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"I used to know some Hawns down in your mountains. A little fellow named Jason Hawn used to go around with me all the time." Her eyes filled and then flashed happily. "Why, mebbe you air the rock-pecker?" "The what?" "The jologist. Jason's my cousin. I wasn't thar that summer. Jason's always talkin' 'bout you." "Well, well I guess I am. That is curious."
And the biggest treasure in the hills little Jason had found himself; for only on the last day before the rock-pecker had gone away, the two had found signs of another vein, and the geologist had given his own pick to the boy and told him to dig, while he was gone, for himself. And Jason had dug.
"Ain't no use goin' up any furder," said the voice of Arch Hawn; "I've looked all up this crick an' thar ain't nary a blessed sign o' coal." "All right," said the colonel, who was puffing with the climb. "That suits me I've had enough." At Jason's side, Mavis echoed his own swift breath of relief, but as the party turned, the rock-pecker stooped and rose with a black lump in his hand.
No vein half that thick had the rock-pecker with all his searching found, and the lad gave a long, low whistle of happy amazement. A moment later he dropped his pick, climbed over the pile of new dirt, emerged at the mouth of the passage, and sat down as if on guard in the grateful coolness of the little ravine.
"Did ye hear whut they was talkin' about?" "Somethin' about the toll-gates." A long silence followed. "The teacher said he was comin' over to see you and pap." "Whut fer?" "I dunno." After another silence Mavis went on: "The teacher is that rock-pecker Jason was always a-talkin' 'bout."
"Go away, boy," the rock-pecker had said, "Get an education. Leave this farm alone it won't run away. By the time you are twenty- one, an acre of it will be worth as much as all of it is now." No, they couldn't fool him. He would keep his find a secret from every soul on earth even from his grandfather and Mavis, both of whom he had already been tempted to tell.
This land was not for him he did not understand the ways of it and the people, and they did not understand him. Even the rock-pecker had gone back on him, and though that hurt him deeply, the lad loyally knew that the school-master must have his own good reasons.
This was the land of the Blue-grass the home of the rock-pecker, home of the men who had robbed him of his land, the refuge to his Cousin Steve, his mother, and little Mavis, and now their home.
He's al'ays a-puzzlin' me by comin' out with somethin' or other that rock-pecker tol' him an' " he stopped, for the boy was shaking his head from side to side. "Don't you say nothin' agin him, now," he said, and old Jason laughed. "He's a powerful hand to take up fer his friends, Jason is."
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