than became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and
the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind
continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He
could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was
beginning to fail.

George Birt had indeed forgotten him,--forgotten even the promised
"whings." Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his
trap, for it was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the
miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to
a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention.

To [v]sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as [v]grotesque as
the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his
baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits,
reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in
front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old
white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as
that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in
natural history.

As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George
Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old
Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top
of a large pincushion.

At home, he found the elders unreasonable,--as elders usually are
considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal
for dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impair
his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for
bed when a small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the
fire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement and
stimulated his memory.

"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn," said his mother. "I'll
take my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire."

"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild
tur-r-key's whings like he promised."

"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in his
friend.

"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings."

"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for
generosity.

"Waal,"--there was an expression of embarrassment on the important
freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory
manner,--"he fell off'n the bluffs arter