nted with me by sight----"

"Then they'd hev been skeered out'n thar boots, that's all," interrupted
the self-sufficient 'Gene. "They would hev 'lowed they hed viewed yer
brazen ghost, bold ez brass, standin' at the head of yer own
coffin-box."

"Or mebbe they mought hev recognized the Wyatt favor, ef they warn't
acquainted with _me_," persisted Watt, with his unique sense of injury.

Eugene Barker defended the temerity of his inspiration. "They would hev
jes thought ye war kin ter the deceased, an' attendin' him ter his long
home."

"'Gene don't keer much fur ye ter be alive nohow, Watt Wyatt," one of
the others suggested tactlessly, "'count o' Minta Elladine Riggs."

Eugene Barker's off-hand phrase was incongruous with his sudden gravity
and his evident rancor as he declared: "_I_ ain't carin' fur sech ez
Watt Wyatt. An' they _do_ say in the cove that Minta Elladine Riggs hev
gin him the mitten, anyhow, on account of his gamesome ways, playin'
kyerds, a-bettin' his money, drinkin' apple-jack, an' sech."

The newly constituted ghost roused himself with great vitality as if to
retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes
widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he
pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of the coffin was the
simulacrum of the figure of a man.

One of his comrades, seated on the tailboard of the wagon, had discerned
a significance in the abrupt silence. As he turned, he, too, caught a
fleeting glimpse of that weird image on the coffin-lid. But he was of a
more mundane pulse. The apparition roused in him only a wonder whence
could come this shadow in the midst of the moon-flooded road. He lifted
his eyes to the verge of the bluff above, and there he descried an
indistinct human form, which suddenly disappeared as he looked, and at
that moment the simulacrum vanished from the lid of the box.

The mystery was of instant elucidation. They were suspected, followed.
The number of their pursuers of course they could not divine, but at
least one of the revenue-officers had trailed the wagon between the
precipice and the great wall of the ascent on the right, which had
gradually dwindled to a diminished height. Deep gullies were here and
there washed out by recent rains, and one of these indentations might
have afforded an active man access to the summit. Thus the pursuer had
evidently kept abreast of them, speeding along in great leaps through
the