Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

The College President and the young Taxidermist.

TWO WAYS
OF BECOMING
A HUNTER

BY

HARRY CASTLEMON

AUTHOR OF "GUNBOAT SERIES," "ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES,"
"WAR SERIES," ETC., ETC.

PHILADELPHIA
PORTER & COATES

Copyright, 1892,
BY
PORTER & COATES.

CONTENTS.

TWO WAYS OF

BECOMING A HUNTER.

CHAPTER I. PLAYING TRUANT.

"I declare, Frank, it is time we were off. It is almost nine o'clock. I wish to goodness there were no such things as school-houses and school-books in the world."

"I am not going to school to-day."

"You're not?"

"No, sir. I'm going to take French leave."

"Do you mean that you are going to run away?"

"I suppose that is what you country fellows call it."

"Well, now, you had better take a friend's advice, and think twice before you do that. You'll get yourself into trouble, sure. The rule of our school is that you must bring a written excuse every time you are absent."

"That was the rule of our school in Boston, too; but it didn't keep the fellows from staying away whenever they felt like it."

"Where did you get your excuses?"

"We wrote them ourselves, and signed our father's name to them; that's the way we got them."

"You can't fool our teacher that way. He knows our hand-writing too well. He knows yours, too, by this time."

"I can disguise it so that he'll not recognize it, I bet you! Don't let's go, Leon. I am heartily sick of school, and everything connected with it."

"So am I."

"Then suppose we spend the day in the woods."

The conversation above recorded took place, one gloomy autumn morning, between Leon Parker and his city cousin, Frank Fuller.

They were about sixteen years of age, and were bright, honest-looking boys; but one of them, at least, was just the opposite of what he appeared to be.

Leon Parker lived in the little town of Eaton, in one of our Northern States. His father was a practising lawyer, and the boy was given every opportunity to prepare himself for usefulness in after-life. But Leon was too indolent to study, and the consequence was that he always stood at the foot of his class, and saw boys younger than himself carry off the honors he might have won if he had been willing to work for them.

Leon was not such a boy as you would have chosen for a companion. He was cross and overbearing, and his father was often obliged to take him to task for some of his misdeeds.

This always made him very angry. Other boys seemed to get on without having the least trouble with their parents or anybody else, and Leon finally came to the conclusion that his father was a tyrant, and that he would be much happier if he could go so far away from him that he would never see him again. And yet there were a good many boys in Eaton who would have been glad to change places with him.

While his father insisted that he should behave himself, he was, at the same time, very indulgent, and he had supplied Leon with a good many things which the majority of the boys in Eaton regarded as necessary to their happiness. He owned a beautiful little skiff, a jointed bass rod, and a light fowling-piece. He had ample opportunity to use them, too.

The country about the village was hilly, almost mountainous; the woods and thickets were dense, and grouse, quails, and gray and black squirrels could be bagged any day without the slightest trouble. Foxes were more abundant than the neighboring farmers wished they were, deer were shot within sight of the court house every winter, and now and then a bear or wildcat was seen among the hills.

In summer, the river which flowed in front of the village offered black and rock bass, pike and perch. In the fall it was visited by thousands of wild ducks, which stopped there to rest during their migrations, and some of them were so well satisfied with the feeding-grounds they found there that they remained all winter.

The most of the boys in Eaton thought it was a nice place to live, but Leon, as we have said, was very discontented; and matters were made worse by the arrival of his cousin, Frank Fuller, who was sent to Eaton because he could not be managed at home.

It was understood among the boys to whom he had been introduced that he had come there for the purpose of attending the high school of which the village boasted, and, indeed, his father's instructions were that he was not to miss a single day. He had been there just two weeks, and now he was talking of playing truant.

Mr. Parker already regretted that he had consented to receive his nephew into his house. He began to fear that his influence over Leon would be anything but beneficial.

He had already detected him in numberless falsehoods, and had discovered that, in spite of his apparent frankness, he was as sneaking and sly as a boy could possibly be. And Frank, too, was sorry that he had ever come to Eaton. He was disgusted with the quiet life he led at his uncle's house, and heartily wished himself back in Boston.

"Let's go up on the hill and look at these snares you told me about the other day," continued Frank. "We may find a partridge or two in them."

"That's so," exclaimed Leon. "I never should have thought of them again. But it will be awful slow walking about the woods all day without our guns."

"Oh, we'll take them with us!"

"But how can we carry them downstairs, and out of the house, without being seen by somebody?"

"We'll do it—you may depend upon that," answered Frank, as he disappeared in a closet opening off the room in which he and his cousin slept.

When he came out again, he carried a light, silver-mounted rifle in one hand and a game-bag and powder-horn in the other.

"We must have something to eat, too. It gives one a fearful appetite to climb over these hills. You go and get the lunch just as if we were going to school, and then come out to the barn, and you will find me there with the guns."

To this Leon silently assented, and went into the closet after his hunting accoutrements, which he handed over to Frank.

While the latter was slinging the game-bag and the powder- and shot-flasks over his shoulders, Leon opened the door and ran downstairs.

In the hall he met his mother.

"I was just coming to call you," said she. "You boys will be late at school if you do not make haste. Your lunch is all ready."

"We're just going to start," said Leon. "But not for school. We have had quite enough of that," he added to himself, as he hurried through the hall and turned into the kitchen.

Cramming the lunch into his pocket, he slipped out of the back door and ran toward the barn.

When Leon reached the barn, he found Frank waiting for him. He had watched his opportunity, and, as soon as his aunt went out of the hall, he descended the stairs, opened the front door, and made his way around the house to the place of meeting.

"Give me my game-bag, and I will put the lunch into it. We are all right so far," he said, with a look of relief.

"Oh, there's nothing to be alarmed about," answered Frank, as he unslung the game-bag from his shoulder and handed it to his cousin. "If you had been in such scrapes as often as I have, you would think nothing of it."

"Perhaps not; but I almost wish I had gone to school," said Leon honestly. "What will become of us when father finds out that we have played hookey? That's what bothers me."

"It needn't bother you, for he's not going to find it out," was Frank's encouraging reply. "We'll enjoy ourselves in the woods for a day or two, and then we'll go back to our Latin and geometry again. I'll write the excuse. Don't spoil a good day's sport by worrying over that."

Having put the lunch in his game-bag Leon slung it over his shoulder, picked up his gun, and opening a back door struck out across a wide field that lay between the barn and the nearest piece of woods, closely followed by his cousin.

They walked rapidly, looking back now and then to make sure that they were keeping the barn between themselves and the house, and it was not until they had climbed the fence and plunged into the woods that Leon felt safe from discovery. Then he drew a long breath of satisfaction and slackened his pace.

"If I stood as much in fear of my father as you do of yours, I wouldn't stay with him," said Frank, who seemed to be perfectly at his ease. "I'd run away from him."

It was right on the point of Leon's tongue to tell his cousin that he had long ago resolved to do that very thing; but he didn't say it, for he was not sure that it would be quite safe to trust Frank with his secret.

"I have often thought I should like to go out West and live as those hunters and trappers do," continued Frank. "Wouldn't it be jolly to have a snug cabin somewhere in the mountains, and nothing to do but attend to your traps every day and hunt the big game that is so abundant out there?"

This very thought had often suggested itself to Leon's lively imagination, and he had made up his mind that some day he would live in just that way.

"I shall see that country before long," Frank went on. "Father is going to California on business next year, and he has promised that if I will behave myself while I am here in Eaton, he will take me with him. If I like the looks of things as well as I think I shall, you'll never see me among civilized people again."

"Will you stay out there and become a hunter?" asked Leon.

"Yes, sir!"

"But what would you say to your father?"

"I shouldn't say anything to him. When I found a place that suited me, I would slip away from him, and let him come home without me."

"But you have lived in the city all your life, and what do you know about the Western country?"

"I could learn all about it, couldn't I? I am a pretty good shot with a rifle, and I should try to work myself in somewhere as post-hunter. Others have done it, and I don't see why I couldn't."

"What is a post-hunter?" asked Leon.

"Why, he is a man whose business it is to keep the garrison supplied with fresh meat. If the soldiers go out on an expedition to explore the country or hunt Indians, he goes with them and shoots all the game they want to eat. He is regularly employed and paid by the government. If I couldn't get a position like that, I'd hunt buffaloes for their hides. Why, only the other day I read in the paper that one old hunter out there had killed twelve hundred buffaloes in a single season. He sold their skins for a dollar apiece, too."

"Twelve hundred dollars a year!" exclaimed Leon.

"Oh, some of them make more than that. And then just think of the fun they have!"

Leon had often thought of that very thing; and he had thought of it in school, when his mind ought to have been fully occupied with his books.

Nothing suited him better than to ramble all day over the hills, with his double-barrel in his hands, making double shots at the game-birds with which the woods abounded. He generally spent every Saturday during the hunting season in this way, and he had finally come to believe that he would rather do that than anything else.

The only drawback to his enjoyment was that when the day drew to a close the hunt came to an end, and he was obliged to go home. That was a place where he never saw any pleasure, especially in the evening. His father was always deeply engrossed with his paper, his mother was busy with her needle, and, until Frank came, Leon had no one to whom he could safely confide his secret hopes and longings.

When he became a hunter, with a nice little cabin of his own, in some secluded valley where game of all kinds was abundant, things would be very different, he often told himself.

After he had spent the day in attending to his traps and fighting with the grizzlies, he would return to his snug harbor, well loaded with the spoils of the chase; and while his venison steaks and corn bread were turning to a crisp brown under the influence of a cheerful fire, he would recline at his ease upon a pile of soft buffalo robes, and think over the events of the day, while he listened to the howling of the wolves and the sifting of the snow upon the roof of his cabin.

Leon always grew excited when this agreeable picture arose before his mental vision, and he longed for the day when the dream would become a reality.

Frank, as may be supposed, had a good deal to say about the joys of a hunter's life, and while he talked and Leon listened, they pushed their way rapidly through the woods, and finally, after crossing several deep ravines and climbing two or three fences, they found themselves on Mr. Parker's hill-farm, where Leon had set his snares.

The latter led the way toward the thicket in which the snares had been placed, and when he reached it he stopped suddenly, dropped the butt of his gun to the ground, and uttered an exclamation indicative of great rage and astonishment.

"What's the matter?" asked Frank.

"Why, just look at that, and tell me if you ever heard of a more contemptible trick!" exclaimed Leon.

Frank looked, but could discover nothing to excite his cousin's anger. All he saw was a low fence, built of twigs, which stretched away on each side of him as far as his eyes could reach. At intervals of a dozen feet or more were little openings about six inches wide, and it was in these openings that the snares had been set.

The last time Leon was there the snares were all in perfect order, and ready to catch any luckless grouse or hare which might attempt to pass through the openings before spoken of.

But now there was not a single snare to be seen. The strings of which they were made had all been removed.

"It's the meanest piece of business I ever heard of!" continued Leon, backing toward a fallen log and seating himself upon it. "That meddlesome Oscar Preston has been up here and destroyed all my work. I wish I could get within reach of him for about two minutes. I'd teach him to mind his own business!"

Leon struck his open palm with his clenched hand, and looked very savage indeed.

CHAPTER II. THE BUSHWHACKERS.

"Who is Oscar Preston?" asked Frank, as he seated himself on the log beside his cousin.

"Oh, he's the village pot-hunter!" Leon answered, throwing as much contempt into his tones as he could.

"Pot-hunter?" repeated Frank.

"Yes. He's a market-shooter. He doesn't hunt game for the fun of it, as you and I, and all other decent fellows do, but he does it to make money out of it. He is too lazy to earn a living in any respectable way; and, besides, as he comes of a dishonest family, no one in town will employ him. You see, he and his brother used to work in Smith & Anderson's grocery store. Oscar was one of the clerks, and his brother was book-keeper and cashier. Just before you came here, his brother disappeared all of a sudden, and has never been heard of since. After he was gone his books were examined, and it was found that he was a defaulter to the amount of three thousand dollars. Smith & Anderson didn't like that very well, and believing that if there was one thief in the Preston family there might be another, they thought it was best to give Oscar his walking-papers."

"Does he make any money by shooting for the market?" asked Frank.

"I should say he did. There is a mortgage of five hundred dollars on his mother's place (his father is dead, you know), and Oscar has paid off a hundred dollars of it since he left the store. He's got a leaky old scow, a double-barrel blunderbuss that you and I wouldn't pick up in the street, and a half starved hound. The scow he uses for hunting ducks on the river, and with the hound he runs foxes and rabbits. When summer comes, I suppose he will fish all the time. He can catch black bass where nobody else would ever think of looking for them, and he can sell every one of them for ten cents a pound."

"But what right had he to destroy your snares?"

"He had no right to do it, for he is not game-constable."

"What sort of a constable is that!" asked Frank.

"Why, you know there is a law in this State which says that game shall not be shot except at certain seasons of the year, and a game-constable is a man whose business it is to see that the law is obeyed. It is against the law to trap partridges and quails, and if we had a game-constable in town I shouldn't have set these snares, for I should have rendered myself liable to prosecution; but the office is vacant now, for there was no one elected to fill it last year."

"I think Oscar was taking a good deal upon himself," said Frank.

"So do I; and the reason he did it was because every partridge or rabbit that I catch leaves just one less for him to shoot for market. But these are my father's grounds, and I shall give him to understand, the first time I meet him, that I want him to keep away from here. You and I can shoot all the birds there are in these woods."

"I wouldn't take the trouble to say a word to him," replied Frank. "I'd pay him back in his own coin. If he wouldn't let me snare birds, I wouldn't let him hunt foxes. Do you ever see that hound of his running about the woods?"

"Oh, yes, I often see him!"

"Well, the next time you put eyes on him just bushwhack him and send a charge of shot into him."

"I can do that, can't I?" exclaimed Leon, growing excited at once. "But what if Oscar should find it out?" he added, after he had taken a second thought.

"Very likely he will find it out. He will know that somebody has shot his hound when he finds him dead, won't he?"

"But I mean—suppose he should find out that I did it?"

"I don't see how he can do it. The hound, if he is following a trail, will probably be some distance in advance of his master, and all you've got to do is to knock him over and dig out. It isn't at all probable that Oscar will ever find out who did the shooting; but if he does, you can tell him that you did it to square accounts with him for destroying your snares."

"I'd like to do it, but it would be sure to raise a storm in the village," said Leon, shaking his head in a very significant manner. "All the folks used to like that boy, and he's got a good many friends yet."

"Then show me the hound, and I'll shoot him!" said Frank impatiently. "I thought you had more pluck. I am not afraid of that fellow, or his friends either. Now, let's set these snares again, and go on and see if we can find some birds. But in the first place, explain one thing to me: What did you build that fence for?"

"To stop any rabbit or partridge who might come this way," answered Leon.

"I shouldn't think it would stop them. They could easily jump over it, for it isn't much more than a foot high."

"But they won't do it," said Leon. "Whenever they come to an obstruction of this kind they never attempt to cross it—that is, they are not alarmed, but run along by the side of it to find some way to get through or around it. When they reach one of these openings they try to squeeze through it, and that is the time they get caught. Now I'll show you how the snares are set."

Leon placed his gun against the log on which he was sitting, and producing a piece of fine, strong twine from one of the pockets of his game-bag, he made a running noose in one end of it. The other he fastened securely to a small hickory sapling which grew near one of the openings in the fence. This done, he bent the sapling over and placed the noose in the opening, and confined it there with a short notched stick which he cut from a neighboring bush. Then, in order to show his cousin how the snare operated, he pushed the notched stick out of its place by giving it a gentle tap with his finger, whereupon the sapling straightened itself up with a jerk, and the running noose was fastened firmly about his wrist.

"Oh, I see!" exclaimed Frank. "When a bird or rabbit tries to pass through one of these little gates, he knocks out the stick, and is pulled up by the neck before he knows what is the matter with him."

"That is just the way the thing works," replied Leon; "and the noose is drawn together so quickly, when the sapling flies back to its place, that nothing can get out of the way of it. Nine times in ten, when you find one of your snares sprung, you will find game in it."

"Give me some of that string and I'll help you set them," said Frank, leaning his rifle against the log beside his cousin's double-barrel. "I know how it is done now."

The boys had a good hour's work before them. The fence was nearly a hundred yards long; there were a good many openings in it, and the person who destroyed the snares, whoever he was, had made sure work of it. He had not only carried off all the strings and thrown away the notched sticks, but in some places he had broken down the saplings to which the strings were tied.

Leon had a good many hard things to say about Oscar while he was engaged in repairing damages, and when he found how completely all his care and patient labor had been undone by the despised market-shooter, he grew angrier than ever.

"All the foxes he catches with that hound this winter he can carry in one of his vest pockets!" declared Leon, as he trimmed the branches off a sapling with his knife. "The very first time I get within range of him, I'll fill him so full of holes that he will answer for a window! I don't care if Oscar sees me when I do it, either."

At length the repairs were all completed, and the snares were set in readiness to snatch up anything in the way of small game that might chance to come within their reach.

The work had given Frank an appetite, and he proposed that they should go further back in the woods, shoot a couple of squirrels, if they could not find any birds, roast them over a fire, and eat them with their lunch.

His cousin readily falling in with the idea, they shouldered their guns, and before setting out, turned to take a survey of their work and make sure that nothing had been left undone.

At that moment the bugle-like notes of a hound rang through the woods.

"There he is now!" exclaimed Leon, in great excitement. "Isn't it lucky? Keep perfectly quiet until we find out which way he is going."

"Are you sure that is the dog you want to see?" asked Frank.

"Of course I am! There's not another hound about the village. If he comes in sight of us, you will see that he is a large, tan-colored animal, with ears like an elephant's. Everybody says he is just splendid. He has brought his owner many a dollar to go toward paying off that mortgage, but I'll bet he'll not bring him many more if I get a fair chance at him!"

Again the deep-toned bay rang out on the frosty air, awakening a thousand echoes among the hills: and this time it sounded nearer than before. The hound had evidently struck a warm trail, and Leon told his cousin, in a suppressed whisper, that the trail led directly toward them.

A few seconds, and even the inexperienced Frank became satisfied of this fact. The hound now gave tongue almost continuously; the melodious notes grew louder every moment, and presently a rustling in the bushes told the boys that he was close at hand, and coming nearer with every bound.

