nty feet into the mountain, for home consumption. One
was thirty-eight and the other fifty-two inches; the thick vein cropped
out about twenty feet above the creek level, the other was at a higher
level.

After their examination they returned to the house and taking seats on
the wash bench near the well, talked about every thing but the land of
which Mr. Rogers and Saylor were thinking. Finally Mr. Rogers having
waited some time for Mr. Saylor to begin, said:

"If our company can buy the Brock and Helton surveys, we will give you
thirty thousand dollars for your three hundred acres, or twenty thousand
dollars for the mineral rights with timber and right-of-way privileges
necessary to mine and remove the coal and such other minerals, oils and
gas as may be found on the property."

"By heck! my survey is worth three times that. When your company planks
down fifty thousand in cold cash we will trade,--not before. Then I will
buy one of them blue grass farms in sight of the distant blue mountains
and an automobile and a pianny and give Caleb and little Susie a chance
to go to the University at Lexington whar Tom Asher and that Hall boy
goes. O Mandy! Mr. Rogers, hayr, just offered to gin me thirty thousand
dollars for our old mountain home which we bought two year ago from old
man Roberts for five thousand. I told him we would trade her off for
fifty thousand; not such bad intrust for a mountain yahoo and his old
woman, He! Mandy! When that trade goes through; and they are bound to
take her, you can have one of them silk dresses what shows black and
blue and red and green; and Mary all the books and pot flowers and
pictures she wants. What do you say to that, Mary?" just as Mary stepped
from the kitchen to fill the brass-hooped cedar bucket at the well.

Caleb lolled on the steps in such a way as to make it impossible for any
one to descend.

"Caleb, please let me pass!"

"Oh, go round Mary, or jump down. What do yer bother a feller for?"

"Miss Mary, let me fill your bucket?"

"Thanks, Mr. Cornwall." (Caleb laughs.)

Cornwall took the bucket and twice let it down and brought it up without
a quart in it, while Caleb looked on and laughed.

Finally Mary, smiling and blushing, took hold of the pole and helped to
dip and draw up the bucket full to the brim. Then they laugh too; and
the social ice is broken between Bear Grass and Straight Creek; between
the city-bred young lawyer and Mary, the mountain girl.

Cornw