"You ain't a Member, air you?"

"No."

"That's bad. I kinder misdoubted it las' Sunday; but I wasn't sartin. Ef
your callin' and election ain't sure, I guess Mr. Crew oughter talk to
you."

These phrases were jerked out with long pauses separating them, and then
the Elder was ominously silent.

In various ways Bancroft attempted to draw him into conversation--in
vain. The Elder answered in monosyllables, or not at all. Presently he
entered the woods on the left, and soon halted before the shoot-entrance
to a roughly-built corral.

"The kyows is yonder," he remarked; "ef you'll drive them hyar, I'll
count them as they come in."

The schoolmaster turned his horse's head in the direction pointed out.
He rode for some minutes through the wood without seeing a single
animal. Under ordinary circumstances this would have surprised him; but
now he was absorbed in thinking of Conklin and his peculiarities,
wondering at his habit of silence and its cause:

"Has he nothing to say? Or does he think a great deal without being able
to find words to express his thoughts?"

A prolonged moan, a lowing of cattle in pain, came to his ears. He made