est and explanation as they passed and repassed the windows.
Preble Key smiled, Parker shrugged his shoulders.

"He'll be thinkin' you've begrudged him your grub if you don't--that's
the way with these business men," said Uncle Dick's voice in one of
these intervals. Presently they reentered the house, Uncle Dick saying
casually to Parker, "You can leave that draft on the bar when you're
ready to go to-morrow;" and the incident was presumed to have ended.
But Collinson did not glance in the direction of Parker for the rest of
the evening; and, indeed, standing with his back to the chimney, more
than once fell into that stolid abstraction which was supposed to be
the contemplation of his absent wife.

From this silence, which became infectious, the three guests were
suddenly aroused by a furious clattering down the steep descent of the
mountain, along the trail they had just ridden! It came near,
increasing in sound, until it even seemed to scatter the fine gravel of
the river-bed against the sides of the house, and then passed in a gust
of wind that shook the roof and roared in the chimney. With one common
impulse the three travelers rose and went to the door. They opened it
to a blackness that seemed to stand as another and an iron door before
them, but to nothing else.

"Somebody went by then," said Uncle Dick, turning to Collinson. "Didn't
you hear it?"

"Nary," said Collinson patiently, without moving from the chimney.

"What in God's name was it, then?"

"Only some of them boulders you loosed coming down. It's touch and go
with them for days after. When I first came here I used to start up
and rush out into the road--like as you would--yellin' and screechin'
after folks that never was there and never went by. Then it got kinder
monotonous, and I'd lie still and let 'em slide. Why, one night I'd a'
sworn that some one pulled up with a yell and shook the door. But I
sort of allowed to myself that whatever it was, it wasn't wantin' to
eat, drink, sleep, or it would come in, and I hadn't any call to
interfere. And in the mornin' I found a rock as big as that box, lying
chock-a-block agin the door. Then I knowed I was right."

Preble Key remained looking from the door.

"There's a glow in the sky over Big Canyon," he said, with a meaning
glance at Uncle Dick.

"Saw it an hour ago," said Collinson. "It must be the woods afire just
round the bend above the canyon. Whoever goes to Skinner's had better