"Then Halse wasn't hit after all," said Kate.

"No; it was Alf. We were all wrong about that voice. One of Tom's little partridge shot struck Alf on his wrist. It did not injure him much, but drew blood and frightened him.

"They then cut sticks for home; and Halse tried to get into his room over the ell roof at about three o'clock this morning. But our folks had already discovered that he had run away. The Old Squire heard him on the roof and nabbed him just as he was crawling in at the window.

"He was quite a subdued, tearful-eyed, peaceable-looking boy, when I saw him an hour ago," Addison concluded, with a curl of his lip.

"But let's not say a word to plague him any further," said Theodora.

"Oh, I shall not speak of it," replied Addison.

"Nor I," said Willis. "But I would like to have had hold of the Old Squire's whip a spell."

And thus, in this miserable way, our first camping trip terminated. It was raining the following morning and continued very wet for several days; we were not able to return to "the old slave's farm" that fall.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE OLD SQUIRE'S PANTHER STORY

It seemed good, even after only three days' camping out, to sit down in the house again and see the supper table nicely set and Gram at the head of it. She welcomed us home as warmly as if we had been absent for weeks; the Old Squire was still a little disturbed, from his recent "interview" with Halstead.

Halse, himself, did not come to supper; and nobody mentioned his name during the entire evening.

Little Wealthy was plainly overjoyed to see us back and, despite the pout which she had worn when we went off without her, talked very fast to us and told us of all the occurrences during our absence.

"Aunt Olive" was with us for a week; she and Gram and Wealthy had begun to dry apples; and after supper, Aunt Olive brought in three bushel basketfuls of bruised Baldwins and Greenings, along with some natural fruit; she also produced the old paring machine, coring knives and a hank of stringing twine and needle, and in short made ready for a busy evening.

"Now, young folks," quoth she, "you've been off and had a fine time; and I s'pose you're all ready to make the apples fly! It will not take us long to do up these three bushels to-night, if you all work smart."

It was an invitation not to be refused, under the circumstances, though Theodora and Ellen made wry faces. They disliked to cut apples, it is such dirty, sticky work and blackens one's hands so badly. Addison took up the paring machine, good-naturedly.

"Here's my old friend of last year," said he, screwing it to the leaf of the kitchen table. "I pared bushels with it last fall, and I guess I'll pare them now, while the rest of you trim and core and string them. We must have dried apples, I suppose, for pies and sauce; at least, Gram says we must."

He fixed an apple on the fork of the machine and then in a moment had whirled the skin off it, in a long, thin ribbon which descended into the basket set beneath the table. I thought it looked to be fun;—but that was before I understood the business as well as I subsequently came to do.

Finding that we had mustered in good force to cut the apples, Gram got out her basket of socks to darn and presently summoned Theodora to assist her. The Old Squire sat at the other side of the table and began to read his Maine Farmer, which had come that night from the post office; but he stopped reading often to hear what Addison had to tell of our trip. Ellen and I trimmed and halved the apples, as Addison pared them; "Aunt Olive" cored and Wealthy strung the cored halves.

At length, when Gramp seemed to have looked his paper pretty nearly through, Theodora said that we had a particular favor to ask of him that evening.

"Ah!" said the old gentleman, looking over the top of his glasses. "What can Theodora want?"

"But I want you to promise to grant it before I tell what it is," replied Theodora.

The Old Squire laughed. "That's asking quite a good deal," he remarked. "But I hope I am not running much risk."

"Well, then, grandfather," said Theodora, "we all want you to tell us the story of the panther that you and Mr. Edwards shot up in the great woods when you were boys. Thomas and Catherine have been telling us about it; and we want to hear the story."

"Yes, sir," said Addison. "Please tell us about that."

The old gentleman hedged a little. "Oh, that is not much of a story," said he.

"Come, Squire, I've heard tell o' that 'ere catamount that you and Zeke Edwards killed; but I never could get the particulars," said Aunt Olive. "Jest give us the particulars."

Gramp tried to put us off. "I'm no great hand at stories," he said. "You must get Hewey Glinds to tell you bear and catamount stories."

"But you promised me, Gramp," Theodora reminded him.

At length, after some further excuses, the Old Squire was induced to make a beginning, and having begun, told us the following story which I give in words as nearly like his own as I can now remember.

"It was in the year 1812. I was little more than a boy at that time, and the country was quite new here. We had a clearing of about fifty acres and had not yet built our present buildings; and our only neighbors, nearer than the settlement in the lower part of the township, where the village now stands, were the Edwardses. Old Jeremy Edwards came here at about the same time that my father came.

"Eighteen-twelve was the time of our second war with England. Soldiers for it did not volunteer then; troops had to be raised by draft. Father and neighbor Edwards were both drafted. I well remember the night they were summoned. Mother and Mrs. Edwards cried all night. But there was no help for it. There were no such things as substitutes then. They had to go the next morning, and leave us to take care of ourselves the best we could.

"Little Ezekiel Edwards—Thomas's and Kate's grandfather—was just about my age; and the men being away, everything depended on us. Those were hard times; we had a great deal to do. We used to change works, as we called it, so as to be together as much as we could; for it was rather lonesome, planting and hoeing off in the stumpy, sprouted clearings. That was a long, anxious summer! We heard from father only once. He was somewhere near Lake Champlain.

"We were getting things fixed up to pass the winter as well as we could, when one night, about the first of November, Ezekiel came running over to ask if we had seen anything of old Brindle, their cow. It had been a bright, Indian-summer day, and they had turned her out to feed; but she had not come up as usual, and was nowhere in sight. It was dusk already, but I took our gun and, starting out together, we searched both clearings. Brindle was not in the cleared land.

"'We shall have to give her up to-night, Zeke,' said I; 'but I will go with you in the morning. She's lost or hedged up somewhere among windfalls.' We heard 'lucivees' snarling, and as we went back along, saw a bear digging ground-nuts beside a great rock. These were common enough sounds and sights in those days; still, we did not care to go off into the forest after dark.

"Several inches of snow came during the night and the next morning was cloudy and lowering. Zeke came over early. Brindle had not come in. He brought his gun and had taken Skip, their dog; and we now started off for a thorough search in the woods. Everything looked very odd that morning, on account of the freshly fallen snow. The snow had lodged upon all the trees, especially the evergreens, bending down the branches; and every stump and bush was wreathed in white.

