Young Folks Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly Journal for Boys&Girls (Vol. I, No. 1), Edited by Herbert Leonard Coggins

An Illustrated Monthly Journal for Boys and Girls
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Young Folks Magazine

CHAPTER I
Unwelcome Guests at the Three Oaks Inn

ALL day the strident whistle of the locust had declared for a continuation of the parching heat. The meadows lay brown under the glare of the August sun; the roads were deep in powdery yellow dust. The cattle stood with sweating flanks in the shade of the oaks which bordered the stage track, and although the sun was now declining toward the summits of the distant mountains, all nature continued in the somnolence of a summer day.

A huddle of sheep under a wagon shed and the lolling form of a big collie dog in the barnyard were the only signs of life about the Three Oaks Inn. Mistress and maids, as well as the guests now sheltered by its moss-grown roof, had retired to the cooler chambers, and Jonas Benson, the portly landlord, snored loudly in his armchair in the hall. Out of this hall, with its exposed beams of time-blackened oak and its high fanlight over the entrance, opened the main room, its floor sanded in an intricate pattern that very morning by one of the maids. Across the hall was the closed door of the darkened parlor.

Had Jonas Benson been of a more wakeful mind this hot afternoon, it is quite likely that this narrative would never have been written. But he snored on while behind the closed door of the parlor were whispered words which, had they reached the ears of the landlord of the Three Oaks, would have put him instantly on the alert.

The year was 1777, a fateful one indeed for the American arms in the struggle for liberty—a year of both blessing and misfortune for the patriot cause. Within its twelve months the Continental army achieved some notable victories; but it suffered, too, memorable defeats. It was the year when human liberty seemed trembling in the balance, when all nations—even France—stood aloof, waiting to see whether the star of the American Colonies was setting or on the ascendant. The British army, under Howe and Clinton, occupied New York. Washington and his little force lay near Philadelphia, then the capital of the newly-formed confederation. New Jersey—all the traveled ways between the two armies—was disputed territory, disturbed continually by a sort of guerilla warfare most hard for the peacefully-inclined farmers and tradespeople to bear.

Spies of both sides in the great conflict infested the country: foraging parties, like the rain, descended upon the just and the unjust; and neighbors who had lived in harmony for years before the war broke out, now were at daggers’ points. The Tories had grown confident because of the many set-backs endured by the patriot forces. Many even prophesied that, when Burgoyne’s army, then being gathered beyond the Canadian border, should descend the valleys of upper New York and finally join Howe and Clinton, the handful of Americans bearing arms against the king would be fairly swept into the sea, or ground to powder between the victorious British lines.

Jonas Benson was intensely patriotic, and the Three Oaks had given shelter oft and again to scouts and foraging parties of the Continental troops. The inn-keeper had given the pick of his horses to the army, reserving few but such nags as were positively needed for the coach which went down to Trenton at irregular intervals. There were more than his staid coach horses in the stable on this afternoon, however, and the fact was much to his distaste.

There had arrived at the Three Oaks the evening before a private carriage drawn by a pair of handsome bays and driven by a most solemn-faced Jehu, whose accent was redolent of Bow Bells. With the carriage came a gentleman—a fierce, military-looking man, though not in uniform—who rode a charger, which, so Jonas told his wife, would have made a saint envious, providing the latter were a judge of horseflesh. Inside the carriage rode a very pretty girl of sixteen or seventeen, whose dress and appearance were much different from the plain country lasses of that region.

“They’re surely gentle folk, Jonas,” Mistress Benson had declared. “The sweet child is a little lady—see how proud she holds herself. Law! it’s been a long day since we served real gentles here.”

Jonas snorted disdainfully; he suspected that at heart his good wife had royalist tendencies. As for him, the American officers who sometimes made the Three Oaks their headquarters for a few days were fine enough folk. “I tell ye what, woman,” he said, “they may be great folk or not; one thing I do know. They possess great influence or they’d never gotten through the Britishers with them fine nags. And if the outposts weren’t so far away, I’m blessed if I believe they’d get away from here without our own lads having a shy at the horses.”

But the Bensons were too busy making their guests comfortable to discuss them—or their horses—to any length. Colonel Creston Knowles was the name the gentleman gave, and the girl was his daughter, Miss Lillian. The driver of the carriage, who served the colonel as valet as well, was called William, and a more stony-faced, unemotional individual it had never been the fate of the Bensons to observe. It was utterly impossible to draw from this servant a word regarding his master’s business between the lines of the opposing armies.

These visitors were not desired by Jonas. He kept a public house, and, for the sake of being at peace with everybody, his Tory neighbors included, he treated all guests who came to the Three Oaks with unfailing cordiality. But the presence of Colonel Knowles at this time was bound to cause trouble.

The inn was on the road usually traversed by those in haste to reach Philadelphia, where, while Washington’s army was posted nearby, Congress held its session. Many a time in the dead of night there was the rattle of hoofs on the road, as a breathless rider dashed up to the door, and with a loud “Halloa” aroused the stable boy. Then in a few moments, mounted afresh, he would hurry on into the darkness. These dispatch-bearers of the American army knew they could trust mine host of the Three Oaks, and that a ridable nag could always be found somewhere in his stable.

The very night Colonel Knowles arrived at the tavern there was an occurrence of this kind. And after the dispatch-bearer had gone, and Jonas and Hadley Morris, the stable boy, stood in the paved yard watching him disappear on the moonlit road, they saw a night-capped head at the colonel’s window.

“We’ll have no peace, Had, while yon Britisher’s hereabout,” muttered the old man.

“I wonder why he has come into this country, so far from New York?” was the boy’s observation. “He can’t be upon military service, though he be a colonel in his majesty’s army.”

“He’s here for no good, mark that, Had,” grumbled Jonas. “I’d rather have no guests at the Three Oaks than men of his kidney.”

“That may be—that may be,” testily. “You’re as shortsighted as my old wife, Had. You’ll both let this Master Creston Knowles throw dust in your eyes because he’s got a pretty daughter. Bah!”

And Jonas stumbled back to bed, leaving Hadley Morris to retire to his couch on the loft floor of the stable.

But had these well-founded suspicions been to any purpose, the inn-keeper surely would have remained awake on the afternoon our story opens, instead of lolling, sound asleep, in his wide chair in the hall. Behind the parlor door, not ten feet away from mine host of the Three Oaks, Colonel Creston Knowles was conversing in a low tone with his serving man.

“And you say it happened twice during the night, sirrah?” queried the British officer, who spoke to everybody but his daughter with sternness.

“Twice, hand it please ye, sir. Hi’m sure the stable was hopened once hafter the time you was hup, sir, hand another ’orse taken hout. My life! but Hi thought hit thieves hat first, sir—some o’ them murderin’ cowboys; but the young lad has tends to the ’orses seemed to know them that came, hand they did not touch hour hanimals, sir.”

“It’s a regular nest of rebels!” exclaimed the colonel, his brow black enough at the report. “Such places as this should be razed to the earth. The spies who report to this Mr. Washington and his brother rebels evidently have free course through the country. They even exchange their steeds here—and Malcolm’s troop lying less than six miles away this very day. William!”

The colonel beckoned him nearer and whispered an inaudible order in the man’s ear. There was no change of expression upon the servant’s countenance, and the command might have been welcome or distasteful as far as an observer could have told. When the colonel ceased speaking, William rose without a word and tiptoed cautiously to the door. On pulling this ajar, however, the lusty snoring of Jonas Benson warned him of the inn-keeper’s presence. He closed the door again, nodded to the colonel, and vaulted through one of the open windows, thus making his exit without disturbing the landlord.

But although everybody about the tavern itself seemed to be slumbering, the colonel’s man found that he could not enter the stable without being observed. As he came out of the glare of sunshine into the half darkness of the wide threshing floor, the Englishman suddenly came upon a figure standing between him and the narrow window at the further end of the stable. It was the stable boy and he was just buckling the saddle-girth upon a nervous little black mare whose bit was fastened to a long halter hanging from one of the cross-beams.

Hadley Morris was a brawny youth for his age, which was seventeen. He was by no means handsome, and few boys would be attractive-looking in the clothing of a stable boy. Yet there was that in his carriage, in the keenness of his eye, in the firm lines of his chin and lip, which would have attracted a second glance from any thoughtful observer. Hadley had been now more than a year at the Three Oaks Inn, ever since it had become too unpleasant for him to longer remain with his uncle, Ephraim Morris, a Tory farmer of the neighborhood. Hadley was legally bound to Ephraim, better known, perhaps, as “Miser Morris,” and, of course, was not permitted to join the patriot army as he had wished. The youth might have broken away from his uncle altogether had he so desired, but there were good reasons why he had not yet taken this decisive step.

He had found it impossible to live longer under his uncle’s roof, however, and therefore had gone to work for Jonas Benson; but he still considered himself bound to his uncle, and Jonas grumblingly paid over to the farmer the monthly wage which the boy faithfully earned. Hadley found occasion oft and again to further the cause which in his soul he espoused. It was he rather than the landlord who saw to it that the fleetest horse in the stable was ready saddled against the expected arrival of one of those dispatch-bearers whose coming and going had disturbed Colonel Knowles the night before. As he now tightened the girth of the mare’s trappings she danced about as though eager to be footing it along the stage road toward the river.

Hadley was startled by the sudden appearance of the colonel’s servant in the doorway of the barn.

“So you are riding hout, too?” observed the latter, going toward the stalls occupied by his master’s thoroughbreds. “There’s a deal of going back and forth ’ere, hit seems to me.”

“Oh, it’s nothing so lively as it was before the war broke out,” Hadley explained, good-naturedly. “Then the coaches went out thrice a week to Trenton, and one of the New York and Philadelphia stages always stopped here, going and coming. Business is killed and the country is all but dead now.”

William grunted as he backed out one of the carriage horses and threw his master’s saddle upon it. “You’re going out yourself, I see.” Hadley said, observing that the man did not saddle the colonel’s charger.

“Hi’ve got to give the beasts some hexercise if we’re goin’ ter lie ’ere day hafter day,” grumbled William, and swung himself quickly into the saddle.

The boy went to the open door and watched him ride heavily away from the inn, with a puzzled frown upon his brow. “He’s never going for exercise such a hot afternoon as this,” muttered the youth. “There! he’s put the horse on the gallop. He’s going somewhere a-purpose—and he’s in haste. Will he take the turn to the Mills, I wonder, or keep straight on for Trenton?”

The trees which shaded the road hid horse and rider, and leaving the little mare dancing on the barn floor, Hadley ran hastily up the ladder to the loft, and then by a second ladder reached the little cupola, or ventilator, which Master Benson had built atop his barn. From this point of vantage all the roads converging near the Three Oaks Inn could be traced for several miles.

Behind the cluster of tall trees which gave the inn its name, a road branched off toward the Mills. In a minute or less the watcher saw a horseman dash along this road amid a cloud of dust.

“He’s bound for the Mills—and in a wonderful hurry. What was it Lafe Holdness told us when he was along here the other day? Something about a troop of British horse being at the Mills, I’ll be bound.” Then he turned toward the east and looked carefully along the brown road on which any person coming from the way of New York would naturally travel. “Well, there’s nobody in sight yet. If that fellow means mischief—Ah! but it’s six miles to the Mills and if he continues to ride like that on this hot day the horse will be winded long before he gets there.”

He went down the ladders, however, with anxious face, and during the ensuing hour made many trips to the wide gateway which opened upon the dusty road. There was not a sign of life, however, in either direction.

Meanwhile the tavern awakened to its ordinary life and bustle. The last rays of the sun slanted over the mountain tops and the shadows crept farther and farther across the meadows. The old collie arose and stretched himself lazily, while the tinkle of sheep bells and the heavier jangle which betrayed the approach of the cattle cut the warm air sharply. Even a breeze arose and curled the road dust in little spirals and rustled the oak leaves. Dusk was approaching to relieve panting nature.

Jonas awoke with a start and came out upon the tavern porch to stretch himself. He saw Hadley standing by the gateway and asked:

“Yes, sir. She’s been standing on the barn floor for an hour. One of the other horses has gone out, sir.”

