row out handsome specimens!" exclaimed Addison. "Sometime, let's
get some tools and come up here. Who knows what lovely ones there may be
deeper down in the crevice!"

As he was speaking, we heard a distant halloo, away to the north of us.
"That's Tom and Willis," said I. "They're coming round this way."

We answered their shouts and soon heard another halloo.

"They'll find us now," said Addison.

"Let's spread our luncheon down here in the shadow of the crag," said
Theodora.

There was no water at hand, so I took the little pail in which the lunch
had been brought, and set off down the mountain in quest of some.
Descending into a little hollow, I found a spring issuing from beneath a
large rock. It was very cold water; the spring was shallow, yet with the
dipper, I was able slowly to dip up a three quart pail nearly full. It
was a delicate task to carry it up the steep mountain side, without
spilling it. When at length I rejoined the party, at the foot of the
crag, Tom and Willis were coming up from another direction.

"Hullo, Ad!" exclaimed Tom. "Seen any game?" I thought from the way he
spoke that he and Willis had seen something in that line.

"No," said Addison, "we have been looking for something different. Have
you seen any?"

"Yes, sir-ee!" said Tom.

"What was it?" inquired Kate.

"_Deer_," said Tom with a knowing look at the rest of us boys.

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Addison. "Really _deer_! How snug did you
get to a _deer_?"

"Snug enough to put our hands on him!" said Willis, with a chuckle.

"What, have you killed a _deer_?" asked Addison, incredulously.

"Really and truly we have!" said Tom, with a ring of exultation in his
voice. "'Twasn't a very big one, though," he added.

"No," said Willis, "it was only a yearling _deer_. We came upon him
behind a tree root. He only ran a few steps and then turned round to
snuff at us. Tom let him have a load of heavy shot and knocked him stiff
as a mitten."

"We shot two hedgehogs, too, up there at the balm o' Gilead hill," said
Tom.

"Did you skin that _deer_?" Addison inquired, laughing.

"Yes; and we've got ten or twelve pounds of the meat, wrapped up in the
skin."

"But where is the skin?" I asked.

"Oh, we left the skin, with the meat wrapped up in it, back here a few
steps by a rock," replied Thomas. "I thought," he added with a knowing
glance at us boys, "that I wouldn't bring such a thing as a green hide
right up here where you