reached the lower end of the lot.

The branch trickled from a spring, or springs, farther east. It
made an elbow at the corner of the pasture--the lower south-west
corner--and there a water-hole had been scooped out at some past
time.

This waterhole was deep enough for all purposes, and was shaded
by a great oak that had stood there long before the house
belonging to Jeptha Atterson had been built.

Here Hiram struck something that puzzled him. The boundary fence
crossed this water-hole at a tangent, and recrossed to the west
bank of the outflowing branch a few yards below, leaving perhaps
half of the water-hole upon the neighbor's side of the fence.

Some of this wire at the water-hole was practically new. So
were the posts. And after a little Hiram traced the line of old
postholes which had followed a straight line on the west side of
the water-hole.

In other words, this water-privilege for Dickerson's land was
of recent arrangement--so recent indeed, that the young farmer
believed he could see some fresh-turned earth about the newly-set
posts.

That's something to be looked into, I am afraid," thought Hiram,
as he moved along the southern pasture fence.

But the trickle of the branch beckoned him; he had not found the