“Heh? How’s that?” He tiptoed softly to the end of the porch so as to be close above the boy. “Who’s been here?” he asked.

“Nobody. But the colonel’s man took one of those bays and started for the Mills an hour ago.”

“I d’know as I like the sound of that,” muttered Jonas. “I wish these folks warn’t here—that I do. They aint meanin’ no good—”

From the wide tavern door there suddenly appeared the British colonel’s daughter. She was indeed a pretty girl and her smile was infectious. Even Jonas’ face cleared at sight of her and he hastened, as well as a man of his portliness could, to set a chair for her.

“It is very beautiful here,” Miss Lillian said, “and so peaceful. I got so tired in New York seeing soldiers everywhere and hearing about war. It doesn’t seem as though anything ever happened here.”

“I b’lieve something’s goin’ to happen b’fore long, though,” the landlord whispered anxiously to Hadley, and walked to the other end of the porch, leaving the two young people together.

“It is usually very quiet about here,” Hadley said, trying to speak easily to the guest. He was not at all used to girls, and Miss Lillian was altogether out of his class. He felt himself rough and uncouth in her presence. “But we see soldiers once in a while.”

“Oh, you surely don’t call those ragamuffin colonists soldiers, do you?” she asked, quickly.

A crimson flush spread from Hadley’s bronzed neck to his brow; but a little smile followed and his eyes twinkled. “I don’t know what you’d really call them; but they made your grenadiers fall back at Bunker Hill.”

Miss Lillian bit her lip in anger; then, as she looked down into the stable boy’s face her own countenance cleared and she laughed aloud. “I don’t think I’ll quarrel with you,” she said. “You are a rebel, I suppose, and I am an English girl. You don’t know what it means to be born across the water, and—”

“Oh, yes I do. I was born in England myself,” Hadley returned. “My mother brought me across when she came to keep house for Uncle Ephraim Morris—”

“Who?” interposed Lillian, turning towards him again, with astonishment in both voice and countenance.

“Ephraim Morris. He is a farmer back yonder,” and Hadley pointed over his shoulder. “My name is Hadley Morris.”

Before Lillian could comment upon this, or explain her sudden interest in his uncle’s name, both were startled by an exclamation from the landlord at the other end of the porch.

Hadley left the gate at once and leaped into the road. Far down the dusty highway there appeared a little balloon of dust, and the faint ring of rapid hoofs reached their ears. Somebody was riding furiously toward the inn from the east. Lillian rose to look, too, and in the doorway appeared the military figure of her father. His face looked very grim indeed as he gazed, as the others were doing, down the road.

The advancing horseman was less than a quarter of a mile away when, of a sudden, there sounded a single pistol shot—then another and another. It was a scattering volley, but at the first report those watching at the inn could see the approaching horse fairly leap ahead under the spur of its rider.

“Ha! the scoundrels are after him!” cried the inn-keeper, his fat face paling.

The colonel’s countenance expressed sudden satisfaction. “Go into the house, Lillian!” he commanded. “There will be trouble here in a moment.” He brought out from under his coat tails as he spoke a huge pistol such as was usually carried in saddle holsters at that day.

Hadley Morris, from the centre of the road, did not see the colonel’s weapon. He only observed the approaching horseman in the cloud of dust, and knew him to be a dispatch-bearer aiming to reach the ferry and Washington’s headquarters beyond. In a moment there loomed up behind him a group of pursuers riding neck and neck upon his trail. They were British dragoons and the space between them and their prey was scarce a hundred yards.

IT did not take a very sharp eye to observe that the horse which the messenger bestrode was laboring sorely, while his pursuers were blessed with comparatively fresh mounts. The American had ridden long and hard, and his steed was in no shape for such a spurt of speed as it was put to now. The British had kept clear of this road for weeks, because of the foraging parties from Philadelphia, and, doubtless, the dispatch-bearer hoped to find at the Three Oaks those who would stand him well in this emergency.

At least, there would be a fresh horse there, and perhaps a faithful man or two to help beat off the dragoons until he could escape with his precious charge. He had no thought that there was a still greater danger ahead of him. The dragoons were lashing and spurring their horses to the utmost; and now and again one took a potshot at him; but there on the porch of the old inn stood Colonel Knowles, waiting with all the calmness of a sportsman to bring the fleeing man to earth.

Young Hadley Morris did not notice the colonel; he had forgotten his presence in his interest in the flight and pursuit. But Jonas Benson saw his guest’s big pistol and realized the danger to the approaching fugitive. Yet there seemed nothing he could do to avert the calamity. He dared not openly attack the colonel, for whether the dispatch-bearer escaped or no, the dragoons would be at the inn in a few moments, and, there being no such force of Americans in the neighborhood, they might wreak vengeance on him and his family. The old man was hard put to it, indeed, in this emergency.

Not so Hadley, however. He was quick of thought and quite as brisk of action. The charge of galloping horse was but a short distance away, the American still a little in the lead, when the boy darted back to the heavy barred gate which shut the yard from the road. The barrier had been swung wide open and fastened with a loop of rope to a hook in the side of the house. He slipped this fastening and stood ready to shut the gate between the fugitive and his pursuers, and thus delay the latter for a possible few moments.

If the dispatch-bearer got into the yard safely he could leap upon the back of the black mare now standing impatiently on the barn floor, and escape his pursuers through the fields and orchard back of the outbuildings. No ordinary horse would be able to leap the high gate, and Hadley did not believe the dragoons were overly well mounted. As the dispatch-bearer dashed up, foam flying from his horse’s mouth and the blood dripping from its flanks where the cruel spurs had done their work, it looked to Colonel Knowles as though the American would ride right by, and he raised his pistol in a deliberate intention of bringing the man to earth.

But as he pulled the trigger old Jonas stumbled against him and the ball went wide of its mark. The shot did much harm, however, for it frightened the already maddened horse, which leaped to one side, pitching the man completely over its head upon the paving of the yard. The horse fell, too, but outside the gate, and Hadley was able to slam the barrier and drop the bar into place before the dragoons arrived.

The explosion of the colonel’s pistol and that officer’s angry shout warned Hadley of the added and closer danger. He darted to the side of the fallen messenger. The poor fellow had struggled partly up and was tearing at his coat. His face was covered with blood, for he was badly injured by his fall; but one thought kept him conscious.

“The papers—the papers, lad!” he gasped. “For General Washington—quick!”

But he had only half pulled the packet from his inner pocket when he dropped back upon the flagstones, and, with a groan, lay still.

Hadley seized the precious packet and leaped to his feet. With a clatter of hoofs and amid a cloud of dust the dragoons arrived at the yard gate.

“There he is! He’s down—down!” shouted the leader. “We’ve got him safe! Hi, there landlord! open your gate or we’ll batter it in!”

“They’ve got him safe, that’s a fact,” muttered Hadley, in distress. “But—but they haven’t got the papers!”

“There goes one of them running!” shouted a voice behind. Then a pistol exploded and Hadley leaped forward as though the ball had stung him, although it whistled far above his head.

“Look out for that boy!” he heard Colonel Knowles say, and, glancing back, Hadley saw the officer leaning out of one of the windows which overlooked the yard. At a neighboring casement the fleeing youth saw Miss Lillian. Even at that distance, and in so perilous a moment, Hadley noted that the girl’s face was very pale and that she watched him with clasped hands and anxious countenance.

One of the dragoons had dismounted and now unbarred the gate. Before Hadley reached the wide doorway of the great barn the soldiers were trooping through into the yard.

“The boy has the papers—look after him, I tell you!” he heard the colonel shout. Then Hadley pulled the great door shut and fastened it securely on the inside. For an instant he could breathe.

But only for an instant. The dragoons were at the door then, beating upon it with the hilts of their sabres and pistol-butts, demanding entrance. Hadley had no weapon had he desired to defend the barn from attack. And that would be a foolish attempt, indeed. It would be an easy matter for the dragoons to break down the fences and surround the barn so that he could not escape, and then beat in the door and capture him—and with him the papers. He did not know how valuable those documents might be; but the man now lying senseless in the inn yard had saved them at the risk of his life; the boy felt it his duty to do as much.

Colonel Knowles had now come out into the yard and taken command of the attack. Evidently he was recognized by the British soldiers, despite his civilian’s dress. He gave orders for a timber to be brought to beat in the door, and Hadley likewise heard him send two of the soldiers around the barn to watch the rear. If the boy would escape it must be within the next few seconds.

He ran back to the rear of the building. Here was another wide door and he flung it open. The soldiers had not appeared; but the doorsill was a good eight feet and more from the ground. The barn had been built on a hillside. Directly below the door was a pen in which hogs were kept. Eight feet was a good drop, and besides it would be impossible to escape the soldiers on foot.

A crash sounded at the front of the building. The men had brought up the timber for a battering ram. The door would certainly be burst inward before many moments. Hadley ran back to the waiting mare that already seemed to share his own excitement. He freed her from the halter and sprang into the saddle. He dared not try getting past his enemies when the door fell and with a quick jerk of the rein he pulled the mare around. She trotted swiftly to the rear door which the boy had flung open; but when she saw the distance to the ground below, her ears went back and she crouched.

“You’ve got to do it, Molly!” exclaimed the boy, desperately. He reached to the stanchion at his right hand and seized a riding-whip hanging there. As the mare continued to back, Hadley brought the lash down again and again upon her quivering flank. The poor beast was not used to such treatment, and in her rage and fright she forgot the danger ahead and leaped straight out from the open stable door.

Hadley stood up in the stirrups when he felt her go. He knew where she would land, and he believed the feat would be without danger; but he was ready to kick out of the stirrups and save himself if the little mare missed her footing.

Fortunately she landed just where her rider had planned. There was a pile of straw and barn scrapings below the door, and from this Black Molly rebounded as though from a mattress. She was not an instant in recovering herself, and, still frightened by the sting of the whip-lash, darted out through the orchard. Hadley flung away the whip, and, leaning forward, hugged her neck so as not to be swept off by the low branches of the apple trees.

There was a wild halloa behind him. The dragoons sent to cut off his escape had arrived too late; but they emptied their pistols at the black mare and her young rider.

“They won’t give up so easily,” Hadley muttered, not daring to look around while still in the orchard. “That Colonel Knowles would rather die than be outwitted by a boy. I’ll make right for the ferry, and perhaps I may meet Holdness somewhere on the road. I can give the papers up to him, and I know he’ll find some way of getting them to General Washington.”

He pulled Black Molly’s head around and took a nearer slant for the road. The mare was more easily managed now, and when he reached the rail fence which divided the orchard from the highway his mount had forgotten her fright and allowed him to stop and fling down a part of the fence so that they could get through and down the bank into the road. Looking back before descending the bank, Hadley saw several horsemen streaming through the orchard behind him, and, more to be feared than these, was the party leaving the inn yard and taking to the very road out upon which he had come. At the head of this second cavalcade rode Colonel Knowles himself on his great charger, and Hadley’s heart sank. Black Molly was famed throughout the countryside for her speed; but that great beast of the colonel’s—evidently brought from across the sea, and a thoroughbred hunter—would be more than a match for the little mare in a long chase.

“We must do our best, Molly,” cried the boy, slapping her side with his palm and riding down into the dusty road. “You can keep ahead of them, I know, for a short distance, and you must do your best now. It will soon be too dark for them to see us—that’s a blessing.”

The little mare needed no spur or urging. She clattered along the darkening road with head down and neck outstretched, Hadley riding with a loose rein and letting her pick her own way over the track. He could trust to her instinct more safely than to his own sight. The oaks cast thick shadows across his path, and now the whole sky was turning a deep indigo, dotted here and there with star points. There was no moon until later, and he believed the darkness was more favorable to him than to his pursuers.

He could hear the thunder of the hoofs behind him, however, and he patted Molly’s neck encouragingly and talked to her as she ran. “Go it, girl! you’ve got to go!” he said. “Just make your little feet fly. Remember the times I’ve rubbed you down, and fed you, and taken you to water. Just do your very prettiest, my girl, for it’s more than my life you’ve got to save—it’s these papers, whatever they be.”

