The next day but one, Westerfelt, feeling sufficiently strong, was driven by Washburn down to the livery-stable, where he sat in the warm sunshine against the side of the house.  While sitting there watching the roads which led down to the village from the mountains, he was surprised to see Peter Slogan ride up on his bony bay horse and alight.

“Howdy’ do, John?” he said.  “I wus jest passin’ on my way home an’ thought I’d halt an’ ax about that cut o’ yore’n.”

“Oh, I’m doing pretty well, Peter,” answered Westerfelt, as he extended his hand without rising.  “But I didn’t know that you ever got this far from home.”

“Hain’t once before, since I went to fight the Yanks,” grinned Slogan.  “Seems to me I’ve rid four hundred an’ forty-two miles on that churndasher thar.  My legs is one solid sore streak from my heels up, an’ now it’s beginnin’ to attact my spine-bone.  I’m too ol’ an’ stiff to bear down right in the stirrups, I reckon.”

“What has brought you over here?” asked Westerfelt, with a smile.

Slogan took out his clay pipe with its cane stem and knocked it on the heel of his boot, then he put it into his mouth and blew through it till the liquid nicotine cracked audibly.  “I’ve been huntin’,” he said, dryly.  “In my day an’ time I’ve been on all sorts o’ hunts, from bear an’ deer down to yaller-hammers, but I waited till I wus in my sixty-fifth year—­goin’ on sixty-six—­’fore I started out huntin’ fer a dad-blasted woman.”

“A woman!” exclaimed the listener.

“You could guess who it wus ef you’d make a stab ur two at it,” Slogan made answer, as he scratched a match and began to smoke.  “Day before yesterday Clariss’ went out in the yard to rake up a apron o’ chips, an’ happened to take notice that thar wusn’t a sign o’ smoke comin’ out o’ the old woman’s chimney.  It was cold enough to freeze hard boiled eggs, an’ she ’lowed some’n had gone wrong down at the cabin, so she run in whar I wus, skeerd into kinniptions.  ‘Mr. Slogan,’ sez she, ’I believe sister’s friz in ’er bed, ur dropped off sudden, fer as shore as yore a-smokin’ in that cheer, thar ain’t a speck o’ fire in ’er chimney.’  Well, I wus in my stockin’ feet, like I ginerally am when I want to take it easy before a fire on a cold day, an’ I slid my feet into my shoes as quick as I could an’ went out an’ took a look.  Shore enough, thar wusn’t a bit o’ smoke about the cabin.  So I tol’ Clariss’ to run down an’ see what wus wrong, but she wouldn’t budge out o’ her tracks.  You see, she ain’t never felt right about the way she used to do the old woman, an’ I reckon she wus afeerd her dead body would do a sight more accusin’—­I dunno, she wouldn’t go a step fer some reason ur other, but she stood thar twistin’ ‘er hands an’ cryin’ an’ beggin’ me to do her duty.  I tol’ ‘er the last time I wus thar the ol’ huzzy wouldn’t so much as notice me, an’ that I’d had ‘nough trouble lookin’ atter my own pore