when they got back they was just
loaded down with lead, but he wouldn't tell nobody where he got
it, and as long as he was with them, the men didn't dare tell.
Well, sir, them two men was killed soon after by the Injuns, and
when the trouble was finally over, old Dewey disappeared, and
ain't never been heard tell of since. They say the mine is
somewhere's in a big cave, but nobody ain't never found it,
'though there's them that says the Bald Knobbers used the cave to
hide their stuff in, and that's how Jim Lane and Wash Gibbs knows
where it is; it's all mighty queer. You can see for yourself that
Lost Creek down yonder just sinks clean out of sight all at once;
there must be a big hole in there somewhere."

Aunt Mollie pointed with her knife to the little stream that winds
like a thread of light down into the Hollow. "I tell you, sir,
these hills is pretty to look at, but there ain't much here for a
girl like Sammy, and I don't blame her a mite for wantin' to
leave. It's a mighty hard place to live, Mr. Howitt, and
dangerous, too, sometimes."

"The city has its hardships and its dangers too, Mrs. Matthews;
life there demands almost too much at times; I often wonder if it
is worth the struggle."

"I guess that's so," replied Aunt Mollie, "but it don't seem like
it could be so hard as it is here. I tell Mr. Matthews we've clean
forgot the ways of civilized folks; altogether, though, I suppose
we've done as well as most, and we hadn't ought to complain."

The old scholar looked at the sturdy figure in its plain calico
dress; at the worn hands, busy with their homely task; and the
patient, kindly face, across which time had ploughed many a
furrow, in which to plant the seeds of character and worth. He
thought of other women who had sat with him on hotel verandas, at
fashionable watering places; women gowned in silks and laces;
women whose soft hands knew no heavier task than the filmy fancy
work they toyed with, and whose greatest care, seemingly, was that
time should leave upon their faces no record of the passing years.
"And this is the stuff," said he to himself, "that makes possible
the civilization that produces them." Aloud, he said, "Do you ever
talk of going back to your old home?"

"No, sir, not now;" she rested her wet hands idly on the edge of
the pan of potatoes, and turned her face toward the clump of
pines. "We used to think we'd go back sometime; seemed like at
first I couldn't stand it; then the chi