asteboard box of that particular pattern in every farmhouse in the
county. Yet as Charley thought the matter over, he recalled that almost
everybody he knew who shopped by mail traded with Slears and Hoebuck, of
Chicago.

The days passed. Little happened to vary the monotony. Yet the sameness of
life in the forest was far from being bothersome to Charley. On the
contrary, he found new delights every day.

Spring was now well advanced. The trees would soon be in leaf, the flowers
were coming along in rotation, and the forest fairly pulsed with life. Now
Charley found a gorgeous bed of blood-root. Again he came on great patches
of arbutus. Here the Dutchman's-breeches grew in rich clumps. There
spring-beauties fairly whitened the earth. Violets, Jacks-in-the-pulpit,
marsh-marigolds, and dozens of other familiar and lovely blooms he found
as he wandered through the forest.

There was nothing Charley liked more than the flowers. He determined to
know every bloom in his section of the forest. So he divided his territory
into definite strips, patrolling a different strip each day. Thus he
became intimately acquainted with every part of his district.

There were more objects than flowers, however, to delight him. The birds
and the animals were a constant source of pleasure. Often he had
opportunity to study their actions and their habits. The mating season
brought a wealth of pleasing experiences. Sometimes he came across a
mother grouse with her brood of little ones. It pleased Charley to see how
the tiny creatures scattered and hid among the leaves, making themselves
invisible at the first warning note from the mother, while she fluttered
along before him, dragging a wing as though it were broken, and drawing
him farther and farther from her little ones. Wild turkeys, too, he saw,
and many other feathered inhabitants of the forest.

Perhaps nothing touched Charley so much as an incident that occurred late
one day when he was fighting a small fire. The fine, spring weather
brought out regiments of fishermen, and numbers of them got deep into the
woods. Whenever he possibly could, Charley avoided meeting them. Sometimes
Charley could not avoid a meeting. Then he always posed as a fisherman.
He never moved abroad these days without his rod. The rifle he had
temporarily laid aside. More than one little fire, started by careless
fishermen, Charley detected and extinguished.

One day he saw smoke at a considerable distance. B