And the little mare seemed to understand what he said, for she strained every effort for speed. She fairly skimmed over the ground, and for the first mile or more the hoof-beats gained not at all upon them. Then, to Hadley’s straining ears, it seemed as though the pursuit grew closer. It was not a mob of hoof-beats which he heard, but the steady, unbroken gallop of one horse. And it took little intuition for the boy to know which this leading pursuer was. The great black charger, the colonel’s mount, had left the dragoons behind, and its stride was now shortening the distance rapidly between its master and himself.

“Oh, Molly, run—run!” gasped the boy, digging his heels into the mare’s sides.

Molly was doing her best, but the sound of the black horse’s hoofs grew louder. The road was not straight or Hadley might have looked back and seen the colonel bearing down upon him. But the officer could doubtless follow his prey by the sound of Molly’s feet, quite as accurately as Hadley could estimate his speed. At this thought, and hoping to put his pursuer at a disadvantage for the moment, the boy pulled the mare out upon the level sward beside the road. There Black Molly pattered along silently: but the boy could hear the thunder of pursuit growing louder and louder.

Now that the clatter of his own mount’s hoofs were not in his ears, Hadley was suddenly aware of a new sound cutting the night air. And it was not from the rear, but from ahead—the loud complaint of ungreased axles: a low, heavy wagon was coming slowly along the road.

Around another turn in the crooked road they flashed and then the creaking of the wheels was quite near. A great covered wagon loomed up in the dusk, and Hadley uttered a cry of joy.

But the driver of the squeaking vehicle heard him, and there was a flash of light as he rose up on the footboard and held the lantern above his head.

“The British are after me—I’ve got dispatches!” shouted the boy, reining in the mare beside the wagon.

“Had Morris, as I’m a livin’ sinner! What ye doin’ here?” Then the driver cocked his head and listened to the thud of hoofs behind the flying boy. “They’re arter ye close, lad—an’ Molly’s winded. Quick! there’s naught but straw in here. It’s your best chance.”

The wagon was still creaking slowly along and Holdness did not stop his team. He dropped the lantern and dodged back to the rear of the wagon. There he quickly flung aside the end curtain and then returned to the driver’s seat.

Hadley had ridden by, but the instant he saw the curtain raised he wheeled Molly about and aimed her for the end of the huge wagon. “Quick, girl! You’ve done it before,” muttered the boy, and the little mare obeyed. The driver did not bring his wagon to a stop, but it was moving very slowly. Molly had long since learned the trick expected of her, and she trotted up to the rear of the vehicle, rose in the air, and landed firmly on the straw-covered bottom.

“Draw the curtain, Had, ’n’ keep yer hand on her nose,” commanded Holdness, the teamster, without turning his head.

Already the boy had ordered the little mare to lie down and she had sunk upon the straw. He whipped down the curtain, fastened it, and then lay down beside the mare with his hand upon her velvety nose, ready to stifle any desire on her part to whinny when the pursuing horses should arrive.

And they were here in a moment now. Colonel Knowles, on his great charger, ahead, and the company of dragoons not many rods behind.

“WELL, hurry back, boy. You’re rather green, you know, to be going out alone.” The captain winked at Sergeant Mills as Tom Ray turned towards his horse.

There had been no fighting as yet, and Tom was rather disappointed, for, to tell the truth, it was love of adventure rather than patriotism that had induced him to join the little squad of cavalry then journeying through the heart of the Apache country. They had encamped in the little valley of the Salt River, in Arizona. The land was dry and parched. Even the hardy cactus was taking on a leathery hue.

To Tom it was a monotonous view—the yellow earth: that everlasting Giant Cactus; and occasionally the tall, bleached form of a dead tree, reaching its arms despairingly upward from the dearth of life below.

With some little impatience he urged the pony into a gallop. In an hour he must be at the fork of the Salt to receive Custer’s dispatches. Everybody had wondered why Tom Ray, the only one in the party who had never heard an Indian war-whoop, should have been chosen for the work. It was a case of eloquence. Tom pleaded, and the captain—who wasn’t much afraid of Indians himself—forgot his military caution and consented.

The first two miles of the journey lay back along their own trail to the point where a long depression in the plain marked the bed of some old river. From there he must turn sharp to the right and make for the foot of the lone gray butte, about whose base wound the west branch of the Salt. He had started early, and it was not yet four o’clock when he reached the crossing of the low ground. He paused for a moment and looked about him.

A large shadow rolled along the ground before him and caught his eye. From overhead came the shrill cry of an eagle—the same bird who, in spite of numerous rifle balls, had aroused the admiration of the whole party on the previous day, by its mad swoops in their direction.

Tom cast a reluctant glance at the distant cottonwood and the huge pile of sticks saddled in its crotch. The old egg-collecting instinct welled up strongly within him, but he held the mustang’s head resolutely away. In his mind he already pictured the impatience of the old scout at the fork and, hardly daring to take a second look at the nest, he again brought the little pony to a full gallop.

Cris Wood had been a bearer of government dispatches ever since the thriving settlement of Hopkins’ Bend could boast of a telegraph wire. His greeting for the “youngster,” as he termed Tom Ray, was that of an old friend:—

“What have you been waiting for, t’ give the Indians a chance to scalp me?”

Tom laughed as he looked at the scant fringe of gray beneath the rough, worn hat.

“I guess they wouldn’t be paid for their trouble,” he answered, as he took the well-handled dispatches from the old scout.

“No, not by me,” retorted the latter, grimly. “But, anyway, there’s only one lot of Indians around, and they’re way over at the crossing,” referring to a point on Tom’s return journey.

“All right,” responded Tom, amused at the scout’s time-honored attempt to play on his nerves. “If I see them, I’ll give them the chase of their lives.”

A few more courtesies were tossed freely from one to the other, together with what little news had fallen in the way of both before they parted.

Half an hour later, as the return road before him sank gently to the lower ground, Tom’s eyes were again drawn instinctively to the tall cottonwood. Though still distant, he could already see the watchful eagle silhouetted from its topmost point. The sun was yet high—he might as well have a look at the nest. With this Tom drew the horse’s head in the direction of the great cottonwood.

The boy’s approach to the lofty tree was greatly resented by the pair of golden eagles who had chosen it as a site for their home. A little ball of cottony down showed itself over the side of the rude structure. There was at least one eaglet, and Tom knew then that it would be with no small danger to himself if he chose to investigate. Then there came to him the misty recollection of the tame eagle which Jack Warren, one of the cowboys, had brought into camp. With this bit of memory his hesitation vanished.

The tree was bare and barked. Its lower branches had long since rotted and now lay on the ground crumbling. Rough knots remained, however, here and there, and by grasping these Tom was able to make the ascent. The old birds whirled round the tree in giant spirals. First one and then the other would suddenly swerve from the circle and sweep past the boy’s head so close that he would involuntarily throw up his arm in defence.

When Tom was about thirty feet from the ground all thought of the infuriated birds was suddenly driven from his mind. At a distance of perhaps one hundred yards stood an unusually thick clump of cactus. In the midst of this, peering intently at him, was a dark, bronzed face—that of an Apache Indian. A wave of terror swept over the boy, and in his fright he imagined he could even discern the triumphant expression upon the swarthy visage, as it sank behind the dark barrier.

Then all of a sudden he became cool. He looked for his horse. To his dismay he discovered that the animal had wandered some little distance from the tree. Then he realized his danger.

If he descended at once it would be to certain death. His only hope lay in strategy.

Immediately he again began the struggle upward. All the suppressed energy of the moment went into the grip of his hands as they took hold of the rough knots. The eagles became more demonstrative, and more than once the swish of a powerful wing caused him to duck his head. But of this he was hardly conscious. When at length he bent over the nest, under pretense of examining it, Tom’s eyes were in reality strained in an attempt to locate the enemy. He never knew whether the nest contained one or two eaglets.

His mustang and the Indian were about the same distance from the tree. But how was he to reach the animal? A too sudden descent would arouse suspicion. At length, with every nerve on edge for the trial to come, he began to work his way down. The eagles, their courage increased with apparent victory, gave even freer utterance to their rage, and their shrieks as they swooped past his head rang in the boy’s ears for many a day afterward. On a sudden thought, as if in mockery, he took up the cries of the birds, imitating them by long, piercing whistles.

Presently the sound varied, yet to such a slight degree that a listener might not have noted it. Tip, the pony, however, did seem to notice it, and at each call would lift his head impatiently and look in the direction of the tree. Finally, as if by a familiar impulse, he tossed his head in air, and walked slowly toward the well-known call.

All the while Tom had kept his face in such a direction that the Indian could not have left his ambush without being discovered. The pony was now within twenty paces of the tree. By way of distracting the Indian’s attention, the boy waved his hat and shouted to an imaginary comrade.

Then, fifteen feet from the ground, first throwing a quick glance at his steed, Tom allowed himself to drop. As he did so the dreaded war-whoop rang out from the distant clump. To his horror, an answering call came from just ahead of him. Once on the ground, he darted toward the horse. A cactus plant, which on ordinary occasions he would have given a wide berth, brushed sharply against him, yet, in his excitement, he hardly felt the pain it caused.

In the next instant he had swung into the saddle and wheeled the pony’s head toward the camp. The first glance ahead, however, revealed the supple body of an Indian half concealed by a cactus bush. There was no choice. Striking his spurs into the pony, Tom dashed forward. The Indian suddenly dropped his rifle and crouched beside a Giant Cactus. As Tom and the mustang flew past he made a panther-like leap, and throwing his arms about the boy, tried to drag him from the saddle. Turning upon him, Tom seized the lithe arms and with all his strength tried to throw the enemy from him. But the grip of the savage was like that of a wild animal, and the boy’s most vigorous efforts failed to break it.

While the Indian and boy were thus struggling, the mustang had made good some one hundred yards, in spite of the double burden. Though greatly excited, Tom thought of the six-shooter at his belt, but before he could reach it a quick movement of the savage pinned his arms to his side. The boy then worked his hand under the wiry arm which held a strangling grip on his neck. As he did so, his eyes met a sight that changed his purpose. He thought a moment of the savage clinging to him. Then, with all his strength, he wrapped his arms around the Indian and imprisoned him. The Indian was confused by the change of action, and, like a wild animal, fought to release himself, for by this time he, too, saw Sergeant Mills and three other approaching horsemen.

A party of soldiers, wondering at the boy’s delay, had ridden out from the camp, and they were not a little surprised to see Tom galloping toward them, carrying what to them was a very odd looking burden. When, upon nearer approach, this object developed into a full-grown Apache Indian, their astonishment knew no bounds, and they hastened forward, lest the prisoner, in his fierce struggles, should escape them.

Ten minutes later, the Indian, bound hand and foot, was brought before the captain, and at the same time Tom handed over the all-important dispatches. As he did so, the boy’s spirits reacted from their strained condition and his sense of humor asserted itself.

“Well, captain,” he said, “I knew that you didn’t want me to be out alone, so I brought this Indian along, just to keep me company.”

CHAPTER I
The Storm

Mother Angelique’s anxious call rang out over the water, once, twice, many times. But, though she shaded her brows with her hands and strained her keen ears to listen, there was no one visible and no response came back to her. So she climbed the hill again and, reëntering the cabin, began to stir with almost vicious energy the contents of a pot swinging in the wide fireplace. As she toiled she muttered and wagged her gray head, with sage misgivings.

“For my soul! There is the ver’ bad hoorican’ will come, and the child so heedless. But the signs, the omens! This same day I did fall asleep at the knitting and waked a-smother. True, ’twas Meroude, the cat, crouched on my breast; yet what sent her, save for a warning?”

Though even in her scolding, the woman smiled, recalling how Margot had jeered at her superstition; and that when she had dropped her bit of looking-glass the girl had merrily congratulated her on the fact; since by so doing, she had secured “two mirrors in which to behold such loveliness!”

“No, no; not so. Death lurks in a broken glass; or, at the best, must follow seven full years of bad luck and sorrow.”