Leon cocked one barrel of his gun, planted his feet firmly upon the ground, and just then a hound, which answered to the description he had given to his cousin, except in one particular, emerged from the thicket. He ran along with his nose close to the ground, wagging his tail vigorously, and so intent was he upon his work that he did not immediately discover the boys.

When he did become aware of their presence, however, he merely lifted his head long enough to give one look at them, and then took up his trail again. He was not at all afraid of them. Bugle—that was the name of the hound—knew everybody in the village; and everybody knew him, and liked him, too.

"That is the last trail you will ever follow, my four-footed friend!" Leon exclaimed, as he raised his gun to his shoulder and waited for the animal to come out from behind a fallen log, which just at that moment concealed him from view.

"Mind what you are doing," Frank whispered, laying his hand upon his cousin's arm, "That isn't the dog you want."

"Yes, it is," was Leon's reply.

"Why, you said Oscar's hound was half starved, and this one is as plump as a quail," protested Frank.

"I guess I know what I am about!" answered Leon impatiently.

He shook off his cousin's hand, drew his gun closer to his face, and just then the hound came in sight around the end of the log.

Leon took a quick aim at his head and pulled the trigger. There was a commotion among the leaves, a howl of anguish, and when the smoke cleared away, the boys saw Bugle running at full speed through the woods, yelping loudly at every jump. He was out of sight in an instant.

"There!" exclaimed Leon. "Go and hunt up your master, and tell him to keep his hands off my snares in future."

"Let's dig out," said Frank hastily. "Oscar can't be far away, and you don't want him to find you here."

No, Leon had not the slightest desire to meet Bugle's master after what he had done. He had talked very glibly about teaching Oscar to mind his own business if he could only get within reach of him for a few minutes, but he knew very well that that was something he could not do.

Oscar was a young athlete, even if he was nothing but a market-shooter. Although he was a few months younger than Leon, he was a good deal larger and stronger, and it would have been no trouble at all for him to take Leon by the collar with one hand and Frank with the other, and give them both a hearty shaking.

Probably Leon was afraid he would do it if he caught them, for he lost no time in acting upon his cousin's suggestion to "dig out." He ran so swiftly that he very soon left Frank behind, and the latter, who was quickly out of breath, begged him to hold up.

"What makes you take to this rough ground?" panted Frank, as he toiled up a high hill which his cousin had climbed in his rapid flight.

"Because the woods are thicker up here, and afford us better hiding-places," was Leon's answer.

"Well, there's no need that we should run ourselves to death," said Frank, as he seated himself on a huge bowlder and drew his handkerchief across his forehead, "and I'll not go another step."

"There's no need of it, for we are safe now. It is lucky there is no snow on the ground, for if there was, Oscar could follow us all day. We'll have a few minutes' rest, and then we'll see if we can shoot something for our dinner."

Leon took his seat upon another bowlder a short distance away, and during the ten minutes he remained there he never said a word to his cousin. The latter did not speak to him either. Frank had no breath to waste in words, and Leon was busy with his own thoughts. He was by no means proud of the act he had just performed. He was a bad boy, but he was not wholly depraved, and his conscience smote him when he reflected that he had, in a moment of anger, deprived an industrious, hard-working youth of almost the only means he had of earning a livelihood and keeping a roof over the head of his widowed mother. He knew very well that the ambitious and high-spirited Oscar was not a market-shooter from choice. He followed the business for the same reason that a good many others follow a business they do not like—because he could find nothing else to do, and he was not the one to stand idly by and see his mother suffer for the want of the necessaries of life.

"Father says he deserves a good deal of credit, and that there isn't one boy in a thousand who would do as well as he has done," thought Leon; and then he grew angry again. "What do I care for what father says?" he added mentally. "He is always ready to praise other boys, while for me he has nothing but scowls and cross words. I am glad I killed that old hound, and I am only sorry that Oscar hadn't got a dozen, so that I could shoot them all. He needn't think he owns all the birds in the country, simply because he makes a living by shooting them for market. Are you rested now, Frank? If you are, we'll go on."

The young hunters did not have far to look to find the dinner of which they were in search. The squirrels were busy gathering their winter's supply of nuts, and on almost the first hickory tree they saw, they found three plump little fellows, and bagged them all; two falling to Leon's double-barrel, and the other coming down with one of Frank's bullets through his head. As soon as they had secured their game Leon led the way to the bottom of the deep ravine, where they found a stream of water, beside which they built their fire. The squirrels were roasted on forked sticks over the flames; and when the bones had all been picked clean, and the last morsel of the lunch had disappeared, the truants stretched themselves at full length beside the fire, and listened to the howling of the wind which shook the leafless branches of the trees on the summit of the hills above them, and watched the little flakes of snow that now and then found their way into the ravine.

The snow-storm, that all the weather-wise people in the village had been predicting for several days past, was now raging above their heads; but it did not reach them in their sheltered camp, for the thick screen of evergreens, which lined the foot of the high hills on both sides of the stream, effectually protected them from its fury.

"It is of no use to think of hunting as long as it snows and blows like this," said Leon; "so we may as well stay here."

"I was just thinking of something," said Frank. "Suppose we had found your snares all in order, and a partridge or rabbit in each one of them? What would we have done with the game? It wouldn't have been safe to take it home with us."

"Of course it wouldn't," answered Leon. "We should have exposed ourselves at once. What could we have done with it? I never thought of that before, but there's one thing I have been thinking about all day: What are we going to say to father when we go home to-night?"

"We'll not say anything to him. We'll hide our guns in the barn, and walk into the house as we do every night when we come from school."

"I wish I needn't go home at all," said Leon spitefully. "I could have enjoyed myself to-day if I hadn't been continually haunted by the fear that something is going to happen. I declare, it is growing dark already. What time is it?"

"Three o'clock," replied Frank, consulting his watch.

"Is it as late as that?" cried Leon, jumping to his feet. "Where has the day gone? We mustn't stay here a minute longer. We have four miles to go, and if we are not at home within fifteen minutes after school is dismissed, we shall hear of it, I tell you!"

Leon noticed that Frank did not appear to be quite so indifferent to the consequences of playing truant as he did when they started out in the morning. He sprang to his feet with all haste, and, after throwing his game-bag and powder-horn over his shoulder, assisted his cousin to put out the fire. When this had been done, the two boys clambered up the hill and struck out at a rapid walk for the village, where a great surprise awaited them.

CHAPTER III. OSCAR AND HIS TROUBLES.

"Preston, as soon as you get those goods tied up, Mr. Smith wants to see you in the office."

The speaker was Mr. Anderson, junior partner of the firm of Smith & Anderson, the leading grocery and dry goods merchants of Eaton, and the person addressed was one of the clerks, who was engaged in putting up some groceries that had just been ordered by a customer.

He was a sturdy, handsome boy of sixteen years of age, and until within a few days had been one of the most cheerful, light-hearted fellows about the store; but he had changed wonderfully of late, and the expression of melancholy his face always wore deepened as the junior partner leaned over the counter and whispered these words into his ear.

"Very good, sir," he replied. "It has come at last," he added to himself, as the junior partner walked away. "I can't say I am surprised, for I have been expecting it. It is all up with me now. I don't care for myself, but what will become of mother?"

The clerk's hands trembled as he went on tying up the groceries; and when the last article the order-book called for had been weighed out, and all the bundles had been placed on one end of the counter and marked with the owner's name, so that the man who drove the delivery wagon would know where to take them, he called all his courage to his aid and walked into the office, the door of which was open.

As he entered, a gray-headed, hard-featured man, who was sitting on a high stool in front of the desk, turned and looked at him over his spectacles.

"Mr. Anderson says you want to see me, sir," said the clerk.

"Yes; I sent for you," replied the gray-headed man. "There is the money we owe you—fifteen dollars. We shall not need your services any longer."

"Am I discharged, sir?" asked the boy, as he took the bills that were handed him.

"Yes. Times are hard and trade dull, as you know, and we must begin to cut down our expenses. You are the youngest clerk in the store, and so you must go first."

"May I ask you for a letter of recommendation, to assist me in obtaining another situation?" asked the clerk.

"I am sorry you ask me for it, Oscar, for I can't consistently give it to you," replied Mr. Smith.

The boy seemed to be utterly confounded. His face grew pale and red by turns, and as soon as he could speak, he said, with more spirit than his employer had ever seen him exhibit before:

"Then you may as well acknowledge that your plan of cutting down expenses is merely a subterfuge. I know why I am dismissed, and I think you ought not to hold me responsible for my brother's rascality nor punish me for it. I regret it more than you possibly can, but I am in no way to blame for it."

"We'll not argue the matter," answered Mr. Smith, turning to his desk and picking up his pen. "All I have to say to you, is that we do not need you any longer."

"And all I have to say to you, sir, is good-day!" returned the clerk.

He took his cap from the rack behind the door, walked out of the store like one in a dream, and turned down the street. He went on by the hotel, crossed the long bridge that spanned the creek, and hurried along the road as if he were trying to leave behind him all recollection of the scene through which he had just passed.

"I can't go home yet," he kept saying to himself. "I haven't the heart to tell mother that I have lost my situation, for she has had so much trouble already that it is a wonder how she bears up under it as well as she does."

For two hours Oscar tore along the road as if he were walking a match against time, but, fast as he went, his gloomy thoughts kept pace with him. The wind came down keen and strong from the hills, stripping the withered leaves in showers from the shade-trees on either side of the road, and causing the boy's hands and face to turn to a deep purple; but he never knew it. He was so completely wrapped up in his troubles that he did not see any of the teams that passed him, nor did he hear a single one of the invitations to ride that were shouted at him by the kind-hearted farmers.

He could think of nothing but Mr. Smith's refusal to assist him in obtaining another situation, and he was only brought to his senses at last by the measured strokes of the town clock, which came faintly to his ears, followed almost immediately by the shrill whistle of the lock-shop.

Then the boy stopped, and looked about him. He was standing on the summit of one of the highest hills, and the village of Eaton could be dimly seen in the distance.

"It's twelve o'clock," said he to himself. "I had no idea it was so late. Now I'll go home. I must go some time, and I might as well go now as an hour later. Besides, mother will be uneasy if I am not there in time for dinner. Let's look this matter squarely in the face, and see what is to be done about it."

Oscar had just found out that he was completely chilled through. He buttoned his coat, pulled his collar up around his ears, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and set out to retrace his steps to the village.

Oscar Preston could remember the day when he was as popular among the boys of his native town as his father, during his life-time, had been among them. Mr. Preston had been a contractor and builder, and was at one time thought to be well off in the world. He owned the house in which he lived, and had a small balance at the banker's; but one day he fell off the very church whose bell had just aroused Oscar from his reverie, receiving injuries which confined him to his bed for more than a year, and finally resulted in his death.

During his long illness his savings rapidly dwindled away, and at last he found it necessary to mortgage his home in order to obtain money to support his family and pay his heavy doctors' bills.

At the time this happened, Oscar was a student at the high school, and his older brother, Tom, was cashier and book-keeper in Smith & Anderson's store. His salary was small, but still he might have saved something to assist his father in his extremity if he had been so inclined. Tom, however, was wholly devoted to himself, and cared for nothing but his own pleasure.

He thought more of horses and good clothes than he did of anything else, and his money, as fast as he earned it, went into the pockets of the tailor and the proprietor of the livery stable.

Oscar was the only one who could be depended on, and he was prompt to do what he could. He left school, and, through the influence of friends, obtained a situation as clerk in the same store in which his brother was employed. He worked faithfully, and every dollar of the pittance he earned was placed in his mother's hands; he never spent a cent of it for himself.

Mr. Preston's death was a severe blow to Oscar's mother; but she had another hard trial in store for her. In less than six months after he died Tom suddenly disappeared, taking with him three thousand dollars that did not belong to him. He had now been gone two weeks, and his employers had just completed the work of examining his accounts.

During these two weeks a great change had taken place in Oscar. He noticed that a good many of the village people, who had had a smile or a nod for him in happier days, never noticed him now. One or two of the clerks in the store would hardly speak to him, and at last his employers had discharged him because they were unwilling to allow any of their money to pass through his hands. This was the worst part of the whole miserable business.

Oscar had never told his mother how he was shunned by some of his former friends, for she had trouble enough of her own to bear; but this was something he could not keep from her.

"Mr. Smith has been down on me ever since Tom ran away," said Oscar to himself, after he had thought the matter over. "I have seen it plainly enough; and, if I could only step into another situation somewhere, I should be glad to leave him. But when I ask a man for work, and he wants to know why I was discharged, what shall I say? That's what hurts me."

"Here you are, Oscar!" exclaimed a cheery voice, breaking in upon his meditations. "It is easier riding than walking. Jump in."

An elegant top-buggy, drawn by a stylish, high-stepping horse, dashed up beside the boy, and the gentleman who was driving drew his reins with one hand, while with the other he threw back the heavy lap-robe so that the boy could get in. It was Mr. Parker—Leon's father.

"I am obliged to you, but I believe I would rather walk," was Oscar's reply.

"But I am not going to let you walk," said the gentleman, almost sternly. "Jump in here."

Oscar was forced to smile in spite of himself; but it was a sickly smile, that did not fail to attract the lawyer's attention.

"Now, then," he continued, after the boy had seated himself by his side and tucked the lap-robe about him, "what brought you so far into the country this cold day, without your overcoat? and what is the matter with you? You look as though you had lost your best friend."

"And so I have, Mr. Parker," replied Oscar sadly. "Mr. Smith gave me my walking-papers this morning."

"He did?" exclaimed the lawyer, opening his eyes. "What reason did he give?"

"He says he is going to reduce expenses because times are so hard," answered Oscar. "But I know that there is something back of that, for he wouldn't give me a letter of recommendation."

"He wouldn't?"

"No, sir; he wouldn't. I asked him for one, and he said he couldn't give it to me. He has looked crossways at me ever since Tom has been gone. He thinks that because my brother abused the confidence the firm placed in him, I may abuse it, too."

"Whew!" whistled the lawyer.

"My discharge could not have come at a worse time," said Oscar. "I shall have to make a payment on that mortgage before long, and how am I going to do it now that I am thrown out of employment? If there were a dozen storekeepers in town who wanted a clerk, they would not hire me under the circumstances."

Mr. Parker fastened his eyes upon the little gilt ball on the top of one of the church-spires in the distance, and made no reply.

"I have been told more than once that old Simpson is a sharper, and that I had better look out for him," continued Oscar. "He is always ready to lend money on mortgages to people who, he thinks, will never be able to repay it, and as soon as it becomes due, he forecloses and sells them out of house and home. He owns a dozen farms about the village, and he has got them all in that way. When father died, he told two or three men in town that he would own our house some day. It is worth four thousand dollars, with the lot on which it stands, and the mortgage is only five hundred."

The lawyer kept his gaze directed toward the distant spire, and said not a word until he drove into the village and reached the street in which Oscar lived. Then he drew up beside the curbstone, and as the boy was about to get out of the carriage, he laid his hand upon his shoulder and said impressively:

"Remember this, Oscar: Heaven always helps those who help themselves. Don't give up."

"Oh, I'll never give up!" was the quick reply. "There must be something in this town for me to do, and if there is, I'll find it before I sleep soundly. I hope you will believe me, Mr. Parker, when I assure you that I have not done one single thing since I have been in that store that I am unwilling my mother should know."

"I do believe you, Oscar," said the lawyer encouragingly. "I have all faith in you. Mr. Smith may find out one of these days that he has made a great mistake. Keep up a good heart, and you will come out all right in the end."

The accents of kindness touched the boy's heart. His eyes filled with tears, and, without stopping to thank the lawyer for his words of cheer, he turned about and hurried toward home, while Mr. Parker reined his horse away from the curbstone and drove on down the street.

He stopped in front of Smith & Anderson's store, and made his way into the office, where he found the senior partner seated on his high stool, busy with his books. The two men exchanged greetings, made a few remarks concerning the weather, and then Mr. Parker told the grocer why he had come there.

"I understand that you paid Oscar Preston off this morning," said he. "Now, I am somewhat interested in that boy, for it was through my influence that he obtained a place in your store, and I'd like to know what is the matter with him. What is he guilty of?"

"We haven't been able to fasten any guilt upon him," answered Mr. Smith. "We only suspect him."

"Of what?" asked the visitor.

"Now see here, Mr. Parker," exclaimed the grocer, "suppose you had a clerk working for you for twenty dollars a month, out of which he was obliged to support his mother and pay taxes on a property worth four or five thousand dollars, and that clerk should come to your office every day dressed in better clothes than you wear, and looking as though he had just come out of some lady's band-box, what would you think?"

"Oho!" cried the lawyer. "Because Oscar takes pains to keep himself as neat as a new pin, you suspect him of till-tapping, do you? I can set your fears on that score at rest. In the first place, his mother makes all his clothes, and the boy has no tailor's bills to pay. In the next place, I have known him to make more money in a single week, in a little work-shop he's got at home, than you paid him for a month's services. He is the most expert taxidermist I ever saw. I have a case of birds in my house now for which I paid him forty dollars."

"If he is making money as fast as that, why can't he keep his hands out of my drawer?" demanded the grocer.

"Do you mean to tell me that he has been stealing?" exclaimed Mr. Parker.

"I mean to tell you that somebody has been stealing!" was the reply.

"Perhaps it was Tom. A young man who will make false entries in his books would not be above taking money out of the drawer."

"No, it wasn't Tom. We have missed money since he went away."

"I don't see how you can look into Oscar's face and think him dishonest," said Mr. Parker, who was very much surprised. "I would suspect any of your clerks before I would suspect him."

"Well, I wouldn't. They have all been with me for a number of years, and I have never seen anything wrong with them. I watch my clerks pretty closely, too."

"Then I don't suppose it would be of any use for me to ask you to take Oscar back," said the lawyer, as he rose and drew on his gloves.

"It would be of no use whatever," was the prompt and decided reply. "I can't trust him, and I don't want him to touch any more of my money. I am certain that some of it has stuck to his fingers."

"That settles the matter. But mark my words. You will one day discover that you have done that boy very great injustice. Good-day, sir!"

"If I do, I shall make him all the reparation in my power," said the grocer. "Good-day, Mr. Parker!"

