The difficulty of explaining to him the rule about those who die intestate and the claims of unknown heirs was too much for poor Tom and even for Brent, so they sent for me (whom they had ridiculed because of my prosaic habits) to help them out of this rather puzzling sequel to their adventure. I drove up because I apprehended certain other difficulties as well. Here was an old, homeless man escaped from an institution and living, unknown to the authorities, with two young treasure-seekers at Rattlesnake Gulch. Clearly a mature intelligence was needed there, and I think I have that, even if I am not a seeker of wild adventure. I left my car in Sandyfield, parked where I had parked it on that fateful first visit to the Gulch, and Tom met me and piloted me to the cabin. That part of the neighborhood which had not been burned was so thickly grown with brush that I hardly knew it for the same place I had visited in the spring. I think I never saw a spot so wild, so forbidding, so apparently remote; it was terrible. Old Mink seemed to fit well in those surroundings, but, of course, it was out of the question to leave him there. We did, however, leave him in his beloved old cabin in the care of several Boy Scouts, while we pushed our way back through wood and jungle to Sandyfield and drove to Kingston. Heaven help the poor old man, he had questions enough to answer that day. * * * * * Well, there is little more to tell you. I wired out west that we had old Mink and was able, I am glad to say, to inaugurate certain arrangements which resulted in his being placed in the Pinewoods Home for old people, of which my good friend Mr. John Temple was the founder. There he is living in patriarchal glory and his fifteen hundred dollars has gone to the institution. Whenever I drive past the beautiful place, almost hidden in the fragrant pines, I stop and see him, and sometimes I think his memory grows more clear. But he remembers things only in mass (if I may use such an expression) which is all that is to be hoped for, I suppose, considering his ninety-two years. I always take him tobacco for the pipe which I think is the only thing of my acquaintance older than he. We found little June Sanderson to be another one of those unfortunates (of which Spiffy is the shining type) that the world does not understand. At least, the orphan asylum in Kingston did not understand her. I think that she never ceased to think of her forest home--and her beloved rattlesnakes, as Brent says. Even the knowledge that she was an heiress to the amount of fifteen hundred dollars did not seem to comfort her. She cried when she saw me, and cried more when I reminded her how she had “scared me about snakes,” and clung to me and did not want me to go. So then we went to Aunt Martha’s. She was sitting on her little porch and seemed quite overwhelmed as we stopped before the house.