“Silly Angelique! When there is no such thing as luck, but all is of the will of God.”

The old nurse had frowned. The maid was too wise for her years. She talked too much with the master. It was not good for women-kind to listen to grave speech or plague their heads with graver books. Books, indeed, were for priests and doctors; and, maybe, now and then, for men who could not live without them, like Master Hugh. She, Angelique, had never read a book in all her life. She never meant to do so. She had not even learned a single letter printed in their foolish pages—not she. Yet was not she a most excellent cook and seamstress? Was there any cabin in all that northland as tidy as that she ruled? Would matters have been the better had she bothered her poor brain with books? She knew her duty and she did it. What more could mortal?

This argument had been early in the day—a day on which the master had gone away to the mainland and the house mistress had improved by giving the house an extra cleaning. To escape the soapsuds and the loneliness, Margot had also gone, alone and unquestioned; taking with her a luncheon of brown bread and cold fowl, her book and microscope. Angelique had watched the little canoe push off from the shore, without regret, since now she could work unhindered at clearing the room of the “rubbishy specimens” which the others had brought in to mess the place.

Now, at supper time, perfect order reigned, and perfect quiet, as well; save for the purring of Meroude upon the hearth and the simmering of the kettle. Angelique wiped her face with her apron.

Suddenly the cat waked from her sleep, and, with a sharp “meouw,” leaped to her mistress’s shoulder; who screamed, dropped the ladle, splashed the stew, and boxed the animal’s ears—all within a few seconds. Her nerves were already tingling from the electricity in the air, and her anxiety returned with such force that, again swinging the crane around away from the fire, she hurried to the beach.

To one so weather-wise, the unusual heat, the leaden sky, and the intense hush were ominous. There was not a breath of wind stirring, apparently, yet the surface of the lake was already dotted by tiny white-caps, racing and chasing shoreward, like live creatures at play. Not many times, even in her long life in that solitude, had Angelique Ricord seen just that curious coloring of cloud and water, and she recalled these with a shudder. The child she loved was strong and skillful, but what would that avail? Her thin face darkened, its features sharpened, and, making a trumpet of her hands, she put all her force into a long, terrified halloo.

Something clutched her shoulder, and with another frightened scream, the woman turned, to confront her master.

“It seems but an hour, maybe two—three—and she was here, laughing, singing, all as ever. Though it was before the mid-day, and she went in her canoe, still singing.”

She pointed due east, but now into a gloom that was impenetrable. On the instant the lapping wavelets became breakers, the wind rose to a deafening shriek, throwing Angelique to the ground, and causing even the strong man to reel before it. As soon as he could right himself, he lifted her in his arms and staggered up the slope. Rather, he was almost blown up it and through the open door into the cabin, about which the furnishings were flying wildly. Here the woman recovered herself and lent her aid in closing the door against the tempest, a task that, for a time, seemed impossible. Her next thought was for her dinner-pot, now swaying in the fireplace, up which the draught was roaring furiously. Once the precious stew was in a sheltered corner, her courage failed again, and she sank down beside it, moaning and wringing her hands.

Her wails ceased. That was a tone of voice she had never disobeyed in all her fifteen years of service.

“Spread some blankets. Brew some herb tea. Get out a change of dry clothing. Make everything ready against I bring Margot in.”

She watched him hurrying about, securing all the windows, piling wood on the coals, straightening the disordered furniture, fastening a bundle of kindlings to his own shoulders, putting matches in the pocket of his closely-buttoned coat, and she caught something of his spirit. After all, it was a relief to be doing something, even though the roar of the tempest and the incessant flashes of lightning turned her sick with fear. But it was all too short a task; and when, at last, her master climbed outward through a sheltered rear window, closing it behind him, her temporary courage sank again.

“The broken glass! the broken glass! Yet who would dream it is my darling’s bright young life must pay for that and not mine, the old and careworn? Ouch! the blast! That bolt struck—and near! Ah, me! Ah, me!”

Meroude rubbed pleadingly against her arm, and, glad of any living companionship, she put out her hand to touch him; but drew it back in dread, for his sur-charged fur sparkled and set her flesh a-tingle, while the whole room grew luminous with an uncanny radiance. Feeling that her own last hour had come, poor Angelique crouched still lower in her corner and began to say her prayers with so much earnestness that she became almost oblivious to the tornado without.

Meanwhile, by stooping and clinging to whatever support offered, Hugh Dutton made his slow way beachward. But the bushes uprooted in his clasp and the bowlders slipped by him on this new torrent rushing to the lake. Then he flung himself face downward and cautiously crawled toward the Point of Rocks whereon he meant to make his beacon fire.

“She will see it and steer by it,” he reflected; for he would not acknowledge how hopeless would be any human steering under such a stress.

Alas! the beacon would not light. The wind had turned icy cold and the rain changed to hail which hurled itself upon the tiny blaze and stifled its first breath. A sort of desperate patience fell on the man, and he began again, with utmost care, to build and shelter his little stock of firewood. Match after match he struck, and with unvarying failure, till all were gone; and realizing at last how chilled and rigid he was growing, he struggled to his feet and set them into motion.

Then there came a momentary lull in the storm and he shouted aloud, as Angelique had done:

Another gust swept over the lake and island. He could hear the great trees falling in the forest, the bang, bang, bang, of the deafening thunder, as, blinded by lightning and overcome by exhaustion, he sank down behind the pile of rocks and knew no more.

CHAPTER II
SPIRIT OR MORTAL?

Aroused by the silence that succeeded the uproar, Angelique stood up and rubbed her limbs, stiff with long kneeling. The fire had gone out. Meroude was asleep on the blankets spread for Margot, who had not returned, nor the master. As for that matter, the house mistress had not expected that they ever would.

“There is nothin’ left. I am alone. It was the glass. Ah! that the palsy had seized my unlucky hand before I took it from its shelf! How still it is. How clear, too, is my darling’s laugh—it rings through the room—it is a ghost. It will haunt me always, always.”

Unable longer to bear the indoor silence, which her fancy filled with familiar sounds, she unbarred the heavy door and stepped out.

“Ah! is it possible—can the sun be setting that way—as if there had been nothin’ happen?”

Wrecks strewed the open ground about the cabin, poultry coops were washed away, the cow-shed was a heap of ruins, into which the trembling observer dared not peer. That Snowfoot should be dead was a calamity but second only to the loss of master and nursling.

“Ah! my beast, my beauty. The best in all this northern Maine. That the master bought and brought in the big canoe for an Easter gift to his so faithful Angelique. And yet the sun sets as red and calm as if all were the same as ever.”

It was, indeed, a scene of grandeur. The storm, in passing northward, had left scattered banks of clouds, now colored most brilliantly by the setting sun and widely reflected on the once more placid lake. But neither the beauty nor the sweet, rain-washed air, appealed to the distracted islander, who faced the west and shook her hand in impotent rage toward it.

“Shine, will you? With the harm all done and nothin’ left but me, old Angelique. Pouf! I turn my back on you!”

Then she ran shoreward with all speed, dreading what she might find, yet eager to know the worst, if there it might be learned. With her apron over her head, she saw only what lay straight before her, and so passed the Point of Rocks without observing her master lying behind it. But a few steps further she paused, arrested by a sight which turned her numb with superstitious terror. What was that coming over the water? A ghost! a spirit!

The subsiding wind wafted to her ears snatches of the jolly little ballad, in which one could catch the very rhythm and dip of oar or paddle. Still it was as well to wait and see if this were flesh or apparition before pronouncing judgment.

It was certainly a canoe, snowy white and most familiar—so familiar that the watcher began to lose her first terror. A girl knelt in it, Indian-fashion, gracefully and evenly dipping her paddle to the melody of her lips. Her bare head was thrown back and her fair hair floated loose. Her face was lighted by the western glow, on which she fixed her eyes with such intentness that she did not perceive the woman who awaited her with such mixed emotions.

But Tom saw. Tom, the eagle, perched in the bow, keen of vision and of prejudice. Between him and old Angelique was a grudge of long standing. Whenever they met, even after a brief separation, he expressed his feelings by his hoarsest screech. He did so now, and, by so doing, recalled Margot from sky-gazing and his enemy from doubt.

“Ah, Angelique! Watching for me? How kind of you. Hush, Tom; let her alone; good Angelique, poor Angelique.”

The eagle flapped his wings with a melancholy disdain and plunged his beak in his breast. The old woman on the beach was not worth minding, after all, by a monarch of the sky—as he would be but for his broken wing—but the girl was worth everything, even his obedience.

She laughed at his sulkiness, plying her paddle the faster, and soon reached the pebbly beach, where she sprang out, and, drawing her canoe out of the water, swept her old nurse a courtesy.

“Supper, indeed! Breakin’ my heart with your run-about ways! and the hoorican, with ever’thin’ ruined; ever’thin’! The master—where’s he, I know not. The great pine broken like a match; the coops, the cow-house, and Snowfoot—Ah, me! yet the little one talks of supper!”

Margot looked about her in astonishment, scarcely noticing the other’s words. The devastation of her beloved home was evident, even down on the open beach, and she dared not think what it might be further inland.

“Why, it must have been a cyclone! We were reading about them only yesterday. And Uncle Hugh—did you say that you knew—where is he?”

“Can I tell anythin’, me? Into the storm he went and out of it he will come alive, as you have—if the good Lord wills,” she added, reverently.

“Goin’ into the hoorican, with wood upon his shoulder. To make a beacon for you. So I guess. But you—tell how you come out alive of all that?”—sweeping her arm over the outlook.

Margot did not stop to answer, but darted toward the Point of Rocks, where, if anywhere, she knew her guardian would have tried his signal fire. In a moment she found him.

“Angelique! Angelique! he’s here! Quick, quick!—He’s—oh! is he dead? is he dead?”

There was both French and Indian blood in Mother Ricord’s veins, a passionate loyalty in her heart, and the suppleness of youth still in her spare frame. With a dash she was at the girl’s side and had thrust her away, to kneel herself and lift her master’s head from its hard pillow of rock.

With swift, nervous motions she unfastened his coat and bent her ear to his breast.

“’Tis only a faint—maybe shock. In all the world was only Margot, and Margot he believed was lost. Ugh! the hail. See, it is still here—look! water, and—yes, the tea! It was for you—ah!”

Her words ended with a sigh of satisfaction as a slight motion stirred the features into which she peered so earnestly, and she raised her master’s head a bit higher. Then his eyes slowly opened and the dazed look gradually gave place to a normal expression.

“Oh! Uncle Hugh! are you hurt? are you ill? I found you here behind the rocks, and Angelique says—but I wasn’t hurt at all. I wasn’t out in any storm—I didn’t know there had been one, that is, worth minding, till I came home—”

“Like a ghost out of the lake. She was not even dead—not she. And she was singin’ fit to burst her throat while you were—well, maybe, not dead, yourself, but, near it.”

At this juncture, Tom, the inquisitive, thrust his white head forward into the midst of the group, and, in her relief from her first fear, Margot laughed aloud.

“Don’t, Tom! You’re one of the family, of course, and since none of the rest of us will die, to please that broken mirror, you may have to! Especially, if there’s a new brood out—”

But here Angelique threw up her free hand with such a gesture of despair that Margot said no more, and her face sobered again, remembering that, even though they were all still alive, there might be suffering untold among her humbler woodland friends. Then, as Mr. Dutton rose, almost unaided, a fresh regret came:

“That there should be a cyclone right here at home, and I not to see it! See! look! Uncle, look! you can trace its very path, just as we read. Away to the south there is no sign of it, nor on the northeast. It must have swept up to us out of the southeast and taken our island in its track. Oh! I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

The man rested his hand upon her shoulder and turned her gently homeward. His weakness had left him as it had come upon him, with a suddenness like that of the recent tempest. It was not the first seizure of the kind which he had had, though neither of these others knew it, and the fact added a deeper gravity to his always thoughtful manner.

“I am most thankful that you were not here; but where could you have been to escape it?”

