is tale of woe.

"Good dog--seek him! What is it, old boy?" Pettigrass came up, patted
the hound, and sat down on the flat stone to look on curiously while the
dog coursed back and forth among the dead leaves. "Find him, Caesar; find
him, boy!" encouraged Japheth; and finally the hound pointed a sensitive
nose toward the rift in the side of the great boulder and yelped
conclusively.

"D'ye reckon he climm up thar', Caesar?" Pettigrass unfolded his long
legs and stood up on the flat stone to attain an eye-level with the
interior of the little cavern. Tom crushed Nan into the farthest cranny,
and flattened himself lizard-like against the nearer side wall. The
horse-trader looked long and hard, and they could hear him still talking
to the dog.

"You're an old fool, Caesar--that's about what you are--and Solomon
allowed thar' wasn't no fool like an old one. But you needn't to swaller
that whole, old boy; I've knowed some young ones in my time--sometimes
gals, sometimes boys, sometimes _both_. But thar' ain't no 'possum up
yonder, Caesar; you've flew the track this time, for certain. Come on,
old dog; let's be gettin' down the mountain."

The baying dog and the whistling man were still within hearing when Tom
swung Nan lightly to the ground and dropped beside her. No word was
spoken until she had emptied and refilled her bucket at the spring, then
Tom said, with the bickering tang still on his tongue:

"Say, Nan, I want to know who it is that's going to kill you if he
happens to find you talking to me."

She shook her head despondently. "I cayn't nev' tell you that,
Tom-Jeff."

"I'd like to know why you can't."

"Because he'd shore kill me then."

"Then I'll find out some other way."

"What differ' does it make to you?" she asked; and again the dark eyes
searched him till he was fain to look away from her.

"I reckon it doesn't make any difference, if you don't want it to. But
one time you were willing enough to tell me your troubles, and--"

"And I'll nev' do it nare 'nother time; never, _never_. And let me tell
you somethin' else, Tom-Jeff Gordon: if you know what's good for you,
don't you nev' come anigh me again. One time we usen to be a boy and a
girl together; you're nothin' but a boy yet, but I--oh, God,
Tom-Jeff--I'm a woman!"

And with that saying she snatched her bucket and was gone before he
could find a word wherewith to match it.

XVII

ABSALOM, MY SON!

Three days after the episode