Hit war sum whar betune The "other object," found lying across the grave, was the skeleton of the cow, whose crumpled horns were attached to the bleached skull, and whose white ribs provided a trellis for the rosebush. Strangest of all strange things in this mysterious affair, one horn of the skeleton was edly; "but how about the cow? Did she come here in a balloon?" "My dear fellow," said Lieutenant Coleman, "we have not yet found how the men got here. When we learn that, it may make all the rest plain." Without entering the house again, the soldiers made a second circuit of the field, examining carefully every foot of the cliffs. They were absolutely certain now that there was no road or path leading to this smaller plateau except that by which they themselves had come; and yet here were the bones of a full-grown cow and the ruined stall which had at some time been her winter quarters. They next examined the heaps of stalks, which were sixteen in number, and represented that many harvests; but the older ones were little more than a thin layer of decayed litter through which the grass and bushes had grown up. There might have been hooked over the top of the slab so as to hold the great skull, reversed, close against the headboard on the side op posite to the inscription. THE GRAVE OF THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. Evidently the faithful creature had died of starvation during the winter which followed the death of her master. By accident or through a singular exhibition of affection, she had lain down to die on the hard snow which was banked high above the grave, and when warm weather came and the snow melted, the head of the cow had lodged in this remarkable position. "Well," said Philip, with a sigh for his pet theory," whoever he was and however he came here, his name was Hezekiah Wallstow, and there was no murder- unless a third man came to bury him." many others of an earlier date, all traces of which had long since disappeared. At first it seemed strange that a cow should have starved, even in the deepest snow, in the midst of such surroundings. On a closer examination, however, it appeared that the tops of the two larger stacks had been much torn, and the stiff stalks cropped bare of leaves. It was plain enough that the lean cow had wandered here on the hard crust of the snow and scattered the stalks as she fed. Even now these could be seen lying all about in the grass where they had lodged when the snow melted. Under one of the stacks another skull was found, the owner of which must have died before the cow, or Instead of one, two "That's all settled," said Bromley, resign- have been killed for beef. domestic animals, then, had cropped the grass and switched at the flies on this plateau which was surrounded by inaccessible cliffs. How did they come there? By sunset the soldiers were no nearer to a solution of this difficult problem, and so they filled their two pails with anti-slavery books and returned to ponder and wonder in the society of the bear and the six sad roosters. They could sleep but little after a day of such excitement, and they were scarcely refreshed by their night's rest when they returned on the following day to the deserted house. This time they left their overcoats at home and took with them a loaf of corn-bread for luncheon, and the pails, in which they intended to bring back more books. They halted again before the oak slab bearing the name of "Hezekiah Wallstow, apostle of temperance," and crowned by the mourning skull of the cow, as if to assure themselves of the reality of what they had seen, and then they walked humbly into the house. They could think of no guiding clue to start them in the solution of the problem of the cattle, and so they weakly yielded to their curiosity about the books. Bromley cut away the thicket of hop-vines which darkened the two windows, and in the improved light they fell to examining the coarse woodcuts of runaway slaves with their small belongings tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, which headed certain advertisements as they were copied in the periodicals. "The Adventures of Captain Carnot" was a thick book with numerous illustrations. They hoped to find an account-book or a diary, but there was nothing of the sort on the shelves beyond one or two entries in pencil on a fly-leaf of the "Memoirs of Elijah P. Lovejoy," acknowledging the receipt of payment for a cask of meal and a quarter of lamb. found it, they had come to wander aimlessly in the early morning along the ledges which upheld the smaller plateau, and then retire to the cool house to read. After the books had been removed to their own side of the dividing cliff, they found it so hard to leave them that they stayed at home for a whole week, reading by turns and worrying themselves thin about the bones of the cattle. They had abundant need at this time to keep their flesh and spirits, for two more of the nine sacks of corn had been ground in the mill, and the prospect for the future was more dismal than ever. The end of this week of inaction, however, found the three soldiers in the early morning again standing by the deserted house. Lieutenant Coleman had a systematic, military mind, and, now the diverting books were out of their reach, he stated the problem to his companions in this direct and concise way: "We know that two cattle have lived and died on this field." "Undoubtedly," replied Bromley and Philip. "We have examined three sides of the field, and found that the cattle could not have come from either of those directions. Is not that so?" "It is absolutely certain," said the others. "Therefore," continued Lieutenant Coleman, "they must have come by the fourth side." This conclusion was admitted to be logical; but it provoked a storm of argument, in the course of which the soldiers got wild-eyed and red in the face. In the end, however, they consented to trim out the bushes which formed a thicket along the base of the ledge. seemed to Lieutenant Coleman that they must find some passage here; and, sure enough, not far from the middle of this natural wall they came upon a low-browed opening, which presFollowing their first visit, the three soldiers ently narrowed down to a space not much more returned during four successive days to the de- than five feet square. The farther end of this serted house and the field surrounding it. By