“All day in the long cave. To the very end of it, I believe, and see! I found these. They are like the specimens you brought the other day. They must be some rich metal.”

“In the long cave, you? Alone? all day? Margot, Margot, is not the glass enough? but you must tempt worse luck by goin’ there!” cried Angelique, who had preceded the others on the path, but now faced about, trembling indignantly. What foolish creature was this who would pass a whole day in that haunted spot, in spite of the dreadful tales that had been told of it? “Pouf! but I wear out my old brain everlastin’, studying the charms that will save you from evil. And yet—”

“You would do well to use some of your charms on Tom, yonder. He’s found an over-turned coop and looks too happy to be out of mischief.”

The woman wheeled again and was off up the slope like a flash, where presently the king of birds was treated to the indignity of a sound boxing, which he resented with squawks and screeches, but not with talons, since under each foot he held the plump body of a fat chicken.

“Tom thinks a bird in the hand is worth a score of cuffs! and Angelique’s so determined to have somebody die—I hope it won’t be he. A pity, though, that harm should have happened to her own pets. Hark! what is that?”

CHAPTER III
AN ESTRAY FROM CIVILIZATION

THEY paused by the cabin door, left open by Angelique, and listened intently. She, too, had caught the alien sound, the faint, appealing halloo of a human voice—the rarest of all cries in that wilderness. Even the eagle’s screeches could not drown it, but she had had enough of anxieties for one day. Let other people look out for themselves; her precious ones should not stir afield again—no, not for anything. Let the evil bird devour the dead chickens, if he must, her place was in the cabin, and she rushed back down the slope, fairly forcing the others inward from the threshold where they hesitated.

“’Tis a loon. You should know that, I think, and that they’re always cryin’ fit to scare the dead. Come! The supper’s waitin’ this long time.”

With a smile that disarmed offense, Margot caught the woman’s shoulder and lightly swung her aside out of the way.

The cry came again, prolonged, entreating, not to be confounded with that of any forest wildling.

The master’s ear was not less keen than the girl’s, and both had the acuteness of an Indian’s, but his judgment was better.

Neither delayed, and a mutual impulse sent them toward the shore, but again Angelique interposed.

“Thoughtless child, have you no sense? With the master just out of a faint that was nigh death itself! With nothin’ in his poor stomach since the mornin’, and your own as empty. Wait; eat; then chase loons, if you will.”

Mr. Dutton laughed, though he also frowned, and cast a swift, anxious glance toward Margot. But she was intent upon nothing save answering that far-off cry.

The devoted servant made a last protest, and caught the girl’s arm as it pushed the light craft downward into the water.

“Ma petite, he is not fit. Believe me. Better leave others to their fate than that he should overtax himself again, so soon.”

Margot was astonished. In all her life she had never before associated thought of physical weakness with her stalwart guardian, and a sharp fear of some unknown trouble shot through her heart.

The master had reached them, and now laid his own hand upon Angelique’s detaining one.

“There, woman, that’s enough. The storm has shaken your nerves. If you’re afraid to stay alone, Margot shall stop with you. But let’s have no more nonsense.”

Mother Ricord stepped back—away. She had done her best. Let come what might, her conscience was clear.

A few seconds later the canoe pushed off over the now darkening water, and its inmates made all speed toward that point from which the cry had been heard, but was heard no more. However, the steersman followed a perfectly direct course, and if he were still weak from his seizure, his movements showed no signs of it, so that Margot’s fear for him was lost in the interest of their present adventure. She rhymed her own stroke to her uncle’s, and when he rested, her paddle instantly stopped.

“Halloo! hal-l-oo!” he shouted, but as no answer came, said: “Now—both together.”

The girl’s shriller treble may have had further carrying power than the man’s voice, for there was promptly returned to them an echoing halloo, coming apparently from a great distance. But it was repeated at close intervals, and each time with more distinctness.

“We’ll beach the boat just yonder, under that tamarack. Whoever it is has heard and is coming back.”

Margot’s impatience broke bounds, and she darted forward among the trees, shouting: “This way! this way! here we are—here!” Her peculiar life and training had made her absolutely fearless, and she would have been surprised by her guardian’s command to “Wait!” had she heard it, which she did not. Also, she knew the forest as other girls know their city streets, and the dimness was no hindrance to her nimble feet. In a brief time she caught the crashing of boughs, as some person, less familiar than she, blundered through the underbrush and finally came into view where a break in the timber gave a faint light.

He staggered and held out his hands, as if for aid, and Margot clasped them firmly. They were cold and tremulous. They were, also, slender and smooth, not at all like the hands of any men whom she was used to seeing. At the relief of her touch, his strength left him, but she caught his murmured “Thank God! I—had—given up—”

His voice, too, was different from any she knew, save her uncle’s. This was somebody, then, from that outside world of which she dreamed so much and knew so little. It was like a fairy tale come true.

“Are you ill? There; lean on me. Don’t fear. Oh! I’m strong, very strong, and uncle is just yonder, coming this way. Uncle—uncle!”

The stranger was almost past speech. Mr. Dutton recognized that at once and added his support to Margot’s. Between them they half led, half carried the wanderer to the canoe and lifted him into it, where he sank exhausted. Then they dipped their paddles and the boat shot homeward, racing with death. Angelique was still on the beach and still complaining of their foolhardiness, but one word from her master silenced that.

“Lend a hand, woman! Here’s something real to worry about. Margot, go ahead and get the lights.”

As the girl sprang from it, the housekeeper pulled the boat to a spot above the water, and, stooping, lifted a generous share of the burden it contained.

It had not been a loon, then. No. Well, she had known that from the beginning, just as she had known that her beloved master was in no condition to go man-hunting. This one he had found was, probably, dead, any way. Of course. Somebody had to die—beyond chickens and such—had not the broken glass so said?

Even in the twilight, Mr. Dutton could detect the grim satisfaction on her face, and smiled, foreseeing her change of expression when this seemingly lifeless guest should revive.

They laid him on the lounge that had been spread with blankets for Margot, and she was already beside it, waiting to administer the herb tea which had, also, been prepared for herself, and which she had marveled to find so opportunely prepared.

Mr. Dutton smiled again. In her simplicity the girl did not dream that the now bitter decoction was not a common restorative outside their primitive life, and in all good faith forced a spoonful of it between the closed lips.

“After all, it doesn’t matter. The poor fellow is, doubtless, used to richer cordials, but it’s hot and strong and will do the work. You, Angelique, make us a pot of your best coffee, and swing round that dinner-pot. The man is almost starved, and I’m on the road to follow him. How about you, Margot?”

“I? Oh!—I guess I’m hungry—I will be—see! He’s swallowing it—fast. Give me that bigger spoon, Angel—quick!”

“What would you? Scald the creature’s throat? So he isn’t dead, after all. Well, he needn’t have made a body think so, he needn’t. There, Margot! you’ve messed him with the black stuff!”

Indignantly brushing the child aside, the woman seized the cup and deftly administered its entire contents. The stranger had not yet opened his eyes, but accepted the warm liquid mechanically, and his nurse hurried to fill a bowl with the broth of the stew in the kettle. This, in turn, was taken from her by Margot, who jealously exclaimed:

“He’s mine. I heard him first. I found him first; let me be the first he sees. Dish up the supper, please, and set my uncle’s place.”

So, when a moment later, having been nearly choked by the more substantial food forced into his mouth, the guest opened his eyes, they beheld the eager face of a brown-skinned, fair-haired girl very close to his and heard her joyous cry:

He had never seen anybody like her. Her hair was as abundant as a mantle and rippled over her shoulders like spun gold. So it looked in the lamplight. In fact, it had never been bound nor covered, and what in a different social condition might have been much darker, had in this outdoor life become bleached almost white. The weather which had whitened the hair had tanned the skin to bronze, making the blue eyes more vivid by contrast and the red lips redder. These were smiling now, over well-kept teeth, and there was about the whole bearing of the maid something suggestive of the woodland in which she had been reared.

Purity, honesty, freedom—all spoke in every motion and tone, and, to this observer, at least, seemed better than any beauty. Presently, he was able to push her too-willing hand gently away and to say:

“Oh, uncle! hear him? He talks just as you do! Not a bit like Pierre, or Joe, or the rest.”

“My dear, our new friend will think you quite rude, if you discuss him before his face so frankly. But, sir, I assure you she means nothing but delight at your recovery. We are all most thankful that you are here and safe. There, Margot; let the gentleman rest a few minutes. Then a cup of coffee may be better than the stew. Were you long without food, friend?”

The stranger tried to answer, but the effort tired him, and with a beckoning nod to the young nurse, the woodlander led the way back to the table and their own delayed supper. Both needed it and both ate it rather hastily, much to the disgust of Angelique, who felt that her skill was wasted; but one was anxious to be off out-of-doors to learn the damage left by the storm, and the other to be back on her stool beside the lounge. When Mr. Dutton rose, the housekeeper left her own seat.

“I’ll fetch the lantern, master. But that’s the last of Snowfoot’s good milk you’ll ever drink,” she sighed, touching the pitcher, sadly.

“The cow-house is in ruins; so are the poultry coops. What with falling ill yourself just at the worst time and fetchin’ home other sick folks, we might all go to wrack and nobody the better.”

The familiar grumbling provoked only a smile from the master, who would readily have staked his life on the woman’s devotion to “her people,” and knew that the apparent crossness was not that in reality.

“Fie, good Angelique! You are never so happy as when you’re miserable. Come on; nothing must suffer if we can prevent. Take care of our guest Margot; but give him his nourishment slowly at intervals. I’ll get some tools, and join you at the shed, Angelique.”

He went out and the housekeeper followed with the lantern, not needed in the moonlight, but possibly of use at the fallen cow-house.

They were long gone. The stranger dozed, waked, ate, and dozed again. Margot, accustomed to early hours, also slept soundly, till a fearful shriek roused her. Her patient was wildly kicking and striking at some hideous monster which had settled on his chest and would not be displaced.

THE CROW

WHAT does the crow say? The syllable “caw” repeated several times? I thought you would say that. A tradition is hard to break; but just listen for yourself sometime, and you will be convinced that the crow has been sadly misunderstood. It is “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk,” just as plainly as one could wish.

Of course, you wonder why one bird should spend all his time calling out the name of another. Well, that’s just what I want to tell you about.

It was a long time ago—before any white people had invaded Birdland. The year had been unusually mild and all the birds had returned from the south where they spent the winter. So great was the rejoicing because of the early season that the king had sent invitations far and wide to a spring reception.

Then what an excitement! For weeks nothing was discussed but the reception and new spring plumages.

When the day arrived, birds from tree-top and meadow came by the score—waders, climbers, perchers—in fact, all kinds under the sun. The table, which, by the way, very closely resembled the ground, was festooned and hung with arbutus. Before each guest was a relish—a dainty little worm, served upon an equally exquisite plate of shellbark. But why torment ourselves with the “bill o’ fare”? Sufficient to say that it was worthy of the occasion.

At the head of the table sat the king himself, a sturdy little fellow, nicely dressed in black and white, and wearing a concealed crown of gold on his head. One of the remarkable things about the king was that he did not flaunt his royalty before his subjects. Whenever he wore his crown he always concealed it under a cap of feathers, and trusted that his actions would speak his worth.

Next to him sat Bob-o-link, a cheerful little dandy, but noted, nevertheless, for a good deal of courage and common sense. He was the king’s right-wing bird.

On the other side was Brown Thrasher, dressed in a long-tailed coat of brown and a beautiful spotted vest. Thrasher was liked for his wit and sauciness, but on the whole he was a good deal of an adventurer. He had several times claimed kinship to the Thrushes, but they would have none of him.

Among other celebrities were Mocking Bird, a great jester and all-around wit; Quail, the famous toastmaster, and, in fact, all civilized birds except Night Hawk and Whip-poor-will, who were ridiculously shy of all public gatherings, and Crow, who had not been invited.

Of course, it was a great pity that Crow did not receive an invitation, but, somehow, the king had taken a strong dislike to him. The reason for this, he told his subjects, was because Crow could not sing, but it was really because he was black. The king had even hesitated about inviting Blackbird in spite of his gorgeous rainbow lustre.

