Although the young game-warden stepped out lively enough, his heart was as heavy as lead. He was sure that his father and Dan had come back from the mountain with a goodly number of Mr. Warren's valuable birds, which had fallen to their murderous double-barrels, and that they would take pains to keep out of his sight when they saw him approaching the cabin; consequently he was much surprised to find them sitting on the bank of the river, widely separated from each other, and to notice that they did not show the least desire to avoid him.

When he stepped across the threshold of his humble home, he was still more surprised to see that his mother appeared very nervous and anxious, and that there was an expression on her pale face that he had never seen there before.

"What's the matter?" queried Joe. "What's happened?"

"I am sure I don't know," answered Mrs. Morgan, in a faltering voice. "But it must be something terrible. Have you seen your father and Daniel since they left the house this morning?"

"Not until this very minute; but I tried to find them, for I heard them shoot, and knew they were after my birds. How many did they bring home with them? This is not a pleasant thing for me to do, mother, but they will get into trouble just as sure—"

"I don't think they shot any birds," Mrs. Morgan interposed. "If they did, they have concealed them somewhere. But they must have done something, for I never saw them act so before."

"Act how?" inquired Joe.

"Why, as if they were frightened out of their wits. When I looked out of the window and saw them coming, they were running at the top of their speed; and the minute they got into the house, they closed the door and fastened it, and began trying to load their guns. But their hands trembled so violently that they spilled the powder all over the floor; and then they sat down and swayed back and forth in their chairs as if they did not have strength enough to hold themselves still. There was not a particle of color in their faces, and they acted for all the world as if they had taken leave of their senses."

"What ailed them?" asked Joe, who was profoundly astonished.

"I don't know. I couldn't get them to say a word. Whenever I spoke to them they stared at me as if they didn't know what I meant, then shook their heads and went on rocking themselves in their chairs. When they could muster up courage enough to unlock the door and go out, I heard your father say that he had hauled his last load of wood down from the mountain."

"Well, that beats me," said Joe, who did not know what else to say. "But there's one comfort, mother; I shall have two pot-hunters less to watch during the winter."

"Why, Joseph, you are not going back there?" exclaimed Mrs. Morgan, who trembled visibly at the bare thought of the unknown perils to which he might be exposed.

"Of course I am going back," replied Joe, quickly. "Why shouldn't I? There's where I am going to earn the money to keep you from paddling off through the deep snow this winter."

"Oh, Joe, let the money go and stay at home with me," said his mother, pleadingly. "I shall be so uneasy every minute you are away. If anything should happen to you—"

"Now what in the world is going to happen to me," asked the young game-warden, who told himself that Silas and Dan must have behaved in a most extraordinary manner to frighten and excite his mother in this way. "What is there up there in the hills that's going to hurt me?"

"That I can't tell. I do wish I knew just what happened to your father and Dan. The reality couldn't be any worse than this uncertainty and suspense."

"I wonder if I couldn't induce Dan to give me a hint of it," said Joe, standing his rifle up in one corner of the room. "I believe it will pay to have a shy at him. He can't keep a secret for any length of time to save his life; and if I work it right, I think I can worm this one out of him."

So saying, Joe stepped to the door to take a look at the motionless figures on the river bank. There was only one of them there now. Silas had disappeared and Dan was left alone.

Joe thought that nothing could have suited him better. Dan might be inclined to be reticent with his father sitting in plain sight of him; but now there was nothing to restrain him, and he could talk as freely as he pleased.

Walking leisurely along, as if he had no particular object in view, Joe went down to the bank and seated himself a short distance away from his brother, who sat with his elbows resting on his knees and both hands supporting his head. He never moved when he heard the sound of Joe's footsteps, and neither did he utter a sound; so Joe began the conversation himself, and with no little anxiety, it must be confessed, as to the result. Dan was an awkward boy to manage, and if Joe had entered at once upon the subject that was uppermost in his mind, his brother would have shut himself up like a clam.

"Well, old fellow," said Joe, cheerily, "why didn't you come around and see my new home? I tell you, I've got things nice there; or, rather, I'm going to, as soon as I have time to straighten up a bit. You were up there, because I heard you shoot—you and father. I didn't expect to see you back so soon."

Dan slowly raised a very pale face from his hands, and gazed at his brother with a pair of wild-looking eyes. He did not look like himself at all.

