ey call 'em. I los' the
trail amongst the rocks an' ledges down todes the cave--though it's more
like one o' them tunnels we-uns used ter go through in the railroads in
the army, but this one was never made with hands; jes' hollowed out by
Sinking Creek. So I got Jube thar ter crope through, an' view ef thar
war any hoofmarks on t'other side whar the cave opens out in Greenbrier
Cove."

"An' a body would think fur sure ez the armies o' hell had been spewed
out'n that black hole," said a lean man whom the glance of the
blacksmith had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of a
racking cough that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its
violence. "Hoofmarks hyar--hoofmarks thar--as if they didn't rightly
know which way ter go in the marshy ground 'bout Sinking Creek. But at
last they 'peared ter git tergether, an' off they tracked ter the
west----" A paroxysm of coughs intervened, and the attention of the
group failed to follow the words that they interspersed.

"They tuk a short cut through the Cove--they warn't in it a haffen
hour," stipulated the prudent miller. "They came an' went like a flash.
Nobody seen 'em 'cept the Brusies, kase they went by thar house--an' ef
they hed hed a guide, old Randal Brusie would hev named it."

"Ackert 'lows he'll hang the guide ef he ketches him," said the
blacksmith, in a tone of awe. "Leastwise that's the word that's 'goin'."

Poor Ethelinda! The clutch of cold horror about her heart seemed to stop
its pulsations for a moment. She saw the still mountains whirl about the
horizon as if in some weird bewitchment. Her nerveless hands loosened
their clasp upon the sley and it fell to the ground, clattering on the
protruding roots of the trees. The sound attracted the miller's
attention. He fixed his eyes warily upon her, a sudden thought looking
out from their network of wrinkles.

"You didn't see no guide whenst they slipped past you-uns' house, did
ye?"

Poor, unwilling casuist! She had an instinct for the truth in its purest
sense, the innate impulse toward the verities unspoiled by the taint of
sophistication. Perhaps in the restricted conditions of her life she had
never before had adequate temptation to a subterfuge. Even now,
consciously reddening, her eyes drooping before the combined gaze of her
little world, she had an inward protest of the literal exactness of her
phrase. "Naw sir--I never seen thar guide."

"Thar now, what did I tell you!" the miller