," faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant heart-leap at the
thought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to profit by
the woodsman's generosity.

"Don't you bother about that; let it go," answered Joe, whose business
of guiding was profitable enough for him. "'Tain't enough for the skin,
anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o' Maine in the last five
years; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of a
bear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to come
around our camp."

There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp that
morning. The guides and Doc--who had got accustomed to the luxury during
visits to settlers and lumber-camps--feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus and
the boys, American and English, declined to touch it. The whole
appearance of Bruin as he lay stretched on the ground the night before
made their "department of the interior" revolt against it.

When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and,
as a tribute of respect to Neal's "game blood," carried it, in addition
to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate
_brulee_ and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he
cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a
hoop, binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes
all around the edges of the hide with the sharp point of his
hunting-knife, stretched it to its full extent, and fastened it to the
hoop, which he hung up to a tree near the settler's cabin, telling Neal
that in a few days it would be dry enough to pack away in a bag.

But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen miles
farther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to take
charge of it for its owner until he passed that way again on his return
journey; an offer which Neal thankfully accepted. The old backwoodsman
was, truth to tell, delighted to see hanging up near his cabin door the
skin of an enemy who had ofttimes plundered him so unmercifully.

He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchen
of his log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay with
them, while his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining space
about twelve feet square, which had been boarded off. This was all the
accommodation the log home afforded.

The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if the
soul of a grandm