height, and the
rail fences about its scanty inclosures hardly reached the dignity of
suggesting jackstraws. "Waal, the Hanways over thar hev a full view of
the old witch enny time she will show up at all. Folks in the
mountings 'low the day be onlucky when she appears on the slope thar.
The old folks at Hanway's will talk 'bout it cornsider'ble ef ye set
'em goin'; they hev seen thar time, an' it rests 'em some ter tell
'bout'n the spites they hev hed that they lay ter the witch-face."

The ugly fascination of the witch-face had laid hold, too, on the
stranger. Twice he had sought to photograph it, and Constant Hite had
watched him with an air of lenient indulgence to folly as he pottered
about, now adjusting his camera, now changing his place anew.

"And I believe I have got the whole amount of nothing at all," he said
at last, looking up breathlessly at the mountaineer. Albeit the wind
was fresh and the altitude great, the sun was hot on the unshaded red
clay path, and the nimble gyrations of the would-be artist brought
plentiful drops to his brow. He took off his straw hat, and mopped his
forehead with his handkerchief, while he stared wistfully at the siren
of his fancy, grimacing maliciously at him from the slope above. "If
the confounded old woman would hold still, and not disappear so
suddenly at the wrong minute, I'd have had her charming physiognomy
all correct. I believe I've spoiled my plates,--that's all." And once
more he mopped his bedewed forehead.

He was a man of thirty-five, perhaps, of the type that will never look
old or grow perceptibly gray. His hair was red and straight, and cut
close to his head. He had a long mustache of the same sanguine tint.
The sun had brought the blood near the surface of his thin skin, and
he looked hot and red, and thoroughly exasperated. His brown eyes were
disproportionately angry, considering the slight importance of his
enterprise. He was evidently a man of keen, quick temper, easily
aroused and nervous. His handsome, well-groomed horse was fractious,
and difficult for so impatient a rider to control. His equestrian
outfit once more attracted the covert glance of Con Hite, whose
experience and observation could duplicate no such attire. He was
tall, somewhat heavily built, and altogether a sufficiently stalwart
specimen of the genus "town man."

"I'll tell you what I'll do!" he exclaimed suddenly. "I'll sketch the
whole scene!"

"Now you're shoutin'," said Con