Alston always rode very fast. He was already
out of sight in the falling night.

"Pshaw! I never seem able to keep my mind on anything these days," the
judge said, fretted with himself. "I fully meant to ask Alston to take
that money to the salt-works. It wouldn't have been much out of his way.
I don't know what makes me so forgetful lately--and always so drowsy. I
promised faithfully to pay for that cargo of salt to-day, so that it
would be on the river bank ready for loading when the flatboat comes
to-morrow. The owner of the boat sent the money yesterday. I've got it
here in my pocket. And the salt was to be delivered for cash; it will
not be sent till it is paid for." He paused a moment in troubled
thought. "David! Call that boy. He's always hidden off somewhere."

"Here, sir," said David, standing up and coming out of the shadow
beneath the stairs.

"You will have to help me in this matter, my lad," said the judge,
kindly, forgetting his momentary irritation. "I'll have to send the
money by you."

He drew from his pocket a queer-looking roll which he called his wallet.
It was a strip of thin, fine deerskin, bound with a narrow black riband
and tied with a leathern string. The bank-notes were rolled in this, and
the gold pieces and the "bits"--which were small wedges of coin cut from
silver dollars--were in two pouches sewed across the end of the strip.
It was very seldom that this wallet of the judge's contained so large a
sum of money as on that night, for salt was dear in the wilderness. It
required eight hundred gallons of the weak salt water and many cords of
fire-wood, and the work of many men for many days, to make a single
bushel of the precious article. It was still scarce and hard to get
thereabouts at five dollars a bushel, so that a large sum was needed to
pay for an entire cargo. Drops of perspiration stood on the judge's
forehead as he counted out the bank-notes, the gold, and the cut money.
He cared little for his own money, and he rarely had much at a time;
but he was scrupulously careful in his handling of other people's. And
he knew that his eyes were not very clear that night, and that his
fingers were not so sure as they should be of anything that they
touched. Ruth saw how it was with a tender pang at her heart, for she
knew how honest he was and how good, and she loved him. She knelt down
at his side and helped him count the money, over which his clumsy hands
were fumbling pathetically, so