thar's another feller snoopin' 'round yere--only he barked up the wrong
tree, and thought it was Cynthia, jist as you did."

"Another feller?" repeated the astonished Bowers.

"Yes; a rig'lar sport. He was orful keen on that po'try, too, you bet.
So you'd better hump yourself afore somebody else cuts in. Mar got a
hundred dollars for that pome, from that editor feller and his pardner.
I reckon that's the rig'lar price, eh?" he added, with a sudden
suspicious caution.

"I reckon so," replied Mr. Bowers, blankly. "But--look here, Bob! Do you
mean to say it was your mother--your MOTHER, Bob, who wrote that poem?
Are you sure?"

"D'ye think I'm lyin'?" said Bob, scornfully. "Don't I know? Don't I
copy 'em out plain for her, so as folks won't know her handwrite? Go
'way! you're loony!" Then, possibly doubting if this latter expression
were strictly diplomatic with the business in hand, he added, in
half-reproach, half-apology, "Don't ye see I don't want ye to be fooled
into losin' yer chance o' buying up that Summit wood? It's the cold
truth I'm tellin' ye."

Mr. Bowers no longer doubted it. Disappointed as he undoubtedly was at
first,--and even self-deceived,--he recognized in a flash the grim fact
that the boy had stated. He recalled the apparition of the sad-faced
woman in the wood--her distressed manner, that to his inexperienced
mind now took upon itself the agitated trembling of disturbed mystic
inspiration. A sense of sadness and remorse succeeded his first shock of
disappointment.

"Well, are ye going to buy the woods?" said Bob, eying him grimly. "Ye'd
better say."

Mr. Bowers started. "I shouldn't wonder, Bob," he said, with a smile,
gathering up his reins. "Anyhow, I'm comin' back to see your mother this
afternoon. And meantime, Bob, you keep the first chance for me."

He drove away, leaving the youthful diplomatist standing with his bare
feet in the dust. For a minute or two the young gentleman amused himself
by a few light saltatory steps in the road. Then a smile of scornful
superiority, mingled perhaps with a sense of previous slights and
unappreciation, drew back his little upper lip, and brightened his
mottled cheek.

"I'd like ter know," he said, darkly, "what this yer God-forsaken
famerly would do without ME!"

CHAPTER V

It is to be presumed that the editor and Mr. Hamlin mutually kept to
their tacit agreement to respect the impersonality of the poetess,
for during the next three months