I never used
to ride through it without looking first to the one
side and then to the other, to see if the time had ar-
rived for the revelation. If I saw nothing--and I
never did see anything--there was no feeling of
disappointment, for I knew the disclosure was
merely withheld temporarily for some good reason
which I had no right to question. That I should one
day be taken into full confidence I no more doubted
than I doubted the existence of Jo. Dunfer himself,
through whose premises the ravine ran.
It was said that Jo. had once undertaken to erect
a cabin in some remote part of it, but for some rea-
son had abandoned the enterprise and constructed
his present hermaphrodite habitation, half residence
and half groggery, at the roadside, upon an extreme
corner of his estate; as far away as possible, as if on
purpose to show how radically he had changed his
mind.
This Jo. Dunfer--or, as he was familiarly known
in the neighbourhood, Whisky Jo.--was a very im-
portant personage in those parts. He was apparently
about forty years of age, a long, shock-headed
fellow, with a corded face, a gnarled arm and a
knotty hand like a bunch of prison-keys. He was
a hairy man, with a stoop in his walk, like that
of one who is about to spring upon something and
rend it.
Next to the peculiarity to which he owed his local
appellation, Mr. Dunfer's most obvious character-
istic was a deep-seated antipathy to the Chinese.
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