ndling the reins, a stalwart, rubicund fellow, who visibly paled. He
drew up so suddenly as almost to throw the horses from their feet.

"G'evenin'," ventured Browdie, the elder of the raiders, in a husky
voice affecting an untutored accent. He had some special ability as a
mimic, and, being familiar with the dialect and manners of the people,
this gift greatly facilitated the rustic impersonation he had essayed.
"Ye're haulin' late," he added, for the hour was close to midnight.

"Yes, stranger; haulin' late, from Eskaqua--a needcessity."

"What's yer cargo?" asked Browdie, seeming only ordinarily inquisitive.

A sepulchral cadence was in the driver's voice, and the disguised
raiders noted that the three other men on the wagon had preserved,
throughout, a solemn silence. "What we-uns mus' all be one day,
stranger--a corpus."

Browdie was stultified for a moment Then, sustaining his assumed
character, he said: "I hope it be nobody I know. I be fairly well
acquainted in Eskaqua, though I hail from down in Lonesome Cove. Who be
dead!"

There was palpably a moment's hesitation before the spokesman replied:
"Watt Wyatt; died day 'fore yestiddy."

At the words, one of the silent men in the wagon turned his face
suddenly, with such obvious amazement depicted upon it that it arrested
the attention of the "rev-enuers." This face was so individual that it
was not likely to be easily mistaken or forgotten. A wild, breezy look
it had, and a tricksy, incorporeal expression that might well befit
some fantastic, fabled thing of the woods. It was full of fine script of
elusive meanings, not registered in the lineaments of the prosaic man
of the day, though perchance of scant utility, not worth interpretation.
His full gray eyes were touched to glancing brilliancy by a moonbeam;
his long, fibrously floating brown hair was thrown backward; his
receding chin was peculiarly delicate; and though his well-knit frame
bespoke a hardy vigor, his pale cheek was soft and thin. All the rustic
grotesquery of garb and posture was cancelled by the deep shadow of a
bough, and his delicate face showed isolated in the moonlight.

Browdie silently pondered his vague suspicions for a moment "Whar did he
die at?" he then demanded at a venture.

"At his daddy's house, fur sure. Whar else?" responded the driver. "I
hev got what's lef' of him hyar in the coffin-box. We expected ter make
it ter Shiloh buryin'-ground 'fore dark; but the road is middli