Mr. Bodge noted with satisfaction the gleam of interest in capital’s eyes.

“You can reckon that at least a million families in this country own cats—­and the nature of cats and dogs can be depended on to be the same,” said Mr. Bodge.  “It’s a self-actin’ proposition, this identifier and introducer; that means fortunes for all concerned just as soon as capital gets behind it.  And I’ve got five hundred bigger partunts wrasslin’ around in my head.”

But Cap’n Sproul continued to be absorbed in thought, as though the solution of a problem still eluded him.

“But if capital takes holt of me,” proceeded Mr. Bodge, “I want capital to have the full layout.  There ain’t goin’ to be no reserves, the same as there is with most of these cheatin’ corporations these days.  You come with me.”

They followed him into a scraggly orchard, and he broke a crotched limb from a tree.  With a “leg” of this twig clutched firmly in either hand he stumped about on the sward until the crotch suddenly turned downward.

“There’s runnin’ water there,” announced the wizard, stabbing the soil with his peg-leg.  “I can locate a well anywhere, any place.  When I use willer for a wand it will twist in my hands till the bark peels off.  You see, I’m full of it—­whatever it is.  I showed you that much with the whisker.  I started in easy with you.  It makes me dizzy sometimes to foller myself.  I have to be careful and let out a link at a time, or I’d take folks right off’m their feet.  Now you come with me and keep cool—­or as cool as you can, because I’m goin’ to tell you something that will give you sort of a mind-colic if you ain’t careful how you take it in.”

He pegged ahead of them, led the way around behind a barn that was skeow-wowed in the last stages of dilapidation, and faced them with excitement vibrating his streaming whiskers.

“This, now,” he declared, “is just as though I took you into a national bank, throwed open the safe door, and said:  ’Gents, help yourselves!’”

He drew a curious object out of the breast pocket of his faded jumper.  It was the tip of a cow’s horn securely plugged.  Into this plug were inserted two strips of whalebone, and these he grasped, as he had clutched the “legs” of the apple-tree wand.

“One of you lay some gold and silver down on the ground,” he requested.  “I’d do it, but I ain’t got a cent in my pocket.”

Hiram obeyed, his expression plainly showing his curiosity.

When Mr. Bodge advanced and stood astride over the money, the cow’s horn turned downward and the whalebone strips twisted.

“It’s a divinin’-rod to find buried treasure,” said Mr. Bodge; “and it’s the only one in the world like it, because I made it myself, and I wouldn’t tell an angel the secret of the stuff I’ve plugged in there.  You see for yourself what it will do when it comes near gold or silver.”

Hiram turned a cold stare on his wistful eagerness.