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Updated: June 15, 2025
He had told no one but Nate of his discovery and would not Nate now deny it! However, one thing in the future was certain, Nathan Griggs should not escape altogether scathless. For a long time Birt sat motionless, revolving vengeful purposes in his mind. Every moment he grew more bitter, as he reflected upon his wrecked scheme, his wonderful fatuity, and the double dealing of his chosen coadjutor.
A crow was cawing somewhere. Birt had paused to let the mule rest, and the raucous sound caused him to turn his head. His heart gave a bound when he saw that on the other side of the fence the underbrush was astir along the path which wound through the woods to the tanyard. Somebody was coming; he hoped even yet that it might be Nate. He eagerly watched the rustling boughs.
Birt wished he could see the expression of the stranger's eyes, indistinguishable behind the spectacles that glimmered in the light. "What do you say to fifty cents a day?" he continued briskly. Birt's heart sank suddenly. He had heard that Satan traded in souls by working on the avarice of the victim.
I always looked late every evenin' ter be sure it hedn't been teched, thinkin' I'd make up my mind in the night whether I'd tell on Birt, or no. But I never could git plumb sati'fied what to do." His tone carried conviction. The tanner looked at Birt with disappointment in every line of his face. There was severity, too, in his expression.
"He never!" cried Rufe, emphatically, unwilling to share the credit, or perhaps discredit, of the enterprise. "Birt dunno nuthin' 'bout it ter this good day." Rufe winked slyly. "Birt would tell mam ez I hed been a-foolin' with her shawl an' bonnet." Andy Byers still maintained a most incongruous gravity. "It warn't Birt's doin', at all?" he said interrogatively, and with a pondering aspect.
The "lick," as such places are called in Tennessee, was nearly two acres in extent, and in the centre of the depression the brackish water stood to the depth of six feet or more. Birt looked down at it, thinking of the old times when, according to tradition, it was the stamping ground of buffalo as well as deer. The dusk deepened.
But the variety of the mineral discovered down the ravine he said was valueless, unless occurring in vast quantities, when it is sometimes utilized in the production of sulphur. "I wonder," Birt broke out suddenly, "if the assayer won't find no gold in them samples ez Nate sent him." The professor laughed.
In his pride in Tennessee he related how the owl had startled him, and the little girl, invisible in the darkness, had laughed. "Tennessee ain't pretty, I know, but she air powerful peart," he said, affectionately, as he placed her upon her feet on the floor. Birt was out early with his axe the next day.
But I 'lowed 't war toler'ble sassy in Birt ter stand thar peerin' at me through the chinkin'. I never let on, though, ez I viewed him. An' then, them eyes jes' set up sech a outdacious winkin' an' wallin', an' squinchin', ez I knowed he war makin' faces at me. So I jes' riz up an' the eyes slipped away from thar in a hurry.
An additional help to lunar inquiries was provided at the same time in this country by the establishment, through the initiative of the late Mr. W. R. Birt, of the Selenographical Society. But the strongest incentive to diligence in studying the rugged features of our celestial helpmate has been the idea of probable or actual variation in them.
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