owing and grimacing at the
world below, albeit seen by no human being except perchance some
dweller at the little house on the spur, struck aghast by this
unwelcome apparition evoked by the necromancy of the breeze and the
sheen and the shadow, marking this as an unlucky day.

"That's right smart o' a cur'osity, ain't it?" said Constant Hite
complacently, as they jogged along. "When the last gover'mint survey
fellers went through hyar, they war plumb smitten by the ole 'oman,
an' spent cornsider'ble time a-stare-gazin' at her. They 'lowed they
hed never seen the beat."

"What was the survey for?" asked the town man, with keen mundane
interest.

Constant Hite was rarely at a loss. When other men were fain to come
to a pause for the lack of information, the resources of his agile
substitutions and speculations were made manifest. "They war jes'
runnin' a few lines hyar an' thar," he said negligently. "They lef'
some tall striped poles planted in the ground, red an' sich colors,
ter mark the way; an' them mounting folks over yander in the
furderest coves,--they air powerful ahint the times,--they hed never
hearn o' sech ez a survey, noway, an' the poles jes' 'peared ter them
sprung up thar like Jonah's gourd in a single night, ez ef they kem
from seed; an' the folks, they 'lowed 't war the sign o' a new war."
He laughed lazily at the uninstructed terrors of the unsophisticated
denizens of the "furderest coves." "They'd gather around an'
stare-gaze at the poles, an' wonder if they'd hev ter fight the Rebs
agin; them folks is mos'ly Union." Then his interest in the subject
quickening, "Them survey fellers, they ondertook, too, ter medjure the
tallness o' some o' the mountings fur the gover'mint. Now what good is
that goin' ter do the Nunited States?" he resumed grudgingly. "The
mountings kin be medjured by the eye,--look a-yander." He pointed with
the end of his whip at a section of the horizon, visible between the
fringed and low-swaying boughs of hemlock and fir as the trail swept
closer to the verge of the range, on which was softly painted, as on
ivory and with an enameled lustre, two or three great azure domes,
with here and there the high white clouds of a clear day nestling
flakelike on the summits. "They air jes' all-fired high, an' that's
all. Do it make 'em seem enny taller ter say they air six thousand or
seben thousand feet? Man ain't used ter medjurin' by the thousand
feet. When he gits ter the ground he goe