Alf said
ter come quick."

Once more Jim promised.

The two men holding the lantern out in the porch watched him as he
pounded down the dark road, his tow hair sticking out of his tattered
black hat, the ends of his comforter flaunting in the breeze, and every
gesture showing the agitated haste of a witch-scared boy. Then they
looked at each other significantly, and laughed loud and long.

"He'll tell sech a crooked tale ter-morrer that Alf Coggin an' his dad
will see sights along o' that traveler's money!" said Brierwood,
gloating over his sharp management as he and his accomplice mounted
their horses and rode off in opposite directions.

When Jim reached Tom Brent's house, and knocked at the door, he was so
absorbed in his terrors that, as it opened, he said nothing for a
moment. He could see the family group within. Tom's father was placidly
smoking. His palsied "gran'dad" shook in his chair in the chimney-corner
as he told the wide-eyed boys big tales about the "Injuns" that harried
the early settlers in Tennessee.

"Tom," Jim said, glancing up at the big boy,--"Tom, thar's a witch
waitin' fur ye at the sulphur spring! Go thar, quick!"

"Not ef I knows what's good fur me!" protested Tom, with a great
horse-laugh. "What ails ye, boy? Ye talk like ye war teched in the
head!"

"I went ter say ez Alf Coggin air thar waitin' fur ye," Jim began again,
nodding his slandered head with great solemnity, "an' tole me ter tell
ye ter kem thar quick."

He took no heed of the inaccuracy of the message; he was glancing
fearfully over his shoulder, and the next minute scuttled down the road
in a bee-line for home.

Tom hurried off briskly through the woods. "Waal, sir! I'm mighty nigh
crazed ter know what Alf Coggin kin want o' me; goin' coon-huntin',
mebbe," he speculated, as he drew within sight of an old
lightning-scathed tree which stood beside the sulphur spring and
stretched up, stark and white, in the dim light.

The clouds were blowing away from a densely instarred sky; the moon was
hardly more than a crescent and dipping low in the west, but he could
see the sombre outline of the opposite mountain, and the white mists
that shifted in a ghostly and elusive fashion along the summit. The
night was still, save for a late katydid, spared by the frost, and
piping shrilly.

He experienced a terrible shock of surprise when a sudden voice--a voice
he had never heard before--cried out sharply, "Hello there! Help! help