round Stumps.

"Yes, it's a nice fit, Carrie--couldn't be better if cut out by a
tailor."

Carrie, swinging her feet, and looking in his face, very happy,
exclaims:

"Oh, John Logan! Don't hold me too tight--you might hurt me!"

Stumps laughs. "He don't hold me tight enough to hurt me a bit." Then
looking up in his face, says, "I want a bear story, I do."

"Well, I will tell you a story out of the Bible. Once upon a time there
was a great, good man--a very good and a very earnest man. Well, this
very good old man, who was very bald headed, took a walk one evening;
and the very good old man passed by a lot of very bad boys. And these
very bad boys saw the very bald head of the very good man and they
said, 'Go up, old bald head! Go up, old bald head!' And it made this
good man very mad; and he turned, and he called a she-bear out of the
woods, and she ate up about forty."

"Oh!" cries Stumps, aghast.

"Oh!" adds Carrie. "And he wasn't a very good man. He might have been a
very bald-headed man, but he wasn't a very good man to have her eat all
the children, Mr. John Logan."

Stumps, nursing his squirrel, with his head on one side, says:

"Well, I don't believe it, no how--I don't! What was his name--the old,
bald-head?"

"His name was Elijah, sir."

"Elijah! The bald-headed Elijah! Oh, I do believe it, then; for I know
when Forty-nine and the curly-headed grocery-keeper were playing poker,
at ten cents ante and pass the buck--when Forty-nine went down to get
his ager medicine, sister--Forty-nine, he went a blind; and the
curly-headed grocery-keeper he straddled it, and then Forty-nine seed
him, he did. And so help me! he raked in the pot on a Jack full. And
then the curly-headed grocery-keeper jumped up, and struck his fist on
the table, and he said, 'By the bald-headed Elijah!'"

Carrie nestles closer, and in a half whisper, mutters,

"I believe I'm getting a little chilly."

Stumps hears this, and says,

"Why, Carrie, I'm just a sweatin', and--"

"Shoo! What noise was that? There is some one stealing through the
bush!"

John Logan, as he spoke, rose up softly and cautiously, and half bent
forward as he put the two children aside and reached his gun. He looked
at the cap, ran an eye along the barrel, and then twisted his belt about
so that a pistol was just visible beneath his coat. The man had had an
intimation of trouble. Indeed, his gun had been at hand all this time,
but he did not care to frigh