hind two tree
trunks, they waited, neither speaking nor stirring. Miss Lois was right
in her conjecture: within a quarter of an hour the fisherman came down
the river from the lake, stopped at the house, brought out a jug, placed
it in his dug-out; then, relocking the door, he paddled by them down the
river. They waited some minutes without stirring. Then Miss Lois stepped
from her hiding-place.

"Whiskey!" she said. "And _my_ money pays for the damnable stuff!" This
reflection kept her silent while they returned to the skiff; but when
they were again afloat, she sighed and yielded it as a sacrifice to the
emergencies of the quest. Returning to the former subject, she held
forth as follows: "It is something, Ruth, but not all. We must not hope
too much. What is it? A man lives up the river, and owns a boat; he is
left-handed, and has cushions of flesh under his finger-tips: that is
the whole. For we can scarcely count as evidence the fact that he is as
ugly as a stump fence, such men being not uncommon in the world, and
often pious as well. We must do nothing hurriedly, and make no
inquiries, lest we scare the game--if it _is_ game. To-morrow is
market-day; he will probably be in the village with fish to sell, and
the best way will be for me to find out quietly who his associates are,
by using my eyes and not my tongue. His associates, if he has any, might
next be tackled, through their wives, perhaps. Maybe they do sewing,
some of them; in that case, we could order something, and so get to
speaking terms. There's my old challis, which I have had dyed black--it
might be made over, though I _was_ going to do it myself. And now do row
home, Ruth; I'm dropping for my tea. This exploring work is powerfully
wearing on the nerves."

The next day she went to the village.

Anne, finding herself uncontrollably restless, went down and unfastened
the skiff, with the intention of rowing awhile to calm her excited
fancies. She went up the river for a mile or two. Her mind had fastened
itself tenaciously upon the image of the fisherman, and would not loosen
its hold. She imagined him stealing up the stairway and leaning over
Helen; then escaping with his booty, running through the meadow, and
hiding it in his boat, probably the same old black dug-out she had seen.
And then, while she was thinking of him, she came suddenly upon him,
sitting in his dug-out, not ten feet distant, fishing. Miss Lois had
been mistaken in her surmise: h