ected
trip up to the "great woods"--the result of certain disturbing rumors
which had been in circulation throughout the autumn, but of which I have
not previously spoken, since they were confined mainly to a school
district two miles to the east of the Old Squire's farm.

On that morning a party of not less than thirty men and boys, with
hounds, was made up to go in pursuit of a pack of outlaw dogs which had
been killing sheep and calves in that town and vicinity. As yet the
flocks in our own neighborhood had not been molested, but there was no
saying how soon the marauders might pay us a visit; and a public effort
had been inaugurated to hunt the pack down and destroy it.

The history of these dog outlaws was a singular one and parallels in
canine life the famous story of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The fact that
dogs do occasionally lead double lives--one that of a docile house-dog
by day, and the other that of a wild, dangerous beast by night--is well
established. In this case a trusted dog had become not only an outlaw
himself, but drew others about him and was the leader of a dangerous
band.

A farmer named Frost, three miles from us, began to lose sheep from a
flock of seventy which he owned and which were kept in a pasture that
included a high hill and sloped northward over rough, bushy land to the
great woods. It was not the custom there to enclose the sheep in pens or
shelters, at night. They wandered at will in the pasture, and were
rarely visited oftener than once a week, and that usually on Sunday
morning. Then either the farmer or one of his boys would go to the
pasture to give the sheep salt and count them. This was the custom among
the farmers in that locality, nearly all of whom owned flocks sometimes
as small as twenty, but rarely larger than seventy-five, since sheep in
New England do not thrive when kept in large flocks.

Farmer Frost was not the only one who had lost sheep at this time. Six
other flocks were invaded, but his loss occurred first. His son Rufus,
going to the pasture to salt and count the sheep on a Sunday morning,
found that two ewes and a grown lamb were missing. Later in the day the
partially devoured remains of the sheep were found in the pasture not
far from a brook.

"Bear's work," the farmer and his neighbors said, although an old hunter
who visited the spot pronounced against the theory. But a bear had been
seen recently in the vicinity; and Monday morning the Frost boys lo