Once more the bewildered tanner glanced from one to the other.

"Why, ye never tole me ez ye hed seen su'thin' strange in the woods,
Andy," he exclaimed, feeling aggrieved, thus balked of a sensation.
"An' the old woman ain't dead, nohow," he continued reasonably, "but
air strengthenin' up amazin' fast."

"Waal," put in Rufe, hastening to explain this discrepancy in the
spectre, "I hearn you-uns a-sayin' that mornin', fore ye set out
from the tanyard, ez she war mighty nigh dead an' would be gone
'fore night. An' ez he hed tole me he'd skeer the wits out'n me, I
'lowed ez I could show him ez his wits warn't ez tough ez mine.
Though," added the roguish Rufe, with a grin of enjoyment, "arter I
hed dressed up the blackberry bush in mam's apron an' shawl, an' sot
her bonnet a-top, it tuk ter noddin' and bowin' with the wind, an'
looked so like folks, ez it gin ME a skeer, an' I jes' run home ez
hard ez I could travel. An Towse, he barked at it!"

Andy Byers spoke suddenly. "Waal, Birt holped ye, then."

"He never!" cried Rufe, emphatically, unwilling to share the credit,
or perhaps discredit, of the enterprise. "Birt dunno nuthin' 'bout
it ter this good day." Rufe winked slyly. "Birt would tell mam ez
I hed been a-foolin' with her shawl an' bonnet."

Andy Byers still maintained a most incongruous gravity.

"It warn't Birt's doin', at all?" he said interrogatively, and with
a pondering aspect.