"As the cows used frequently to follow up the valley—where the road now is—to the northward, we entered it and kept on to where it opens out upon Clear Pond, at the foot of the crags which you probably noticed as you passed. There is just a footpath between the crags and the pond, which is very deep on that side. About the pond and the crag the trees were mostly spruce. This morning they looked like multitudes of white tents, lined with black. And this appearance, with the ground all white, and the not yet frozen water looking black as ink, made everything appear so strange, that although we had several times been there before, we now scarcely knew the place.

"As yet we had seen no traces of Brindle. But just as we came out on the pond, at the foot of the crag, we heard a fox bark, quite near at first, then at a distance. Skip sprang ahead among the snowy spruces, but came back in a few moments, and, looking up in our faces, whined, then ran on again.

"'He's found something!' exclaimed Zeke.

"We hurried forward on his track, and a few rods further, saw him standing still, whining; and there, under a thin covering of snow, near the water, lay old Brindle, torn and mangled, and partially eaten.

"A feeling of awe crept over us at the sight.

"'Dead!' whispered Zeke.

"'Something's killed her!' I whispered back.

"There were fresh fox tracks all around, and the carcass had been recently gnawed in several places. Some transient little fox had been improving the chance to steal a breakfast. But what savage beast had throttled resolute old Brindle?

"With strange sensations we gazed around. Not a breath of air stirred the snow-laden boughs; and the wild, gray face of the precipice, towering above us, seemed to grow awesome in the stillness.

"Looking more closely, we now discerned, partially obscured by the more recent snowflakes, some broad footprints, as large as old Brindle's hoofs, leading off along the narrow path between the crag and the pond. After examining our priming, we followed slowly on these tracks, Skip keeping close to us, and glancing up earnestly in our faces.

"Very soon, however, the tracks stopped. Beyond a certain point there were no footprints. Skip whined, almost getting under our feet in his efforts to keep near us. Suddenly then a piercing scream broke the stillness, and on a jutting rock, fully twenty feet above us, and in the very attitude of springing, we saw a large gray creature, its claws protruding on the ledge, its ears laid back and its long tail switching to and fro! It screamed again, then leaped down. Zeke and I started to run back along the path, but both stumbled on the snowy rocks. Next moment we heard a yell from Skip, then a loud growl. The panther had seized him; and then we saw it go bounding back up the rocks, grappling and gathering up the dog in its mouth, at every leap. Climbing still higher, it gained a projecting ledge, along which it ran to a great cleft, or fissure, seventy or eighty feet above the path. There it disappeared.

"Its onslaught had been so sudden, that for some moments we stood bewildered. Then, remembering our danger, we turned to run again, but had taken only a few steps when another scream rooted us to the path! The panther had come out in sight and was running to the place where it had climbed up.

"Frightened as we were, we knew that it was of little use to run and both pulled up. As long as we stood still, the animal crouched, watching us; but the moment we stirred, it would rise and poise itself as if to spring. We were afraid if we ran that the animal would bound down and chase us.

"How long we stood there, I don't know, but it seemed very long. We grew desperate. 'Let's fire,' Zeke whispered; and we raised our old flint-locks. They were well charged with buckshot, if they would only go off. The panther growled, seeing the movement, and started up; but we pulled the triggers. Both guns were discharged. We then sprang away down the path, but glancing back, beheld the panther struggling and clinging to one of the lower ledges to which it had jumped, or fallen, from the rocks above.

"'We hit him!' exclaimed Zeke. 'Hold up,'—and we both turned.

"For a long time the beast clung there, writhing and falling back. Screech after screech echoed from the mountain side across the pond. We could see blood trickling down the rock.

"The animal grew weaker, at length, and by and by fell down to another rock, where, after fainter struggles and cries, it finally lay still. We loaded and fired again, and the fur flew up, but there was no further movement. Skip and Brindle were avenged, as much as they could be; but it was a long time before the Edwards family ceased to lament their loss.

"We went to the place twice afterwards during the winter. A mass of gray fur was still lying on the rock, thirty or forty feet above the path. And for years after, we could see some of the panther's bones there."

To us young folks who had so recently been camping in the "great woods" and had passed along the foot of this very crag where the panther had been shot, the Old Squire's story was intensely interesting. We could vividly imagine the scene and the fears of the two pioneer boys, on that snowy November forenoon, more than fifty years ago.

When I went up to bed that night, I found Halse soundly asleep. He did not wake and I did not disturb him; but he was astir and dressing, when I waked next morning, and before we went down, he began to laugh and to ridicule us, on account of the fright we were in at the cabin when those stones were tumbling on the roof. "And I broke up your camping trip, anyway," he added, exultantly. "You were the scaredest lot of chickens I ever saw! Shut yourselves up in your shanty and fastened the door with props!"

I did not much blame him for wanting to crow a bit, after all that had happened.

On the whole it was fortunate that we came home when we did. The storm continued; all next day it poured and drove furiously; but apple-cutting went on blithely indoors. What was rare for him, Addison had a bad cold with a very sore throat; and we all retired early that night, not having as yet caught up all arrears of broken sleep from the camping trip.

But it was not to be a night of rest; and I for one was destined to have an exciting experience before morning. Shortly after midnight there came an obstreperous knocking and thumping at the outer door, so loud that it waked us in our beds up-stairs. It was repeated twice; and then I heard the Old Squire below call out, "Who's there?"

"It's me," replied a troubled voice.

"Well, but who's 'me?'"

"Bobbie Sylvester. And please, sir, my folks want you to send one of the boys after the doctor, quick!"

There was a sudden exclamation of wrath and indignation from Addison in his room, with a chain of comments, which it is not necessary to remember.

"Why, what's the matter?" we heard the Old Squire call out. But just then we distinguished the murmur of Gram's voice, and a moment later heard her coming up the stairs to speak to us.

"Boys," said she, "one of you must ride to the village after the doctor for Mrs. Sylvester."

"But, Gram, it's a terrible night," Ad expostulated.

"I know it, boys," said she. "It's a bad night, but somebody must go."

"Let Sylvester go himself, then!" cried Addison, angrily.

"Well, but you know he hasn't any horse, and has rheumatism," said the old lady.

Then began to dawn on me what I came to know full well later, that whenever certain of our poorer neighbors were taken ill, or an additional small member was about to be added to their families, they were very prone to come hurrying to our door at dead of night, beseeching some of us to ride seven miles to the village for the doctor.

Addison was really unfit to go. No doubt he felt unusually irritable. "By the holy smoke!" he exclaimed. "I wish there wasn't a baby under the Canopy!"—and while I was trying to puzzle out and piece together all these darkling hints and inferences, the Old Squire came up stairs and after a word with Addison and Gram, told me that I would have to rig up, get on old Sol's back and take my first turn riding for Dr. Cummings. That settled it.

