obsolete," said Seymour, who was both a prig
and a purist, a man of leisure, and bookish, but a good shot, and vain
of his sylvan accomplishments. "Our law places no man beyond the pale of
its protection. He has a constitutional right to plead his case in
court."

"What is the reward offered to hale him forth and force him to enjoy
that privilege--five hundred dollars?" asked Bygrave, who was a
newspaper man and had a habit of easy satire.

"Of course he would never suffer himself to be taken alive." Purcell's
vocation was that of a broker, and he was given to the discrimination of
chances and relative values. "Therefore he is as definitely _caput
lupinum_ as any outlaw of old. Nobody would be held accountable for
cracking his 'wolf's head' off, in the effort to arrest him for the sake
of the five hundred dollars. But, meantime, how does the fellow contrive
to live?"

"Jes by his rifle, I reckon," replied the rural gossip whom intrusive
curiosity occasionally lured to their camp-fire. "Though sence that thar
big reward hev been n'ised abroad, I'd think he'd be plumb afraid ter
fire a shot. The echoes be mighty peart these dumb, damp fall days."

The old jeans-clad mountaineer had a certain keen spryness of aspect,
despite his bent knees and stooped shoulders. His deeply grooved,
narrow, thin face was yet more elongated by the extension of a high
forehead into a bald crown, for he wore his broad wool hat on the back
of his head. There was something in his countenance not dissimilar to
the facial contour of a grasshopper, and the suggestion was heightened
by his persistent, rasping chirp.

"That's what frets Meddy; she can't abide the idee of huntin' a human
with sech special coursers ez money reward. She 'lows it mought tempt a'
evil man or a' ignorunt one ter swear a miser'ble wretch's life away.
Let the law strengthen its own hands--that's what Meddy say. Don't
kindle the sperit of Cain in every brother's breast. Oh, Meddy is plumb
comical whenst she fairly gits ter goin', though it's all on account of
that thar man what war growed up in a tree."

The dryadic suggestions of a dendroidal captivity flashed into Seymour's
mind with the phrase, and stimulated his curiosity as to some quaint
rural perversion of the legend. But it was grim fact that the old
mountaineer detailed in answer to the question, as he sat on a log by
the fire, while the sportsmen lay on the ground about it and idly
listened.

"One day--'t w