The lawyer was disappointed, but he was not discouraged. He did not get into his carriage again immediately, but walked the whole length of the business portion of the street, entering several stores and calling upon some of his professional friends. He had a good word to say for the discharged clerk wherever he stopped, and the result was made apparent that very afternoon.

Meanwhile, Oscar, all unconscious of the efforts that were being put forth in his behalf, was making all haste to reach home. It was long past the dinner hour, and he knew that his mother would wonder at his absence.

She opened the door for him as he stepped upon the porch, and although he tried to smile and look as cheerful and happy as usual, she saw in a moment that there was something the matter with him.

CHAPTER IV. THE YOUNG TAXIDERMIST.

"What is it, Oscar?" said Mrs. Preston, while an expression of anxiety settled on her pale face. "Oscar, what has happened?"

"Nothing much, mother," replied the boy. "I am discharged. That's all. Is dinner ready?"

"O Oscar!" exclaimed his mother.

"It's a fact. Mr. Smith wants to bring down his expenses, and, as I was the youngest clerk, of course I had to go."

He said nothing about the grocer's refusal to give him the letter of recommendation for which he had applied. That was his own trouble, and he would not burden his mother with it.

"Don't look so sober. We have funds enough in the bank to support us for a few months, and there are fifteen dollars more," he added, handing out the money he had received from Mr. Smith.

"But you know we were saving that to make the first payment on the mortgage," said Mrs. Preston anxiously.

"Yes, I know; and perhaps we will use it for that purpose yet. I shall start out as soon as I get something to eat, and hunt up a situation. Is dinner ready? I have brought home a good appetite."

And Oscar thought he had. But when he found himself seated at the table in the cosey little dining room, with a substantial and well-cooked dinner before him, he discovered that he did not want anything to eat.

He forced down a few mouthfuls, then put on his overcoat, kissed his mother good-by, and went out.

But where should he go? That was the question. There were but three grocery stores in town, and he knew that they were supplied with all the clerks they needed. If the truth must be told, he did not expect to obtain another situation.

But it would never do, he told himself, to give up without making an effort; and, besides, he felt much better while he was stirring about in the open air than he would have felt if he had remained at home and mourned over his hard luck.

When he reached Main Street, he could not muster up courage enough to enter a single one of the stores at which he had determined to apply for work. Who would hire a boy that had been refused a letter of recommendation by his last employer?

While he was turning this question over in his mind, someone called out:

"Hallo, there! You're just the boy I want to see. Come in here."

Oscar turned, and found that he had been hailed by Mr. Jackson, the village druggist—a fat, jolly man, who seemed to carry an atmosphere of cheerfulness with him wherever he went.

He gave the boy's hand a tremendous grip and shake, after which he led him through the store into the office, pushed him into a chair, and seated himself in another.

"Well, Oscar," said he, "I haven't seen you for a long time. How does the world use you?"

"The world uses me well enough," replied Oscar; "but some of the people in it might treat me a little better if they were so inclined."

"Yes; there are a good many people about us who seem to be of no earthly use here except to get themselves and others into trouble," said the druggist; "and when we meet any of them, the best thing we can do is to attend to our own business and pay no attention to them."

"But what shall a fellow do when he has no business of his own to attend to?" asked Oscar.

Mr. Jackson laughed so loudly and heartily that the boy was obliged to laugh, too.

"I know what you mean by that," said the former. "I heard this morning that Mr. Smith had discharged you, and if I were in your place, I should be glad of it. I guess he didn't pay you much."

"No, sir; but the little he did pay me was very acceptable. In fact, I don't see how I can get on without it. I must find another situation to-day, if it is a possible thing."

"Well, you might as well give up the idea, for it isn't possible," answered the druggist. "I'll warrant that Smith has had half a dozen applications for your place already. Now, while you are waiting for something to turn up, why can't you do a little job of work for me? I want a case of birds, to put in my dining room—something like the one you sold Parker, only different, you know; that is, different birds and different groupings—if that's the way to express it."

Oscar straightened up in his chair at once. It was astonishing what a change these few words made in his feelings.

"I believe Parker paid you forty dollars for that case of his, didn't he?" continued the druggist. "Well, I'm willing to pay the same price for one equally as good. How long will it take you to put it up for me?"

"About a week. I have all the birds I need; they are a fine lot, too, if I do say it myself—but I must make the case, you know."

"All right! Go to work as soon as you please. When it is finished, take it to my house—Mrs. Jackson will show you where to put it—and come here for your money. Remember, now, that I want nothing but game-birds. I don't care for snow-birds and canaries, like those you put in Parker's case."

"They were not canaries," said Oscar, who could hardly help smiling at the jolly man's ignorance of natural history. "They were gold finches—the little fellows you sometimes see picking the seeds out of thistles."

"Oh!" said Mr. Jackson. "Well, I don't want any of 'em. I want nothing but game-birds."

"I am sorry to say that I can't fill the order that way," replied Oscar. "The bottom of the case won't hold all the birds I intend to give you."

"You needn't put them all on the bottom. Stand them up in a tree, the way you did Parker's. The wood cock, snipe, and plover are small birds, and they could go up there as well as not."

It was now Oscar's turn to laugh.

"I can put a grouse in the tree," said he; "but who ever heard of a snipe or wood-cock in such a situation? Those birds are not perchers or climbers; they are waders, and live wholly on the ground."

"Oh! ah!" said Mr. Jackson, settling back in his chair with an air which said that Oscar had not made matters much clearer to him by his explanation. "But I'll tell you what's a fact," he added, straightening up again as a bright idea struck him—"I know I have seen quails in trees."

"So have I; but it was only when they were pursued by some animal, such as a dog or fox. If I should put any quails in your tree I'd have to account for their presence there by putting a fox on the bottom of the case, and he would take up too much room."

"Well, Oscar," said the druggist, after thinking a moment, "I guess you understand your business better than I do. Fix up the case to suit yourself, and I shall be satisfied."

Just then the front door opened, and a couple of ladies came in. Mr. Jackson hurried out to wait upon them, while Oscar, who was in a great hurry to earn those forty dollars, buttoned his overcoat and left the store.

His face was fairly radiant with joy, and so completely was he wrapped up in his own thoughts that he did not see the gentleman who, after trying in vain to avoid a collision with him, finally seized him by the arm and held him fast.

"Why, Oscar, I thought it was you!" exclaimed the gentleman. "How do you do? By the way," he added, without giving the boy a chance to reply, "have you any more of those horned owls that you stuffed last winter?"

"No, sir; they are all sold," answered Oscar.

"What did you get apiece for them?"

"Three dollars."

"Well, now, I want one of them to put into a little niche at the head of my stairway," continued the gentleman. "If you will shoot one for me, and mount it, I'll give you three dollars for it."

"I am afraid I can't do it, Mr. Shaw. They are very scarce; and those I shot last winter I found by accident."

"Then get up a little earlier in the morning and hunt a little later at night, and I'll give you five dollars. If you succeed, bring the bird around, and your money is ready."

"I'll do my best. Now I'll just tell you what's the truth," said Oscar to himself, as he pulled his collar up around his ears, and once more turned his face toward home. "I've got some friends yet. I can make the first payment on that mortgage, interest and all, and have a little money left to keep us in fuel and provisions until I can earn more. Two orders in one day! They came in just at the right time, too. I haven't had a chance to sell a bird before for six months."

Oscar did not know that the orders he had just received had been obtained for him that morning through the influence of Mr. Parker.

If he had known it, he would have lost no time in hunting up his benefactor and thanking him for the interest he took in his welfare.

But attributing his unexpected stroke of fortune to his good luck, which he believed had not yet wholly deserted him, he walked homeward with a light heart; and the smile he carried into his mother's presence was instantly reflected from her own face.

"Yes, I have found work," said he, in reply to her inquiring look. "I've a chance to make as much money in a week as I could have made in the store in two months. Mr. Jackson wants a case of birds something like the one I sold Mr. Parker, and Mr. Shaw wants a horned owl. I am not certain that I shall be able to fill the last order, for an owl is a bird you can't find every day; but I shall do my best, for a five-dollar bill is worth trying for."

Oscar ran upstairs to his room, and when he came down again he was dressed for work.

Taking a bunch of keys from a nail in the kitchen, he hurried through the wood-shed and paused in front of the door leading into his workshop.

As he inserted one of the keys into the lock, a loud bay of welcome arose from the inside, and when he opened the door, Bugle, the finest fox-hound that had ever been seen about Eaton, crawled out from his warm bed under the work-bench, and after lazily stretching himself, jumped up and placed his forepaws on his master's shoulders.

Bugle was a well-trained hunting-dog, and so fond was he of following his favorite game that his master was obliged to lock him up in the shop every morning.

The hound would stay about the house in perfect contentment so long as Oscar was there; but when the latter went to school or to the store, Bugle would soon grow lonely, and then he would hunt the town over to find someone with a gun on his shoulder.

If he succeeded in his object, he would stick close to that man's side, and if the man went to the woods, Bugle would go also, and run foxes for him with as much zeal and perseverance as he exhibited in working for his master.

If he could not find anyone who was going hunting, he would start out alone, and sometimes he would be gone two or three days.

He could not hunt foxes to any advantage by himself, for there was need for someone to stand on the runways and shoot the game as it passed; but sometimes he succeeded in digging a hare out of a rotten log in which it had taken refuge, and he always brought the game home to show that his day's work had not been thrown away.

Oscar did not like this roving disposition on the part of his favorite, and, as two or three attempts had been made to steal the hound, he thought it best to keep him under lock and key.

Oscar's work-shop was a clean, well-lighted apartment, and in it the boy had spent many a stormy Saturday while he was a student at the high school; but since he had been employed in the store, he had done but little work there, for his time was fully occupied from seven in the morning until nine and sometimes ten o'clock at night.

He was glad to find himself there once more, for he felt as if he were among friends from whom he had long been separated.

The side of the room opposite the door was occupied by a carpenter's bench, on which were several specimens of Oscar's handiwork, such as jointed bass-rods, models of yachts (both sloop- and schooner-rigged), and also a neat little centre-table, which needed only the staining and polishing to make it ready to take its place in his mother's sitting room.

At the lower end of the bench was a curtain, reaching from the ceiling to the floor. Oscar drew aside this curtain, revealing a little recess about ten feet square, two sides of which were fitted up with shelves. At the end opposite the curtain was a wide window, and under it was a table filled with little boxes, containing glass eyes and an assortment of tools such as taxidermists use. The shelves were filled with stuffed birds and animals.

The most prominent object in the collection was a magnificent gray eagle, which leaned forward on his perch, with his wings half raised, his neck stretched out, and his eyes fastened upon a plump mallard standing on one foot in the corner below him, with his bill buried under his wing, and his eyes closed as if he were fast asleep; and so life-like did the eagle look that one almost expected to see him leap from his perch and bear the duck off in his talons.

There were hawks, blue-jays, crows, snow-buntings, grouse, quails, snipes, cedar-birds, and gold finches upon the shelves; in fact, almost all the varieties of the feathered creation which were to be found in the woods about Eaton were here represented. And they were all arranged with artistic taste, too.

Oscar had carefully studied the habits of every bird and animal he hunted, and in his collection there was not one that was awkwardly mounted, or that was placed in a position which the bird or animal would not have assumed during his life-time.

A red fox, on the lower shelf, was creeping along in a crouching attitude, evidently meditating an attack upon a wild goose, which stood a little distance away, engaged in arranging its plumage; a snowy owl watched with wide and solemn eyes a gray squirrel sitting upon its haunches and gnawing its way into a hickory-nut, which it held between its fore-paws; a butcher-bird was engaged in its usual occupation of impaling an insect upon a thorn; a hawk was about to begin a meal upon an unfortunate quail it had just captured; a mink had its eyes fastened upon a hare which was sitting comfortably in its form; a ruffed grouse—the last object Oscar had mounted—was standing up as straight as an arrow, evidently watching the boy as he came in.

This is the position the grouse always assumes when it is sitting in a tree and sees a hunter approaching. It draws itself up so stiffly, and remains so motionless, that the sportsman often mistakes it for a part of the limb on which it is sitting, and passes on without trying a shot at it.

The birds were all mounted on temporary perches, made by nailing two short pieces of wood together in the form of the letter T, the standard being set into a block about three inches square, to enable them to retain an upright position.

They were fastened to the perch by the wires that came down through the legs and feet, and as the wires extended into the body and assisted to keep the birds in shape, the positions of the specimens could be changed in an instant at the will of the taxidermist.

Oscar had killed and mounted every one of them himself, and took no little pride in showing them to his friends.

CHAPTER V. OSCAR RECEIVES A LETTER.

The young taxidermist walked over to the table and picked up the grouse. It was a perfect specimen of his work, and he held it off at arm's length and admired it.

"I'll put this in Mr. Jackson's case," said he, as he arranged some of the plumage with a pair of pliers. "Then I'll put in a pair of quails, two English snipes, two wood-cock, that young heron over there, and they will be as many as I can stand on the bottom of the case without crowding them too much. Then in the tree I'll put an imperial wood-pecker, and—hold on! I've got another gamebird that I can put in the tree."

The boy was so well pleased with the thought that had just passed through his mind that he laughed outright.

He put the grouse back upon the table, and took from one of the shelves a beautiful bird which was mounted on a board, instead of a perch, because it was web-footed. He looked at it closely, and found that it was in as good order as when it first came out from under his hands.

"Yes, I'll put that in the tree, too," said he, with another laugh, "and we'll see what Mr. Jackson will say when he finds it there."

Oscar passed along the shelves, taking down one specimen after another, and when he had selected as many as he thought he could use he went into the shop, dropped the curtain to its place, and, after lighting a fire in the stove, took some well-seasoned boards from the corner where he had placed them for safe keeping, and went to work upon the case.

During the next few days, Oscar toiled early and late. Under his skilful hands, the case grew in size and shape, and when at last it was put together, Oscar thrust his hands into his pockets and stood off to make a critical examination of it.

The front was composed of double glass doors, hung on silver-plated hinges; the joints were tight and, taken altogether, it was a piece of work with which any cabinet-maker would have been entirely satisfied.

But it was not yet completed. The inside was to be ornamented with a painting of a woodland scene, and the outside was to be stained in imitation of black walnut.

Having satisfied himself that his work could not be improved in any way, Oscar put on his coat, took a small hand-saw from the bench, and turning the key upon the sleeping Bugle, who lay behind the stove, dreaming of foxhunts past and to come, he bent his steps toward the nearest piece of woods.

When he came back again, an hour later, he carried over his shoulder a bundle of small branches which he had cut from hickory saplings. Of these he intended to make the tree that was to be put up in the case for the accommodation of some of the specimens.

He dropped into the post-office as he passed by, on his way home, not because he expected to find anything there, but for the reason that it had become a confirmed habit.

But there was a letter in his mother's box, and when the clerk handed it to him, he found that it was addressed to himself. He opened it as he walked along, and the first thing he took out of the envelope was a business card, bearing these words:

Calkins & Son,
No. 126 Court St., Yarmouth.
Poultry, Fish, Game, and Furs sold on Commission.
Liberal advancements made on consignments.
A share of the public patronage solicited.

"Humph!" said Oscar, as he thrust the card carelessly into his pocket. "I don't see what they sent that to me for. I can shoot all the game I want, and more, too. And as for fish—if I can't supply any three families in town during the season, I'll give it up."

Oscar next took the letter out of the envelope, and began reading it in the same careless, indifferent way in which he had read the card; but, before he had gone far, he stopped, went back to the beginning, and read it over again with more interest.

The letter ran as follows:

Dear Sir: We intend, during the coming winter, to make a specialty of small game of all kinds, and we wish to engage a competent person in your neighborhood, where, as we understand, partridges, quails, and rabbits are abundant, to shoot for our Yarmouth market. We will take all you can send us, and you need have no fear of overstocking us.

The accompanying price-current will show you how the market rules at the present date, and by examining it carefully, you will be able to make an estimate of your probable earnings, which ought to be something handsome.

You have been recommended to us by a gentleman living in your vicinity, and we hope you will find it to your interest to return a favorable reply at an early day, and begin work for us at once. We should like a shipment from you immediately. The partridges we are now selling come principally from Michigan, and the demand far exceeds the supply,

Yours, etc.,
Calkins & Son.

"Well, I declare," thought Oscar, after he had read the letter over twice, in order to fully master the business terms it contained, "here's another windfall! They don't want me to buy of them, as I thought they did, but they want a chance to buy of me. They shall have it I wonder what gentleman it was who was good enough to recommend me to them."

While Oscar was turning this question over in his mind, he glanced at the price-current which had been inclosed in the letter, and, after noting the prices paid for the various kinds of game that were in demand in the Yarmouth market, he replaced it in the envelope, and began a little problem in mental arithmetic, with a view of ascertaining about how much his earnings would amount to each day, if he consented to shoot for Calkins & Son.

He based his calculation upon the amount of game he had bagged during some of his previous hunts, and in this way he obtained a tolerably fair idea of what his profits would be.

While he was thus engaged, he ran into the outstretched arms of his particular friend Sam Hynes, who had been home to dinner, and was hurrying back to school.

"Hallo, here!" exclaimed Sam. "You're just the fellow I want to see. What's that on your back?"

"Something of which to make a tree to put in a new case of birds I am setting up," answered Oscar, after he had returned his crony's cordial greeting.

"Say, Oscar," continued Sam, glancing up at the town clock to see how many minutes he could spend in conversation and still reach the school-house before the last bell rang, "what are you going to do next Saturday?"

"I shall be quite at your service on that day," replied Oscar, who knew very well what the question meant. "Are they coming in yet?"

"By hundreds!" exclaimed Sam, with great enthusiasm. "I have been making inquiries of some farmers who live down the river, and they all tell the same story. Hang that string out of your window, and I'll have you up at half-past three. We must be on the water at the first peep of day, you know. Good-by!"

This was all that passed between the two friends, but they understood each other perfectly.

Almost every boy has his own way of enjoying himself, and Sam Hynes found all his recreation in wild-fowl shooting. He went fishing sometimes, because he liked to be on the river; but he could see no fun in jerking a string up and down in the water all day, and he preferred to lie back in the boat and watch the clouds as they floated over his head.

