y along the deep ravines and chasms,
till at length it overtook and enveloped him. Then only a few feet of
the familiar path remained visible.

Suddenly he stopped short and stared. A dim, distorted something was
peering at him from over the top of a big boulder. It was moving--it
nodded at him. Then he indistinctly recognized it as a tall, conical
hat. There seemed a sort of featureless face below it.

A thrill of fear crept through him. His hands grew cold and shook in his
pockets. He leaned forward, gazing intently into the thick fog.

An odd distortion crossed the vague, featureless face--like a leer,
perhaps. Once more the tall, conical hat nodded fantastically.

"Ef ye do that agin," cried Ike, in sudden anger, all his pluck coming
back with a rush, "I'll gin ye a lick ez will weld yer head an' the
boulder together!"

He lifted his clenched fist and shook it.

"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed the man in the mist.

Ike cooled off abruptly. He had been kicked and cuffed half his life,
but he had never been laughed at. Ridicule tamed him. He was ashamed,
and he remembered that he had been afraid, for he had thought the man
was some "roamin' harnt."

"I dunno," said Ike sulkily, "ez ye hev got enny call ter pounce so
suddint out'n the fog, an' go ter noddin' that cur'ous way ter folks ez
can't half see ye."

"I never knowed afore," said the man in the mist, with mock apology in
his tone and in the fantastic gyrations of his nodding hat, "ez it air
you-uns ez owns this mounting." He looked derisively at Ike from head to
foot. "Ye air the biggest man in Tennessee, ain't ye?"

"Naw!" said Ike shortly, feeling painfully awkward, as an overgrown boy
is apt to do.

"Waal, from yer height, I mought hev thunk ye war that big Injun that
the old folks tells about," and the stranger broke suddenly into a
hoarse, quavering chant:--

"'A red man lived in Tennessee,
Mighty big Injun, sure!
He growed ez high ez the tallest tree,
An' he sez, sez he, "Big Injun, me!"
Mighty big Injun, sure!'"

"Waal, waal," in a pensive voice, "so ye ain't him? I'm powerful glad ye
tole me that, sonny, 'kase I mought hev got skeered hyar in the woods by
myself with that big Injun."

He laughed boisterously, and began to sing again:--

"'Settlers blazed out a road, ye see,
Mighty big Injun, sure!
He combed thar hair with a knife. Sez he,
"It's combed fur good! Big Injun, me!"
Mighty big Injun, sure!'"