in one corner, on which a man was lying with his face to the wall.

"Feyther," said the boy, "I've brought the doctor to ye."

The man neither moved nor answered, and the doctor, going up to the bed,
was shocked to see that he was dead. He turned to Conny and asked, "Has
your father been long sick?"

"Always sick, sir. He couldn't work at the North, and they told him if
he came here the air would cure him, and the smell of the trees, but he
coughed just the same."

"Where is your mother?"

"Dead, sir."

"And there is no one but you and your father?"

"Only us two, sir."

"Conny," said the doctor, slowly, "I am afraid your father is dead."

Conny did not answer for a moment, but his thin brown face settled into
a look of disappointment.

"He said he should die, sir, and nothing could save him, but I thought
maybe if you came-- Couldn't you try something? They brought Black Joe
round when he'd been long in the water, and was dead and cold--brought
him round with rubbing, and stuff they put in his mouth. Isn't there
something in your box that'll do it?"

"Nothing," said the doctor; "he is quite dead, my boy. You had better
come with me, and I will send some one to attend to your father."

But no persuasion could induce Conny to leave the cabin, and the doctor
was forced to return without him. For a quiet man, the doctor was
greatly excited over the mystery of the little cabin, but old Timothy
said, coolly, "That would be Sandy McConnell: one o' the moonshiners:
varmint, all on 'em."

"But, Timothy, some one must see that he has a decent burial, and if
you'll take a couple of men with you, and go down there--"

"Wait till to-morrow morning," said Timothy, significantly. "The birds
of the air 'tend to their own funerals."

A terrific storm that swept over the mountains that afternoon compelled
the doctor to follow Timothy's advice. The next morning, when they
succeeded, with much difficulty, in finding their way through the
tangle, the cabin was empty of every trace of human occupancy, and
almost seemed as if it might have been undisturbed since the
wood-choppers abandoned it. Under a great pine, a few rods away, they
found a new-made grave, carefully sodded, and bound over, in old-country
fashion, with green withes.

"The moonshiners have buried him," said Timothy. "I told ye, sor, they'd
see to their own funerals."

"I wish I knew what had become of the boy," said the doctor, as they
slowly picked th