tunnel was closed by a pile of loose earth, which this time they had carried home the last of the was spread out at the base, and had every apbooks by pailsful, making the long journey pearance of having been thrown in from the through the cave of the bats by torchlight; but other side. The rusty shovel was brought from they had arrived no nearer to the solution of the fireplace of the house, and after a few minthe riddle of the cattle. In fact, so long as utes of vigorous digging, a ray of light broke any part of the library remained where they had through the roots and grass near the roof of the hole. The soldiers gave a wild cheer, and which, for plenty of reasons, had not been able rushed out into the fresh air to cool off. to secure it since. After the soldiers had reopened the passage through the dividing cliff so that they could pass readily from one plateau to the other, they suspended further investigation and yielded to the luxury of reading, which had been denied them so long. The more they read of this peculiar literature from the library left by Heze "But how about the cattle?" said Bromley, kiah Wallstow, the more interested they became still skeptical. "Easy enough," said Coleman, triumphantly. "They brought two young calves up the ladder." This unsuspected passage through the ledge made everything clear. It had evidently been wide open during all the years the old man had lived on the mountain. It might have been screened by bushes, so that any chance visitors, like the hunters who came over the bridge, would be easily deceived, and not disposed to look farther than the ruined cabin and the noncommittal gravestone. It was not strange that the three soldiers had never suspected that there was an opening here through the rocks, for a four-pronged chestnut had taken firm root in the grassy bank which Josiah had thrown up, and the old man had been dead six years when they first arrived on the mountain. How soon after the burial the passageway had been closed, it was not so easy to determine; but numerous hollows which were afterward found near certain trees and rocks on the smaller plateau, made it look as if Josiah had spent a good many moonlight nights in digging for the treasure before he gave it up altogether. According to the story told by Andy, the guide, Josiah himself must have died soon after his strange patron, and most likely he closed the entrance to the passage in despair when he felt his last illness approaching. There was still much for the soldiers to learn about the motive of the hermit in burying his surplus gold. The comforts with which he had surrounded himself would indicate that he was no miser, and his devotion to the cause of the slave made it extremely probable that he had willed his treasure to some emancipation society, which had not succeeded in reclaiming it before the war, and in the cause of the slave, who, as they thought, had been made free on paper by the impotent proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, only to have his fetters more firmly riveted than ever by the success of the Confederate arms. Among the other books there was one entitled "Two-fold Slavery of the United States.” This book had been published in London in the year 1854, and contained as a frontispiece a black-and-white map, which, so far west as it extended, was remarkably like the one which hung on the wall of their house. Philip shed new tears over the pathetic lives of Uncle Tom and little Eva, and Lieutenant Coleman and George Bromley grew more and more indignant as they read of the sufferings of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, and the self-confessed cruelties of Captain Carnot. However much the soldiers were wrought up by these books, it was left to the mass of pamphlets and periodicals to fill their hearts with an unspeakable bitterness toward the institution which the united efforts of their comrades in arms had failed to overthrow. It was evident that the old man had kept up some sort of communication by mail with the Boston Abolitionists, and that his agent, Josiah, had yielded his views, if he had any, to a liberal supply of gold; for up to the time of his death he had continued to receive these periodicals. As long as he received such dangerous publications, he must have maintained correspondence with their editors; and the more the soldiers became imbued by their reading with the ideas which had made a hermit of Hezekiah Wallstow, the more certain they became that he had willed his money to the cause of abolition, or perhaps that he only held it in trust from the first. Otherwise, why should he have adopted such a crafty method of hiding it from Josiah? To speculate on the cunning of these two men became a favorite occupation of Coleman and Bromley when their eyes were worn out with reading. They were sure that every fresh lot of pamphlets had come through the settlement and up the mountain at the bottom of a cask of meal. The old man had no mill or other means of grinding his corn, which he must have cultivated for his cattle, relying upon Josiah for most of his food. Undoubtedly the very keg which the hunters had seen Josiah carrying up by moonlight, and which they believed was filled with whiskey, contained seditious literature enough, if the mountaineers had ever found it, to have put them to the unpleasant necessity of hanging the bearer to the nearest limb. man made a brief entry in the diary each morning, and, when they were out of food, Philip laid by his book long enough to grind another sack of the corn. The few ears which had shown themselves on the plantation had been eaten green, and the yellow and shriveled stalks which had escaped the grub at the root, stood in thin, sickly rows. It was an off-year even for the chestnuts. When, in addition to this, it was found in September that the potato-crop had rotted in the ground, the reading was brought to a sudden end, and the soldiers found themselves face to face with a condition which threatened starvation, and that before the winter began. They remembered the beetree, and took up the line where Philip had left it, at the edge of the cliff, only to find that the bees flew on toward some tree in the forest below and beyond the plateau. (To be continued.) So the soldiers continued to read, to the neglect of every other duty, through the entire month of August, except that Lieutenant Cole |