ar caught a sound, or, rather, a confused mingling of
sounds, as of men digging in the earth. It was faint, and some distance
beyond us in the heart of the beech woods, but as we traveled the sound
increased and I could distinguish the strokes of the mattock, and the
thrust of the shovel and the clatter of the earth on the dry leaves.

These sounds seemed at first to be before us, and then, a little later,
off on our right-hand. And finally, through the gray boles of the beech
trees in the lowland, I saw two men at work digging a pit. They had just
begun their work, for there was little earth thrown out. But there was a
great heap of leaves that they had cleared away, and heavy cakes of the
baked crust that the mattocks had pried up. The length of the pit lay at
right angles to the road, and the men were working with their backs
towards us. They were in their shirts and trousers, and the heavy
mottled shadows thrown by the beech limbs hovered on their backs and
shoulders like a flock of night birds. The earth was baked and hard; the
mattock rang on it, and among the noises of their work they did not hear
us.

I saw Abner look off at this strange labor, his head half turned, but he
did not stop and we went on. The old wagon-road made a turn into the low
ground. I heard the sound of horses, and a moment later we came upon a
dozen men.

I shall not easily forget that scene. The beech trees had been deadened
by some settler who had chopped a ring around them, and they stood gaunt
with a few tattered leaves, letting the weird twilight in. Some of the
men stood about, others sat on the fallen trees, and others in their
saddles. But upon every man of that grim company there was the air and
aspect of one who waits for something to be finished.

An old man with a heavy iron-gray beard smoked a pipe, puffing out great
mouthfuls of smoke with a sort of deliberate energy; another whittled a
stick, cutting a bull with horns, and shaping his work with the nicest
care; and still another traced letters on the pommel of his saddle with
his thumb-nail.

A little to one side a great pronged beech thrust out a gray arm, and
under it two men sat on their horses, their elbows strapped to their
bodies and their mouths gagged with a saddle-cloth. And behind them a
man in his saddle was working with a colt halter, unraveling the twine
that bound the head-piece and seeking thereby to get a greater length
of rope.

[Illustration: "SOME OF