Thereupon I began dressing in haste, Halstead lying at his ease and crowing over me as I did so; and I am sorry to add that I was in a mood so un-cousinly that I at length gave him a swipe with my thick jacket as I put it on to hasten down stairs.

It was still raining fiercely; but they rigged me up as best they could for the trip—buttoned me into an old buffalo coat (it was a huge fit for a boy, thirteen), tied a woollen comforter around my neck, and another one over the top of my cap, to hold that on my head and keep my ears warm. Wool socks, a pair of large boots, and some heavy mittens completed my outfit.

Gram herself went to the stable and looked to the saddle. I mounted; Gramp pulled the great door of the stable open, and I rode forth into the rain and darkness.

After a few moments outside, I could see objects, in outline. So much rain had fallen that the road was completely saturated. I got on pretty well, however, until I came to the meadow a mile from home, where the road crossed low ground and a large brook. There was a plank-bridge here twenty feet long. The brook was now very high—a good deal higher, in fact, than any of us had anticipated. It had risen several feet since nightfall.

The moment I came to the meadow I found that there was water all over it, and also in the road, extending back two hundred yards from the bridge to the foot of the hill. I could not see how it looked, and, of course, did not fully realize how high and rapid the stream had grown. Old Sol splashed through the water till we came near the bridge. There the water was up to my feet, in the road. On pulling up, I could hear it rushing and swirling along over the bridge. I supposed the bridge was undisturbed, for there were stones laid on the planks at each end, I could see nothing save a black expanse all round me. Hesitating a moment, I summoned my courage and dug my heels into old Sol's sides. He went forward till his feet touched the first planks. There he stopped and snorted. I gave him the spur. He leaped forward and seemed to strike his feet on planks. But, as was afterwards ascertained, some of them were washed out, and all of them were afloat. At his next spring his legs went down among them. Then the full force of the current struck him, he rolled over sidewise, and horse and boy went off the lower end of the bridge, in eight feet of swift water.

It is needless to say that I was holding to the horse's mane for dear life. As we rolled over the "stringer" of the bridge, I was partly under the horse. We went down and I distinctly touched bottom with my left foot, but clutched the horse's mane with both hands and hugged the saddle with both legs. It seemed to me that we rolled over before we came to the surface. Then we went under again, but a moment later, the horse got foothold in shallower water, and floundered out on the further side of the brook.

If I had let go of him I would certainly have been drowned; for the skirts of the buffalo coat had been driven by the current over my head, and with all those water-soaked clothes on, not even a powerful swimmer could have got out. I felt as if I weighed a ton. My cap was gone, and with it, my comforters.

I wasn't very much frightened, I hadn't had time to be, though I remember thinking when we rolled off the end of the bridge, that no doctor would get to the Sylvesters' that night.

The horse waded off the meadow to a set of bars, and we got back into the road; and on coming to the foot of the hill I dismounted and partly wrung some of my clothes, though it still rained heavily. If I had not been on the further side of the stream, I'm sure I would have gone home, for I felt awfully cold and homesick.

The road was badly gullied, and I had still another brook to cross; but the stream there was not so rapid, and after reconnoitering the bridge as well as I could in the dark, I ventured upon it, and found that I could pass.

I do not think that I was more than an hour and a half reaching the village. It was so dark that I had difficulty in finding the doctor's house, though I knew the place. A moment later I dismounted, and knocked at his door. After a while a window was raised, and Dr. Cummings asked what was wanted. I told him, and I can safely assert that he did not seem overjoyed.

"How are the roads?" he asked, after some hesitation.

"Pretty bad."

"Hum! And the bridges?"

I replied that I thought one of them had been washed away.

"Washed away? How did you get over then?"

"My horse swam."

"Well, I'll tell you," said the doctor. "I'm about used up, and have just come in from a hard ride. You call Dr. Green. He's a young man, just settled here. I don't want to be hoggish with him. Call Dr. Green."

Dr. Green was a young homoeopathist who had come to the village the year before. It was said that Dr. Cummings did not like him, also that Dr. Green reciprocated the sentiment.

"Shall I tell Dr. Green that you sent me for him?" I asked, as I got on my horse.

Dr. Cummings did not reply.

I then went to Dr. Green's door, and did my errand there. "Have you been for Dr. Cummings?" was his first question.

"Yes," said I, "and he sent me to you."

"He's a shirk," said the young doctor, "but I'll go."

He came out directly, saddled his own horse and set off with me, asking no questions about the road. It still rained, and the wind was in our faces. I led the way. The doctor followed. He kept up pretty well. He had on a suit of yellow oil-skin, and I could see that some ways back.

When we got to the hill near the meadow, I pulled up and told him about the bridge. "You can try it," said I, "if you want to, but I am going to wait till it gets light before I try it again."

"You are a pretty fellow," said he. "Why didn't you tell me of that before?"

"I was afraid you might not come," said I, "and it was my business to get a doctor."

"Go ahead, then," said he, grittily. "Let's try it."

"No, thank you," said I. "Once in that brook is enough for me, in one night."

"Well, then," said he, "do you know any other bridge or ford?"

I knew of a bridge two miles above. The road was like porridge, but we reached it, tried it carefully, and at length got across without swimming. The remainder of the way was comparatively uneventful; and we reached the Sylvesters' just as day began to dawn. Four old ladies were there, including Gram. They greeted the doctor with great glee. He was late—but all was well.

Nevertheless, that was a good trip for young Dr. Green. The folks thereabouts said that he must be a staunch young fellow to turn out on such a night. I always felt that they might have added a word for me, too.

The doctor told me a while ago that that ride was worth a thousand dollars to him.

"Well, then, doctor, suppose we divide that thousand," I said.

"Why?" said he. "What for?"

"Well, I went after you that night, and piloted you up there," said I.

"That's true," said he, "but you must collect your fee of the patients, as I do."

"Little there's left for me when you are done with them," said I.

I found my cap and comforters about a fortnight after that, in the top of some choke-cherry bushes below the bridge.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE OUTLAW DOGS

Not a little farm work still remained to be done;—our farm work, in fact, was never done. For a fortnight after our return from the camping trip, we were busy, ploughing stubble ground, drawing off loose stones and building a piece of "double wall" along the side of the north field. There was also a field of winter rye to be got in. The Old Squire was, moreover, preparing to re-embark in the lumbering business at certain lots of timber land which he owned up in the "great woods." Loggers would be hired for this work, however, for Addison, Halstead and I expected to attend the district school which was announced to begin on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

It was mostly dull, hard work now, all day long, and often we were obliged to husk corn, or dry apples, during the evening. The only amusement for a time was one or two husking parties, and an "apple bee" at the Murches'.

