Again the man felt called upon to express his interest; “Is Mr. Lane in business with this man Gibbs?”

“Law, no! that is, don’t nobody know about any business; I reckon it’s all on account of those old Bald Knobbers; they used to hold their meetin’s on top of Dewey yonder, and folks do say a man was burned there once, because he told some of their secrets.  Well, Jim and Wash’s daddy, and Wash, all belonged, ’though Wash himself wasn’t much more than a boy then; and when the government broke up the gang, old man Gibbs was killed, and Jim went to Texas.  It was there that Sammy’s Ma died.  When Jim come back it wasn’t long before he was mighty thick again with Wash and his crowd down on the river, and he’s been that way ever since.  There’s them that says it’s the same old gang, what’s left of them, and some thinks too that Jim and Wash knows about the old Dewey mine.”

Mr. Howitt, remembering his conversation with Jed Holland, asked encouragingly, “Is this mine a very rich one?”

“Don’t nobody rightly know about that, sir,” answered Aunt Mollie.  “This is how it was:  away back when the Injuns was makin’ trouble ‘cause the government was movin’ them west to the territory, this old man Dewey lived up there somewhere on that mountain.  He was a mighty queer old fellow; didn’t mix up with the settlers at all, except Uncle Josh Hensley’s boy who wasn’t right smart, and didn’t nobody know where he come from nor nothing; but all the same, ’twas him that warned the settlers of the trouble, and helped them all through it, scoutin’ and such.  And one time when they was about out of bullets and didn’t have nothin’ to make more out of, Colonel Dewey took a couple of men and some mules up on that mountain yonder in the night, and when they got back they was just loaded down with lead, but he wouldn’t tell nobody where he got it, and as long as he was with them, the men didn’t dare tell.  Well, sir, them two men was killed soon after by the Injuns, and when the trouble was finally over, old Dewey disappeared, and ain’t never been heard tell of since.  They say the mine is somewhere’s in a big cave, but nobody ain’t never found it, ’though there’s them that says the Bald Knobbers used the cave to hide their stuff in, and that’s how Jim Lane and Wash Gibbs knows where it is; it’s all mighty queer.  You can see for yourself that Lost Creek down yonder just sinks clean out of sight all at once; there must be a big hole in there somewhere.”

Aunt Mollie pointed with her knife to the little stream that winds like a thread of light down into the Hollow.  “I tell you, sir, these hills is pretty to look at, but there ain’t much here for a girl like Sammy, and I don’t blame her a mite for wantin’ to leave.  It’s a mighty hard place to live, Mr. Howitt, and dangerous, too, sometimes.”

“The city has its hardships and its dangers too, Mrs. Matthews; life there demands almost too much at times; I often wonder if it is worth the straggle.”