ay, Bart, why don't you speak? If there's any one around to
associate with, I should think you'd let me have the benefit of their
company. It isn't as funny as you think, staying here alone days and
days."

"You ain't gettin' homesick, be you, sweetheart?" cried Bart, putting
his arms around her. "You ain't gettin' tired of my society, be yeh?"

It took some time to answer this question in a satisfactory manner, but
at length Flora was able to return to her original topic.

"But the shack, Bart! Who lives there, anyway?"

"I'm not acquainted with 'em," said Bart, sharply. "Ain't them biscuits
done, Flora?"

Then, of course, she grew obstinate.

"Those biscuits will never be done, Bart, till I know about that house,
and why you never spoke of it, and why nobody ever comes down the road
from there. Some one lives there I know, for in the mornings and at
night I see the smoke coming out of the chimney."

"Do you now?" cried Bart, opening his eyes and looking at her with
unfeigned interest. "Well, do you know, sometimes I've fancied I seen
that too?"

"Well, why not," cried Flora, in half anger. "Why shouldn't you?"

"See here, Flora, take them biscuits out an' listen to me. There ain't
no house there. Hello! I didn't know you'd go for to drop the biscuits.
Wait, I'll help you pick 'em up. By cracky, they're hot, ain't they?
What you puttin' a towel over 'em for? Well, you set down here on my
knee, so. Now you look over at that there house. You see it, don't yeh?
Well, it ain't there! No! I saw it the first week I was out here. I was
jus' half dyin', thinkin' of you an' wonderin' why you didn't
write. That was the time you was mad at me. So I rode over there one
day--lookin' up company, so t' speak--and there wa'n't no house there. I
spent all one Sunday lookin' for it. Then I spoke to Jim Geary about
it. He laughed an' got a little white about th' gills, an' he said he
guessed I'd have to look a good while before I found it. He said that
there shack was an ole joke."

"Why--what--"

"Well, this here is th' story he tol' me. He said a man an' his wife
come out here t' live an' put up that there little place. An' she was
young, you know, an' kind o' skeery, and she got lonesome. It worked on
her an' worked on her, an' one day she up an' killed the baby an' her
husband an' herself. Th' folks found 'em and buried 'em right there on
their own ground. Well, about two weeks after that, th' house was burned
down. Don