ere a farthing
might be discovered--he prodded his stick into a skull, cloven deep by an
Indian tomahawk. He kicked it, to shake the dirt off, when a gruff voice
spake: "What are you doing in my grounds?" A swarthy fellow, with the
face of a charcoal burner, sat on a stump, and Tom wondered that he had
not seen him as he approached.

He replied, "Your grounds! They belong to Deacon Peabody."

"Deacon Peabody be damned!" cried the black fellow; "as I think he will
be, anyhow, if he does not look after his own sins a little sharper and a
little less curiously after his neighbors'. Look, if you want to see how
he is faring," and, pointing to a tree, he called Tom to notice that the
deacon's name was written on the bark and that it was rotten at the core.
To his surprise, Tom found that nearly every tree had the name of some
prominent man cut upon it.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I go by different names in different places," replied the dark one. "In
some countries I am the black miner; in some the wild huntsman; here I am
the black woodman. I am the patron of slave dealers and master of Salem
witches."

"I think you are the devil," blurted Tom.

"At your service," replied his majesty.

Now, Tom, having lived long with Mrs. Walker, had no fear of the devil,
and he stopped to have a talk with him. The devil remarked, in a careless
tone, that Captain Kidd had buried his treasure in that wood, under his
majesty's charge, and that whoever wished could find and keep it by
making the usual concession. This Tom declined. He told his wife about
it, however, and she was angry with him for not having closed the bargain
at once, declaring that if he had not courage enough to add this treasure
to their possessions she would not hesitate to do it. Tom showed no
disposition to check her. If she got the money he would try to get a
share of it, and if the devil took away his helpmate--well, there were
things that he had made his mind to endure, when he had to. True enough,
the woman started for the wood before sundown, with her spoons in her
apron. When Tom discovered that the spoons were gone he, too, set off,
for he wanted those back, anyway; but he did not overtake his wife. An
apron was found in a tree containing a dried liver and a withered heart,
and near that place the earth had been trampled and strewn with handfuls
of coarse hair that reminded Tom of the man that he had met in the woods.
"Egad!" he muttered, "Old Nick must