Not far from an abrupt precipice on a certain great mountain spur there stands in the midst of the red and yellow autumn woods a little log "church-house." The nuts rattle noisily down on its roof; sometimes during "evenin' preachin'"—which takes place in the afternoon—a flying-squirrel frisks near the window; the hymns echo softly, softly, from the hazy sunlit heights across the valley.

"That air the doxol'gy," said Tom Brent, one day, pausing to listen among the wagons and horses hitched outside. He was about to follow home his father's mare, that had broken loose and galloped off through the woods, but as he glanced back at the church, a sudden thought struck him. He caught sight of the end of little Jim Coggin's comforter flaunting out through the "chinking,"—as the mountaineers call the series of short slats which are set diagonally in the spaces between the logs of the walls, and on which the clay is thickly daubed. This work had been badly done, and in many places the daubing had fallen away. Thus it was that as Jim Coggin sat within the church, the end of his plaid comforter had slipped through the chinking and was waving in the wind outside.

Now Jim had found the weather still too warm for his heavy jeans jacket, but he was too cool without it, and he had ingeniously compromised the difficulty by wearing his comforter in this unique manner,—laying it on his shoulders, crossing it over the chest, passing it under the arms, and tying it in a knot between the shoulder-blades. Tom remembered this with a grin as he slyly crept up to the house, and it was only the work of a moment to draw that knot through the chinking and secure it firmly to a sumach bush that grew near at hand.

It never occurred to him that the resounding doxology could fail to rouse that small, tow-headed, freckle-faced boy, or that the congregation might slowly disperse without noticing him as he sat motionless and asleep in the dark shadow.

The sun slipped down into the red west; the blue mountains turned purple; heavy clouds gathered, and within three miles there was no other human creature when Jim suddenly woke to the darkness and the storm and the terrible loneliness.

Where was he? He tried to rise: he could not move. Bewildered, he struggled and tugged at his harness,—all in vain. As he realized the situation, he burst into tears.

"Them home-folks o' mine won't kem hyar ter s'arch fur me," he cried desperately, "kase I tole my mother ez how I war a-goin' ter dust down the mounting ter Aunt Jerushy's house ez soon ez meet'n' war out an' stay all night along o' her boys."

Still he tried to comfort himself by reflecting that it was not so bad as it might have been. There was no danger that he would have to starve and pine here till next Sunday, for a "protracted meeting" was in progress, service was held every day, and the congregation would return to-morrow, which was Thursday.

His philosophy, however, was short-lived, for the sudden lightning rent the clouds, and a terrific peal of thunder echoed among the cliffs.

"The storm air a-comin' up the mounting!" he exclaimed, in vivacious protest. "An' ef this brief wind war ter whurl the old church-house off'n the bluff an' down inter the valley whar-r—would—I—be?"

All at once the porch creaked beneath a heavy tread. A clumsy hand was fumbling at the door. "Strike a light," said a gruff voice without.

As a lantern was thrust in, Jim was about to speak, but the words froze upon his lips for fear when a man strode heavily over the threshold and he caught the expression of his face.

It was an evil face, red and bloated and brutish. He had small, malicious, twinkling eyes, and a shock of sandy hair. A suit of copper-colored jeans hung loosely on his tall, lank frame, and when he placed the lantern on a bench and stretched out both arms as if he were tired, he showed that his left hand was maimed,—the thumb had been cut off at the first joint.

A thickset, short, swaggering man tramped in after him.

"Waal, Amos Brierwood," he said, "it's safes' fur us ter part. We oughter be fur enough from hyar by daybreak. Divide that thar traveler's money—hey?"

They carefully closed the rude shutters, barred the door, and sat down on the "mourners' bench," neither having noticed the small boy at the other end of the room.

Poor Jim, his arms akimbo and half-covered by his comforter, stuck to the wall like a plaid bat,—if such a natural curiosity is imaginable,—feverishly hoping that the men might go without seeing him at all.

For surely no human creature could be more abhorrent, more incredibly odious of aspect, than Amos Brierwood as he sat there, his red, brutish face redder still with a malign pleasure, his malicious eyes gloating over the rolls of money which he drew from a pocket-book stolen from some waylaid traveler, snapping his fingers in exultation when the amount of the bills exceeded his expectation.

The leaves without were fitfully astir, and once the porch creaked suddenly. Brierwood glanced at the door sharply,—even fearfully,—his hand motionless on the rolls of money.

"Only the wind, Amos, only the wind!" said the short, stout man impatiently.

But he, himself, was disquieted the next moment when a horse neighed shrilly.

