Sam viewed the ruin he had wrought for a minute or so, and then, appreciating the service his dog had wrought him, he turned and patted the animal.
"You're a fine dog, Bowser, and I forgive you for being good for nothing."
CHAPTER XXI.
FACE TO FACE.
Herbert Watrous, when he separated from his companions on that balmy afternoon in Indian summer, assumed a loftiness of bearing which was far from genuine.
The fact was, he felt dissatisfied with himself, or rather with the rifle which his indulgent father had presented to him only a few weeks before.
"I don't like the way the thing behaves," he said, as he stopped to examine it; "father paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars for it, and it was warranted the best. It's pretty hard to hit a deer a quarter of a mile off, but I ought to have brought down that squirrel which was only a hundred feet distant."
He turned the weapon over and over in his hand, looked down the barrel, tried the hammer and trigger, carefully examined the wind-gauge and vernier rear-sights, but could not see that anything was out of order.