"Down at the foot o' the street war Mark Rogers's oyster sloop Betsey Jane, lyin' alongside o' the wharf. On the wharf war about ten million oyster shells, all piled up. 'Now,' sez I to myself, sez I, 'here's where I've got to stop the bull.' I steered the colt right straight at that reef o' shells, trustin' to our speed an' our shaller draft to carry us right over. There war a smash, crash, biff! an' over we went. Then I jumped up, grabbed the box o' scrambled heggs, an' hove 'em straight in the bull's face. Waal, gol bust me if that there bull didn't look like the gran'father o' all omlets. He was clean blinded fur a minute, an' he kicked out with all four legs in the middle o' the reef, till the air war white with flying oyster shells. He kicked so many of 'em into the bay that Mark had to dredge out a new channel. Then he got his eyes clear a minute an' he seed me a-laffin'. He jes made one jump, an' he got under the waggin' with his head. The next thing I knowed I war in the bay. That there bull jes picked up waggin', colt, an' me, an' he hove us straight off the dock an' into the bay."
"And what happened after that?" I asked.
"Waal, we had to swim out, o' course. It killed the colt, that cold bath arter bein' so heated, an' the waggin' was busted into kindlin' wood. An' the bull? Oh, yaas, the bull. Waal, he was puffickly satisfied, an' he went up along the side o' the road an' eat grass jes as if he'd never did nothin' else in all his life. Now, my son, you know w'y I don't git a new hoss an' waggin. I bin there, an' w'en I bin to a place wot's not to my likin' I knows enough not to go back. Git ep!"
SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.
BY KIRK MUNROE.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LOST IN A MOUNTAIN BLIZZARD.
Tired as were the occupants of that lonely camp after a day of exhausting climbing through the timber, their slumbers were broken and restless. The uncertainties of the morrow, the peculiar nature of the road they had yet to travel, and the excitement consequent upon nearing the end of their journey, which none of them believed to be over fifty miles away, all combined to render them wakeful and uneasy. So they were up by the first sign of daylight, and off before sunrise.
As there were now but three dogs to a sledge, the load of the one driven by Serge was divided between it and the one that brought up the rear in charge of Jalap Coombs. A few sticks of dry wood were also placed on each sledge, so that in crossing the upper ice-fields they might at least be able to melt snow for drinking purposes.