At noon they camped in the shadow of a great overhanging rock and rested.  Fat found, upon opening his pack, that he had left what remained of his loaf of bread at the last camping place, along with two cans of milk and a box of raisins.

“The oracle is coming true,” dryly remarked Ham.  “It always does, if it’s interpreted properly.  Fat, the swine of carelessness have consumed your living.”

By three o’clock the party reached Cather Springs, which was nothing but the home of an old mountaineer—­a quaint little log cabin, a barn, and a corral, in which stood two very patient, tired-looking donkeys and a large, raw-boned mountain horse.  A little to one side of the cabin stood the spring house—­a low, rustic affair, built of young trees.  A slab-door stood slightly ajar, and through the opening there came the voice of a woman, softly singing to herself.  A thin column of gray smoke was curling gently from the rough stone chimney.  At one side of the house, in the shade of a great pine tree, was nestled a little flower garden that gave every sign of having had careful attention each day.  On the back stoop was stretched out, at full length, a husky Collie dog.  He was evidently asleep, for he did not stir as the boys came down the trail toward the picturesque little cabin.

“Great Caesar’s ghost!” exclaimed Ham.  “Take a peep at a few of those jay-birds.  I never saw so many in my life.  I’ll bet the lady feeds them.  Watch me knock that saucy fellow off that dead limb.”

He raised his gun and shot.  There was an awful scolding, jabbering, and flapping of wings, but no deaths—­fortunately for Ham.  The dog came to life in less than a second, and expressed himself freely on the imprudence of such an interruption to his mid-day nap.  Likewise, the spring-house door suddenly opened and out popped a funny, little old lady.

“Boys, boys!” she called in a high, quavering voice, “don’t shoot the blue jays.  It does beat all how right-down destructive all boys are, anyway—­shooting poor, harmless little birds for sport.”  The jays, on hearing the familiar voice of their benefactress, began to alight in twos and threes close by, and approved her every word with as much vigor as their tiny throats could command.  The little old lady came straight toward Ham.

“Young man,” she cried, as she shook her long, bony finger in his face, “young man, who ever gave you the right to come into this beautiful wilderness to maraud and murder and kill such beauties as them jays that God has put in these woods to be companions and friends to us lonely mountain folks?  Who do you s’pose built this here canyon and that green meadow and this little spring and these hills, and all the little wild folks as lives in ’em?  I should think you would hang your head and look like a whipped puppy if ye’re little enough to shoot jay-birds, just to see the blue feathers a flutterin’ in the air.  ’Pon my soul, you hunters is