mountain clouds now descended over us. And never had I
been so humored in my foolish wishes: I was quite ashamed to see the
trouble great men took to please me.

"Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm," said the Sawyer, coming in one day,
with clouts of snow in his snowy curls. "Not that I care a cent for the
fellow--and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe. Still, he might
have had time to mend, if his time had been as good as the room for it.
However, no blame rests on us. I told him to bed down to saw-mill. They
Englishmen never know when they are well off. But the horse got home,
they tell me?"

"The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other horse
and man. But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must have died out
in the snow-drift. It is a queer story. We shall never know the rights."

"How many times did I tell him," the Sawyer replied, without much
discontent, "that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a night
as that? His own way he would have, however; and finer liars than he
could ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone, time upon
time, to the land of truth by means of that same view of things. They
take every body else for a liar."

"Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?" I cried. "Is it that dreadful--that poor man
who wanted to carry me away from you?"

"Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth," Mr. Gundry answered,
more roughly than usual. "Leave you all such points to the Lord. They
are not for young ladies to talk about."

"Grandfather, don't you be too hard," said Firm, as he saw me hurrying
away. "Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only concerning her
own affairs. If we refuse to tell her, others will."

"Very well, then, so be it," the Sawyer replied; for he yielded more to
his grandson than to the rest of the world put together. "Turn the log
up, Firm, and put the pan on. You boys can go on without victuals all
day, but an old man must feed regular. And, bad as he was, I thank God
for sending him on his way home with his belly full. If ever he turneth
up in the snow, that much can be proved to my account."

Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I could
not help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out--not at the
death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so in going
from a hospitable house. Mr. Gundry cared little what any body said
concerning his honor, or courage, or such like; but the thought of a