers, had become possessed. The nearest he could come to it was that it was twenty or thirty years, or perhaps more. He seemed to remember events and places better than dates. “Well, and what happened to Mink?” I asked him. “It was a heap o’ years ago leastways,” he said. “I come back from Noo York with three thousand dollars. These scout boy youngsters thinks hunters ain’t never got nuthin’ but their guns. I come back with three thousand dollars--a bit more, even. I wuz always the one ter go ter Noo York ’count o’ bein’ more cityfied; good at the bargaining.” I smiled inwardly at the thought of his being “cityfied.” “Yes, and then?” I encouraged. He continued, “Me’n Mink wuz livin’ in the cabin, same as you’ll see, ’n’ he wuz waitin’ fer me ter come back. Barney Wythe’s gang, they wuz there ter see him--low, sneaky varmints they wuz, every one on ’em. He was the wust. Yer know the likes o’ that tribe--game wardens----” “Oh,” I said. “They wuz tellin’ him we had a heap o’ prohibit furs. They says they wuz watchin’ on us.” I was tactful enough to refrain from asking him if this were true. “They wuz turnin’ the cabin outer winders huntin’ ’n’ pawin’ roun’, ’n’ all the while me comin’ back from Noo York with three thousand dollars. That wuz pay fer three stocks, that wuz; Pollock he weren’t so regular, but honest, I’ll say that. He went ter Europe owin’ us close on a thousand, he did.” It occurred to me that the enterprising Pollock could ill have afforded to cheat these distant associates. “Well,” he continued, “they leaves the cabin mad ’n’ pricked up like a ole porkeypine. They says they’d ketch us yet ’n’ hev us behind bars. I comes up from Suffern ’n’ cuts through along Torne Brook, never knowin’! I heads it east up by Conklin Cabin ’n’ aroun’ Pine Meadow Mountain and ’long Woodtown Trail. There wuz Mink a-waitin’ fer me right where the trail goes by Green Swamp. He says, ‘Barney Wythe’s gang wuz ter the cabin ’n’ overhauled us complete; smoked out the place like we wuz woodchucks.’ I says, ‘Well, they didn’ get nuthin’.’ Mink says, ‘No, but they’re comin’ agin ’n’ we ain’t goin’ ter fetch that money ter the cabin, not yet, Buck,’ he says. ‘They’ll want the whole on it, they will, ter leave us free, they will.’ “Well, I told him he was right in that way of it and good he come out like he did ter meet me. ‘But,’ I says, ‘I ain’t goin’ ter leave it roun’ Green Swamp here, yer can lay ter that. We want it near where we can keep a bead on it,’ I says. Wasn’ I right?” “I guess you were,” I said. “Well,” he continued, “we talked ’baout different places and I says Conner’s well is the best place--near and safe and all growed over.”