en lived there, an' across the pond, that's where
the moss trail came out and where you see the cow-path--that's near
the track of the little red sleigh."

Then--the tale and its odd procession coming out of the far past.

I

The Story of the Little Red Sleigh

It was in 1835, about mid-winter, when Brier Dale was a narrow
clearing, and the horizon well up in the sky and to anywhere a
day's journey.

Down by the shore of the pond, there, Allen built his house.
To-day, under thickets of tansy, one may see the rotting logs, and
there are hollyhocks and catnip in the old garden. He was from
Middlebury, they say, and came west--he and his wife--in '29. From
the top of the hill above Allen's, of a clear day, one could look
far across the tree-tops, over distant settlements that were as
blue patches in the green canopy of the forest, over hill and dale
to the smoky chasm of the St. Lawrence thirty miles north. The
Allens had not a child; they settled with no thought of school or
neighbour. They brought a cow with them and a big collie whose
back had been scarred by a lynx. He was good company and a brave
hunter, this dog; and one day--it was February, four years after
their coming, and the snow lay deep--he left the dale and not even
a track behind him. Far and wide they went searching, but saw no
sign of him. Near a month later, one night, past twelve o'clock,
they heard his bark in the distance. Allen rose and lit a candle
and opened the door. They could hear him plainer, and now, mingled
with his barking, a faint tinkle of bells.

It had begun to thaw, and a cold rain was drumming on roof and
window.

"He's crossing the pond," said Allen, as he listened. "He's
dragging some heavy thing over the ice."

Soon he leaped in at the door, the little red sleigh bouncing after
him. The dog was in shafts and harness. Over the sleigh was a
tiny cover of sail-cloth shaped like that of a prairie schooner.
Bouncing over the door-step had waked its traveller, and there was
a loud voice of complaint in the little cavern of sail-cloth.
Peering in, they saw only the long fur of a gray wolf. Beneath it
a very small boy lay struggling with straps that held him down.
Allen loosed them and took him out of the sleigh, a ragged but
handsome youngster with red cheeks and blue eyes and light, curly
hair. He was near four years of age then, but big and strong as
any boy of five. He stood rubbing his eyes a minute,