nd feet in height, betokening the untiring
energy of the eroding currents of centuries agone. This agency,
however, man might not summon to his aid, being "the act of God,"
to use the pious language of the express companies to describe
certain contingencies for which they very properly decline the
responsibility. Against the preemptions of the gigantic forests and
the gaunt impassable crags and the abysmal river might be enlisted
only such enterprise as was latent in the male inhabitants of the
vicinity over eighteen years of age and under fifty, thus subject to
the duty of working on the public roads. Nevertheless, the county
court had, in a moment of sanguine exuberance, entertained and granted
an application from the adjacent landowners to order a jury of view to
lay out a public road and to report at the next quarterly session.

Precursors of the jury of view in some sort two young people might
have seemed, one afternoon, a fortnight, perhaps, after the inquest,
as they pushed through the woody tangles to the cliffs high above the
river, the opposite bank of which was much nearer than the swirling
currents, crystal brown in the romantic shadows below. They walked in
single file, the jury of view in their minds, and now and then
referred to in their sparse speech.

"Mought make it along hyar, Ben." The girl, in advance, paused,
bareheaded, each uplifted hand holding out a string of her white
sunbonnet, which, thus distended, was poised, winglike, behind the
rough tangle of auburn hair and against the amber sky. She turned as
she spoke, to face her companion, taking a step or two backward as she
awaited his answer.

"Look out how ye air a-walkin', Narcissa! Ye'll go over the bluff
back'ards, fust thing ye know," the man called out eagerly, and with a
break of anxiety in his voice.

She stretched the sunbonnet still wider with her upreaching arms, and
with a smile of tantalizing glee, showing her white teeth and
narrowing her brown eyes, she continued to walk backward toward the
precipice,--with short steps, however; cautious enough, doubtless, but
calculated to alarm one whose affection had given much acuteness to
fear.

Still at too great a distance for interference, Ben affected
indifference. "We-uns'll hev the coroner's jury hyar agin, afore the
jury o' view, ef ye keep on; an' ye ain't got on yer bes' caliker
coat, noways."

He climbed swiftly up the ascent and joined her, out of breath and
with an angry