"What do you want of him?"

"Want him to go 'long with us; we 're hunting some parties, and need a guide. They tol' us up the road a bit he knew every inch o' these yere mountings."

There was a pause, as if Maria was endeavoring to decide as to the honesty of the speaker. Her final answer proved the mental survey had not proven satisfactory.

"Wal, I reckon," she said calmly, "as you uns 'll be more likely ter find him down 'bout Connersville."

"Then whut's all these yere dirty dishes doing on the table?"

"Hed sum Yankee officers yere; they just rode on down ther trail as you uns cum up."

"Like hell!" ejaculated the fellow with complete loss of temper. "See here, old woman, we 're too old birds to be caught with any such chaff. We'll take a look around the old shebang anyhow, and while we're at it you put something on the table for me and my mates to eat."

The voice and manner were rough, but I was impressed with a certain accent creeping into the man's speech bespeaking education. More, in spite of an apparent effort to make it so, his dialect was not that of those mountains.