ehives and flower
beds about it; the tidy whitewashed fence; the sound outbuildings at the
back, and the well-tilled acres roundabout.

At the fence he halted and turned about, carelessly and casually, and
looked back along the way he had come. Everything was as it should
be--the weedfield steaming in the heat; the empty road stretching along
the crooked ridge like a long gray snake sunning itself; and beyond it,
massing up, the dark, cloaking stretch of swamp. Everything was all
right, but----The squire's eyes, in their loose sacs of skin, narrowed
and squinted. Out of the blue arch away over yonder a small black dot
had resolved itself and was swinging to and fro, like a mote. A
buzzard--hey? Well, there were always buzzards about on a clear day like
this. Buzzards were nothing to worry about--almost any time you could
see one buzzard, or a dozen buzzards if you were a mind to look for
them.

But this particular buzzard now--wasn't he making for Little Niggerwool?
The squire did not like the idea of that. He had not thought of the
buzzards until this minute. Sometimes when cattle strayed the owners had
been known to follow the buzzards, knowing mighty well that if the
buzzards led the way to where the stray was, the stray would be past the
small salvage of hide and hoofs--but the owner's doubts would be set at
rest for good and all.

There was a grain of disquiet in this. The squire shook his head to
drive the thought away--yet it persisted, coming back like a midge
dancing before his face. Once at home, however, Squire Gathers deported
himself in a perfectly normal manner. With the satisfied proprietorial
eye of an elderly husband who has no rivals, he considered his young
wife, busied about her household duties. He sat in an easy-chair upon
his front gallery and read his yesterday's Courier-Journal which the
rural carrier had brought him; but he kept stepping out into the yard
to peer up into the sky and all about him. To the second Mrs. Gathers he
explained that he was looking for weather signs. A day as hot and still
as this one was a regular weather breeder; there ought to be rain before
night.

"Maybe so," she said; "but looking's not going to bring rain."

Nevertheless the squire continued to look. There was really nothing to
worry about; still at midday he did not eat much dinner, and before his
wife was half through with hers he was back on the gallery. His paper
was cast aside and he was watching. The