atter that the postmaster, half-irritated, half-nervous,
detailed it to the mail-rider. "Tank 'lows ez he put it into the mail
hyar himself!"

Peter Petrie, a lowering-eyed, severe-visaged, square-jawed man, gave
Tank Dysart only a glance of ire from under his hat-brim, as if the
matter were not worth the waste of a word.

Dysart, wreck though he was, had not yet lost all conscience. He was in
an agony of remorse and doubt. It kept him sober longer than he had been
for five years, for he was a professed drunkard and idler, scarcely
considered responsible. He could not be sure that he had experienced
aught which he seemed to remember--he hoped it was all only his drunken
fancy, for what could have been the fate of the child subject to the
freaks of his imbecile folly? He was reassured to hear no rumors of a
lost child, and yet so definite were the images of his recollection that
they must needs constrain his credulity.

He felt it in the nature of a rescue one day when, as he chanced to join
a group of gossips loitering around the fire of the forge, he heard the
smith ask casually: "Who is that thar baby visitin' at Peter Petrie's
over yander acrost Storm Mounting?"

"Gran'child, I reckon," suggested his big-boned, bare-armed, soot-grimed
striker.

"Peter Petrie hain't got nare gran'-child," said one of the loungers.

Tank, sober for once, held his breath to listen.

"Behaves powerful like a gran'dad," observed the smith, holding a
horseshoe with the tongs in the fire while the striker laid hold on the
bellows and the sighing sound surged to and fro and the white blaze
flared forth, showing the interested faces of the group in the dusky
smithy, and among them the horse whose shoe was making, while another
stood at the open door defined against the snow. "Behaves like he ain't
got a mite o' sense. I war goin' by thar one day las' week an' I
stepped up on the porch ter pass the time o' day with Pete an' his wife,
an' the door war open. An' what d'ye s'pose I seen? Old Peter Petrie
a-goin' round the floor on all fours, an' a-settin' on his back war a
baby--powerful peart youngster--jes' a-grinnin' an' a-whoopin' an'
a-poundin' old Peter with a whip! An' Pete galloped, he did! Didn't seem
beset with them rheumatics he used ter talk about--peartest leetle
'possum of a baby!"

Tank Dysart lost no time in his investigations and he had the courage of
his convictions. He did not scruple to call Peter Petrie to his face a