Nate nodded admission.

“Pig-wigs fotched it home, eh?” demanded Byers, leaning downward.

Once more Nate lifted his long, thin questioning face.  His craft had no encouragement.

“Ef ye be minded to call him ’Pig-wigs’—­his right name air Benjymen—­’t war him ez fotched it home.”

“Now ye air a mighty cantankerous, quar’lsome, aggervatin’ critter!” Byers broke out irritably.  “Ain’t ye ‘shamed o’ this hyar hurrah ye hev kicked up fur nuthin’? accusin’ o’ Birt wrongful, an’ sech?”

“Naw; I ain’t ‘shamed o’ nuthin’!” said Nate hardily, springing into the saddle.  “I’m a-ridin’ ter the SettleMINT ter git word from the assayer ‘bout’n the gold ez I hev fund.  An’ when I rides back I’ll be wuth more’n enny man in the mountings or Sparty either!”

And he gave the mare the whip, and left Andy Byers, with his mouth full of rebukes, sitting motionless on the dozing old mule.

The mare came back from the Settlement late that night under lash and spur, at a speed she had never before made.  Day was hardly astir when Nate Griggs, wild-eyed and haggard, appeared at the tanyard in search of Birt.  He was loud with reproaches, for the assayer had pronounced the “gold” only worthless iron pyrites.  He had received, too, a jeering letter from his proposed partner in Sparta, who had found sport in playing on his consequential ignorance and fancied sharpness.  And now Nate declared that Birt, also, had known that the mineral was valueless, and had from the first befooled him.  In some way he would compel Birt to refund all the money that had been expended.  How piteous was Nate as he stood and checked off, on his trembling fingers, the surveyor’s fee, the entry-taker’s fee, the register’s fee, the secretary of State’s fee, the assayer’s fee—­Oh, ruin, ruin!  And what had he to show for it! a tract of crags and chasms and precipitous gravelly slopes and gullies worth not a mill an acre!  And this was all—­for the office of laughing-stock has no emoluments.  Where was Birt?  He would hold Birt to account.

Andy Byers, listening, thought how well it was for Birt that Nate no longer had the loss of the grant as a grievance.

Perkins mysteriously beckoned Nate aside.  “Nate,” he said in a low voice, “Birt air powerful mad ‘bout that thar accusin’ him o’ stealin’ the grant, when ‘t war some o’ yer own folks, ‘Pig-wigs,’ ez hed it all the time.  I seen him goin’ ’long towards yer house a leetle while ago.  I reckon he air lookin’ fur you.  He hed that big cowhide, ez I gin him t’other day, in one hand.  Ye jes’ take the road home, an’ ye’ll ketch up with him sure.”

Nate’s wits were in disastrous eclipse.  Could he deduce nothing from the tanner’s grin?  He spent the day at the Settlement without ostensible reason, and only at nightfall did he return home, and by a devious route, very different from that indicated by Jubal Perkins.