After staring hard at his brother for full half a minute, and running his eyes up and down the bank to make sure that there was no one else in sight, he said, in hollow tones:

"And I didn't look to see you back again so soon, either. I didn't never expect to set eyes on to you no more."

"You didn't?" exclaimed Joe. "Why not?"

"Did he show himself to you, too?" asked Dan, in reply. "You don't look like you'd seen him."

"Seen who? I met some men up there on the mountain, if that is what you mean."

"It wan't no man, Joey," said Dan shaking his head solemnly—"it wan't no man. It was something wusser."

"Why, Dan, I don't know what you mean," said Joe.

And then he checked himself. His brother was in a fair way to reveal something to him, and he did not want to lose the chance of hearing it by exhibiting too much impatience.

"How many birds did you get?"

"Didn't get none," answered Dan. "Didn't see nary one. They are as safe from me and pap, from this time on, as though they wasn't there."

"Then what did you shoot at?"

Dan looked behind him, and allowed his eyes to roam up and down the bank, before he replied.

"I'm 'most afraid to tell you," said he, in a scarcely audible voice. "Joey," he added, straightening up, and giving emphasis to his words by pounding his knee with his fist—"Joey, I wouldn't live up there in old man Warren's shanty two days—no, nor half of one day—for all the money there is in—"

Dan was about to say, "for all the money there is in that robbers' cave," but he caught himself in time, and finished the sentence by adding, "for all there is in Ameriky."

"I can't, for the life of me, make out what you are trying to get at," said Joe, rising from the ground and turning his face toward the cabin, "and neither can I waste any more time with you. I came down after father's watch, and as soon as I get it I must hurry back. I don't want the dark to catch me—"

"I should say not!" gasped Dan, shivering all over. "Say, Joe," he continued, reaching up and taking his brother by the hand, "don't go up there no more. Go and tell old man Warren that he'll have to get somebody else to be his game-warden."

Joe was more amazed than ever. Dan was in sober earnest, there could be no doubt about that, and he could not imagine what he had seen to scare him so badly.

"Don't go back," pleaded Dan. "The hant is in the gulf now, but as soon as it gets dark it will come out—that's the way they all do—and come up to your shanty; and when you see it walking around there, all in white, like me and pap seen it, I tell you—Say, Joey, you won't go back, will you?"

"Dan, I am surprised at you, and heartily ashamed as well," said Joe, who was more than half inclined to be angry at his brother. "You've heard some foolish story or other, and it's frightened you out of a year's growth. There's no such thing as a 'hant.'"

"I tell you there is, too," Dan protested. "I seen it with my own two eyes, and so did pap. If he was here he'd tell you the same thing, pervided he told you anything at all. We heard it yelling at us, too, and such yelling! Oh, laws a massy! I don't never want to listen to the like again," cried Dan, covering his ears with both hands, and rocking himself from side to side, as if he were in the greatest bodily distress.

Joe now thought it time to hurry matters a little. He was really anxious to hear his brother's story.

"I should like to know just what you and father saw and heard this morning," said he; "but I can't waste any more precious moments with you. You know my time is not my own any longer. It belongs to Mr. Warren."

"Do you mean to say that you're going back?"

"Yes. I am going to start this very minute."

These words seemed to arouse Dan from his lethargy.

"Set down, Joey," said he, at the same time casting apprehensive glances on all sides of him. "Come clost to me, so't that hant can't tech me, and I'll tell you everything."

"Will you be quick about it?"

"Just as quick and fast as I know how, honor bright," replied Dan. "And will you promise, sure as you live and breathe, that you won't lisp a word of it to nobody? 'Cause why, I'm afeared that if you do, he'll show himself to me again, and I don't want to see him no more."

"I shall make no promises whatever," answered Joe, who saw very plainly that he could say what he pleased, since Dan would not permit him to depart until he had eased his mind by confiding to him everything there was in it. "If there is any dangerous thing up there in the gulf, I am going to hunt him or it out the very first thing I do."

"Joey, don't you try that," exclaimed Dan, who really seemed to be distressed on his brother's account. "You can't hurt a hant. Me and pap fired four charges of No. 8 shot into him, and we never so much as made him wink. He kept on yelling at us just the same, and now and then he would make a lunge for'ard, as if he was coming right at us."

"Go on with your story," said Joe, whose patience was all exhausted; "I am listening."

Thus adjured, Dan settled himself into a comfortable position, and began his narrative.