s boldly and in a way which was quite fascinating to me.

"I hope, Mr. Vandemark," said he, "that you and Doctor Bliven are going
to settle in the neighborhood to which I am exiled. Where are you two
bound for?"

"I expect to open a drug store and begin the practise of medicine," said
the doctor, "at the thriving town of Monterey Centre."

"I've got some land in Monterey County," said I; "but I don't know where
in the county it is."

Doctor Bliven started; and Buckner Gowdy shook my hand again, and then
the doctor's.

"A sort of previous neighborhood reunion," said he. "I expect one of
these days to be one of the old residenters of Monterey County myself. I
am a fellow-sufferer with you, Mr. Vandemark--I also have land there.
Won't you and the doctor join me in a night-cap in honor of our
neighborship; and drink to better acquaintance? And let's invite our
fellow wayfarers, too. I have some game for them."

He looked across to the other camp, and we went over to it, Gowdy giving
the third goose and the gun to the negro who had hard work to manage
them. I had a roadside acquaintance with the movers, but did not know
their names. In a jiffy Gowdy had all of them, and had found out that
they expected to locate near Waverly. In five minutes he had begun
discussing with a pretty young woman the best way to cook a goose; and
soon wandered away with her on some pretense, and we could hear his
subdued, vibratory voice and low laugh from the surrounding darkness,
and from time to time her nervous giggle. Suddenly I remembered his
wife, certainly very sick in the house, and the talk that she was
"struck with death"--and he out shooting geese, and now gallivanting
around with a strange girl in the dark.

There must be some mistake--this man with the bold eyes and the warm
and friendly handclasp, with the fascinating manners and the neighborly
ideas, could not possibly be a person who would do such things. But even
as I thought this, and made up my mind that, after all, I would join him
and the queer-behaving doctor in a friendly drink, a woman came flying
out of the house and across the road, calling out, asking if any one
knew where Mr. Gowdy was, that his wife was dying.

He and the girl came to the fire quickly, and as they came into view I
saw a movement of his arm as if he was taking it from around her waist.

"I'm here," said he--and his voice sounded harder, somehow. "What's the
matter?"

"Your wife," said the w