On the morning of the 30th of October we waked to find the ground white with snow; several inches had fallen; but it went off, after a day or two; the weather had grown quite cold, however. Ice formed nearly every night. The cattle were now at the barns, but the sheep were still running about the pastures and fields. On the night of the 5th of November the upper part of the lake froze over, as well as the smaller ponds in the vicinity. I found that the boys thereabouts knew how to skate, and was not long in buying a pair of skates, myself. I had much difficulty in learning to use them for several days; at length, I caught the knack of it, and felt well repaid for a good many hard falls, when at last I could glide away and keep up with Halse, Addison and Thomas Edwards, who skated well. Even Theodora and Ellen could skate.

For a week that fall Lake Pennesseewassee was grand skating ground. Parties of boys from a distance came there every evening and built bonfires on the shore to enliven the scene.

I think that it was the third day before Thanksgiving that eight of us went to the lake, at about four in the afternoon, to have an hour of skating before dark. We found Alfred Batchelder there in advance of us. As Alfred did not now speak to our boys, he kept a little aloof from us.

Near the head of the lake is an island and above it a bog. We had skated around the head of the lake, and keeping to the east side of the island, circled about it, and were coming down on the west side along an arm, some two hundred yards wide, where there was known to be deep water. We thought the ice perfectly firm and safe there, since that on the east side of the island, over which we had just skated, had proved so. All of us were at full racing speed, and Alfred was keeping six or eight rods further out, but parallel with us. Suddenly we heard a crash and saw Alfred go down. The water gushed up around him.

There was no premonitory cracking or yielding. The ice broke on the instant; and so rapidly was he moving that a hole twelve or fifteen feet long was torn by the sheer force with which he went against it. As he fell through, he went under once, but luckily came up in the hole he had made, and got his hands and arms on the edges of the ice, which, however, kept bending down and breaking off. The breaking and his fall were so sudden that he had not even time to cry out till he came up and caught hold of the ice.

Instinctively we all sheered off toward the west shore at first. Then came the impulse to save him. A peeled hemlock log lay stranded on the shore upon rocks, with about four feet of its length frozen in the ice. I remember rushing to this, to get it up and slide it out to him. Finding I could not wrench it loose with my hands, I kicked it with first one foot and then the other, and broke both my skates; but the ice held it like a vise. Then I started on my broken skates to find a pole; two or three of the other boys were also running for poles, shouting excitedly.

All the while Alfred was calling despairingly to us; every time the ice broke, he would nearly disappear under the water, which was deadly cold.

Addison who had first pulled off his skates, then thought of green alder poles. Running to the nearest clump, he bent down and hurriedly cut off two, each as large as a pump-brake. Before I was done kicking the peeled hemlock log, or Halse was back from his pole hunt, Addison had shoved one of the long alders out to Alf, who managed to clutch hold of it.

Addison had hold of the butt end, and Willis Murch, nearer the shore, had reached out the top of the second alder to Addison. The ice yielded somewhat and the water came up; but they all held fast. By this time the rest of us had cut more alders, one of which was thrust out to Willis; and then by main strength we hauled Alfred out and back where the ice was firmer.

It is doubtful whether we should have got him out of the lake but for this expedient; for the water was so cold and the wind so bitterly sharp, that he could not long have supported himself by those bending ice edges. His teeth chattered noisily when at length we hauled him ashore; Addison's, too! Both were wet through. We started and ran as hard as we could towards home. Two of us had to drag Alf at the start; but he ran better after the first hundred yards; and we were all very warm by the time we got him home.

It is often difficult to determine why the ice on some portions of a pond should be thin and treacherous, as in the above instance, while on other portions it is quite safe. Indeed, there is no way of determining except by cautious inspection.

I must do Alfred the justice to record that he came around quite handsomely to thank Addison, and then asked his pardon for the hard words that he had used at Fair time.

The morning following is marked forever in my memory by an unexpected trip up to the "great woods"—the result of certain disturbing rumors which had been in circulation throughout the autumn, but of which I have not previously spoken, since they were confined mainly to a school district two miles to the east of the Old Squire's farm.

On that morning a party of not less than thirty men and boys, with hounds, was made up to go in pursuit of a pack of outlaw dogs which had been killing sheep and calves in that town and vicinity. As yet the flocks in our own neighborhood had not been molested, but there was no saying how soon the marauders might pay us a visit; and a public effort had been inaugurated to hunt the pack down and destroy it.

The history of these dog outlaws was a singular one and parallels in canine life the famous story of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The fact that dogs do occasionally lead double lives—one that of a docile house-dog by day, and the other that of a wild, dangerous beast by night—is well established. In this case a trusted dog had become not only an outlaw himself, but drew others about him and was the leader of a dangerous band.

A farmer named Frost, three miles from us, began to lose sheep from a flock of seventy which he owned and which were kept in a pasture that included a high hill and sloped northward over rough, bushy land to the great woods. It was not the custom there to enclose the sheep in pens or shelters, at night. They wandered at will in the pasture, and were rarely visited oftener than once a week, and that usually on Sunday morning. Then either the farmer or one of his boys would go to the pasture to give the sheep salt and count them. This was the custom among the farmers in that locality, nearly all of whom owned flocks sometimes as small as twenty, but rarely larger than seventy-five, since sheep in New England do not thrive when kept in large flocks.

Farmer Frost was not the only one who had lost sheep at this time. Six other flocks were invaded, but his loss occurred first. His son Rufus, going to the pasture to salt and count the sheep on a Sunday morning, found that two ewes and a grown lamb were missing. Later in the day the partially devoured remains of the sheep were found in the pasture not far from a brook.

"Bear's work," the farmer and his neighbors said, although an old hunter who visited the spot pronounced against the theory. But a bear had been seen recently in the vicinity; and Monday morning the Frost boys loaded their guns for a thorough hunt. Two traps were also set near the carcasses, which were left as found, to lure the destroyer back.

The destroyer did not return; the traps remained as they were set; and the youthful hunters were unsuccessful in rousing a bear in the woods. But on the following Wednesday night a farmer named Needham, living a mile and a half from Frost, lost two sheep, the bodies of which were found in his pasture, partly eaten.

It chanced that Farmer Needham, or his son Emerson, owned a dog which was greatly prized. They called him Bender. Bender was said to be a half-breed, Newfoundland and mastiff, but had, I think, a strain of more common blood in his ancestry, for there was a tawny crescent mark beneath each of his eyes. Bender was the pink of propriety and a dog of unblemished reputation.

