taring at him. Even the singing, long-drawn vibrations of
the violin were still.

"By Hokey!" exclaimed the young musician, "I'll take Purdee's word ez
soon ez yourn."

The whiskey which Grinnell had drunk had rendered him more plastic still
to jealousy. The day was not so long past when Purdee's oath would have
been esteemed a poor dependence against the word of so zealous a brother
as he--a pillar in the church, a shining light of the congregation. He
noted the significant fact that it behooved him to justify himself; it
irked him that this was exacted as a tribute to Purdee's newly acquired
sanctity.

"Purdee's jes a-lyin' an' a-foolin' ye," he declared. "Ever been up on
the bald?"

They had lived in its shadow all their lives.

Even by the circuitous mountain ways it was not more than five miles
from where they sat. But none had chanced to have a call to go, and it
was to them as a foreign land to be explored.

"Waal, I hev, time an' agin," said Grinnell. "I dunno who gin them rocks
the name of Moses' tables o' the Law. Moses must hev hed a powerful
block an' tackle ter lift sech tremenjious rocks. I hev known 'em named
sech fur many a year. But I seen 'em not three weeks ago, an' thar ain't
nare word writ on 'em. Thar's the mounting; thar's the rocks; ye kin go
an' stare-gaze 'em an' sati'fy yerse'fs."

Whether it were by reason of the cumulative influences of the continual
references to the jug, or of that sense of reviviscence, that more alert
energy, which the cool Southern nights always impart after the sultry
summer days, the suggestion that they should go now and solve the
mystery, and meet the dawn upon the summit of the bald, found instant
acceptance, which it might not have secured in the stolid daylight.

The moon, splendid, a lustrous white encircled by a great halo of
translucent green, swung high above the duskily purple mountains. Below
in the valleys its progress was followed by an opalescent gossamer
presence that was like the overflowing fulness, the surplusage, of light
rather than mist. The shadows of the great trees were interlaced with
dazzling silver gleams. The night was almost as bright as the day,
but cool and dank, full of sylvan fragrance and restful silence and a
romantic liberty.

The blacksmith carried his rifle, for wolves were often abroad in the
wilderness. Two or three others were similarly armed; the advanced
thinker had a hunting-knife, Job Grinnell a pistol that went