off together.

"'Correct!' sez Sandy, chipper ez ye please; an' then we both jumped, me
with a grip like grim death onter Sandy's belt.

"_Boys_, but it was a caution to see them waves, an' cross-currents, an'
chutes, an' big ripples, an' eddies, an' whirlpools, how they jest
sucked us down an' slapped us up an' smothered us an' chucked us roun'
like chips. I jes kep' my mouth shet an' said my pray'rs fur all was in
me. An' ez for swallerin' water--I must 'a' tuk in half a bar'l. How we
was kep' cl'ar of the rocks was a miracle, _out_ an' out. A queer light
got ter dancin' an' shiftin' front o' my eyes, an' the singin' in my
ears was gittin' kind o' pleasant like, an' I calc'late that yaller chap
must a gone away purty well satisfied; when, on the suddent, a sorter
shock brung me to, an' I felt my feet tech bottom. There was a sight o'
life left in Jabez Ephraim yet, ye can bet yer pile.

"I straightened up an' found 'at we was in a quiet eddy, at the foot o'
the rapids, on the furder side o' the stream. The water warn't up to me
arm-pits, neether. Ez for Sandy, the starch was clean knocked out o'
_him_, so I jest hauled him ashore an' spread him out on the rocks to
dry while I hev a leetle o' thet water off my stummick. In half a minit
I felt better, an' then I went an' tumbled Sandy roun' till he was
considerable lighter in the hold. Presently he come to an' opened his
eyes.

"I swan, boys, we didn't hurry noane. We jest laid there in the sun a
matter of an hour er so, kinder recooperatin'. Then we pinted up river.
When the folks heerd what had tuk place, yez'll allow there was lots o'
the boys out lookin' for the yaller chap. But he'd got scarce, an'
what's more, he's stayed scarce. Any of yez fellers ever seen him?"

"Ef ever _I_ runs agin him," exclaimed Andy Mitchell, in a burst of
generous enthusiasm, "I'll feed him to my team fur Injun Devil."

The Stone Dog.

It was drawing towards sunset, and I had reached the outskirts of the
city, which here came to an abrupt end upon the very edge of the
marshes. The marshes stretched before me bare and gray, with here and
there a flush of evening color, serving but to emphasize their utterness
of desolation. Here and there, also, lay broad pools, their shore and
water gradually intermerging through a sullen fringe of reeds. The
river, which had been my day-long companion--a noisy stream flowing
through breezy hills, and villages, and vineyards--having loite