TWILIGHT LAND

old man had no liking to shoot at such game as that.”
And thereupon he popped the feather cap into one pocket
and the round stone into another, and shouldering his
musket marched away until he reached the town-gate, and
there was the old man waiting for him.

“Did you shoot the bird?” said he.

“T did,” said the soldier.

‘And did you get the cap and the round stone ?”

“T did.”

“Then here is your dollar.”

‘Wait a bit,” said the soldier, “I shot greater game
that time than I bargained for, and so it’s ten dollars, and
not one you shall pay me before you lay finger upon the
feather cap and the little stone.”

“Very well,” said the old man, “here are ten dollars.”

“Ho! ho!” thought the soldier, ‘is that the way the
wind blows ?”—“ Did I say ten dollars ?” said he ; ‘twas
a hundred dollars I meant.”

At that the old man frowned until his eyes shone green.
“Very well,” said he, “if it is a hundred dollars you want,
you will have to come home with me, for I have not so
much with me.” Thereupon he entered the town with the
soldier at his heels,

Up one street he went and down another, until at last
he came to a great, black, ancient, ramshackle house 3 and
that was where he lived. In he walked without so much
as a rap at the door, and so led the way to a great room
with furnaces and books and bottles and jars and dust
and cobwebs, and three grinning skulls upon the mantel-
piece, each with a candle stuck atop of it, and there he
left the soldier while he went to get the hundred dollars.

The soldier sat him down upon a three-legged stool in
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