vering, yellow finger at a wide crack in the rock. The
little man threw himself at it with a howl. His erstwhile frozen
companions felt their blood throb again. With great bounds they plunged
after the little man. A minute of scrambling, falling, and pushing
brought them to open air. They climbed the distance to their camp in
furious springs.

The sky in the east was a lurid yellow. In the west the footprints of
departing night lay on the pine trees. In front of their replenished
camp fire sat John Willerkins, the guide.

"Hello!" he shouted at their approach. "Be you fellers ready to go deer
huntin'?"

Without replying, they stopped and debated among themselves in whispers.

Finally, the pudgy man came forward.

"John," he inquired, "do you know anything peculiar about this cave
below here?"

"Yes," said Willerkins at once; "Tom Gardner."

"What?" said the pudgy man.

"Tom Gardner."

"How's that?"

"Well, you see," said Willerkins slowly, as he took dignified pulls at
his pipe, "Tom Gardner was once a fambly man, who lived in these here
parts on a nice leetle farm. He uster go away to the city orften, and
one time he got a-gamblin' in one of them there dens. He wentter the
dickens right quick then. At last he kum home one time and tol' his
folks he had up and sold the farm and all he had in the worl'. His
leetle wife she died then. Tom he went crazy, and soon after--"

The narrative was interrupted by the little man, who became possessed of
devils.

"I wouldn't give a cuss if he had left me 'nough money to get home on
the doggoned, grey-haired red pirate," he shrilled, in a seething
sentence. The pudgy man gazed at the little man calmly and sneeringly.

"Oh, well," he said, "we can tell a great tale when we get back to the
city after having investigated this thing."

"Go to the devil," replied the little man.

THE MESMERIC MOUNTAIN.

A TALE OF SULLIVAN COUNTY.

On the brow of a pine-plumed hillock there sat a little man with his
back against a tree. A venerable pipe hung from his mouth, and
smoke-wreaths curled slowly skyward. He was muttering to himself with
his eyes fixed on an irregular black opening in the green wall of forest
at the foot of the hill. Two vague waggon ruts led into the shadows. The
little man took his pipe in his hands and addressed the listening pines.

"I wonder what the devil it leads to," said he.

A grey, fat rabbit came lazily from a thicket and sat in the ope