He could see no sport, either, in tramping about the woods, carrying a heavy gun on his shoulders; but when it came to shooting over decoys, Sam was wide awake and perfectly at home.

He was the best fellow in the world to go hunting with, too. If a sudden shower drenched him to the skin, and wet his powder so that his gun could not be discharged, if the birds flew wild, and he returned at night with no more game than he had when he started out in the morning, it was all the same to Sam. No one ever heard a word of complaint from him.

He knew how to roast a duck over the flames on a forked stick, and could get up so tempting a dinner from the contents of his lunch-basket that he was in great demand among the young Nimrods of the village, and could have accepted invitations for every Saturday in the year, if he had been so disposed. But he preferred to hunt with Oscar.

The latter owned some very fine decoys, which he had made and painted himself, and he knew how to use them, too. More than that—he was a very lucky young sportsman, and those who went with him seldom returned empty-handed.

After taking leave of his friend, Oscar continued his walk toward home, and before he got there he had finished his problem in mental arithmetic, and arrived at the conclusion that he was in a fair way to extricate himself from his financial difficulties, and that if the good luck that had followed him ever since he was discharged from the store would only continue for one short year, he would be all out of debt, and have something in the bank to draw on in case of emergency.

When Oscar reached home he showed his mother the letter he had received, and after spending a few minutes in conversation with her on the subject of market-shooting and his chances for making money out of it, he went into his work-shop and resumed his work.

On Friday afternoon the case was completed, and it was only necessary to wait until the paint on the inside should become dry, so that he could put up the tree he had made and place the birds upon it.

"It will be dry to-morrow night," thought Oscar, as he stood with his brush in his hand, surveying the woodland scene which ornamented the interior of the case, "and on Monday morning I will take it over and see what Mr. Jackson has to say about it. Well, boys, I am glad to see you."

Just then the door was thrown open and Sam Hynes came rushing in—he was always in a hurry—followed by Miles Jackson, the nephew of the gentleman for whom the case of birds was intended.

Sam had dropped in to make sure that the arrangements for the duck hunt on the morrow were fully understood, and Miles had come with him to see how Oscar was progressing.

They did not immediately reply to Oscar's words of greeting, for they were too much interested in what they saw before them.

They looked at the case on all sides, admired the picture Oscar had just finished, and then they turned their attention to the tree, which they examined closely.

"You have got a good fit on these joints," said Sam, who was himself very handy with tools. "If you stand a little way from it you would take it for a natural tree. It is almost as good a job as I could have done myself. What made you drill all these little holes in the branches?"

"The wires which support the birds go through those holes and turn up on the other side, so that they can't be seen," answered Oscar.

"Oh, yes; I understand. Now, when do you think—— What in the world sent that miserable fellow prowling around here, I wonder?" said Sam, in an undertone, looking at his friend Miles and scowling fiercely.

This exclamation was called forth by the opening of the door and the entrance of a boy for whom Sam had of late conceived a violent dislike. His name was Stuart, and he was one of the clerks in Smith & Anderson's store.

The reason Sam disliked him was because he had heard from several sources that Stuart had treated Oscar very rudely ever since Tom ran away with his employers' money.

He would not speak to Oscar at all, or even look toward him if he could help it; but he had a great deal to say in his presence concerning thieves and defaulting book-keepers and cashiers.

"Stuart had better not talk that way in my hearing," declared Sam, one day, when a lot of school-boys were talking about Oscar and his troubles; and as he said it he doubled up a pair of fists that were pretty large and heavy for a boy of sixteen. "Oscar is my friend, and any fellow who says a word against him can just scratch my name off his good books. Mark my words: If there was a dishonest clerk in that store, he's there yet; and if money was missed from the drawer while Oscar was employed there, it will be missed now that he is gone. Oscar Preston never had a dishonest penny in his hands."

If Sam had owned the shop he would have ordered Stuart out of it on the instant; but as he had no right to do that, he simply returned the clerk's bow, scowled savagely at his friend Miles, and felt like giving Oscar a punch in the ribs because he greeted Stuart so cordially.

The new-comer seemed surprised to find so many boys in the shop, and for a minute or two he did not speak. He stood with his hand on the latch, evidently undecided whether to go out or come in. Finally he made up his mind that he would come in.

"I was out delivering goods," said he, as he closed the door behind him, "and I thought I would run in for just a moment and see what a taxidermist's shop looks like. I have a curiosity to see a bird before it is put up ready for sale."

"All right," said Oscar, laying down his paint-brush. "I think I can show you some fine specimens. Come in here."

As he spoke he drew aside the curtain and conducted his visitor into the recess, while Sam showed what he thought of such a proceeding by picking up a block of wood and hitting the work-bench a savage blow with it.

CHAPTER VI. THE AMATEUR DETECTIVE.

"Oscar is too good for any use," said Sam, turning to Miles and speaking in a low whisper. "If Stuart had talked about me as I know he has talked about him, I'd never make up with him in that fashion—never! Let's go home!"

"Oh, no!" whispered Miles in reply. "I haven't seen any birds yet, and neither have you said a word to Oscar about that duck hunt."

Sam pulled out his knife and hunted around on the bench until he found a pine stick, which he proceeded to cut up into the smallest possible pieces; while Miles, after listening to some explanations that Oscar was making for the benefit of the clerk, went into the recess.

Sam was standing with his back to the three boys, but he could distinctly see every move they made.

On the wall, opposite the curtain, hung a broken mirror, which had once held an honored place in Mrs. Preston's parlor.

Sam glanced into this mirror now and then, while he was engaged in cutting up his stick, and saw that Stuart was paying very little attention to what Oscar was saying to him.

He appeared to be very uneasy, for he was constantly stepping about, and most of the time he kept his eyes fastened intently on Sam.

When Miles came in and began questioning Oscar about the specimen he was holding in his hands, Stuart walked to the other side of the recess, ran his eye over the stuffed occupants of the shelves, and then he came out into the shop and examined the tree on which Mr. Jackson's birds were to be mounted. After that he looked at Sam again.

The latter was standing a little to one side of the mirror, with his hat drawn down over his forehead, and seemed to see nothing but the stick he was whittling.

In the work-bench, directly under the tree, was an open drawer in which Oscar kept his paints, brushes, and various odds and ends.

Stuart moved up close beside this drawer, looked first at Sam, then at Miles and Oscar, who were still talking earnestly in the recess, and as quick as thought pulled something out of his coat pocket, raised a sheet of sand-paper that lay on the bottom of the drawer, and placed the object, whatever it was, under it.

This done, he backed up against the drawer, and pushed it to its place. He leaned on the bench for a few seconds, looking toward Oscar, as if he were listening to what he was saying, and then suddenly straightened up.

"I must be going," said he, starting toward the door. "I hope I haven't put you to any trouble, Oscar."

"None whatever," replied the latter.

And Sam noticed, with no little satisfaction, that he did not ask the clerk to call again.

When Stuart closed the door behind him, Sam shut up his knife and slammed his stick down in the corner. The noise attracted the attention of Miles, who looked over his shoulder, and was surprised to see Sam holding one forefinger upon his lips, and beckoning eagerly to him with the other.

Miles came out into the shop with an inquiring look on his face, while Oscar lingered in the recess to arrange the plumage of one of the specimens which had become rumpled while he was handling it.

Sam walked over to the drawer of the work-bench and opened it, standing with his back toward Oscar.

"I know now what that rascal came here for," said he, in a scarcely audible whisper, "and I want you for a witness."

"What's that?" asked Miles, in his ordinary tone of voice, as his companion raised a sheet of sand-paper, and brought to light the article Stuart had placed there a few minutes before.

"Say not a word," cautioned Sam, "but come with me and I'll tell you all about it."

"Don't you fellows know that it is very rude to whisper in the presence of a third party?" said Oscar gravely. "I am surprised at you. You did it while Stuart was in here, and I should like to know what you mean by it."

"We didn't want either of you to know what we were talking about," answered Sam. "I wouldn't have treated him as well as you did, and I don't think you would have been quite so cordial if you knew as much as we know," he added, with a significant glance at Miles.

"Oh, that's the trouble, is it? Never mind. We were not put here in this world to quarrel with everybody who doesn't like us. If we did that, we'd have time for little else. You are not going?" said Oscar, as Sam started for the door, with Miles close at his heels.

"Yes, we are. We have some business that must be attended to at once. I'll see you again before I go home."

Sam banged the door as he ceased speaking, and walked through the yard so rapidly that Miles could hardly keep pace with him.

When he had closed the gate behind him, he turned down the sidewalk and hurried on faster than ever.

"Hold up here," protested Miles. "You said you would tell me all about it, and how are we going to talk if you go ahead with railroad speed? What was it you took out of that drawer, and what business had you to touch it? I thought it was a pocket-book."

Sam stopped abruptly, and drew the article in question from the inside pocket of his coat.

It was a pocket-book, and quite a large one, too. It was made to carry bills at full length.

It was filled with papers, but Sam did not know whether or not there was any money in it, for he had not opened it, and he did not intend to do so.

He placed his finger under the silver clasp with which it was fastened, and held it up so that his friend could see it.

"What name is that?" he asked.

"Erastus Smith," replied Miles.

"Exactly. You saw me take this pocket-book out of that drawer, didn't you?"

"Of course I did."

"Well, I know who put it there, for I saw him do it."

Sam brought the pocket-book down into his open palm with a sounding whack, and looked at his companion as if he thought he had made everything perfectly clear to him; but Miles only seemed bewildered.

"I should think you might see through the matter after I have explained it to you," said Sam, with some impatience.

"But you haven't explained it," answered Miles.

"That's so," admitted Sam, after reflecting a moment. "I'll do it now, while we walk along slowly. Stuart put this pocket-book in the drawer—for, as I told you, I saw him do it. He came into the shop for that very purpose. He is the fellow who has been stealing Mr. Smith's money, but he is trying his level best to fasten the guilt upon Oscar."

"Oh, I begin to understand the matter!" said Miles, his face flushing with indignation.

"Now the credit for the discovery I have made does not belong to me," continued Sam, who was as truthful and honest as he was blunt and fearless. "I never should have thought of it if it hadn't been for something Mr. Parker said to me. He told me the other day that if there had been any stealing going on in that store since Tom Preston left, Stuart was the guilty one; and the reason Mr. Parker suspected him was because he has had so much to say against Oscar. He has told everybody in town who would listen to him that Oscar was discharged for till-tapping; and there were a good many who would listen to him, for there are people everywhere, you know, who take unbounded delight in hearing others slandered. I had two reasons for watching every move Stuart made while he was in the shop. I thought it would be a good plan to keep an eye on him, and I was impatient to see him start for the door. I didn't want him there."

"It was a wonder he didn't see that you were watching him," observed Miles.

"Do you remember that broken looking-glass that hangs on the north wall of the shop?" asked Sam. "I looked in there and saw everything he did."

Miles was astonished at his companion's shrewdness, and could only look the admiration he felt for him.

"But what made you rush out of the shop in such a hurry?" he inquired at length. "Why didn't you tell Oscar all about it, and relieve his mind at once?"

"Oh, it will not hurt him to wait a day or two longer," rejoined Sam; "and his vindication will be all the more welcome when it comes, as I am determined it shall come, through the man who has injured him. Mr. Smith has done Oscar a great deal of harm, and he must lose no time in undoing it. Now, then, here we are."

Sam stepped upon the threshold of Smith & Anderson's store, seized the latch with a determined grip, as if he were trying to break it in two, threw open the door and walked in.

The first person he met was Stuart, who started back in surprise at the sight of him. He was greatly alarmed—Sam could see that plainly—and he tried to conceal it by stepping briskly behind the counter and drawing the order book toward him.

"What can I do for you, boys?" he asked, as he held his pencil poised over the book.

"Nothing," growled Sam, who could not possibly have spoken civilly to one whom he had caught in the act of trying to ruin his friend.

He kept on his way toward the office, and Stuart, as if divining his intention, said hurriedly, and in a low tone of voice:

"There's no one in there, Sam. Mr. Anderson has gone to the depot to see about some freight, and Mr. Smith has just stepped out. In fact, he has gone home, and won't be back to-night. Any word to leave for either of them?"

Sam shook his head and walked right on.

"That's a little too transparent," said he to Miles, who kept close at his side. "What did he want to whisper for? and why did he turn so red in the face? I'll warrant Mr. Anderson isn't near the depot, and that we shall find Mr. Smith perched on his high stool. He's always there since Tom went away."

At that moment, as if to confirm his words, the back door opened and Mr. Anderson came in. He was bareheaded, and had no overcoat on. Moreover, he carried a number of packages in his arms, and that was all the proof the boys needed to convince them that he had been busy in the warehouse.

When they entered the office, they found the senior partner right where Sam said they would find him—on his high stool.

He laid down his pen and looked at the boys over his spectacles, just as he had looked at Oscar on the day he discharged him.

"Mr. Smith," said Sam, "may we have a few minutes' private conversation with you?"

"I suppose so," was the reply. "Is it very private?"

"Well, we would rather you alone should hear what we have to say. If you choose to repeat it, that is your own affair."

As Sam spoke, he closed the door behind him, and turned the key in the lock.

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the grocer; "what's the matter?"

"Mr. Smith," said Sam, without replying to the question, "have you lost any money lately?"

"Not a cent since Oscar went away," was the prompt reply.

"Now, let me tell you what's a fact!" exclaimed Sam. "We didn't come here to listen to any hard words against Oscar Preston, and if you are going to use them we'll not stay. We'll tell you that much to begin with. We will tell you, further, that you have made no friends by the slanderous reports you have circulated regarding that boy."

"I have circulated no slanderous reports about him," replied the grocer, who could scarcely believe his ears. "I said that I didn't think he was honest, and I say so yet."

"Yes; the story is all over town that you discharged Oscar because you thought he had taken money out of your drawer; but all the best people here know that he never did it. You say you have lost nothing lately. Do you happen to own a pocket-book about so long and so wide?" said Sam, placing his hands upon the desk, and indicating by them the length and breadth of the article he was describing.

Mr. Smith started as if he had been shot, and got off his high stool with such haste that he would have gone headlong to the floor if Miles had not caught him and placed him fairly on his feet again.

He opened the door of a large safe that stood in one corner of the office, and, unlocking a little drawer on the inside, pulled it out and looked into it.

"Great Moses!" he ejaculated; "it is gone!"

"I thought so," said Sam. "Was there anything of value in it?"

"Was there?" shouted Mr. Smith, trembling all over with excitement. "There was a hundred and fifty dollars in money in it, and negotiable paper to the amount of eight hundred dollars more. Have you seen it, Sam? Have you got it? Hand it out here!"

"Now don't try to rush matters," said Sam, whose cool, deliberate way of talking and acting so exasperated the excited grocer that he could hardly refrain from laying violent hands upon him and searching his pockets. "This thing must be done decently and in order, or it can't be done at all. I certainly have a pocket-book in my possession, but I want to be sure that it belongs to you before I hand it over to you. Here, Miles, look at it while Mr. Smith describes it."

"That's it! that's it!" cried the grocer, catching a momentary glimpse of the pocket-book as Sam handed it to his companion. "I would know it among a thousand. It's mine! Give it to me!"

He made an effort to snatch it, but Sam was too quick for him. He succeeded in placing it in Miles's hands, and the latter held fast to it.

"Sam!" cried the angry and astonished grocer, picking up a heavy ruler and banging it down upon his desk, "do you think I would tell you a falsehood? Do you take me for a thief?"

"All I have to say about that is, if we want people to put implicit faith in us, we must be careful how we accuse others of wrong," answered Sam boldly. "Now, what sort of a pocket-book is it?"

Miles had moved up close to the window, and stood with his back toward the grocer, holding the pocket-book in his hand, and waiting for him to describe it. He thought he was well acquainted with Sam Hynes, but he told himself now that he had never before known what sort of a fellow he was. He was astonished at Sam's impudence.

Mr. Smith was one of the oldest business men in Eaton; and although he was so close in his dealings, and thought so much of a dollar that he had never gained the respect or good-will of the majority of the people, he had never been suspected of dishonesty or untruthfulness.

And Sam did not by any means suspect him now. He simply wished to show Mr. Smith that he had been handling a two-edged sword that was liable to cut both ways.

CHAPTER VII. OFF FOR THE RIVER.

"What sort of a pocket-book is it?" repeated Sam.

"Look for my name on the clasp," said Mr. Smith, who was so nervous and impatient that he could not stand still.

"I see it," said Miles.

"Then it is my property, and you might as well hand it out here at once," said the grocer. "I want to know how much I have lost, without any more trifling."

"There's no trifling about this," replied Sam. "There is more than one Erastus Smith in the world who is able to own a pocket-book like that. Go on."

"Open it, and look for a hundred dollars in paper money and fifty dollars in gold," said Mr. Smith, with an air of resignation.

"I find no such sum here," answered Miles, after he had looked through the pocket-book. "All I see is a single five-dollar note."

Mr. Smith groaned.

"Almost thirty-two hundred dollars in clean cash gone out of the firm in less than eight months," said he, with a long-drawn sigh. "That cuts down the profits fearfully—fearfully!"

"I find here some bills receivable."

"Good!" exclaimed the grocer. "I am glad the thief left them. There ought to be between eight and nine hundred dollars' worth of them."

Mr. Smith then went on to give a description of the bills, which were endorsed and filed in nearly the same order in which he referred to them.

So retentive was his memory that he could recall the dates of a good many of them, give their exact wording, and tell the color of the paper and ink that were used in writing them.

After he had gone through half a dozen of the bills in this way, Miles turned and looked at Sam.

"Are you satisfied?" asked the latter.

"I am," replied Miles.

"Then hand it over."

Mr. Smith snatched the pocket-book as it was extended toward him, and climbed to his place upon the high stool.

"Where did you get this?" said he.

"In a drawer in Oscar Preston's work-bench," replied Sam.

"Ah!" said the grocer, in a very significant tone of voice. "Now, the next question is: How did it come there?"

The answer almost took Mr. Smith's breath away.

"Your favorite clerk, Will Stuart, put it there, for I saw him do it," said Sam.

