"Kin I ask my mother?" he said dubiously.

"By all means ask your mother," replied the stranger heartily.

Birt's last fantastic doubt vanished. Oh no! this was not Satan in
disguise. When did the enemy ever counsel a boy to ask his mother!

Birt still stared gravely at him. All the details of his garb,
manner, speech, even the hammer in his hand, were foreign to the
boy's experience.

Presently he ventured a question. "Do you-uns hail from hyar-
abouts?"

The stranger was frank and communicative. He told Birt that he was
a professor of Natural Science in a college in one of the "valley
towns," and that he was sojourning, for his health's sake, at a
little watering-place some twelve miles distant on the bench of the
mountain. Occasionally he made an excursion into the range, which
was peculiarly interesting geologically.

"But what I wish you to do is to dig for--bones."

"BONES?" faltered Birt.

"Bones," reiterated the professor solemnly.

DID his spectacles twinkle?