the will that entailed the
Canaan Tigmores to the heirs, first of one and then the other, under the
following provisions: the land was to go to the male heirs of his sister
Nancy Peele, from oldest son to oldest son so long as there were male
heirs, provided that in each generation the oldest male representative
of Nancy married before he reached the age of thirty-five. If, in any
generation, Nancy's representative fails to marry at thirty-five, the
Canaan Tigmores pass to the male representative of Kate Peele, upon the
death of the man who failed. Nancy Peele married a Grierson, and so
pronounced was the inherited aversion to matrimony in the house of
Grierson that compliance with the terms of the will has lasted through
two generations only. The present Bruce Grierson let the time-limit
overtake and pass him twenty years ago, but, unmarried and grouchy, he
has stood between me and the Canaan Tigmores ever since. I don't count
until he dies, and not then unless I am married before I am thirty-five.
(However, I feel that I might be more disposed to meet the will's
requirements than the Griersons have been.)

The present Grierson is utterly unapproachable. He has not lived in this
section for many years. He is particularly unapproachable on the subject
of the Canaan Tigmores because he spent a great part of his youth
prospecting through these hills, hoping and being disappointed. At last
he turned his back upon Canaan, bitterly disillusioned, and he has been
a wanderer upon the face of the earth ever since, sometimes hunting gold
in the Rockies, sometimes after silver in Mexico. Half the time even
Madeira does not know where he is.

The queerest thing about the mining business, Carington, is the
"hunches." The Englishmen told me that down at Joplin a man would rather
have a dream that he walks two miles sou'-sou-west, turns around three
times on his heels and finds ore under his left heel, than to have a
geologist assure him that his house sits on a ledge of Cherokee
limestone that ought to be all right for zinc. I have met great numbers
of miners who are hunchers. The most interesting is a man named
Bernique, an old chap of education and refinement from St. Louis. He has
a hunch about the Canaan Tigmores--at least so far in my intercourse
with him I have not found anything more tangible than a hunch. I fell in
with him just before I reached Canaan, and though he then declared his
intention of being absent for some days