a sailor would call a chart?"

"You bet I do."

"Now, another subject: Have you ever traveled away from here? Have you
ever been to New York, for instance?"

"Never in my life. I've always lived right around here. I don't suppose
I have been ten miles away from here, except in the woods, in forty
years. But in the woods I sometimes used to go a good ways."

"I've no doubt of that. How would you like to make a visit to New
York?"

"I should like it very much--only it would cost such a lot, you know."

"Suppose your expenses were paid?"

"Well, that would be different."

"How much, in cash, will you take for your whiskers, Mr. Turner?"

"Now what the devil do you mean by that? Are you making fun of me?"

"Not at all. I was wondering if fifty dollars more, down, would induce
you to shave off your whiskers."

"Humph! Jest tell me what you are getting at and I'll answer you."

"This: I want to disguise myself so that I look like you. I want to go
out in the mountains as you would go out. While I am making believe that
I am Bill Turner, I want you to take a trip to New York, and to live
there, at my house, and take it easy, see all the sights, go to the
theatres and the museums, and all that, until I return, and I want you
to shave off your whiskers, and let me blacken your brows and otherwise
make some changes in your appearance, so that if any of the people from
Calamont should happen to meet you in the street down there they
wouldn't say, 'Why, there is Bill Turner!' Would you consent to do
that?"

"For another fifty dollars down?"

"Yes."

"I would. When do you want me to shave?"

"I will tell you in good time. First, I want you to fix up those plans."

"Hadn't I better git about it right now?"

"Yes. I think you had. And I will remain here with you while you do it
in order that you may explain things to me as you work upon them."

"That's a good idee, too. I can make you know them mountings as well as
I do, in a short time. I knows 'em so well----"

"That reminds me. Do you happen to know by sight, or have an
acquaintance with, any of the members of that gang?"

The old man shifted uneasily in his chair, and at last he replied:

"I know one of them--purty well. He calls himself Handsome."

"Good! What does Handsome know about you, Bill?"

"He don't know nothin' about me, 'cept that I'm a woodsman, and that I'm
too old to do him any harm. I helped him once, and once he helped me a
leetle, and