me catch him touching a gun!" said Ranald, quickly, and
from his tone and the look in his face, Mrs. Murray felt sure that
Hughie would be safe from self-destruction by the guns.

"Well, well, come away, Hughie, and we will see," said Mrs. Murray; but
Hughie hung back sulking, unwilling to move till he had got his mother's
promise.

"Come, Hughie. Get Fido ready. We must hurry," said his mother again.

Still Hughie hesitated. Then Ranald turned swiftly on him. "Did ye
hear your mother? Come, get out of this." His manner was so fierce that
Hughie started immediately for his dog, and without another word of
entreaty made ready to go. The mother noted his quick obedience, and
smiling at Ranald, said: "I think I might trust him with you for a night
or two, Ranald. When do you think you could come for him?"

"We will finish the tapping to-morrow, and I could come the day after
with the jumper," said Ranald, pointing to the stout, home-made sleigh
used for gathering the sap and the wood for the fire.

"Oh, I see you have begun tapping," said Mrs. Murray; "and do you do it
yourself?"

"Why, yes, mother; don't you see all those trees?" cried Hughie,
pointing to a number of maples that stood behind the shanty. "Ranald and
Don did all those, and made the spiles, too. See!" He caught up a spile
from a heap lying near the door. "Ranald made all these."

"Why, that's fine, Ranald. How do you make them? I have never seen one
made."

"Oh, mother!" Hughie's voice was full of pity for her ignorance. He had
seen his first that afternoon.

"And I have never seen the tapping of a tree. I believe I shall learn
just now, if Ranald will only show me, from the very beginning."

Her eager interest in his work won Ranald from his reserve. "There is
not much to see," he said, apologetically. "You just cut a natch in the
tree, and drive in the spile, and--"

"Oh, but wait," she cried. "That's just what I wanted to see. How do you
make the spile?"

"Oh, that is easy," said Ranald. He took up a slightly concave chisel or
gouge, and slit a slim slab from off a block of cedar about a foot long.

"This is a spile," he exclaimed. "We drive it into the tree, and the sap
runs down into the trough, you see."

"No, I don't see," said the minister's wife. She was too thoroughgoing
to do things by halves. "How do you drive this into the tree, and how do
you get the sap to run down it?"

"I will show you," he said, and taking with him a gouge