blackberry brambles and young pines on the left side where it had been
lumbered some years ago. Paul pointed out proudly the thrifty growth of
the new pines and explained it by showing the several large trees left
standing at intervals down the slope towards the Ashley valley. "Father
always has them do that, so the seeds from the old trees will seed up
the bare ground again. Gosh! You'd ought to hear him light into the
choppers when they forget to leave the seed-pines or when they cut under
six inches butt diameter."

Mr. Welles had no more notion what cutting under six inches butt
diameter meant than he had of the name of the little brown bird who sang
so sweetly in his elm; but Paul's voice and that of the nameless bird
gave him the same pleasure. He tightened his hold of the tough, sinewy
little fingers, and looked up through the glorious brown columns of the
great pines towards where the sky-line showed, luminous, far up the
slope.

"That's the top of the Eagle Rocks, where you see the sky," explained
his small cicerone, seeing the direction of his eyes. "The Powerses lost
a lot of sheep off over them, last year. A dog must ha' started running
them down in the pasture. And you know what fools sheep are. Once they
get scared they can't think of anything to do except just to keep
a-running till something gets in their way. About half of the Powers
flock just ran themselves off the top of the Rocks, although the dog had
stopped chasing them, way down in the valley. There wasn't enough of
them left, even to sell to the butcher in Ashley for mutton. Ralph
Powers, he's about as old as I am, maybe a little bit older, well, his
father had given him a ewe and two twin lambs for his own, and didn't
they all three get killed that day! Ralph felt awful bad about it. He
don't ever seem to have any luck, Ralph don't."