bberin' away to me all night long like this? Ding it all to gosh, here
it is after one o'clock an' you still talkin'. Don't do it, I say.
Don't ast another question till five o'clock, an' then all you got to do
it to ast me if I'm awake."

"Umph!" said Mrs. Crow.

* * * * *

Messrs. Bacon and Bonaparte were an hour and forty minutes late.

It was nearly eight o'clock when the two gentlemen came hurrying around
the corner into Sickle street, piloted by Alf Reesling, the town
drunkard.

A long, important-looking cigar propitiated Mr. Crow, and after Mr.
Reesling and other citizens had been given to understand that the
strangers were figuring on buying all the timber on Crow's Mountain, the
three principals set forth in Anderson's buckboard.

In due time they arrived at the top of the "Mountain." Now Crow's
Mountain was no mountain at all. It was a thickly wooded hill that had
achieved eminence by happening to be a scant fifty feet higher than the
knolls surrounding it. From the low-lying pastures and grain-fields to
the top of the outstanding pine that reared its blasted storm-stripped
tip far above its fellows, the elevation was not more than three hundred
feet. Nevertheless, it was the loftiest hill in all that region and
capped Anderson Crow's agricultural possessions.

Just before the Boggs City National Bank at the county seat closed that
afternoon Mr. Crow appeared at the receiving-teller's window. He
deposited two hundred dollars in currency. Mr. Bacon had decided that a
draft on New York might excite undue curiosity.

"If people were to get wise to what we are really after up here on this
mountain, Mr. Crow," said he, "it would play hob with everything. If it
gets out that we are after gold--why, the price of land would be so high
we couldn't--"

"Lot of these hayseeds been wantin' to sell fer years, the derned
rubes," broke in Anderson, pityingly.

"Well, you get me, don't you? Keep our eyes open and our mouths closed,
and we will be millionaires inside of a year--or two, at the outside."

"Mum's the word, as the feller said," agreed Mr. Crow.

"And of course you see the advisability of having our articles of
incorporation filed secretly in New Jersey. This contract we have signed
will be ratified by our employers in New York, and the regular articles
drawn up at once. Wait till you see the names of the men who are behind
this enterprise. The first meeting of the board