ane
behind him. The vision was again before him. The bewitching smile, the
great rows of pearly white teeth, the dimples in either cheek, he saw,
though she sat somewhere in the dark recesses of that little old cabin.
But this did not deter him. He spoke of the great prospect for another
crop, while the old man leaned against a fence post and occasionally
spit a stream of dark red tobacco juice.

Once he took deliberate aim at a young chick and missed him about a half
inch. He would have drowned him had he hit the mark.

"Ye haint got chickens down ter yer shanty?" said the old man
questioningly.

Wade had a few old hens and a rooster, he said. The hens were not
laying,--they were not the laying sort,--but he hoped to raise a few
chickens along just for his own pleasure, to get diversion from other
duties. He spoke so kindly and firmly that Peter Judson thought he was
going to like him, unless he took to different ways, unless he was
"agin" the poor man, unless he "mout do something terrible." There was a
chance that he was all right and there was a chance that he was all
wrong. The "Wolf, Night-Watch," had discovered things that did not at
all seem right, and until they were proved false or true an opinion
would not be entertained. While one talked with him, there arose a doubt
as to whether the Wolf, Night-Watch, might not be utterly mistaken. That
would be determined later. For the present he was perfectly all right.

Wade was also making discoveries of which he thought his neighbors knew
nothing. He was in the community, he told Judson, to aid and assist his
neighbors, especially those who showed an inclination to assist him and
a friendliness toward him. He had sufficient funds, he said, to enable
him to go through life easily, and therefore his sole aim was _not_ to
make money, but to regain lost health. Old Peter opened wide his eyes,
making occasional replies.

Though thoroughly uneducated, Peter Judson was no fool by any means, and
he had a mathematical way of his own to figure out problems which
confronted him in every-day life. He was plain, but staunch, was glad to
know his neighbor, and hoped he would call often. They were immediate
neighbors, he said, and should be friends: Peter even invited Wade to
come back and take dinner, and Wade accepted, pleased with the
opportunity that should lead him into the family of which he desired to
learn more. He wanted to know their home life, their inmost thoughts,