once more came majestically into view, freighted with
fancies and heading for the haven of the purple western shores.

In one of these clearances of the mists a light of an alien type caught
the eye of the wandering spectre--a light, red, mundane, of prosaic
suggestion. It filtered through the crevice of a small batten shutter.

The ghost paused, his head speculatively askew. "Who sits so late at the
forge!" he marvelled, for he was now near the base of the mountain, and
he recognized the low, dark building looming through the mists, its roof
aslant, its chimney cold, the big doors closed, the shutter fast. As
he neared the place a sudden shrill guffaw smote the air, followed by a
deep, gruff tone of disconcerted remonstrance. Certain cabalistic words
made the matter plain.

"High, Low, Jack, _and_ game! Fork! Fork!" Once more there arose a high
falsetto shriek of jubilant laughter.

Walter Wyatt crept noiselessly down the steep slant toward the shutter.
He had no sense of intrusion, for he was often one of the merry blades
wont to congregate at the forge at night and take a hand at cards,
despite the adverse sentiment of the cove and the vigilance of the
constable of the district, bent on enforcing the laws prohibiting
gaming. As Wyatt stood at the crevice of the shutter the whole interior
was distinct before him--the disabled wagon-wheels against the walls,
the horse-shoes on a rod across the window, the great hood of the forge,
the silent bellows, with its long, motionless handle. A kerosene lamp,
perched on the elevated hearth of the forge, illumined the group of wild
young mountaineers clustered about a barrel on the head of which the
cards were dealt. There were no chairs; one of the gamesters sat on a
keg of nails; another on an inverted splint basket; two on a rude bench
that was wont to be placed outside the door for the accommodation
of customers waiting for a horse to be shod or a plow to be laid. An
onlooker, not yet so proficient as to attain his ambition of admission
to the play, had mounted the anvil, and from this coign of vantage
beheld all the outspread landscape of the "hands." More than once his
indiscreet, inadvertent betrayal of some incident of his survey of the
cards menaced him with a broken head. More innocuous to the interests of
the play was a wight humbly ensconced on the shoeing-stool, which
barely brought his head to the level of the board; but as he was densely
ignorant of the game, he