On this occasion Bender went with the farmer and his boys to the sheep pasture, and smelled the dead sheep with every appearance of surprise and horror. The hair on his shoulders bristled with indignation. He coursed around, seeking for bear tracks, and ran barking about the pasture. In short, he did everything that a properly grieved dog should do under the circumstances, and so far from touching or eating any of the torn mutton, he plainly scorned such a thing.

The boys took Bender with them to hunt bears, as their main reliance and ally, and Bender hunted assiduously. Three or four other dogs, belonging at farms in the vicinity, were also taken on these hunts. One was a collie, another a mongrel bulldog, and a third a large brindled dog of no known pedigree. Still another half-bred St. Bernard dog set off with the others, but on reaching the sheep pasture, where they went first to get the trail and make a start, this latter dog behaved oddly, left the others and slunk away home.

Some of the boys attributed this to cowardice, and he was hooted; others suspected Roke, for that was his name, of having killed the sheep. Suspicion against him so increased that his master kept him chained at home.

No bears were tracked to their dens, and none were caught in the traps, which were also set in the Needham pasture; but less than a week later another farmer, this time the owner of the mongrel bulldog, lost three sheep in one night. As previously, the sheep were found dead and partly eaten.

If Roke's alibi had not had a tangible chain at one end of it that night, his character would have been as good as lost; for his refusal to hunt with the other dogs and the manner in which he behaved while near the dead sheep, had rendered him a public "suspect." When near the carcasses he had growled morosely, and shown his teeth. When barked at by the other dogs, he had taken himself off.

A few nights afterward Farmer Frost lost two more sheep from his flock in the pasture, and the following night Rufus watched in the pasture with a loaded gun, quite without results.

About that time two or three others watched in their pastures. Some shut up their sheep. But the losses continued to occur. Within a radius of three or four miles as many as twenty-four sheep were killed in the course of three weeks.

None of the watchers by night or the hunters by day had, as yet, obtained so much as a trace or a clue to the animal which had done the killing. They came to think that it was quite useless to watch by night; the marauding creature, whether bear, wild-cat, or dog, was apparently too wily, or too keen-scented, to enter a pasture and approach a flock where a man was concealed.

Rufus Frost, who had watched repeatedly, then hit on a stratagem. First he cut off about a foot from the barrel of a shotgun, to shorten it, and then made a kind of bag, or sack, by sewing two sheep-pelts together. Thus equipped, he repaired to the pasture after dark, and joined himself to the flock, not as a watcher, but as a sheep. That is to say, he crept into the sheepskin bag, which was also capacious enough to contain the short gun, and lay down on the outskirts of the flock, a little aloof.

The sheep were lying in a group, ruminating, as is their habit, by night. Rufus drew a tangle of wool over his head, and otherwise contrived to pose as a sheep lying down. He assumed that when thus bagged up in fresh sheepskin, the odor of a sheep would be diffused, and the appearance of one so well counterfeited as to deceive even a bear. His gun he had charged heavily with buckshot; and altogether the ruse was ingenious, if nothing more.

Nothing disturbed the flock on the first night that he spent in the pasture, nor on the second; but he resolved to persevere. It was no very bad way to pass an autumn night; the weather was pleasant and warm, and there was a bright moon nearing its full.

He had kept awake during the first night, listening and watching for the most of the time; but he caught naps the second, and on the third was sleeping comfortably at about two in the morning, when he was suddenly set upon, tooth and nail, by what he believed, on first waking, to be a whole family of bears. One had him by the leg, through the bag, shaking him. Another was dragging at the back of the bag, while the teeth of a third were snapping at his face. Still other teeth were chewing upon his arm, and the growling was something frightful!

This was an alarming manner in which to be wakened from a sound nap, and it is little wonder that Rufus, although a plucky youngster, rolled over and over and yelled with the full power of his lungs.

His shouts produced an effect. First one and then another of his assailants let go and drew back; and getting the wool out of his eyes, Rufus saw that the creatures were not bears, but four astonished dogs, standing a few feet away, regarding him with doubt and disgust.

To all appearance he had been a sheep, lying a little apart from the others, and they had fallen upon him as one; but his shouts led them to think that he was not mutton, after all, and they did not know what to make of it!

Rufus, almost equally astonished, now lay quite still, staring at them. The dogs looked at each other, licked the wool from their mouths, and sat down to contemplate him further.

Rufus, on his part, waxed even more amazed as he looked, for by the bright moonlight he at once identified the four dogs. They were, alas! the highly respectable, exemplary old Bender, the collie, Tige, the brindle, and the mongrel bulldog—all loved and trusted members of society. Rufus was so astonished that he did not think of using his blunderbuss; he simply whistled.

That whistle appeared to resolve the doubts of the dogs instantly. They growled menacingly and sprang away like the wind. Rufus saw them run across the pasture to the woods, and afterward, for some minutes, heard them washing themselves in the brook, as roguish, sheep-killing dogs always do before returning home.

But in this case the dogs appeared to know that they had been detected, and that so far as their characters as good and virtuous dogs went, the game was up. Not one of them returned home. All four took to the woods, and thereafter lived predatory lives. They were aware of the gravity of their offenses.

During October and early November they were heard of as a pack of bad sheep-killers, time and again; but they now followed their evil practices at a distance from their former homes, where, indeed, the farmers took the precaution of carefully guarding their sheep. On one night of October they killed three calves in a farmer's field, four miles from the Frost farm. Several parties set off to hunt them, but they escaped and lived as outlaws, subsisting from nocturnal forays until snow came, when they were tracked to a den beneath a high crag, called the "Overset," up in the great woods.

It was Rufus Frost and Emerson Needham, the former owner of Bender, who tracked the band to their retreat. Finding it impossible to call or drive the criminals out, they blocked the entrance of the den with large stones, and then came home to devise some way of destroying them—since it is a pretty well-established fact that when once a dog has relapsed into the savage habits of his wild ancestry he can never be reclaimed.

Someone had suggested suffocating the dogs with brimstone fumes; and so, early the following morning, Rufus and Emerson, heading a party of fifteen men and boys, came to the Edwards farm and the Old Squire's to get brimstone rolls, which we had on account of our bees. Their coming, on such an errand, carried a wave of excitement with it. Old Hewey Glinds, the trapper, was sent for and joined the party, in spite of his rheumatism. Every boy in the neighborhood begged earnestly to go; and the most of us, on one plea and another, obtained permission to do so.

