ver. So a' extry watch has been kept at
both house and fence, and the little chap, Nucky, he has been hard at
it. Last night when the full moon riz about seven, he was in the clump
of spruce-pine on the p'int with his great-grandpaw's gun he allus packs
around, when the whole b'iling of Cheevers, nine or ten, marched out to
the fence. Just what happened, we haint got no means of knowing; but
instid of obeying orders, and running to the house to tell Blant and
Rich, like he ought, the boy he committed plumb suicide by opening fire
on 'em from the tree. Of course before he could drap to the ground,
seven or eight of 'em had blazed away in his direction; and when Blant
and Rich heared the shots and come a-running, the little chap was
a-laying limp and dead, and the Cheevers running round confused-like,
carrying off one wounded. Blant he rushed on 'em like a robbed she-bear,
routing 'em in no time,--Rich said such shooting never was seed on
earth. I heared the noise acrost the branch where I live at, and come
a-running. When we turnt the little chap over, we found he was
bleeding from several flesh wounds, which we tied up; but then we also
seed his skull was broke and stove in by another bullet, and knowed
there wa'n't no hope. We tuck him to the house, and sot there all night
keeping the death-watch, and looking for every breath to be his last."

[Illustration: "'Blant he rushed on 'em like a robbed she-bear, routing
'em in no time.'"]

"Then he still does breathe?" I asked, fiercely.

"Yes, a little-grain; but he don't know nothing, and of course there
haint no possible chance, with his skull broke. I'm a-riding now to
inform his maw's kin down Powderhorn."

I laid the whip to Mandy, who, startled, sprang forward in a gallop. The
twenty minutes before I reached the Marrs home seemed endless. I
believed I had already suffered all that a woman could; but that was
before I knew the love of a mother for her child.

I ran into the house, pushing away the people gathered there, and laid
my hand on the bosom of the small body lying there so limp and still.
The heart was beating, feebly but steadily, "He is not dead!" I cried,
"and he shall not die!"

Blant, sitting crouched by the bed, head in hands, raised up and stared
at me; Mr. Marrs lifted a bandage from Nucky's head, showing a wound
from which a piece of bone protruded, and shook his head hopelessly.

"But the bullet can't have gone in, or he would have died instan