uated Mr. Harum.

"Most of our talk was on the subject of his duties and
responsibilities," was John's reply. ("Don't cal'late to let on any
more'n he cal'lates to," thought David to himself.)

"Allowed he run the hull shebang, didn't he?"

"He seemed to have a pretty large idea of what was required of one in
his place," admitted the witness.

"Kind o' friendly, was he?" asked David.

"Well," said John, "after we had talked for a while I said to him that I
was glad to think that he could have no unpleasant feeling toward me,
seeing that he had given up the place of his own preference, and he
assured me that he had none."

David turned and looked at John for an instant, with a twinkle in his
eye. The younger man returned the look and smiled slightly. David
laughed outright.

"I guess you've seen folks before," he remarked.

"I have never met any one exactly like Mr. Timson, I think," said our
friend with a slight laugh.

"Fortunitly them kind is rare," observed Mr. Harum dryly, rising and
going to his desk, from a drawer of which he produced a couple of
cigars, one of which he proffered to John, who, for the first time in
his life, during the next half hour regretted that he was a smoker.
David sat for two or three minutes puffing diligently, and then took the
weed out of his mouth and looked contemplatively at it.

"How do you like that cigar?" he inquired.

"It burns very nicely," said the victim. Mr. Harum emitted a cough which
was like a chuckle, or a chuckle which was like a cough, and relapsed
into silence again. Presently he turned his head, looked curiously at
the young man for a moment, and then turned his glance again to the
fire.

"I've ben wonderin' some," he said, "pertic'lerly since I see you, how
't was 't you wanted to come up here to Homeville. Gen'l Wolsey gin his
warrant, an' so I reckon you hadn't ben gettin' into no scrape nor
nothin'," and again he looked sharply at the young man at his side.

"Did the general say nothing of my affairs?" the latter asked.

"No," replied David, "all 't he said was in a gen'ral way that he'd
knowed you an' your folks a good while, an' he thought you'd be jest the
feller I was lookin' fer. Mebbe he reckoned that if you wanted your
story told, you'd ruther tell it yourself."

CHAPTER XIV.

Whatever might have been John's repugnance to making a confidant of the
man whom he had known but for half an hour, he acknowledged to himself
that the ot