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 oak-tree—whose air of dignified indifference provoked the insult—and went on.

He was near the bottom of the hill when he crossed the muddy pocket of another water-bar and saw no auto trail in it. And his expression of idle mischief changed at once to a look of intent and crafty determination. He glanced behind him, to make sure that he was concealed from the cottage. Then he crawled through an old wire fence, into the woods on the opposite side of the road from the cottage, and disappeared, crouching, in the underbrush.

The dog, after some distantly defiant barks, fell silent. In a few moments, the whole hillside, relieved of Barney’s disturbing presence, settled down into dim meditativeness, peacefully. The cottage was a simple, shingled bungalow, with a chimney of field stones that sent up a quiet curl of smoke; and it sat there, weather-browned and unpretentious, looking out over the valley, like an old woodsman in a wilderness serenely smoking his pipe. A hermit thrush began to sing its