the heart of the woods; but Nick
Peters could well enough pretermit his surprise and whatever spiritual
terrors might assail him till a more convenient season for their
indulgence. A more immediate danger menaced him than the bodily
appearance of the devil, which he had momently expected as he gazed at
the flaming water. He had seen the others of his own party
approaching, and he walked quickly across the clear space to Persimmon
Sneed. He was a little, slim, wiry man, with light, sleek hair, pink
cheeks, high cheek-bones, and a bony but blunt nose. He had a light
eye, gray, shallow, but inscrutable, and there was something feline in
his aspect and glance, at once smooth and caressing and of latent
fierceness.

"Why, Mr. Persimmon Sneed," he exclaimed in a voice as bland as a
summer's day, "how did you-uns an' yer frien's do sech ez that?" and
he pointed at the flaring pyramid on the surface of the water.

Persimmon Sneed, in his proclivity to argument, forgot his lack of a
pistol and his difficult position, unarmed and alone.

"I'll hev ye ter remember I hev no dealin's with the devil. I dunno
how that water war set afire, nor my friends nuther," he said stiffly.

"Whar air they?"

Nick Peters's keen, discerning eye had been covertly scanning the
flickering shadows and the fluctuating slants of yellow light about
them. Now he boldly threw his glance over his shoulder.

Persimmon Sneed caught himself sharply.

"They ain't hyar-abouts," he said gruffly, on his guard once more.

A look of apprehension crossed the horse-thief's face. The denial was
in the nature of an affirmation to his alert suspicion; for it is one
of the woes of the wicked that, knowing no truth themselves, they
cannot recognize it in others, even in a transient way, as a chance
acquaintance. He must needs have heed. A number of men, doubtless,
well armed, were in the immediate vicinity. As he whirled himself
lightly half around on his spurred heel, his manner did not conform to
his look.

"Did you-uns an' them kem all the way from the valley ter view the
blazin' spring?" he asked. "Looks some like hell-fire," he added
incidentally, and with the tone of one familiar with the resemblance
he descried.

"Naw; we-uns never hearn on it afore; I jes' run on it accidental,"
Sneed replied succinctly, hardly daring to trust himself to an
unnecessary word; for the staring men that had gathered at a
respectful distance about the blazing spring number