l, an' some another, but come right down
to it, what every man, woman an' child in the country loves an'
worships is pluck, clear grit, well backed up."

"_Well, I tell you_," said Guy, boiling up with enthusiasm at
this glorification of grit, "_I_ ain't scared o' nothin'."

"Wall, how'd you like to fight Yan there?"

"Oh, that ain't fair. He's older an' bigger'n I am."

"Say, Sappy, I'll give you one. Suppose you go to the orchard alone
an' get a pail of cherries. All the men'll be away at nine o'clock."

"Yes, and have old Cap chaw me up."

"Thought you weren't scared of anything, an' a poor little Dog smaller
than a yearling Heifer scares you."

"Well, I don't like cherries, anyhow."

"Here, now, Guy, I'll give you a real test. You see that stone?" and
Caleb held up a small round stone with a hole in it. "Now, you know
where old Garney is buried?"

Garney was a dissolute soldier who blew his head off, accidentally,
his friends claimed, and he was buried on what was supposed to be his
own land just north of Raften's, but it afterward proved to be part of
the highway where a sidepath joined in, and in spite of its diggers
the grave was at the _crossing of two roads_. Thus by the hand of
fate Bill Garney was stamped as a suicide.

The legend was that every time a wagon went over his head he must
groan, but unwilling to waste those outcries during the rumbling of
the wheels, he waited till midnight and rolled them out all together.
Anyone hearing should make a sympathetic reply or they would surely
suffer some dreadful fate. This was the legend that Caleb called up
to memory and made very impressive by being properly impressed
himself.

"Now," said he, "I am going to hide this stone just behind the rock
that marks the head of Garney's grave, an' I'll send you to git it
some night. Air ye game?"

"Y-e-s, I'll go," said the Third War Chief without visible enthusiasm.

"If he's so keen for it now, there'll be no holding him back when
night comes," remarked the Woodpecker.

"Remember, now," said Caleb, as he left them to return to his own
miserable shanty, "this is the chance to show what you're made of.
I'll tie a cord to the stone to make sure that you get it."

"We're just going to eat. Won't you stay and jine with us," called
Sam, but Caleb strode off without taking notice of the invitation.

In the middle of the night the boys were aroused by a man's voice
outside and the scratching of a stick on the