Well, to say the least, poor Crow’s feelings were greatly hurt. He was very sad as he sat high up in a nearby tree and looked down upon the gay tumult. Crow was a sociable fellow, and, moreover, he was very hungry. Suddenly a thought came into his cunning black head.

Just as the party was at its merriest, he stood erect and called out in his loudest tone, “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk!” Instantly there was a confusion. Thrasher, quickly gathering his coat over his new vest, scurried into the nearest thicket. Quail, greedily bolting the last of his dessert, so far forgot his manners as to run straight across the table and hide himself in the tall grass; while Bob-o-link, checked in the midst of a brilliant speech, vanished among the nearby reeds. Last of all, the king, yielding to the universal panic, took wing. In a moment there was not a bird in sight.

Then Crow, laughing to himself, flew down to the table and made short work of the feast to which he had not been invited. Just as he was finishing the last mouthful, King Bird, ashamed of his hasty flight, returned, ready to confront his deadly enemy. Instead of the expected Hawk, however, he found only Crow, just then hopping up from the table and carefully rubbing his bill against the side of a branch.

Oh, what a rage he was in when he saw the trick that had been played upon them. With a snap of his bill, he flew at Crow like an arrow, and would undoubtedly have injured him had not the rascal taken instant flight.

From that day to this, Crow has been an outcast. If you watch him carefully you will notice how warily he flies, for the smaller birds have never ceased to torment and abuse him.

King Bird in particular has never forgiven the outrage, and whenever he hears Crow’s mocking voice calling “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk,” chases madly after him, crying out, angrily, “Cheat-thief, cheat-thief.”

Sometimes Crow, as he thinks of the feast, laughs exultantly as if to say, “I got the best of you all that time.”

Whereupon Quail, first glancing proudly at his own sleek form with the air of one who has not lived in vain, mounts the top of a nearby stump, and in his clear, shrill voice answers, “Not quite! not—quite!”

CHAPTER I
AN INTERRUPTED STORY

ALTHOUGH it was only five o’clock, and Manser Farm stood on a hill so that its windows caught the last gleam of the sun on a pleasant afternoon, the garret was growing dark.

“Is it five or six days it’s been raining without any stop?” inquired Mrs. Ramsdell, as she dropped the lid of her horse-hair trunk and turned the key in the lock.

“It’s only three days come six o’clock to-night,” said Aunty Peebles in her cheery treble. “Don’t you recall we were just going down to supper Monday when we heard the first drops on the tin roof? And this is only Thursday.”

“Well, it seems like two weeks, that’s all I’ve got to say about it,” grumbled Mrs. Ramsdell, as she rose stiffly and whisked her black alpaca skirt back and forth till every speck of dust had flown away from it. Most of the specks settled on Grandma Manser who sat tranquilly knitting in her corner by the south window.

“Do you know where Polly is?” suddenly demanded Mrs. Ramsdell, bending over the knitter and shouting fiercely in her ear. “Why isn’t she up here this dull afternoon? The only bright thing there is in this house! What’s your daughter-in-law keeping her downstairs for?”

“Polly?” repeated Grandma Manser, gently. She had evidently heard only part of the gusty speech. “Polly told me she was planning to be out in the woodshed, to help Uncle Sam Blodgett saw and split, this afternoon. She said she’d be up to recite a piece to us before supper.”

“H’m! I should think it was high time she came, then,” said Mrs. Ramsdell, crossly. But after a minute her wrinkled face grew still more wrinkled with the smile that broke over it as she heard a clattering sound on the garret stairs. A second later a rosy face about which danced a mop of short brown curls peeped around the old bureau which hid the stairway from the group gathered near the windows.

“You’re a naughty little piece, that’s what you are, to stay down in the woodshed with Sam’l Blodgett, instead of coming up here to entertain us,” cried Mrs. Ramsdell, with twinkling eyes that contradicted the severity of her tone. “What have you been doing down there, I’d like to know?”

“I’ve been listening to war stories,” said Polly Prentiss, coming out from behind the bureau. “I’ve been hearing about Uncle Blodgett’s nephew who died down South and ‘though but nineteen years of age displayed great bravery on the field of battle.’ That’s on his tombstone,” said Polly, seating herself on a little stool close to Grandma Manser and reaching out her hand to pat Ebenezer, the big Maltese cat.

“Pretty doings!” grumbled Mrs. Ramsdell, but she smiled at Polly as she went over to the rocking chair by Aunty Peebles. “We old folks have been taking things out of our trunks and putting ’em back again just to keep up heart till you came, except grandma there; she’s kept to her knitting, so’s not to disturb Ebenezer of his nap, I suppose.”

“Ebenezer’s a splendid cat, if he does like to sleep most of the time, and looks like Mrs. Manser’s old sack that the moths got into,” said Polly, with a laugh. “Oh, did any of you know there was a visitor downstairs?—that Miss Pomeroy with the sharp eyes. Seemed as if she’d look right through me last Sunday, after church. I guess she’s pleasant, though.”

“Folks can afford to be pleasant when they own property and have good clothes to their backs.” said Mrs. Ramsdell. “I don’t know as Hetty Pomeroy’s disposition would be any better than some other folks’ if ’twas tried in the furnace. Her father had a high temper, I’ve heard.”

“She’s had her trials, Miss Hetty has,” said Aunty Peebles, gently. “She’s all alone in the world now, excepting for Arctura Green that’s always worked in the family. You know she was to have had her brother’s little girl to adopt, and the child died of diphtheria last fall. I understand it was a great grief to Miss Hetty.”

“What’s she here for in all this rain?” questioned Mrs. Ramsdell, sharply.

“Why, it’s almost stopped raining,” said Polly stroking Ebenezer, who stretched out one paw and curved it round her finger without opening his eyes. “She drove up to the shed to ask Uncle Blodgett to put her horse in the barn. Then I showed her the way to the sitting-room and, she said she had an errand with Mrs. Manser, and I’d better run away soon as I’d called her. I should have, anyway,” said Polly, nodding at each of her old friends in turn, “for I was anxious to hurry up here, and tell you about the things Uncle Blodgett’s been telling me.”

Polly’s quick eyes had seen a half-frightened glance exchanged between Mrs. Ramsdell and Aunty Peebles when she spoke of Miss Hetty’s errand, but as neither of the old ladies seemed disposed to speak when she paused, Polly went on, thinking “it’s just one of their mysteries, I suppose.”

“First, he recited me a poem,” said Polly; “at least, he really recited it to himself, ‘just to keep his hand in.’ I’m not very good about remembering poems, but this was by Dr. Goldsmith, Uncle Blodgett said, and it was all about a Madam Blaize. I asked him the name twice, to be sure.”

“Never heard of either of ’em,” said Mrs. Ramsdell. “Must both be fictitious persons. I wonder Samu’l Blodgett never recites poems to us of an evening. I must say.”

“’Twas only because I happened to be there, picking up the chips,” exclaimed Polly; “and I don’t know whether Dr. Goldsmith and Madam Blaize were fick—the kind of persons you said—but she was a grand lady in the poem. It’s funny, too,” said Polly, showing her dimples; “in one place it says ‘The king himself has followed her when she has walked before.’ Of course, he’d have to; isn’t that funny?”

“He didn’t recite anything else,” said Polly, releasing her fingers from Ebenezer’s clasp, and springing to her feet, “but he told me a very exciting adventure he had once, and I can act it all out for you. You see, he was going home through some thick woods to his log-hut. We’ll play the bureau is the hut, and just on the edge of the woods. If you and Aunty Peebles will move your rocking chairs a little farther apart you’ll make a splendid edge of the woods,” said Polly to Mrs. Ramsdell, in a coaxing tone, “then I can come through between.”

“Anything to help out,” said the old lady, quickly hitching her chair away from Aunty Peebles.

“Now I think,” said Polly, squinting up her eyes, “that Grandma Manser is in just about the right place for the panther.”

“Grandma Manser, can you snarl like a panther?” asked Polly, bending over the quiet knitter, whose soft eyes had been following the little girl’s movements. “It’s in Uncle Blodgett’s adventure, and I’m going to act it all out, and speak so slow and clear, you’ll hear everything.”

“My yarn’s more used to snarling than I am, dear child,” said Grandma Manser, smiling up at the earnest face, “but I’ll do my best. You let me know the right minute, someway.”

“When I point my right arm at you with this stick in my hand, it’s a gun that never missed,” explained Polly to her assistants, “that’ll be the time for you to snarl, please.”

Grandma Manser nodded cheerfully, and Polly, gun in hand, ran to her position behind Mrs. Ramsdell and Aunty Peebles.

“As I was walking slowly along,” said Polly, with her lips pouted out in imitation of Uncle Blodgett, and the gun over her shoulder, “suddenly off to the left, not more than a dozen rods from the house, what should I see, but—”

“Mary!” came a querulous voice from the foot of the garret stairs. “Mary Prentiss! Are you up there?”

“Yes’m,” answered Polly, as the gun dropped to the floor, and Grandma Manser, fearing she had mistaken the signal, gave a very mild sound, meant for a fierce snarl. “Yes’m, I’m here. Do you want me downstairs?”

“No, I’ll mount; I’m used to trouble, and they might as well hear the news at once,” said the fretful voice, drawing nearer. The stairs creaked under the slow steps; the little company in the garret waited; disappointment was on Polly’s face, but the old people looked sad and anxious.

Mrs. Manser’s tall, thin figure and sallow, discontented face had a depressing effect on all of them, as she stood in her dark brown calico, leaning against the old bureau.

“Mary Prentiss,” she said, solemnly, “your chance has come, thanks to the way I’ve brought you up and kept you clean. Miss Hester Pomeroy, of Pomeroy Oaks, is coming next Thursday morning to take you home with her for a month’s trial, and if you do your best and follow all I tell you, there’s a likelihood Miss Pomeroy will adopt you for good and all. And now, we won’t have any talk or fuss over it, for I shall need everybody’s help to get you fit to go in time. We’re going to have supper early to-night, so you’d better all follow me down right off, to be on hand.”

Then Mrs. Manser turned and creaked slowly down the stairs, while Polly looked from the bewildered panther to the trembling edges of the wood with something very like tears in her brown eyes, and Ebenezer, after a thorough stretching of all his paws, disappeared around the bureau and hurried down to his evening meal.

CHAPTER II
GETTING READY

IT seemed to Polly that no days before ever flew so fast as the ones between that rainy Thursday afternoon in April and the next Thursday morning. To be sure, Polly was not accustomed to having new clothes especially made for her, and the hours spent in being fitted and re-fitted were just a waste of precious time, in her eyes.

Aunty Peebles was the best dressmaker at Manser Farm. Her fingers were old and sometimes they trembled, but in her day she had been a famous seamstress, and even now she could hem a ruffle much better than Mrs. Manser.

“I don’t know just what the reason is my work looks better than some,” said Aunty Peebles, flushing with delight, one morning when Polly had said, “Oh, what bee-yu-tiful even, little bits of stitches you do make!”

“It’s experience, that’s all it is,” said Mrs. Manser, dejectedly, as she sat gathering the top of a pink gingham sleeve; “if I’d been brought up to it instead of all the education I had that’s no good to me now, I should be thankful, I’m sure.”

“She’d never be thankful for anything,” whispered Mrs. Ramsdell, who was ripping out bastings and constantly encountering knots which had been “machined in” and did not soothe her temper; “’taint in her, and you know it, Miss Peebles, well as I do.”

“Mary,” said Mrs. Manser, fretfully, “don’t sit there doing nothing. Let me see how you’re getting on with that patchwork. My back’s almost broken, and I’ve got chills. You go and tell Father Manser to bring in some wood, and then you thread me up some needles, and fill the pincushion, and I’ve got some basting for you to do. What a looking square you’ve made of that last one! Well, I don’t believe Miss Hetty’ll keep you more than just the month, and all this sewing and these two nice ginghams will go for nothing.”

