lurements of
science outstripped merely mundane considerations that the stranger's
recent doubts and anxieties touching his animal were altogether
forgotten, and he was conscious only of a responsive expectant
interest,--"air thar ennything in that thar 'formation,' ez ye calls
it ez could gin out fire?"

"No, certainly not," said the man of science, surprised, and marking
the eager, insistent look in Hite's eyes. Both horses were at a
standstill now. A jay-bird clanged out its wild woodsy cry from the
dense shadows of a fern-brake far in the woods on the right, and they
heard the muffled trickling of water, falling on mossy stones hard by,
from a spring so slight as to be only a silver thread. The trees far
below waved in the wind, and a faint dryadic sibilant singing sounded
a measure or so, and grew fainter in the lulling of the breeze, and
sunk to silence.

"Ennyhow," persisted Hite, "won't sech yearth gin out light
somehows,--in some conditions sech ez ye talk 'bout?" he added
vaguely.

"Spontaneously? Certainly not," the stranger replied, preserving his
erect pose of inquiring and expectant attention.

"Why, then the mounting's 'witched sure enough,--that's all," said
Hite desperately. He cast off his hold on the stranger's horse, caught
up his reins anew, and made ready to fare onward forthwith.

"Does fire ever show there?" demanded his companion wonderingly.

"It's a plumb meracle, it's a plumb mystery," declared Constant Hite,
as they went abreast into the dense shadow of the closing woods. "I
asked ye this 'kase ez ye 'peared ter sense so much in rocks, an'
weeds, an' birds, an' sile, what ain't revealed ter the mortal eye in
gineral, ye mought be able ter gin some nateral reason fur that thar
sile up thar round the old witch-face ter show fire or sech. But it's
beyond yer knowin' or the knowin' o' enny mortal, I reckon."

"How does the fire show?" persisted the man of science, with keen and
attentive interest. "And who has seen it?"

"Stranger," said Hite, lowering his voice, "I hev viewed it, myself.
But fust it war viewed by the Hanways,--them ez lives in that house on
the spur what prongs out o' the range nigh opposite the slope o' the
Witch-Face. One dark night,--thar war no moon, but thar warn't no
storm, jes' a dull clouded black sky, ez late August weather will show
whenst it be heavy an' sultry,--all of a suddenty, ez the Hanway
fambly war settin' on the porch toler'ble late in the night, t