s lost; for his refusal to
hunt with the other dogs and the manner in which he behaved while near
the dead sheep, had rendered him a public "suspect." When near the
carcasses he had growled morosely, and shown his teeth. When barked at
by the other dogs, he had taken himself off.

A few nights afterward Farmer Frost lost two more sheep from his flock
in the pasture, and the following night Rufus watched in the pasture
with a loaded gun, quite without results.

About that time two or three others watched in their pastures. Some shut
up their sheep. But the losses continued to occur. Within a radius of
three or four miles as many as twenty-four sheep were killed in the
course of three weeks.

None of the watchers by night or the hunters by day had, as yet,
obtained so much as a trace or a clue to the animal which had done the
killing. They came to think that it was quite useless to watch by night;
the marauding creature, whether bear, wild-cat, or dog, was apparently
too wily, or too keen-scented, to enter a pasture and approach a flock
where a man was concealed.

Rufus Frost, who had watched repeatedly, then hit on a stratagem. First
he cut off about a foot from the barrel of a shotgun, to shorten it, and
then made a kind of bag, or sack, by sewing two sheep-pelts together.
Thus equipped, he repaired to the pasture after dark, and joined himself
to the flock, not as a watcher, _but as a sheep_. That is to say, he
crept into the sheepskin bag, which was also capacious enough to contain
the short gun, and lay down on the outskirts of the flock, a little
aloof.

The sheep were lying in a group, ruminating, as is their habit, by
night. Rufus drew a tangle of wool over his head, and otherwise
contrived to pose as a sheep lying down. He assumed that when thus
bagged up in fresh sheepskin, the odor of a sheep would be diffused, and
the appearance of one so well counterfeited as to deceive even a bear.
His gun he had charged heavily with buckshot; and altogether the ruse
was ingenious, if nothing more.

Nothing disturbed the flock on the first night that he spent in the
pasture, nor on the second; but he resolved to persevere. It was no very
bad way to pass an autumn night; the weather was pleasant and warm, and
there was a bright moon nearing its full.

He had kept awake during the first night, listening and watching for the
most of the time; but he caught naps the second, and on the third was
sleeping comfortably at a