the red light
flaring athwart the darkness. The people down in the valley looked up at
it, glowing like a star that had slipped out of the sky and lodged
somehow on the mountain, and wondered what Stephen Ryder could be about
so late at night. When he left the shop there was no sign of the boys
who had ornamented the log earlier in the evening. He walked up the road
to his house, and found his wife sitting alone in the rickety little
porch.

"Hev that thar boy gone ter bed?" he asked.

"Waal," she slowly drawled, in a soft, placid voice, "he kem hyar
'bout'n haffen hour ago so nigh crazed ter go ter stay all night with
Jim an' Benny Gryce ez I hed ter let him. Old man Gryce rid by hyar in
his wagon on his way home from the settle_mint_. So Ab went off with the
Gryce boys an' thar gran'dad."

Thus the blacksmith concluded his tools were not liable to be "borrowed"
that night. He had a scheme to insure their safety for the future, but
in order to avoid his wife's remonstrances on Ab's behalf, he told her
nothing of it, nor of what he had overheard.

Early the next morning he set out for the mill, intending to confront
"old Bob" and demand retraction. The road down the deep, wild ravine was
rugged, and he jogged along slowly until at last he came within sight of
the crazy, weather-beaten old building tottering precariously on the
brink of the impetuous torrent which gashed the mountain side. Crags
towered above it; vines and mosses clung to its walls; it was a dank,
cool, shady place, but noisy enough with the turmoil of its primitive
machinery and the loud, hoarse voices of the loungers striving to make
themselves heard above the uproar. There were several of these idle
mountaineers aimlessly strolling among the bags of corn and wheat that
were piled about. Long, dusty cobwebs hung from the rafters. Sometimes a
rat, powdered white with flour and rendered reckless by high living,
raced boldly across the floor. The golden grain poured ceaselessly
through the hopper, and leaning against it was the miller, a tall,
stoop-shouldered man about forty years of age, with a floury smile
lurking in his beard and a twinkle in his good-humored eyes overhung by
heavy, mealy eyebrows.

"Waal, Steve," yelled the miller, shambling forward as the blacksmith
appeared in the doorway. "Come 'long in. Whar's yer grist?"

"I hev got no grist!" thundered Steve, sternly.

"Waal--ye're jes' ez welcome," said the miller, not noticing the rig