All told, I believe, there were thirty-one in the party, not counting dogs. Entering the woods we proceeded first to Stoss Pond, then through Black Ash Swamp, and thence over a mountainous wooded ridge to Overset Pond.

In fact we seemed to be going to the remote depths of the wilderness; and what a savage aspect the snowy evergreen forest wore that morning! At last, we came out on the pond. Very black it looked, for it was what is called a "warm pond." Ice had not yet formed over it. The snow-clad crag where the cave was, on the farther side, loomed up, ghostly white by contrast.

Rufus and Emerson had gone ahead and were there in advance of us; they shouted across to us that the dogs had not escaped. We then all hurried on over snowy stones and logs to reach the place.

It was a gruesome sort of den, back under an overhang of rocks fully seventy feet high. Near the dark aperture which the boys had blocked, numbers of freshly gnawed bones lay in the snow, which presented a very sinister appearance.

Those in advance had already kindled a fire of drift-stuff not far away on the shore. The hounds and dogs which had come with the party, scenting the outlaw dogs in the cave, were barking noisily; and from within could be heard a muffled but savage bay of defiance.

"That's old Bender!" exclaimed Emerson. "And he knows right well, too, that his time's come!"

"Suppose they will show fight?" several asked.

"Fight! Yes!" cried old Hewey, who had now hobbled up. "They'll fight wuss than any wild critters!"

One of the older boys, Ransom Frost, declared that he was not afraid to take a club and go into the cave.

"Don't you think of such a thing!" exclaimed old Hewey. "Tham's desperate dogs! They'd pitch onto you like tigers! Tham dogs know there's no hope for them, and they're going to fight—if they get the chance!"

It was a difficult place to approach, and several different plans of attack were proposed. When the two hounds and three dogs which had come up with us barked and scratched at the heavy, flat stones which Rufus and Emerson had piled in the mouth of the cave, old Bender and Tige would rush forward on their side of the obstruction, with savage growls. Yet when Rufus or any of the others attempted to steal up with their guns, to shoot through the chinks, the outlaws drew back out of sight, in the gloom. There was a fierceness in their growling such as I never have heard from other dogs.

The owner of Watch, the collie, now crept up close and called to his former pet. "I think I can call my dog out," said he.

He called long and endearingly, "Come, Watch! Come, good fellow! You know me, Watch! Come out! Come, Watch, come!"

But the outlawed Watch gave not a sign of recognition or affection; he stood with the band.

Tige's former master then tried the same thing, but elicited only a deep growl of hostility.

"Oh, you can whistle and call, but you won't get tham dogs to go back on one another!" chuckled old Hewey. "Tham dogs have taken an oath together. They won't trust ye and I swan I wouldn't either, if I was in their places! They know you are Judases!"

It was decided that the brimstone should be used. Live embers from the fire were put in the kettle. Green, thick boughs were cut from fir-trees hard by; and then, while the older members of the party stood in line in front of the hole beneath the rocks, to strike down the dogs if they succeeded in getting out, Rufus and Emerson removed a part of the stones, and with some difficulty introduced the kettle inside, amidst a chorus of ugly growls from the beleaguered outlaws. The brimstone was then put into the kettle, more fire applied, and the hole covered quickly with boughs. And now even we younger boys were allowed to bear a hand, scraping up snow and piling it over the boughs, the better to keep in the smoke and fumes.

The splutter of the burning sulphur could plainly be heard through the barrier, and also the loud, defiant bark of old Bender and the growls of Tige.

Very soon the barking ceased, and there was a great commotion, during which we heard the kettle rattle. This was succeeded presently by a fierce, throaty snarling of such pent-up rage that chills ran down the backs of some of us as we listened. After a few minutes this, too, ceased. For a little space there was complete silence; then began the strangest sound I ever heard.

It was like the sad moaning of the stormy wind, as we sometimes hear it in the loose window casements of a deserted house. Hardly audible at first, it rose fitfully, moaning, moaning, then sank and rose again. It was not a whine, as for pity or mercy, but a kind of canine farewell to life: the death-song of the outlaws. This, too, ceased after a time; but old Hewey did not advise taking away the boughs for fifteen or twenty minutes. "Make a sure job on't," he said.

Choking fumes issued from the cave for some time after it was opened and the stones pulled away. Bender was then discovered lying only a few feet back from the entrance. He appeared to have dashed the kettle aside, as if seeking to quench the fire and smoke. Tige was close behind him, Watch farther back. Very stark and grim all four looked when finally they were hauled out with a pole and hook and given a finishing shot.

It was thought best to burn the bodies of the outlaws. The fire on the shore was replenished with a great quantity of drift-wood, fir boughs and other dry stuff which we gathered, and the four carcasses heaved up on the pile. It was a calm day, but thick, dark clouds had by this time again overspread the sky, causing the pond to look still blacker. The blaze gained headway; and a dense column of smoke and sparks rose straight upward to a great height. Owing to the snow and the darkening heavens, the fire wore a very ruddy aspect, and I vividly recall how its melancholy crackling was borne along the white shore, as we turned away and retraced our steps homeward.



CHAPTER XXX

A HEARTFELT THANKSGIVING AND A MERRY YOUNG MUSE THAT VISITED US UNINVITED

Thanksgiving was always a holiday at the old farm. Gram and the girls made extensive preparations for it and intended to have a fine dinner. Besides the turkey and chickens there were "spareribs" and great frying-panfuls of fresh pork which, at this cold season of the year, was greatly relished by us. On this present Thanksgiving-day, two of Gram's nephews and their wives were expected to visit us, as also several cousins of whom I had heard but vaguely.

It chanced, too, that on this occasion we had especially good reason to be thankful that we were alive to eat a Thanksgiving dinner of any kind, as I will attempt to relate. Up to the day before Thanksgiving the weather, with the exception of two light snow storms, had been bright and pleasant, and the snow had speedily gone off. On that day there came a change. The Indian-summer mildness disappeared. The air was very still, but a cold, dull-gray haze mounted into the sky and deepened and darkened. All warmth went out from beneath it. There was a kind of stone-cold chill in the air which made us shiver.

"Boys, there's a 'snow bank' rising," the Old Squire remarked at dinner. "The ground will close for the winter. Glad we put those boughs round the house yesterday and banked up the out-buildings."

The sky continued to darken as the vast, dim pall of leaden-gray cloud overspread it, and cold, raw gusts of wind began to sigh ominously from the northeast. Gramp at length came out where we were wheeling in the last of the stove-wood. "Have you seen the sheep to-day?" he asked Addison. "There is a heavy snow storm coming on. The flock must be driven to the barn."

