ave stood its ground: more likely it
was a polecat."

Entering the house that we had left vacant, save for the sleeping
child in the bed-room, we were startled at sight of a dusky, silent
figure, sitting motionless before the fire--for, in the mountain
country, a blaze is always welcome after night-fall, even in
midsummer. At the sound of our approaching footsteps the figure turned
toward us a head crowned with white wool, and smiled benignly.

"Joe!" we both cried, in a breath.

"Joe I is!" returned the old man, placidly, stretching his gnarled
hands toward the blaze, and grinning delightedly; "I reckon you all
begin fur to projec' 'Whar's Joe?' long 'bout dish yer time o' day,
so I done p'inted my tracks in dish yer way."

"It must have been you that Guard was barking at," I said, stirring
the fire into a brighter blaze.

"No; hit wa'nt me. I yeard his racketin' as I come up along. Hit war'
some udder varmint, I reckons. What fur he want ter bark at me?"

"True enough. Well, we're just awful glad you've come back, Joe,"
Jessie told him. "Leslie has been out all the afternoon and she hasn't
had her supper. I waited for her before eating mine, so now I'll fix
yours on this little table beside the fire and we can all eat at the
same time."

Joe accepted the proposition thankfully, and, after seeing him
comfortably established, we seated ourselves at the large table near
the window. I was hungry after my long ride and fell to with a will,
but I presently observed that Jessie ate nothing.

"Why don't you eat your supper, Jessie?"

"I can't," she replied, pushing away her plate; "I'm so worried.
Leslie, have you thought that if the agent refuses to issue a deed to
us we shall have no home? I feel just sure of it, for we haven't money
enough to re-enter the claim, hire a surveyor, and all that."

"Must there be a new survey made?"

"So Mr. Wilson says; he says that it will be the same, in the eye of
the law, as if no entry had ever been made."

"The eye of the law must be half blind, then!" I exclaimed,
indignantly. "As if the survey already made and paid for, was not good
enough, and when we know that a new one would only follow the same
lines!"

"That's just what I said to Mr. Wilson. He said that surveyors had to
have a chance to earn their living, and this way of doing business was
one of the chances," Jessie replied, dropping her head dejectedly on
her hand.

"Well; don't let's worry about it, Jessie