rhood.

"Yes, New York," answered Hamilton.

But the stranger did not show any further curiosity and Hamilton was
puzzled to account for his general listlessness. He thought perhaps it
might be that the boy was unusually dull and so he asked:

"Are you still going to school?"

A negative shake of the head was the only reply.

"Why not? Isn't there a school near where you live?"

"Close handy, 'bout five miles," was the reply.

"Then why don't you go there?" questioned Hamilton further.

"Teacheh's gone."

"Funny time for holidays," the city boy remarked.

"Not gone fo' holidays."

"Oh, I see," said Hamilton, "you mean he's gone for good. But aren't you
going to have another one?"

"Dunno if he's gone for good," the mountain boy answered.

Hamilton stared in bewilderment.

"Cunjer got him," the other continued.

But this did not explain things any better.

"Cunjer?" repeated Hamilton. "You mean magic?"

The mountain boy nodded.

"Yes, cunjer," he affirmed.

"You're fooling, aren't you?" said Hamilton questioningly, "you can't
mean it. I never heard of 'cunjer' as a real thing. There's lots about
it in books, of course, but those are fairy tales and things of that
sort."

"An' yo' never saw a cunjer?"

"Of course not."

"Reckon they don' know as much in cities as they think they do," the
youngster retorted.

"Just what do you mean by 'cunjer'?" asked Hamilton, knowing that it
would be useless to argue the conditions of a modern city with a boy who
had never seen one.

"Bein' able to put a cunjer on, so's the one yo' cunjer has got to do
anythin' yo' want."

"Sort of hypnotism business," commented the older boy.

"Dunno' what yo' call it in the city. Up hyeh in the mount'ns we call it
cunjer, an' thar's some slick ones hyeh, too."

"But how did the teacher get mixed up in it?" queried Hamilton. "It
doesn't sound like the sort of thing you'd expect to find a schoolmaster
doing."

"He wasn't doin' it, it was again' him," the mountain boy explained.
"The folks hyeh suspicioned as he was tippin' o' the revenoo men."

"Who did? Moonshiners?"

"Easy on that word, Hamilton," suddenly broke in the old Kentuckian, who
had overheard part of the conversation, "thar's plenty up hyeh that don'
like it."

"All right, Uncle Eli, I'll remember," the boy answered; then, turning
to his companion, he continued "You were saying that some of the people
in the mountains thought the schoolmaster was giv