" he added, producing a small, brown
tin box of percussion caps from his trousers pocket.

Mrs. Gammit felt abashed at her ignorance, but gratified, at the same
time, by the reproach of metropolitanism. This implication of
town-bred incompetency was most flattering to the seven frame houses
and one corner store of Burd Settlement, whence she hailed.

"I reckon you'd better show me how to load the thing, Mr. Barron," she
agreed quite humbly. And her keen grey eyes took in every detail, as
the woodsman rammed home the powder hard, wadded down the charge of
buckshot lightly, and pointed out where she must put the percussion
cap when she should be ready to call upon the weapon for its
services.

"Then," said he in conclusion, as he lifted the gun to his shoulder
and squinted along the barrel, "of course you know all the rest. Jest
shet one eye, an' git the bead on him fair, an' let him have it--a
leetle back of the fore-shoulder, fer choice! An' _that_ b'ar ain't
agoin' to worry about no more pork, nor garden sass. An' recollect,
Mrs. Gammit, at this time of year, when he's fat on blueberries, he'll
make right prime pork himself, ef he ain't _too_ old and rank."

As Mrs. Gammit strode homeward through the hot, silent woods with the
gun--still carrying it as if it were a broom--she had no misgivings as
to her fitness to confront and master the most redoubtable of all the
forest kindreds. She believed in herself--and not only her native Burd
Settlement, but the backwoods generally held that she had cause to. A
busy woman always, she had somehow never found time to indulge in the
luxury of a husband; but the honorary title of "Mrs." had early been
conferred upon her, in recognition of her abundant and confident
personality and her all-round capacity for taking care of herself. To
have called her "Miss" would have been an insult to the fitness of
things. When, at the age of sixty, she inherited from an only, and
strictly bachelor, brother a little farm in the heart of the
wilderness, some forty miles in from the Settlement, no one doubted
her ability to fill the role of backwoodsman and pioneer. It was
vaguely felt that if the backwoods and Mrs. Gammit should fail to
agree on any important point, so much the worse for the backwoods.

And indeed, for nearly two years and a half everything had gone
swimmingly. The solitude had never troubled Mrs. Gammit, to whom her
own company was always congenial--and, as she felt, the onl