and, when a crested cock of the woods took billowy flight across a
blue ravine, he knew him for a big cousin of the little red-heads,
just as Mavis was a little cousin of his. Once he had known birds
only by sight, but now he knew every calling, twittering, winging
soul of them by name. Once he used to draw bead on one and all
heartlessly and indiscriminately with his old rifle, but now only
the whistle of a bob-white, the darting of a hawk, or the whir of
a pheasant's wings made him whirl the old weapon from his
shoulder. He knew flower, plant, bush, and weed, the bark and leaf
of every tree, and even In winter he could pick them out in the
gray etching of a mountain-side--dog-wood, red-bud, "sarvice"
berry, hickory, and walnut, the oaks--white, black, and chestnut--
the majestic poplar, prized by the outer world, and the black-gum
that defied the lightning. All this the dreamy stranger had taught
him, and much more. And nobody, native born to those hills, except
his uncle Arch, knew as much about their hidden treasures as
little Jason. He had trailed after the man of science along the
benches of the mountains where coal beds lie. With him he had
sought the roots of upturned trees and the beds of little creeks
and the gray faces of "rock-houses" for signs of the black
diamonds. He had learned to watch the beds of little creeks for
the shining tell-tale black bits, and even the tiny mouths of
crawfish holes, on the lips of which they sometimes lay. And the
biggest treasure in the hills little Jason had found himself; for
only on the last day before the rock-pecker had gone away, the two
had found signs of another vein, and the geologist had given his
own pick to the boy and told him to dig, while he was gone, for
himself. And Jason had dug. He was slipping now up the tiny
branch, and where the stream trickled down the face of a water-
worn perpendicular rock the boy stopped, leaned his rifle against