ry little while; I guess if I seen one I
seen a hundred; why, I killed seven on 'em with coarse shot up in the
pines, and I daredn't shoot exceptin' at their heads. If you'd go up
there now, to-morrow, and take the dogs along, I know as you'll git
fifty."

"Well, if that's all your news, Jem, I won't give you much for it; and,
as for going into the mountains to look after partridges, you don't
catch me at it, that's all!" said Harry. "Is that all?"

"Not by a great shot!" answered Jem, grinning, "but the truth is, I know
you won't believe me; but I can tell you what, you can kill a big fat
buck, if you'll git up a little afore daylight!"

"A buck, Jem! a buck near here?" inquired Forester and Archer in a
breath.

"I told you, boys, the critter couldn't help it; he's stuck to truth
just so long, and he was forced to lie, or else he would have busted!"

"It's true, by thunder," answered Jem; "I wish I mayn't eat nor drink
nother, if there's one bit of lie in it; d--n the bit, Tom! I'm in
airnest, now, right down; and you knows as I wouldn't go to lie about
it!"

"Well! well! where was't, Jem?"

"Why, he lies, I guess, now, in that little thickest swamp of all, jist
in the eend of the swale atween Round Top and Rocky Hill, right in the
pines and laurels; leastways I druv him down there with the dogs, and I
swon that he never crossed into the open meadow; and I went round, and
made a circle like clean round about him, and darn the dog trailed on
him no how; and bein' as he's hard hot, I guess he'll stay there since
he harbored."

"Hard hit, is he! why, did you get a shot at him?"

"A fair one," Jem replied; "not three rod off from me; he jumped up out
of the channel of Stony Brook, where, in a sort o' bend, there was a lot
of bushes, sumac and winter-green, and ferns; he skeart me, that's a
fact, or I'd a killed him. He warn't ten yards off when he bounced up
first, but I pulled without cocking, and when I'd got my gun fixed, he'd
got off a little piece, and I'd got nauthen but fox-shot, but I hot him
jist in the side of the flank; the blood flew out like winkin', and the
hounds arter him like mad, up and down, and round and back, and he a
kind of weak like, and they'd overhauled him once and again, and tackled
him, but there was only four on them, and so he beat them off like every
time, and onned again! They couldn't hold him no how, till I got up to
them, and I couldn't fix it no how, so as I'd git another sho