year ago with a hammer an' went to peckin' aroun' in the rocks
here, an' that boy was with him all the time. Thar don't seem to
be much the feller didn't tell Jason an' nothin' that Jason don't
seem to remember. He's al'ays a-puzzlin' me by comin' out with
somethin' or other that rock-pecker tol' him an'--" he stopped,
for the boy was shaking his head from side to side.

"Don't you say nothin' agin him, now," he said, and old Jason
laughed.

"He's a powerful hand to take up fer his friends, Jason is."

"He was a friend o' all us mountain folks," said the boy stoutly,
and then he looked Colonel Pendleton in the face--fearlessly, but
with no impertinence.

"He said as how you folks from the big settlemints was a-comin'
down here to buy up our wild lands fer nothin' because we all was
a lot o' fools an' didn't know how much they was worth, an' that
ever'body'd have to move out o' here an' you'd get rich diggin'
our coal an' cuttin' our timber an' raisin' hell ginerally."

He did not notice Marjorie's flush, but went on fierily: "He said
that our trees caught the rain an' our gullies gethered it
together an' troughed it down the mountains an' made the river
which would water all yo' lands. That you was a lot o' damn fools
cuttin' down yo' trees an' a-plantin' terbaccer an' a-spittin' out
yo' birthright in terbaccer-juice, an' that by an' by you'd come
up here an' cut down our trees so that there wouldn't be nothin'
left to ketch the rain when it fell, so that yo' rivers would git