None of us had seen the sheep for several days; the flock had been ranging about; and Halse ran over to the Edwardses to learn whether they were there, but immediately returned, with Thomas who told us that he had seen our sheep in the upper pasture, early that morning, and theirs with them.

Immediately then we four boys rigged up in our thickest old coats and mittens, and set off—with salt dish—to get the sheep home. The storm had already obscured the distant mountains to eastward when we started; and never have I seen Mt. Washington and the whole Presidential Range so blackly silhouetted against the westerly sky as on that afternoon, from the uplands of the sheep pasture.

The pasture was a large one, containing nearly a hundred acres, and was partially covered by low copses of fir. Seeing nothing of the sheep there, we followed the fences around, then looked in several openings which, like bays, or fiords, extended up into the southerly border of the "great woods." And all the while Tom, who was bred on a farm and habituated to the local dialect concerning sheep, was calling, "Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan." But no answering ba-a-a was heard.

"They are not here," Addison exclaimed at length. "The whole flock has gone off somewheres."

"Most likely to 'Dunham's open,'" said Tom, "and that's two miles; but I know the way. Come on. We've got to get them."

We set off at a run, following Thomas along a trail through the forest across the upper valley of the Robbins Brook, but had not gone more than a mile when the storm came on, not large snowflakes, but thick and fine, driven by wind. It came with a sudden darkening of the woods and a strange deep sound, not the roar of a shower, but like a vast elemental sigh from all the surrounding hills and mountains. The wind rumbled in the high, bare tree-tops and the icy pellets sifted down through the bare branches and rattled inclemently on the great beds of dry leaves.

"Shall we go back?" exclaimed Halse.

"No, no; come on!" Thomas exclaimed. "We've got to get those sheep in to-night."

We ran on; but the forest grew dim and obscure. "I think we have gone wrong," Addison said. "I 'most think we have," Thomas admitted. "I ought to have taken that other path, away back there." He turned and ran back, and we followed to where another forest path branched easterly; and here, making a fresh start, we hastened on again for fifteen or twenty minutes.

"Oughtn't we to be pretty near Dunham's open?" demanded Addison.

"Oh, I guess we will come to it," replied Tom. "It is quite a good bit to go."

Thereupon we ran on again for some time, and crossed two brooks. By this time the storm had grown so blindingly thick that we could see but a few yards in any direction. Still we ran on; but not long after, we came suddenly on the brink of a deep gorge which opened out to the left on a wide, white, frozen pond. Below us a large brook was plunging down the "apron" of a log dam.

Thomas now pulled up short, in bewilderment. Addison laughed. "Do you know where you are?" said he. "Tom, that is Stoss Pond and Stoss Pond stream. There's the log dam and the old camp where Adger's gang cut spruce last winter. I know it by those three tall pine stubs over yonder."

Tom looked utterly confused. "Then we are five miles from home," he said, at length.

"We had better go back, too, as quick as we can!" Halse exclaimed, shivering. "It's growing dark! The ground is covered with snow, now!"

Addison glanced around in the stormy gloom and shook his head. "Tom," said he, "I don't believe we can find our way back. In fifteen minutes more we couldn't see anything in the woods. We had better get inside that camp and build a fire in the old cook-stove."

"I don't know but that we had," Tom assented. "It's an awful night. Only hear the wind howl in the woods!"

We scrambled down the steep side of the gorge to the log camp, found the old door ajar and pushed in out of the storm. There was a strange smell inside, a kind of animal odor. By good fortune Addison had a few matches in the pocket of the old coat which he had worn, when we went on the camping-trip to the "old slave's farm." He struck one and we found some dry stuff and kindled a fire in the rusted stove. There were several logger's axes in the camp; and Tom cut up a dry log for fuel; we then sat around the stove and warmed ourselves.

"I expect that the folks will worry about us," Thomas said soberly.

"Well, it cannot be helped," replied Addison.

"But we haven't a morsel to eat here," said Halse. "I'm awfully hungry, too."

Thereupon Tom jumped up and began rummaging, looking in two pork barrels, a flour barrel and several boxes. "Not a scrap of meat and no flour," he exclaimed. "But here are a few quarts of white beans in the bottom of this flour barrel; and we have got the sheep salt. What say to boiling some beans? Here's an old kettle."

"Let's do it!" cried Halse.

A kettle of beans was put on and the fire kept up, as we sat around, for two or three hours. Meantime the storm outside was getting worse. Fine snow was sifting into the old camp at all the cracks and crevices. The cold, too, was increasing; the roaring of the forest was at times awe-inspiring. On peeping out at the door, nothing could be discerned; snow like a dense white powder filled the air. Already a foot of snow had banked against the door; the one little window was whitened. Occasionally, above the roar in the tree-tops, could be heard a distant, muffled crash, and Tom would exclaim, "There went a tree!"

We got our beans boiled passably soft, after awhile, and being very hungry were able to eat a part of them, well salted. Boiled beans can be eaten, but they can never rank as a table luxury.

While chewing our beans, toward the end of the repast, an odd sound began to be heard, as of some animal digging at the door, also snuffling, whimpering sounds. We listened for some moments.

"Boys, you don't suppose that's Tyro, do you?" cried Tom at length. "I'll bet it is! He has taken my track and followed us away up here!"—and jumping up, Tom ran to the door. "Tyro" was a small dog owned at the Edwards homestead.

When, however, he opened the door a little, there crept in, whimpering, not Tyro, but a small, dark-colored animal, which the faint light given out from the stove scarcely enabled us to identify. The creature ran behind the barrels; and Tom clapped the door to. Addison lighted a splinter and we tried to see what it was; but it had run under the long bunk where the loggers once slept. After a flurry, we drove it out in sight again, when Tom shouted that it was a little "beezling" of a bear!

"Yes, sir-ee, that's a little runt of a bear cub," he cried. "He's been in this old camp before. That's what made it smell so when we came in."

Addison imagined that this cub had run out when he heard us coming to the camp, but that the severity of the storm had driven it back to shelter. It was truly a poor little titman of a bear. At length we caught it and shut it under a barrel, placing a stone on the top head.



After our efforts cooking beans and the fracas with the "beezling bear," it must have been eleven o'clock or past, before we lay down in the bunk. The wind was still roaring fearfully, and the fine snow sifting down through the roof on our faces. In fact, the gale increased till past midnight. Addison said that he would sit by the stove and keep fire. Tom, Halse and I lay as snug as we could in the bunk, with our feet to the stove and presently fell asleep.

