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HE following morning Pole rose before daylight and rode to Darley. As he reached the place, the first rays of the sun were touching the slate-covered spire of the largest church in town.

He went to a public wagon-yard and hitched his horse to one of the long racks. A mountain family he knew slightly had camped in the yard, sleeping in their canvas-covered wagon, and were making coffee over a little fire. Pole wanted a cup of the beverage, but he passed on into a grocery-store across the street and bought a dime's worth of cheese and hard-tack crackers. This was his breakfast. He washed it down with a dipper of water from the street well, and sat around the store chatting with the clerk, who was sprinkling the floor, and sweeping and dusting the long room. The clerk was a red-headed young man with a short, bristling mustache, and a suit of clothes that was too large for him.

"Don't Mr. Craig stay around Fincher's warehouse a good deal?" Pole asked, as the clerk rested for a moment on his broom near him.

"Mighty nigh all day long," was the reply; "him an' Fincher's some kin, I think."

"On his wife's side," said Pole. "I want to see Mr. Craig. I wonder ef he 'll be down thar this mornin'."

"Purty apt," said the clerk. "Fincher's his best friend sence his bu'st-up, an' they are mighty thick. I reckon he gits the cold-shoulder at a lots o' places."

"You don't say!"

"An' of course he wants somewhar to go besides home. In passing I've seed 'im a-figurin' several times at Fincher's desk. They say he's got some notion o' workin' fer Fincher as his bookkeeper."

"Well, he 'll have to make a livin' some way," said Pole.

The clerk laughed significantly.

"Ef it ain't already made," said he, with a smile. Pole stood up. "I don't think that's right," he said, coldly. "Me nur you, nur nobody, hain't got no right to hint at what we don't know nothin' about. Mr. Craig may 'a' lost ever' cent he had."

"In a pig's valise!" sneered the red-headed man. "I'd bet my hat he's got money—an' plenty of it, huh!"

"Well, I don't know nothin' about it," said Pole, still coldly. "An' what's more, Dunn, I ain't a-goin' about smirchin' any helpless man's character, nuther. Ef I knowed he had made by the bu'st I'd talk different, but I don't know it!"

"Oh, I see which side you are on, Baker," laughed the clerk. "Folks are about equally divided. Half is fer 'im an' half agin. But mark my words, Craig will slide out o' this town some day, an' be heerd of after a while a-gittin' started agin some'r's else. That racket has been worked to death all over the country."

Pole carried the discussion no further. Half an hour passed. Customers were coming in from the wagon-yard and examining the wares on the counters and making slow purchases. The proprietor came in and let the clerk go to breakfast. Pole stood in the doorway, looking up the street in the direction of Craig's residence. Presently he saw the ex-banker coming from the post-office, reading his mail. Pole stepped back into the store and let him go by; then he went to the door again and saw Craig go into Fincher's warehouse at the end of the next block of straggling, wooden buildings. Pole sauntered down the sidewalk in that direction, passing the front door of the warehouse without looking in. The door at the side of the house had a long platform before it, and on it Fincher, the proprietor, was weighing bales of hay which were being unloaded from several wagons by the countrymen who were disposing of it.

"Hello, Mr. Fincher," Pole greeted him, familiarly. "Want any help unloadin'?"

"Hello, Baker," said Fincher, looking up from the blank-book in which he was recording the weights. "No, I reckon they can handle it all right." Fincher was a short, fat man, very bald, and with a round, laughing face. He had known Pole a long time and considered him a most amusing character. "How do you come on, Pole?"

"Oh, about as common. I jest thought them fellers looked sorter light-weight."

The men on the wagon laughed as they thumped a bale of hay on to the platform. "You'd better dry up," one of them said. "We 'll git the mayor to put you to work agin."

"Well, he 'll have to be quicker about it than he was the last time," said Pole, dryly.

Some one laughed lustily from behind a tall stack of wheat in bags in the warehouse. It was Lawyer Trabue. He came round and picked up Fincher's daily paper, as he did every morning, and sat down and began to read it.

"Now you are talkin'," he said. "Thar was more rest in that job, Pole, than any you ever undertook. They tell me you didn't crack a rock."

Fincher laughed as he closed his book and struck Baker with it playfully. "Pole was too tired to do that job," he said. "He was born that way."

"Say, Mr. Trabue," retaliated Pole, "did you ever heer how I got the best o' Mr. Fincher in a chicken trade?"

"I don't think I ever did, Pole," laughed the lawyer, expectantly. "How was it?"

