face the consequences. He had not the strength to earn his bread on a
farm.

"If I'd a b'en in any hurry for the money--g-guess I'd a notified you,"
said Jethro.

"I think you had better foreclose, Mr. Bass," Wetherell answered; "I
can't hold out any hopes to you that it will ever be possible for me to
pay it off. It's only fair to tell you that."

"Well," he said, with what seemed a suspicion of a smile, "I don't know
but what that's about as honest an answer as I ever got."

"Why did you do it?" Wetherell cried, suddenly goaded by another fear;
"why did you buy that mortgage?"

But this did not shake his composure.

"H-have a little habit of collectin' 'em," he answered, "same as you do
books. G-guess some of 'em hain't as valuable."

William Wetherell was beginning to think that Jethro knew something also
of such refinements of cruelty as were practised by Caligula. He drew
forth his cowhide wallet and produced from it a folded piece of newspaper
which must, Wetherell felt sure, contain the mortgage in question.

"There's one power I always wished I had," he observed, "the power to
make folks see some things as I see 'em. I was acrost the Water to-night,
on my hill farm, when the sun set, and the sky up thar above the mountain
was all golden bars, and the river all a-flamin' purple, just as if it