the
surrounding landscape, when she saw the door open and a man come out.
She gave a little gasp of astonishment as her eyes followed this man,
who slowly took the path to the bridge, from whence the road led into
the village.

CHAPTER III
THE FOLKS ACROSS THE RIVER

Her first glance told the girl that here was a distinctly unusual
personage. His very appearance was quaint enough to excite comment from
a stranger. It must have been away back in the revolutionary days when
men daily wore coats cut in this fashion, straight across the
waist-line in front and with two long tails flapping behind. Modern
"dress coats" were much like it, to be sure, but this was of a faded
blue-bottle color and had brass buttons and a frayed velvet collar on it.
His trousers were tight-fitting below the knee and he wore gaiters and
a wide-brimmed silk hat that rivaled his own age and had doubtless seen
happier days.

Mary Louise couldn't see all these details from her seat in the
pavilion across the river, but she was near enough to observe the
general effect of the old man's antiquated costume and it amazed her.

Yes, he was old, nearly as ancient as his apparel, the girl decided;
but although he moved with slow deliberation his gait was not feeble,
by any means. With hands clasped behind him and head slightly bowed, as
if in meditation, he paced the length of the well-worn path, reached
the bridge and disappeared down the road toward the village.

"That," said a voice beside her, "is the Pooh-Bah of Cragg's Crossing.
It is old Cragg himself."

Gran'pa Jim was leaning against the outer breast of the pavilion, book
in hand.

"You startled me," she said, "but no more than that queer old man did.
Was the village named after him, Gran'pa?"

"I suppose so; or after his father, perhaps, for the place seems even
older than old Cragg. He has an 'office' in a bare little room over the
store, and I rented this place from him. Whatever his former fortunes
may have been--and I imagine the Craggs once owned all the land about
here--old Hezekiah seems reduced to a bare existence."

"Perhaps," suggested Mary Louise, "he inherited those clothes with the
land, from his father. Isn't it an absurd costume, Gran'pa Jim? And in
these days of advanced civilization, too! Of course old Hezekiah Cragg
is not strong mentally or he would refuse to make a laughingstock of
himself in that way."

Colonel Hathaway stared across the river for a time witho