ou don't want to know? You'd rather continue to writhe on the
gridiron than to turn over and fall into the fire and end the matter?"

"Alf," said I, "does it strike you that we are a couple of as big fools
as ever drove along a county road?"

"Whoa!" he shouted, pulling upon the reins and stopping the horse. And
then he laughed. "Fools; why, two idiots are two Solomons compared with
us. Let's stop it; let's be sensible; let's be men."

"I'm with you, Alf. Shake hands."

We drove along in silence. After a long time he said: "Here's where she
crossed the road; and do you see that?" he asked, pointing to the Milky
Way. "That was done by the waving of her hand. I wish to the Lord I knew
just how much she thinks of Dan Stuart."

"Ah, but that wouldn't relieve you," I replied, "for I know how much
Guinea thinks of Chyd Lundsford and feel all the worse for it. There are
always two hopes, walking with a doubt, one on each side, but a
certainty walks alone."

"I reckon you are right," he rejoined with a sigh. "How many strange
things love will make a man say, things that an unpoisoned man would
never think of. Poisoned is the word, Bill; and I'll bet that if I'd
bite a man it would kill him in a minute."

"What sort of a fellow is young Lundsford?" I asked, with my teeth set
and my feet braced against the dashboard.

"Oh, he ain't a bad fellow; he ain't our sort exactly, but he's all
right."

"Smart and full of poetry, isn't he?"

"I never heard him say anything that had poetry in it. Don't think he
knows half as much about books as you do. Oh, about certain sorts of
books he does, books with skeletons in them, but knowing all about
skeletons don't make a man interesting to a woman. I have read enough
to find that out. Why, I have more than held my own with men that are
well up in special books--have held my own with all except that fellow
Stuart. Now there's Etheredge, that I told you about one day--kin to Dan
Stuart. He's a doctor, and they tell me that he is well educated, but I
never heard him say a thing worth remembering. I reckon old Mrs. Nature
has a good deal to do with it after all."

They were sitting up waiting for us at home, although it was past the
midnight hour when we drove into the yard. Old Lim snorted when he
learned that the Aimes boys were not to be hanged, but his wife,
merciful creature, was saddened to think that even more mercy had not
been shown them. And then she anxiously inquired whethe