But soon a loud crack waked us, so harsh, so thrilling, that we started up. Addison had sprung to his feet with an exclamation of alarm. One of those great pine tree-stubs up the bank-side, above the camp, had broken short off in the gale. In falling, it swept down a large fir tree with it. Next instant they both struck with so tremendous a crash, one on each side of the camp, that the very earth trembled beneath the shock! The stove funnel came rattling down. We had to replace it as best we could.

It was not till daylight, however, that we fully realized how narrowly we had escaped death. A great tree trunk had fallen on each side of the camp, so near as to brush the eaves of the low roof. Dry stubs of branches were driven deep into the frozen earth. Either trunk would have crushed the old camp like an eggshell! The pine stub was splintered and split by its fall. There was barely the width of the camp between the two trunks, as they lay there prone and grim, in the drifted snow.

The gale slackened shortly after sunrise and the storm cleared in part; although snow still spit spitefully till as late as ten o'clock.

"What a Thanksgiving-day!" grumbled Halse.

After a time we started for home, leaving the little bear shut up. As much as two feet of snow had fallen on a level and the drifts in the hollows were much deeper. It was my first experience of the great snow storms of Maine; my legs soon ached with wallowing, and my feet were distressingly cold.

Our homeward progress was slow; none the less, Tom and Addison decided to go to Dunham's open, which was nearly a mile off our direct course, to look for the sheep. Now that it was light, they knew the way. Halse refused to go; and as my legs ached badly, he and I remained under a large fir tree beside the path, the fan-shaped branches of which, like all the other evergreens, were encrusted and loaded down by a white canopy.

Addison and Thomas set off and were gone for more than an hour, but had a large story to tell when they rejoined us. Not only had they found the flock, snowbound, in Dunham's open, but had seen two deer which had joined the sheep during the storm. The whole flock was in a copse of firs, in the lee of the woods; and two loup-cerviers were sneaking about near by. Thomas declared that their tracks were as large as his hand; and Addison said that they had trodden a path in a semicircle around the flock.

We resumed our wallowing way home, but erelong heard a distant shout. Addison replied and immediately we saw two men a long way off in the sheep pasture, advancing to meet us.

"I expect that one of them is my good dad," Thomas remarked dryly. "If I know my mother, she has been worrying about this cub of hers all night."

It proved to be farmer Edwards, as Tom had surmised, and with him the Old Squire, himself.

"Well, well, well, boys, where have you been all night?" was their first salutation to us.

Addison gave a brief account of our adventure; we then proceeded homeward together, and were in time for Gram's Thanksgiving dinner at three o'clock, for which it is needless to say that we brought large appetites. But I recall that the pleasures of the table for me were somewhat marred by my feet which continued to ache and burn painfully for two or three hours.

There was a snowdrift six feet in depth before the farmhouse piazza. The drifts indeed had so changed the appearance of things around the house and yard that everything looked quite strange to me.

None of the guests, whom we had expected to dinner, came, on account of the storm; but a rumor of our adventure at the logging-camp had spread through the neighborhood; and at night, after the road had been "broken" with oxen, sled and harrow, Ned Wilbur and his sisters, the Murch boys, and also Tom and Catherine, called to pass the evening.

Perhaps the snow storm with its bewildering whiteness had turned our heads a little. That, or something else, started us off, making rhymes. After great efforts, amidst much laughter and profound knitting of brows, we produced what, in the innocence of youth, we called a poem!—an epic, on our adventure. I still preserve the old scrawl of it, in several different youthful hands, on crumpled sheets of yellowed paper. It has little value as poesy, but I would not part with it for autograph copies of the masterpieces of Kipling, or Aldrich.

It must have been akin to snow-madness, for I remember that Thomas who never attempted a line of poetry before, nor since, led off with the following stanzas:—

"Four boys went off to look for sheep, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan. And the trouble they had would make you weep, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.

"They searched the pasture high and low, Then to Dunham's Open they tried to go. But the sky was dark and the wind did blow And the woods was dim with whirling snow.

"They lost their way and got turned round, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny co'nan. It's a wonder now they ever were found. Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.

"The storm howled round them wild and drear. Stoss Pond did then by chance appear. They all declared 'twas 'mazing queer. 'We're lost,' said Captain Ad, 'I fear.'"

Then either Kate or Ellen put forth a fifth and sixth stanza:—

"But Halse espied an old log camp, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan. And into it they all did tramp, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.

"'Here's beans,' said Tom. 'Here's salt,' said Ad. 'Boiled beans don't go so very bad, When nothing else is to be had. Let's eat our beans and not be sad.'"

I cannot say, certainly, who was responsible for these next stanzas, but the handwriting is a little like my own at that age.

"They ate their beans and sang a song, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan. And wished the night was not so long, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.

"Said Ad, 'What makes that whining noise?' 'By jinks!' cried Tom, 'That's Tyro, boys!' But when he looked, without a care, In crawled a little beezling bear!"

There is a great deal more, not less than twenty stanzas; but a few will suffice. Besides, too, I shrink from presenting the more faulty ones. To strangers they will be merely the immature efforts of nameless young folks; but for me a halo of memories glorifies each halting versicle. The one where the tree fell runs as follows. It was Addison's; and in his now distant home, he will anathematize me for exposing his youthful bad grammar.

"But the night grew wild and wilder still, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan. The forest roared like an old grist-mill, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.

"At last there came a fearful crack! A big pine tree had broke its back. Down it fell, with a frightful smack! And missed the camp by just a snack!"

Theodora alone made a stanza or two more in keeping with that finer sentiment which the occasion might have inspired in us.

"And we who sat and watched at home, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan; And wondered why they did not come, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan. What dread was ours through that long night, That they had perished was our fear, Scarce could we check the anxious tear, Nor slept at all till morning light.

"But safe from storm and falling tree, Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan. Their faces dear again we see, Co'day, co'day co'nanny, co'nan. They slept mid perils all unseen, Some Guardian Hand protecting well; E'en though the mighty tree trunks fell, The little camp stood safe between."

After dinner, Mr. Edwards with Asa Doane went after the sheep, and by tramping a path in advance of the flock, drove them home to the barns.

Next day Asa and Halse took a bushel basket, with a bran sack to tie over it, and went to Adger's camp, to liberate and fetch home the little "beezling bear," but found that bruin junior had upset the barrel and made his escape.

THE END OF BOOK FIRST.



- Transcriber's Note Page 191 murk changed to Murch Page 344 defence changed to defense Page 405 offences changed to offenses -