And then he went on to describe, in as few words as possible, what Stuart had done while he was in Oscar's shop, and explained the object he had in view in taking the pocket-book out of the drawer without Oscar's knowledge.

Mr. Smith pushed his spectacles over his forehead and listened intently to all the boy had to say, and, when Sam ceased speaking, he brought his hand down upon his desk with a ringing slap.

"I wondered why Stuart was so eager to drive the delivery-wagon this afternoon, and this explains it," said he. "I see it all now. Stuart knew that I do not often have occasion to open that little drawer in the safe, and he probably took the book a day or two ago—I know it was there last Saturday, for I saw it—thinking that, if he placed it in Oscar's bench, where it would certainly have been found if we had taken out a search-warrant, we would believe that he stole it before he was discharged. You have no objection to facing Stuart, I suppose?"

"None whatever," Sam promptly replied; "that is just what we came here for."

Mr. Smith climbed down from his high stool, unlocked and opened the door, and looked out into the store. The only person he saw there was the junior partner.

"Send Stuart here, will you?" said he.

"Stuart has gone home," was the reply. "He had a sudden attack of sick headache."

"Oh, he did, did he?" exclaimed Sam. "It must have been very sudden, for he was well enough ten minutes ago."

Mr. Anderson came into the office in obedience to a sign from his partner, and was speedily made acquainted with the object of the boys' visit.

He was almost overwhelmed with astonishment, and declared that he never would have believed it of Stuart.

"Now, Mr. Smith," said Sam, when there was a little pause in the conversation, "we will leave this matter in your hands. I am ready to be a witness at any time, if you decide to prosecute; but I shall not spread any damaging reports about Stuart, and neither will Miles. We don't believe in hitting a person when he's down. We have one favor to ask of you, and that is that you will make Oscar all the amends in your power for the great injustice you have done him."

"I know what my duty is under the circumstances, young gentlemen," said Mr. Smith shortly.

He had got his pocket-book back, and eight hundred dollars' worth of bills, and he felt a little more independent.

The boys picked up their caps and left the store, while Mr. Smith mounted his high stool and mopped his face vigorously with his handkerchief. The exciting scene through which he had just passed had brought the perspiration out on his forehead in big drops.

"I had no idea that Sam Hynes was such a bad boy," said he to his partner. "He wouldn't give up that pocket-book until I proved its contents; and I have done business right here in this town for almost half a century. He had the impudence to tell me, in effect, that if I didn't want to be suspected of dishonesty myself I must not be in such haste to suspect others. I declare, he's a wonderful bad boy—wonderful!"

Meanwhile, Sam was walking down the street, with his hands in his pockets, whistling merrily, and taking such strides that Miles, after trying in vain to keep up, seized him by the arm and held him back.

"Sam," said he, "how dare you talk that way to a grown man? If I had been Mr. Smith, I would have boxed your ears for you."

Sam looked up at the clouds and laughed heartily.

"You might have got your hands full," said he.

"What will your father say when he hears of it?" continued Miles.

"He'll hear of it as soon as he comes home to-night," replied Sam. "I make it a point never to do a thing that I am afraid or ashamed to have him know, and I shall tell him of it myself. He'll give me a good going over for not being more respectful to gray hairs; but I deserve it, and I'll never do the like again—never," added Sam, who wished now, when it was too late, that he had remembered that Mr. Smith was the grandfather of two of the members of the ball club to which he belonged. "I knew well enough that he wouldn't lay claim to any but his own property, but he thought I was suspicious of him, and it cut him, didn't it? Perhaps he'll know now how Oscar felt to be unjustly accused. Going to turn off here? Well, good-by! I promised to see Oscar again, you know. I'll drop around to-morrow night and leave a brace of ducks for your Sunday dinner. Now, Miles——"

Sam finished the sentence by shaking his finger at his friend and then placing it upon his closed lips.

"I understand, and I'll bear it in mind, too," was the reply.

"Good-by, and good luck to you!"

When Sam entered the shop where Oscar was still at work, the latter had a good many questions to ask regarding his abrupt departure a few minutes before; but Sam, being all ready for him, gave his inquiries prompt replies, which, although they satisfied Oscar's curiosity, did not let him into the secret of the matter.

The young taxidermist thought his friend appeared to be very jubilant, and well he might, for he had done something to be proud of.

Suppose a constable had come up there with a search-warrant and found Mr. Smith's property in the place where Stuart had left it! Oscar would have been in trouble indeed. The latter did not know what a narrow escape he had had that day, and it was no part of his companion's plan to enlighten him.

Sam never talked about his exploits. He sat on the bench with his hands under his legs, school-boy fashion, pounded with the heels of his boots against the drawer in which the pocket-book had been concealed, and talked incessantly about the duck-hunt that was to come off the next day. When all their plans had been discussed, Sam said good-night and left the shop.

As soon as Oscar had eaten his supper he went up to his room, and when he came down again he carried a game-bag, powder-flask, and shot-pouch in one hand, and a double-barrel gun in the other.

Oscar's gun was not just the weapon that one would expect to see after listening to the description of it which Leon Parker had given his cousin. It was a good deal larger and heavier than the little bird-gun which held so prominent a place in Leon's estimation, but it was not a "blunderbuss," and there were several boys, and men, too, in the village, who would have been glad to purchase it at any figures the owner might have put upon it.

But it had once belonged to his father, and Oscar would not have parted with it for any consideration. It was known all over the country as a "brag shooting-gun," and among all the young hunters in the neighborhood there were but few who could show as many birds at the end of a day's hunt as Oscar could.

Its weight was no detriment to him, for his strong muscles enabled him to handle it very easily and quickly, and he seldom missed a double shot when the opportunity to make it was presented to him.

Having received a thorough rubbing, inside and out, the weapon was set away in one corner with a couple of corks in the muzzles and an oiled rag over the tubes to keep out the dust; and two hours later Oscar was snug in bed, wrapped in a dreamless slumber.

One of his windows was raised about three inches, and through this opening ran a stout cord, one end of which was tied to a chair standing at the head of Oscar's bed; the other reached down to the ground and was securely fastened to a rose-bush.

Shortly after four o'clock in the morning, Bugle, who always slept on the front porch when the weather was warm enough to permit it, challenged someone who came into the yard, and soon thereafter the cord began to saw up and down over the window-sill.

The chair moved, but Oscar slept on all unconscious of it. The person below waited and listened a few seconds and then renewed his pulls at the string, putting considerably more strength and energy into them.

This time the chair was upset with a loud crash, and Oscar jumped up and hurried to the window. It was too dark to see anybody, but he knew who was there.

"We'll have to make haste, for I overslept myself," said Sam Hynes's well-known voice. "Did I do any damage up there? I heard something come down pretty hard."

"Oh, no!" was the reassuring answer. "Have you had any breakfast?"

"Of course not. I intend to get it here."

"All right. I'll be down in five minutes."

Oscar dressed himself with all haste, and when he went downstairs he found Sam waiting for him at the back door.

Bugle entered when Sam did—he always kept as close to a gun as he could—and frisked about in high glee, thrashing the boys with his heavy tail and continually getting in their way.

"Splendid morning," said Sam, as he leaned his gun up in one corner. "Warm and foggy; more like spring than fall. The ducks always fly low during a fog. What can I do to help you?"

"Nothing at all. Just sit down and make yourself comfortable. The fire is laid, and it will take but a few minutes to make a cup of coffee. You think it is going to be a good day, do you? Then I ought to make some money before night. Calkins & Son of Yarmouth have written me a letter offering to take all the game I can send them."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Sam. "I am glad to hear it."

He did not tell Oscar that he knew all about it, but such was the fact. He knew that Mr. Parker had been down to the city to attend to some legal business for that very firm; and it was when he was looking about their store and listening while Mr. Calkins expressed his regrets that he could not secure game enough to supply the demand, which was unusually great just then, that the lawyer happened to think of Oscar, whom he recommended as the best person Mr. Calkins could engage to shoot for him.

The latter, seeing that his visitor was interested in the boy, said he would try to secure his services, and if he succeeded, he would pay him for his game as soon as it was received, and not wait to sell it on commission.

Mr. Parker gave the merchant Oscar's address, and that was the way our hero came to be a market-shooter.

Sam, we repeat, knew all about it; but he listened while Oscar talked of the offer he had received, and acted as though everything he heard was news to him.

The fire was soon cracking away merrily, and, while waiting for the kettle to boil, Oscar busied himself in setting the table.

Bugle, finding that he was entirely neglected, called attention to himself by uttering a deafening bay.

"Silence!" exclaimed Oscar. "That will never do. He will disturb mother. We must shut him up. Bugle is no good for ducks."

"I'll fix him," said Sam.

"Take your gun with you," suggested Oscar, as Sam took the key of the shop down from its nail. "You'll never get him in there if you don't."

Bugle was quite ready to accompany Sam when he saw the boy pick up his double-barrel; that is, he was ready to accompany him to the woods, but he would not follow him to the shop.

He ran out of the wood-shed, and, thrusting his head in at the door, looked at Sam, but he could not be induced to go near him.

Oscar could hear his friend coaxing and scolding, and finally a suppressed whine from Bugle told him that Sam had been obliged to collar the animal and drag him into his prison.

A hearty breakfast having been disposed of, a lunch was stowed away in Oscar's game-bag, and the boys were ready for the start.

In the wood-shed they found a light wheelbarrow, which contained the decoys they were to use during the hunt and also the sail and oars belonging to Oscar's boat.

Sam took his friend's gun under his arm, Oscar set the wheelbarrow in motion, and, with Bugle's farewell ringing in their ears, they set out for the river at a rapid walk.

Bugle recognizes his enemies.

CHAPTER VIII. A FORTUNATE DUCK-HUNT.

The young hunters found Oscar's skiff where the owner had left it, drawn high and dry upon the bank, and fastened with a lock and chain to a tree that stood a short distance below Mr. Peck's boat-house.

Mr. Peck, who made a business of fishing and renting sail- and row-boats for the accommodation of the village pleasure-seekers, was standing on his wharf when the boys came up.

"Going ducking?" said he. "Well, I'll tell you what I wish you would do for me," he added, upon receiving an affirmative reply. "I let one of my boats yesterday afternoon to a stranger to go down to Cottonwood. He was to have been back before dark, but I aint seen no signs of him yet. Didn't look to me like a man who would be likely to run off with a boat, because he wore a gold watch and gold spectacles and that showed that he was able to buy a boat if he'd wanted one."

"How long has this fog been on?" asked Oscar.

"Ever since midnight."

"Then perhaps he became bewildered and tied up somewhere to wait for the fog to lift," continued Oscar. "If he is a stranger, of course he doesn't know the river."

"I don't see how in the world he could get bewildered," observed Sam. "If he had rowed over to this bank, and come straight up stream, he would have found the village without any trouble. He certainly knew enough for that."

"Well, I aint so certain of it, neither, Sam," said Mr. Peck. "'Pears to me, now that I think of it, that he didn't know much of anything. I give him my best boat, too, for he looked as though he was able to pay for it. I wish you'd kinder keep an eye out for him, and set him right if he has missed his reckoning."

"We'll do it, Mr. Peck," said Sam.

Oscar unlocked his boat, turned it right-side up with his companion's assistance, and pushed it into the water.

Here again Leon's description was at fault. Oscar's craft was not a "leaky old scow"; it was a light, easy-running skiff. As he had built it himself, of course it was not as finely modelled as some of Mr. Peck's costly boats, but it answered the purpose for which it was intended.

Leon had seen it come up to Mr. Peck's wharf almost filled with wild ducks. It had more than once beaten his nice little boat in a fair race up the river from Squaw Island.

It was named after Sam's sister Katie, the prettiest girl in the village, who seemed to prefer Oscar's company to Leon's; and perhaps these were the reasons why the latter could not speak well of it.

The skiff having been launched, the sail was put into it.

The game-bags were stowed away in a little locker in the bow, the guns were carefully loaded and put in their proper places—one in the stern and the other on the midship thwart—and then Sam shipped the rudder, while Oscar got out the oars and rowed away into the fog.

In five minutes Mr. Peck's wharf and boat-house were out of sight, and the boys found themselves enveloped in a cloud which concealed everything that was more than twenty yards distant from their boat.

"How will this do, Sam?" said Oscar, resting on his oars.

"Do you hear that?" asked his companion, in reply. "I think we had better go a little further out."

Oscar thought so too. He dipped the oars into the water again, and the boat moved deeper into the fog.

The sound that had attracted Sam's attention was made by a solitary whistle-wing as he pursued his way down the river.

Oscar pulled steadily for five minutes longer, and then the oars were allowed to swing around by the side of the boat, and each boy, picking up his gun, squared about on his seat and waited—for a quarter of a minute only.

They had scarcely taken their positions before a flock of mallards suddenly emerged from the fog, flying so close to the water that the young hunters could have knocked them down with their guns if they had continued on their way; but, of course, they did not.

The ducks arose in the air and sheered off the instant they discovered the boat, and the boys sprang to their feet at the same time.

As the flock flew over their heads, they turned away from each other, and, when the birds had passed the boat, discharged their double-barrels in quick succession. They pulled the triggers so nearly at the same instant that the four reports sounded like two.

Learn two things here in regard to shooting on the wing, if you do not know them already: Never fire at a wild fowl as he is coming toward you. The thick feathers on his breast will glance the shot, and, if some of them do not chance to hit him in the head, he will continue on his way unharmed. Wait until he has passed you, then aim low and a little in advance of him, keeping both eyes open, and holding so that you can see daylight between him and the muzzle of your gun; then the shot will pass under his feathers, and in a few seconds more you can put him in your game-bag.

If you are hunting with a companion, don't turn toward him when you are getting ready to shoot, but turn away from him. Then, if you accidentally discharge your gun in your excitement (but remember that you must not allow yourself to become excited), the shot will go up into the empty air and no one will be injured.

"That will do for a beginning," said Sam, when the smoke had cleared away so that the boys could see the effect of their shot. "How many ducks were there in that flock?"

"About thirty," said Oscar; "and they were all mallards, too."

"Well, we've got two—four—hold on, there!"

Sam fell to reloading his gun with all possible haste, while Oscar quickly resumed his seat, picked up the oars, and turned the boat's head down the stream. Three of the ducks had come down with broken wings and were now swimming rapidly away into the fog.

It did not take Sam much longer to charge his old-fashioned muzzle-loader than it would take you to charge your new-fashioned breech-loader. He never used loose shot during a hunt. On rainy days, when he had nothing else to do, he put up a lot of cartridges.

He first made a number of paper bags, a little smaller than the bore of his gun, and glued a wad fast to one end of them. When they became dry, he filled them with different kinds of shot, putting bird-shot in one and duck-shot in another, closed the bag and fastened another wad at that end. Then all he had to do, when he wanted to load his gun, was to pour in the powder from his flask, drive home a couple of these cartridges, which he carried loose in his coat-pocket, put on the caps, which he carried loose in his vest-pocket, and the weapon was ready to be discharged.

All this he did in the same space of time that Oscar occupied in turning the boat around. He made sure work of two of the wounded ducks, and the other, which seemed too badly hurt to dive, was knocked on the head with an oar.

They secured seven ducks that time, and twelve more out of three other flocks which passed over their heads within the next twenty minutes.

"Now, let me row awhile," said Sam, when the last bird had been picked up. "You are doing all the work, and I am having all the fun."

"Yes, you have had all the best of it," answered Oscar, as he exchanged places with his companion. "It is going to blow now, and this fog will all be gone in ten minutes. I think we had better go down to the head of the island and put out our decoys."

It turned out just as Oscar said it would. The breeze, which had sprung up since they left the shore, grew stronger every minute, the fog rapidly faded away, and in a quarter of an hour the young hunters had a clear river before them.

The village was out of sight behind the point, and Squaw Island—their favorite camping and shooting ground—was in plain view and about two miles away.

Oscar directed the boat toward it, and Sam, after taking off his coat, laid out his strength on the oars. The wind came up the river in strong, but fitful gusts, and finally raised a sea that made the little boat dance about right merrily.

"I don't think we are going to have such a splendid day, after all," observed Sam, who had grown very weatherwise during his numerous excursions down the river. "I wish this wind would hold up and let the fog settle down again. I don't like it."

"Neither does that fellow," answered Oscar, looking over his companion's shoulder toward some object further down the river. "The wind must be cutting up some strange shines down there, or else he doesn't know what he is about. Just look at him."

Sam released his hold upon the oars, allowing them to swing back alongside the skiff, and, facing about on his seat, directed his gaze down the river.

Off the head of Squaw Island, he discovered a sail-boat, which was acting in a very singular manner.

The wind was blowing straight up the river, and it would have been no trouble at all for one who understood his business to make rapid headway against the current. But it soon became plain to Oscar and Sam, both of whom were as good sailors as boys ever get to be who have had no opportunity to try their skill on deep water, that the man who was seated at the helm of the sail-boat did not understand his business.

Instead of letting out the sheet, as he ought to have done, he had drawn it taut, at the same time holding the bow of his boat up the river. The consequence was that the sail was shaking violently, and he was making no headway at all.

"That's the boat Mr. Peck is looking for," said Sam; "and if that is the way she has been handled ever since she left the village, I don't wonder that she didn't get back last night."

"Perhaps we had better go down there," replied Oscar. "That man doesn't seem to be quite up to—my gracious! There he goes! Give me an oar, quick!"

Before the words had fairly left Oscar's lips, one of the oars was unshipped and placed in his hands.

The sail-boat had been upset through the ignorance or carelessness of her skipper. The latter, becoming dissatisfied with the very slow progress he was making, had brought his craft around upon the other tack, but he did not change his own position.

He pushed the boom over his head as it swung around, and, instead of moving over to the windward side, he kept his seat on the leeward gunwale, and his own weight, added to the weight of the sail and the pressure of the wind against the canvas, overturned the boat before he could think twice.

"If you ever pulled in your life, pull now!" exclaimed Oscar, as he shipped his oar and tugged at it until he fairly made things snap.

"You're stroke; do your level best!" cried Sam. "You'll not drive your end of the boat ahead of mine, I'll promise you that."

Oscar's skiff had never travelled so rapidly under the "white-ash breeze" before. The boys being both good oarsmen, knew how to make every stroke tell, and they brought all their strength and skill into requisition.

