Part 4 (1/2)

storeously He kneould be soet ashore, and so he would have a chance to forget his threat

[Illustration: ”'It's--Mandy Ann!'”]

”That's all right, Mart!” assented McKeen ”My hide'll be all here waitin' on ye But fer now you jest git ready to do ez I tell ye, an'

don't let the canoe buoin' to be a ittin' hold of the leetle critter I'oin' to take it home for Mandy Ann”

As the canoe swept down upon the swooping and staggering bateau, Babcock put out his paddle in readiness to fend or catch as he ht be directed A ht her up dexterously under the lee of the high-walled craft Babcock caught her with a fir her off with the paddle, and glanced in, while Chris's eyes were still occupied His dark face hite as cotton

”My God, Chris! Forgive roaned

”It's--Mandy Ann!” exclai into the bateau and catching the child into his arms

From Buck to Bear and Back

The sunny, weather-beaten, corey barn half enclosing its bright, untidy farmyard, stood on the top of the open hill, where every sweet forest wind could blow over it night and day

Fields of oats, buckwheat, and potatoes caarden was a spacious patch of cabbages and ”garden sass” three or four hundred yards doard the edge of the forest, where a pocket of rich black loam had specially invited an experiment in horticulture

Like most backwoods fare scorn on such petty interests as gardening; but a county shon at the Settlee patch was the chief object of his solicitude He had proud dreams of prizes to be won at the next sho not three weeks ahead

It was his habit, whenever he harnessed up the team for a drive into the Settle and cast a long, gratified look down over the cabbage patch, its cool, clear green standing out sharply against the yellon of the surrounding fields On this particularhe did not turn for that look till he had juathered up the reins

Then, as he gazed, a wave of indignation passed over his good-natured face

There, in thewith a sort of dainty eagerness at first one and then another, and wantonly tearing open the crisp heads with ied fore hoofs, was a tall wide-antlered buck

Saon, and rushed to the bars which led from the yard to the back field; and the horses--for the sake of his dignity he always drove the pair when he went into the Settlerew behind the well In spite of having grown up in the backwoods, Sa in backwoods lore He was no hunter, and he cared as little as he knew, about the wild kindreds of the forest He had a vague, general idea that all deer were ”skeery critters”; and if any one had told hi season, was not unlikely to develop a fine hed with scorn

Cli upon the bars, he yelled furiously at theto see him vanish like a red streak But the buck merely raised his beautiful head and stared in ure on the fence Then he coolly slashed open another plue, and nibbled at the firain with all the power of healthy lungs, and waved his arms wildly over his head But the vaunted authority of the human voice seemed in some inexplicable way toof those angry arms, however, made an ie, for he shook his beautiful antlers and stamped his forefeet defiantly--and shattered yet another precious cabbage

Wrath struggled with astonishment in Sam coxen's primitive soul Then he concluded that what he wanted was not only vengeance, but a supply of deer'sinto the house, he snatched down his oldon the kitchen wall After the backwoods fashi+on, the gun was kept loaded with a general utility charge of buckshot and slugs, such asBeing no sportse the old percussion-cap, which had been on the tube for six h for him that the weapon was loaded

Down the other slope of the hill, where the buck could not see hiained the cover of the thick woods Then, still running, he skirted the fields till the cabbage patch ca hi-doran to awake in Sa big game flashed into his mind, and he wanted to apply it all at once He noted the direction of the wind, and was delighted to find that it cae patch

He went stealthily, lifting and setting down his heavy-booted feet with a softness of which he had never guessed hination and think only of the prospect of bagging the ga to life in a man's brain Presently, ithin about a hundred yards of the place where he hoped to get a fair shot, coxen redoubled his caution