r tell your name in these mountains, whenever you're axed. Ef
enough people air backin' a custom anywhar hit goes, don't hit?"

His logic was good--and Hale said nothing. Presently the old man rose
with a smile on his face that looked cynical, picked up a black lump and
threw it into the fire. It caught fire, crackled, blazed, almost oozed
with oil, and Hale leaned forward and leaned back.

"Pretty good coal!"

"Hain't it, though?" The old man picked up a sliver that had flown to
the hearth and held a match to it. The piece blazed and burned in his
hand.

"I never seed no coal in these mountains like that--did you?"

"Not often--find it around here?"

"Right hyeh on this farm--about five feet thick!"

"What?"

"An' no partin'."

"No partin'"--it was not often that he found a mountaineer who knew what
a parting in a coal bed was.

"A friend o' mine on t'other side,"--a light dawned for the engineer.

"Oh," he said quickly. "That's how you knew my name."

"Right you air, stranger. He tol' me you was a--expert."

The old man laughed loudly. "An' that's why you come over hyeh."

"No, it isn't."

"Co'se not,"--the old fellow laughed again. Hale shifted the talk.

"Well, now that you know my name, suppose you tell me what yours is?"

"Tolliver--Judd Tolliver." Hale started.

"Not Devil Judd!"

"That's what some evil folks calls me." Again he spoke shortly. The
mountaineers do not like to talk about their feuds. Hale knew this--and
the subject was dropped. But he watched the huge mountaineer with
interest. There was no more famous character in all those hills than the
giant before him--yet his face was kind and was good-humoured, but the
nose and eyes were the beak and eyes of some bird of prey. The little
girl had disappeared for a moment. She came back with a blue-backed
spelling-book, a second reader and a worn copy of "Mother Goose," and
she opened first one and then the other until the attention of the
visitor was caught--the black-haired youth watching her meanwhile with
lowering brows.

"Where did you learn to read?" Hale asked. The old man answered:

"A preacher come by our house over on the Nawth Fork 'bout three year
ago, and afore I knowed it he made me promise to send her sister Sally
to some school up thar on the edge of the settlements. And after she
come home, Sal larned that little gal to read and spell. Sal died 'bout
a year ago."

Hale reached over and got the spelling-book, and th