"That ain't my beastis, Amos, nor yit your'n!" he cried, starting up.

"It air the traveler's, ye sodden idjit!" said Brierwood, lifting his uncouth foot and giving him a jocose kick.

But the short man was not satisfied. He rose, went outside, and Jim could hear him beating about among the bushes. Presently he came in again. "'Twar the traveler's critter, I reckon; an' that critter an' saddle oughter be counted in my sheer."

Then they fell to disputing and quarreling,—once they almost fought,—but at length the division was made and they rose to go. As Brierwood swung his lantern round, his malicious eyes fell upon the poor little plaid bat sticking against the wall.

He stood in the door staring, dumfounded for a moment. Then he clenched his fist, and shook it fiercely. "How did ye happen ter be hyar this time o' the night, ye limb o' Satan?" he cried.

"Dunno," faltered poor Jim.

The other man had returned too. "Waal, sir, ef that thar boy hed been a copper-head now, he'd hev bit us, sure!"

"He mought do that yit," said Amos Brierwood, with grim significance. "He hev been thar all this time,—'kase he air tied thar, don't ye see? An' he hev eyes, an' he hev ears. What air ter hender?"

The other man's face turned pale, and Jim thought that they were afraid he would tell all he had seen and heard. The manner of both had changed, too. They had a skulking, nervous way with them now in place of the coarse bravado that had characterized them hitherto.

Amos Brierwood pondered for a few minutes. Then he sullenly demanded,—

"What's yer name?"

"It air Jeemes Coggin," quavered the little boy.

"Coggin, hey?" exclaimed Brierwood, with a new idea bringing back the malicious twinkle to his eyes. He laughed as though mightily relieved, and threw up his left hand and shook it exultingly.

The shadow on the dark wall of that maimed hand with only the stump of a thumb was a weird, a horrible thing to the child. He had no idea that his constant notice of it would stamp it in his memory, and that something would come of this fact. He was glad when the shadow ceased to writhe and twist upon the wall, and the man dropped his arm to his side again.

"What's a-brewin', Amos?" asked the other, who had been watching Brierwood curiously.

They whispered aside for a few moments, at first anxiously and then with wild guffaws of satisfaction. When they approached the boy, their manner had changed once more.

"Waal, I declar, bubby," said Brierwood agreeably, "this hyar fix ez ye hev got inter air sateful fur true! It air enough ter sot enny boy on the mounting cat-a-wampus. 'Twar a good thing ez we-uns happened ter kem by hyar on our way from the tan-yard way down yander in the valley whar we-uns hev been ter git paid up fur workin' thar some. We'll let ye out. Who done yer this hyar trick?"

"Dunno—witches, I reckon!" cried poor Jim, bursting into tears.

"Witches!" the man exclaimed, "the woods air a-roamin' with 'em this time o' the year; bein', ye see, ez they kem ter feed on the mast."

He chuckled as he said this, perhaps at the boy's evident terror,—for Jim was sorrowfully superstitious,—perhaps because he had managed to cut unnoticed a large fragment from the end of the comforter. This he stuffed into his own pocket as he talked on about two witches, whom he said he had met that afternoon under an oak-tree feeding on acorns.

"An' now, I kem ter remind myself that them witches war inquirin' round 'bout'n a boy—war his name Jeemes Coggin? Le''s see! That boy's name war Jeemes Coggin!"

While Jim stood breathlessly, intently listening, Brierwood had twisted something into the folds of his comforter so dexterously that unless this were untied it would not fall; it was a silk handkerchief of a style never before seen in the mountains, and he had made a knot hard and fast in one corner.

"Thar, now!" he exclaimed, holding up the fragment of knitted yarn, "I hev tore yer comforter. Never mind, bubby, 'twar tore afore. But it'll do ter wrop up this money-purse what b'longs ter yer dad. He lef' it hid in the chinking o' the wall over yander close ter whar I war sittin' when I fust kem in. I'll put it back thar, 'kase yer dad don't want nobody ter know whar it air hid."

He strode across the room and concealed the empty pocket-book in the chinking.

"Ef ye won't tell who teched it, I'll gin a good word fur ye ter them witches what war inquirin' round fur ye ter-day."

Jim promised in hot haste, and then, the rain having ceased, he started for home, but Brierwood stopped him at the door.

"Hold on thar, bub. I kem mighty nigh furgittin' ter let ye know ez I seen yer brother Alf awhile back, an' he axed me ter git ye ter go by Tom Brent's house, an' tell Tom ter meet him up the road a piece by that thar big sulphur spring. Will ye gin Tom that message? Tell him Alf said ter come quick."