Guided by Sam, who sat in the bow, and looked over his shoulder occasionally to make sure of her course, the Katie flew over the waters like a wild-fowl, on the wing, and in much less time than the boys had expected, she came up with and passed the overturned boat, which was floating, bottom up, with the current.

The young hunters ceased rowing, and, springing to their feet, looked in every direction. They could see nobody, and the fear that, after all their efforts, they had arrived too late to save the luckless skipper of the sail-boat was already half formed in their minds, when a shrill, piping voice called to them from the water:

"This way, if you please. I have met with a most untoward accident, and I believe I am in need of a little assistance."

"Well, he is a cool one, whoever he is," said Sam, in a low tone. "If I were in his situation I should think I stood in need of a good deal of assistance."

Just in time.

Sam quickly shipped the oar, which his companion handed to him, and pulled toward the disabled boat, while Oscar threw off his coat, pushed back his sleeves, and, jumping upon the stern-sheets, showed Sam, by signs, how to guide the skiff.

A few of the latter's long, sweeping strokes brought them around the stern of the sail-boat, and there, clinging to the swaying rudder with both hands, and apparently so nearly overcome by his sudden immersion in the cold water that he was on the very point of letting go his hold, was a bald-headed old gentleman in spectacles.

As the boys came up he extended one hand toward them, and at the same instant the other slipped off the rudder. He went down like a piece of lead, and in a second more would have been out of sight, had not Oscar dashed forward, plunged his arms into the water up to his shoulders, and seized him by the collar.

This action on his part would have overturned the skiff in an instant, or else Oscar would have gone overboard, had it not been for an equally prompt action on the part of Sam Hynes.

The latter, who never lost his head under any circumstances, threw himself as far as he could over the opposite side of the boat to counterbalance Oscar's weight, at the same time bracing his feet firmly and seizing his friend by the waistband of his trousers.

"Hang on to him," he shouted, "and I can trim the boat and heave you both in!"

Sam was noted among his fellows for his strength, but on this occasion it seemed that he had undertaken more than he could accomplish. The skipper of the sail-boat was so completely benumbed with the cold, and so nearly strangled, that he could not help himself.

Oscar was pretty large and heavy for a boy of his age, and Sam found that it was not so easy to haul them both into the boat. But, after pulling and tugging until he was red in the face, he succeeded in bringing Oscar to an upright position, so that the latter could use some of his own strength, and then the work was quickly done.

The old gentleman was pulled over the side and placed on the bottom of the skiff, where he would be somewhat protected from the wind.

Sam's hat was put upon his head, and Oscar's coat was snugly wrapped about his shoulders. He had had a very narrow escape; but, to the great amazement of the boys who had saved him, he did not seem to be at all disconcerted.

He wiped the water from his face, coughed once or twice, and said in a shrill voice, addressing himself to Oscar:

"This is neither the time nor the place, young gentleman, to thank you for the gallant service you have rendered me, but I assure you it shall not be forgotten. I have to-day received a new insight into meteorological phenomena, of which I have been a close student for a life-time. Winds, as I now know, are——"

How long the rescued man would have continued to talk in this strain it is hard to tell; but just then he began to shiver all over, and his teeth chattered so violently that he could not utter a word.

The boys, who had listened to this speech with the greatest astonishment, exchanging significant glances the while, were recalled to themselves by these signs of suffering.

CHAPTER IX. THE CAMP ON THE ISLAND.

"Give me an oar!" exclaimed Oscar. "We must get back to the village without the loss of a moment."

"Then hoist the sail," said Sam, "and we'll go up flying."

"It would be of no use. The wind is dying away, and that fog will be down on us in a quarter of an hour thicker than ever."

Oscar, who pulled the stroke-oar, kept his friend Sam exceedingly busy during the next forty-five minutes, and tested that young gentleman's endurance and muscle in a way they had never been tested before.

They were both tired and quite out of breath when they reached the wharf, where they found Mr. Peck and Mr. Hall, the miller, waiting for them.

The boys were glad to see Mr. Hall there. His grist-mill was located but a few rods away, and they knew that there was a good fire in the office, in front of which their half-frozen passenger would soon be thoroughly dried and thawed out.

The two men had seen the skiff coming up the river, and knowing by the way the oars were handled that there was something wrong, they had waited to see what it was. When they discovered the rescued man sitting on the bottom of the boat, they knew what had happened, and there was no need of inquiries.

"Give us your hand, sir," said Mr. Hall, as the boys lifted the old gentleman to his feet, "and I'll take you right over to my office. I've got a red hot stove there. Just catch hold of his other arm, Sam, and help him along."

"Where did you find him?" asked Mr. Peck, when he was left alone with Oscar. "And where's my boat?"

"We saw him capsize off the head of the island," replied the boy.

"Didn't I tell you that he didn't seem to know much of anything?" exclaimed Mr. Peck, in disgust. "There's no excuse for upsetting that boat in this wind."

"None whatever," was Oscar's answer. "When he jibed the sail he didn't move over to windward, and it was his weight and the sails that overturned the boat. The wind wasn't to blame for it at all. We left the boat as we found it, keel up, and going down the river as fast as the current could take it. Our passenger was so nearly exhausted that we couldn't stop to pick it up."

Mr. Peck remarked that he would go down after it himself, and charge the bald-headed old gentleman a good round sum, too, for his carelessness; and just then Sam came back, wearing one of Mr. Hall's old caps and carrying Oscar's coat over his arm. He had left his own cap, he said, for the gentleman to wear, for, of course, he couldn't let him walk to his hotel bareheaded.

While Sam was speaking, he jumped down into the boat, which was at once pushed out into the stream and headed toward Squaw Island.

The young hunters had lost more than an hour and a half of the best part of the day, but still there was time enough for them to double the size of their bag if the ducks would only be accommodating enough to come within range of their double-barrels.

Contrary to Oscar's predictions, the breeze which had so suddenly sprung up, and driven off the fog, continued to blow steadily for three hours.

Within twenty minutes after leaving Mr. Peck's wharf they reached the island, but they did not add a single duck to their bag on the way. They saw plenty of birds, but every flock flew wild.

Oscar at once put Sam and his double-barrel on shore, and then pulled back into the stream a short distance, to set out his decoys.

While he was thus employed, Sam was engaged in cutting branches from the willows that grew near by, and filling up the gaps the winds had made in the blind they had put up there the year before.

It was built upon the top of a little knoll, about thirty yards from the place where the decoys were anchored, and so completely was it concealed by the tall weeds and grass which grew on every side that anyone who did not know just where to look for it would have hard work to find it.

When their preparations were all completed, the skiff was hidden in a little bay, surrounded by the thicket of willows before spoken of; and the boys, with their guns in their hands, sat down behind their blind, opposite two loopholes, which commanded a view as far up as the point, and talked over the incidents of the morning while waiting for the first flock of ducks to swing to their decoys.

They came to three conclusions concerning the man they had saved from going to the bottom of the river. He was well-to-do in the world, judging by his appearance; he knew something about physical geography, and he was not a proper person to be entrusted with the management of a sail-boat.

Thus far they agreed, and then they began to differ in their opinions.

Sam declared that there was something wrong with his upper story. No man, with a level head on his shoulders, would talk as he did immediately after being rescued from a watery grave.

Oscar, however, had other ideas, and, as it happened, they were correct.

"He is completely wrapped up in his books," said the boy. "Perhaps he does not know much outside of them, but you take him there, and he is perfectly at home. There's more knowledge in that little bald head of his than you and I can ever hope to acquire."

Sam shrugged his shoulders with an air which said, "Perhaps there is, and perhaps there isn't," and just then the discussion was cut short by the appearance of a flock of mallards, which drew to their decoys.

They circled around them once or twice, and were on the point of alighting among them, when one wary old fellow in the flock, not liking the looks of the wooden deceptions, mounted higher into the air with a warning quack. Some of the flock followed him, and others tried to do so, but could not.

Even the wary old fellow himself did not go far, for Oscar brought him down, in company with two others, before his warning note was fairly uttered.

The volley was not as effective as the boys intended it should be, for only five ducks fell. The current carried them to the shore in a few minutes, and Oscar brought them in and placed them behind the blind.

The sport continued for two hours and a half, and then, the breeze having died away, the fog settled down again, this time bringing rain with it.

When the decoys were shut out from view, the boys laid aside their guns, and Oscar, after placing his game-bag within easy reach of his friend's hand, arose to his feet and walked off toward the willows, while Sam began to cut up some dry branches with his knife.

By the time Oscar returned with an armful of wood he had found in the thicket, Sam had raised a good-sized pile of shavings and kindling-wood, and a roaring fire was under way in short order.

While Oscar continued to make regular trips between the thicket and the fire, bringing his arms full of wood each time, Sam selected a duck from the pile behind the blind, plucked and cleaned it with skill that would have done credit to any professional cook, and, having impaled it upon a forked stick, thrust the stick into the ground beside the fire and left it there, while he proceeded to overhaul the contents of his game-bag and Oscar's.

The dinner being well under way, and all the firewood they were likely to need having been placed close at hand, the young hunters sat down to take a rest; for the exertions they had made to rescue the skipper of the sail-boat and carry him to the village before he froze to death had wearied them not a little.

Now and then a hoarse "quack, quack!" came to their ears through the thick mist, followed by a loud splashing in the water as a flock of ducks settled into if, and occasionally they heard a lonely whistle-wing flying down the river; but the fog concealed everything from their view outside of a radius of twenty yards, and they were reluctantly compelled to allow the birds to pass unharmed.

They had made themselves comfortable in spite of the moist condition of things. The branches that Oscar had spread over the ground kept their feet out of the mud; the high blind, behind which the fire was built, served to protect them from the gusts of rain that came out of the fog, and the boys were well contented and were prepared to enjoy their dinner as heartily as though they had a tight roof over their heads.

The dinner was well worth eating, as all Sam's dinners were; and when ample justice had been done to it, Oscar brought up the ducks that were in the boat and placed them with those that were piled behind the blind.

"Sam," said he, when he had counted them, "we've got just forty-two."

"A pretty good day's work," replied Sam. "I want six of them. You take the rest and ship them to Yarmouth."

"I guess not," answered Oscar promptly. "We'll divide, as we have always done. Twenty-one of these ducks belong to you, and if you want any of them shipped to the city, you can attend to the matter yourself."

"So I can. I didn't think of that."

Sam spoke as though he did not care what was done with the ducks, but there was something in his tone that caused Oscar to sit up on his knees and look at him very sharply.

He knew well enough that if Sam sent any of the ducks to Yarmouth they would be sent in his (Oscar's) name, and that his friend would expect him to receive the proceeds and apply them to his own use. Sam did not need the money himself, for he had a rich and indulgent father; but that made no difference to Oscar, who wanted to earn every cent he spent.

"Sam," said he earnestly, "if you do that I shall be very angry at you."

"If I do what?" returned Sam innocently.

"Oh, you can't fool me! If you do it, I'll never go hunting with you again."

"Then I'll not do it, of course; but I don't know what you mean all the same. Now, as we have nothing else to do, let's draw these birds. Our shooting is over for the day."

And so it proved. The boys remained behind their blind until it was three o'clock by Sam's watch, but not another duck showed himself. They heard them splashing in the water on both sides of the island, but the mist shut them out from view.

The rain having by this time put out their fire, and the birds having been cleaned and made ready for the market, the skiff was launched, the ducks were packed away in the bows, the guns and empty game-bags were stowed in the stern, and, after the decoys had been picked up, the boys pulled through the fog toward the village.

When they came alongside the wharf, they found Mr. Peck and Mr. Hall there, as before.

The former was hard at work upon the wreck of his sail-boat, which he had found near the foot of the island, and towed home after infinite trouble, and Mr. Hall stood by, with his hands in his pockets, looking at him.

"Well, boys," said the miller, "your crazy man is all right. He stayed by my stove until he was warmed and dried, and then he started for his hotel."

"There!" exclaimed Sam, turning to Oscar with a triumphant air. "What did I tell you? Didn't I say he was cracked?"

"That accounts for his upsetting the boat," remarked Mr. Peck. "I knew well enough that no man, who had any sense into his head, could capsize in such a breeze as he did."

"There is something wrong with him," continued Mr. Hall. "While he was standing there, shivering in front of my stove, he discovered my pet squirrels and canaries, and he walked over to their cages, and talked to them in the strangest language I ever heard. I took it to be Greek or Latin. He said he had been down the river after—what did he call those things he was looking for, Peck?"

"Blessed if I know," was the answer. "I never heard of any such things before."

"He's got an idea that he is connected with some college," continued Mr. Hall, "and that somebody has given him a lot of money to spend in some foolish way. He didn't think, until he got ready to start for his hotel, that he had lost his gun when his boat upset. The only sensible thing he did while he was in my office was to give me ten dollars to pay Mr. Peck for his trouble, and take down Oscar's name and street. I told him that you had a fancy for shooting birds and animals, and he said he would make it a point to drop around and see you."

As the miller ceased speaking, he walked off toward his office; Mr. Peck resumed his work upon the wreck; Oscar went into the boat-house after his wheelbarrow, and Sam began unloading the skiff.

When everything had been taken out of it, the boat was drawn up on the bank, turned bottom upward, and made fast to a tree with a chain and padlock. The sail and the oars belonging to it, as well as the decoys, were stowed away in one corner of Mr. Peck's boat-house, where they were to remain until Oscar could find time to come after them. The ducks made as large a load as he could take to the village in his wheelbarrow.

When all this work had been done, Sam selected six of the finest ducks from the pile, and, after tying their feet together with a piece of stout twine, placed them by the side of the boat-house, out of the way, and began to assist Oscar in packing the others away in the wheelbarrow.

"Hold on there!" exclaimed the latter. "How many did you put in then?"

"Don't know," answered Sam, depositing another armful on top of the first. "Didn't count 'em."

"But I want you to count them. I own just twenty-one of these ducks."

"Don't you want the others?"

"Of course not. We're going to divide. Those ducks will all have to come out of that wheelbarrow again, so that I can count them."

"All right," exclaimed Sam, "out they come!" And suiting the action to the word, he overturned the wheelbarrow, spilling the ducks upon the wharf. "Now, count them yourself," said he, "and then you'll know that you have got what you want."

Oscar proceeded to count out his share of the birds, which he packed away in the wheelbarrow, and, having placed his gun, game-bag, and powder- and shot-flasks on top of them, he stopped and looked around for Sam.

He was standing near the shore-end of the wharf, with his double-barrel on one shoulder and his bunch of game slung over the other.

"If you are all ready, come on," said he.

"But what are you going to do with the rest of those ducks?"

"I am not going to do anything with them. If it is too much trouble for you to ship them to the city, and make forty cents a pair out of them, you had better leave them where they are. I've got all I want."

Oscar looked first at his friend, then at the ducks, and finally began packing them away in the wheelbarrow with the others, while Sam struck up a lively whistle to keep from laughing outright.

He had done his best shooting that day on purpose to make a large bag, fully intending that Oscar should ship the surplus birds and receive pay for them; and this was the way he took to accomplish his object. Indeed, he almost always found a way to make Oscar do just as he wanted him to do.

Having placed the game in the hands of the express agent at the depot, and sent a notice of shipment to Calkins & Son, the two boys started for home, well satisfied with their day's sport.

CHAPTER X. AN ASTOUNDING OFFER.

Oscar was very tired when he reached home that night, but he spent some hours at his bench before he went to bed. He was anxious to have his case of birds ready for delivery by the time it had been promised. So as soon as he had eaten his supper, and answered all the questions his mother had to ask regarding the man he and Sam had saved from drowning, he lighted the lamp in his shop and went to work.

Everything being ready to his hand, he made rapid progress, and when he locked his shop, at ten o'clock, he told himself that by Monday, at noon, if nothing unforeseen happened, the case would be safely mounted in Mr. Jackson's dining-room.

And so it was. It was finished at eight o'clock, and Oscar, who was a good judge of such matters, declared, with no little satisfaction, that he had never seen a finer piece of work.

There was one thing about it that did not look just right, and the boy wondered what Mr. Jackson would say when he saw it.

The wheelbarrow was again brought into requisition, and the case having been placed upon it, and covered with a sheet to protect it from the dust, Oscar trundled it off toward Mr. Jackson's house.

His pull at the bell was answered by that gentleman himself, who, not being an early riser, had not yet eaten his breakfast.

He assisted Oscar to carry the case through the hall and place it upon the little side-table on which it was to stand, and, when the sheet had been removed, he stood off and looked at it critically. Then he called Miles and all the rest of his family in, to pass judgment upon it.

"It is just what I wanted, Oscar," said Mr. Jackson, at length, "and you could not improve it in any way. It is splendid, and I am entirely satisfied. Hold on, here; what's this?"

He walked close up to the case, and placed his finger on one of the panes of glass opposite a bird in resplendent plumage, with a green and purple crest, marked with two narrow lines of white.

"That's a very pretty bird!" continued Mr. Jackson; "but what is he doing up there? You wouldn't put any woodcock or snipe in the tree, because you said they didn't belong there; and now you've gone and put a duck in it! What sort of work is that?"

"That bird does belong there," said Oscar. "I shot him out of a tree."

Mr. Jackson was well posted in drugs, but he knew nothing of natural history.

He looked toward Miles for an explanation, but as the latter was no better acquainted with birds and their habits than his uncle was, he could give him no information.

"I'll take him out of there, if you wish me to do so, and put a grouse in his place," said Oscar.

"Oh, no!" replied Mr. Jackson quickly. "If he belongs there, let him stay; but I never saw a duck in a tree. Sit down, and have some coffee with us."

"Thank you, sir! I had my breakfast three hours ago."

"You did!" exclaimed Mr. Jackson, as he followed Oscar through the hall toward the front door. "Well, I never could see any sense in eating during the night. You will have the dyspepsia some day if you don't stop it. There's your money, and good-by, if you must go.

"Miles," he continued, as he came back into the dining-room, where the rest of the family were seated at the table, "what sort of work would you make of it if you were turned loose in the world, as that boy is, and had no one to depend on but yourself?"

"I am sure I don't know," replied Miles. "I hope I shall never be in that situation."

