his
prospective host's mail at the Cross-Roads, some fifteen miles distant
and the nearest post-office, such being the courtesy of the region. A
visitor often insured a welcome by thus voluntarily expediting the
delivery of the mail some days, or perhaps some weeks, before its
recipient could have hoped to receive it otherwise. Hanway had long
been cognizant of this habit of the Cross-Roads postmaster to accede
to such requests on the part of reputable people, but he was reminded
forcibly of it the next morning. A neighbor, homeward bound from a
visit to the valley, had paused at Hanway's house to leave a letter,
with which he had charged himself, addressed to Selwyn.

"I 'lowed ye mought be ridin' over thar some day, bein' ez ye air
toler'ble nigh neighbors," he said.

And Hanway the more willingly undertook the delivery of the missive
since it afforded him a pretext for the reconnoissance which he had
already contemplated.

Rain-clouds had succeeded those fine aerial flauntings of the sunset
splendors, and he set out in the pervasive drizzle of a gray day. Torn
and ragged with the rain and the gusts, the white mist seemed to come
to meet him along the vistas of the dreary dripping woods. The tall
trees that shut off the sky loomed loftily through it. Sometimes, as
the wind quickened, it deployed in great luminously white columns,
following the invisible curves of the atmospheric current; and anon,
in flaky detached fragments, it fled dispersed down the avenues like
the scattered stragglers of a routed army. The wind was having the
best of the contest; and though it still rained when he reached the
vicinity of Alan Selwyn's lonely dwelling, the mist was gone, the
clouds were all resolved into the steady fall of the torrents, and the
little house on the slope of the mountain and all its surroundings
were visible.

A log cabin it was, containing two rooms and the unaccustomed luxury
of glass windows; so new that the hewn cedar logs had not yet
weathered to the habitual dull gray tone, but glowed jauntily red as
the timbers alternated with the white and yellow daubing. A stanch
stone chimney seemed an unnecessary note of ostentation, since the
more usual structure of clay and sticks might serve as well. It
reminded Ben Hanway that its occupant was not native to the place, and
whetted anew his curiosity as he looked about, the reins on his
horse's neck in his slow approach. It was a sheltered spot; the great
mountai