Byers made no rejoinder, and the tanner, puffing his pipe, vaguely watched the wreaths of smoke rise above his head, and whisk buoyantly about in the air, and finally skurry off into invisibility.  A gentle breeze was astir in the woods, and it set the leaves to whispering.  The treetoads and the locusts were trolling a chorus.  So loudly vibrant, it was!  So clamorously gay!  Some subtle intimation they surely had that summer was ephemeral and the season waning, for the burden of their song was, Let us now be merry.  The scarlet head of a woodpecker showed brilliantly from the bare dead boughs of a chestnut-oak, which, with its clinging lichens of green and gray, was boldly projected against the azure sky.  And there, the filmy moon, most dimly visible in the afternoon sunshine, swung like some lunar hallucination among the cirrus clouds.

“Ye ‘lows ez I ain’t doin’ right by Birt?” the tanner suggested presently, with more conscience in the matter than one would have given him credit for possessing.

“I knows ye air doin’ right,” said Byers unexpectedly.

All at once the woodpecker was solemnly tapping—­tapping.

Byers glanced up, as if to discern whence the sudden sound came, and once more bent to his work.

“Ye b’lieves, then, ez he stole that thar grant from Nate Griggs?” asked Perkins.

“I be sure he done it,” said Byers, unequivocally.

The tanner took his pipe from his lips.  “What ails ye ter say that, Andy?” he exclaimed excitedly.

Andy Byers hesitated.  He mechanically passed his fingers once or twice across the blunt, curved blade of the two-handled knife.

“Ye’ll keep the secret?”

“In the sole o’ my boot,” said the tanner.

“Waal, I knows ez Birt stole the grant.  I hev been powerful changeful, though, in my thoughts bout’n it.  At fust I war glad when he war suspicioned ‘bout’n it, an’ I war minded to go an’ inform on him an’ sech, ter pay him back; ’kase I held a grudge ag’in him, believin’ ez he hed dressed out that thar blackberry bush ez Mrs. Price’s harnt.  An’ then I’d remember ez his mother war a widder-woman, an’ he war nothin’ but a boy, an’ boys air bound ter be gamesome an’ full o’ jokes wunst in a while, an’ I’d feel like I war bound ter furgive him ‘bout the harnt.  An’ then ag’in I got toler’ble oneasy fur fear the Law mought hold me ’sponsible fur knowin’ ‘bout Birt’s crime of stealin’ the grant an’ yit not tellin’ on him.  An’ I’d take ter hopin’ an’ prayin’ the boy would confess, so ez I wouldn’t hev ter tell on him.  I hev been mightily pestered in my mind lately with sech dilly-dallyin’.”

Again the sudden tapping of the woodpecker filled the pause.

“Did ye see him steal the grant, Andy?” asked the tanner, with bated breath.

“Ez good ez seen him.  I seen him slyin’ round, an’ I hev fund the place whar he hev hid it.”