never had much remembrance. It
was like a moving dream--he knew it was crowded with adventures, but
the details had vanished completely from his ken. It was his old
father who told the remainder of the story. He had turned into bed as
usual, never dreaming any man was astir on such a night as that. He
was sleeping the sleep of the righteous when he suddenly became
conscious of dogs howling. Even dogs would not be out unless they were
in harness on such a night. His own dogs he knew were safely barred
into their kennels after being fed at sundown. For a few minutes he
lay awake and listened. The sounds came no nearer, but they were quite
distinct. There was something astir in the darkness--something
uncanny. Sally would have called it a "sign." Uneasily he arose and
lit the lamp. He could not hear a soul stirring. Even the howling of
the dogs had ceased. Nothing but the noise of the house creaking and
groaning under the wind pressure was discernible. And then, just as
the bitter cold, dark, and loneliness made him long to get into his
warm bed again, the wail of a lone dog was distinctly audible. Uncle
Eben, pulling the lamp safely out of the draught, opened a crack of
the porch door only to be saluted by a rush of cold wind and snow
which nearly swept him off his feet. But again clearer than before
came the wail of the dog.

"He must be hitched up by mistake or in harness," he thought. "I 'low
I'll fire a powder gun."

Going back into the bedroom, the old man warned his wife that he was
going to shoot and not to be frightened. Then taking his old
muzzle-loader, which was always kept ready, from among the lesser
weapons which stood in the gun-rack, he poked the muzzle through the
crack and fired it into the air. True he had thought there might be
some one adrift. But even a prophet could not have imagined that what
did happen could have done so. For the sound of the explosion had not
done echoing through the empty rooms before the door was burst
suddenly in by some heavy body falling against it. The thud of some
weighty mass falling on the floor was all that Uncle Eben could make
out, for the gust through the wide-open door at once extinguished the
light. It seemed as if some huge bird must have been hovering overhead
and have fallen to the charge of the big gun. The door must be shut at
all costs, and shut at once; so Uncle Eben, stooping to feel his way
over the fallen object, put his hands out to find where it lay i