"Oh, come off, don't go over that again," said Fincher, flushing.

"It was this away," said Pole, with a broad, wholesome grin. "My cousin, Bart Wilks, was runnin' the restaurant under the car-shed about two yeer ago. He was a new hand at the business, an' one day he had a awful rush. He got a telegram that a trainload o' passengers had missed connection at Chattanooga an' would have to eat with him. He was powerful rattled, runnin' round like a dog after its tail. He knowed he'd have to have a lot o' fryin' chickens, an' he couldn't leave the restaurant, so he axed me ef I'd take the money an' go out in town an' buy 'em fer 'im. I consented, an' struck Mr. Fincher, who was sellin' sech truck then. He 'lowed, you know, that I jest wanted one, or two at the outside, fer my own use, so when I seed a fine coop out in front an' axed the price of 'em he kinder drawed on his beerd till his mouth fell open, an' studied how he could make the most out o' me. After a while he said: 'Well, Pole, I 'll make 'em ten cents apiece ef I pick 'em, an' fifteen ef you pick 'em.' I sorter skeerd the chickens around an' seed thar was two or three tiny ones hidin' under the big ones, an' I seed what he was up to, but I was ready fer 'im. 'All right,' ses I, 'you pick 'em.' Thar was two or three loafers standin' round an' they all laughed at me when Mr. Fincher got down over the coop an' finally ketched one about the size of a robin an' hauled it out. 'Keep on a-pickin',' ses I, an' he made a grab fer one a little bigger an' handed it up to me. Then he stuck his hands down in his pockets, doin' his best to keep from laughin'. The gang yelled then, but I wasn't done. 'Keep on a-pickin',' ses I. An' he got down agin. An', sir, I got that coop at about four cents apiece less 'n he'd paid fer 'em. He tried to back, but the gang wouldn't let 'im. It was the cheapest lot o' chickens I ever seed. I turned the little ones out to fatten, an' made Wilks pay me the market-price all round fer the bunch."

"I 'll be bound you made some 'n' out of it," said Trabue. "Fincher, did you ever heer how that scamp tuck in every merchant on this street about two yeer ago?"

"Never heerd anything except his owin' 'em all," said Fincher, with a laugh.

"I could put 'im in the penitentiary fer it," affirmed the lawyer. "You know about that time thar was a powerful rivalry goin' on among the storekeepers. They was movin' heaven an' earth to sell the'r big stocks. Well, one of the spryest in the lot, Joe Gaylord, noticed that Pole was powerful popular with mountain-folks, an' he made 'im a proposition, bindin' 'im down to secrecy. He proposed to give Pole ten per cent, commission on all the goods he'd he'p sell by bringin' customers in the store. Pole hesitated, beca'se, he said, they might find it out, an' Joe finally agreed that all Pole would have to do was to fetch 'em in, give the wink, an' him an' his clerks would do the rest. It worked mighty slick fer a while, but Pole noticed that very often the folks he'd fetch in wouldn't be pleased with the goods an' prices an' ud go trade some'r's else. Then what do you think the scamp did? He went to every store in town an' made a secret contract to git ten per cent, on all sales, an' he had the softest snap you ever heerd of. He'd simply hang onto a gang from the country, whether he knowed 'em or not, an' foller 'em around till they bought; then he'd walk up an' rake in his part."

"I got left once," said Pole, laughing with the others. "One gang that I stuck to all day went over to Melton an' bought."

"Well, the merchants caught on after a while an' stopped him," said Trabue; "but he made good money while he was at it. They'd 'a' sent 'im up fer it, ef it hadn't been sech a good joke on 'em."

"I don't know about that," replied Pole, thoughtfully. "I was doin' all I agreed, an' ef they could afford to pay ten per cent, to anybody, they mought as well 'a' paid it to me. I drawed trade to the whole town. The cigars an' whiskey I give away amounted to a lots. I've set up many a night tellin' them moss-backs tales to make 'em laugh."

"Well, ef you ever git into any trouble let me know," said Trabue, as he rose to go. "I 'll defend you at half price; you'd be a sight o' help to a lawyer. I 'll be hanged if I ever seed a better case 'an you made out in the mayor's court, an' you hadn't a thing to back it up with, nuther."

The hay was unloaded and the wagons driven away. Fincher stood eying Pole with admiration. "It's a fact," he said. "You could 'a' made some 'n' out o' yorese'f, if you'd 'a' been educated, an' had a showin'." Pole jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Craig, who was standing in the front door, looking out into the street. "Everybody don't git a fair ............