Once more Jim promised.

The two men holding the lantern out in the porch watched him as he pounded down the dark road, his tow hair sticking out of his tattered black hat, the ends of his comforter flaunting in the breeze, and every gesture showing the agitated haste of a witch-scared boy. Then they looked at each other significantly, and laughed loud and long.

"He'll tell sech a crooked tale ter-morrer that Alf Coggin an' his dad will see sights along o' that traveler's money!" said Brierwood, gloating over his sharp management as he and his accomplice mounted their horses and rode off in opposite directions.

When Jim reached Tom Brent's house, and knocked at the door, he was so absorbed in his terrors that, as it opened, he said nothing for a moment. He could see the family group within. Tom's father was placidly smoking. His palsied "gran'dad" shook in his chair in the chimney-corner as he told the wide-eyed boys big tales about the "Injuns" that harried the early settlers in Tennessee.

"Tom," Jim said, glancing up at the big boy,—"Tom, thar's a witch waitin' fur ye at the sulphur spring! Go thar, quick!"

"Not ef I knows what's good fur me!" protested Tom, with a great horse-laugh. "What ails ye, boy? Ye talk like ye war teched in the head!"

"I went ter say ez Alf Coggin air thar waitin' fur ye," Jim began again, nodding his slandered head with great solemnity, "an' tole me ter tell ye ter kem thar quick."

He took no heed of the inaccuracy of the message; he was glancing fearfully over his shoulder, and the next minute scuttled down the road in a bee-line for home.

Tom hurried off briskly through the woods. "Waal, sir! I'm mighty nigh crazed ter know what Alf Coggin kin want o' me; goin' coon-huntin', mebbe," he speculated, as he drew within sight of an old lightning-scathed tree which stood beside the sulphur spring and stretched up, stark and white, in the dim light.

The clouds were blowing away from a densely instarred sky; the moon was hardly more than a crescent and dipping low in the west, but he could see the sombre outline of the opposite mountain, and the white mists that shifted in a ghostly and elusive fashion along the summit. The night was still, save for a late katydid, spared by the frost, and piping shrilly.

He experienced a terrible shock of surprise when a sudden voice—a voice he had never heard before—cried out sharply, "Hello there! Help! help!"

As he pressed tremulously forward, he beheld a sight which made him ask himself if it were possible that Alf Coggin had sent for him to join in some nefarious work which had ended in leaving a man—a stranger—bound to the old lightning-scathed tree.

Even in the uncertain light Tom could see that he was pallid and panting, evidently exhausted in some desperate struggle: there was blood on his face, his clothes were torn, and by all odds he was the angriest man that was ever waylaid and robbed.

"Ter-morrer he'll be jes' a-swoopin'!" thought Tom, tremulously untying the complicated knots, and listening to his threats of vengeance on the unknown robbers, "an' every critter on the mounting will git a clutch from his claws."

And in fact, it was hardly daybreak before the constable of the district, who lived hard by in the valley, was informed of all the details of the affair, so far as known to Tom or the "Traveler,"—for thus the mountaineers designated him, as if he were the only one in the world.

By reason of the message which Jim had delivered, and its strange result, they suspected the Coggins, and as they rode together to the justice's house for a warrant, this suspicion received unexpected confirmation in a rumor that they found afloat. Every man they met stopped them to repeat the story that Coggin's boy had told somebody that it was his father who had robbed the traveler, and hid the empty pocket-book in the chinking of the church wall. No one knew who had set this report in circulation, but a blacksmith said he heard it first from a man named Brierwood, who had stopped at his shop to have his horse shod.

It was still early when they reached Jim Coggin's home; the windows and doors were open to let out the dust, for his mother was just beginning to sweep. She had pushed aside the table, when her eyes suddenly distended with surprise as they fell upon a silk handkerchief lying on the floor beside it. The moment that she stooped and picked it up, the strange gentleman stepped upon the porch, and through the open door he saw it dangling from her hands.

He tapped the constable on the shoulder.

"That's my property!" he said tersely.

The officer stepped in instantly. "Good-mornin', Mrs. Coggin," he said politely. "'T would pleasure me some ter git a glimpse o' that handkercher."

"Air it your'n?" asked the woman wonderingly. "I jes' now fund it, an' I war tried ter know who had drapped it hyar."

The officer, without a word, untied the knot which Amos Brierwood had made in one corner, while the Coggins looked on in open-mouthed amazement. It contained a five-dollar bill, and a bit of paper on which some careless memoranda had been jotted down in handwriting which the traveler claimed as his own.

