Old Buck Sanderson looked straight at me with his shrewd old gray eyes and he said, “Pardner, I ain’t never seed them lyin’, thievin’, law hounds since. I ain’t never seed Mink since, leastways not so he could tell me nuthin’. I waited more’n two hours, then I goes out ter look fer Mink. There he wuz, lyin’ like dead, near that there ellum, with a big cut in his forehead. I carries him to our cabin ’n’ he comes to, ’n’ don’t remember nuthin’. After that he was possessed. He was always huntin’ fer the money. He don’t know where he put it, that’s what he says. He was plum, clean gone, crazy as a loon after that. ’Long ’baout a year after that, he wanders away ’n’ I ain’t seed or heerd nuthin’ of him since.” He ceased and I glanced about the scene, unable for a moment or so to speak. “You searched in the well, of course?” I asked. “Sure fer certain,” says he. “But ’tweren’t no need, fer them law hounds got it. They knocked Mink’s senses out and got it. They got my pardner and they got our money. I jes’ soon drop a game warden as a skunk. I calls ’em skunks but that ain’t no way ter talk ’baout skunks--hey Junie? That ain’t no way to talk ’baout them nice, little animals what I made yer a purty fur collar out of, now is it?” The young girl had come running to him as we approached the cabin, and it was pretty to see how she clung to him as they walked. “Junie ain’t er goin’ ter no Home along while ole Grandpa Buck is ’raoun’, is she now? Junie, she knows more ’baout the woods ’n all them dum’ fool scout boys put tergether. Ain’t she a nice little girl--that’s Junie.” It was a pretty picture; perhaps it was all the prettier because there was a shadow behind it. For old Buck Sanderson was not going to be in his old hunting ground much longer. He was going to another hunting ground--the Happy Hunting Ground, as the Indians called it. And what about little June Sanderson then? CHAPTER VII—June and December It was now mid-afternoon and I could not linger at old Buck’s cabin. But I sat upon the doorstep with him for a few minutes while he performed on that cartridge shell instrument of his. I actually saw him lure one of those noisy bluejays almost within reach of his arm, and I think he would have captured it if his granddaughter had not laughed aloud at my astonishment.