lf hidden by willows at the edge of
the forest, and a turn in the path brought into view a log-cabin well
chinked with stones and plaster, and with a well-built porch. A fence
ran around the yard and there was a meat house near a little orchard
of apple-trees, under which were many hives of bee-gums. This man had
things "hung up" and was well-to-do. Down the rise and through a thicket
he went, and as he approached the creek that came down past the cabin
there was a shrill cry ahead of him.

"Whoa thar, Buck! Gee-haw, I tell ye!" An ox-wagon evidently was coming
on, and the road was so narrow that he turned his horse into the bushes
to let it pass.

"Whoa--Haw!--Gee--Gee--Buck, Gee, I tell ye! I'll knock yo' fool head
off the fust thing you know!"

Still there was no sound of ox or wagon and the voice sounded like a
child's. So he went on at a walk in the thick sand, and when he turned
the bushes he pulled up again with a low laugh. In the road across the
creek was a chubby, tow-haired boy with a long switch in his right hand,
and a pine dagger and a string in his left. Attached to the string and
tied by one hind leg was a frog. The boy was using the switch as a goad
and driving the frog as an ox, and he was as earnest as though both were
real.

"I give ye a little rest now, Buck," he said, shaking his head
earnestly. "Hit's a purty hard pull hyeh, but I know, by Gum, you can
make hit--if you hain't too durn lazy. Now, git up, Buck!" he yelled
suddenly, flaying the sand with his switch. "Git up--Whoa--Haw--Gee,
Gee!" The frog hopped several times.

"Whoa, now!" said the little fellow, panting in sympathy. "I knowed you
could do it." Then he looked up. For an instant he seemed terrified but
he did not run. Instead he stealthily shifted the pine dagger over to
his right hand and the string to his left.

"Here, boy," said the fisherman with affected sternness: "What are you
doing with that dagger?"

The boy's breast heaved and his dirty fingers clenched tight around the
whittled stick.

"Don't you talk to me that-a-way," he said with an ominous shake of his
head. "I'll gut ye!"

The fisherman threw back his head, and his peal of laughter did what his
sternness failed to do. The little fellow wheeled suddenly, and his feet
spurned the sand around the bushes for home--the astonished frog dragged
bumping after him. "Well!" said the fisherman.

IV

Even the geese in the creek seemed to know that he was a