d, though. He was too modest to
push himself, and war was hardly the right groove for him, after all."

"So this great man was a personal friend of yours, Sam?" asked Byloe
with another wink and shrug at the crowd.

The major nodded: "Yes. I wasn't always a drunken loafer in Sevier, nor
Ike Byloe's companion," he said quietly.

There was a laugh of applause. The little man, with all his vaporing,
his windy boasts, his general utter worthlessness, had at bottom a grain
of something genuine which keen Ike Byloe lacked.

"What sort of looking man was this Boyer, Sam?" asked the doctor. "I
confess I have a curiosity about the jedge's heir."

"Oh, a fine-looking fellow--every inch a man," said the major
carelessly. "Voice orotund, magnetic. Easy manners. Good figure;" and he
walked up and down complacently, slapping his own shrunk shank. There
had been a well-shaped leg inside of the ragged linen trousers once, and
the conscious merit which infused every atom of his lean little body
still culminated in his strut.

The sun was setting behind the Balsam Range, and threw a cheerful glow
over the oak and the pump and the little group, when a loose-jointed
figure came across the fields.

"Hyar's Grayson!--Well, colonel, how is he?"

"It's all over, gentlemen. The jedge is gone."

There was a sudden silence. The men asked no questions, as Northern
gossips would have done. Presently, they got up one by one, with a brief
word or two, and went quietly away to their own houses to close them up,
and to tell madam. The Carolinian "madam" may be ugly and shabby and
silly, but she is usually first in her husband's mind all day.

Nobody was left under the oak but Grayson, the major and Byloe, who was
resolved to solve the mystery of the will.

"I s'pose the jedge attended to his earthly affairs before he went off,
Colonel Grayson?" he said.

Grayson nodded.

"Will witnessed, signed--all correct?"

"Yes."

Byloe gave a dolorous cough: "Folks are talkin' a good deal about Dave
Cabarreux as the heir. Dave's the next of kin."

Grayson pushed the ashes into his pipe in imperturbable silence.

"_I_ was suggestin' that Boyer had a chance--Governor Boyer of Iowy: Sam
hyar'd prefer him. Ef Dave gits the proputty, he'll take somethin' else
that Dave's set his heart on, eh?" chuckling. "Sam knows Boyer."

The lawyer looked up quickly. He said nothing, but Byloe noted the
glance. "Boyer is the man!" he thought, and hurried off to