“I’ll try to behave so she’ll keep me,” said Polly, with a flushed face as she hurried out to old Father Manser. She returned with him after a moment. He was a thin little man, who had a kind word for everybody, but spoke in a husky tone, which Mrs. Ramsdell claimed Mrs. Manser had “frightened him into with her education when she first married him.” However that might be, Father Manser never made a statement in his wife’s presence without an appealing glance toward her for approval.

“Fill up the stove,” said Mrs. Manser, in her most dismal tone, “and see if you can take the chill off this room, father. I presume, though, it’s in my bones and won’t come out; I notice the others are warm enough, for, of course, I’d have heard complaints if they weren’t. Then you might as well oil the machine and get ready to run up the seams of those aprons, if your mother ever gets them done.”

“I declare it riles me to see a man doing woman’s work,” said Mrs. Ramsdell, tugging at a vicious knot, “and doing it all hodge-podge into the bargain!”

Father Manser, all unconscious of her unfavorable criticism, filled up the stove, and then set about oiling the sewing-machine. By the time he had finished, Grandma Manser had put the last careful basting in the last apron seam, and his work was ready for him.

“Now, don’t make your feet go so fast,” cautioned Mrs. Manser, “and stop off carefully, so you won’t break the needles the way you did yesterday, and do keep by the bastings, father. Are your specs on? No, they aren’t. You put them on, this minute!”

“Yes’m,” said Father Manser, meekly, and when his spectacles were astride his nose, he was allowed to put his feet on the treadles and start on his first seam.

“He likes to run the machine,” said Aunty Peebles to Polly. “Seems as if he thought he’d got his foot in the stirrups and was riding, bold and free.”

There were many such times for Father Manser during this dressmaking season, and he enjoyed them, though he knew how much he would miss Polly when she had gone.

In spite of hours spent in the house instead of out in the sweet spring weather, in spite of unwonted tasks, and many serious rebukes from Mrs. Manser, the days flew by instead of dragging slowly along as little Polly wished they would. “Aunty” Peebles, who had never had a real niece; “Grandma” Manser, who had no grandchildren; even poor Mrs. Ramsdell, with her sharp tongue, who had “known all sorts of trials and seen better days,”—all were friends to Polly, the only friends she had in the world beside Mrs. Manser, who had brought her up, with much grumbling, to be sure; kind Father Manser, who sometimes gave her a stick of candy in the dark; and Uncle Sam Blodgett, with whom she had such exciting talks, the hero of the adventure, the tale of which was so suddenly interrupted.

Polly’s heart was sore at the thought of leaving them all; she even felt sorry that she must say good-bye to poor Bob Rust, the grown man with a boy’s mind, who could not be depended on to do the simplest errand.

“He’s scatter-witted, I know,” said Polly to herself, “but I shall miss seeing Bob, because I’m used to him.”

Thursday morning came all too soon. Miss Pomeroy was to come for Polly about ten o’clock. At half-past nine Polly, with anxiety written all over her rosy face, was twirling slowly around in the middle of the kitchen, while Mrs. Manser regarded her forlornly from her position in the doorway, with a hand pressed against her forehead.

“I suppose you’ll have to do as you are,” she said at last, with a heavy sigh. “My head aches so, I’m fit for nothing, or I’d see what more I could do with that hair of yours. Is that the very flattest you can get it, Mary? I hope you’re going to remember to answer Miss Pomeroy when she says ‘Mary’ better than you do me, child. It’s your rightful name, and, of course Polly’s no kind of a name for a girl to be adopted by. Did you say you’d done the very best you could with your hair?”

“Yes’m,” said Polly, twisting her hands together, locking and unlocking her fingers in evident excitement. “I wet it sopping wet, and then I patted it all down hard; but it doesn’t stay down very well, I’m afraid.”

Polly was right; in spots her hair was still damp and sleek on her little head, but around these satisfactory spots her short curls rose and danced defiance to brush and water.

“Oh, Ebenezer, I wish I had fur like yours instead of hair!” cried Polly, but Ebenezer only blinked at her, and retired hastily behind the stove as if he feared she might attempt an exchange of head-covering.

“Well,” said Mrs. Manser, dropping into a rocking-chair and clasping her head with both hands, “all I’ve got to say is, you must do the best you can by Miss Pomeroy and all of us. You know just how much depends on Miss Pomeroy’s adopting you. You know what it’ll mean to Father Manser and me and the old folks that I board for almost nothing to keep them off the town, if you are adopted. And Grandma—you’re always saying you’re so fond of her—you’d like her to have one of those new hearing apparatuses, I should suppose.”

“Oh, yes’m,” said Polly, eagerly, “I do love Grandma Manser so, and I want her to have the ap-apyoratus. Will it cost a great deal?”

“I don’t just know,” said Mrs. Manser; “but they say Miss Pomeroy’s going to give five hundred dollars to whatever institution or place she finds the child she keeps, and a present of money to the folks that have brought her up. She didn’t mention it to me, but the butcher told me yesterday ’twas known all about, and she’s been sent for to several places to see children. But she never took a fancy to one till she saw you in church with me. She thinks you’ve got a look about the eyes that’s like Eleanor, that was her brother’s little girl who died last fall. I guess you’re about as different from her as a child could be, every other way.”

“I suppose Eleanor was an awful good, quiet little girl, wasn’t she?” asked Polly, timidly. “Her name sounds kind of still. I don’t believe she ever tore her clothes, did she?”

“I don’t suppose another such good child ever lived, according to Miss Hetty’s ideas,” said Mrs. Manser, dismally. “She’d never been here in town since she was a baby, and the mother’s folks brought her and Bobby, the twin, one summer to Pomeroy Oaks. As I’ve told you, both parents died, leastways they were destroyed in an accident, when the twins were less than a year old.”

“And Bobby lives with his grandpa and grandma now,” said Polly, with the air of reciting an oft-repeated lesson, “and folks say that saw him when he was here last winter that he just sits and reads all the time; he doesn’t care for play or being out-doors much; and he never makes a speck of dirt or a mite of noise. And when somebody said what a good child he was, Miss Hetty Pomeroy, she said, ‘Wait till you see Eleanor!’ So anybody can tell what she must have been,” concluded poor little Polly, with a gasping breath.

“And so, of course,” said Mrs. Manser, fixing a forlorn gaze on the little figure in stiffly starched pink gingham, “if you run wild out-doors, picking flowers and chasing round after the live stock and wasting time with the birds the way you’ve been allowed to do here, you’ll lose your chance, that’s all. You came of good folks: your mother was my third cousin and your father was a well-meaning man, though he wasn’t forehanded, and always enjoyed poor health. I’ve brought you up the best I could for over seven years, but I expect nothing but what Miss Hetty’ll send you back when the month’s up.”

“I’ll try real hard not to lose the chance,” said Polly, earnestly. Her eyes shone with an odd mixture of determination and fright; there was, moreover, a decided suggestion of tears, but Mrs. Manser, with her head in her hands again, failed to notice it.

“It isn’t to be supposed you can take Eleanor’s place,” she groaned. “You’re willing to fetch and carry, and you’ve got a fair disposition, but you do hate to stay still. Your father was like that—one of these restless folks.”

Polly’s face was overcast with doubt and trouble, but she stood her ground. “I’ll be just as like Eleanor as ever I can,” she said, slowly. “If I could only ask Miss Pomeroy just what Eleanor would have done every day, I guess I could do the same. But you’ve told me I mustn’t speak about Eleanor, because Miss Pomeroy doesn’t want anybody to.” Polly looked wistfully at Mrs. Manser’s bowed head.

“That makes it harder,” said Polly, when there was no answer to this half-question, save another groan, “but I guess I can manage someway.” Her face looked as nearly stern as was possible for such a combination of soft curves and dimples, but her eyes were misty.

Through the open door the soft air of the April morning blew in to her, and her little body thrilled with the love of the spring, and living, growing out-door friends. But if on her behavior depended the bestowal of Miss Hetty’s princely sum, Manser Farm should have it. In all the ten years of Polly’s life she had never before heard of such a large amount of money, except in arithmetic examples, which, as everybody knows, deal with all things in a bold way, unhampered by probability.

With a final groan, Mrs. Manser rose and went to the door. Then she turned quickly to Polly.

“Here comes Miss Hetty now, up the road,” she said. “Go and make your goodbyes to the folks, child, and put on your hat and jacket and then get your bag, so as not to keep her waiting—she may be in a hurry.”

GOING out for a walk on some March morning, we find the air soft and warm, the skies of a summer blue, the water rippling in every little runnel. We look about, half expecting to see a bluebird perched upon a fence post, a robin stepping among the stubble. The stems and branches which appeared dry and dead all the winter have now a fresh exhibition of life. We can almost see the sap creeping up through their vessels and distributing vigor where it goes.

Turning over the light, soft earth, we shall find the maple seeds that ripened last autumn and are now germinating. The seeds of the maple are in pairs, which are called keys. They look more like little tan-colored moths than keys; the distinctly-veined, winged husk is very like the narrow and veined wings of many moths.

These seeds are winged in order that they may be blown abroad on the wind and plant new forests farther afield. If they all dropped close under the shade of the parent tree few would live beyond a year or two.

Where the wing-like husks come together there is a thickening of the base of each into an ear-like lobe, holding a seed. The wrapping of this seed softens, the seed enlarges as the embryo within it grows, the husk is pushed open, and slowly comes forth the baby tree, composed of two leaves and a stem. These two leaves, although very small, are perfect and even green in the unopened seed.

They are soft and fleshy; in fact, they are pantries, full of food, ready for the weak little plant to feed upon until it is strong enough to forage and digest for itself. Everyone knows that babies must be carefully fed on delicate food until they get their teeth. The baby plant also needs well-prepared food.

Between the two leaves is a little white stem. The two leaves unfold, and in a few days the air and sun have made them bright green. The stem between them thrusts a little root into the earth; this root is furnished with hairs. When the root is well-formed and the two seeds have reached full size, a bud has formed in the axil between them.

This is the growing point of the new tree. This bud presently opens into a pair of well-formed maple leaves.

As these leaves increase the seed-leaves diminish; the plant is feeding upon them. The ascending stem presses its first pair of leaves upward, forms between them two more, and then two more, and thus on.

Small branches are formed by the end of summer, the seed-leaves are exhausted, and the plant is doing its own work.

Under the trees in March we find many interesting examples of seed-growth. The feeding or seed-leaves of the young plant are called cotyledons. All flowering plants have cotyledons; the plants whose leaves have dividing or radiate veins, and whose stems are woody, or, at least, not hollow, have two cotyledons; grasses, reeds, corn, and other grains, lilies, bamboos, all plants with hollow stems and the leaf-veins parallel have one cotyledon, while pines and trees of their class have from three to twelve cotyledons, always set in a circle.

The seeds, the new plants, or seedlings of any variety are very numerous. This is needful, as they are subject to many disasters. They may be eaten by animals or birds, withered by too great dry heat, devoured by worms, frozen or ruined by overmuch shade. If plantlets were not very numerous the varieties of plants would presently die out.

When the March winds shake out the leaf-buds and the seeds in the ground begin to stir with strong life, we are led to think of the plant’s host of enemies.

These enemies of the plant will not all begin their work in March, but they are enlisting, drilling, and furnishing their regiments for the season’s strife.

WITH THE EDITOR

IN the early days of our country the guest was always honored. Friend or stranger, the door was thrown open to him, and the circle around the fireplace parted willingly to receive him. After his comfort had been assured, however, there came inevitably to the mind of the host the natural queries—seldom expressed in words—“What is his name? What his purpose?” Then the wayfarer, his reserve thawing before the friendly greeting, would just as naturally open his heart and speak of himself.

Such was the old-time hospitality which Hawthorne so quaintly pictures in “The Ambitious Guest.”

To-day, the railroad and the comparative luxury of travel have made the wayside visitor a being of tradition, but the primitive impulses of hospitality and curiosity still survive.

You have opened your doors to us and have welcomed us into that most sacred of places—the family circle. You do not ask, yet we cannot but feel, the old question in your kindly gaze. You would know our name?—our purpose?

