Mr. Wesley Tolliver might well have served the turn of romancer or realist, as he stood in the shadow of a - with the mysterious stillness of midnight all around him. He was a very real and substantial looking personage, and yet his gun, his pistols, his fantastic mountain and the wild setting in which he was framed gave him the appearance of a strong meant to a story by Craddock. Above him towered the cliff at Eagle’s Nest and near by was the mountain “Pocket” in which nestled the little distillery whose lurking-place had long been the dream of utopian revenue officers. In a space of brilliant moonlight, Tolliver’s dog, a gaunt, brindle cur, sat in statuesque worthlessness, remembering no doubt the hares he never had caught and the meatless bones he had vainly buried during a long life.  
The hotel and its had rendered the distillery and its operatives very uneasy of late, and now as Tolliver in his due turn stood guard by night he considered the probability of having to look for some better situation for his obscure manufactory with a species of sadness which it would be impossible to describe. He thought with deep bitterness of all the he had suffered at the hands of government agents and from the outside world in general and he tried to understand how any person could pretend to see justice in[56] such . What had he done to merit being hunted like a wild beast? Nothing but buy his neighbor’s apples at the fair price of twenty cents a bushel and them into apple brandy! Could this possibly be any injury to any government official, or to anybody else? He paid for his still, he paid for the apples, he paid fair wages to the men who worked for him, what more could be justly demanded of him?
 
It was while he was wholly absorbed in trying to solve this problem that far above a strange clink and began, which sounded to him as if it were falling from among the stars. Nothing within his knowledge or experience suggested an explanation of such a phenomenon. He felt a thrill of terror creep through his iron nerves as the aerial racket increased and seemed to whisk itself from place to place with lightning celerity. An eccentric echo due to the angles and of the cliff added effect to the sounds.
 
The dog uttered a low and crept close to his master, and even wedged himself with tremulous desperation between the knees of that wondering and startled sentinel.
 
The clinking and clanging soon became loud and continuous, falling in a down the escarpment, accompanied now and again by small fragments of stone and soil.
 
At last Tolliver got control of himself , and looked out from his shadowy station[57] and up towards the dizzy crown of Eagle’s Nest.
 
Just at that moment there was a crash and a scream. He saw a wide-winged, ghostly object come over the edge and down. Another scream, another and another, a tearing sound, a crushing of cedar , a shower of small stones and lumps of soil.
 
Tolliver, frightened as he never before had been, turned and fled, followed by his ecstatic dog.
 
A voice, keen, clear, high, pursued him and reached his ears.
 
“Help! help! Oh, help!”
 
Surely this was the “Harnt that walks Mt. Boab!” This syren of the mountains had many a hunter to his .
 
“Oh, me! Oh, my! Oh, mercy on me! Help! help!”
 
Tolliver ran all the faster, as the voice seemed to follow him, turn as he would. He his shins on angular rocks, he ran against trees, he fell over logs, and at last found himself hopelessly in a net of wild grape-vines, with his enthusiastic dog still faithfully between his knees.
 
The plaintive voice of the syren, now greatly modified by distance, his ears with piteous , as he vainly struggled to free himself. The spot was dark as Erebus, being in the bottom of a ravine, and the more he exerted himself the worse off he became.
 
It was his turn to call for help, but if any of[58] his friends heard they did not his supplications, thinking them but baleful echoes of the Harnt’s deceitful voice.
 
It was at the gray of dawn when at last Tolliver got clear of the vines and made his way out of the ravine. By this time he had overcome his fright, and with that stubbornness characteristic of all mountain men, he betook himself back to the exact spot whence he had so retreated. His dog, forlornly nonchalant, behind him to the place and resumed the seat from which the Harnt had driven him a few hours ago. In this attitude, the animal his nose and indifferently a curious object lying near.
 
“What’s thet ther’ thing, Mose?” inquired Tolliver, addressing the dog.
 
“Well I’ll ber dorg-goned!” he added, as he picked up a woman’s . “If this here don’t beat the worl’ an’ all camp meetin’! Hit air&mda............