It seemed a very plain case. Still, he got out of the sound of the woman's sobs and cries as soon as he conveniently could, and sauntered down the road, where the officer presently overtook him with Alf and his father in custody.

"Whar be ye a-takin' of us now?" cried the elder, gaunt and haggard, and with his long hair blowing in the breeze.

"Ter the church-house, whar yer boy says ye hev hid the traveler's money-purse," said the officer.

"My boy!" exclaimed John Coggin, casting an astounded glance upon his son.

Poor Alf was almost stunned. When they reached the church, and the men, after searching for a time without result, appealed to him to save trouble by pointing out the spot where the pocket-book was concealed, he could only stammer and falter unintelligibly, and finally he burst into tears.

"Ax the t'other one—the leetle boy," suggested an old man in the crowd.

Alf's heart sank—sank like lead—when Jim, suddenly remembering the promised "good word" to the witches, piped out, "I war tole not ter tell who teched it,—'kase my dad didn't want nobody ter know 'twar hid thar."

John Coggin's face was rigid and gray.

"The Lord hev forsook me!" he cried. "An' all my chillen hev turned liars tergether."

Then he made a great effort to control himself.

"Look-a-hyar, Jim, ef ye hev got the truth in ye,—speak it! Ef ye know whar I hev hid anything,—find it!"

Jim, infinitely important, and really understanding little of what was going on, except that all these big men were looking at him, crossed the room with as much stateliness as is compatible with a pair of baggy brown jeans trousers, a plaid comforter tied between the shoulder-blades in a big knot, a tow-head, and a tattered black hat; he slipped his grimy paw in the chinking where Amos Brierwood had hid the pocket-book, and drew it thence, with the prideful exclamation,—

"B'longs ter my dad!"

The officer held it up empty before the traveler,—he held up, too, the bit of comforter in which it was folded, and pointed to the small boy's shoulders. The gentleman turned away, thoroughly convinced. Alf and his father looked from one to the other, in mute despair. They foresaw many years of imprisonment for a crime which they had not committed.

The constable was hurrying his prisoners toward the door, when there was a sudden stir on the outskirts of the crowd. Old Parson Payne was pushing his way in, followed by a tall young man, who, in comparison with the mountaineers, seemed wonderfully prosperous and well-clad, and very fresh and breezy.

"You're all on the wrong track!" he cried.

And his story proved this, though it was simple enough.

He was sojourning in the mountains with some friends on a "camp-hunt," and the previous evening he had chanced to lose his way in the woods. When night and the storm came on, he was perhaps five miles from camp. He mistook the little "church-house" for a dwelling, and dismounting, he hitched his horse in the laurel, intending to ask for shelter for the night. As he stepped upon the porch, however, he caught a glimpse, through the chinking, of the interior, and he perceived that the building was a church. There were benches and a rude pulpit. The next instant, his attention was riveted by the sight of two men, one of whom had drawn a knife upon the other, quarreling over a roll of money. He stood rooted to the spot in surprise. Gradually, he began to understand the villainy afoot, for he overheard all that they said to each other, and afterward to Jim. He saw one of the men cut the bit from the comforter, wrap the pocket-book in it, and hide it away, and he witnessed a dispute between them, which went on in dumb show behind the boy's back, as to which of two bills should be knotted in the handkerchief which they twisted into the comforter.

The constable was pressing him to describe the appearance of the ruffians.

"Why," said the stranger, "one of them was long, and lank, and loose-jointed, and had sandy hair, and"—He paused abruptly, cudgeling his memory for something more distinctive, for this description would apply to half the men in the room, and thus it would be impossible to identify and capture the robbers.

"He hedn't no thumb sca'cely on his lef' hand," piped out Jim, holding up his own grimy paw, and looking at it with squinting intensity as he crooked it at the first joint, to imitate the maimed hand.

"No thumb!" exclaimed the constable excitedly. "Amos Brierwood fur a thousand!"

Jim nodded his head intelligently, with sudden recollection. "That air the name ez the chunky man gin him when they fust kem in."

And thus it was that when the Coggins were presently brought before the justice, they were exonerated of all complicity in the crime for which Brierwood and his accomplice were afterward arrested, tried, and sentenced to the State Prison.

Jim doubts whether the promised "good word" was ever spoken on his behalf to the witches, who were represented as making personal inquiries about him, because he suspects that the two robbers were themselves the only evil spirits roaming the woods that night.