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 took no disadvantage from his lowly posture.
His head was red, and as it moved erratically about in the gloom, Watt
Wyatt thought for a moment that it was the smith's red setter. He
grinned as he resolved that some day he would tell the fellow this as a
pleasing gibe; but the thought was arrested by the sound of his own
name.

"Waal, sir," said the dealer, pausing in shuffling the cards, "I s'pose
ye hev all hearn 'bout Walter Wyatt's takin' off."

"An' none too soon, sartain." A sour visage was glimpsed beneath the
wide brim of the speaker's hat.

"Waal," drawled the semblance of the setter from deep in the
clare-obscure, "Watt war jes a fool from lack o' sense."

"That kind o' fool can't be cured," said another of the players. Then he
sharply adjured the dealer. "Look out what ye be doin'! Ye hev gimme
_two_ kyerds."

"'Gene Barker will git ter marry Minta Elladine Riggs now, I reckon,"
suggested the man on the anvil.

"An' I'll dance at the weddin' with right good will an' a nimble toe,"
declared the dealer, vivaciously. "I'll be glad ter see that couple
settled. That gal couldn't make up her mind ter let Walter Wyatt go, an'
yit no woman in her senses would hev been willin' ter marry him. He war
ez onresponsible ez--ez--fox-fire."

"An' ez onstiddy ez a harricane," commented another.