tiest of the
two sisters--and she smilin' back on him. Think of it! that unknown,
unwashed, longhaired tramp and bully, who must be forty if a day, and
that innocent gal of sixteen. It was simply disgustin'!"

I need not say that the older cynics and critics already alluded to at
once improved the occasion. 'What more could be expected? Women,
the world over, were noted for this sort of thing! This long-haired,
swaggering bully, with his air of mystery, had captivated them, as he
always had done since the days of Homer. Simple merit, which sat lowly
in barrooms, and conceived projects for the public good around the
humble, unostentatious stove, was nowhere! Youth could not too soon
learn this bitter lesson. And in this case youth too, perhaps, was
right in its conjectures, for this WAS, no doubt, the little game of the
perfidious Bulger. We recalled the fact that his unhallowed appearance
in camp was almost coincident with the arrival of the two families.
We glanced at Briggs; to our amazement, for the first time he looked
seriously concerned. But Mosby in the meantime leaned his elbows lazily
over the counter and, in a slow voice, added fuel to the flame.

"I wouldn't hev spoken of it before," he said, with a sidelong glance
at Briggs, "for it might be all in the line o' Bulger's 'business,'
but suthin' happened the other night that, for a minit, got me! I was
passin' the Bakers' shanty, and I heard one of them gals a singing a
camp-meeting hymn. I don't calkilate to run agin you young fellers in
any sparkin' or canoodlin' that's goin' on, but her voice sounded so
pow'ful soothin' and pretty thet I jest stood there and listened. Then
the old woman--old Mother Baker--SHE joined in, and I listened too. And
then--dern my skin!--but a man's voice joined in--jest belching outer
that cabin!--and I sorter lifted myself up and kem away.

"That voice, gentlemen," said Mosby, lingering artistically as he took
up a glass and professionally eyed it before wiping it with his towel,
"that voice, cumf'bly fixed thar in thet cabin among them wimen folks,
was Bulger's!"

Briggs got up, with his eyes looking the darker for his flushed face.
"Gentlemen," he said huskily, "thar's only one thing to be done. A lot
of us have got to ride over to Sawyer's Dam tomorrow morning and pick up
as many square men as we can muster; there's a big camp meeting goin'
on there, and there won't be no difficulty in that. When we've got a big
enough cro