Our purpose is to provide good reading for young people. By good reading, we mean that which is interesting enough to catch and hold the attention of the reader, and which, in the end, leaves him better or wiser for having read it. But it must be interesting, or all its other virtues fail. The young person, particularly the boy, looks with distrust upon the story which comes too emphatically recommended as useful. To him, mere utility is closely related to dullness. With this knowledge fresh in our memory, we promise at the outset that our pages shall not be lacking in a keen and healthy human interest.

“But,” we hear our host exclaim, “why another magazine in a time and country already over-run with literature?”

Just think a moment. Count upon your fingers all the juvenile periodicals which you know even by name. Compare this supply with the demand. We are certainly understating the figures when we say that there are twenty million young people in the United States. Even the most widely-circulated of these periodicals does not claim half a million subscribers. We believe it safe to say that of our whole great nation of young people, not one in ten is yet supplied with a monthly or weekly periodical. After all, is there not ample room for us at the American fireside?

Finally, may we not ask of you a little lenience toward our early and inevitable shortcomings? In return, we promise you that our own most constant aim shall be, with each succeeding visit, better to deserve your kindly welcome.

In spite of its traditional violence we always look forward to the first month of spring. All the more do we hail it when, as in the present case, it brings with it the Easter season. The name Easter is supposed to have been derived from Oestre, the heathen deity of Spring, in whose honor the ancient Teutons held their annual festival. Since the Christian era, however, Easter has been in sole commemoration of the Resurrection.

During the centuries following its inauguration many quaint customs have sprung up and passed away. In parts of Ireland there is still a belief that on Easter morning the sun dances in the sky.

The use of eggs for decoration and as playthings for children at this season is of very early origin. Nowhere is this observance now so common as in the capital of our own country. By immemorial custom, on the Easter holiday, the grounds of the White House are thrown open to the sport of children, who come from far and near to roll their Easter eggs across its sloping lawns. It is a pleasant sight to see the home of the nation’s chief executive so completely in the hands of frolicking children.

The National University

Mr. Andrew Carnegie has offered the sum of ten million dollars to the government of the United States to endow a national institution for the promotion of the higher scientific research.

While the generosity of the donor is universally acknowledged, there are some who question the practical value of the proposed university.

“Why,” they ask, “devote this vast sum to the special education of a select few, while thousands of our children can only with difficulty obtain the rudiments of a common education?”

If the endowment in question were intended merely for the present generation, this question would be difficult to answer. In reality, however, the very form and nature of the gift show that it is dedicated not to the individual but to the race; and it is chiefly under the leadership of the scientific specialist that the race advances. It is his work rather than the influence of the common schools that has given to mankind the steam-engine, the telegraph, and the electric light.

Heretofore, however, the development of men like Watt, Morse, Bell, and Edison has been wholly dependent upon chance and their own phenomenal perseverance. Who can say how many more of such men have been lost to the public service through mere want of opportunity? It is this opportunity that Mr. Carnegie’s gift would insure to coming generations.

As our great military school at West Point supplies the nation with men educated for military leadership, so this institution will create and perpetuate a corps of savants, forever at the service of the whole people.

One cannot but feel that with this gift Mr. Carnegie has exercised an even wiser forethought than in his many other generous benefactions.

Wireless Telegraphy

Signor Marconi, by means of his system of wireless telegraphy, has at length succeeded in transmitting the equivalent of the letter “s” from Europe to America. A glance at the work of the young inventor, however, will show that his success is not yet insured.

His system—indeed, we might say all systems—of wireless telegraphy depends upon the properties of luminiferous ether—that mysterious medium that is supposed to exist in every known substance. The discharge of an electric spark produces in this ether a bubble-like wave which radiates in all directions. It is upon the reception and recording, at Newfoundland, of this wave, produced at England, that the success of Marconi’s experiment depends.

Even to the ordinary mind, such a proposition presents innumerable difficulties. One of the most apparent would be the confusion arising from two sets of signals operated in the same locality. But just as we can throw all the rays of a search-light in one direction, Marconi reflects these waves of ether toward his receiving station.

Perhaps one of the real drawbacks of this system would be the expense of maintaining a current of sufficient voltage to signal long distances. Nevertheless, we feel confident that, whether it be from the brain of Marconi or Tesla, or the united efforts of Orling and Armstrong, wireless telegraphy is insured to the future.

The Great Tunnel

We all remember with what wonder the public viewed the construction of the great suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn. Remarkable as was that feat of engineering, a far more difficult one is now under way. It is proposed to run a continuous tunnel under the North river, New York City, and the East river, connecting the Pennsylvania Railroad in New Jersey with the Long Island Railroad at Brooklyn. It is to be eight miles long. Its chief purpose is to give trains, especially those from the West, a direct and unimpeded entrance to New York City.

Beginning in the neighborhood of West Hoboken, the tunnel will penetrate the hard ridge of the Palisades, and continue with a downward incline until, under the North, or Hudson, river, it will reach a depth of one hundred feet.

At Thirty-third street, in New York City, it will rise to within twenty-five feet of the surface, and at this level cross beneath Manhattan Island, where, at some central point, a large station will be erected. Proceeding, east, the tunnel will again take a dip to pass the East river, and come to light on the Brooklyn side in the neighborhood of the present terminal of the Long Island Railroad.

The work of construction will begin early in the summer of 1902, and will require a period of three or four years. Its estimated cost is not less than $40,000,000.

Isthmian Canal

An important question which has arisen recently is the location of the future Isthmian canal. Shall it cross at Nicaragua or Panama?

The House of Representatives, on January 9th, 1902, chose the former, the best reasons being:

The Engineering Magazine, on the other hand, sums up the advantages of the already-undertaken Panama canal as follows:

It is three-fourths shorter, and could be maintained at a cost of $1,350,000 a year less than the Nicaragua canal, is exempt from fifty miles of dangerous river navigation, and its completion would require but half the amount necessary to build the Nicaragua canal.

The Danish West Indies

On January 24th, 1902, the government of Denmark, through the pen of their minister in Washington, ceded to the United States the group of islands known as the Danish West Indies. Unsuccessful attempts to purchase these islands were made in the years 1869 and 1877.

This last effort which, so far, promises success, was begun two years ago. The delay has been due to a difference of price. The amount now agreed upon is believed to be $5,000,000.

PARLOR MAGIC

THE first thing for the student of magic to do is to learn palming, the art of holding small objects concealed in the hand by a slight contraction of the palm.

Practice first with a half-dollar. Lay it in the right hand as shown in Fig. 1. Then slightly contract the palm by pressing the ball of the thumb inward, moving the coin about with the forefinger of the left hand until you find it is in a favorable position to be gripped by the fleshy portions of the hand. Continue to practice this until you can turn the hand over without letting the coin fall.

When this can be accomplished with ease, lay the coin on the tips of the second and third fingers, steadying it with the thumb, as in Fig. 2. Then, moving the thumb aside to the right, bend the fingers, and pass the coin up along the side of the thumb into the palm, which should open to receive it, and where, if you have followed the instructions carefully, you will find no difficulty in retaining it.

Practice this movement with the right hand in motion toward the left, as if you really intended to place the coin in that hand. To get the movement perfect, it is advisable to work in front of a mirror. Take the coin in the right hand and actually place it in the left several times; then study to execute the same movement exactly, with the exception that you retain the coin in the right hand by palming.

The student who desires to become a finished performer should palm the various objects with equal facility in either hand.

When you can hold a coin properly, as described, practice with other objects of a similar size. In this case, however, owing to the greater extent of surface, it will not be found necessary to press the object into the palm, but simply to close the fingers round it, in the act of apparently placing it in the left hand.

The Pass. Second only in importance to the palming is the pass. Hold the coin between the fingers and thumb of the left hand (Fig. 3), and then appear to take it in the right by passing the thumb under and the fingers over the coin.

Under cover of the right hand the coin is allowed to fall into the fingers of the left, where, by a slight contraction, it may be held between the first and second joints, or it may be allowed to fall into the palm proper. The right hand must be closed and raised as if it really contained the coin, and be followed by the eyes of the performer; the left falling to the side. This pass should be performed equally well from either hand.

The Finger Palm.—Lay a coin on the fingers as shown in Fig. 4. Then, in the act of apparently placing it in the left hand, raise the forefinger slightly and clip the coin between it and the second finger. The left hand must now close as if it contained the coin, and be followed by the eyes of the performer, while the right hand disposes of the coin as may be necessary.

Following is an illustration of the way in which this sleight can be employed with good effect.

Place a candle on the table to your left, and then execute the pass as above described. The thumb of the right hand should now close on the edge of the coin nearest to itself and draw it back a little; and at the same time the candle should be taken from the candlestick between the thumb and fingers of the same hand. (Fig. 5.) The left hand, which is supposed to contain the coin, should now be held over the candle and opened slowly, the effect to the spectators being that the coin is dissolved into the flame. Both hands at this point should be shown back and front, as the coin, owing to its peculiar position, cannot be seen at a short distance. You now take the upper part of the candle in the left hand, then lower the right hand to the lower end and produce the coin from thence, the effect being that the money is passing through the candle from one end to the other.

To Change a Coin.—Sometimes, in order to bring about a desired result, it is necessary to change, or, in conjurer’s parlance, to “ring” a borrowed or marked coin for a substitute of your own. There are many ways of effecting this, but having once mastered the various “palms” the student will readily invent means for himself. The following, however, is the one generally adopted by conjurers:

Borrow a coin and have it marked. Then take it between the fingers and thumb of the left hand, as in the pass (Fig. 3), having previously secreted the substitute in the palm of the right. Now take the coin in the right hand, and in so doing drop the substitute into the palm of the left, which you immediately close, and remark, “You have all seen me take the coin visibly from the left hand. I will now make it return invisibly.” Saying this, you appear to throw the marked coin into the left hand, really palming it, and showing your own, which every one takes to be the original borrowed one. You may now proceed with the trick in question, disposing of the marked coin as may be necessary.

Let the student practice faithfully the steps here given. He shall then be prepared to make practical use of them, as we shall endeavor to show in the next paper.

THE OLD TRUNK

This department we believe is destined soon to become one of the most popular features of the magazine. Not only shall we spare no pains upon our part, but we also earnestly ask your co-operation in providing puzzles of all shapes and descriptions to bewilder and tangle the most ingenious of intellects. To each of the first three persons who shall correctly solve all the following puzzles, we will give a year’s subscription to Young Folks Magazine, to be sent to any desired address.

ZIGZAG

When these words of six letters are correctly guessed and placed in the order given, from 1 to 8 will spell the name of a common mineral found in rocks.

ENIGMA

BIRD PIE

ENIGMA

DIAGONAL

When the following words of eight letters are guessed correctly and placed one above the other in the order given, so as to form a square, the diagonal from the upper left-hand corner to the lower right will spell the name of one of the most important battles of the Revolution:

HIDING ANIMALS.

Wampum, a kind of money, used by the Indians, was made ere Cabot terrified them by his presence.

Morse altered his plans, and accepting the offer, returned from his foreign travel, knowing it to be for the best.

A BUNCH OF KEYS

A JINGLE

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		PAGE
WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE (Serial)	W. Bert Foster	1
Illustrated by F. A. Carter
AT THE BEND OF THE TRAIL	Otis T. Merrill	11
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW (Verse)	Mackay	13
A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST (Serial)	Evelyn Raymond	14
Illustrated by Ida Waugh
MARCH (Poem)	Bayard Taylor	22
WOOD-FOLK TALK	J. Allison Atwood	23
Illustrated by the Author
LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS (Serial)	Elizabeth Lincoln Gould	25
Illustrated by Ida Waugh
A RAMBLE IN EARLY SPRING	Julia McNair Wright	31
WITH THE EDITOR		32
EVENT AND COMMENT		33
IN-DOORS (Parlor Magic)	Ellis Stanyon	34
THE OLD TRUNK		36
WITH THE PUBLISHER		37

YOUNG
FOLKS
MAGAZINE

CONTENTS FOR MARCH