"So do I," said his uncle. "I hope you will associate with Oscar all you can, for his influence and example will help any boy. If you hear anything said against his honesty, I hope you will have pluck enough to resent it on the spot."

"Oh, I don't think that anyone will ever hear another word said about his stealing money!" exclaimed Miles, recalling the exciting interview which he and his friend Sam had had with Mr. Smith on the previous Friday.

Then, believing that he ought to give some reason for thinking so, he added:

"It wouldn't be safe to slander Oscar, for Sam Hynes says he will thrash any fellow who does it."

"He's another good one; a little too blunt sometimes, but as true as steel," observed Mr. Jackson. "I can't quite understand why Oscar put a duck in that tree. I believe he has made a mistake, and I am going to find out about it."

And he did.

While he was on the way to his store, he met a tall, dignified gentleman, who stopped to exchange a few words with him.

It was Mr. Chamberlain, the principal of the High School. The two men had met on that very street, at that very hour and near that same spot, every day except Saturdays and Sundays, for more than a year. The principal was the best educated man in town, and a good many hard nuts were brought to him to crack.

"You know everything, professor," said Mr. Jackson, after the usual greetings had been exchanged; "but you never knew of a duck being shot out of a tree, did you?"

"Certainly," was the unexpected answer. "The wood-duck of Audubon, commonly called summer duck. It is the most beautiful species of the duck family, and reflects all the colors of the rainbow. It never makes its nest upon the ground, but always in some hollow tree that hangs over the water. As soon as the young are hatched, they throw themselves down into the stream below without the least injury. There goes the first bell! Good-morning, Mr. Jackson!"

"I've learned something," thought the druggist, as he continued his walk toward the store. "Oscar was right when he put that duck in the tree. It beats me where that boy found time to pick up so much information about birds and things."

Meanwhile Oscar, with his forty dollars in his pocket, was trundling his wheelbarrow merrily over the sidewalk toward home.

He wanted first to place his money in his mother's hands—he thought it would be safer there than in his pocket—and then he intended to go down to Mr. Peck's boat-house after the decoys, sail, and oars he had left there on Saturday.

He placed his wheelbarrow in the front yard, but when he tried to open the door he found it was locked.

"Mother has gone over to visit some of the neighbors," thought he. "I'll stay here until she comes back. I've got the key of the shop in my pocket, and I can find plenty to do there."

During the time Oscar had worked in the store, the shop had not been kept as neat and tidy as it usually was. The tools he had found time to use now and then were scattered about over the bench; the shavings and dust had accumulated everywhere, and it was a good hour's work to straighten up things. But it was work that Oscar liked to do, and he whistled merrily as he set about it, Bugle meanwhile stationing himself in the open door and keeping a close watch over everybody that passed along the street. Presently he uttered a loud bay and sprang out into the yard.

Oscar, knowing that somebody was coming, hurried to the door to see who it was, and discovered the hound following at the heels of a little dried-up man, who was coming around the house toward the shop. It was the same man he and Sam Hynes had found clinging to the rudder of the wrecked sail-boat.

Oscar knew him at once, for he still wore Sam's cap on his head.

"Come here, Bugle!" shouted Oscar. "Don't be afraid of him, sir. He is friendly, even to strangers."

"Good-morning," exclaimed the visitor. "I knocked at the front door, but no one answered my summons. I heard someone whistling, however; so I made bold to come around here."

"Mother went out while I was absent," replied Oscar. "I am glad to see you again, sir, and hope you did not suffer any inconvenience from your cold bath on Saturday. Will you walk in? I have a fire in here. I am sorry I can't take you into the house."

The visitor made no reply whatever. He came into the wood-shed, stopped in front of the door that gave entrance into the shop, and said:

"I believe your name is—ah—is—ah——"

He thrust his hand into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a small notebook. Opening it, he began turning over the leaves to find Oscar's name, which the miller had given him on Saturday.

The book was filled with writing, and on every page the visitor seemed to find something that he wanted to remember, for he stopped to read it over, in a half audible tone, before turning to the next one.

Oscar stood there in the door of the shop, with the broom in his hand, for fully five minutes, waiting for him to say something.

"Your name is Oscar Preston," said the visitor, at length, "and you are the boy who rendered me a very important service two days ago."

"I am the one who caught you as you were sinking, but I never could have brought you into the boat if it hadn't been for Sam Hynes," replied Oscar.

He did not want all the honor himself, for the absent Sam, who was at that moment puzzling his brains over his Vergil, was entitled to a good share of it, and Oscar intended that he should have it.

The visitor, however, seemed to think that the boy who had kept him from sinking was the one who deserved all the credit, and he did not act as though he heard Sam's name mentioned.

"I am greatly indebted to you, my young friend," he continued, "and I regret that I cannot reward you as you deserve. My name is Potter, and I am president of the Yarmouth University. I was down the river in search of some specimens of the Fuligula Valisneria, which I am told are now and then to be found here."

"Oh, that's what he went after, is it?" thought Oscar. "Well, I am no wiser than I was before. I don't know what those things are, and it is no wonder that Mr. Hall and Mr. Peck didn't understand him."

"I became bewildered, and was obliged to pass the night alone upon an island, without food or fire," continued the visitor. "In the morning I attempted to reach the village, but the wind overturned the boat, and I lost a valuable gun and all the equipments belonging to one of the faculty, who had kindly loaned it to me. Perhaps it was just as well, after all, for I was afraid to use it, having never fired a gun in my life, although I hoped to gain courage enough to discharge it, if I saw an opportunity to secure a specimen or two. Your name is" (here he consulted his notebook again) "Oscar Preston, and I am informed that you are an expert taxidermist."

"I am an amateur taxidermist, sir," answered Oscar. "I do not claim to be an expert. I have a few specimens, which I shall be glad to show you, if you are interested in such things. Will you walk in?"

Oscar deposited his broom in one corner, and drew aside the curtain concealing the recess in which his birds and animals were placed.

The professor entered, and instantly seemed to become entirely unconscious of Oscar's presence, so engrossed was he with what he saw before him. He stopped in front of each bird, and talked to it in an undertone, and finally he began to speak his words aloud, so that Oscar could understand them.

"Ah," said he, "a very fine specimen of the order Rasores, family Tetraonidæ, vulgo partridge; the Tetrao Umbellus of Linnæus, and the Bonasia Umbellus of Bonaparte, which is incorrect. This is a specimen of the order Insessores, family Ampelidæ, genus Bombycilla Carolinensis. Very finely mounted, I should say; much better than some of the specimens we have at the university."

All these hard words were rolled off without the least hesitation, and it was evident that the professor had them at his tongue's end. Oscar listened in genuine amazement, and then seizing a piece of pine board, that happened to be lying near him on the bench, hastily wrote something upon it with a pencil he drew from his pocket, and moved up a little closer to his visitor, so that he could catch every word he said.

"Young man," said the latter, "do you know anything about comparative anatomy?"

"No, sir," replied Oscar, who had never heard this expression before.

"You ought to study it," continued the professor, "for it belongs to your business. If you will give a scientist a single bone, he can build the skeleton of the beast or bird to which that bone belongs, although he may never have seen it. The species may even be extinct. Some of my students once brought me a bone they had found in the woods, and which they thought was the bone of a mastodon of the order Pachydermata; but it proved to belong to one of the order Ruminantia, being the bone of an ox."

Oscar wrote two words more on his board, and waited for the professor to go on; and when he did go on, Oscar heard something for which he was not at all prepared, and which astonished him beyond measure.

"I think you are the person we want," continued the visitor.

He stood with his hands behind his back, and his spectacles on the end of his nose, looking up at the specimens on the shelves; and he seemed to be talking more to himself than to Oscar.

"A generous and public-spirited citizen of Yarmouth has given to our university a hundred thousand dollars, which is to be expended in founding as fine a museum as that amount of money will pay for. The birds and animals of our country are to be represented first, mounted in a life-like manner, and looking, if possible, as natural as they do in their wild haunts. Those of other countries are to be taken in hand afterward.

"We have already gathered a few specimens, though in a desultory way, and some of them are declared by experts to be very imperfect. Of the order Ruminantia, family Cervidæ, we have obtained but one species—the Cervus Virginianus." (Oscar wrote these words on his board. He could easily do it, for his visitor did not seem to be paying the least attention to him.) "We have the Alces Americanus and the Cervus Tarandus, as well as the hollow-horned ruminants, of which there is but one species in this country, as you are no doubt aware, yet to procure. Of the Digitigrades, family Canidæ, we have but one—the red fox.

"We should be willing to give something handsome for a gray-cross, or black fox. Of the Plantigrades, we have two—Ursus Americanus and Procyon lotor. We should like a specimen of the Ursus horribilis and the Ursus maritimus, and also of the cinnamon bear, which seems to be gaining some notoriety for voracity and fierceness; but I don't suppose that a boy of your years would care to face animals of that description.

"We have been trying to engage an accomplished taxidermist, who is at the same time a successful hunter, to work for us for a term of years at a stated salary; but thus far we have not succeeded in our object, for the reason that those to whom we have applied demand more money than the committee, in whose hands the matter is placed, think they can afford to pay. We are quite willing to give a hundred dollars a month and expenses, provided the collector is willing to go where we want to send him; but more than that we could not promise, under the terms on which the money was given to us. Ah, here's a Digitigrade!" he exclaimed, when he discovered the fox, which was one of Oscar's first specimens. "Now, if you think you can afford to work for us for that amount of money, we shall be glad to employ you. I know that the committee will indorse any bargain I may make with you; but in order to make 'assurance doubly sure,' perhaps I had better consult with them before we come to any definite understanding."

Oscar had stood with his board in one hand and his pencil in the other, ready to note down as many of the visitor's hard words as he could catch; but while he listened, his hands gradually fell, until they rested by his side, and when the professor ceased speaking, he backed up against his work-bench and leaned heavily upon it.

The astounding offer of a hundred dollars a month and expenses almost knocked him over.

CHAPTER XI. MR. SMITH MAKES AMENDS.

"You are not engaged in any regular occupation now, I believe?" continued the professor.

"No, sir, I am not," answered Oscar, as soon as he could speak.

"Then I suggest that you keep yourself at liberty until you hear from some of us. I shall return to the city by the first train, and, as soon as I can see the committee, our secretary will drop you a line. I am confident that I can put you in the way of making a name and a living for yourself. Good-morning!"

The professor disappeared through the door, and Oscar, having seen him close the gate behind him, drew a long breath, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and walked up and down the shop, thinking over what had transpired. He was so highly excited that he could not have kept still to save his life.

It hardly seemed possible that the art of taxidermy, which he had taken up simply as a recreation, should be the means of making him rich and famous, and he could not bring himself to believe that such was the fact.

There was one thing that stood in his way. Everybody who came in contact with his late visitor seemed to think that there was something wrong with him, and Oscar himself had seen and heard enough to prove that the professor was a very strange man.

Perhaps his name wasn't Potter, and perhaps, too, he had no connection whatever with the Yarmouth University.

"I'll not build any hopes upon it," said the boy, as these thoughts passed through his mind, "and neither will I say a word to mother when she comes home. She would be very much disappointed if it turned out to be a hoax, and I don't see how she can stand any more trouble. Sam will be around some time to-day, most likely, and I'll ask him what he thinks about it. He has good, sound sense, and, besides, he knows how to keep a secret."

Oscar picked up his broom again, but very soon found that he had lost interest in everything except Professor Potter and his astonishing proposition.

He could not keep his mind on anything else, nor could he calm his excitement; and believing that a brisk walk in the open air would be more agreeable than working in the dusty shop, he locked the door, picked up his wheelbarrow as he passed through the yard, and set out for Mr. Peck's boat-house, Bugle leading the way.

He found his decoys, sail, and oars where he had left them, and having packed them away in his wheelbarrow, he turned his face toward home.

As he was passing across the park he heard someone calling to him. He stopped, and looking across the street, saw Mr. Anderson running toward him and beckoning with his hand.

"What does he want, I wonder?" thought the boy. "I don't care to see him; but if he wants to see me, he can come where I am."

He set down the wheelbarrow, and taking his seat on one of the handles, looked at Mr. Anderson, who stopped in the middle of the street and waved his hand to him.

"Come over here!" he shouted.

"I can't see it," said Oscar to himself. "I have been insulted in that store once, and I never want to see the inside of it again. If he has anything to say to me, we'll have the interview right here, for this is neutral ground."

Oscar kept his seat on the wheelbarrow, and resting his elbows on his knees, looked up and down the street in an indifferent sort of way, as if he meant to show that Mr. Anderson and his movements did not interest him in the least.

The junior partner, finding that the boy paid no attention to his words and signals, came across the street and hurried up to him.

Our hero was astonished at his greeting. He thrust out his hand, and Oscar placed his own within it.

"I am glad to see you again," said Mr. Anderson cheerfully. "It looks natural to see you around. Come over to the store. Mr. Smith has something very particular to say to you."

"I guess I had better not go," replied Oscar. "I am not in your employ now; and I may say something I shall be sorry for."

"No, you won't, for the opportunity will not be given you!" exclaimed Mr. Anderson earnestly. "You'll have no cause for saying hard things. Be guided by me, just this once, and come in. You will never regret it."

Oscar took a few minutes in which to think about it. Finally he arose to his feet, and pushing his wheelbarrow off the walk, out of the way, he followed the junior partner across the street, and into the store.

When they entered the office, Mr. Anderson closed and locked the door. Mr. Smith occupied his usual place on his high stool, but he scrambled down from it with great haste and gave his former clerk a most cordial welcome.

"Oscar," said he, "I find that I have done you very great injustice, and I am sorry for it."

The boy's face relaxed on the instant. Knowing Mr. Smith as well as he did, he had never expected him to make such a confession as this.

"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me why I was discharged, and why you refused to give me the letter of recommendation for which I asked," said Oscar.

Mr. Smith cleared his throat two or three times, and climbed back to his high stool again. It was hard work for him to answer that question; and when he met the gaze of the clear, honest eyes that were looking straight into his own, he wondered how he could ever have suspected their owner of being a thief.

"Well, the amount of it is, that somebody has been robbing our till systematically," said he, when he had mustered up courage enough to give utterance to the words. "All our clerks except you had been with us for a long term of years. We had the utmost confidence in their honesty, and—and——"

"And you suspected me!" exclaimed Oscar, his face reddening with indignation.

"Well, yes; that's the plain English of it. But we have since found out that we made a woeful mistake. The guilty one has been discovered, and has made a full confession, in which he took particular pains to clear you of all suspicion. Now, we are anxious to make all the amends in our power. Do you want to come back here at thirty dollars a month?"

"No, sir," replied Oscar promptly.

The two grocers seemed very much surprised at this answer. They looked at each other and at Oscar, as if they were waiting for him to say something more, but as he did not speak, Mr. Smith continued:

"Then we'll say thirty-five; and that is almost double the amount we paid you before."

"I am very much obliged to you, but I cannot accept the offer," answered Oscar.

"You do not bear us any ill-will, I hope," said Mr. Anderson.

"None whatever, I assure you. I am overjoyed to know that you no longer believe me to be dishonest, and I shall think of you with as kindly feelings as I ever did; but I can't come back to the store, for I have something better in prospect."

"For your sake, I am very glad to hear it; for my own, I am sorry," said Mr. Smith, and the words came from his heart. "If the time ever comes when we can advance your interests in any way, do not hesitate to call upon us. You are at perfect liberty to use the firm's name whenever it will be of benefit to you. We know you to be an honest, capable boy, and we shall take pleasure in recommending you as such."

"I am greatly obliged to you, sir, and I may some day be glad to take advantage of your kind offer. Now, I will bid you good-by."

"Just one word more, Oscar," said Mr. Anderson, as the boy laid his hand upon the door-knob; "if you don't secure that better thing of which you were speaking, remember that your old position is open to you."

"At thirty-five dollars a month," chimed in Mr. Smith.

"Thank you; I'll bear it in mind."

Oscar's excitement, which had been worked up to almost fever-heat by the conversation he had had with the professor in his work-shop that morning, was greatly increased by this interview; but still he managed to keep a few of his wits about him, and when he passed out into the store he ran his eyes hastily around to see if any of the clerks were missing. They were all there except one.

"I'm glad to see you, Oscar!" cried Hudson, the oldest clerk in the store. "You look as happy as a clam. Coming back?"

"It is hardly probable," was the reply. "Where's Stuart?"

"Stuart has been sick in bed ever since Friday—something like brain fever, I think," answered Hudson.

"He works here yet, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes; he'll be back as soon as he gets well. And I'll tell you something, Preston, which surprised me when I first found it out: Mr. Smith's got a heart. I heard him say that Stuart's wages would go right on."

"It is very strange," thought Oscar, as he closed the door behind him. "None of the clerks have been discharged, so the till-tapper, whoever he is, must still be in the store. I was dismissed when there was not the least proof against me, and now a confessed thief is allowed to retain his situation. I don't see much justice in that. Well, perhaps the guilty fellow is one of their trusted men, and Smith & Anderson don't want to make any stir about it."

"Morning, Oscar!" exclaimed the post-office clerk, who just then hurried by, with his face buried in the collar of his overcoat. "Letter in your box."

Oscar, thanking him for the information, turned down the street, and crossed over to the post-office, and all the while he seemed to be treading on air, so light and buoyant were his spirits.

He had heard good news from two sources that forenoon, and there was something else agreeable in store for him, as he found when the letter was placed in his hands.

It proved to be from Calkins & Son, who acknowledged the receipt, in good order, of the eighteen brace of ducks that had been sent to them on Saturday, asked for a shipment of grouse, quails, or hares at once, and enclosed their check for $7.20, made payable to Oscar's order.

After reading the letter, he put it into his pocket, seized the wheelbarrow, which now seemed as light as a feather, and trundled it home in much less time than he had ever consumed in making the journey before.

He let himself into the shop, and while he was busy putting away his decoys, a lively whistle sounded in the yard, and Sam Hynes came rushing in.

"O Sam!" exclaimed Oscar.

"Hallo! What's the matter with you?" demanded the visitor, who saw that his friend was greatly excited about something.

"I've had the best luck in the world to-day," answered Oscar. "In the first place, the fellow who got me into all that trouble with Smith & Anderson has been discovered, and has made a full confession."

