ow I love you,
Mr. Stubbs! An' now you're goin' to die an' leave me! Oh, if I hadn't
spoken cross to you yesterday, an' if I hadn't a'most choked you the day
that we went to the skeleton's to dinner! Forgive me for ever bein' bad
to you, won't you, Mr. Stubbs?"

[Illustration: "HOW I LOVE YOU, MR. STUBBS!"]

As the monkey's groans increased in number but diminished in force Toby
ran to the brook, filled his hands with water, and held it to the poor
animal's mouth.

He lapped the water quickly, and looked up with a human look of
gratitude in his eyes, as if thanking his master for that much relief.
Then Toby tried to wash the blood from his breast; but it flowed quite
as fast as he could wash it away, and he ceased his efforts in that
direction, and paid every attention to making his friend and pet more
comfortable. He took off his jacket and laid it on the ground for the
monkey to lie upon; picked a quantity of large green leaves as a cooling
rest for his head, and then sat by his side, holding his paws, and
talking to him with the most tender words his lips--quivering with
sorrow as they were--could fashion.

CHAPTER XX.

HOME AND UNCLE DANIEL.

Meanwhile the author of all this misery had come upon the scene. He was
a young man, whose rifle and well-filled game-bag showed that he had
been hunting, and his face expressed the liveliest sorrow for what he
had so unwittingly done.

"I didn't know I was firing at your pet," he said to Toby as he laid his
hand on his shoulder and endeavored to make him look up. "I only saw a
little patch of fur through the trees, and, thinking it was some wild
animal, I fired. Forgive me, won't you, and let me put the poor brute
out of his misery?"

Toby looked up fiercely at the murderer of his pet and asked, savagely,
"Why don't you go away? Don't you see that you have killed Mr. Stubbs,
an' you'll be hung for murder?"

"I wouldn't have done it under any circumstances," said the young man,
pitying Toby's grief most sincerely. "Come away, and let me put the poor
thing out of its agony."

"How can you do it?" asked Toby, bitterly. "He's dying already."

"I know it, and it will be a kindness to put a bullet through his head."

If Toby had been big enough perhaps there might really have been a
murder committed, for he looked up at the man who so coolly proposed to
kill the poor monkey after he had already received his death-wound that
the young man stepped back quickly,