ade it out quite clearly. He looked up the
road to where he could see, on the hill half a mile distant, the
shimmer of John Pontiac's big tin-roofed house. He thought he could
make out the outlines of all the buildings,--he knew them so
well,--the big barn, the stable, the smoke-house, the store-house for
shanty supplies.

Pork barrels, flour barrels, herring kegs, syrup kegs, sides of frozen
beef, hams and flitches of bacon in the smoke-house, bags of beans,
chests of tea,--he had a vision of them all! Teamsters going off to
the woods daily with provisions, the supply apparently inexhaustible.

And John Pontiac had refused to pay him fair wages!

Peter in exasperation shook his big fist at the moon; it mocked him
worse than ever. Then out went his gaze to the space of mist; it was
still more painfully like mush steam. His pigsty was empty, except of
snow; it made him think again of the empty barrels in the cabin.

The children empty too, or would be to-morrow,--as empty as he felt
that minute. How dumbly the elder ones would reproach him! and what
would comfort the younger ones crying with hunger?

Peter looked again up the hill, through the walls of the store-house.
He was dreadfully hungry.

* * * * *

"John! John!" Mrs. Pontiac jogged her husband. "John, wake up! there's
somebody trying to get into the smoke-house."

"Eh--ugh--ah! I'm 'sleep--ugh." He relapsed again.

"John! John! wake up! There _is_ somebody!"

"What--ugh--eh--what you say?"

"There's somebody getting into the smoke-house."

"Well, there's not much there."

"There's ever so much bacon and ham. Then there's the store-house
open."

"Oh, I guess there's nobody."

"But there is, I'm sure. You must get up!"

They both got up and looked out of the window. The snow-drifts, the
paths through them, the store-house, the smoke-house, and the other
white-washed out-buildings could be seen as clearly as in broad day.
The smoke-house door was open!

Old John Pontiac was one of the kindest souls that ever inhabited a
body, but this was a little too much. Still he was sorry for the man,
no matter who, in that smoke-house,--some Indian probably. He must be
caught and dealt with firmly; but he did not want the man to be too
much hurt.

He put on his clothes and sallied forth. He reached the smoke-house;
there was no one in it; there was a gap, though, where two long
flitches of bacon _had_ been!

John Pontiac'