"No!" cried Sam, opening his eyes and looking very much surprised.

"It's a fact. Mr. Smith informed me, not an hour ago, that he had done me great injustice, and he was sorry for it."

"You don't tell me so!" cried Sam, seating himself on the bench and looking the very picture of amazement and delight. "Who was the guilty rascal?"

"I don't know, and I couldn't find out. I didn't ask Mr. Smith, and he didn't volunteer the information. The clerks were busy in the store to-day, and they were all there except Stuart. He is ill, and will come back as soon as he gets well; so the thief, whoever he is, still holds his position."

Sam was really astonished now, and the delight he feigned became genuine when Oscar continued:

"Mr. Smith told me that my old situation was open to me at thirty-five dollars a month."

"Good!" exclaimed Sam, jumping off the bench and extending his hand. "When do you go back?"

"I am not going back at all. I have something better."

Sam opened his eyes again, and listened attentively while Oscar went on to describe the interview he had had with Professor Potter, and to tell him of the liberal offer the latter had made him.

He did not forget to inform his friend that the professor still wore his (Sam's) cap on his head, and that he had probably carried it to the city with him.

As Oscar proceeded with his story, the look of astonishment on Sam's face gradually gave way to an altogether different expression, and when Oscar ceased speaking, he seated himself on the bench again, and gazed down at the floor in a brown study.

"Now, then, what's the matter with you?" demanded Oscar.

"If I answer your question at all, I shall say just what I think," replied Sam.

"That is what I want you to do. Speak out."

"I will. You have missed it. If you are wise, you will lose no time in telling Mr. Smith that you will take those thirty-five dollars a month."

"But, Sam, I can't do it. I promised the professor that I would keep myself free until I heard from him."

"Professor!" exclaimed Sam, with great disgust. "He is about as much a professor as I am."

"If you had heard him talk this morning, you wouldn't think so. I tell you he is educated."

"That may be; but a man who will go on as he did when we pulled him out of the water, and who hasn't sense enough to know when he is wearing a cap belonging to somebody else, can't have much wit. Professor! He never saw Yarmouth University, and you'll never hear from him again, either. What have you got there?" added Sam, glancing at a piece of wood which his companion just then took from the work-bench.

"I wrote down some of his hard words," replied Oscar, passing the board over to Sam. "You are fresh from your books, and I'd like to have you translate them for me. I'll tell you what's a fact: I have come to the conclusion that I don't know anything about natural history."

"He talked in a regular scientific style, didn't he?" said Sam, after he had run his eyes over the board. "The animal kingdom, as you know, is divided into branches, classes, orders, families, genera, and species. The branch Vertebrates is divided into five classes—fishes, batrachians, reptiles, birds, and mammalia. The class birds is divided into seven orders, two of which you have put down here. The Rasores are scratchers, such as the turkey and grouse, and the Insessores are perchers. To this order belong all our songbirds."

"Well, he went down the river after some specimens of the Fuligula Valisneria," said Oscar. "What are they?"

"That's a conundrum," replied Sam.

"What's a Bombycilla Carolinensis?"

"I give it up. There are only a few words more here that I can understand; and, Oscar, I'll say this much for you: your spelling is simply fearful. The Pachydermata are thick-skinned animals, such as the elephant and rhinoceros; the Ruminantia are those that chew the cud, like the cow and sheep; the Digitigrades walk on their toes—the cat and dog belong to this family—and the Plantigrades walk on their heels. To this family the bear belongs. That is as far as I can help you. But I'll tell you what we will do," added Sam, jumping down from the bench and pulling out his watch. "I'll be around here to-night, within fifteen minutes after school is dismissed, and you go home and take supper with me. In the early part of the evening I'll beat you playing a game of chess, and then we'll go over and call on Mr. Chamberlain. He will make everything clear to you. I don't believe you have been near him since you left school."

"No, I haven't," answered Oscar. "I was obliged to neglect everybody while I was in the store. I'll be ready for you."

Sam rushed out, slamming the door behind him, and hurried toward the gate; but, just then, Oscar happened to think of something, so he ran to the door and called him back.

CHAPTER XII. AN EVENING WITH THE PRINCIPAL.

"I will detain you but a moment, Sam," exclaimed Oscar. "I have received a check from Calkins & Son for $7.20, to pay for the ducks we killed on Saturday."

"Good for Calkins & Son!" replied Sam. "If they are always as prompt as that, they are the men we want to deal with."

"Half of it belongs to you, you know."

"Yes, I know it," answered Sam, once more turning his face toward the gate. "You act as my banker, and when I want my share, I'll make out a draft for it."

"Hold on, Sam!" shouted Oscar, who knew very well what this meant; "I'll do nothing of the kind."

"Oscar, you are the most stubborn fellow I ever had anything to do with," said Sam, shaking his finger at his friend, and utterly ignoring the fact that he had never been known to give up to Oscar in a single instance. "I never saw so obstinate a boy; you want your own way all the time. Now, put that check in your pocket and keep it there. If it is too much trouble for you to do that, give it to the poor. Good-by, and be ready for me at a quarter past four."

Sam turned down the street and set off at a rapid trot. He had just time enough left to eat his dinner and reach the school-house before the last bell rang.

"If there is a confiding fellow in the world, it is that Oscar Preston," said he to himself, as he ran along. "That crazy man has bamboozled him completely. I was sorry to dash all his bright hopes to the ground, but I thought he ought to be waked up to the real facts of the case. I never saw a boy look so sorrowful and downhearted as he did when I told him what I thought about it. I wish from the bottom of my heart it was an offer he could depend on. Wouldn't he be in clover, though! A hundred dollars a month and expenses, for travelling about the country shooting birds and animals! Just think of it!"

Oscar watched his friend as long as he remained in sight, and then, leaning his elbows on the work-bench, he rested his chin upon his hands and looked thoughtfully out of the window toward the evergreen screen behind the house.

He was by no means as cheerful and hopeful as he had been a short half hour before. His crony's visit had depressed his spirits wonderfully, but Sam was not to blame for that.

He had asked him what he thought of the president's proposition, and Sam—as he always did—had answered his question promptly, and in language that could not possibly be misunderstood.

Perhaps Sam was right, and he would never again hear of the man who had called himself President Potter.

Oscar had resolved more than once that day that he would not build any hopes upon the offer he had received; but, in spite of all his efforts, his thoughts would dwell upon it, and every little while he found himself indulging in some rosy dreams of the future.

Would it not be a good plan to take Sam's advice and tell Mr. Smith that he would go back to the store for the wages he had, of his own free will, offered to give him?

The thirty-five dollars a month he was sure of—the larger sum he was not sure of. While he was thinking about it, his mother came to the door and called him to dinner.

The first thing Oscar did when he entered the dining room was to place in his mother's hands the money he had been paid by Mr. Jackson, and the check he had received from Calkins & Son; but he said not a word to her regarding the interviews he had held with Professor Potter and Mr. Smith.

He could not describe these interviews without telling of the propositions that had been made him, and he did not want to do that until he had determined upon something.

He wanted time to look at the matter from every possible standpoint, and he found ample opportunity to do it that afternoon, for he spent very little time in work. He went back to the shop as soon as he had eaten his dinner, but he could find nothing there to interest him.

He finished sweeping out, and rearranged his specimens on the shelves, but it was all done by snatches. He would work a few minutes, and then he would walk up and down the shop with his eyes fastened upon the floor.

When four o'clock came his chores were all done, and having exchanged his working-clothes for a neat business suit, he was ready to accompany Sam to his home, where he passed a few hours in the most agreeable manner.

Everybody who visited there said that Mr. Hynes's house was one of the pleasantest and happiest in Eaton, and Oscar had always found it so. It was just the place to go when one was troubled with the blues, as our hero had been all that afternoon.

Sam's father and mother were very jolly people, and his sister, besides being a fine singer and pianist, played chess so well that Oscar, who was sometimes given to boasting of his own skill, was often badly worsted.

Seven o'clock came almost before the boys knew it, and then they put on their caps and set out to visit the principal of the High School.

Ringing the bell at his door, they were ushered into the library, where Mr. Chamberlain sat with his slippered feet on the fender and the evening's paper in his hand.

He greeted Oscar very cordially, for the latter had been one of his favorite pupils. He had never been known to break one of the rules of school, and had never been reprimanded. He went to school to learn, and for no other purpose.

Do you know such a boy? If you do, you know one whom all his teachers like.

"I am glad to see you again, Oscar," said Mr. Chamberlain, as he shook his visitors warmly by the hand and placed chairs for them; "and I must congratulate you on your good fortune. I knew it would come after awhile."

"Thank you, sir," replied Oscar, wondering how the gentleman had heard of it.

"It never does any good to allow ourselves to get discouraged," continued Mr. Chamberlain, sinking back into his easy-chair. "It is always darkest just before daylight, you know. I must say that I am surprised as well as delighted."

"So am I, sir," returned Oscar. "I never expected that he would make an acknowledgment, even though he received the most positive proof that he had been mistaken."

"Acknowledgment!" repeated Mr. Chamberlain. "Who made any acknowledgment? What are you talking about, Oscar?"

"Why, I thought you referred to what passed between Mr. Smith and myself to-day," replied the boy.

"I hadn't heard anything about that. Has Mr. Smith found out that he did you injustice? I am glad of it," said Mr. Chamberlain, upon receiving an affirmative nod from Sam. "I knew that would come, too. You may have the satisfaction of knowing that not a single one of your friends ever believed anything wrong against you. I may also say," he added, with a smile, looking toward Sam, who blushed to the roots of his hair, "that some of your acquaintances hold very strong opinions on that point, and that those opinions have been enforced with the aid of a ball-club. But I was speaking of the offer you received from President Potter. He called on you this morning, did he not?"

"Do you know him, Mr. Chamberlain?" exclaimed Sam.

"Certainly I do. He was my old preceptor, and my guest while he was in Eaton."

"But is he really president of the Yarmouth University?"

"He certainly is. What else did you take him for?"

"I took him for a crazy man," replied Sam bluntly.

"A crazy man! Sam, I am surprised at you!"

"Well, now, Mr. Chamberlain, if you had been in our boat and had heard him talk when we pulled him out of the water, you would have thought so yourself, if you had been a stranger to him."

With this introduction Sam went on to repeat the speech the professor had made while he was lying on the bottom of Oscar's skiff. He had paid particular attention to it, and could recall it word for word.

"That is just like him," said Mr. Chamberlain. "If he were lecturing a class in this room to-night, and the house should catch fire, he wouldn't leave off until the smoke or flames drove him out. He becomes so completely absorbed in his subject that he doesn't seem to hear or see anything; and I have known mischievous students to steal out of the class-room, one after another, until there were not more than three or four left, and he never missed them. If I had not called his attention to the fact that he had Sam's cap on his head, he would have worn it to Yarmouth when he went away this afternoon. Sam, you will find the article in question on the hat-rack, when you go home."

"I'd like to ask one question, before I forget it," said Oscar. "Is it possible that there are men who, by looking at a single bone, can give you the name of the beast or bird to which that bone belongs? Mr. Potter told me to-day that some of his students once brought him a bone they had found in the woods, and which they supposed to be the bone of a mastodon; but it proved to be the bone of an ox."

Mr. Chamberlain leaned his head against the back of his chair, looked up at the ceiling, and laughed until his eyes were filled with tears.

"I wonder if the professor still remembers that little incident?" said he. "If my memory serves me, I used to be pretty well acquainted with that same student. He knew very well that the bone did not belong to a mastodon, but he thought he would test the old gentleman's knowledge. It is hardly necessary to say that he was entirely satisfied with the result of the experiment, and had the laugh turned on him completely by the other students who were in the plot."

There was something in Mr. Chamberlain's tone that made the two boys smile at each other. They believed that if the principal had given the name of that student, he would have given one that sounded very much like his own name.

"The professor told me to-day that he had offered you a hundred dollars a month and all expenses, to procure specimens for the university museum," continued Mr. Chamberlain, addressing himself to Oscar, "and you may rest assured that you will get it. Mr. Potter has a hundred thousand dollars to spend in that way, and I see no reason why you should not earn a good portion of it. You have a number of years of steady employment before you, at more than living wages, if you are inclined to accept this offer."

The boys listened to these words with the greatest amazement, and it is hard to tell which of the two was the more delighted thereat.

Sam was overjoyed to learn that he had been mistaken in the opinions he had formed, and could hardly refrain from jumping up and tossing his cap into the air.

As for Oscar—he blessed his lucky stars that he had not accepted Mr. Smith's offer, as he had more than once been tempted to do that afternoon.

"Mr. Chamberlain," said Sam, as soon as he had controlled his excitement, so that he could talk intelligibly, "what is a—a—where's that list, Oscar?"

The latter produced a piece of paper, on which he had copied the hard words he had written on his pine board that morning—that is, all that Sam had not been able to translate for him—and handed it to his companion, who passed it over to the principal.

Mr. Chamberlain glanced at the first words on the list, and shook his head.

"Perhaps I haven't spelled them correctly," observed Oscar.

"They are the things the professor went down the river after on Saturday," chimed in Sam.

"Oh, the Fuligula Valisneria," exclaimed Mr. Chamberlain. "That is the canvas-back duck."

"Ah!" said both boys, in concert.

"The family Canidæ is the dog family," said Mr. Chamberlain, turning again to the list. "The family Tetraonidæ is the grouse family, and Tetra Umbellus is the ruffed grouse, which almost everybody calls a partridge. In the South, the quail is called a partridge, and the grouse is called a pheasant. I hope you boys will never allow yourselves to fall into such habits. You can't begin too early in life to call things by their right names. To the family Ampelidæ belong the chatterers; Bombycilla Carolinensis is the cedar bird. The Cervidæ comprise the deer family, and Cervus Virginianus is our common red deer; the hollow-horned ruminants are the antelopes. There is only one species in the United States, and that is the pronghorn of our Western plains. If you should go out there to hunt him, you would see no end of sport, Oscar, and, I suppose, no end of hard times. I hope you will not expect to find it all plain sailing, simply because you have stepped into an agreeable and profitable situation. Ursus Americanus is the American black bear; Ursus horribilis—you mustn't have anything to do with him—that's the grizzly bear, the most dangerous and dreaded animal in the country. Ursus maritimus—that's the polar bear—is almost as bad."

"The names on that list include the animals they want in their museum," said Sam, "and Oscar will be obliged to hunt them if they tell him to do so."

"Would you dare do it?" asked Mr. Chamberlain, looking at Oscar.

"I don't know, sir. My courage has never been put to the test. But I will say this: If they will give me a chance to work around home until I can earn money enough to support my mother while I'm gone, I'll start for the plains, or for Africa, within twenty-four hours after I receive their order."

"I like that spirit," said Mr. Chamberlain. "If you are going into a thing, go into it as though you were alive and wide awake. By the way——"

The principal laid down the list, and arose to his feet. Opening his bookcase, he took from it two large and finely bound volumes, which he placed upon the table at Oscar's elbow.

"When you go home, take these books with you," said he. "Keep them as long as they are of any use to you, and they will tell you everything you want to know about birds and animals, scientific names and all. I have the best of reasons for saying that you will be summoned to Yarmouth in the course of a few days, to pass a sort of examination before the committee, and I want you to acquit yourself with honor; so, if I were in your place, I would spend all my spare time in 'cramming.'"

CHAPTER XIII. THE BLACK FOX.

Oscar thanked the principal warmly for his advice and for the interest he took in his affairs, and just then the little clock on the mantle chimed the hour of nine.

The boys, having promised to be at their respective homes by that time, bade Mr. Chamberlain good-night and hurried out, Sam taking possession of his cap as he passed through the hall.

"What do you think of the situation now?" inquired Oscar, when the gate had been closed behind them.

Sam stopped, and, by way of reply, seized his companion's hand, giving it a grip and a shake that would have made almost any other boy double up with pain.

"I never wanted to yell so badly in my life as I did when Mr. Chamberlain told us that that crazy man was just what he represented himself to be," said Sam. "I'll hold in until we have our next practice game of ball, or until you and I go down the river again, and then won't I make things ring? Say, Oscar, when you are knocking over that big game, right and left, you'll think of a fellow, won't you?"

"Indeed I will, Sam. How much I wish you could go with me, if I go!"

"Oh, you'll go—you need have no fears on that score!" exclaimed Sam, with great enthusiasm. "I should like to be hanging on to the sleeve of your jacket about the time you catch sight of your first antelope, but it isn't to be thought of. I must be in Harvard by a year from next fall, if I have brains enough to get there. Father has set his heart upon it, and, as he is the very best father any boy ever had, I wouldn't disappoint him for the world."

"Of course not," said Oscar. "Now, Sam, I want to ask you a question: What have you been doing?"

"Nothing—nothing whatever," said his companion promptly. "I have read somewhere, Oscar, that the way those fellows on the plains hunt the pronghorn is to——"

"That won't do, Sam," interrupted Oscar. "I want to talk about another matter. You have been hitting somebody with a ball-club!"

"No, I haven't—honor bright!" exclaimed Sam, with a great show of earnestness. "I never in my life hit anything with a ball-club except the ball and the home base. Why, man alive, I'd be afraid to do it!"

The boys had by this time reached Sam's home, which was but a few steps from Mr. Chamberlain's house.

As Sam was about to open the gate, Oscar shut it with a bang, and placed his back against it. After that, he put his books upon the top of the gate-post, and stood ready to resist any attempt his companion might make to pull him away from his position.

"Hallo, here!" cried Sam, with well-feigned astonishment. "What do you mean by that performance? Won't you let me go in?"

"No, sir, I won't—not unless you can pull me away from here, and I don't know whether you can do that or not!"

"I don't, either," replied Sam, backing off, and putting his hands in his pockets; "so I'll not try. But it is after nine o'clock, and I ought to be in bed and fast asleep. Some of the folks might come out here to look for me."

"I know they might, but they won't. Now, what have you been doing with that ball-club? I know you have been up to something, for your face got as red as a beet when Mr. Chamberlain spoke about it."

"I never saw so obstinate and persistent a fellow as you are when you once get your mind set on a thing," said Sam, leaning his elbow on the fence, and trying to look like a boy who was very badly persecuted. "I punched him with it, if you must know."

"There! I told you that you had been hitting somebody."