s moment with painfully dragging steps somewhere afar in
the fastnesses of the mountains. But he said nothing of the worst
fears to his companion. He only followed on, watching closely lest
something escape the other's survey. Almost, he found himself hoping
they might come on the girl's dead body. Death is not the worst of
evils.

After a mile, or a little less, the area of the shower was passed.
Uncle Dick could hardly distinguish any sign of the footprints in the
heavy dust of the trail, but he accepted without question the
veteran's assertion that they were easily perceptible to the trained
sight. Suddenly, Seth Jones halted, and peered intently, stooping low.
Uncle Dick, too, bent to look, but the faint markings in the dirt were
without significance to him. The veteran moved to the roadside and
searched on hands and knees over the yard of grass between the trail
and a thicket. When he stood erect again, he regarded his companion
inquiringly.

"They seem to be the tracks o' some mighty-big, hefty cuss, what come
out o' these-hyar bushes, an' tuk along arter her. Kin ye make a guess
who hit mout be, Mister Siddon?"

Uncle Dick's face grew black with a rage that was the more frightful
because it had no object on which to vent itself.

"Hit's him!" he mumbled thickly, choking over the effort for
self-control. Abruptly, he abandoned the attempt. His big voice
boomed forth in a torrent of blasphemous imprecations. When, finally,
he rumbled into silence, and stood panting for breath, the veteran,
who had appeared to listen with great interest and perhaps some
pleasure, spoke soothingly:

"You-all was shore some eloquent, an' I 'low the ornery critter
deserves every mite on hit. An', anyhow, I reckon ye done saved
yerse'f a stroke. Ye was a-lookin' like ye'd bust, but ye let off the
steam a-cussin' 'im out. Now, let's see." He went back to the trail,
and advanced very slowly, for the markings were faint even to his
skilled eyes. Uncle Dick, trembling a little from the violence of his
outburst, followed faithfully, but he could no longer detect traces of
the passing of either man or girl.

Thus, in slow progress, they came at last to the fork of the trail.
This is at the extreme easterly slope of Bull Head Mountain, which
rises from the north side of the valley as if in sullen rivalry of
Stone Mountain below. In the division of the trail here, one branch
ascends toward Glade Creek, across the mountain, while the oth