Could he deduce nothing
from the tanner's grin? He spent the day at the Settlement without
ostensible reason, and only at nightfall did he return home, and by
a devious route, very different from that indicated by Jubal
Perkins.
Inquiry developed the fact that the boundaries of Nate's land did
not include the salt lick, and his talents as an obstructer were not
called into play. The professor was free to dig as he chose for the
antique bones he sought, and many a long day did he and Birt spend
in this sequestered spot, with the great crags towering above and
the darkling vistas of the ravine on either hand. There was a long
stretch of sunny weather, and somehow that shifting purple haze
accented all its languorous lustres. It seemed a vague sort of
poetry a-loose in the air, and color had license. The law which
decreed that a leaf should be green was a dead letter. How
gallantly red and yellow they flared; and others, how tenderly pink,
and gray, and purplish of hue! What poly-tinted fancies underfoot
in the moss! Strange visitants came from the north. Flocks of
birds, southward bound, skimmed these alien skies. Sometimes they
alighted on the tree-tops or along the banks of the torrent,
chattering in great excitement, commenting mightily on the country.
Birt had never been so light-hearted as during these days. The
cessation of anxiety was itself a sort of happiness. The long, hard
ordeal to which the truth had subjected him had ended triumphantly.
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